I don't think there's anyone within a 10-state radius unaware of my impending 40th birthday. If so, do advise me so that I can inform them.
40, 4-T, for me...I'm so excited about THIS one that I can hardly stand it. The events are booked, the outfit is planned, the movement is in motion, and so am I.
Why does it matter? "Age is nothing but a number" I hear, and I truly believe some (in my age range anyhow) saying that to me are playing roulette with how many times they can tell that lie before they are found out. If nothing else, the creaky knees, slower pace when getting out of bed in the morning, and needing 2 days of rest after the first all-nighter in 7 years will tell the truth for them.
Age is NOT just a number for me. It is a profound experience and a reminder that no day, no experience is to be taken for granted. "Time waits for no man," my mother always says. Truly not. I have my propensity for deep "chilling" and taking it easy when I'm ready, but I am not a time waster. My mind never stops, my pen is always moving, my life is always in motion, even when I am not. The people who offered my world balance have started to move to the other side, and relationships are in shift. I realize the patterns of destruction and delay that I have perpetuated, and I move more and more deliberately from them.
I was talking with a friend and as we discussed relationships, and what hindrances seem to exist to achieving that which we want so profoundly, I said this to her..."You're in a relationship with your insecurities," and told her that I recognize FINALLY the immense gift that this time of singlehood and correction are. This time to sit with myself, love myself, indulge myself, and have not thought to what ISN'T. This time of stark recognition that I get to enjoy the literal hell out of myself, heal myself, and hold myself close is purely blissful. I get to celebrate just because I can...Celebrate the new cheese I find at Whole Foods, a friend surviving a near-death experience, a nap, and landing the job of my dreams (this year)...etc.
After some deep periods of lament, lack mentality, and longing, I have my arms around this blessed season, for it will slip by unrecognized and unappreciated if I allow it to be so. So for me, age is more than a number. It is, as I say, a movement. It is authority, wisdom, clarity, power, and it IS. I love it, and I am ready for it...My evolution is my revolution.
40, 4-T, for me...
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Saturday, March 22, 2014
"You're Not Really Black, Though..."
Right.
I'm not...really.
Really?
Sigh...
"Hereigohavingtoexplainthisagain" I think rolling my eyes internally.
I'm like, 15 or 16, working at the movie theater, and as I take that time to do that invisible eye roll, as young as I am, I patiently explain to, and educate, my fellow popcorn-serving cinema colleague, that while, yes, I was born in Jamaica, raised in good old Broooohken Arroooohhh, and I speak with the appropriate BA affectation, (which means, not "black"?), that I, in fact, can be, and am both.
I am black, and I am Jamaican. My nationality and my race (which I'm learning is a false construct - sigh...what next?) are not one and the same.
It has hit me in the 20+ years since that moment, that that statement indicated that I was palatable...I was not the "black" they were used to or expected. Sigh again...I really never thought about these things until high school, because in my home, they were not discussed. We just KNEW who we were. I don't know if my parents imparted self-worth and self-awareness to us through the umbilical cord or what, but my brother and I GOT IT, and we STILL DO. By virtue of today's climate, this conversation of race and identity has become even more constant for me, but when I was younger, it was nothing I had to talk about as often.
Disclaimer here: Some people don't want to call themselves "black." I appreciate that, but for me, it is not a negative. It is my choice in self-identification. Period. It indicates no lack of self-awareness or any acquiescing to a "slave mentality." Step away from me with that indictment. I'm not conflicted.
I am not American, I am not African, and really, my Jamaican-ness matters more to me than even my color-ness.
Watching Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adiechie discuss matters of race, class, womanhood, literature, etc., and hearing Chimamanda saying she has no desire for "policing blackness," I can say I agree 100%.
Why we try to own how others define themselves escapes me. That's not my job or my business. But I understand...it helps provide context and possibly comfort in relating for some. Sorry, I am not striving to make you comfortable. I'm not even sure I need to be comfortable all the time.
So, here I am, approaching 40, and yet, an enigma to so many but myself. :-) It sort of amuses me when others sit trying to figure me out, because maybe they feel I should be as confused about who and what I am as they are about who I am, and quite likely, who they are.
Recently, it hit me how inundated I've been with this matter of identity in context of race and culture when I was talking with my cousin who lives in Jamaica, about something racial, and she looked at me quizzically, and said succinctly, "Jamaicans don't think about those things." And she was right to a great extent. Certainly some do, but most don't. In that moment, everything in me wanted to go and take a dip in the waters off the coast of my motherland, and wash off these American notions of race and the idea that it matters... In that moment I immediately wished I were as evolved as to not be affected by the climate in this country, and to be able to have the sensibility and clarity that I heard in my cousin, but that's the nature of this beast we call race in America.
So, even as I'm admittedly affected, I'm not unclear about me, and I really don't care to be clearer about anyone else than I am myself.
Really.
I'm not...really.
Really?
Sigh...
"Hereigohavingtoexplainthisagain" I think rolling my eyes internally.
I'm like, 15 or 16, working at the movie theater, and as I take that time to do that invisible eye roll, as young as I am, I patiently explain to, and educate, my fellow popcorn-serving cinema colleague, that while, yes, I was born in Jamaica, raised in good old Broooohken Arroooohhh, and I speak with the appropriate BA affectation, (which means, not "black"?), that I, in fact, can be, and am both.
I am black, and I am Jamaican. My nationality and my race (which I'm learning is a false construct - sigh...what next?) are not one and the same.
It has hit me in the 20+ years since that moment, that that statement indicated that I was palatable...I was not the "black" they were used to or expected. Sigh again...I really never thought about these things until high school, because in my home, they were not discussed. We just KNEW who we were. I don't know if my parents imparted self-worth and self-awareness to us through the umbilical cord or what, but my brother and I GOT IT, and we STILL DO. By virtue of today's climate, this conversation of race and identity has become even more constant for me, but when I was younger, it was nothing I had to talk about as often.
Disclaimer here: Some people don't want to call themselves "black." I appreciate that, but for me, it is not a negative. It is my choice in self-identification. Period. It indicates no lack of self-awareness or any acquiescing to a "slave mentality." Step away from me with that indictment. I'm not conflicted.
I am not American, I am not African, and really, my Jamaican-ness matters more to me than even my color-ness.
Watching Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adiechie discuss matters of race, class, womanhood, literature, etc., and hearing Chimamanda saying she has no desire for "policing blackness," I can say I agree 100%.
Why we try to own how others define themselves escapes me. That's not my job or my business. But I understand...it helps provide context and possibly comfort in relating for some. Sorry, I am not striving to make you comfortable. I'm not even sure I need to be comfortable all the time.
So, here I am, approaching 40, and yet, an enigma to so many but myself. :-) It sort of amuses me when others sit trying to figure me out, because maybe they feel I should be as confused about who and what I am as they are about who I am, and quite likely, who they are.
Recently, it hit me how inundated I've been with this matter of identity in context of race and culture when I was talking with my cousin who lives in Jamaica, about something racial, and she looked at me quizzically, and said succinctly, "Jamaicans don't think about those things." And she was right to a great extent. Certainly some do, but most don't. In that moment, everything in me wanted to go and take a dip in the waters off the coast of my motherland, and wash off these American notions of race and the idea that it matters... In that moment I immediately wished I were as evolved as to not be affected by the climate in this country, and to be able to have the sensibility and clarity that I heard in my cousin, but that's the nature of this beast we call race in America.
So, even as I'm admittedly affected, I'm not unclear about me, and I really don't care to be clearer about anyone else than I am myself.
Really.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Tamarind candy and pigtails
"There once was a girl born on a sunny island who loved tamarind candy, and danced to beat of her heart..."
And often, that girl still dances to the beat of her heart even when she almost can't hear it.
1978 - I see Grandma Bent bend down to whisper words of goodbye to me, and hand me the little bible I still have, inscribed with: "Jesus loves the little children" and other words of blessing from she and Grandpa Bent. I see the sunshine streaming through the airport windows, and I feel that I'm losing SOMETHING, but I don't know what.
I'm going SOMEWHERE, but I don't know where.
I feel the lump in my throat even now, and I can see myself hanging my head in a lack of understanding and a lack of agreement with this shift, but no choice in the matter.
There won't be anymore trips to the airport to eat pepper shrimp and watch planes take off with Auntie Lucy.
No more cherries off of Grandma Bent's tree or going to church with Grandpa Bent.
There won't be anymore waking up to the smell of eggs frying in Grandma Mills' kitchen, or hearing her call my baby bother "Bright Eyes!" in the same voice my mother uses with her grandson today. "Jaaaaaacks'n!" she calls, "Come, Sweet Boy"...Grandma Mills lives on.
There won't be anymore being everyone's baby girl...the first child, grandchild, niece or nephew in the same way I was prior to that day.
And so we take off for Tulsa, where Daddy went to college, to plant ourselves, Jamaicans in a foreign land that will only in part become "home" for me.
At least part of me takes off...The rest is home in Jamaica, waving goodbye as the other half of me disappears into the clouds.
I come, and I begin this life of duality few understand. I straddle two worlds, two mindsets, two sensibilities, listening to two voices.
Jamaica comes into my conversation daily...it lives in my heart and mind constantly, and I am jealous. Jealous of those who still have their accents, when mine left me without my permission. For THAT voice says WHO you are and WHAT you are...What does mine say?
Sad that I didn't grow up creating the memories my cousins share with each other from "home."
Unsure still that I have a right to say, "I am Jamaican" when I left at three...But I say it anyway!
I'm not yet sure why this was the design...part of me left ashore on the sunny island I love more than my own life, longing...part of me here, still a foreigner to this day, staring 40 in the eyes, always looking back at my "patria" as they say in Spanish...my homeland.
Even now, even to this day, that little me with little pigtails, still stands where I left her on a sunny shore, looking and longing for me to come back and join her in the sunshine, dancing to the beat of our heart, and eating tamarind candy...
"There once was a girl born on a sunny island, who loved tamarind candy, and danced to the beat of her heart..."
And often, that girl still dances to the beat of her heart even when she almost can't hear it.
1978 - I see Grandma Bent bend down to whisper words of goodbye to me, and hand me the little bible I still have, inscribed with: "Jesus loves the little children" and other words of blessing from she and Grandpa Bent. I see the sunshine streaming through the airport windows, and I feel that I'm losing SOMETHING, but I don't know what.
I'm going SOMEWHERE, but I don't know where.
I feel the lump in my throat even now, and I can see myself hanging my head in a lack of understanding and a lack of agreement with this shift, but no choice in the matter.
There won't be anymore trips to the airport to eat pepper shrimp and watch planes take off with Auntie Lucy.
No more cherries off of Grandma Bent's tree or going to church with Grandpa Bent.
There won't be anymore waking up to the smell of eggs frying in Grandma Mills' kitchen, or hearing her call my baby bother "Bright Eyes!" in the same voice my mother uses with her grandson today. "Jaaaaaacks'n!" she calls, "Come, Sweet Boy"...Grandma Mills lives on.
There won't be anymore being everyone's baby girl...the first child, grandchild, niece or nephew in the same way I was prior to that day.
And so we take off for Tulsa, where Daddy went to college, to plant ourselves, Jamaicans in a foreign land that will only in part become "home" for me.
At least part of me takes off...The rest is home in Jamaica, waving goodbye as the other half of me disappears into the clouds.
I come, and I begin this life of duality few understand. I straddle two worlds, two mindsets, two sensibilities, listening to two voices.
Jamaica comes into my conversation daily...it lives in my heart and mind constantly, and I am jealous. Jealous of those who still have their accents, when mine left me without my permission. For THAT voice says WHO you are and WHAT you are...What does mine say?
Sad that I didn't grow up creating the memories my cousins share with each other from "home."
Unsure still that I have a right to say, "I am Jamaican" when I left at three...But I say it anyway!
I'm not yet sure why this was the design...part of me left ashore on the sunny island I love more than my own life, longing...part of me here, still a foreigner to this day, staring 40 in the eyes, always looking back at my "patria" as they say in Spanish...my homeland.
Even now, even to this day, that little me with little pigtails, still stands where I left her on a sunny shore, looking and longing for me to come back and join her in the sunshine, dancing to the beat of our heart, and eating tamarind candy...
"There once was a girl born on a sunny island, who loved tamarind candy, and danced to the beat of her heart..."
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
The Universe never lies
Last week someone said to me "Sometimes the Universe lies to you." I didn't really give that statement much thought, but tonight it came to me again, and I realized that I disagree completely. The Universe, or what many call God, never lies to us. WE lie to us...Circumstances lie to us...people lie to us, but GOD never lies to us. When you listen, and I mean truly listen, which to me means connection to and validation of the input that is divinely coming your way, you can never say that the higher force in your life and around us all can ever lead us astray.
What's my point? I don't know that I have just one. I have many, but the inspiration for me writing about this is to say that we must know for ourselves how the communication between us and our Intuition/God/Universe/Creator looks and sounds. What is the sense you get when you truly hear from a higher place? And I say a "higher place" because it's a higher consciousness. It's a space that dwells in us, but in our purity (accuracy/truth). It's quite honestly the space that remains untouched by outside influences, messages and mishaps. It's the space that EVERY one of us has. Even the most corrupt, violent person has a space of purity and truth that was challenged and buried under fallacy. That's what inspires them to wound others; the quest to relieve the pain and the perception that they were in fact not only lied to by the Universe, but that they are a lie the Universe created...a mockery.
As I travel my path, I am clear there is no lie that the Divine source of life can tell. I keep coming back to touch home base, to question, to bring my doubts forward, and I keep hearing the same answers. When will I simply trust those answers the first time? I'm getting much better at it even a I type.
As you sit, listen and learn how God sounds, and how you communicate with the purest force in existence, lean in a bit closer and you will most likely hear a voice you recognize well...yours.
What's my point? I don't know that I have just one. I have many, but the inspiration for me writing about this is to say that we must know for ourselves how the communication between us and our Intuition/God/Universe/Creator looks and sounds. What is the sense you get when you truly hear from a higher place? And I say a "higher place" because it's a higher consciousness. It's a space that dwells in us, but in our purity (accuracy/truth). It's quite honestly the space that remains untouched by outside influences, messages and mishaps. It's the space that EVERY one of us has. Even the most corrupt, violent person has a space of purity and truth that was challenged and buried under fallacy. That's what inspires them to wound others; the quest to relieve the pain and the perception that they were in fact not only lied to by the Universe, but that they are a lie the Universe created...a mockery.
As I travel my path, I am clear there is no lie that the Divine source of life can tell. I keep coming back to touch home base, to question, to bring my doubts forward, and I keep hearing the same answers. When will I simply trust those answers the first time? I'm getting much better at it even a I type.
As you sit, listen and learn how God sounds, and how you communicate with the purest force in existence, lean in a bit closer and you will most likely hear a voice you recognize well...yours.
Monday, October 31, 2011
The weight isn't the problem...it's the product of the problems
Let's talk about weight...mine.
I think the last time I was truly skinny for any significant period was when I was a 4-pound preemie nearly 37 years ago. Actually, it wasn't, but for the majority of my life, I've wrestled with the pounds. I have struggled with self-worth, self-love and self-image, and I don't mind telling you that as of 4 years ago, I thought I had it beat. Not so much.
2007 was a banner year. I'd lost 34 of 44 pounds I had to lose, was hosting motivational events, dating a cutie who made me do the first double take I'd ever done in my life upon first sight, and started a new job as a Spanish teacher with much excitement and energy. I felt more "me" than I'd ever felt, and I was on top of the world. I had a church I loved, a family that was intact, and I felt safe. I felt that I'd never lose my size 8/10 edge, and that I had conquered what caused me to stuff in the first place. Not food so much, but to stuff my truth, my voice, and to stuff myself into a box that I could never fit into. Then came 2008.
My aunt died, Cutiepie took a walk (without so much as a wave goodbye) and that set off a chain of events including the loss of my remaining 2 grandparents, to whom I was extremely close, estrangements and surreal events that culminated with my uncle's death in May of this year. I can put it like this. It's as though I've been underwater emotionally and mentally for the last 3.5 years, and I'm just breaking the surface. I sat down tonight and wrote down the effect of every moment of loss; every slight; bit of disrespect; challenge and message that confirmed that I was as insignificant and invisible as I believed I was. The moment I signed an agreement with myself that said I was less than whole, less than amazingly, divinely created, my body reacted, and so did my zippers and buttons.
I made a choice 5 years ago to work on my emotional and physical weight and to get myself in touch with myself. Where did I cut contact with myself? Why did I buy into the perception that there was a space between me and my truth?
I look in the mirror and I don't fully recognize the version of me that I see, because she's not fully me. She's just as I say, a version of me. A moment of and in my existence that is invaluable because in this experience, I can re-identify the triggers and trials that influence me to stand still while the rubble piles up around me; and not only around me, inside of my emotional/spiritual spiritual space. The messages that tell me to stand still rather than run or immediately dig myself out. The weight that is manifest is not the problem, it's a product of my problems and perceptions, and knowing that the accurate version of me was the one who'd shed the baggage, found her voice and let her "diva shine" as my friend Sabrina says. She's coming back. It may not be a quick process, but I'm determined that it BE.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
In a minute...
Last night, I joined my mother for a showing of a documentary on the life of the late basketball/music phenom Wayman Tisdale. I never knew him personally, but know the smile, the joy, the gentle giant of a man he was, and I remain touched by not only his absence, but also by the deposits he made while here. I also was touched because as Wayman said on film, and as I always say, in one minute, your life can change forever.
Last week, I had my first mammogram. I was having tenderness in my left breast, and I was determined to find out what the issue was. In fact, after the mammogram, I found out the tenderness seemed to be a lymph node that was enlarged, but nothing to worry about. It's the right side that I have to find out more about. The mammogram and sonogram showed up 2 areas of concern. Granged, they look like benign masses or cysts, and yes, I pray that is so, but I also can't help asking myself "What if they aren't?" What if they are truly areas of challenge that will affect my life forever? In fact, they already have.
I'll be 37 in December, and I realize more and more, through so many signs, like extra-dry skin, weight I can't shed, gray hair, mammograms, deaths of loved ones, and so much more, that I'm not in Kansas anymore...I'm not that little girl without much to care about. I'm not in control of much more than what I'm supposed to be in control of, and what I see is that I can't worry about what I can't control. I shouldn't. I should only choose to LIVE, to BE, and to LIVE and BE on purpose. To LIVE and BE truth, as ugly or as unpalatable as it can seem to others at times. There is no time to waste, there is no time to worry about being what others expect me to be. There is only time to be about the business that has been entrusted to me.
I can't live in a frivolous space, a space that is devoid of direction or of power. Been there, and now I'm not. Notice I can't say that I have any judgments about that space in my life, because it led to me being in the power I'm in now.
I'll have a needle biopsy of each mass on November 11th, and I intend fully to share the details, the feelings, the results and the journey to, through and past the experience. Thanks for coming with me. It isn't the results that will change me, for I am already changed for knowing that I have to have a "biopsy" to begin with. Shoot, joining the collective of women who have had their mammaries made into pancakes changed me enough! Keep you posted...really...I promise.
Last week, I had my first mammogram. I was having tenderness in my left breast, and I was determined to find out what the issue was. In fact, after the mammogram, I found out the tenderness seemed to be a lymph node that was enlarged, but nothing to worry about. It's the right side that I have to find out more about. The mammogram and sonogram showed up 2 areas of concern. Granged, they look like benign masses or cysts, and yes, I pray that is so, but I also can't help asking myself "What if they aren't?" What if they are truly areas of challenge that will affect my life forever? In fact, they already have.
I'll be 37 in December, and I realize more and more, through so many signs, like extra-dry skin, weight I can't shed, gray hair, mammograms, deaths of loved ones, and so much more, that I'm not in Kansas anymore...I'm not that little girl without much to care about. I'm not in control of much more than what I'm supposed to be in control of, and what I see is that I can't worry about what I can't control. I shouldn't. I should only choose to LIVE, to BE, and to LIVE and BE on purpose. To LIVE and BE truth, as ugly or as unpalatable as it can seem to others at times. There is no time to waste, there is no time to worry about being what others expect me to be. There is only time to be about the business that has been entrusted to me.
I can't live in a frivolous space, a space that is devoid of direction or of power. Been there, and now I'm not. Notice I can't say that I have any judgments about that space in my life, because it led to me being in the power I'm in now.
I'll have a needle biopsy of each mass on November 11th, and I intend fully to share the details, the feelings, the results and the journey to, through and past the experience. Thanks for coming with me. It isn't the results that will change me, for I am already changed for knowing that I have to have a "biopsy" to begin with. Shoot, joining the collective of women who have had their mammaries made into pancakes changed me enough! Keep you posted...really...I promise.
So...I've done it. I've bitten the blogging bullet. It's been a long time coming, but I don't know what stopped me. I recall reading a novel recently and in the course of the story, the main character decided to start her own blog, but not before debating how worthy she was of sharing her voice. "Who'll care anyway?" "Who really has time to read what I muse about?" I think those were my questions and fears, and now I'm getting over them because no matter who doesn't read my blog, someone will.
There's a lot for me to share, and a lot that I hope will be shared with me through this journey. I'm constantly pondering growth, experiences and expansion, and I look forward to exercising myself in this way. I look forward to what each of you reading will share with me and how I can be added to through you.
So, the name of my blog...Essence-Tial Truth. It's inspired by the name of my inspirational company, Essence-tial Truths, and it speaks to us coming to connection with our essence, connecting with others our of that essence, connecting with others who function in their essence, and to connecting others TO our essence...our "essence" being our reality, our true manifestation, and even the truth that we think we don't let others see.
My joy is to be able to simply share my honest experiences and to let others know that they are safe to do the same. Looking forward to the experience and to yours too!
There's a lot for me to share, and a lot that I hope will be shared with me through this journey. I'm constantly pondering growth, experiences and expansion, and I look forward to exercising myself in this way. I look forward to what each of you reading will share with me and how I can be added to through you.
So, the name of my blog...Essence-Tial Truth. It's inspired by the name of my inspirational company, Essence-tial Truths, and it speaks to us coming to connection with our essence, connecting with others our of that essence, connecting with others who function in their essence, and to connecting others TO our essence...our "essence" being our reality, our true manifestation, and even the truth that we think we don't let others see.
My joy is to be able to simply share my honest experiences and to let others know that they are safe to do the same. Looking forward to the experience and to yours too!
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