Bring On The Moments (or Fuck it! I'm Happy.)

We can be happy this year by saying “Fuck it! I’m happy.”

I know. Not my usual sunshine and flowers. But since life decidedly isn’t just sunshine and flowers, why not? People wonder why I am so positive. Some people think I’m too happy. I recently got “So how come you can still smile?” after telling a friend about some recent developments in my life. I shrugged in response at the time, but I’ll attempt to answer the question now.

My life has many facets: I am pursuing my dreams, exploring my creativity and totally living. Life sucks balls often enough, but while the crap is happening I’m still doing me. And it’s not that I’m ignoring the difficult parts of life, the anger and tears. I give them their time too and believe me I experience them just as fully. I simply don’t see the need to dwell on them every minute of every day. When I feel the less pleasant feelings, I feel them. When I don’t feel them, I let them go. And fortunately I manage to get through a fair portion of my day not feeling the negative.

At this moment I’m happy. At this moment I’m sad. I’m not going to let the first moment tarnish the sanctity of the second or vice versa. There’s no need to temper my sadness by trying to convince myself I’m happy. There’s no need to temper my happiness by convincing myself that things aren’t great. I know things aren’t great, but you know what? Fuck that! I’m still going to allow myself to be happy! My sadness and anger had their fair allotment of time today. It’s joy’s turn to visit.

So welcome 2011! I hope you enjoy your little trek through my life. I hope to be here a lot longer than you are, so enjoy me while you can. Bring on the moments!

(Photo by Kelene Blake: Pensive, 1946 by Elizabeth Catlett, United States/Mexico, James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Morgan State University)

Sole on the Staircase

I can only imagine the rush she must have been in, the woman who left this artifact on a New York subway staircase. The sole of her shoe came off, but she kept going, leaving her sole behind. I know that in reality it may not have been a very romantic scene, more likely a disturbing one, but it just makes me think – sometimes it’s good to just keep going, even when you’ve left your sole on the staircase.

We sometimes move forward in life as though we’re walking under water against an undercurrent, engulfed in resistance. We make our way onward and things get torn from us. But we forge on, leaving the dead weight behind. It’s not easy leaving some of these things behind. Just as leaving the sole of her shoe behind almost definitely made walking more difficult, sometimes what we are forced to let go of in life can make it difficult to move forward. But we learn to adjust our gait, develop new patterns for ourselves and move on.

The sole on the staircase is a reminder of the parts of ourselves that have been torn from us, that we’ve had to let go as we push forward. Even if we feel like we’ve left our very soul behind on the staircase of life, we keep walking. We grow. We move on.

(Photo by Kelene Blake)

People Who Do Not Read

“A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.” Erica Jong

There are people who do not read? There are people who do not read! It is not that they cannot read, they just do not read. They exist! I’ve met some. It is strange to me because I love books. I have always dreamt of building myself a vast library of good reading to last a lifetime. Reading a good book is one of the events that make life beautiful.

Literacy is a gift so powerful that it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write. Why? So that the slaves would remain in a state of mental slavery, the basis of submission to physical slavery. Reading, writing, expression and knowledge – these are keys to expanding and freeing the mind, and where the mind goes the body follows. Why is it that tyrants, dictators and oppressors burning books is a theme repeated so often in history? Because reading opens people up to ideas, helps people to experience in their imaginations and emotions a world outside of their own. Freedom of thought and imagination does not suit an oppressor’s intentions.

We live in a fast advancing technological world and there are far more sources of entertainment now than ever before in human history. Stories are beautifully told on film all the time, in a far shorter time than it would take to read the book. Yet Erica Jong poses an excellent point. Whereas we simply sit and take in a film, the act of reading is not passive and that is what gives the book its power. We think while we read. We enter the story with our minds, interpret, create our own mental film to tell the story to ourselves. We are not watching the director’s interpretation of the story – we are developing our own interpretation and directing our own images of the scenes.

I feel pity for people who do not read. It is one thing to not be able to read. It is another thing to not be interested. It is like a treasure in a cardboard box sitting in the middle of the room. There are those who cannot get into the room and therefore they cannot find the treasure. But there are those who live in the room, see the treasure box right in front of them, but simply have no interest in opening the box to enjoy what is inside because the box isn’t flashy. It seems like self-imposed mental slavery. I think maybe they were unfortunate enough to not have discovered any truly good books at a young age, and that is why they have no interest in reading. All I can say is that it is a pity, non-readers are really missing out.

(Photo by Kelene Blake: The bookshelf that started it all...The bookshelf I had growing up.)

Shrinking Tercets

Swirling
By Kelene Blake

I walk through scattered pieces of love
Swirling around my feet like autumn leaves
Swirling like sadness as I wade through my pain.

Love
Leaves
Pain

What’s to be done with the seasons of life?
Chilly Decembers melt into soggy Marches.
Time’s changes flow ever onward.

Life
Marches
Onward

One day the tears will stop
And leave my eyes clear for looking
At the summer sun whenever it comes back.

Stop
Looking
Back

I had the task of creating my own verse form in poetry, complete with rules and example, as an assignment given by my professor M.K. Asante Jr. It's the second time I've created my own verse form. Tell me what you think about my "Shrinking Tercets"


Rules
i.) The poem is made from an even number of tercets (3 line stanzas) with 2 being the minimum.
ii.) Each pair of stanzas work together as a tercet pair and can stand alone as a single poem.
iii.) The end words of the first stanza of a tercet pair makes up the entire 3-word second stanza of the pair.
iv.) The three words of the second stanza of the tercet pair remain unchanged and must be used in the same order as the end words of the previous stanza.
v.) If there is more than one tercet pair, each must be able to stand alone as an independent poem as well as fit cohesively with the other tercet pairs of the poem.
vi.) When there is more than one tercet pair the even stanzas (3-word stanzas) should be able to be pulled out to make an independent poem.
vii.) The even stanzas are unpunctuated.
viii.) Rhyming is not required.

(Image: Artwork by Trinbagonian artist Lauralin Maynard)

Stumbling Upon The Words

It is exhilarating when your heart stumbles upon the words that express its longing. I have found my heart's prayer. This prayer was in the program of a Thanksgiving service held by the various congregations in Roland Park, Maryland. I think it is a beautiful prayer, full of imagery and wisdom. I thought I would share:

Native American Prayer

Oh, Great Spirit
Whose voice I hear in the winds,
And whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear me, I am small and weak,
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold
the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have
made and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the things
you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have
hidden in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother,
but to fight* my greatest enemy - myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my Spirit may come to you without shame.


(translated by Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887)

*In my own personal version of this prayer I figured I'd much rather "master" myself than "fight" myself.

(Photo by Kelene Blake)

Imprints on Concrete

There’s a phenomenon I notice each fall. Sometimes a leaf will make its imprint on the concrete. Concrete is a most impersonal surface. It is cold, hard, and once it has set, you cannot make a footprint in it. Yet somehow these fragile leaves manage to make an imprint, letting the world know they’ve been there long after they’re gone.

Autumn and the other three seasons are new to me. I grew up with Dry Season, Rainy Season and Petit Careme (a little dry spell during rainy season). In Trinidad and Tobago, if a tree’s leaves turn brown and fall off it’s because that tree is dead, and it’s not going to come back to life in a few months, or ever.

But here the trees go through this annual purging where all the impurities of the tree are stored in the leaves which then fall off, giving the tree a clean start. Yet it is the impurities that give the autumn leaves their bold vibrant colors. And it is the impurities that leave the imprint on the concrete.

We are like autumn leaves. Life isn’t perfect. It is the hardships, the impurities, that make us strong, bold, colorful. Without a struggle we cannot build strength. It is the impurities that give us what we need to make an imprint in the cold hard concrete. The imperfections in life and the imperfections in us give us the material we need to make our imprint in this cold hard world.

(Photo by Kelene Blake)

All The Pretty Flowers

I am the kind of person who chases butterflies, or boulder-hops across a river to take a picture of a flower (specifically the flower in this picture), or stops to let a squirrel cross the pathway ahead of me. I love nature’s beauty and soak in its energy. People are sometimes surprised that I take time to appreciate “the little things.” They say “Aww, that’s nice.”

I say it is more than nice, it is necessary to appreciate “the little things.” Your world consists of what you focus on. You choose what to include in your view and what to ignore – thus expanding or narrowing your world. If you focus only on those things right before your eyes; that project, that bill, that incident, that goal, you narrow your world, and the narrower your world the more easily it can topple and fall apart.

If however you look up and out, you see the beauty and life that surrounds you, you marvel at the pretty flower growing through the cracks in the concrete (they’re usually called weeds), you take pleasure in the warmth of the sunshine, or the clean coolness you feel passing under a tree, you expand your world. You allow all these mundane “little things” to renew you and keep things in context. After all, when the big things feel like they’re all going to hell in a hand basket, sometimes the little things are all we have that we can smile about. So even if that project deadline is fast approaching and that bill sits on the counter unpaid, it doesn’t stop that butterfly from being pretty. Life continues on in all its splendor, and so will you.

(Photo by Kelene Blake)