I'm shedding ...

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This is the skin with the melanin!
This is the body with melatonin!
This is the girl with the endorphins!
Guess what? She's shedding! 


My skin is suffering. There is no other way to say it. My skin is suffering.

I have beautiful black skin which, moisturised once daily, usually yields favourable results. No need for reinforcements. No need to check to ensure that I'm not walking around with arms and legs looking like lizard scales. Usually.

What my skin is doing in Mexico is not usual at all. I have to be moisturising thrice daily. When that doesn't work, I have to wear leggings so that people don't mistake my legs for a crocodile's hide. The cocoa butter cream I brought with me seems piddlingly pitiful when pitted against the task it must now accomplish. My arms and legs look like dry leather. My face is losing moisture faster than a tank in the Sahara. And if something itches, and I happen to scratch, there goes a layer of skin!

I know it sounds gross, and it probably is (in a small way), but I am truly surprised at what my skin is doing over here. I feel like I have become a reptile. I'm moulting. I mean, I expected that higher altitudes would mean different levels of humidity, etc., so I brought reinforcements with me. I bought some of the best and strongest stuff I could find. But, alas, my skin continues to shed.

To be fair, there's a cold front passing over the country, so temperatures are abnormally low. But can you imagine my shock when I scratched my head and half my scalp fell out? (I'm going to stop with the gross references now).

I did a little research online, and what I found was surprisingly symbolic. One site says that shedding is nature's way of preparing animals for seasonal changes, and moulting prepares the animal for a new stage of growth. I read it and thought, 'hmm ... that's kinda true here.'

I'm exploring a foreign country by myself. I've never done anything like this before. It's thrilling and different, and my world view may be changing more than I care to admit ... . My life is literally being stretched. As is my capacity. New growth is taking place. And in the process, it's only natural that I am also shedding. I'm letting go of some old things. For good. Forever. I'm giving up on some stuff. For now. I'm releasing my grip on a lifetime of ... (let's not go there).

Why not shed? It's actually a healthy practice. It makes sense. And what better place to do it than in an environment where you are completely outside of all the familiar influences and truly on your own?

So this is the skin with the melanin!
This is the body with melatonin!
This is the girl with the endorphins!
Guess what she's shedding ... :) 

A beer beer!

If beer levels the vibes in Jamaica, it is the vibe in Mexico. One of the first Spanish words resurrected upon my arrival here? Cerveza.

I've come to realise that it is an important part of Mexican culture. The young and the old drink beer. It's like drinking soda or orange juice and fruit punch in Jamaica. Everybody has at some point. Every party host will offer it. And especially during holidays or when there is a guest, a bottle (or bottles, or cans) will be in the refrigerator. If you plan on going out at all in Mexico, you can bet on what your primary beverage option will be. It's all about the beer.

My first realisation of this was when a group of us 'foreigners' went out for a night. Silly me. I thought we were going to a nice, sit-down restaurant to enjoy authentic Mexican cuisine. In my mind's eye, I thought we'd be in this semi-upscale place with maybe a little jazz music, or Mexican souls or Mariachi oozing out of a sound system overhead, or from a live band. And we would talk and laugh and sample strange new dishes.

Instead, we ended up at a restaurant of sorts - of sorts, except that it wasn't a restaurant at all. It was really more like a bar. We got a table in a far corner overlooking the streets below. The view was nice. I should have taken pictures. Our hosts ordered a bucket of beer; then came time to take the non-alcoholic orders. They had nothing else except lemonade. No water. No soft drinks. It was either beer or lemonade. That was it.

I thought to myself, it must be a full night; they've run out of everything except beer. And that might have been the case. But still, it is assumed that most guests will want beer, which is most definitely a mainstay on the Mexican menu.

The beer options are manifold: Corona seems to be the most popular, but there's Victoria, Sol, Minerva, Modelo, Bohemia, Tijuana, Leon ... so many.

I was trying to explain this to a relative in Jamaica. We were speaking in Jamaican patois. I exclaimed: "A beer beer deh yah!" (loosely translated "there is nothing but beer here!"). I laughed afterward about the duplication of sound: "A 'beer' (the Jamaican patois word, functioning as an adjective, translated 'solely' or 'only') beer (the beverage, noun)."

A 'beer beer'. Funny :)

Vamonos!

The view as I flew
over Mexico ... I think :)

I took a mental leap.
When I first heard about the programme, a seed of a thought was planted and I figured, Maybe I could do that. Sounds affordable enough.

The thought never left me.
In fact, it grew until I started to make imaginary plans in my head. I started to do research, to calculate what it would cost and whether I had what it took. I started to think, in a very real way, what if I could actually do this? And the magnitude of the possibilities began to outgrow and displace the impossibilities.

I saw a way.

The view as I flew ...
beautiful :)

I don't think I really expected to actually do it, but the more the thought lingered, the more my mind began to show me ways I might be able to make this dream real. It was a small dream - insignificant really in the larger scheme of things. But for me, it would be a step into an unknown that could either make or break me. This I know: to get where I want to go in life, I have to continually exercise faith that can literally move mountains.

I began.
I used to think those syllables were words motivational speakers used to manipulate people into thinking that complexities were simplicities. But those words are the markers that draw a definitive line behind the man or woman who becomes consumed with a cause to the point of deliberate, calculated action. I BEGAN. And the second I did, I think the unseen world was given notice that here came determination; here came unflappability; here came purpose. And it made way.

The view as I flew
over the United States.

I moved.
All the plans had been put in place. The ticket was bought. The relevant organisations were notified. All that was left was for me to actually pick up my little bundle and make the move. So I packed my little bundle. And I was ready to take that step. Then I realised what I was about to do, and ...

I balked.
Fear gripped me like a man in the throes of a seizure. What-ifs overwhelmed me. And my mind - the same mind that had been churning out scenarios of glorious possibilities - began to manufacture dark and sinister omens. I had to fight the feeling of losing before I had begun. I had to win the war in my head before I won the war anywhere else.

I fought. I won.
And before I could doubt myself again, I took my little bundle, kissed my country goodbye, whispered a prayer, and flew off to Mexico.

And now here I am.
Vamonos!

He's right.

He looked at me and said, "Why aren't you writing more?!"
I shrugged. I had no answer.
"No. Seriously," he insisted. "Why are you holding back? You're like ... "
He was lost for words ... "You're like ... really, really good."
I nodded. I know. I'm at least aware that some talent exists here ... in these hands, in this mind ...
Within this being hides a soul that lives for love of the written word.

He placed his hands on my shoulder and gripped them, his fingers kind of pressing too hard into my flesh. I winced. But his steely eyes lost none of their resolve. And I saw no pity there.
"You wrote that post - you're the one who said writers write. Why aren't you - this beautiful, talented,  creative soul ... why aren't you ... writing?"
I shook my head. "I do write, but ..."
"But nothing."

Silence. He stared into my eyes with a kind of passionate disappointment.
He dropped his hands and sighed.
"If I could write like you ..."
He sighed again.
"Do me a favour ... do the flipping world a favour ... just write. It's your thing. You are so damn good at it. Why are you hiding from this? Why are you so comfortable so far below where you could be? I've never known you to be ... average."
His voice was filled with angry, desperate pain ... like I hurt him somehow.

"OK," I said.
He nodded.
I nodded.
"OK."

Burn the curry

Girl 1: What happened to this pot?
Girl 2: *looks up from writing* Curry.
Girl 1: What?
Girl 2: You said to burn it, so I did. 
*big grin*

THE END.

Waiting for Inspiration

Writers write.

You're waiting for Godot. But if what these seasoned writers are saying is true, you'd better stop. Because Godot rarely, if ever, comes.

It's the one thing aspiring writers are doing wrong: they're not writing. Instead, they're hoping to write, praying for the inspiration, and wishing for a time when they will just become prolific, articulate, and professional. They expect it to happen like a biblical 'suddenly': overnight and allatonce. Or in some elusive fulfillment of 'the right time'.

Not so, say the professional writers - the ones aspiring writers get angsty about emulating. Writing, they say, like any other skill, must be cultivated through practice and hard work. It is the exercise of putting words on paper that will ultimately increase and expand your ability to do just that. The muses will not just rain a lifetime's worth of genius on you in a day. Instead, they dispense the gift of scribe (or scribble) in small increments over time to a faithful few - the few who are relentlessly expending time and effort honing a skill they dearly love and deeply desire to master.

Writers write. It's as simple as that. If you want to be a writer, you must banish inhibitions or whimsical notions of a magical time to come when words will just flow out of your fingertips on wave after wave of endless inspiration. You must debunk your personal writing myths. And. Just. Write.

Write through drudgery. Write through the mundane. Write about the ordinary. Write about the exceptional. Just write. And give it a just effort everytime. Don't expect cohesion and flow to grace you with their presence everyday. Push for them to be there by very deliberately writing until they show up. 

Sometimes, they don't surrender to your coaxing and don't show up. Write through that. Write about that. Just don't stop writing.

Writing is magical. Yet it is not.  It is deliberate and intentional. It takes presence of mind and consciousness of thought. There may be times when you get lucky with a muse. But mostly, those bastards play hide and seek with you, like they don't know their importance to your budding writing career. Or don't care. You can't depend on them. So don't. Decide to write anyway.

I made an observation to a friend yesterday at the JCDC Creative Writing Competition (which is what inspired this post). What I've noticed is most aspiring writers seem to realise their writing dream (or attempt to) when they are in their latter years. Why is this? Why do people go through their whole lives with a desire to be a writer, but only act on it when their years on earth have been significantly spent and they are running out of time to do the one thing that has dogged them for most of those years? In contrast, singers sing. Dancers dance. They lift their contraltos and baritones and create rapturous melodies; their bodies become canvases for fluid expressions of motion. They flit and fly, groove and jive. They don't wait for 'a right time', or a 'spirit' to move them. They sing. They dance. And the recognition of talent (or lack thereof) is instant.

But the writer? He/She sits looking off into space, waiting for something extraordinary to move upon his/her soul before he/she gets to the task at hand. Do you see how nonsensical that is? Stop waiting for Godot. Stop waiting for a perfect moment. They don't exist.

If you are a writer, pick up that pen, turn on that computer, and take Nike's advice: Just do it! Because writers write. That's the only way to get it done. 

Selah.