Category Archives: reality

Real Life is Lifing…

Books, bookworm, Corona Virus, family, health, life, music, nature, Pandemic, podcasts, reality, self love

As the kids would say…

And I’m officially living a life that’s more real than anything I’ve encountered so far. I’m journaling more than usual, remembering my dreams less but still listening to music all the time. I finished a book (The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry) I didn’t expect to read a few days ago, a book I would never have read if not for my childhood TV fave, Claire Danes. It’s strange how one can escape the pain and confusion of present day in the pain and confusion of a bygone era. It’s safer I guess. The book is written. Based on the Apple TV series I already knew pretty much where the story was headed and what it was really about.

My husband and I closed on our first home the beginning of 2022. My mom moved in with us a few weeks ago and is settling in nicely. I find myself in a new position of caretaker and personal shopper, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it or even if it’s important how I feel. I just do. Because I have to. It does feel very satisfying when I can find things from my mom that she wants and needs. I’ve mostly gotten over that feeling of panic I get when I feel like I’m going to disappoint. Because I never want to disappoint anyone I love or even like. But I’m the hardest on myself when I “fail” myself. My husband is just the greatest with me. He really is. And for him, because he is patient and tolerant and endlessly helpful with me, I try harder not to be an a-hole. I try to temper my dripping sarcasm which is just compensation for being lousy with uncertainty and fear of facing the unknown.

I still have a weird hybrid work schedule that allows for some flexibility I really am grateful for. The world is in a tailspin of denial about Covid and it’s variants, the cost of which will not show up in concrete numbers until the Winter. And generally the country/world is up against the threat of an urgent climate emergency, unprocessed collective trauma, mass shootings, and an effort to back pedal into the dark ages to name just a fraction of our collective challenges.

Unmasked white men ask if they can “squeeze in” between me and others during daily commutes and I feel assaulted in a way unsolicited requests to smile from street strangers never have.

I made a list of things yesterday that ground me. Things I didn’t have to think about but which I know I enlist to immediately bring me to some center, peace and a sense of stability.

Music – It’s magic still works on me the same as it has since I was a girl. And there’s always more to discover. I will never hear it all and that fact baths me in relief and soothing, excitement and inspiration. Music is the free thing that contains an endless multitude of worlds and universes to access and they can lead you to places within that cannot be discovered any other way.

Skincare -In the morning but more so at night when I’m unwinding, my skincare routine continues to be the thing I do no matter what is happening in my head. It is the constant daily ritual I never skip. I’m usually playing music while I go through my steps. It’s probably the only time in my day when I’m fully conscious that I’m caring for myself and myself is grateful for it. An excuse to touch, wash, cleanse, exfoliate, rinse, massage, slather and apply to my skin lovingly, gently.

Reading -I used to be an avid bookworm. Reading was my first love, my first teacher outside of my parental instruction. Much like music, it helped me to escape, to discover, to understand, to broaden my understanding of differences, to travel and explore, to connect. I haven’t been reading in print anywhere near as much as I used to but while reading “The Essex Serpent,” I was surprised to remember how easy it is for me to disappear and forget the world outside while entering a strange, raw, muddy, foggy, tough but beautiful coastal landscape in the Victorian age. To be able to disappear into a book. I haven’t done it in a while, let alone in a book by a writer outside of my small cannon of favorite writers. And I needed it like a shapeshifter forced to remain in one version of itself for too long.

WTF with Marc Maron-I love listening to podcasts, and there are several that I love but none that I’ve listened to as long as WTF. Maron is raw. Maron is funny. He’s got problems and knows it and doesn’t pretend to something he’s not. He lays it all out and I continue to appreciate that. I root for his happiness even though he’s not good at being happy. He shares so much personally with his audience that it’s hard not to feel like we know him intimately. He’s taken care of cats most of his life and the two that remain with him play such a defining role in his life that they spill over into his show merchandise and comedy tour branding. Sometimes I’ll just listen to his opening monologue if I’m not interested in the person he’s interviewing because I just like hearing his take on things, even if I don’t agree. I’ve been listening to him ceaselessly for over a decade as my love of other podcasts come and go. I don’t like to think about what life will be like when he’s gone.

Water– Being in it, walking beside it, listening to it, seeing it. Seeing bodies of water is always a blessing to me. Water is a great rejuvenator for me. A powerful element of yielding, submerging and force. Hypnotic, mysterious, awe inspiring and sensual. My dream home includes a deep old copper or porcelain tub in a wet room with a skylight or a high landscape window letting in natural light. It also includes an outdoor path leading to a wide lake or beach. Water instantly takes me to peace. I don’t need to try to find it. It’s just there.

Cats- My cat can make me smile through just about anything. Me and my husband rarely fight or argue but when we have, it’s the cat that we lay down our disagreements for. The cat doesn’t give a shit what we’re arguing about. Watching my cat watch the world, clean himself, eat, drink from the tub faucet, meow at me, stretch, sleep, make biscuits, sit in my lap and a million other little things does wonders for my blood pressure. If he’s okay, I feel better about myself, about life in general. Brushing him. petting him, sparring with him, talking to him, brings me back to center, to purpose. He has his own inner world, motivations, irritations and things that sooth him which I will never understand. Cats are charming weirdos and I enjoy the routine and stability he has provided in our lives and the way my husband and I share time with him.

Nature– The difference between being depressed and looking at the view of the side of another building across the way vs. sky high pine trees in the yard is huge to me. Huge. walking through Isham Park every week during the Covid shut down saved me from total despair and engulfed me with hope and regeneration I needed to get through the pain of isolation and languishing.

I made this list of things I engage with often, if not daily as a way to keep things in perspective and also to remind myself that there’s so much to be grateful for as I navigate a path that for me is still unstable and unknown. Home ownership, aging, caretaking, budget managing, “adulting” and more is some real ass shit. Something always get’s missed, dropped, forgotten. God bless people who do this with children.

Who Run the World?

black women, patriarchy, reality, women, , , ,

My commute to work is not very long at all. Twenty minutes, maybe thirty if there are service delays. So this morning while I was immersed in the world of “Americanah” I got a little sad when I looked up and saw that I was already at my stop.

I had been listening to “Run the World” and “Superpower” on my phone while reading Ifemelu’s blog post on “Why Dark-Shinned Black Women–Both American and Non-American–Love Barack Obama.” I was still remembering the amazing time I had last night at Open Expression in Harlem. The feature, a powerful and giving woman, Naa Akua who was accompanied by two others, “Royalty” and “A Lyric” who sang a song about beautiful dark and cinnamon skin and invited us all to join in was still coursing through my memory. The second to last Thursday of every month for over two years now, we have come together to share and create and be inspired by our own worlds.

I remember raging against Beyonce’s audacity with everyone else when “Run the World” came out. I was tired of hearing women referred to as girls. Plus which, I thought it strange to assert something that to me was obviously a lie when we know who really runs the world.

But…ahem

I had never really listened to the song.

I ADMIT IT! OKAY? This was before my full on Beyonce love and appreciation.

But one evening this week I was playing Pandora on my stereo (I don’t listen to the radio anymore) and when “Run the World” came blasting on I stood at full attention. And I was up and dancing and totally elated, a reaction that has become very familiar to me with regard to many Beyonce songs. I don’t even think about it. I’m just up! When it was done, I bought it on iTunes. Heard it, believed in it, needed it on my life.

Needed it in my life!

And I thought to myself while listening to it, aren’t we supposed to act as if in this world if it’s not the way we need it to be?White people create their own realities constantly, without even being aware of it. They play their reality like a perpetual number one hit song, pumping it into the veins of the masses, which is how indoctrination works. It is not the sharing of any truth with the sacred intent of enlightenment and movement but a force feeding of falsities, and fabrications for the purpose of control.

In “Run The World” Beyonce is celebrating achievements made and yet to be made by girls and saying, fuck a day when! We run this now! How else will little Black and Brown babies believe if there isn’t someone out there powerful enough to sing their praises so everyone can hear it the way A Lyric did last night? My mom ran my world. And damned if mothers don’t run our worlds as children period! I mean, what if Beyonce is right? I think she is. I think that perhaps the reason why it’s so hard for us as women to believe it when someone tells us we run shit is because we don’t even understand our own power. We say it’s a man’s world because that’s what patriarchy requires us to do in order to reap empty promises. And we fall in line.

You know that old “Behind every great man…” line right? Everybody does. It’s meant to make women feel revered and recognized about being behind the scenes and never really being seen. “Yes, he was a great man but he would not have been anything without this great woman behind him.”

Well if women are so powerful behind the scenes, what would happen if we stepped out front? Oh that’s right. We would get torn down and ripped to shreds by other women, the women who still behave unconsciously on behalf of white male, patriarchy that is. That little white man dancing invisibly in our heads will never give us what we need. We have to create what we need for ourselves. But first we have to know what that need truly is. Figuring out what we need as women of color in this world is a journey, a work in progress which is changing the world with every passing minute.