#life painting is not a reactive game I fear

[blujayonthewing]

problem with wanting to paint-- even in a sketchbook you try to carry with you all the time-- is that SO often the thing that specifically makes me go 'ooohh maybe I should paint that' is a lighting condition that has changed completely by the time I can even finish retrieving my supplies from my bag

[hellyeahheroes]

Robin(2021) #1 Review

Opening this comic with an assessment of a character that I have no choice but to agree with is a cheap way to score points with me.

Anyways, we caught heat for being unfair to this story since it was announced because all of us wanted it to be a Cass story since forever. And it became yet another thing Damian absorbs. I mostly ignored it because I’ve always been open about my disdain for the character and his fandom for nearly a decade. I never liked Damian because put these characteristics on a non-white passing character, they’d be dead inside of year. Then again I hate almost all of Grant Morrison monstrosities.

Regardless, new story who dis is in full effect here. We open this bad boy up with Damian gone missing and the Batfamily searching for him. Nightwing tried asking Damian’s old Teen Titans team and they obviously don’t know and probably hope Damian is dead. Tim checked Arkham Ruins(???) and Damian wasn’t there. I honestly don’t think Tim was trying to find Damian. Steph and Cass checked Damian’s farm and Steph concluded Damian has been there at least because while Damian may be a little shit, he loves his dog and pet bat dragon. Barbara checked facial recognition pings and his transactions and dude is an IRS nightmare.

Damian is missing. Bruce is worried that maybe making a violent murderous preteen Robin raised in a cabal of killers to be chief murderer was a bad idea and is worried. Barbara ensures him that they will find his son and we cut to Damian fighting Snake guy in some musty ass fight put somewhere. Because of course it’s a musty ass fight pit because while the story is well drawn, it never claimed to be not cliche.

Damian hands the scrub his ass and it turns out Damian is trying to earn a marker to participate in some tournament. I liked this panel.

Not because of the artist flex of changing the art style, but it establishes Damian with a relatable hobby, reading manga. And not just a Shounen as you expect him to read but a slice of life manga which kind of puts his life in perspective. Also the lesson in the manga is reflective of what happens in the comic. Damian’s mastery is reflective of how he sees Hana. Hana decides to go beyond what her masters taught her. She decides to innovate and make her art her own. And that’s indicative of another flaw of Damian: Damian leans of the prestige of his teachers. He is the student that replicates the style 1:1. He wants to inherit Batman’s mantle, but doesn’t want to shed his teachings that he is proud of. And it comes down to this idea that Damian refuses to innovate and adapt because he is hiding behind his masters.

This panel saved the story so good job.

And after a talk with dead Alfred, it’s revealed that Damian is on this journey as a way to mirror Bruce’s journey into becoming Batman. It’s his way to iron his resolve without a catalyst to find a need to. It highlights his naïveté. He thinks that he can just simply copy the steps and get the same results.

Regardless what happens next simultaneously undermines the story or the impact of it.

Okay, when you think of Martial artists in DC, you immediately think Batman, Shiva, Deathstroke, Black Canary, Bronze Tiger, Richard Dragon, and Shiva. Why I said Shiva twice? Because Shiva is the pinnacle.

So to reveal that three premier martial artists in the universe are not only not participating but they were paid off to not participate, cheated out, or were subbed in as an entry replacement, it undermines the promotion. It’s like going to a Beyonce Concert only to find out that between the words in small print Beyonce and Concert was ‘s Sister’s and now you are watching Grammy award winning Solange. Sure, it’s an unique experience but it ain’t Beyonce.

And also, there is no amount in the world that would keep Shiva away from this tournament if it’s as prestigious as it’s led to be. Let’s be real. If anything, it’s far more likely that she saw the roster of scrubs and decided to make some scratch.

There are two characters that I recognize: Connor Hawke and Rose Wilson. I am not familiar with Connor so I am not sure if he is out of place. Rose is fine but y’know, scrub. I’m sorry Rose Wilson got her ass handed to her by Cass in the previous universe. There is no universe where I take her seriously in a fighting tournament to crown greatest fighter because the ass stomp was so thorough that Cass was beating Slade’s ego by proxy.

Back to the comic, Damian interrupts the host and basically is the fighting tournament trope of overly confident disrespectful guy with too many accolades which he will proudly tell you about them. What I like about this is the nice nod to the previous manga panel. Damian is not a great fighter. There I said it. Damian’s ability hinges on the idea that he was trained by the greatest killers and Batman but the issue is that name prestige doesn’t make great fighters. Too many times, comic books overly rely on this idea of fighting being a what you know and not being a game of not getting hit and getting hits in. It does not matter if Damian is trained by the League and Batman and it’s questionable as to how much Batman taught him in the first place. Hence why we see Damian with a sword or staff to compliment his lack of range. Damian can’t read muscle twitches like a Cass or Shiva so he has a normal reactive response and comics never highlighted his ability. The most impressive thing I’ve seen Damian do is catch a Batarang which is something I’ve seen Tim do. Damian overly relies on the idea that his teachers taught him to be the best when they simply taught him to survive in a fight.

“But why does Cass get away with it?,” you ask. Cass has this broken hax that is reading muscle twitch and immediately knowing the instant of what you are going to do before you do it or decide to do. Cass doesn’t need range because to her, you are screaming your intentions. She doesn’t need to block an attack when she can just parry. She doesn’t need to step back when she can just step forward while slipping all attacks. She is an autistic savant at fighting with an absolute defense. Damian is just another badass teen in a world of badass adults.

And the humbling of Damian begins...again.

Pros:

-Damian’s new costume. I like that he is branching out and starting to own his own colors. It’s nice.

-Using a character flaw to make it a theme. I like Chekhov’s gun via teachable moment. In tournament arcs, what separates the good ones and the bad ones is the idea that the hero simply must overcome their opponents and not their own self. This is why Yuyu Hakusho is awesome.

- Great art and nice continuity. It’s nice that Damian’s past wasn’t ignored for once and they didn’t just throw his Teen Titans characterization down the tubes. Say what you want, but it was arguably Damian’s longest run in spite of his fans hating it. And contrary to what they believe, it was very much in character for him. My fear going into this that Damian would not face any fallout and lo and behold he ran away.

- it’s a good start for a Damian story. Say what you want, but it’s unique in that the little shit gets his comeuppance immediately. And not that just by losing, but by dying. Damian has killed before and readily justifies it because he never realizes the weight of taking someone’s life. He’s been killed before but those were painted in a way that he is valiant. Here, this is death caused by his own arrogance. He mocks a fighter for talking shit and gets murked while talking shit. He spouts names of his own teachers and expects people to care or be weary as if Rose Wilson and Connor aren’t there. It’s a tournament sponsored by the League of Assassins, Damian. They have been taught by the league too.

Cons:

-Look I get promotion. No promoter is going to undermine their product but the fact that this tournament reeks like ABA is killing my interest to give a shit. It’s a convenient caveat to say that, “Well, a character won this so they can have the title but the title doesn’t mean anything.” I know of regardless of whom wins this, they aren’t the best. Go ham or don’t at all.

-not enough emphasis of the importance of this arc. Why even have this tournament? What’s the prize? What’s even the point?

-While the art is nice, the action is framed poorly. I like physical action like this to be nearly choreographed in a way I can see and piece movement in my head. The two fight scenes we get are somewhat disjointed in that it’s just poses. For example, Flatline’s first kick makes no sense at all and I don’t get her follow up. Trying to picture the movement hurts my head and in an action concept like this, it’s best to frame action scenes as more than doing poses. Here is a good example:

This only emphasizes the action and gets the reader to acknowledge that this a tournament of great fighters or at least a great fighting story.

All in all, do I think this story is off to a good start? Yes. Is it going to change my opinion on Damian? Hell no. My reaction to Damian getting his ass handed to him was this.

The issue is that it never sticks. Damian can learn and be a better person but the development never sticks. It becomes a cyclical series of events because whoever writes him next will just keep writing him as this shitty entitled murder rich kid who never learns anything and gets validated somehow. It’s been over a decade and I’m tired of the same excuses of his shitty behavior. I am tired of writers validating it or excusing it.

Damian losing isn’t an outcome I care for because it’s wasted on him. Honestly I am more interested in Connor and Rose being there. I have no faith that it will stick nor does it undo the shitty idea of the character. I have never wanted to see Damian fight. It’s never been fun to read about nor has the impetus of his character emphasized the ability or style. Placing Damian in an Enter the Dragon style tournament lacks the pizzazz of Cass doing the same thing. For example, let’s try Marvel.

Let’s say someone pitches an idea of a tournament arc styled after Game of Death. Immediately you think Martial Artists non-powered. Danny Rand, Daredevil, Elektra, Shang-Chi, Pei and Colleen Wing. Okay, instead of giving those characters the honor, you give the story to Black Cat. Honestly, I’d read it because Felicia could sell me a documentary on grass and I’d buy it but the point stands, why does Damian have this Bruce Lee inspired Martial Arts story versus the actual Chinese or East Asian Martial Arts focused member of the Batfamily, Cassandra Cain?

But this has nothing to do with what could have been. It’s a fun beginning of a possibly fun arc. In that regard, it delivers but what’s the point?

Like I said, fun story.

@ubernegro

[lesboinspace]

PKMN Villains Zine Fic: The Aether Foundation

This was written for @pkmnvillainszine !!  Digital copies of it may go on sale again if there’s enough interest~ I loved being able to write about Lusamine, she’s one of my favorite characters! Her past is hinted at in the game so I did my best to add to it :D I do feel that this is important to note: no one’s past is an acceptable reason for abusing someone else, and in no way am I saying that!! I just think Lusamine is a really complex character that we didn’t get enough focus on, thus this was born c:

Beautiful Disaster

Word Count: 2,583

Rating: T

Summary: Lusamine is an abusive mother, her heart black and mind rabid with dangerous dreams of destiny. However, she wasn’t always so void of morals; quite the opposite, in fact. It takes quite a traumatic past to corrupt an angel into her sinister counterpart.  [A Lusamine-centric overview of her history as well as the Aether Foundation’s]

Lusamine’s heart was, once upon a time, one of overflowing love.  Her gentle soul was angelic, admirable, just bursting with kindness as it sought hurt to heal. 

She was renowned for her remarkable compassion, it being deemed her most defining and enticing trait.  This unparalleled kindness led to swarms of adorers, treasuring her and the calming aura she carried with each soft step against the earth.  

She was treated like a saint by strangers; a mere conversation would be enough to fall under her coaxing spell.  Of course, Lusamine had also been blessed with a youthful exterior.  

Her lithe physique, long locks of golden sunshine, and glowing green eyes may have intrigued passerbys, but it was Lusamine’s pure heart that caused many to revere her.  It’s why Mohn married her.

Despite her perceived perfection, too beautiful to be of this world and a compassion rivaled by none, there was yet another factor that made Lusamine beyond mortals’ comprehension.

Lusamine had a brilliant, curious brain.  She’d eye a problem, an equation, a mystery, and with ease, the answer would come together like puzzle pieces.

However, her vast Intelligence was often omitted, made irrelevant by her exceptional beauty and caring disposition.  Of course, Lusamine’s logic was respected in her work environment, given its scientific purpose.  

Even so, as Lusamine contributed to breakthroughs for the good of all Pokemon, compassion was viewed as the main driving force by those around her, all while bearing the form of a gorgeous young lady.  

It didn’t matter that her brain functioned like that of a machine.  Rather, the attention was, as usual, on the fantastic results of such endeavors: All the time, all the effort, was chalked up to Lusamine’s caring nature instead of her wondrous intellectual mind.

To many, Lusamine wasn’t even human, too above such a dull title and abysmal fate.  She was spawned from the sky, an angel among men who’d abandoned the glorious heavens to be marveled at as she aided those in need.  A wingless deity with a pure soul, not to mention the IQ surpassing the common genius…

Then her children were born, and everything changed.  None of those things that marked Lusamine as heavenly mattered anymore.  Only her babies mattered.

Those first moments of existence for Gladion and Lillie, the shallow breaths as their children entered the world and the cries that followed, set the stage for the future.  When Lusamine held her perfect children close as Mohn caressed her shoulders, reality froze.  

An unforeseen flash captured the family in a still frame.  The picture hung in the forefront of Lusamine’s mind, framed and isolated.  That day, she sought to claim this bliss for eternity, expanding the feeling of absolute joy across her timeline.  

Life was perfect, too perfect to let subside.  A certainty cemented itself in Lusamine’s essence: she would enjoy this perfection every day until she dies, still bearing a smile.  

After experiencing the utmost level of happiness, Lusamine wasn’t going to let it go so easily.  

Perfection was tasted, and she refused to spoil her tongue with anything else.  They were a family, so beautiful in their completion.  Everything was as it should be.  Lusamine didn’t expect it all to be finite.

While studying Ultra Wormholes, Mohn was ripped from his dimension right in front of her.  An experiment had erupted into chaos as Lusamine tried with all her strength to pull her husband away, but it was futile.  She’d managed to ground herself behind a sturdy column.  

Mohn had been less reactive, mesmerized by the wormhole while Lusamine had immediately fled.  By the time her husband ran, Lusamine could barely grip his hand before he was sucked into the unknown, forever lost, forever out of reach.  

When the wormhole vanished, Lusamine screeched as she fell to her knees, calling for her husband over and over until it sounded like anything but a name.  The love of her life was gone in an instant, their children left without a father.  They founded the Aether Foundation together, yet the work Mohn had dedicated himself to betrayed him.  It wasn’t fair.  

This was all that ran through Lusamine’s broken mind when she screamed and pounded on the floor.  Wicke and Faba had burst in to find her beating the tile until her hands were bloody.  Neither of them could ever erase their boss’s shattered voice from memory.  

They’d tried to lift her from the floor so she’d stop harming herself, but Lusamine refused to be moved.  Each time Faba and Wicke pulled her up, Lusamine crumbled back down.  Eventually, they dropped to either side of Lusamine, stroking her back and waiting for her to explain what had occurred.  

The two employees, though very different, met each other’s gaze with the same look of concern as they comforted their sobbing, shaking superior.  They were so caught up in Lusamine’s meltdown that they failed to realize that their other boss was nowhere to be found.

The wings of a grounded angel cascaded one by one, abandoning the once seemingly perfect being.  Lusamine was crumbling, cracking and crying until her wings were eventually ripped from her back.  

She snapped, stripped of all that made her desirable.  While her pretty face remained intact, her interior was corrupted.  She was still beautiful to the eye but her soul was made ugly, twisted and distorted to the point of obscurity.  

Most abandoned her, just as she abandoned kind motives.  Ripping it out, taking a bite then stomping on it, Lusamine discarded her broken heart, blackened and useless and slowing her down.  

The few who stood by Lusamine were employees, and most feared her.  Those with any power within Lusamine’s ranks respected her for the panic she instilled in others, as if she did so by reaching into one’s chest and applying the pressure directly onto their heart.  

Faba was one of those who idolized her.  The Branch Director had always hungered for authority, and Lusamine was ripe with it from the start.  Before, she ruled through inspiration, which is admirable in its own way, but Lusamine’s shift to an iron fist left Faba with no complaints.  

How could he mind it? After all, Faba may be sneaky and influential when need be, but such magnificent brute strength was quite a sight to behold.  He respected Lusamine before because he had to, given his position underneath her.  

Then, like how most had been before her change, Faba was drawn to Lusamine like a marveled moth knowing flying into an unsympathetic flame.  Lusamine didn’t simply fall apart when her husband was snatched from her grasp despite how easy it would’ve been.  

No, Lusamine toughened up and got to work, doing whatever she could to get him back while crushing those that dared to slow her down.  That’s the type of person Faba can proudly state his allegiance to, unlike the soft-hearted pushover Lusamine had once been.

On the other hand, Wicke was one of the few who was neither terrorized or in awe of Lusamine.  Wicke attempted to replicate her boss’ once tranquil presence.  Sure, the atmosphere she paraded around each floor of the foundation was warm and healing and gentle.  

Wicke may have been a descendant of fae at most, her marvelous qualities stemming from mythical origins, but Lusamine was a goddamn angel.  At least, she had been an angel, once.  

Regardless, Wicke could never compare to the deity among men Lusamine had been, and in a way still is.  Her soul was tainted, yes, painted black by bitterness and despair.  While no longer a heart of heaven, a demon is still deserving of awe when compared to the mediocrity that is mankind.

All in all, she didn’t let herself latch onto what anyone else thought of her anymore: she didn’t need their opinions to get her husband back.  Mohn needed her objective and alert; anything else was unnecessary.  Nevertheless, a low growl always toppled out Lusamine’s lips when she spotted Wicke offering someone a hug, advice, or a shoulder to cry on.  

Lusamine may’ve left all that behind, but seeing someone essentially replace you isn’t the greatest feeling.  Not to mention when that replacement is less than subpar, though it’s not fair to Wicke to say so.  After all, there’s no comparison between a queen and a goddess.

Lusamine thought, at the very least, she’d have Gladion and Lillie.  Her sweet, obedient children would comfort her, praise and admire her as she spent every waking minute on saving Mohn.  

They were supposed to keep her somewhat sane, grounded enough to focus.  Instead, they betrayed her as well, tossing Lusamine aside when her halo shattered, the pieces contorting into horns.  Thorns sprouted out of her stem, pricking those who once found peace in her embrace.

Fine, Lusamine didn’t need them.  She didn’t need anybody!  Her studies of the Ultra Beasts and their wormholes were finally bearing fruit after about a decade.  One way or another, Lusamine’s quest to locate Mohn would soon come to an end.

Returning to consciousness, the scientist cracks her eyes open.  She immediately regrets it.  Not only is the sight of anything but blackness agonizing, but the room is drenched in absolute white.  

The overbearing amount of it blinds Lusamine, and she groans through the oncoming pain thundering in her skull.  Squeezing her eyes shut for half a minute, she tries again, though with more caution.  At least she’s prepared for the searing sensation that’s to come.

Lusamine anticipates the unavoidable pain from her brilliant environment, but she’s an intellectual.  The throbbing need to know the details of her situation outweighs the desire to fall back into a kinder, oblivious unconsciousness.  

Her curiosity burns much as her assaulted irises.  She gnaws on her lip through the pain as Lusamine attempts to raise her eyelids further bit by bit.

Fingers claw at the material beneath them.  Thin cloth curls under her intense grip, though the odd texture peeks her already raging curiosity.  Uncurling her fingers, Lusamine runs her hand over the fabric.  

Gritting her teeth, she lowers her gaze away from what’s directly in front of her to the bed.  It’s a specific type, one that Lusamine hasn’t experienced since…

Since childbirth.  Lusamine manages to open her eyes fully, brow furrowed as she gapes at the hospital bed.  She can’t help the immediate disdain that sours her mouth when she spots her hideous paper bag of a gown.  Why…is she here?  What happened to her?

Lusamine’s unforgiving headache punishes her soon as she tries to recall any recent memories.  Using any extra brain power isn’t worth the agony, so she returns to her original quest: analyze her surroundings.  

The bed and thin, teal gown give away where she is, but she’s desperate for more information when left with so little outside of that.  Peeping from under her eyelashes, Lusamine notes the expected: white sheets, white walls, white furniture.  

The room is pure as her angel wings had once been.  Although, the white of the room portrays anything but purity.  It’s more of a lack of color, devoid of passion, joy, and life itself.  

Dull and soul-sucking and somehow so bleak in its blankness.  Lusamine’s weakened state has made her even paler, almost ghost like as she blends into the monotonous background.  

At the same time it’s bright, scorching Lusamine’s eyes, existing as the opposite of oblivion.  It empowers the hammering within her head to stare anywhere and at anything in the room.  

The paint gleams as rays of the sun exacerbate its shine, protruding through a window that consists of almost the entire back wall.  Lusamine can barely take it any longer, eyes watering as they cry out for her to show them mercy by shutting them, but she doesn’t.  

The tears streaming down her face don’t stop her.  Her blurred vision manages to pick up the IV embedded in her left arm, and the outlines of contrasting items on the bedside table to her right.  The shapes become more clear after Lusamine sets her gaze on the stark objects, willing her mind to settle and focus.  

Several more seconds allow her to make out the assortment of flowers, stuffed Pokemon and cards piled atop the small table.  Leaning towards them, Lusamine finds that a few have even fallen onto the ivory tiles due to the little space and the sheer amount of trinkets awaiting her upon waking.

Her stare is blank as she reaches for a toy Teddiursa.  Lusamine drops it onto her lap, gaze flickering up and down the one of many similar get well gifts.  

Get well from what, Lusamine wonders, though a sharp pain in her skull cuts off that thought train.  She clutches the soft, eternally smiling bear tighter and tighter like a lifeline.  Fingers threaten to strangle it, grip demanding answers that she’s unable to ponder on her own.

Propping it beside her, Lusamine ignores the few other knick knacks on the floor and grabs one of the cards off the countertop.  An elementary poem about the strength behind recovery is printed inside, along with the names of several Aether Foundation employees on every inch.  

They’re not many in the mess that she recognizes, but there’s enough that she realizes that these are the lowest ranking peoples in the branch.  So they couldn’t even bother to buy separate cards…

Lusamine snatches another from the table, finding a similar set of stanzas inside.  Although, unlike the previous card, this one is less than twenty signatures.  Faba’s cursive and Wicke’s blocky handwriting with a heart instead of a dot on the ‘i’ are found underneath the printed text.

She doesn’t spare it a second glance as she grabs one more card.  Her eyes are dull, unsuspecting when Lusamine opens it, doing so just to pass the time and sate her incensed curiosity.  

What Lusamine finds wracks her already disheveled mind.  A sharp inhale burns her dry throat.  Inside is a polaroid picture of Lillie and Gladion smiling shoulder to shoulder, along with sweet messages and their signatures underneath.

It all comes crashing back into her in a single wave.  Memories of the Ultra Beasts, being merged with one, Lillie’s distraught expression as she begged her mother to stop.  Somehow, what sticks out most of all is her daughter’s defiance, the determination behind her hardened green eyes, her mother’s matching eyes.  

Lusamine drags a hand across her face, tears forming again.  Despite the rivers flowing down her cheeks, Lusamine can’t pinpoint why she’s suddenly so overwhelmed.  Grief over what she’d become and the people she pushed away in the process.  

Shame from letting herself be blinded by her search for Mohn that she disregarded the legacy they shared as husband and wife, their precious children.  Longing to embrace her babies, knowing how much they’ve suffered.  

Lusamine lost her husband, but because of her distorted desperation to be reunited with him, Lillie and Gladion lost both their parents.

They seem to have forgiven her last Lusamine can remember.  However, being able to forgive herself is a whole other venture.

What wonderful children they’ve become without her.  They’re kind enough to give a monster like Lusamine a second chance even when she believes herself beyond redemption.

“When did you both become so beautiful?”

Maybe if Lillie and Gladion see something worth saving in Lusamine, it just might be plausible.  With a small smile, she raises the picture to her lips, kissing both of her babies’ static foreheads.

“Maybe I can be beautiful again…”

[mrmrsvegan]

I feel like I’m such an angry, reactive, and impatient person. I don’t know how to change that about myself but I want to! How can I not give into my anger and react better in situations that are frustrating to me! Any tips? I don’t know how to control this part of myself, both my parents also have very bad tempers. I don’t want to be this way, I always regret it when I act out that way.

Alexander Technique was the game changer for me.  It starts with just posture and choosing how your involuntary muscles react & that control lets you add a bit of code to your emotions allowing you to practice choosing how you will react to a situation. 

This book is $2 used on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Alexander-Technique-Skill-Life/dp/1861262868 and reading it and taking Alexander Classes helped me break through.  I was lucky to have one of the best teachers on the planet (on the international board) but Alexander made his method to be learned by anyone w/o instruction, however, I highly suggesting finding a teacher you have a fit with.  They undergo 1300+ hours of training to be a teacher and can be found all over the world.  https://www.alexandertechnique.com/teacher/

To get to the core of your question, its something you need to practice & have the skills to choose your response & thing about the consequences of that anger.  Its one thing to be punched at random & its another thing to let yourself become a victim again to your emotions and reaction.  Nothing changes aside from the way you process a negative event, imagine two people who have opposite reactions to a random punch.  One paints themselves a victim of crime, can never leave their house again w/o anxiety and fear, the other chalks it up to bad luck, takes some self defense classes and works on situational awareness.  For me, being in the later club is life changing.  Alexander Technique helped me get there and specifically the book above, which uses that same example :)

[lilgarbagetroll]

Honestly I am floored rn?

For the past 5 years all I’ve been is someone’s girlfriend. No real friends, didn’t have my own hobbies or interests.

It hasn’t even been a week since getting dumped and I’ve reached out and gotten back in touch with so many amazing and kind people that I didn’t even know still cared about me.

I repost things I genuinely think are funny on Facebook without fear of being judged or worried if the person I’m with will like it or not, or whether their family will take it too seriously (I have a very Internet sense of humor). I comment funny things I think of without worrying if the other person will see and not like it.

I was living in survival mode constantly doing everything I could to avoid an inevitable break up in an incompatible relationship for the past 5 years with 2 different people. I didn’t realize how much it consumed and depressed me and now I’m finally free.

It’s like I’m finally meeting myself, and I’m really funny and I actually like myself! I thought this would take like at least a year.

I’m starting to get into Destiny for no other reason than I’ve wanted to play it, not so I can connect with someone and get them to like me more like I did with games I’ve tried to play just because my boyfriends did like in the past. I can’t wait to level and get a raid group!

I joined sponge bob meme groups, made a reddit account and vented in a support group, reached out to a girl who runs a cool paint and sip class where you do guided painting while drinking wine and signed up, and I’m going clubbing with friends I made through my last ex tomorrow in the city!!!!!!!!!! I’m also Skyping an old friend beforehand, planning on going to church (I’m not religious I just like this one certain church’s atmosphere and I get baked before I go and bask in positivity), and hitting up the library because I haven’t had the motivation to read books in years but now I really am craving just sitting in the quiet and perusing the shelves.

I have plans to get back into playing shape for violin and busking downtown, and am designing flyers for my dog walking business because oh yeah, I finally quit my job!!!! I can’t believe how much of a relief it’s been to have time for myself and my dog. I sleep a lot less and have more energy because I’m not emotionally and physically drained all the time from my sensory problems bothering me for 9 hours at a time, it’s amazing. The first day I was free, because I quit my job the day after getting dumped because I realized I really needed to change my life, I went on an amazing 3 hour beach walk with my dog and he was amazing. Perfect recall, zero reactivity, greeted people in a hyper but friendly way only when released and otherwise completely ignored all the loose dogs and people milling about. Loose leash walked an 80 lb dog with a y front harness with the leash clipped to the back d ring with absolute confidence and zero problems. something I’ve never dared to do due to his size, strength, and bouts of reactivity, at least before now.

I can’t wait to see what 2019 brings me.

[chicagoindiecritics]

New Review from Jeff York of Creative Screenwriting Magazine: Martin Scorsese Meditates on Age and Regret in “The Irishman”

Much has been made about the technology director Martin Scorsese used in The Irishman to de-age stars Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino. Indeed, it is a marvel, if not a distraction at first, to see the decades digitally erased off of the stars, but it actually helps the idea of the film as a memory play. Based upon Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran’s hitman confessions in the book I Heard You Paint Houses written by Charles Brandt, it’s the story is an old man’s remembrances of his career as a mob enforcer. His was a life filled with excitement, power, and brotherhood. If anything, Sheeran’s memories seem more glamorized by the heightened sheen of the film’s digital effects. It’s a stark contrast to the lonely and feeble old man now telling his tale from a wheelchair in a nursing home.

Mob dramas are old hat for Scorsese, but this film feels very different from his past classics. Whereas Goodfellas, Casino, and The Departed were all told with a kinetic, even restless, sense of bravura, The Irishman takes its time as the camera stays stationary a great deal. And time aplenty it takes to get all fo Sheeran’s story in, running an epic 209 minutes in length. That’s a lot of life of narrative for Sheeran to be telling from that nursing home in 2003. Is he talking to someone – his priest, the DA, or maybe a writer? Perhaps, but one of Scorsese’s coy moves is to not show the listener. Arguably, his audience is those of us watching the movie. Or maybe it’s all just supposed to be in Sheeran’s mind.

Al Pacino

As Sheeran sets the stage, the first flashback finds him driving his longtime friend and mob mentor Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) from Philadelphia to Detroit to attend a family wedding. With wives in tow, their trip plays out innocuously with chit-chat and cigarette stops. A Stuckey’s diner along the highway reminds the two men of their meeting by chance there decades ago. From that point, more and more flashbacks play out, often flashbacks within flashbacks, from their first moments together through the thirty years they worked together in the Philly mob.

It doesn’t wholly matter that the digitally scrubbed De Niro doesn’t look he’s in his early 30s as he’s supposed to be in those early flashbacks. Everything in Sheeran’s telling of those earlier days is bathed in a sort of romanticized nostalgia anyway. His face looks as pristine as the cars and highways.

Soon enough, Sheeran becomes Bufalino’s top enforcer. Writer Steve Zaillian’s script draws a parallel to Sheeran’s WWII war crimes slaughtering defenseless German POW’s and how it numbed his conscience towards killing, but the way Scorsese directs De Niro to play it suggests otherwise. The actor always looks a bit exasperated by the extreme jobs he’s asked to carry out. His narration may dismiss all his bloodletting as part of the job, but De Niro’s physical stooping and wincing during the murders suggests a nagging regret about it all. It’s a mostly reactive performance and De Niro is terrific in it.

Joe Pesci

Nonetheless, Sheeran continues to play the unquestioning soldier, again and again, remaining reliably tight-lipped through all the chicanery. Such loyalty gets him in good with the paranoid Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) when he starts making deals with the Mob. Sheeran becomes the go-between for the two parties. Along the way, Sheeran’s relationship with Hoffa turns into a deep friendship.

Hoffa is everything Sheeran is not: loud, boisterous, delighted in being the center of attention at any gathering. Sheeran admires his boss, especially since he never seems to fear retribution from the Mafia. Pacino and De Niro play wonderfully off each other in the middle hour of the movie, as Sheeran becomes Hoffa’s right-hand man and he grows away from Bufalino.

The film becomes a sort of mini-history lesson in that second hour, dominated by Hoffa and his interactions with famed mobsters, the Kennedy Brothers in the White House, and the press that hung on his every word. Sheeran watches Hoffa grow more powerful and treat the Mob with increasing hostilities. The more Hoffa huffs and puffs, the more Sheeran’s loyalties are called into question by his crime bosses. Soon enough, Hoffa’s out of control, and even if you don’t know the history of the man, you know where the story is going.

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino

Indeed, a lot of what Scorsese is doing here feels familiar. He shows the Mob to be both ruthless and ridiculous as he always has done in past films. The director ensures the period details come alive in their lush way too. And he directs all his players to deft performances once again, especially Stephen Graham, Ray Romano, and Bobby Cannavale. Pacino plays Hoffa large, but never over-the-top. You can see why Scorsese cast him to play such an outsized personality like Hoffa, even though the physical resemblance isn’t ideal. With every moment onscreen, Pacino reminds us why he’s such a star, and indeed, why Hoffa was in his day too.

Pesci, coming out of retirement for this film, gives an even better performance, holding the camera with his stillness. Bufalino stayed in power because he was one cool customer and even though he’s quietly moving the chess pieces around in the Mob’s deadly game, he remains the most admirable character amongst this den of thieves. Pesci’s performance, like De Niro’s, is mostly reactive. Bufalino watches and listens, and then after careful consideration, gives orders. Pesci ensures we see every wheel spinning in the kingmaker’s brain, even suggesting a similar distaste for all the killing, just like Sheeran’s.

In the final hour, the film does start to grow a bit redundant, suggesting the script could have been trimmed some. Hoffa oversteps his bounds – again and again. Sheeran fails to rein him in – again and again. Even so, the material is never less than compelling, and what makes it all so fascinating is the more mournful tone that Scorsese applies to the telling. It’s an affecting meditation on old age and regret, a film with more melancholy than Scorsese’s usual dark wit. The blackest comedy here comes when Scorsese introduces new characters with titles that tell us how violently they died as mobsters. It gets laughs every time, but there’s not much comedy elsewhere, especially in Sheeran’s strained relationship with his daughter Peggy (played by Lucy Gallina as a child and Anna Paquin as an adult.)

Would it have been more challenging for Scorsese to tell a story in a world that he hadn’t mined so often before, one where he still sympathizes avidly, even though most of the characters are stone-cold killers? Perhaps. But Scorsese should be able to tell the stories he wants to tell, and Hollywood should be willing to subsidize his vision. Even with his vaulted reputation, only Netflix would give the septuagenarian filmmaker the money needed to fund this sprawling tale. Is that a story of ageism unto itself? If so, I hope that those who turned Scorsese down live to regret it.

View the trailer for The Irishman below:

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[perfectlypine]

Once upon a yogi time, the wandering sage Narayana was seated in meditation at the edge of small village. As he opened his eyes, he found himself face-to-face with a large cobra.

The snake spoke, “Oh, Narayana, please instruct me in the practice of yoga.”

The guru was delighted by the request and began by explaining a foundational principles.

“Ahimsa is the non-violent stance...It is a way of relating to life with openness, curiosity, and mindful presence. By adopting the attitude, you will be able to meet all that arises with loving awareness; you will learn much and create minimum pain or suffering.”

The snake thanked Narayana and slithered away into the dense undergrowth of the village.

A year, passed—and Narayana again found himself approaching the same village. “I wonder how my cobra disciple is faring; and how his spiritual practice is developing,” he thought to himself.

Just then, the sage heard a groan rising from behind a nearby tree. Following the sound, Narayana discovered his disciple cowering in the dirt. The cobra’s body was bruised and battered, his sharp teeth were shattered, and his left eye was swollen shut.

What has happened to you?” the sage exclaimed.

“Oh, guru-ji,” the cobra lisped through broken teeth, “You would have been so proud of me. I took up the practice of ahimsa with great dedication. When the young boys of the village threw stones at me, I smiled.”

The cobra continued, “They were surprised by my new gentle demeanor and came closer carrying sticks. But I continued to smile and welcome them. They struck me and beat me. They kicked me and tied me in knots. They broke my teeth and bruised my eye—but, I didn’t bite or strike back.”

“Oh, my disciple,” Narayana shook his head, “I told you not to bite. I didn’t say you shouldn’t hiss.”

___________________

We’ve got to have boundaries. On the earth plane, boundaries and distinctions are part of the game. We can’t not have them. But there’s a difference between a between a generative boundary and a contracted one; between a healthy loving stance and a defended one.

So, what’s the difference?

In the defended stance, you set up defensive boundaries to protect your self and those you love from life.

In the loving stance, you set up generative boundaries to strengthen yourself and those you love for life.

The defended stance pits you against life. Whatever arises on the other side of the boundary is alien; unlike you and threatening to your very existence. You can’t let them get too close. You can’t open up to them. Closed, rigid, impenetrable boundaries will protect you from them.

The generative stance places you in the midst of life. You’re already in the midst of life. You don’t need protection from life. Boundaries aren’t there to keep bad things out—they’re designed to create a structure that allows you to embody your deepest values and most awakened wisdom.

Wise and loving boundaries maintain your connection with the aliens. They can still puzzle you—but they don’t threaten. Rather than activate fear, the presence of the aliens triggers curiosity and interest.

But this doesn’t mean that you smile if the stones start flying. Being for life includes being for your body, mind, emotions and circumstances. If others approach with sticks—hiss. Set your boundaries with strength and clarity, but not with anger. Not with hate.

Set boundaries without painting them as the enemy.They’re not threatening you; they’re enacting their conditioning.

Wise boundaries allow you to see the suffering underneath the violence. You see how fear and inner fragmentation are expressed in mental, verbal and physical violence. You see how an inability to meet inner suffering with clarity and compassion produces a defensive stance towards the world.

You see how easy it would be to follow their lead. How easy it would be for you to shift from hissing to biting; to meet their defensive, suffering-fueled actions with your own.

Seeing this, with clarity and without blame, allows you to love and strengthen the boundaries that honor your deepest values so you can act in ways that embody those principles.

This kind of clarity, compassion and courage isn’t a given.

When the sticks and stones fly, you don’t have time for reflection. Reactivity erupts in the blink of an eye.

That’s why it’s important to do two things:

Become established in meditative awareness.

Become a student of how defensiveness arises in your body.

Through daily spiritual practice, you establish meditative awareness as your default mode. Before the sticks and stones are flying in your external world, cultivate the capacity to reside in loving awareness; to witness thoughts, emotions, sensations—all the patterns of body and mind—as they rise and fall.

Witnessing with loving awareness is the key. This capacity makes it possible for you to study the signature thought/emotion/sensation patterns that arise when you shift into defensiveness. As you study these patterns of defensiveness and reactivity, you discover something wonderful.

Your patterns of defensiveness and reactivity are marvelously redundant. Even if the situations that trigger the defensiveness change, the reactive pattern of thought/emotion/sensations don’t. The same thoughts, emotions and sensations arise. And this is particularly true at the bodily level of sensations.

The somatic signature of your reactivity repeats itself with virtually no variation. It’s an automated reaction that flows through a well-grooved neural pathway and arises as a signature pattern of sensations.

Whenever this pattern arises—unless you’ve cultivated meditative awareness—your attention tends to degrade, to fragment; and in reaction you throw up contracted, fear-based boundaries. This is the tendency but not the necessity.

Why?

Because as fast as reactivity moves, awareness is faster. It’s faster because it’s ever-present. You don’t have to generate awareness. It’s not a reaction to anything. Awareness—loving awareness—is already and always here.

Through the practice of meditation, you cultivate your capacity to live in, through and as loving awareness. You also become skilled at spotting—and through the innate radiance of loving awareness, dissolving defensive patterns as they arise.

But—you’ll still have boundaries.

When you feel an itch, you’ll scratch your head, not mine. You can tell the difference between someone throwing a stone and someone blowing a kiss. You can respond appropriately.

Recognizing the difference—somatically—between contracted boundaries and generative boundaries, allows you to incarnate your values skillfully.

You don’t lie down for the world to walk on you. You stand up, with loving awareness, and cultivate the boundaries that allow you to serve, savor and enrich life.

And by life, I mean your life—and the lives of all the aliens (inner and outer) that you meet on your path.

[iges]

Journal Wrap-Up 2018

Jan

      I wonder why I doubt myself, feel so small when my potential is so tall

I wonder why I miss people, but still don't pick up the phone to call

      Duhet te njohesh shpirtin e njeriut,qe mund ti admirosh fytyren

      What do you mourn first? That which you were meant to become, or the many lives you've lived and died on your way to becoming who you are?

      I got a lot on my mind / not enough hours to shed / not enough trust to believe, not enough feeling to care / I'm feeling numb to the world so I been ignoring instead

      Your own people be laughing when you on ya positive shit

      "you're a poet?"

·        "something like that. I like to play with words to create experiences"

      "it's gonna take a long ass time or a hell of a miracle for me to take someone seriously again. Let alone even consider a relationship."

      Living my life like it's golden

      Inspiration is everywhere. But it has to find you working

      Si qiri po me tretet jeta

      When all external affiliations and descriptions are erased; when self-projected facades are defaced; when you take off all the class rings, bracelets and school branded sweaters, who the hell are you?

      I can't wait to get out of this country and explore the world. It's almost about damn time I get out of here

      Can I get a kiss? And can you make it last forever? I said I'm bout to go to war. And I don't know if imma see you again

      So free- don't flee from me

      You make this shit feel like summertime

      Day is yours beautiful. Go remind the earth why it loves you

      The world has said so much to me and I just wanna give it right back to em

      Lovin life above a reason

      Got expensive energy...can’t afford to give it to everybody

      Have you fallen in love with me yet? / you should for a good two weeks / two weeks is best for lovers

      Who is healed?

Who is housed?

Who is silent?

Who speaks?

      How many generations did it take to become feral?

      I know what it’s like to be hardened by the world and all the shit that happens to you. and that’s why I choose softness everyday (or at least try to)

      Move me

      Family. community. Calm unity.

      Love is dope but I’m careful where I place mine now

      That dope ass beat in your heart? Vibe to it

      The words might escape us, but it is the knowing that matters. It is the knowing that creates the experience.

      “Alicia keys aura reminds me of you”

      I flower and don’t apologize

      Every piece I create, creates me. I create to create myself.

      It's very important you take cues from yourself. It is such a wild world full of chaos and chance and if you can see that this is the best part of it, that it's open ended and unscripted, that your fate is your whim, then the vibe hits you and life is the vibe. Often you have to become what you need, and very often the world will punch you in the mouth. You spit out whatever blood may come, you let your eyes give off their wild crazy, and you make yourself into a bolt of lightning. I think if life has fucked with you, I think you get what I mean

      I am wayward careening, losing myself in the next next next, little more than a reactive engine, needing to be touched, needing hot exhale on my neck, needing, everything. Would a fight, would words repented, would a fear of violence, of escape, of abandonment, would an action incapable but accomplished, something to tear the heart through the night. I remain and waste and weather and realize why an organism became a predator.

·        I place compassion in a bowl and set it aside. I crucify the pity I fill for myself and as I resurrect I realize I no longer know you. I do as you and shrug my shoulders and it is all there is to do.

      Turn off your phone before you start making things

      People will tell you you’re weird your whole life till they see you doing your own thing or better than them

  Feb

      Only allowing another body to interrupt long enough for our limbs to tangle like weeds up the side of a brick house, reaching for something impossible

      Most people I know cannot sleep until they crawl themselves through someone else's hollow.

      There are nights when I wish we were all still children, but then again, I suppose we may be or at least there is no other way to explain how we make every doorway our own. The way we stain ourselves and anything else that moves. The way we scream into the dark like a siren & the weeping, yet another thing we never mention in the morning.

      Months later, I fell in love with a coast where my phone calls were no longer currency

      Let the n-word spill out from behind the wrong tongue and paint the entire room a new shade of trouble

·        Doesn't understand how a word can hang in the air and multiply twice its weight before it ever comes down

·        I watch as the air above us gets thick and becomes an anvil of smoke

·        It must be nice to wrap your tongue around all of the words in that song without also asking to bleed out on a sidewalk - the only traces of your body be the traces of chalk on the sidewalk

      A new sharp and boundless city between us forever, or sometimes multiple

      I don’t sleep like I used to under this city's moon. I never got used to eating alone out there and I instead got used to hunger. how small I've become because of these things. I forgot how to talk about distance out loud

      “ya know I knew there was something worth admiring about you. you keep proving me right every day”

      If you get tired, learn to rest not to quit

      You gotta train your mind to be stronger than your emotions or else you'll lose yourself every time.

      A lot of people spend time worrying about all the things that could go wrong. I don't think about those things. Where you place your attention grows. I focus on my vision and understand that just because things don't go according to plan doesn't mean that they're going wrong. The universe is collaborative, we aren't in full control. Focus on what you want in your wildest imagination and let it come into being. I'm recontextualizing anxiety as excitement. Depression is just when I need to modulate my mood. Sometimes it's just time to sleep all day. Rest and dreams are as important as the work. It's ok to feel low. It's ok to be confused. You move and breathe through it.

      It's easy to find your truth in retrospect. What's hard is to find your truth in the moment

      Feeling small again as I leave the city. This restless city…is part of why I'm so restless. Part of the grind is embedded in my bones the other parts are cultivated by this city. When I go elsewhere for too long, my soul becomes more restless than ever.

·        But it is ok to feel small at times. Reminds us of how grand we are afterwards. Refer back to yesterday's entry. Recontextualizing the emotions I feel so I can be more comfortable with feeling them.

      Sometimes people will come into your life because they're attracted to your energy but they'll misuse it for their own healing. Let that go.

      Maybe you won’t get attached to me if I get lucky

      You’re my golden girl/ the sun has been kind to you

      and this body, this skin, this lineage, how can i wear them with honor? how can i find peace in them?

how do i carry on when it seems there are more of them than there are of me? those folks who do not even think of tenderness, do not even care to know their souls?

      to stretch past our current realities toward a future we deserve. to stretch past our own shit in order to build the collective we need.

      Can you dig it?

      I feel like I asked god for it and got back "are you sure? Ok. Just know that everyone can't go."

·        So I'm watching that. And it is tough. But I'm too deep in and I can do so much good.

·        It's lonely out here but beautiful.

      Everyone who has told me they loved me has meant something different

 March

    �� Officially going to south Africa in the fall

      Fullness is risky business

      Were you looking for someone? As I watched you go? I’m mad because I don’t know what you used me for

      Self-improvement is the best dating advice

      My single years have been the most emotionally rich, spiritually uplifting moments of my life. It is in these moments of solitude that the self is discovered and furthered.

      Creating beauty and opportunity

      I love hard but I don’t give a fuck even harder

      I might be too great alone. Solitude is the wave

      Someone said the whole point of living is to age. I haven’t been the same since

      My dreams return to me. Like seeds shifting in the dirt. I could have a joy unlimited. Imagine that. Imagine that there is a warmth deep enough in the earth to withstand a few chilly seasons of fear. Imagine you blooming anyway. Despite | in spite. Inspire. It's the kinda thing that makes your muscles loosen. Your colors richen. Spring forward.

      I love low lighting and low voices and a low moon. I wish love was easier to give- wish it came with settings. I would turn you on, so that you illuminated us both.

      She remembered who she was and the whole game changed.

      I guess you wake up one day and decide to be strong

      Writing to sunsets while on the road. I think this is the way my life is supposed to go

      It’s funny how overemotional encounters render me emotionless

      Listening to canal st and thinking back to blasting this while I came down from my trip with rumeer this summer. Walked him to the train and then walked through the city with the homies. Walked like a pack blasting music and just talking some real shit. It was a day of so many emotions, so many tears- of sadness for lack of understanding, of happiness for finally making my dreams come true, of laughter for being able to be stupid together. And a night full of raw thoughts. I felt so at one and at peace with myself. I knew myself better at that point in my life than I have ever known myself before, than I know myself now. I can't wait for life to feel that way again.

      Don’t rush yourself, but apply pressure

      As artists, we have to keep reinventing ourselves; we can't ride the same wave forever, for, that's how you drown

      They always ask "where are you now?" in a way that insinuated there were only two places on earth one could be: new york and somewhere ridiculous

 April

      i keep waiting to receive you. i keep wanting, past what's warranted. i keep asking and opening. i keep giving you an entrance. why tho?

      some glimmer of a thing. potential, hope, lust- all shimmer in the dark. i spotted you. to my detriment maybe. you are decadent maybe.

      i'm making you up as i go because you won't come close enough to show me the truth. and because my truth feels better. and because i keep wanting a reason to want you.

      there is no reason why this should end well. but we hang around just in case. i've got to protect myself just in case.

      suicidal thoughts happen on sunny saturday afternoons right alongside the sprout of pink flowers. in a single sigh of relief, there is the joy of being alive for another spring, and there is the exhaustion of having survived another winter. wanting to quit. wanting to stay. pendulum swings. i can't imagine what it's like to not feel both, feel everything, in constant oscillation.

      i moved to america in what felt like the middle of a sentence. childhood morphed into something unfamiliar, something of a memory, which isn't the same as the thing itself.

      some version of me thought it would be romantic if we could connect off the strength of who we were when we were 11.

      it didn't turn out so well or last very long. whatever personality she might have had, she drowned out with drugs and hennessy. and it's strange the way the paths you take can age you. from juice boxes to drugs and sex and a lot of smoke and fog to clog the memories. it does something to you.

      my preferred style of loving is from a distance...like the sun. it's enough for me that someone cna stand in my warmth and stand in their own truth at the same itme. it's enough for me to be a flame, a shining light, a star. except for when i'd rather be touched.

      the real [quest]ion is: how do i create and embody a life i enjoy? what is my power? what happens when i add more courage? let's keep moving to find out.

      the whole point of abundance is

to have enough and be enough

so you don't have to build it all at once

      pardon my bohemian ways

i know i act like i be stuck in a bohemian daze

you said you love me, so don't rush me

love is patient and now you gotta trust me

      buffering, creativity suffering

when you bustlin' hustlin' for the numbers and

you missed the journey if you climbed too fast

      traveler, never falling victim to these calendars

they say greatness gets better with time

so why expedite my prime?

see i'm just a lilac tied to the earth

exuding the fragrance of life and birth

so respect my photosynthesis

my petals, my stems, full of nourishing flow

you thought this was a love song, but no

i just need you to let me grow.

      life is a fleeting thing--and a fluid thing. i am a wave dissolving against the shore--then rewinding. it's not very interesting to some, but it's real. to me, it's fascinating. it does fill the time with something. my unimportance is shimmering under the sun until it becomes it's own beam of light, until i become aware of my light and take flight.

the words don't always come because sometimes there are none. not for what i want to say. not for where i stay. but are to be found in the spaces i need to go.

and so this is how i become a fleeting thing--and a fluid thing. my life takes shape based on who i am and who i become. so i'm living this life like it's my only one.

      What I am trying to say is: I am trying to travel more lightly these days

      i have to live in a numberless now. do i feel alive? have i danced enough? written enough? created enough today? or any other day? will my tired heart renew its strength again? these questions don't care what month it is. when i go to answer them, that is how my life evolves. there is no schedule, no score, no scale that will accurately reflect the tale of my life.

it is happening now. tune in now or you'll be lost in the next episode.

      self pity is just cloud cover. it is defense mechanism against difficulty.

there's no way out of carrying the weight of your own life. and that shit is humbling. because the consequences are impartial to both innoncence and ignorance. whether we know better or not, whether accidental or on purpose, if a bone breaks, it breaks. we can spend an eternity rationalizing the causes, but the effects are here now, and the bone is still broken. they demand to be dealt with.

      most days i feel like everything that could be said has been said. i write anyway.

      trauma attaches to our genes and our choices, and we pass these things on to the next installment of living beings. why is it so hard to fathom that everything is connected, and that the good we do today matters? it matters to our ancestors, our present peers, and our successors... that we heal, we love, and we create. and we do this with the wilderness and joy we were born to do it with. this is a wounded place we are living in. i wish to tend to it already

      when my lungs ebb and release the air, the shore of my soul comes into form. time recedes, reveals the miracle of being born anew each morning. heaven is the reachable pulsating heart in each of us.

      how do we go about living our days there?

      maybe i keep my distance because the best way to enjoy something is to not bother it.

      the sun loves us from a distance. maybe that's where i get it from. getting closer changes everything. it changes your skin entire.

      I feel as though I am sunshine with a pulse

      i have been trying to gather my thoughts, but they don't want to be gathered. they want to roam wildly.

      i am thinking of you and how you could be anyone and how i've written your poem already under another title and another face.

      i just can't go back to a place where everything in life is centered around romantic love. there is so much more important love to me now. a love poem is never just about a person anymore, it's about a person, myself, our dreams, and everything in between that makes us free. besides, what is a love poem, but a pair of wings?

      emptiness is an opportunity. to fill, to fly

      i wanna know why we all aren't laughing, why our mouths aren't all prepared to swallow the moonlight

      i am so warm and willing. it's like glowing from my superpower. it's like knowing what star i came from.

      what are my essential needs?

what has to be met in order to connect?

what boundaries can i unfasten to let more freedom in?

      language is a constant movement in my body--as the lungs, the heart, and the blood. always, there is a charge to communicate. it is the original addiction. i learned early the world is molded by storytellers. i discovered the sentience of a sentence and couldn't return to unfeeling. the call to express is as fluid as a reflex. as natural. as eternal.

at the end of the day, my voice is an invitation to my loneliness. language brings fellowship to my solitude--makes compelling the insignificant. it is a never present temptation. to speak and feel and build. it is an opening.

      sometimes i just like the feeling of not being home. i enjoy the fog and flow between two places. perhaps i'm going nowhere slowly. but to enjoy the relief of being back in familiar territory, you must leave every once in a while to soften yourself against the unknown.

      "how do you know me so well?"

"because i know myself"

      i've been writing about love since i was a child. it was always the loose thread in the tapestry. one tug and you could watch the whole thing unravel. i was 11 when i noticed this subtle energy holding everything together. didn't quite know what to call it back then. but i found myself in a constant flirtation with whatever came close.

poetry is the matter of twirling that thread around my finger, sensing the collective pull as love touches everything. colors are saturated by it. music erupts from it. dreams are made bold because of it. sometimes i will call it by other names:

summer, water, desire, energy, you.

words are for linking them all together, naming the constellations, and finding our way in the dark. words were born from our insatiable need to connect and from the allure of cause and effect. i'm glad for it.

my favorite space to be is here...because i know you'll love me back from the otehr end of the string. one tug and we can watch the whole thing unravel, revealing the raw nakedness underneath.

i've been writing about you since before i knew you by your name.

      i think there's this sweet spot you find when you're discovering yourself that is both private and sincere. you are not obligated to share it. it is a vibe you register as peace or loneliness with a hint of fire and warmth. a heart of sorts. perhaps the heart itself. you are alive and complete, as is. sure, over time, you will glow and erode and merge with others, but there will always be your center. your zero. your infinite. the gift you take when you leave your mother and discover singularity, whether  that mother is a person or a country. you take not of it like hearing the muffled baseline of a familiar song in the distance that carries the rhythm like something of a home. your song. deep down, you are your own. i think this is the love i've been trying to remember and re-discover. she saves me in the end. i've always had quite a strong sweet tooth.

      One day I’ll wake up and it won’t be on the battlefield

      "eating salmon with pumpkin rice and thinking about how many times i've written my existence into reality"

      most people forget what could change another life once changed theirs

      im sitting in my room crying over my progress report from kindergarten because i've literally always been like this. sometimes i forget. but i won't waiver because i can't waiver. i promise to keep holding it down till i'm in the ground. peace.

      remember that spirit bomb of a book i put out? lol. what happened to that?

      yo peace to everyone who understands this shit isn't theoretical

      it's always the motherfuckas with no magic tryna tell you what to do with yours

      inspiration as a force but not with force

      i'm a different soul now than when you first knew me. it's not the same shy timid girl you met. i now know myself, i know what i want from life, and i know my journey. and i am not willing to let anyone fuck with that. so you're either with me or not.

      I am so grateful for this passion. For this creativity. For this fire burning within me

      I don’t know how to explain war language to those who have never had to speak it

      a year of subtle dopeness. it was no accident that i was off campus during my birthday. it was no accident that it was with a small group of good company. it was no accident that i had a great night at the party regardless of those around me. it is no accident that i don't let anybody fuck with my energy lately, even while mercury was in retrograde. it is no accident that i feel like i am floating. though life may feel like a series of coincidences, i have come to realize that i have learned how to be very intentional with my energy and actions in order to create the vibe i want for my life. and i have come to be so thankful for that. it is no accident that i am where i am today. i have brought myself here, willingly, intentionally. love and support has helped carry me here. of myself and others. it is no accident that i feel at home wherever i go these days; that i can up and leave constantly and come back and settle in whenever needed. while still floating. i have learned to make a home of this body and soul. i am learning how to build peace from it. i lay foundations, willingly, and intentionally. with love and support. i didn't just happen here; i put myself here because i wanted to be here (no matter how hard it may be to believe or remember sometimes). i am grateful for this power and awareness. continuing to vibe to the dope beat in my heart; continuing to build my song; continuing to let the rhythm (of love and support) carry me wherever i need to go; continuing to sing it wherever i go.

      Don’t quit your groovy shit

      seeking the sun

      "you've got such a great heart yo. mad generous and loving"

"now i do. took a while"

      Reminder: “if you wanna fly, gotta give up the shit that weighs you down”

      writing is a stimulant. where the blood goes, the words flow, and heat rises to the surface. a story is what we tell when we are most free.

      to execute a vision, you have to trust the movement.

certain things you just can't rush.

namely, Growth.

      I am releasing everything.

      i think i displayed, often, that i cared about your well-being. enough to warrant, at minimum, a little transparency on your end. something, anything, a single word. but distance? silence? why that? why didn't i deserve a reason? i'll live, but it does sting a bit.

      set your anger down and think about who's in control.

      i am a lover, with or without a lover.

 May

      and every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling "this is important! and this is important! and this is important! you need to worry about this! and this! and this!" and each day, it's up to you to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say "no. this is what's important" -Iain Thomas

      i want myself unconditionally. i want my own love. with everybody else, there are requisites. fuck that.

      to write myself in and out of moods.

to create new energy for myself.

this is the move.

      Belonged | Beloved

      against the blue of the sky, this tree was a peacock in a past life.

      There’s not enough room nor time for anger. It’s time to forgive us both.

      how much time does it take to be a real writer?

what does it take to be a real writer?

what does it take to call yourself all that you are?

      i pull sativa smoke into my lungs and feel my muscles loosen

      Notice Me- Migos

as i find my limits stretched, i'm understanding that i'm not in the position to ask for more. my inventory is capped. the things that are already here want to be noticed. and it's about time i notice them. you create space for wealth by giving thanks and taking care of what is already there. i stand in my space and register my blessings: running water, a community to love, unread books, muscles to temper, rage to soften, love to give, my work cut out for me. my advantages eclipse my deprival. society would rather have me believe that i don't have enough any day. it would rather me reduce myself to greed where no life can be sustained. i have plenty i could stand to appreciate more if i know what's good for me. and i am learning what is good.

      i realize now how i always considered babson a temporary destination, always thought of it as a visit. and because i said that before i even got here, i have been treating it as such ever since. when i lost sight of it, when i tried to fully immerse myself, i got lost in it and lost myself in it. it is okay to acknowledge that there are some spaces you are just a visitor to, that you can never truly belong there. even if these are the spaces you are supposed to call home. home is not a place that i call, home is a place that i feel called to.

      i always want to get straight to the heart of things.

      my spirit stayed behind to find the sun.

she has found it and is now catching up to me.

rather than abandonment, i feel nourishment.  

a sentiment known since we felt the shadows of our parents for the first time.

      what am i not tryna deal with right now?

      i just be lookin forever eternally

      lately i've been questioining a lot. most people are fake supportive, and i no longer have energy to give outside of my craft

      last night was a night of affirmations. everything came full circle. my purpose was affirmed, my character was affirmed, my role here was affirmed, and now it's time to go the fuck off.

      there is a lot of tenderness in my life when i know where to find it and when i choose to seek it out. choice is what this is all about. gratitude is the fuel.

      summer in my soul

      i can't do it, not because i'm incapable. because it's not part of my purpose

      looks can be deceiving, words can be misleading, i see blood on my shirt but i'm not the one bleeding

      realizing and recontextualizing.

      i trust myself so much. i trust my emotions. i trust my thoughts. i trust my body. no one can tell me who i am.

      collecting and connecting

      i'm not seeking anyone to fill anymore emptiness. it turns out i never needed that. what i've always craved are simply opportunities to be my most authentic self. love is bigger than two people but can also be as small as one. love is having a place in the world and in yourself. love is wanting a future. love is the courage to keep going. love is a lot more. sometimes a person is not the answer. for me, it seldom ever is. sometimes, most times it is movement. sometimes, it is rain, money, the right song, an adventure. sometimes it is sleep. sometimes it is drug store candy and a day in full of wet windows and kisses. sometimes it is the right album and a hike and a mountain view. all this estate for my mind to run. but a lot of the poems suggest that you have to wait for someone to give you a chance to be somebody. that's what i am here for. to shift the notion that you ever need anybody to give you the permission or opportunity or freedom to become all that you ever are on your own. you gotta know what it is like to feel wanted. i know what it's like and it's beautiful. but the world is still burning. but it feels most beautiful when you are wanted by and for yourself. there is opportunity/freedom in emptiness. to fill. to fly. i am not seeking anyone anymore because this emptiness is not for filling. i’m flying baby. you are welcome to dance with me in this expanding space. but i don't expect you to have the answers, and i pose the same request to you. more than anything, i just want to be myself, in myself, with myself.

fuck all that other noise.

      people here are so concerned with looking busy that they're never actually doing anything.

      how can you ever go wrong with the girls who call earth home

      everybody else is 2's and 3's. you're the 1. i love you.

      i do possess the desire to be understood on the level that touches my poetry, sensitivity, and the playful melancholy from which my rebellious love sprouts. but because i know myself where it counts, i don't beg for it elsewhere. there is no urgency. few people have met me in that soft space of feeling, laughing, and moving slowly. i resented that at first. but it's not a big deal now. alone is how i get to be unglamorous on my own terms.

      i write more than i talk. i like to walk along the beach and listen, walk the city streets and listen. i enjoy giving because wanting takes me out of my element. i don't always know how to explain that to my friends when they call and i don't answer. but if you came to my door, i'd let you in.

      for the sake of compassion, a lot can be simplified. every now and then you want somebody to talk to, and maybe you wouldnt mind fucking them, if they didn't mind it. is it so paramount that we make it A Thing? maybe you only wanna talk or listen or be around, but you don't wanna overstay your welcome. maybe you get lucky and find everything in one person. maybe you find one thing among many, right when you need it. maybe you are all you need, sometimes. i think we ask a lot of each other before we know any better. i feel like we get too high up and too fast, and now that we need to climb down, we are more afraid than ever. we shouldn't be afraid. we were searching for a friend. we succeeded. we don't need to complicate that.

      tired. what's next? i'm suffering. what's next? i'm shedding. what's next? i'm not holding on tightly to anything anymore. or maybe ever again.

      both patient and relentless, this love does not allow me to remain a victim. it lifts and dares me with the same strength of limb- an embrace that is forgiving and urgent. get up, it implores. pushing tenderly. refusing pity. and this is novel, alarming, beyond denial. this love won't let me proceed unchanging, just as the softness of hands shaping clay does not detract from their calculated strokes. it touches me purposefully deep down in my sorrow, demanding its purge. confident in my ability to harvest light. i am anxious within it, yet still assured..that this is as it should be- ruthlessly constructive.

      if you stopped loving me, would you be brave enough to tell me?

      when i was lonely, i ran to love to cure it. i am not lonely now, and that is its own affliction.

sometimes i just don't want to be seen. i imagine living outside the context of my body like a smokescreen. is it such a terrible idea to do things in increments? i wish i could disappear for months at a time without offending anyone. like the bears do. it's not always about you. i wish i was as light as air.

but i am fire. and i must be around so we can stay warm.

the world is allowed to be temperamental, yet we aren't. how come? aren't we of this world? aren't we allowed our seasons?

but fire has no season, my dear.

      "just to hear it in your words"

·        i love how you ask me the things you already know just to be able to hear it in my own words

      you make my desire pure

      croque is my hub of solitude, intimacy, and creativity. it is one of the few places i am most intimate with myself and my work always. and by work i mean creativity, which has always been the work of my heart.

      nomadic in spirit, grounded in character, free in energy.

what an incredible experience to become who i've always wanted to be. so liberating, so humbling, so powerful, so beautiful.

      this really incredibly dope trippy thing in my life has been happening lately where everyone i know, in different circles are all going through similar things. and it's so cool because as they all talk to me about it, it almost feels like they're having conversations with each other. and all my circles are shifting into venn diagrams and life has never been more interesting.

June

      as a child i've always been to myself because i somehow picked up the ability to make myself happy. that's why detachment is easy for me. i know that i'm not the easiest person to like. i've always treated myself like the i'm the privelege and the priveleged. people have expressed dissatisfaction with my way of thinking but it's really not an egotistical mentality. in order for me to believe that i'm the privelege it's because i want to be that. i work hard at being that. i'm always working on myself and my energy. i'm always trying to improve so i can be a benefit to those around me. i'm the privilege because i want to be the best friend, i want to be the one you need. i want to be the one you rely on. the reason i want to be that way is exactly why i choose to treat myself as the privelege. i will continue to do so because i'm a firm believer that my energy will gravitate towards similar energy.

      if i told you i love you but do not want you, would you understand the gift this is, the freedom, the open lane, the life without expectations, which become contracts, and then we employees to each other, checking off to-do lists, holding meetings, taking surveys, sitting and stewing instead of living. i have a notion that love is not a necessity and that this sanctuary and steeple idea is a means to hamstring a wild flight through existence. i love you. i do not stay. humans do not mate for life. they barely know themselves. they forget everything. i am seeking power over my memory, with you by my side, for as long as we choose. i am drifting away. it does not make me good or evil. i am not a scoundrel. i am not salvation. we had life together. it ended. it ends.

      If you don’t get it off your chest, you’ll never be able to breathe

      i think this is the course of my life. i know what i want. my soul knows where it wants and needs to go and it steers me there through manifestation. from thoughts to words to existence. this is the way our lives form. we must choose to shape them.

      don't explain your philosophy. embody it.

      i live in another dimension and i do not have time for things that have no soul.

      feed my soul or get lost.

      go where you feel the most alive.

      "even if you feel lost, everybody feels fucking lost. in so many ways.

the mind is what you gotta train the most before anything

-coffee shop overheard

      if i had a nickel for the times i was absent minded i forget to hit your line

i was minding mine and you just want to see me shine

i was minding mine i meant to mend and make amends

      it is incredible how much love is in the world, awaiting me. i don't know why it's happening now- why i feel the flowers bursting from the valleys in my heart. perhaps they've had enough rain.

the sun cuts right to the chase. i walk to the store that's farther away just to enjoy it longer. i play the same song four times over. the wind is in my lashes. my eyes reflect the honey of the bees. i mean..love turns up in every blade of grass when your mind is open. that's what i'm getting at here.

i'm giddy because you don't realize the weight of worrying until you drop everything and breathe. i can do anything i want to, and that is the hill worth climbing on. love is knowing that i can succeed. peace & joy is the ultimate success. you have to choose which thoughts to believe.

      everything has its own place and pace. and i really like this view. at times, my humanity rushes in towards me. a resurgence of recognition.

i am a limb on the branch. i am a member of the tribe. ours is a life of seasons.

i've got an entire lineage of roots that hold me down and rely on me to lift them up, to keep this growth part of who we are. there is so much love to harvest here. and so i must keep moving towards the sun. i am grateful for all of it. for everything that has built me for all this movement and a spirit that never strays nor stays for too long.

      here comes peace.

i am not here to compete for anything.

falling out of love doesn't make me an enemy.

my humanity doesn't make me an enemy

perhaps nothing is harder than telling the truth

but nothing is more free.

my wings are here.

      i am vibrating love

      i walk in love, never fall in it. might get tripped up in it once in a while, but it is an accessory to my journey rather than a destinaton.

      [feeling my feelings]

      I’m opening up all the channels to love that have been clogged by circumstance

      I’m laughing right now because it occurred to me that I can love myself through it all and that’s a fucking blessing

      Reflections and rewards

      I have unlimited potential. Joy- abundant. What’s stopping me?

      Present at where we are

      your eagerness to create without hesitation is inspiring.

      the difference with you is that nothing gets in the way of your creativity. you live seamlessly. you grow spiritually & it all makes sense. there is so much truth to your patience.

you show others that no matter how long it takes to create something, your work can be timeless

      I’m only out here just tryna impress myself now

      I might love you more than you love yourself. And that might scare you

      Visible light. That is what you are

      water does not resist. water flows. when you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is caress. water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. but water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. water is patient. drippng water wears away a stone. remember that, my child. remember you are half water. if you can't go though an obstacle, go around it. water does.

      but his pride is bigger than his heart will ever be. so the feelings remain silent.

      "you shine like a river when the sun catches its eye during the sunset"

      nobody cares. work harder.

      I’m only at 37%

      they don't like you they like a version of you and when you aint that version its the end of the world

      hey you,

when did you begin to show yourself love?

      what's in front of you?

what are you trying to see?

what are you hoping is on the other side?

what do you believe in?

what are ten things you care about?

what does the world need to know?

what are you getting out from?

what are you leaving behind?

      he say nothing

i say nothing

but i love you

      sometimes, we are both looking for a way out

some days, the exits look a lot like each other

      i know i know i know

we repeat like broken vinyls

      if i don't leave now and go on my path i might (will) get stuck

      i refine my falling outs. i improve the ways i break. i better course my disasters to run into the heart and not the toes. (this way i don't stumble over my mistakes. take them to heart so this way the lesson is learned) i make good the details of every collapse. this is to continue forward in life.

      ferox : wild; Bold; warlike; defiant

      i think growth is so beautiful and fascinating. because there are moments where you can finally find the words to explain the ways you felt when you were younger and didn't have them yet, feeling helpless in your silence and search. and then there are the moments where you feel like that child all over again.

as i write about certain moments, i start to realize the feelings are so familiar. and maybe its the conglomoration of feelings through the years that make it feel that much stronger and intense now.

like i've been here before. i've felt this before. i've known love all along. i've known community all along. i am finally building it for myself. and now i have the words for it all.

      don't fall in love

walk in love

live in love

      roamers & seekers

      we really out here setting ourselves free

      intention and evolution has been really big so far this year

      effort is the only measure from here on out

      and then the vibe hits you and life is the vibe

 july

      i am scared i won't get to finish my sentence in the midst of telling my store. but the truth is: i am complete. i am lucky i got the chance to live. there is more of me now, than in yesterday. i am full and that is all i need to go on.

      i am paused at the spilling point looking back, looking forward scared as hell. in the blur of spilling, i am all the things i used to be, i am in mourning, i am in bloom.

      let curiosity reveal yourself to you.

reward yourself with the pursuit of your dreams.

seek the thrill in your own life.

and lastly, feel no shame.

      to execute a vision, you have to trust the movement.

      don't deny yourself anymore love just because you're not where you'd like to be. or because the thing you wanted didn't want you back. so what, fuck em. show up for yourself.

      In life some moments make you disappear, others make you show up

when Lauryn sings "how you gonn win if you ain't right within"

& i am, oh i am right within for this small & shrinking moment

i am right within for this newborn praise,

because it is a new day

& the rain stopped,

& the clouds cleared earlier

& yes the darkness arrives earlier now

& yes the streets are still slick and humid

but on this day, the children are in them

dodging the street lights with their street smarts & bikes

& they leap across the city streets like they own them

with their knees still freshly bleeding from the last fall

but it is summer now & none of that matters

all that matters is these young bodies throwing themselves into the mouth of two jump ropes

& then into the mouth of the ocean

& this is the only country they know

this right here

 what does it mean to get free when all you know is a country called freedom?

 we speak of a free childhood

& she tells me "this is a great place to grow up but where do you go once you're grown?"

when home don't feel like home no more?

when home can't house your larger & older body

& all that's left to do is throw our bodies into the mouths

of ropes & oceans & each other

just like the good ol days

but these days they swallow us whole

 & so i say then:

make a border around any place where you are loved & call it your own

& so i say then:

make a border around those who hold you up & build a home

& so i say then:

i know the suffering and burning cannot be forgotten

but if only for a sweet second, on this night

we claim a new & fleeting empire

governed by food & prayer from everyone's grandmas

& loud children

& men who drink and play games all day

& these men who know they ain't shit

& their women who know it better but have lived a tried and tired life

& loved them too long to stop now

 & look what a beautiful country we can claim,

on this day,

how beautiful our borders are,

& so i say then to

our new & brief & fleeting home:

how we grow from you full

how we wish you everywhere

how we try to taste you in the air instead of war.

 my face in the reflection of a wave

i am pretty

even if for a brief second before the crash

i am beautiful

look how pretty i am with god slowly drifting out of my heart like dry ice under a ceiling fan

it's 1998 in the tips of my fingers again

sometimes i forget how good the beginning feels until the end

 i dream of rapture

i dream of war

i dream of my mouth forming a blanket around my most secret thoughts

i learn to become small under the shadow of what love i know

it is almost always summer here

even at the mountain peaks cloaked in snow

the mountains never stop moving even after we go

i think about everything forever in the light of the sun instead of dirt

and for the first time in forever,

it doesn't hurt

         closeness. the lengthening of time. the love that rests in a name. the comfort words bring when they describe something perfectly. when they fulfill a purpose for me. when they make sense of all the chaos, and in this, the chaos also does not have a name. at least not one people can ever remember right. she, too, intimidates people. but here she lies. the signifer and the signified, slow dancing together in a small room, drunk on meaning. the dizzying lights of our insides spilling out, unencumbered by a physical form. all this love does not have a name. it can hardly be described, only felt in the deepest parts of the chest where no thoughts go. what have we become? a gnarled thing approximating love. a river overflowing with water. a fire burning with passion. finally, we build up the courage to purse our lips and we call it what it is. chaos turned benevolence.

      i realize i think all my life my idea of relationships--and they, themselves-- was built around always talking and the exchange of words as a measure of connection. both a way to build and resolve. but with you, we just do. i think that is what's most refreshing. instead of exchanging words, we share experiences. & that's why this bond feels so much deeper.

      remembering: the dream is to fly away and write. it is happening. the pages are turning and the wings(words) are preparing for flight.

      ENERGY UNFUCKWITTABLE ALL SUMMER 18

      there is something about this month that feels like a shout! a bursting, pulsating energy. so intoxicating and vibrant

like fierce, courageous, brave, gonna battle my own demons and dance with all my fears

like expanding past limitations that bind me and keep me small, keep me denying how deeply i yearn to love

something feels real honest about this month, and really, this whole summer.

      what magic are you a vessel for?

      Note to self: few can fight like you can, my dear. and your willingness to show up, wave after wave, to do the work you must do in this world is a blessing. thank you.

August

      notice the roles that you cling to for validation. notice the ones that you stay in out of obligation. notice the ones you now have to contort yourself to fit into that you didn't used to. what felt good once, won't always. how you align with others is changing. how you work within your communities is changing. how you work towards your dream, vision, and hope for the future is changing.

change for a lifetime

      i welcome the empty spaces that this purge creates. i remember that releasing what is burdensome yet familiar is far from comfortable, but completely necessary if i am to grow.

      08.12.18 release for departure

      convo with stephen from nov 2016

·        "girl you are a trip, what am i gonna do with you?"

·        "hope you enjoy your stay"

      i do not look outside for what can only be fulfilled within. i do not try to get love, praise, or power from the world. i look for ways in which i can put more love into the structures i enter.

i know that every time i create a space for my own healing, i am making a powerful statement to myself and my life.

declaring that i am too worthy of such a radical act of love, i reclaim any power i gave the world to dictate how well i am doing.

      this is where i come to refill and refuel

i gather myself around the fires of my creative capacities

this is the flame i am devoted to maintaining

      the more i let go of what i think my life should look like, the more i am able to align myself with the regenerative energy of my creative process. i am using my time to discover, uncover, and validate the talent i naturally possess and the work ethic needed to help this goldmine do what it came here to.

      like most things that live, i choose fluency in fire

i swallow the sun squirming in my hand like a seed

      there's a whole lot of time and opportunity on this side

can't waste it

      bop your head get your neck skrong

      it was not a mistake to be open. i was always myself. i was never uncomfortable

(some people hurt you anyway)

i am still the ocean.

      i feel myself healing. this is so powerful. i feel myself winning

release for a new life to occupy the space of pain and loss.

growth in place of pain

peace in place of unknown

gratitude filling to the brim

overflowing with joy

the body stretches and becomes an exit

everything must go except for me

      so many people in cape town had commented on my confidence and how they need it to help them with their own. I think it’s fascinating the small things people notice about you that sticks most with them

      it's fascinating. this is a different type of gravitational pull. i am more grounded with this energy. it's more than intriguing, it's inspiring to these men. and frankly, these people.

      Keep learning yourself. Keep loving yourself.

      Free up ya heart boo

      “yeah but you’re different tho, you stay true to yourself wherever you go”

      be proud of who you are and where you come from: roots, origins, language, accents, food, clothes, culture, heritage, traditions-- all of it.

be yourself because everyone else is already taken. And be proud cuz can’t nobody do you like you

      reclaiming my energy

 September

      keep asking yourself if what you are doing has any energy behind it. if it excites your being. if it clarifies your reasons for advancing along the lines that you are. if it doesn't life your spirit in some major way, it's not going to have the stamina to work in the long run.

      who really gonn hold us down? me

      never know where you go, rollercoaster

all your highs got a low, rollercoaster

      some of us gotta be homes for those who can’t/don’t know how to be their own

      the distance that you have travelled along the healing roads you have tread

lift up how you have mastered some of the hardest lessons you have had to learn recently

praise you for taking the time to process what hurts

      a kind of murder

and i don't feel like writing about protest or poetry of how one informs the other

what choice has america given me but to weaponize my own breathing, to organize every inhale/exhale into a grassroots movement of sound?

      my very pulse

a poem

      do you know any mothers zomibified by grief? working class women who mourn on a sliding scale?

      im stuck at the border and i think theres something in the water

      centered & uncensored

      it is september 7th & i have been writing about birth & death like clockwork. stare at the clock and read that mac miller is dead.

a heavy day of processing

another life lost to substance abuse

& we watch the news

& we see death everywhere

& we feel devastation

& we take this moment to vow to take care of ourselves through the pain of life & growth

fuck man.

      it is so easy to lose yourself in this world

it is so easy to lose sight of who you are

it is so easy to let yourself go

in all the wrong ways

      spiraling into control

remembering who i am

reclaiming my space

reclaiming my time

reclaiming my energy

      shoulda died already

      why the fuck you need me

don’t you know how to fly already

      we forgot our roots before & trust me, things, they fell apart

      my life is on these words, this is my affidavit

      I can’t see a thing but things never been clearer

      We on the same trip / we just got different baggage

      your wounds aren’t always your fault

but your healing is your responsibility

      hashtag we are doing whatever we want 2018 till infinity

only thinking forward

only doing forward

only being forward

      can't fake vibes. synergy. living things in your living spaces (children, plants, pets, spouse) consume your energy. surround yourself with positive vibes and high vibrating energy

      home...is it a building? a city? a country? a state of mind? a state of mine?

      where i seek,

i find,

myself

      travel with all of its clouded and unexpected moments is still the most me i feel. i feel most at home when i am moving between the delicate balance of belonging to my self and the world. i miss my family but in that space from here to there i don't miss any parts of me.

      "she guessed my favorite color on the first try..

but between me and u.....i didnt even have a favorite color until she yelled out yellow!! she was hella excited n smiling like a little kid. so i told her she was right and i havent seen yellow the same since, its in everything. i could probably live in it now."

      there is no place more intimate than the spirit alone

      my family spans the entire globe and I am lucky that I get to love them

      I have so much joy that I don’t feel like I’m fighting anymore

      in a world of choices, I choose me

      you probably inspire people that don’t have a clue what it is you actually do

      nowstalgia - creating moments i will forever look back on & love

      "you have the confidence of like a woman and i need you to help me"

a man writes into my phone at 12 am at a bar in the middle of cape town on a wednesday night. i look down, laugh, and shaking my head, ask, "help with what?"

"my confidence" he answers, looking into my eyes and then quickly down.

the same night, a few hours later, another man stops me and tells me

" when i look into your eyes i see love"

i look down, laugh and shaking my head, ask, "what makes you think it's for you?"

the same night, a few hours earlier, another man finds out i'm a poet and writes a poem in his phone about me

it began with "she is albanian. she is american. she is everything good balanced. she is exotic. she is...."

it ended with "and she is a muse for every nigger to come her way"

i look down, laugh, and shaking my head, ask, "what?"

the same bar, a few weeks later, the same man comes up to me and asks "hey do you remember me?! i wrote that poem in your phone. i wanted to formally ask you if we could work on poetry together. like you start and i'll take it somewhere. i just wanna take you somewhere"

one is a fitness trainer. gets any pussy he wants. still needs help with his confidence.

one is a business man. gets all the money he wants. still needs love.

one is just a man. somewhere between a writer and a regular man. gets lost in everything he comes across. still needs a muse.

still.

needs & wants.

we still.

      loss, tastes like her skin on a bed next to a warm saturday sun. loss, tastes like her mind over emails, over texts, over whatsapp negotiations that travel over art & dreams & what it means to kiss god. loss, tastes like her soul over troubled bridges trying their hardest to stay above water & not burn. loss, tastes like, her heart torn and mended in fear & hope. the heart that sacrificed itself in the name of peace.

loss, tastes like confusion, cuz you know that there ain't no damn nobility in giving up heaven to create peace in hell. and hell, if i could just get a piece of peace, i'd be good and well. loss, tastes like, you need to drink more water and eat more fruit and all the self care trends lost in a sea of no self love, and perhaps, just maybe once the bitterness has passed down your throat, and the water washes it away, once you've washed away the moans from your lips, you both, this time, without teeth, only with tongue, can love again.

and then. you can tell me what love tastes like. the love we lay in.

      I am unwilling to be led away from myself

      i forgive us both for... being passing ships in the night--sails set on separate horizons. what is the point of wishing things were different? they were different enough. curiosity is the current which guides the bow of the boat. and our curiosity led us to different spaces. made us think our dreams on different horizons. who can we blame for the calmness of the tide before the storm came? who can we blame for how quietly the storm came and left? who can we blame on those nights when we had a chance? once enough time passes, once enough distance is gained, it will no longer feel like a loss or a mistake. to not confuse loss with lost. merely the consequence of brevity in a wide sea of opportunity. how were were supposed to know? you and me? who do we blame? you or me? we cannot possibly embark on every path presented to us. and for this, i forgive us. for being passing ships in the night. the storm has passed. it has turned to day. and i must say. there is an overwhelming sense of peace in forgiveness.

      my parents were tasked with the job of survival and i with self actualization. the immigrant generational gap is so real. what a luxury it is to search for purpose, meaning and fulfillment. and when i try to explain it to them and they don't understand, i gotta remember, we don't always speak the same language.

      let it go. you're ready to vibrate higher.

      the old life. is an old life. one you have already lived. one you do not have to keep living. you are too wondrous. for one life.

      feel it. the thing that you don't want to feel. feel it. and be free.

i have been facing a lot of my hidden feelings & demons here. i have been freeing myself.

      they loved me in pieces

in sequels and trilogies

in songs and stories

in ideas and concepts

but never whole.

      i am beginning to come home to myself as i should and listen more closely to the truth. i am not just what i do - not even just what i think - but i am also a unique expression of my parents' genes. i have spent my whole life running from this, just to now finally run towards it. i am an offspring. i spring forward in the summer. i am a river drifting toward one great big sea. i am a brief dreamer. i came from a truly unknown plane where i had no say. but that does not matter because i am a miraculous actuality. nothing is more comforting than this undeniable presence. and the beauty of understanding it. coming back to family. coming back home. coming back to me.

i have arrived & i am ready.

      my voice, not just as my voice, but as an echo of all those that came before me. how affirming this is.

      HEAVEN ALL AROUND ME

      people grow when they are loved well. if you want to help others heal, love them without an agenda.

      healing has been so freeing.

      the next step: figuring out how to undo this inherent guilt.

      be aware of how your voice dominates spaces.

how much space you are taking up

take note:

when do you feel big in a space?

when do you feel small?

how big are you actually? (vs just how big/small you feel?)

      closure like collision

      i remind myself that anything i repeatedly imagine is also imagining me

October

      movement.

there is no way around complexity. everything is touching and leaving (its stain, shadow, mark, vibration) in passing.

we live such residual lives, like the ocean tides.

we seek communities that might best master the mess of it. and yet, the way we are deeply alone in our minds- that is its own kind (of art, mess, playground, salvation).

the heart told us about oscillation, showed us what a throbbing web of nerves is able to accomplish.

there is no way around the intricacies of humans being. of energy being.

      i'm nothing if not forthcoming / i tell you / i show you / i give you me freely / if it's wasted on you, then that's on you / i give up making it my problem / i give up making demands / you lose / you win / whatever you want / we will sleep fine at night / won't we / i will keep my heart sweet / won't i / i'm nothing if not healing / i tell you / i show you / i feel you / i heal you / we will keep our love sweet / won't we

      it's been a while, so the smoke travels down our legs slowly, and it feels like we are taking root. we share cold mango juice to stave off the humidity and the cottonmouth. sometimes our fingers interlock like the tree roots, in the middle of the night. the clouds rid us of our names. we are down to our breath and our skin and a conversational silence, lit at the bud's end. blooming at the center.

      this weekend was...

paradise

a trip

a journey

climax

cloud 9 and everything above it

freedom

this weekend i let go

i let myself do what i never do. i let myself feel and fall

i've held on for too long. the price to pay is a heavy one, but it is all worth it. for that sweet taste of sensation after falling into temptation. for that sweet sweet lovin you love on me with. even if just for a day. it sustains me for months. it stays with me for years. the love we encounter carries us. but you must let yourself fall into it's hands, let it hold you & console you tightly. feel the way it heals, patches up wounds and lets them reveal the beauty underneath. fresh flesh reveals itself. heals itself. "there are bits of god inside all of us" he tells me as we speak of our natural healing tendencies and our strength and resilience as we make it up this final stretch of a mountain. our legs on the brink of giving up but our minds not letting us. our hearts just catching up. "everything is connected when you really think of it"

      there is always someone to love.

that someone is me

      a study:

did you leave my life better than you found it?

did i leave your life better than i found it?

      distance/absence makes the heart fonder/grow the fuck up

      Ubuntu

      intention behind creation

          (?)

      growth at the expense of what?

      our parents think they always do whats best for us but they fuck up along the way. and that becomes a reflection on us. how we deal with it on both ends determines whether that mirror reflection shatters or gets mended.

      we are just enough. we've come such a long way. we may not have had the right examples of love but we have grown and nurtured ourselves to a point where we love people in a way that sticks.

      midnight rain and the thought of your hands in my hair. i pillow my head on whispering darkness that envelopes me like a sheet, while i search blind for your light. extend my hands in volition, in surrender, to feel your body crystalline against mine. tell you how limestone tastes under the weight of years. all those lives calcified. meanwhile, time is running, reaching around the moon for me tonight. she knows the spaces between artery and vein, in spaces between depth and vain, the in and out of heated blood, the in and out of beating blood. meanwhile, on the horizon, lighting licks the mountains into a brisk and subtle start. you sleep by open windows to let the thunder and lightning lull you into quiet. i lie awake with constellations tucked between me, touching nameless skin, giving name to this life we live under and in.

      sometimes the only way onward is inward

      a word:

i don't think we (as a culture) fully understand how hard it is for artists to exist in 2 realms:

reality and whatever the universe is where we constantly travel to find inspiration, imagination, concepts, etc. we often find ourselves battling depression and at war with ourselves because we're not really equipped to go on the human part of this journey while time traveling between the two. it's weird. i don't know how to explain it fully because we're like here but at the same time we're always elsewhere. and people don't know how to accept that. and shit, sometimes, neither do we. but this shit is so real man.

      the question accompanying the poet like her shadow under the sun is: who am i to be so alone? who am i if i am not with another? the demand for another is always mute but piercing. all these texts ask for another and all the poets ask for another, but not so much another person as so much another tongue, another language, even for a foreign language perhaps, because the essence of poetry is to find strangeness in language.

      "tiring

yet inspirational

warrior"

-cory

      today feels still and spiraling and solid all in one. it's been a reflective time and now its go time.

i'm grateful for the work i do. i'm learning a ton.

i have to remind myself, as i look around my life, that this position is temporary. i fear sometimes that i'll be stuck here reliving the same day until i die. all my life, folk have called this stability. without a plan for elevation, that's stagnation. i've been quiet for the past few days, planning, and praying, and listening to myself. tuning in. is this a turning point or a tuning point? you decide

there's nothing about this, or perhaps everything about this, is poetic. i'm trying to stay focused on growing into the very best version of myself amidst all the movement that is my life. some moments are overwhelming. some, you sit in the center and remind yourself how beautifully solid you are.

      when the right energy comes around you

the wrong energy gets nervous

      an unhealed person can find offense in pretty much anything someone does.

a healed person understands that the actions of others has absolutely nothing to do with them.

every day, you get to decide which one you will be.

      so we're sitting in a tent in darling at 5 am with a group of people who were complete strangers just a few days before (Ayanda, Tando, Chat) and once starts speaking in Afrikaans and the other responds in Tsutu and another answers in Xhosa and they're having a full conversation across so many different tongues. and understanding each other through it all. and i look up and the moon is tucking away under a brighter sky. and once again, it hits me that i'm here. i'm in the middle of south africa. i'm tripping the fuck out. such is the beauty of language. of life. of journey. this shit is so beautiful, i almost can't believe i'm in it. all the love & light.

      once you have flown,

you will walk the earth

with your eyes turned skyward;

for there you have been

there you long to return

-leonardo da vinci

      of all the people in the world, you talk to yourself more than anyone. make sure you are saying the right things. in the right ways.

      travel is not reward for working, it's education for living. - anthony bordain

      i've come to understand and accept, after years of famishing my joy on a diet of self-excusing grievances and fighting against the sweet and bitter aroma of purpose, that life is in fact gorgeous. even when it is making beauty out of our ugliest ingredients. i think of this now, this moment, i am on the cusp of manifesting gods in the presence of my enemies. this, while the world i know-the me that i knew is commanding change and death (the only things guarunteed)- a carving away of unhealthy thoughts and habits. i know we're taught through various trendy doctrines to point the finger at the world, but let me be honest here: i am the only enemy i have ever known.

this fire of death & life has happened so many times and i just wasn't ripe enough to humble myself to its knife. the demand to remain present during the discomfort in your shoulders as wood and wounds meets ceramic and regrets, as the anxiety about a pledged future churn through your mind, is just as beautiful.

i don't believe it's too late. i do know that i have to plant myself, learn all the things i didn't know and unlearn all the things i thought i knew. i know that i don't need to hang out in hopes of tasting community or family cuz i'm feeding myself. i don't need validation cuz the recipes are already laid out in front of/ inside of me. life ain't perfect, but the truth is, nothing can stop you from forgiving yourself and healing, but you. nothing can make you know, beyond a feeling, that you're deserving of every good & perfect gift that you are blessed with. there is nothing, not a goddamn thing that can devour a hungry soul.

and for that, stay bold & keep going.

      the woman that i'm becoming gives me chills. i'm obligated to move differently. i have work to do.

      me sharing my story allowed me to grow away from it. with every book i sell, comes the realization that...it's just a story. even though it's mine. i have books circulating the entire world right now. i let it go. and i'm still building upon it.

      your entire life can change in just one year. you just gotta love yourself enough to know you deserve more, be brave enough to demand more, and be disciplined enough to actually work for more.

      you won't always be motivated, which is why you have to be disciplined.

i am mastering motivation. and i've come pretty close. motivation is everywhere but it has to find you working. i've been working nonstop here and it has found me repeatedly. continuously. exhaustively.

next to conquer: discipline.

      until you flip your perception on its head, you'll be stuck in the same position

      vision keeps growing clearer but i keep losing focus. gotta change my lens maybe

      what if i picked up the pace?

what if i actually started running the race?

      what kind of media are you taking in?

      throwback to this gem from stephen: "i don't want you to experience disappointment for disappointment's sake. i want you to experience disappointment for what it feels like the next day"

      saron: "people need to realize that your existence isnt to be their escape route"

      if the heart isnt in it, the blood doesn't flow

      how repetition has grounded me

through words

through gestures

through experiences

      worry bout yourself and don't worry bout nobody

take care of yourself and take care of your body

      restructure & reroute

      pay attention to your heart / never go astray

      closure is an unknown variable. always. i always have to heal without it. always. nothing helps except time. and it can't be rushed. if it takes a thousand days, if it takes consecutive journal pages asking why to an unresponsive reason, so be it. until the scar fades. until a reinvigorated life overwrites the old one. i go forward with the wound open.

      feeling for harmony between the ridges

      what are you taking personally instead of taking as an indication of what to heal, bring to consciousness, and bring into therapeautic spaces?

      if it hurts, it needs your attention. tend to your pain points.

      wish everyone the best cuz i know where i'm headed

      woman as appendage

woman as appendix

      a soft & pursed smile

a soft & cursed smile

      the thing i came for:

the wreck and not the story of the wreck

the thing itself and not the myth

the drowned face always staring toward the sun

      not all loneliness can or should be filled or fixed. some of it should continue to exist exactly as it does. solitude is the default state. there is a single presence here: self-recognition. i am alive, and that all i truly know for sure.

or.

the default state is community. my first village was my mother. my second was the landscape. my third was the village that carried my three year old body. i was gifted with loneliness the morning i was born and torn from her womb. when i seek communion, i am dreaming of the womb from the beginning- before i was a name or number- where life chose us. it is a series of solitude which follows that first choosing.

but.

sometimes i miss you anyway. i dream of linking our loneliness, forming a single presence through the filling. love as a filling of sorts. we are deeply alive, and love is how we taste our first choosing together. you remind me of the beginning of time

      this month is full of aweh's and yebo's

i love how this language always affirms people

they have words for "i hear you" "i see you" "i feel you"

      ingesi is how you say english in isiXhosa & in Yoruba

gesi means electricity in zulu

·        slowly uncovering/creating what my name means every day

      so i recently found out that my book, my baby will be featured on a syllabus at the University of Cape Town to be studied as a subject of American & cultural literature & poetry. I don't yet have the words for how powerful this is or how I feel or how this is beyond my wildest dreams. I am beyond honored that my work has not only landed but is to be studied in one of my new beloved homes of Cape Town. You know, you start writing your story and one day, you muster up the courage to share it in hopes that someone will relate and it will help heal them as it is healing you. But it's a whole different game when you begin to get asked for it, when people are seeking it, when people are studying it. It's an inexplicable feeling. I don't have a lot of words right now except for these: I am so blessed. To the students that will be studying my narrative while I fly back halfway across the world: you are who I do this for. It is people like you that keep me going. People like you who, when I stop along my journey and crippling self doubt asks "am I really supposed to be here? what am I really doing? why doesn't my progress look like anyone else's?", it is you that answers. that affirms me. To the culture(s) that raised me: you are who I do this for. To put lil ol' Albania on the map as a place rich in culture and people & let em know we have a story to tell too. To help us find our voices. To my third culture kin: to remind everyone you can be both Albanian & Brooklyn & you don't have to pick your identity. To my beloved friends that have become family: you are who I do this for. for, your endless hypeman antics keep me going. & your incredibly talented spirits keep me inspired & motivated. To my parents: you are who I do this for. Trust & believe. The point is, knowing and staying true to yourself & your journey can get you through anything, and take you to heights you may have never imagined. And I stil can't believe any of it. Because I took off the earth crust and flew. Because I am still landing. Because all the while, my support system keeps my moving spirit grounded. I am in a place of unshakeable peace and happiness as I vow to live my truth wholeheartedly & unapologetically. The power in our stories is something that cannot be measured until it is released. If you asked 3 year old Gesi if she could have ever imagined something like this, she would tilt her head back, releasing an uproar of disbelief and laughter. & then go climb some mountain somewhere. Here's to soaring. Here's to our release, to our healing. Here's to our dreams surpassing themselves. Thank god, thank self for finally becoming who I've wanted to be all along. The woman I'm becoming is scaring me and I'm loving every second of it. All this to say, I am in love. All this to say, how far I am. All this to say, colors in every direction.

November

      how is cape town framed to the foreigner?

      what kinds of tensions are around you right now?

what is your tension?

what are your resistance practices?

      we want to get all our ends of the story

      you are building an archive of perspectives here

      anything i do going forward has to water me back

      you don't break habits; you only replace them

      an era of release

      fears that go unfaced become limits

      and i am letting go to make room for my breathing

we often forget to make room for the things we need most; the things that keep us alive.

we don't think about breathing so we don't make room for it. to change this

#gratitudeistheattitude

      the question is: how do i want to live the rest of my life and what am i doing to insure that i get to do it exactly or as close as possible to how i want that living to be? i want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as i can decently manage, loving all the people i love, and doing as much as i can of the work i still have to do. i am going to write fire until it comes out my ears, my eyes, my nose--everywhere! until it's every breath i breathe. i'm going to go out like a fucking meteor!

      i want to live as shamelessly as possible. i want the full lightness of freedom. i want the orgasmic quality of being who and what i am.

and i want to be enjoyed or left alone. nothing in between.

      words are our timekeepers. our balconies overlooking our lives. our conversations. our merging

      woke up wine drunk and happy. woke up to a joint rolled and ready. woke up to a lover laying next to me. woke up to a cup of tea. woke up at 4 am to the hoxha singing prayers from the mosque. woke up and felt my gramps spirit. woke up and cried in a spiritual experience. woke up and fed my soul. woke up in love. woke up in a tree house. fell asleep & woke up to a new life every time i opened my eyes. two lovers in Bo Kaap

(a short story that reads in both words & pictures, forwards & backwards)

      listening to Hookers on the corner and almost missed my light

·        almost missed my light these past few weeks

·        had to remind/remember who i am and why i am.

      Goddess of Growth

keeps showing up

i welcome her with open arms every time.

      jupiter last travelled through your 9th house from late 2006-7.

what did you learn?

where did you travel?

what did you publish, seek, and find to be true for you then?

what similar growth spurt are you experiencing now?

how is your current exploration, expansion, or learning a continuation of that time?

      everything good and long-lasting requires our effort. yours is needed but whatever you give to yourself at this moment is matched by the universe's benevolence

      the 12th house is also about the work we do behind the scenes, this transit is especially beneficial to anything in its creative incubation. protect it. expand inward with it. watch your inner life for inspiration. keep watching the ways in which your projects take shape when given the right space to safely grow

      bad energy (stay far away)

      keep my shades on cuz they tryna see the vision

      homie said greatness and nothing was the same

      i told him i need some space

real busy body, never stay in one place

      in the past week, a couple of different guys have confessed love/strong feelings for/to me. & along with all the other heavy shit going on around me right now i'm caught in a whirlwind of overwhelming male energy. and so i had to step away for a while. i've had to use the past few weeks to really ground myself. the universe is testing me in the space i'm in right now. there is some overwhelming aggressive negative energies around right now. this is her testing how my grounding is. because i'm still floating. but i had to come back down. she wants to know just how hard i've worked at grounding and healing.

      there's also a lot of new energies around. some of them feel quite destructive. this is her testing how i will react/respond/move accordingly.

      i am just in a space where if you are coming into my life to interrupt or distract me in any way, just stay away. don't come in at all. no interruptions or distractions welcome.

      i enjoy most things. almost everything. yet i have some restless searcher in me. why is there not a discovery in life? something one can lay their hands on and say "this is it". perhaps i've felt it before and haven't known. perhaps i've felt it too many times that it becomes numb and unknown. my depression is a harassed feeling. i'm looking: but that's not it--that's not it. what is it then? and shall i die before i find it? can i live for it? then, as i was walking through rondebosch square last night, i see the mountains in the sky, the great clouds, and the moon which is risen over cape town. i think of how the sun rises over the city & sea and sets behind the mountains & into the sea. i wonder what kind of intimacy that must be. those last few moments of glimmer and light before she tucks away below the horizon into another world. those first few moments when the sky darkens to the moon's light. let's it shine bright. i wonder what kind of intimacy that must be. i have a great and astonishing sense of something there, which is "it". it is not exactly beauty that i mean. it is that the thing is in itself enough; satisfactory; achieved. a sense of my own strangeness walking on the earth is there too: of the infinity oddity of the human position; trotting alone rondebosch square with the moon up there watching over me and the clouds sitting like a tablecloth atop the mountain peaks. who am i, what am i, why am i, and so on: these questions are always floating about in me, and it is only when i am flying that i have a sense of an answer. and then, i bump against some exact fact-- a letter, a person, and come to them with a great sense of freshness. and so it goes on. but on this showing, which is true, i think, i do fairly frequently come upon this "it", and then feel quite at peace.

      you never know what the child's reaction is going to be: either break down or the child emerges solid as a rock from the experience

      he wanted to fuck her once, but that doesn't mean much. that's the laziest desire. a flimsy thing. she wanted her soul sucked clean. she wanted something as tough as god. could not find it among men but hoped still, for the next best thing.

she wanted it to be you.

      i am not in a rush to do anything anymore

      depression is what it sounds like. and beyond. it is a sinking of sorts. it is a darkening. it is a gradual thing but also something that knocks one day and enters without asking. you feel the downward spiral as you bore through the earth of your life, surrounded on all sides by sullen ideas too thick to get out of. that happens slowly and without much effort over the course of what could be months or years. and before you know it, the very shape of your breathing has changed. this is what i know.

but i also know that healing is possible. but it happens slowly and takes twice as much effort. whereas depression feels like a falling, healing is a digging and pulling. it is digging into the deepest parts of your soul so you can finally face them. i forget that it took years to bury myself inside my sorrow and it could take years to climb back up into my light. but that is my time to take. perhaps i'm not ready to break my heart in new ways. and perhaps it will be a while before i'm dancing every day again. but no longer do i shy away from the shadow of where i've been.

i've started dancing almost daily again. tonight, i danced with her, with all this earth around me, tasting every trace of light within me.

      i look for ways to say i love you but i ain't into makin love songs

      i'm findin it hard to settle i want it all forever

      summer in november darling

      what's your november?

      cafes are where i process the world around me

      losing my fucking mind but chilling at the same time

      I shouldn’t bleed this good or often

      all i am is everything and nothing at all

all i am is a shoulder for your heart to lean on

all i am is love

      processing...

slowing down...

      there is a wave of loss and grief coming over the people in my life again. we are all tuned into it and the synchronicity is this overwhelming but also comforting feeling. the universe is trying to teach us something here. about attachment. about letting go. about releasing. about healing. it is an era of release all over again. which is a frequency i've been riding throughout this year, but this time the wave hit me quite hard because the loss is more tangible. but it has gotten me to look at things differently. as my time in south africa slowly draws to a close, i have been thinking about the proper steps to transition myself out of here and back to new york. the difference in cape town is, i don't feel a temporality in it, like i do with every other place i go. i have truly made a home for myself here and it is grounding point just as much as it is a moving/flying point. but maybe this is what i needed. there has been a really aggressive energy surrounding me these past few weeks and maybe this is the doing away of it. can't tell if i'm numb or calm at this point but i'm hoping its the latter. i'll see better in retrospect. but for the time being, maybe this marks the beginning of this era of release. at the end of the day i'm still livin and lovin and everything in between. love & light.

      sun is alone too. still shines.

      i'm most upset about the ideas i lost in that phone. the cape town overheards amongst other shit. art ideas and projects. i am glad though that i'm such a journal freak and that i have scatters of jounrnal thoughts spread in multiple books and online thoughts. but. lesson learned. backing up is extremely important. beyond that, it is a lesson in inspiration, motivation & discipline. which have been themes i've been meditating on a lot lately. inspiration & motivation are everywhere, but they have to find you working. discipline, however is what you gotta build to make leeway for the rest to flow through. an opening of sorts.

      feet hurt today. they are asking me for more grounding.

      the tools you created to survive won't serve you when it's time to thrive

      we create defense mechanisms to shield us against the trauma of our youth but they can be damaging once we are out of those situations & will often lead to self sabotage

      closure doesn't come. there is only an ever-growing distance between then and now. and the old thing is interwoven an overwritten

      the answer is still the same:

you won't get what you want till you work on what you need

      at your best, you are love

you're a positive motivating force in my life

      though this feeling of solitude is familiar, the strength that allows me to embrace it is refreshing and new

      i got angels

      invoking the angels in times of need. for guidance. for protection. you can't move how you've always moved. like everything is just as normal as it used to be. because it just isn't.

recognize how you shift the space of a room when you walk into it. recognize that for who you are. as much as i just want to be normal and move as such the universe keeps showing me that things aren't what they used to be. and how i see myself is not how people see me. and so i gotta move differently. suddenly my identity shifts into this liminal space in a venn diagram between how i see myself and how people see me. and once again, i'm caught in between.

      bottom line is, believe in yourself

      i've got too much love within me to choose being bitter and closed off. i've just got to be more careful and selective with who i dispense my love to.

      i'm sure there's a lesson in all this but it's so hard to keep tuning in cuz i'm so fucking exhausted

      nothing says focus like distance

i know i have something to tend to

tis the season

      [feelings redacted]

      sometimes the universe will take everything away so that all we have left is trust

      making my mother miserable by creating something that will make her proud

      the words may escape us but it is the knowing that matters. It is the knowing that creates our adventure. (harris)

      love yourself so that when love comes it is not a stranger

      do your best, leave the rest

can’t take care of every fucking thing

December

      just read the signs its clear to see

to heal, it takes some time

      woke up in the sky

      harris running through the hall into the door with his hands full of things yelling "where is my girl?!" is a feeling i want to feel forever. so much joy. so much warmth. everything is forgotten except for each other's company.

      my least favorite thing is having to answer to people. i dream of a world where i can live and be myself wholeheartedly and not have to worry about answering to no one. a world where i can disappear for a while and not have to constantly update people. how freeing. how freeing that i am slowly creating this world for myself.

      i aint askin why no more

taking it all if its mine

i never did know how to stay within the lines

only knew how to fly

      bullets that don’t carry the names they take with them

      all this chatter bout movement / tell me something by doin it

      I ain’t been comfortable / that’s bad for the soul

      albums of 2018: flower boy, saturation I II III,

astroworld, kamau's urth,

      finally flipped my perception and got in the drivers seat and driving on my own side at my own pace.

and now i have to leave the space that helped me do this. while also carrying everything it taught me with me

      for the first time in a long time, my heart and soul are in the same space that i occupy physically

      "so who's the lucky man?"

"hahaha nobody. i'm the lucky woman. i belong to myself, first and only."

·        i hate how people assume that happiness and joy and carefreeness is attached to a belonging to a man. fuck that i been making myself happy this whole time.

      all of a sudden, the people i been admiring from afar for years, this year i have been attracting. it's not even a forced or predictable thing. it's a gravitational energy thing. when your energy is right, the right people (some who you would've never thought) come into your life and contribute to it.

      i switched the time zone, but what do i know?

i could fly home with my eyes closed

and you could find me, i ain't hiding

      almost got stuck in oblivion

      exoticism under a microscope

      my soul swollen

my wallet empty

      either way you golden

      GoLD [moving STiLL]

      feeling kamau's energy heavily lately

      our time together was brief but so intense [as everything with me tends to be]

but the energy exchanged there has stayed with me. and continues to show up randomly when i need it most

feeling MuRiN most in times of transition

      i just let it go

we don't ever know

where its gonna go

we go with the flow

we just let it go

i already know

that we're gonna grow

      like the way the world goes round

funny how it all comes down  

      figuring out how to cultivate and encompass longevity

      cuz darling i wake up just to sleep with you

      i hate when people disappoint me. and i don't get disappointed easily.

      it's just like fuck man.

i dropped so many guys for you. cuz you showed me better and then i didn't care for them because they didn't fulfill me the way you did. but i never told you/showed you that part cuz it didn't matter. all that matters is that i showed up for you. time and time again. and you left me hanging. time and time again. now i'm tired. & you're timeless.

      i'm not even mad really. i'm just fuckin sad. like i gotta say bye to all the love i've built here. and the people involved are just making it harder. i don't understand why guys always act up before i leave. i wish they would just fucking be normal so we can enjoy the time we have left fully. instead of, i feel like i always spend the last week or so trying to mend weird energy and arguments so we can part ways on a good foot. but my feet are fucking tired. and so is my heart. i just wish people were as kind and understanding with their love.

and just stop being so fucking petty man. like i get it i'm leaving. but we been knew this. for months. we knew this before we even started things. so why let that stop us now? can't let that end us before we end ourselves. can we just be grown about transitions and departures? can we talk about it? can we communicate our emotions through the process? can we let it be a natural flowing process? can you ask me how i'm doing in the midst of it? instead of disregarding the tough shit and creating more for me to deal with. can we just groove? you see the way we make each other move? fuck all that other noise. at the end of the day, it's just you and me, for as long as can be. until one of us has to leave. until then, can we let that be?

      i'm always leaving. that's always the cut off. i'm always leaving one place and off to another. i wish that didn't always get in the way. i crave a lover who is willing to understand that.

·        the only thing i crave is people that love and understand my moving spirit without trying to change it

      heavy influx of emotions this morning as i work through the growing pains of leaving again.

      gratitude as grounding

      i've got love all over me. written all over me. hanging all over me. wear my love on my sleeve

not the whole heart, but in parts.

to think of all the parts of my heart

the parts that ground. that strengthen. that heal. that love.

imagine that. all in one organ. all flowing through me. relentlessly.

how can i not be in love with life?

      i think it's time to step away from this space to fully understand and contextualize what this all means for me. i have my work cut out for me. i need to understand what this all means for me so i can do the work to bring myself back here. i know now that cape town is part of my journey. it is a home base for me. a grounding point just as much as a moving point

      "make sure you stay soulfully grounded in this transition. and keep your inner compass intact"

      i said greatness

& nothing was the same

      free till i evaporate

my whole body see thru

      been crying every day for the past week. let these tears be the fertilizer for the growth that is about to take place.

loss as a release to make room for the gift of abundance

      2018 has been a year of so much loss/release

i know there is much abundance coming my way that the universe is making room for.

i also know i have to put in the work for it

      "i'm happy for each day that i see you smile. such comfort and a blessing. a good source of strength."

Response/title "i'm trying to feel again"

a whatsapp convo between terrence and his sister

      you already writing the story, might as well a book right? why not?

      same time tomorrow

      overheard: "i pray every day or at least talk to god. and its like i'm always begging for immortality"

      they never bothered to understand me until i understood myself

      they only listen when you speak your soul

they only see you when you see yourself

      break bread with me

better yet, bake bread with me

      we be so worried about how much we need the dough

we forget the little things we need to know

like how to knead the dough

if done properly it won't spread so thin when your people show

      here i am.

i'm grateful for the aura of protection that allows me to explore my creativity and time on this earth. i'm grateful for believing in myself and my own potential. i'm grateful for the love that guides and carries me

      DONT LET ANYONE TELL YOU THAT YOU CANT DO EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT

      all the energy i used to give you

i now give to myself

GODSPEED

      tan lines on my back, my life startin to feel like a special occasion. these past 6 months felt like a vacation. standing between the mountains, the city, and the sea, i finally see myself. i found gesi. now we steady flowing into eternity. when i say we makin waves, i'm talkin wavelengths and vibrations. movement is the only option, never stagnation.

      give me pollination not validation

      you might stop howling & become the moon

      "when we were outside you were all different and more composed. soon as we step in you sit down lean back and say 'yeah bruv whats good? light that shit' and i just think thats really dope"

people often comment on the distinction between my public and private self, but the fact of the matter is that the course of my journey forces me to have the two and balance the two. i can't just be transparently me all the time because there's always people watching. and to leave myself entirely open is to be vulnerable to many energies that can interrupt my own.

navigating public spaces requires a sense of sensitivity and confidence. communication between you and your surroundings is pivotal to feeling like you are allowed to belong. understanding that space can only be accessed through a certain level of moral integrity and not through entitlement or ego. but to also understand your energy is special and not for everyone and then to let that shit g(r)o(w)

      help me understand the responsibility of masculinity

what we lack in father figures

we make up through masculinity

and measure in figures

perpetuating a system that only hurts

you & me

let me teach you how

your vulnerability is a masterpiece

      it's hard to stop my movement when i'm already in motion

      always grinding

/

always grounded

      being true to yourself is nothing short of revolutionary

      special shoutout to mzi for being there for us. for praying for our safety. for loving and caring for us the way he does. he is truly such a special spirit in my life.

      special shoutout to us. me and orjada. me and my sister. we are fucking champs for handling it the way we did. we didn't let go of each other no matter how much they tried to separate us. who knows how things would have turned out if they did. we screamed to the top of our fucking lungs and managed to protect our things and ourselves with minimal damage. our timing was divine. the universe still looked out for us.

i seriously need to tune into what the universe is trying to tell us lately. about loss, release, attachment. about the spaces we find ourselves in. about feeling like we are just normal people leading just normal lives but knowing we are too different for  that to be true. and most of all, about grounding.

shoutout to the way we came home and talked about it till our hearts were sore so we wouldn't let fear and trauma fester.

i hate the way trauma instills a permanent kind of fear. that makes you scared to do anything at all.

it's been so long since i've had to unpack and process trauma. but we've gotten through much worse so i know we can get through this.

      They have nothing of ours. We have everything intact

      all women with sob stories. know trauma. have heard his echos one too many times. i want to scrub him off of her body. want to give her her body back. i wil whisper any hymn to you. what would you like to hear. whisper "he didn't take anything from you" until it becomes yours always. i will sit on shattered glass with you. bleed. we can laugh at all the puzzled poems our trauma can make together. say a thing out loud. ask a stupid question like: can i make a complaint to tinder for letting mold grow on the edges of my homegirl's bed? see the thing is it is not stupid. her body just wont get an answer. if she sees her body growing dirt, we will make soil our friend. we will tend to the growth that needs to take place. pain as fertilizer instead of the dirt itself. all of deforested trees leave roots. so i vow that we will grow something in this waterless patch. become the water ourselves one night and cry, pouring into each other. scream into the sunset that i love you and you didn't deserve it. scream that a man aint anything but a thing that only knows taking. never just talking about a man. never will rush you into another man and never will not smile if you ever let a man touch you again. see how proud i am of you. home girl had the audacity to wear yellow. do you know how brave yellow tastes after blood spills everywhere and you call no one? when i say call me, what i mean is 911 won't come for us. what i mean is i got you. what i mean is we all know emergency, say hello to our bodies. what i mean is turn on blue lights before the sirens come. bruises in place of the absence of blue lights. how our bodies manage to fill voids if the thing itself cannot save us. spill everywhere. i love you all soil and waterfall. yellow and the bleeding. fuck 911 and call me. what i mean is i am sorry. i want his head on my lap. what i mean is i am sorry. i am tired of violence being non negotiable when violence is all we're asked to swallow. i want to hold his mother's hand. i want your smile and you in yellow even if it brings the bleeding. the bleeding wasn't supposed to come for you. the bleeding wasn't supposed to come for you. but it will promise all of the exit. watch the body in its healing. wash the body in its healing. a baptism of sorts. watch. as the body expands until it becomes an exit. an exodus. and now there is a new us eclipsing what once was.

      people don't understand themselves enough to show that to you and you can't take that seriously or personally. gotta leave em and let em grow up on their own

      you ever wake up and remember what you're capable of?

      what you heal with your origin story, you heal in your present and future

      the solstice full moon marks a moment where you get to witness the distance that you've traveled. the marks that your journey has left upon you can now be worn with pride. you earned these tattoos and you've got a tale to tell about them

      it's hard to understand what we're capable of until we risk leaving behind what we've always known

      know i gotta keep it safe

tho i'll never let it lead me stray

same time, keep a sane mind

sane mind keep a safe mine

mine mine, keep it safe

people take, i ain't never seen a sane mine

i ain't ever made sweet

i ain't ever been tamed

& i ain't afraid to let you see my teeth

      too many minds

in these media land mines

we must be careful how we use our imagination

      wonder how i'm always so scared of falling but never of flying

to come to realize

but to fly is to fall when the sky is the floor

      he says / you are so gullible / so naive / so going to take all of this and swallow it / there's no other choice / he says be strong like the woman i know you to be / i never knew how loud he spoke / until i suffocated in his screams / he says there are many women that have raised me / to not just thank my mother / says it takes a village / says there are many ways to raise a child / you musn't be so picky / why do i ask for a number still? / i always let curiosity get the best of me / until its the worst of me / he says he still doesn't know their anniversary / says i dont remember which day she was given to me / give and take all the same / whats a date and a number to a no-name? / he says lets talk about this later / later never comes / i know all too well how these conversations weave and waver till they come undone / he says you know / what my father did to my mother / this is beyond your time / do not call this abuse / you would know abuse if you felt it / i no longer know where the line between a promise and a threat would split / he says we will never split / it's not in our culture / you have no idea what the fathers in this lineage have been through / i watch as he becomes his father now / he is his father now / his father is his father now / his father is his father now / all these missing fathers falling into abandoned parenthood / filling the void of where the word family once stood

      longing seeps in her eyes / in my eyes / longing sweats from the palms / and flies around our stomachs / i drip out extend / i trip out and pretend / that it is all normal / holding memory / hold it right in front of her / longing smiles back / tries to tell me he loves me / i listen to a whisper / i hear nothing / love makes this instead / puddle / drown out a voice that goes unheard of / we never hear it but we swim in it / we swim good

      let's run from / to love like that

like gentle / like too soft

like pure

like walls / full of corners

where we hide / want the kind

of love / of exhaustion

that congests homes / hoards memories

tell me / name it / her

speak her dreams & nightmares

let's run

speak with / sleep with

not hide / run from corners

to love like

like tired / like boil / like spiral / like chaos

into safety

i feel safe in rough / in the midst of your war / in the midst of your arms

love me like this

i like love like this / like fire

and we call no one / let it burn love

this is not toxic / not alarming

just gonna burn these walls to the ground

and we breathe

and we burn

and we love

      maybe they'll recognize my absence. that's the goal. to leave an imprint wherever i go.

      Gotta keep makin waves till the tide brings us back to the cape

      the childhood shows the man / as morning shows the day

      the confusion is a part of it. don't give up on yourself. see it through

      clarity is coming

      processing

...

..

.

braiding

.

..

...

understanding

      regain your privacy

      I want to roam slowly and wildly across the world without embarrassment of my place in it.

      the main thing i recieved this holiday season was a hint of clarity. nothing  changes your life quite like the truth

      in the past year i've grown so much and also gotten so much younger.

this year has taken & added years on my life

      don't need nobody new to miss

already miss so many people

have had to miss so many people cuz i had to dip on so many people

      I remember the night sky after my last day at work. It was a deep Marine Blue. It smelled felt like freshly clothes without dryer sheets, it tasted like freedom, it was bitter and sweet.

I will always remember that blue and that feeling.

-kamau on MuRiN

      we move some things

we shake some things

we from out of town

we don't settle down

but now i own my days

and now i own my ways

      i'd rather be hungry than have a hungry soul

      i hate love but in a crazy way

      you know whats good

so why do you get carried away my love

      just let go of sorrow

like theres no tomorrow

cuz tonight might be your last

so stay up till sunrise

wipe the tears from your eyes

leave it in the past

      why love when its free and does no harm?

      rhythm in the fucking bones

daddies that were never there

and grannies raised the strongest ones

so opposites attract and leave

and heartbroke in my tendencies

      "" she says to me gently while wrapping the khanga around me.

"listening to the ancestors is the first step to wisdom"

whenever i wear the khanga, i feel an invincible cloak of protection. i wore it into the Moroccan cities and desserts. while driving through the driver points out that we're driving through a Berber village. the berber people are nomads. they tend to spread through the mountains and by the sea.

With the Berberi last name in my bloodline, i feel an ancestral pull to this space. it took endless questions and conversations later to uncover their original name isn't Berberi, it's Amazingh.and so the story goes, the romans came in and renamed them Berber as an insinuation of a barbaric people. and so the story goes, these are the same romans that changed my grandfathers last name from Basha to Cinari because the original was too threatening. Basha is a mayoral figure in Berber. There is a ever too frequent history of people trying to colonize native peoples because they feel threatened, and we know that story all too well. But the name remains. Amazingh by the way, means "free people". I come from a free people. what better way to approach closure but with clarity? I come from a free people. of course, i'm such a free spirit. of course, i'm always moving, pulled by the wind, the mountains, and the sea. and i got a sweet spot for a good city. i'm just living in my ancestor's wildest dreams. and so the story goes, i had to go all around the world just to find my ancestors in the mountains. the same mountains that birthed me. i come from a free people and that is the intention i move into everything with accordingly. i am the manifestation of my ancestors wildest imagination. what a blessing to bask in it and tasked with the job of being an echo for it all.

      i met so many cool motherfuckers in cape town

and honestly i'm comin back a cooler motherfucker

because now i understand what is required

      this year

these past few months alone

i saw/met my ancestors

i saw/met myself

i saw so many new parts of myself. healed parts i didn't even know were bruised. tended to all the wounds. got in the dirt. felt the fertilizer. freed myself. grew so much and only got younger. and then understood it runs in my ancestral bloodline. i come from a free people.

i am free.

      been movin through time zones for the past 6 months. so of course when i get back, imma be movin on a different timing. new times call for new movements.

      SICKO MODE is a cape town MOOD. BIG BIG MOOD.

reminds me of every lit as fuck moment/mood/ energy in cape town. daisies, on the way to, we love summer, on the way to. on the way out every night. astroworld. yours truly. waiting room. fiction. lit energy all around. a bunch of cool motherfuckers in a room all grooving to the same energy. all around the world.

cape town was me in SICKO MODE. almost at my prime type energy

      i have to make it back to cape town

      at 21 i went the fuck off

      manifesting everything

      this year will be a creative one. moving in with creative energy

      fuck the money

      if not now, then when?

if not me, then who?

      such an emotional transition when i realize i'm not flying back to cape town. i'm going to new york. i wonder how my energy will be received. how i will be received. how it's going to be to return to the same spaces as a whole new person.

      at least this i know for sure:

i am coming home anew.

i have arrived at myself, and thus, infinity.

      expanding.

everything.

horizons.

hearts.

stomachs.

wings.

      switched up the lens before departure/arrival

      i belong in the place of my departure

&

i belong in the place of my destination

-cristina

      i'm definitely going to miss the open and honest nature of people there.

      khoza told me he loved me that first night. i wonder if he remembers that. or if he even knows he did.

      tando means love

ntando means with love

      practice no don't ever preach

let your practice do the preachin

      feels like the life i need

now feels like the life i needs a lil distant

at least i know what it feels like so i can return to it  

      at departure, we were already preparing for arrival

      to prepare myself for the likely huge wave of depression that may hit me when i realize i'm not in cape town anymore. and the next arrival is unknown.

to do this through discipline. self care practices (yoga once a week at least. exercise once a week at least. writing once a week at least. keep journals on me at all times. keep MY tools on me at all times. pursue projects. keep the good kind of busy not the babson kind of busy. meditate more. take time to yourself. pursue friendships deeper. always. leave the imprint you always do. move quietly but with your own purpose. let your purpose and energy guide you always.)

to process the experience for what it was and be grateful to be so blessed. in processing, to allow myself to re-live. to keep up with cape town. whether it be artists, people, bodies, articles. to surround yourself with love & adventure. to live in the moment and make it worth it while i'm in it.

      BUTTERFLY EFFECT

ending song of cape town times.

for this life i cannot change

drop the top

pop it let it bang

this year is described well as butterfly effect.

      life is just a maze

goin through all my phases

      to touch a tongue that isn't foreign

i can't remember what that feels like  

      up against the wall / we don't need a title

      "you are love"

-mzi

      love on the brain

i experienced so much love in cape town. i was surrounded by it. engulfed in it. and so much of it came from me. an abundance from others as well. and i was being loved in the ways that i needed to be. for the first time in a while. the wind hugged me on that side of the world

and now i can depart with sooo much love on me, in me, coursing through me.

it's always good to have something amazing to part with/say goodbye to.

      can we burn somethin new?

      "and she fuck me and love me all in the same dose"

      moving into a new space with a new rhythm.

the loves i experienced here all had a rhythm.

it is carrying me in the transition.

      there's so much love in the air and that's always appreciated. misery loves company but my pack provides positivity and prosperity

[passionatewayhorsemanshipllc]

IT ALL STARTED WITH A LITTLE CHEESE AND CRACKERS 12-17-18 (page 17)

                                          NOVA’S PROGRESS

I had no idea how long it had been since Nova had been allowed outside of the dungeon. I believed it served as a giant stall and doubled as a turnout equivalent. He had a buddy, so he wasn’t alone. I really could see how there would have been no real reason to move him, being that handling him was a legitimate challenge. The down side to that was his lack of manners ABOUT being led outside of that space. I wasn’t sure if he would take off running, kicking up his heels or come out with the same respect for me as he was learning inside those confines. I admit, I was nervous.

The first time I slid open the doors to allow Nova to come outside, I held the rope with both hands. Not just making sure both hands were on the rope, but even looking down to insure that there wasn't a loop or tangle in the extra line, that could cause me any issue if he bolted out past me. I was prepared for him to forget about me completely.

I slid open the door, stepped outside and stood along the wall safely out of his path. He didn’t wait for me to invite him out, but he didn’t blast out either. I was actually impressed with how cautiously he did step out. I think of some movie where the character opens a curtain on a floor to ceiling window and just allows the sunshine to hit their entire body as if there was an instant “reboot”. I allowed him to walk completely out, tried to stop him, which was my first challenge, but it was important that I turned back to close the door to insure the other horse stayed inside.

Once I finally got enough of a balance on Nova’s desire to leave and my need to head BACK to where he just got to leave, I push the doors back together and hooked them secure. Nova totally forgot all of our lessons. His brain was on being outside of that space and the world he was excited to explore. At first I found myself allowing him to kind of drag me about, perhaps in fear of being seen reestablishing my leadership position. Honestly, at that point in my new “career” I didn’t want to be misunderstood by onlookers and declared “rough”. Unfortunately, Nova was reorganizing his and my pecking order and that just needed to be fixed. I knew that I had enough language with him inside that if I just tried to get his feet busy, as I directed them, he would come around to remembering who I was to him. The fastest way to regain his respect was to actively do some yields of both his hind end and his front end. I was also having to remain keenly aware of how BIG Nova got when he emerged into the world. The horse I was finally connected to inside, was a low headed and responsive guy. The horse that I was meeting outside was easily six inches taller in his head carriage and even seemed inches taller in the wither. Nova grew instantly in his excitement! I didn’t have a fighting chance to try to JUST control Nova’s nose. If I had just pulled on him to try to control his forward motion, I would have started a fight and well, lets face it, Nova was a BIG boy and I was guaranteed to lose. 

I had to get over my fear that someone looking on would misinterpret my actions and just gain respect from Nova again. I took a connected hold of his nose, tipped it slightly in my direction, tipped my head, started to spin the end of the rope, which extended out of my hand by about twelve inches, in a fashion that would resemble a fan. I twirled the rope’s end out beside me, but in short counts I quickly closed in the distance and allowed the popper to make contact with Nova’s rump. Being that Nova was in a new environment, he was more amped up and reactive. Just as his brain registered that the rope made contact with him, he spun around , got right into my space and presented himself at me with his head way up and over mine, and his chest strongly pressed against my pelvic bone. That was definitely confirming for me, that the battering ram chest move was indeed Nova’s signature move. 

I quickly wiggled the rope, which was routine for Nova to respond to, and thankfully he did and backed back off of me. Nova didn’t offer me the full respect of backing a comfortable distance away from me but I was focused on establishing a different element. I again, stepped out, tipping his nose toward me, tilting my head in a cue he should recognize and began swinging the rope again in the fan motion. Nova waited again for me to allow the popper to make contact and again came at me with his signature battering ram chest move. Again I backed him back off. I thought to myself, “Thank goodness I made sure we worked so hard on that backup cue.” Once he was backed back off, but still not a respectful distance away, I stepped back out, tipped his nose, tilted my head, raise my hand off the side of me, but before I could start swinging the rope, Nova stepped off. He did close in the distance between us. He did raise his head up as if to to come over mine, but, he did NOT touch me with his chest! Yay, progress. I did that with him about seven or eight times on that side and then only about five on the other. “OK we’re getting somewhere.” I thought. The trick from there was to move on to something else. To have just stayed there in one spot and drill that exercise over and over would have brought back the battering ram, but for a totally different reason. 

I decided to make the experience worth it to Nova by allowing him to explore, but it would have to be on my terms. I decided to play another game that we had gotten good at inside the dungeon, the mirroring game. That game is when I walk at whatever pace I choose and Nova was expected to mirror my movement. If I walked slow, Nova was to walk slow. If I walked fast Nova was expected to walk fast. If I stopped, yep, you guessed it, Nova was expected to stop. I figured we could explore all over the place, but playing the mirroring game would insure that he was staying in tune to me and my leadership.

I had gone to Nova’s farm for weeks at three days per week. I felt that I had established a good level of respect and control. I believed that Nova was ready to move forward in his education, but being December at that point, I knew that I needed a true, lighted, indoor arena. I spoke with Karen and arranged to have Nova moved to my farm. We set up Nova’s big move for December the fifteenth. 

                                 AND THEY KEPT COMING

I had a few days to prepare for Nova, as well as to insist that the paddock was divided as the farm agreed to do. In the mean time, as I waited for fencing and just getting overall prepared for Nova, I received another call on that ad I ran. I don’t think it was the weekend the ad ran, but the weekend after when I was contacted. It was a family who purchased three horses from the same place. One full blooded Arabian, a registered Half Arab (the other half was a Paint) and another registered Half Arab (the other half was a Shetland Pony). They kind of told me about how they acquired the horses and what was causing them to seek help with the Arab Paint cross. His name was Cowboy. Still to this day I hear the way Larant, the father of the family, would say it… “Cow Booooy” I always thought it was cute, especially in the man’s French accent.  

So Cowboy was apparently bucking people off and they didn’t know what to do. The entire family loved the horses, but really had little experience with horses as a whole. They had hoped to have more bomb proof horses. Since they were a bit novice to breeds, they didn’t recognize that Arabian horses were higher energy, endurance bred horses and that they were not the best choice if they were looking for a steady level headed non-reactive, bombproof leisure trail mount. But, Arabian and Arabian crosses were what they had and they were willing to look for ways to make them workout. After a enjoyable conversation with the Dupree’s, (not their real last name) we agreed to have me work with Cowboy.

Now, the dilemma arose when the Dupree’s said that they did not have a horse trailer to get Cowboy to me. I was new to the area and I did not own a horse trailer either. I contacted the daughter of one of the farm owners and asked her if she would be willing to pick Cowboy up or if she knew someone I could hire. She said that she would help me out for a reasonable fee. I had no idea where Grahamsville was in relation to where I now lived, so I trusted that Jackie (not her real name) would know where to go. Arrangements were made for December fifteenth. Wow, I went from no projects to having two arriving the same day. I had some work to get ready, especially getting the farm owners to commit to dividing that field. Honestly that was my biggest concern because Ritz, Katie and Tyson were a pretty established herd and I didn’t want to mingle training horses with my personal horses. Not because I was being a snob, but because I didn’t want horses fighting and have one of mine get hurt when it could have been avoided. I have a fear of horses fighting. 

See, that horse I spoke of earlier, Hattrick, that I owned when I was twelve, he was kicked in the knee durning a field fight with an Appaloosa named Poncho. That kick took Hattrick’s life. He was put down due the extent of the injury, his knee was shattered. That was one of the most horrible days of my life and it scarred me to this day about horses fighting. I work very hard to match horses up and will pull one, not working out, before anyone gets hurt. So, with that being said, I was becoming a bit insistent with the farm to follow through on dividing the field they said they would gladly divide at the time I signed my lease. 

I was so excited to stand in the middle of my stone dust aisle and look at the opened gates to the two stalls the two new horses would be put in. I was imagining their heads hanging over the gates that acted as stall doors. I cleaned the cobwebs and put shavings in those stalls. Even though there were still days to wait, I was ready. I felt like I did when I was a child and I was planning my clothes for a trip. I wouldn’t just think about what I would bring, oh no, I’d pack my suitcase and set it by the bedroom door all ready to go. I certainly was never known as a procrastinator. I felt the same excitement about these horses coming as I would back then. It was a pretty cool feeling of excitement, anticipation, some worry, but overall thrill. It was starting to happen! I was going to have horses in my barn because people wanted to bring them to me for training. Now, THAT was an unexplainable feeling of pure exhilaration.  

                                   AND THEY CAME TO STAY

It was the big day, December the fifteenth. Jackie met me in the morning and we headed out to Grahmsville. Since I was clueless how to get to the Dupree’s I was certain to have directions all ready. Even if Jackie knew where the town was, she was still going to need directions to the physical address. I hopped in her black Ford truck with a plow on the front and a Kingston two horse trailer in tow.

The directions took us straight out to the highway, Route 17. We did fine for a few miles and then the road began to climb. We were climbing and climbing and then… the truck overheated. “Oh boy, this is not comforting at all.” I thought. Jackie said it was because the plow was not allowing enough air to the engine, but that that was all. We pulled over, popped the hood and waited on the shoulder of the highway as the truck cooled down. I was surprisingly calm when it seemed like I should have been a bit more anxious about not only being late, but because soon there would be a horse on a trailer that might need to pull over and pop it’s hood.

After the truck cooled down, we continued to climb the hill and then finally we hit some fairly level roads. I was relieved about that, for sure. My faith in the trip home being only a “one time stop” was better than a “many time stop”.

Once we arrived at the Dupree’s farm, we were directed up to the barn through a rough dirt drive. Jackie got the trailer all turned around before I hopped out and greeted Larant, his wife Susan and three young children. Larant took us to a paddock with three horses, a cute as a button pony named Hunter, a blood bay Arabian named Stiltz and a pretty black and white horse, who was hiding behind the other two. Of course the one I was there for was hiding and acting “Hard to Catch”. 

Hard to catch he was. Cowboy wanted nothing to do with me or his own owner. I think it took as much as forty-five minutes to catch him. In fact, we needed to get the other two and bring them into the barn to convince Cowboy that he was going to be left out of something if he didn’t let us put a halter on him.

Once Cowboy was caught, the next challenge began… getting him on a trailer. Between getting caught and trailer loading, I knew I had some work to do in the “TRUST” department. 

Once Cowboy was loaded up and we headed out, Jackie told me that she wanted to go back a different way. She said she knew an easier way to get us more directly back to the barn. What did I know? I was completely new to the area. If there were fifteen ways to go, I’d be lucky to learn another way. We still climbed a mountain, but it seemed less continuous than the route we had gone to Cowboy by. I actually really enjoyed the route we took back, it was a very scenic route. I now know the route as Route 44/55. It was less stressful after the overheating, right up until the hairpin turn on the way down. That turn was a doozie of a “switchback”. Otherwise, it really did seem like the better way to go.

After we hit steady flatland, I was more comfortable about how Cowboy was balancing himself inside the trailer. I often think about the fact that the horses are standing as if on a surfboard riding waves wearing a blindfold. The amount of sharp turns and hills to climb and go down tend to make me feel a bit sorry for them.

While the rest of the trip seemed to be flat, I started to take in the scenery. I noticed other farms and took a little mental note of their locations. I had some footwork still to do in getting my name out there, so knowing where other facilities were was important. As we began to slow down for an intersection with a four-way stop, I noticed an interesting barn. The grass was pretty high, and the absence of a sign between two posts, led me to believe the barn was not actively being used. I was oddly drawn to really look at the big barrel roof. I didn’t know what kind of livestock that barn served, it wasn’t a typical pole barn style horse facility, so I think I kind of assumed it was for cattle or dairy. Whatever it was used for in it’s day, it had certainly caught my eye.

Once back to the farm, Jackie drove around the barn, put it in park and got out on a mission. Between overheating and having to “catch” a horse, I think Jackie’s day had been dragged out enough. She opened the side door, took down the ramp. No sooner than I clipped a line on his halter Jackie took down the butt bar. Cowboy backed off the trailer and my first guest had just arrived!!!

A few hours later, Karen pulled her red dully truck, with a black stock trailer, up the main driveway. She pulled around the barn and parked by one of the open doors. Karen was also all business about getting Nova off the trailer and getting on with her day. We quickly unloaded Nova, and before I even took him into the barn, we said our goodbyes and into her truck Karen went. I stood outside the barn, allowing Nova to nibble some grass and watched as the second trailer left my barn that day. 

Nova and I hung outside for a few minutes. We stood at the entrance of the barn until Karen closed the main farm gate and started to make her way out onto route 211. I reached out and touched Nova’s neck and told him that I was glad he was with me and said, “Let me show you to your room, sir.” I turned on my heels to get ready to walk back into the barn with Nova in tow, but before I took my first step, I paused as I took note of how in just a few hours time I had two horses at my new barn to be trained by me! I think the day was such a blur that the opportunity for some grand momentous pause really seemed overrated. The day was basically done and tired was the dominant feeling that I remember most of all. 

[yahoo-shutdown-corner-blog]

Torrey Smith on NFL anthem policy: Makes Kaepernick, Reid look like 'villains'

If the NFL wanted its new policy on the national anthem to make the issue go away, they were mistaken.

The issue of players kneeling to bring attention to social issues was dying down anyway late last season, but ironically the NFL gave it new life in its failed effort to make it disappear.

The NFL said all players on the field for the anthem will have to stand for it, and those who don’t want to stand for the anthem can stay in the locker room. The union isn’t happy about it. Players have spoken out against it. Politicians still found a way to use the entire ordeal to grandstand to their constituents. While 53 percent of NFL viewers said they supported the new policy in a Yahoo Sports/YouGov poll, it kicked up a new wave of criticism for the NFL. 

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One former teammate of Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid said the anthem policy makes the sacrifices of Reid and Kaepernick, who are both unsigned as free agents, “in vain.”

“Not the case” that Kaepernick, Reid were “villains”

Longtime receiver Torrey Smith, who played with Kaepernick and Reid on the San Francisco 49ers when those two kneeled during the anthem, immediately spoke out against the policy when it was passed last week. Smith, who is with the Carolina Panthers now, expanded on his stance after a workout Tuesday.

“I think when you see a reactive policy – and when I say that I mean something that’s done in response to what guys have done in the past – I always think that’s a problem, especially when the message has been changed,” Smith said, according to the Panthers’ transcript. “Guys aren’t against the military. [Kaepernick] originally started it against police brutality. It was never against the military, it was never about the military, but that narrative changed.

“The NFL is trying to do right by donating money to a lot of different causes that are helping people, oppressed areas in our country, underprivileged areas in our country, which is a great thing. But you do that and then you also tell your guys to stand up when they’re protesting when, honestly, I thought it had died off in a lot of different ways. [When] you have the league putting this in, it almost makes it seem like a guy like Kaepernick or Eric Reid – the guys who started it – what they did was in vain, that they were villains. That’s not the case.”

The policy could “stir things up”

It’s undeniable that the narrative got changed — it was particularly stunning how some turned it into the players being against the military, like Smith said — but the story rapidly got out of control for the NFL.

Fearing everyone from a loud minority of disgruntled fans to more mean tweets from President Donald Trump, the NFL passed a policy when it probably would have been better off leaving the issue alone. It didn’t do any good for the league to silence players who were bringing attention to important issues that mattered to them.

Smith commented that the policy could “stir things up,” which is what the NFL thought it was eliminating.

“I think it could stir things up, which is the problem because you’re stirring things up because you’ve been told to be quiet,” Smith said, according to the Panthers. “It could’ve been done together to figure out what we can do to move forward and what would be best for the players. The whole reason guys were protesting was to draw awareness to something. To take that away and be, ‘Hey, don’t do that anymore,’ like you’re anti-American or something like people try to paint – it is very frustrating to continue to see that false narrative.

“You’re going to see reactive things from guys, probably. I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. But if you do it, you see it, it takes away even further from what the message was, which was against police brutality, which evolved to the criminal justice system and a lot of other inequalities that we have in this country. So it’s frustrating to see that the NFL had the opportunity to kind of right the wrongs and change the narrative that’s best for everyone – people who are offended by protests and a league that’s 70 percent African American that understands and lived a lot of these problems that guys are protesting about. So (the NFL) dropped the ball there, but we’ll see where it goes.”

What happens next?

Now the NFL goes into a new chapter of the anthem story, after it has overshadowed the game for two seasons. Perhaps some players will sit out, as journalist Shaun King said was being considered. Perhaps players will come up with a creative way to bring attention to their plight. It might just be that players who stay in the locker room will become the target of scorn from those offended by athletes trying to bring attention to causes like police brutality and racial inequality.

Whatever happens down the road, it’s clear that a significant portion of NFL players weren’t thrilled with the league’s solution to this ongoing saga.

“You’re disappointed but not surprised because, at the end of the day, the league is all about money, it’s a business,” Smith said. “But to try to silence guys when they’re trying to do the right thing for our country, I mean, I really don’t know what to say about it.”

Panthers wide receiver Torrey Smith, shown here with the 49ers in 2016, said he was disappointed in the NFL’s national anthem policy. (AP)

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Frank Schwab is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab

More from Yahoo Sports: • Curry tired of LeBron getting all the credit • The real reason Kyrie missed Game 7 • Jeff Passan: Why the single is vanishing from MLB • Michael Lee: How everything nearly ‘splintered’ for the Warriors

[sarahburness]

What Your Self-Judgment Might Be Trying to Tell You

“Regret is a fair but tough teacher.” ~Brene Brown

A few weeks back, I found myself in the midst of a shame hangover and, like most people, when I’m in that unique internal cavern, self-judgments swoop into my consciousness like a colony of rabid bats in a four-foot tent.

I’ll paint the picture…

There are about two or three boys that have started visiting the houses on my block recently. They hold a rag and a windex bottle, come into every yard, knock on the door, and ask to wash the front doors (most of which are glass). Seems pretty harmless, huh? And, full, vulnerable disclosure here, they were also another ethnicity than I (and I consider myself a woke liberal).

The first time I saw them approaching the houses, I felt mildly perturbed. I didn’t have cash on me. I didn’t want to deal with them. I just wanted to be left alone. I didn’t want to have to tell them “no.” I had just washed that door.

They were around twelve years old, maybe younger, and I could tell they were working up the confidence to come into the yard and ask. It wasn’t easy for them. It was a little painful to watch.

I struggled with being irritated and simultaneously feeling empathy for them. Both uncomfortable. As they made their way into my yard, I told them I had just washed the door, but I noticed the edge in my voice. Something in me felt triggered and I wasn’t quite sure why. I felt a hot beat of shame flush in my cheeks. 

A few days later they returned, and as I answered the door, a boy with big brown eyes tried to get the words out but before he could even finish his sentence, I could feel anger rising in my body.

I was watching it happen, confused. Maybe it was all the years living in a big city and feeling bombarded constantly by people asking for money, asking for help, asking for compassion. Some self-protective part of me was kicking in for absolutely no reason.

I told them no, that I didn’t have cash, and I could hear my voice getting sharper and sharper. I wondered what they saw in that moment—a woman with a sign in her yard professing #lovewins, with a sharp tongue and narrowed eyes, skeptical and cold. I could feel myself tearing inside.

To make up for it, I said,”Maybe next time. Come back later?”

Three days later, they came back. I could see them making their way from down the street and the stories started spinning in my head. Do their parents know their doing this? Just making their way down the block multiple times a week? This is ridiculous. How much are they even charging for this? What a rip off! They are trying to scam us.

My body responded in kind, seamlessly. I could feel my cortisol levels rising. I wondered if this was a clue that I actually might be racist on some level. I’m realizing now, yes, of course I am.

“Excuse me ma’am,” one of them asked again.

Before he could finish, I noticed I was yelling across the yard and transforming into someone I hated. In a second, I was shrill, nasty, and reactive.

“If you want to get business, you probably shouldn’t come back every day,” I heard myself hiss as I jumped up and stomped over to the fence. “Do your parents even know where you are?”

It felt like an out-of-body experience. One self was feeling for these boys watching this lumbering, angry white woman approaching them. One was observing, was sad for what they were seeing, and one part was jumping head first into blame. I have never seen love and fear so clearly demonstrated in my dual personalities I felt so much separation of self.

“Well, you said to come back,” he replied honestly, “at another time.”

Oh crap. He was right, I had told them to come back (to get them to go away), to be left alone. They took me literally.

I realized how much I was shaping in that moment. I was teaching these boys how the world worked, how skeptical people are of other’s motivations (particularly people of their ethnicity), how nasty people can become for no apparent reason.

I was professing love on my yard signs and teaching them about fear. They saw me in my yard, lovingly interacting in my toddler and then treating them like their hearts were disposable.

I watched them walk away, wondering what they were muttering, as the shame cloak washed over me. For the next hour, I sat with my toddler son watching Horton Hears a Who. I was feeling so down I couldn’t even be present except to the message.

“A person is a person no matter how small.”

The self-judgments were getting darker and darker.  

You are a fraud.

You fool. You are a racist.

You are deep down a rotting mess.

You are a nasty b*tch. That is who you are really are.

And with each word, I sunk lower and lower in the cavern.

Until I took a moment to remember something important about self-judgments.

They can actually be a good thing, as long as you don’t take them literally. They are a sign of regret.

“Regret is a fair but tough teacher.” ~Brene Brown

I regretted that situation because my fear-based actions were so out of alignment with what my deeper self desired. I wanted to take care of those boys. I wanted them to feel seen and valued, but fear stepped in and I created the opposite effect.

Self-judgments can tell us where we are out of alignment with deeper self and our intuitive responses.

I think of all the times love has told me what to do, has urged me toward compassionate action, toward mercy, toward lifting others up, and how often my fear steps in and death chokes it to the ground by reasoning it away. Each time, self-judgment promptly followed. Each of those instances is teaching me more and more how to listen to that intuitive voice before listening to the screams of fear.

Our deeper self whispers, and our fear screams, so it makes sense that it wins a lot of the time. If we continue to ignore those whispers, however, our deeper self will try to get our attention through the channels of self-judgment.

Yes, I have parts of me that are certainly nasty and rotten, and I am realizing, also racist. I also know these do not define who I am capable of becoming. They are expressions of fear and, just like every other human, I am capable of using them to defend myself when I am triggered. The more I recognize that impulse, the more choice I have to act in love.

The deeper self will scream (and use your own past wounds against you)  if that is the only way to get you to pay attention. The mistake I initially made was that I was taking the self-judgments literally, and as truth,  instead of decoding their messages.

“If the self-judgments aren’t literal, what might my deeper self be trying to say?” I asked myself.

When I looked underneath all of the judgments, I could see that I was afraid if I kept acting that way toward people that I would be a part of everything I hated about the world right now.

Underneath that fear was a request from my deeper self to start to choose loving and compassionate responses as much as I could, to be brave, to take responsibility for what is happening in this world right now, to get better.

I am sick and tired of betraying myself all the time. I am so sick of letting fear run the game of my life, keeping me separated from other people. I am committed to love winning inside of me more and more.

I can’t promise perfection. I can’t promise I won’t be triggered by a whole bunch of past conditioning and crap, but I can promise to try to get better each time, and to create a plan for what I am going to do get better, to create the world I want to live in.

For now, I’m keeping cash in my drawer, hoping those boys come back. If they do, I’m inviting them into the yard, introducing them to my son, asking their names, and thanking them for their help. I’m going to show them that people can love them without knowing them yet.

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About Beth Clayton

Beth Clayton is a TedX speaker, lifestyle coach and owner of Soul Body Life. She helps people cut the mind chatter to release from outdated belief systems and past pain so they can connect with their intuition and accelerate momentum in their lives. You can check her out at www.soulbodylife.com and get her free e-book, "The Secrets in Your Sabotage" at http://bit.ly/2rnJkWf.

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from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/what-your-self-judgment-might-be-trying-to-tell-you/

[nyansense-the-nyanbinary]

#usually the sky doing Something#today it was the sunlight coming through the window and shining through the mini bottle of fireball I got in my stocking last night#and then left on the counter#'sunlight exists' is GENERALLY! NOT! so ephemeral as specific lighting and color in for example the sky in the evening#which keeps changing very quickly#but in this case the sun went behind a cloud and then I looked out the window and it was completely overcast 😭#life painting is not a reactive game I fear#terrible news for my adhd ass#like the good news about 'sunlight coming through at an angle' is that the sun's gonna be at that angle for awhile yet#so I could try again a different day if it's sunnier#bad news is now we're talking about Planning Ahead and then Following Through and oooouuughhhh#about me

ops tags

SOBBING CRYING THROWING UP

yeah...,,the fucking struggles

problem with wanting to paint-- even in a sketchbook you try to carry with you all the time-- is that SO often the thing that specifically makes me go 'ooohh maybe I should paint that' is a lighting condition that has changed completely by the time I can even finish retrieving my supplies from my bag