I am over here in my hot ass apartment burning up and wishing I was elsewhere. The vision boards I started to create a few months back? I took them down when I got back from Cali. They originally gave me an initial sense of order...but it wasn't enough because I was still so scattered and unclear. Honestly my trip away was one thing that helped center me. I have a better sense of where to search but the jobs aren't coming my way. I guess it's the recession.

One thing I need to work on is routine. I've gotten better at dealing with procrastination over the years but I still find myself battling some elements of it. Namely, my tendency to go about completing tasks on my daily agenda in an unstructured way and then suddenly finding myself on various social networking sites for way too long. Which means I ultimately get less done during the course of a day. Oh trust, this is much better than getting NOTHING done, which used to be the story of my LIFE, but I know I can be a lot more productive if I become a bit more routinized. For instance, in addition to applying to jobs, I want to type up all of the poetry that I've written. I just want to have the poems available in case I ever decide I want to publish anything. Not that I consider myself a master poet. But I think at least some of my stuff is good. But I haven't gotten to that yet, and I planned to type up 50 poems this week (10 per day).

But the night is not over. I can still get some poems typed up if I start within 10 minutes, which I will do. But first, let me show you the intentions I've set for the week. These are the things I want to be able to look back on come Sunday evening and say I've done. I'll bold the item whenever I've completed a task:

♥ Go to yoga class
♥ Do yoga at home twice
♥ Type 50 poems - typed 20ish
♥ Research ideas for Zane's book project
♥ Spend 15-20 hours searching for jobs (3-4 hours per day)
♥ Research getting the bonus I was supposed to get from my school for missing very few days
♥ Get my fingerprinting issues straightened out so I can tutor kids - mofos still playing around
♥ Get my eyebrows threaded
♥ Go to bed by 2 AM each night - did this two nights
♥ Eat a very balanced diet all week - mostly

Ok, in the spirit of that last intention, I'm going to sign off and eat dinner. I may add to this list if I missed something important!!

thoughts

i.

i love people who write.

Just a random thought. Writers are so introspective and often really quiet. But there are always storms brewing beneath their quiet veneer...always always. And they may not say anything but boy when they write it [whatever /it/ may be] out...when they spell out what they are thinking and feeling inside...you can just get blown away/you just get amazed. It's why they are so loved by me.


ii.
Growth.

This has been the theme of my existence for quite some time. I feel like i've just been so changed, so much more matured and so...chiseled. Yea thats it I feel like the past few months has been a /chiseling away of/ process for me, like shit has just been falling off of me that wasn't sustainable for grown womanhood. Like I've been stepping into myself much more fully, or like I've been a crushed and folded flower that is slowly opening itself up to the sun, expanding into my fullness and it is truly beautiful and I am truly thankful for the universe's many blessings, even the ones that come in full disguise to test my resolve and my...grownness

Like...I think I just felt so lonely/misunderstood for so much of my adolescence...tortured and confused and doubtful and afraid and unwilling and unable to see truth and beauty and love and light...and I'm counting college as part of my adolescence...in fact like I've mentioned before on this blog by some definitions adolescence lasts until about 25 since this is purportedly when the brain fully matures...but I think that I am at the end of that cycle...or maybe I'm at the beginning of the end...but things just look/feel/taste/smell so much different from this point of view

[ 1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things]

I've just lately been feeling so much more at peace...or so much more ready to make peace with myself...much more willing to claim the light

[now we're moving from the darkness into the light/this is the defining moments of our life india.arie]

i think it's because i've been


iii.
teaching.

i've been teaching. i've been growing in my teaching. it's been amazing/sacred/artful/consciousness opening and an honor to be entrusted with lives the way i have. i learn something new everyday about myself or the world or human nature. yesterday my heart was warmed when my co-teacher told the kids that i was going to be out on january 20th...and they sighed and said "aww man!"

it was so cute. <3

in teaching i've been blessed to discover and truly contemplate and meditate on the idea that the things that truly matter are the things that are inside of you...your character...your spirit...your intentions...your heart

[you teach who you are]

when i teach my shit is spread wide open for the kids to see and access and influence and be influenced by. i've learned that it doesn't matter if externally my shit is tight/my hair is perfectfully coiffed/my clothing is impeccable/my speech is fluent and filled with empty euphemisms

if inside my shit is not tight/my heart is bleeding/i am at war with any part of myself/i am losing sleep or health or goodness/i am doubtful or mistrusting of my ability [and by extension, of their ability]

because kids deal in spirit and they are not fooled by pretty, empty packages

which causes you to rise to their occassion and step your game up and fix your inside shit so that they can have strong foundations from which to spring forth and blossom and discover

which truly causes you to spiral headfirst into adulthood if you weren't there already [if adulthood may be defined as the point in space time where you are not in denial about the impact of your presence in the universe/about the interconnectedness between all things/and about owning the weight of responsibility for all of your actions, be they small or large, good or bad]

i pray that every single one of my kids grows up to know fully their purpose and shine brightly and spread love and consciousness and healing

i pray that my presence in their lives and the presence of our school in their lives truly serves to buffer and protect them from the negative incantations of a society that says that they can't because they are

too poor
too black
[too brilliant]
[too wonderful]

I went to New Orleans

And I saw the drastic differences between the levees in the French Quarter and the Lower 9th ward.

I went to New Orleans and I cried and laughed and smoked three joints out of loneliness and connectedness and spiritual awakening and exhaustion.

I went to New Orleans and I wondered if I could ever feel so in love with an experience, a place, an entity again?

I went to New Orleans and I sometimes thought that I would die from the weight of the hatred aimed with precision at my people.

I went to New Orleans and learned that alcohol splits spirit from body, and you break tides when the pain threatens to paralyze your capacity to feel.

I went to New Orleans and sipped a daquiri ate a po'boy and held onto the rope of Allah.

I went to New Orleans and poured secret libation to my Nana.

I went to New Orleans and knew that I resurrected Christ everytime I felt hope or broke down a wall.

I went to New Orleans and the word nigger-excuse me, it hurts to repeat-rained down on me, threatening to shatter my glasses and leave me blind and groping.

I went to New Orleans and a voice I didn't know I had overcame me and I sang a chorus until my voice went hoarse, then I rested and sang again.

I went to New Orleans and I couldn't talk.

I went to New Orleans and photographed the edges because the center was something I wanted to submerge myself into completely-camera free-with empty hands and open arms, and it was a relationship I wished to keep between me and my mind's eye.

I went to New Orleans and couldn't understand why I wasn't there earlier.

I went to New Orleans and worshiped trees from a rooftop.

I went to New Orleans and acutely needed physical contact to remind me that I was still a point in space-time, even though I wasn't.

I went to New Orleans and thought about family members I didn't know.

I went to New Orleans and wondered where my sister was?

I went to New Orleans and loved more deeply than before, but there were still barriers to cross.

I went to New Orleans and perspective slapped me high across the face.

I went to New Orleans and thanked God(dess) over and over for my parents, and their parents, and their parents. Cousins aunties and uncles. People long passed and people still waiting to break through into this dimension.

I went to New Orleans and was taller than I was, and bigger than I was perceived.

I went to New Orleans and I gave the force of all my strength, and my femaleness did not matter in the giving, just my heart.

I went to New Orleans and reorganized my life, thought again about what I value and why.

I went to New Orleans knowing full well that one journal entry or song or poem or painting or clay figurine or carving could not possibly hope to contain all that was, all that is, all that will be.

I went to New Orleans and I absorbed. I took in. I expanded. I bore witness. I broke bread. I prayed to mother Africa I opened up to sunlight I made love to air I breathed self into existence god(DESS) said Be and I was.

Then the space-time stand-in for me left New Orleans. Yet having touched ground once I remain forever connected, understanding that spirit will continue to call me back. And I will answer. And I will carry New Orleans with me wherever I go. And I will find New Orleans in every experience I have. And I will live where they would have me die, find sustenance where they would have me starve, and shatter walls they would have me believe would imprison me forever. I will crowbar I will shout I will birth I will resurrect until I find my way.

I've been away.

I've been away for a long time--for the past week, I was in New Orleans doing some volunteer work with a group (Black Campus Progressives- have I ever mentioned BCP?) that I belong to at school. It was an AMAzing experience. Didn't really have access to a computer though there were definitely times that I really wanted to blog or paint or make a really long poem though I don't typically write poetry.

Elders, Ancestors

On my father's side, my family is a bunch of old school afrocentrics. I mean, my paternal grandmother, the person who bestowed the gift of name to me, who I intrinsically know to be beautiful even though I have no conscious memory of having met her when she was alive, was a garveyite. Mama Oya (I'll call her here) was one of my grandmother's friends in tha struggle, raising northern afrocentric babies with afrikan names, participating in the very first kwanzaa celebrations, (re)introducing afrikan dance rhythms to american negroes smack dab in the middle of the era of U.S. southern apartheid.

She (Mama Oya) called me today. Out of the blue.

Unexpected, but so wonderful, having a chance to be able to commune in real time with this living manifestation of history.

As an elder who consciously created afrocentric space for self in the midst of extreme racialized oppression, I know she has much to pass on to me, even if some of it is superficially tainted by sexual conservatism.

I honor her experience. I learned this reverence for elders from my mother, whose best friend when I was growing up was an elder, one of the earliest african/american converts to islam that we know.

In our conversation, she chuckled to me that she and my grandmother knew every other person who was like them (afrika centered) in new york city, so small was the community even in such a diverse place. I chuckled back, reflecting how not much has changed- even today, afrocentric new yorkers have, what, a half-degree of separation between us? (I learned that from my Hampton friend Nai from Harlem, who I never met growing up but who seems to know ALLLLLL the same people I do...)

Talking with elders passing wisdom gives me such feelings of *warmth,* even if I feel somewhat erased by some of what they say (she asked if I had a boyfriend; she said that too many young black women/men dress in deplorable/thuggish ways, respectively). My job, I feel, is not to burn bridges based on ideology between myself and my elders, but to build new lanes on that same bridge, expand the pathways to authentic afrocentricity so that those who come after me have even more options, see themselves reflected even more in afrocentric paradigms for living life.

Speaking about my family specifically, I feel that each generation's task is to reshape this afrocentricity, to expand it so that it is more authentic, more inclusive of folks, less oppressive. My father and my mother did it by choosing a religious paradigm *other* than Christianity, thereby granting me space to even choose other than what they chose.

I feel that I am doing it by bringing an understanding that heteronormativity and afrocentricity are not one and the same. I am expanding options, creating space for future LGBT / sexually unconservative / binary gender transgressing / womancentered afrocentrics to breathe. Later generations will take it further still.

My conversation with Mama Oya was helpful.

She said that my nana, my granma Sadie, the beautiful person who named me, is looking out for me, but that when I have a request to the ancestors, it has to be a specific request.

I needed that.

I feel that my granma respects my work, understands my worth, and does what she can to help me from the land of the ancestors.

She also suggested that when I graduate and have entered the workforce, I should take one class in any field while working, just to be continually stimulated and connected to university, which despite its problems and bureaucracy/elitism is still a place where incredibly forward thinking folks tend to connect and concentrate. Also to figure out if I do want to eventually continue my (formal) education later in life.

I can be down with that.

Quarter Life Crisis

I'm over here filling out applications-

for my life.

As I was checking my email, I came across this article from Fastweb (I think you need to have a fastweb account to be able to view it. But the account is free.)

Dealing With the Quarter-Life Crisis.

Change of plans?

Random:

Yesterday I realized that I really wished I was an English major. But then I chatted with my roommate, and she reminded me that everything happens for a reason. There's a reason why I'm in Psychology, she said. I just have to find it.

Sophomores. I swear they know everything. (I'm serious- sophomores really have been dropping knowledge on me lately! Go head and just put me in my place why don't ya lol.)

Now, for a more serious conversation.

Yesterday I also spoke with one of my mentors about leadership. I had expressed all the frustrations I had with constantly being in an adversarial relationship with the administration. I was just feeling so TIRED of battling. Last year, I had been in so many newspaper articles because HU refused to recognize a gay-straight alliance that I and others have been trying to get passed for years now. (In the article that went to the Associated Press, I was "anonymous," but I must say the AP did not do a good job of making me anonymous, though that's for another post.) None of those articles seemed to do anything to budge the administration, but what they DID do was make my fam really upset. It was to the point last semester (and the beginning of this one) that I no longer wanted to do the work necessary to get the gay-straight alliance officially recognized on campus. I was really affected by how my family viewed me- it seemed like my work was costing me too much. Frustrations, tears, my family acting really really embarrassed and really hostile about what I was doing- the whole nine. I know that my family felt like I had disrespected them by doing this work and being public about it, and it really bummed me out there was a perception that I was doing this out of hatred for my family.

Even though I really care about ending homophobia, I know that for my family, the sort of alliance building that I've been trying to do on campus is deeply immoral. And as much as I may disagree with them, I never wanted to come across as hating them (my own flesh and blood!). In an effort to rectify the situation and lessen the embarrassment that I know my family feels, I basically shut off when I got back to HU's campus. What's the point, I wondered, of constantly battling with the administration and losing the respect and support of my family? I'm a senior, I need to concentrate on graduating! But gradually I opened myself up to the fact that as a senior, I would have to at least pass the torch on so that the students who will still be here when I leave will have something useful to work with. I have to be sure that I have truly done my part to make it easier for the next folks who take up this work, or who will benefit from this work. So I met with some folks and we planned our first meeting for next week. But I was still dealing with low level feelings of frustration. I was still ambivalent about how much I wanted to put myself out there. So I spoke to my mentor.

"What do you feel about leadership?" I asked. He seemed puzzled, so I explained, "I understand the usefulness of leadership in some situations. But it just always seemed so weird to me that we have systems set up where the main jobs of folks is just to follow. Shouldn't we encourage folks to think for themselves and not follow others? Won't there come a time when leading is outmoded? Is it really always needed?"

I asked a totally philosophical question that didn't even address what I was really feeling, what I was really frustrated about, and yet he just seemed to know what I was really getting at. He seemed to know that I once had secret feelings of abandoning a project that had basically become my baby because the cost of keeping it felt so great.

So he goes, "Let me ask you a question. Are you an elitist?"

It was funny, because I had just been pondering whether or not I was an elitist because I wanted a career for myself, not a job, even though I wasn't quite sure yet what career I wanted.

"Um. I try not to be. But I don't know," I said.

"Do you want to be the best that you can be?" he asked.

"Yea..."

"Do you want to strive to meet your maximum potential?"

"Yea..."

"Well guess what? That puts you ahead of a lot of people. That makes you an elitist. I'm an elitist, too. But I understand the angst you're going through. It took me a while to accept my own position. 'I'm down with the people,' I used to tell myself all the time. It took a teacher of mine asking me the same question I just asked you for me to begin to understand.

"You're right that good leaders shouldn't discourage people from thinking on their own. And all leaders have their flaws. But real leadership is not about the self, it is not about being egotistical. It is recognizing that there are things that need to worked on that are bigger than that. Look- Coretta Scott King just died this year. You don't think Martin Luther King would have wanted to live at least until now? You bet he did. But he knew that there was something bigger. When you lead, you make sacrifices because it's not about YOU. It's about serving a higher cause. Leadership is about service. And it falls on you because there is no other way for you to live comfortably in the world.

"When you go down this path, when this path calls you, you will lose sleep. You will lose hair. You will lose weight. There will be sleepless nights spent thinking about what you're up against. People will think you're crazy half the time.

"But of course, you have to decide if it's something you really want. You have to decide it you will be comfortable living any other way. You have to figure out how much you really care. And if it's something you really want, you can't be mediocre. But 40 nights alone in the wilderness is a long time for one who doesn't really want the path."

The he told me to read DuBois' "The Souls of Black Folk" for more insight into leadership. He loaded me with articles and books to read, and then he said,

"Too whom much is given, much is required."

Then, almost jokingly, "I don't know if I answered your question."

Something in me clicked. I realized that I really have been blessed with SO much. I consider my education- both in the academic sense and in the "real world" sense- to be fairly top notch. Not perfect, not complete (never complete, I'm sure), but so far, so good nonetheless. I have met many people, I know many theories. I have worked in a variety of different environments. I was homeschooled until the 8th grade, which equipped me with critical thinking skills that proved to be useful enough for me to graduate first in my class in public high school. But my "specialness" is not innate. It's not an essential quality of "Sia" that just self-generated. I am a construction. My parents are both college-educated Black people who have been challenging someone's status quo for at least as long as I was alive. They have always gone against somebody's grain, and this is a legacy that I definitely have been left with. I have been worked on by so many different people, so many different experiences, so many different books and ideas, and I know that had the circumstances of my birth been different for me, I might be a totally different person.

I realized that all that shit that my present set of circumstances allowed me to learn and be exposed to would be wasted if I didn't have a way to share what I have learned. It's all wasted if I'm not applying what I've learned in a way that will make life easier for those who didn't get the things that I got. I have too much to share within me, and if I DON'T get it out, it will eat me alive. If I sat here KNOWING in my soul that the deeply instilled homophobia that pervades our culture is horribly wrong and deeply hurtful, but still I dropped the ball that was thrown to me (for "a reason"- which one, I'm still not sure) and chose not to do anything about it, I would be highly uncomfortable. I might turn heavily in the direction of drugs or partake in other self-destructive behaviors to deal with the discomfort.

I realized how deeply I had misunderstood the position of one of my friends, another person on whom leadership had basically fallen because in her case, she couldn't live comfortably knowing in her soul that racism was killing our people and not do anything about it. She had information that she needed to get out, that she needed to share with others. But at the time, the concept of leadership still felt uncomfortable to me; I still didn't quite *get* it. Even now, I know I have much to learn. But I now know that when I misunderstood the leader without, it was just indicative of how much I misunderstood the leader within. (As above, so below.)

So yea, I basically have re-committed myself to this cause because I really do care about it. And I really do care that the information that I have is passed on in a meaningful way to the students who will still be here when I leave. I love my family so much, and I don't want them to think that I'm fighting this cause because I have less than loving feelings for them. But ultimately, I know that what I'm fighting for is bigger than all of that. It's so much bigger than me.

"If everything must go, then go, that's how I choose to live."
-Lauryn Hill

Art? or Science

I found out yesterday after getting audited by my academic advisor that I could have graduated in December had I applied to do so, because as of this semester, I will be done with all of the requirements for my major (psychology).

That is a beautiful thing. :)

That basically means that next semester, I can take whatever I want.

My dilemma is, of course, what exactly to take.

For a while last year, I was so sure that I wanted to be an art therapist. It seemed like the perfect blend of art and science; in some way or the other, I have always been drawn to both.

I'm a relatively creative person, I think. I like to scribble and design things. But, having never been formally trained in art (except for a drawing class that I took last semester), there are many conventional aspects of art-making that I'm not aware of.

My original plan was to take as many art classes as free electives my senior year at Hampton as I possibly could to strenghten my art-making skills.

But this summer, I met a few folks who work as art therapists, and I kind of felt that perhaps art therapy wasn't my dream profession, afterall.

I realized that what sets me apart from "artists" (specifically, folks who make visual art that is really, really good by most standards) is that I don't really create pieces on a regular basis.

I think I am more attracted to art as philosophy. I like the idea of art and generally feel comfortable amongst folks who incorporate art in their lives in some meaningful way; I'm just not convinced that I have the drive or the talent necessary to "live" as a visual artist; being a visual artist in one's own personal life seems to be the basic requirement of being an art therapist.

I still may take art classes next semester for my own personal gratification, but I recently started exploring the idea of medicine again (I used to want to be a doctor specializing in neurology when I was a child), so I will also take some science classes. At first, I was researching naturopathic medicine (mainly because my family is made up of a bunch of vegetarian herbalists), but I have some fears about being trained in "alternative" medicine without ever having given conventional medicine a try.

So...the clear solution is that I must go to Cuba, get trained in conventional medicine for six years, then come back and get trained in naturopathy!

Only, that will take an excrutiatingly looong time, so I'm still exploring options.

But you already knew that.