Challenge Day 7: Stolen Depth

Stole this from my friend Tuggy's Facebook status. It rings oh so true:

"I am always pesting my momz...when will i find the right girl...i would cry and moan and mope about it..so momz sat me down one day and said, "dont worry about finding the right person..concentrate on being the right man"

Challenge Day 6: A Praying Human

Psalm 132:1. Lord, remember David and all his afflictions.

Somebody prayed last night. Actually, several hundred thousand thousand somebodies prayed last night. And the night before, and the night before that. And even right now. Somebody's praying. All kinds of people - fat ones, skinny ones, brown ones, black ones, big ones, little ones ... they're all praying. And for nine out of ten of them, it's a prayer of desperation. It's an I-can't-see-a-way-out-of-this-mess prayer, and a God-if-you're-there-you-need-to-answer-quick prayer. For some, the prayer is summed up in one word: help.

What is it about trouble that makes us drop to our knees and mutter words into the air, hoping, believing that somebody somewhere up there is listening and ready to help us? How does faith suddenly rise in the human soul when we're at our last, like we've been programmed to never see the end as the end. We always hope there is a way out. And there usually is.

I prayed last night. I prayed with David as I read his seven profound words. I read them and wept. And then prayed 'em like my life depended on 'em. And maybe it did. Because I have so many afflictions. And they seem to grow more each day. I feel like I'm at the end of a very long season, a very hard season - a really trying time. And I've tried to look cute, and I've tried to smile. But I couldn't hide this one. I couldn't hide this one. I walked around for days as a brittle frame, praying and hoping that no one would touch me. Begging God to let people see me and suddenly be blind. I was brittle. Brittle. Just about as breakable as you can be. And if anyone touched me, if anyone so much as looked at me too hard, I might have fallen apart right there.

No one touched me. I made it home in one piece. But as I sat down, as I threw down my handbag and dropped my butt in the chair - a little too heavily, I'd forgotten how brittle I was - I fell apart. Butt cheeks didn't hit the seat before the first tear splatted on the floor. And then came the rains.

Why can't I cry like this before people?? Why, in this, my realest, least pretentious hour, do I feel the need to hide? Why do I feel guilty and ashamed? Like I'm not ever supposed to be like this?? Don't they know I'm supposed to be human? Don't they know I'm supposed to have faults and fears and make mistakes? Don't they know that since Adam bit into that apple and defied God, it's been part of my genetic makeup?? Don't they know I'm human too?

Don't I know I'm human too?

Challenge Day 5: The Thoughts I Hid During Haiti's Crisis

But when sun sets

When lights are turned out

Who will be there for us?

Who will be there for Haiti?

I was reading a blog post written by one of my former university lecturers on the plight in Haiti. He was asking a very fundamental and provocative question: did CARICOM arrive in Haiti after the earthquake incident, or were they already there? When I first read the title, I didn't understand fully what he meant. And after reading the entire thing, maybe I still don't. But I was left with this haunting feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. Something ominous and foreboding. I had questions of my own.

Like this rush to Haiti's assistance. Where in us, in the human continuum of emotions and realisations, did it spring from? Where did it come from? Everybody has been speaking about how the tragedy that hit Haiti has opened in us this small window of light, this flicker of hope that the human race will always rise triumphantly, in times when it is needed most, to prove our sovereignty above lesser creations. To fully utilise those emotions that distinguish us from mere brute beasts and elements of nature. Over the last couple of weeks, it would seem that we all tapped into our deeper selves, and found that supreme, intangible substance that propels people to act in the midst of a crisis. We found in us a treasure and wellspring, they say, of love.

But I'm not certain I accept that. Haiti was a country born from indomitability. They refused to be silenced, refused to be oppressed, fought long and hard for a freedom that has come with many costs just and unjust (not that justice is not a very subjective word dependent on many subtle lines of delineation). In Haiti's history, there has always been evidence of a handing 'down' of this 'supreme emotion'. And not just Haiti, but certain African countries like Somalia, and Asian countries like Indonesia, have felt this supreme emotion at work.

The restoration of Haiti is once again being celebrated as a cause to champion. How soon before they are left alone? How soon before they are jilted by the suitors who've come to be their knights in shining armour? How soon before that fairy tale evaporates?

I want to see the aid and relief efforts continue long after the media has gone. I want different organisations to be there, assisting, helping, giving hope, when the rest of the world has turned its eyes from Haiti and looks elsewhere. Only then will I be convinced that this overwhelming outpouring from all directions is not just a prick of guilty conscience, nicely veiled condescension and empathy, sympathy birthed out of pity. But is actually that supreme emotion that looks at Haiti as a pearl in need of care long after the rewards of doing so have gone. Especially from CARICOM and Caribbean nations. Haiti has known this feeling before. They have already walked this road with suitors in their choicest robes, tempting them, caressing and cajoling them with their finest wares - in the limelight, before the crowd. But when the sun sets, and when the lights are turned out, who will be there for Haiti? Who will still see her black face and exalt her as a cherub of great price?? Who will value her then? Is this outpouring just pity? Or is it love? And don't we need the latter?

Challenge Day 4: The Year I Wrote Again (Pt 1)

Disclaimer: What I'm about to say may not come out right, because it is still somewhat mixed up in my mind. I am only now just getting back to the place where I can write from the clarity of my mind ... or at least sound like it. And I must wait patiently while I work up the will to get back there. Because it takes a while, and it takes effort, and practise. But I want to get back there.

Or do I?

Do I want to sound like I've already figured everything out, and nothing is a mystery, and nothing boggles me, and I have very clear, solid and concrete views on everything? Because at this point in my life, that may be a lie. It may not be true. I've come to a place - this place of epiphany - where I realise that I do not have all the answers, and I do not know everything. In fact, there are many things - many, many things - that I do not know, and may never find out. I don't ever feel like I know enough.

So this that I'm about to say may not come out right. It may be contradictory. To some, it may not make any sense. To others, it may not be a sensible thing to say. It may be wrong, very wrong. I may be wrong. But I think I still want to say it, because, if I'm wrong - when I'm wrong - it doesn't bother me as much anymore. Maybe that means a lowering of the standards I've set for myself? Maybe that means a new realisation of my own human-ness and fallibility. Maybe that means increased stupidity ... I don't know. But. When I'm wrong, I've learnt that, if it doesn't kill me, I can live with it ...

Challenge Day 3: The Deep Things Of Life

Live fast
Die young
Have a beautiful corpse...

...would seem to be the mantra of my -and successive- generations.

Live.Fast >> for time is short and you won't be here forever. Get what you can while you can and enjoy 'it' as much as possible. Impatience is a virtue. Go fast. Very fast. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow, we die... Tomorrow, we... >>

Die.Young >> Each year, millions of youth and children stare death in the face and do not live to tell the tale. Their lives are snuffed out in a variety of ways, for a variety of reasons. It was just yesterday at work that I heard one of my coworkers declare that he had no problem blowing all his money at a bar in one go, especially considering that he doesn't expect to live forever. When did not living forever become reason enough to live foolishly? Since when does short time give us leeway to squander what precious little we have on transient, meaningless things? We've become vain - this generation of mine - preoccupied with the material and physical. God forbid we should get old and shrivelly. Let's die early and ... >>

Have.A.Beautiful.Corpse>> But what does it matter how my corpse looks if I'm dead? Especially if I'm dead without a lasting, positive legacy? Dead having made no meaningful contribution to society? Dead, as in as useless as I was the day I was born? And isn't our world already overrun by beautiful corpses - the walking dead. The millions of people who traverse this earth in a tragically comatose, sleep-waking state of nothingness... long ago checked out. The living dead. Ghosts among us. No fast life for them. Sadly, no life at all.

I'd rather
Live slow
Die old
And have an ugly corpse
For with each wrinkle
Will be a story
Each line will testify
That here lies a woman who lived -
Who really, really lived
Until the day she died.

May our hearts rest in peace ...

Challenge Day 2: Hot chocolate, please

Another panacea.
A beverage like no other.
It makes me happy.

I like hot chocolate.
Especially the real country kind.

I go home.
I sit.
And I sip.
I take deep breaths.
I smile.
And let that sweet, milky warmth saturate my insides.

Hot chocolate, anyone?

Challenge Day 1: Random Growth And Goals

It's the end of an era. The end of a decade. The closing of a chapter of my life.

I can't say I want to look back. I've developed the habit of trying to not looking back so much as I try to look forward ... eagerly anticipating the next now.

I've listed as my interests:
1) Life
2) Journalism
3) Authoring at least one great work before I die
4) Effecting at least one lasting change in my country/region's development

I'm interested in life. Curious to see and know more about this world. I'm a resident of this universe. I want to know it and feel it in every vein and every cell.

I'm interested in journalism. I want to know the truth. So I can share the truth. So we can effect change based on facts. Not erroneous perceptions.

I want to author at least one great work before I die. I love writing. I was born to write. I could easily write all day long. Everyday. I enjoy writing. It's my first love and deepest passion. Then comes reading.

I believe laughter is medicine. I laugh a LOT!

I know love makes the world go round.

I see life as a cycle of stories ... Some day, I'll expound. Look out for my first novel.

I'm such a romantic sometimes (in terms of outlook on life).

I. Literally. Scare. Myself. Sometimes.

I have a friend who writes blog entries straight from her imagination. She writes about what she wants to see as if it were in the past tense. And then she asks the universe to deliver...

I'm tired of waiting. I want to go and I want to GO NOW!!

PS I've been on Blogger for 5 years. I never noticed till I checked my profile. Yay me.