Ruminations

I was SURE I could never end up in an abusive relationship

2018-04-25T04:24:00.000-04:00

This is a long story, and a multi-parted one; and I'm not even sure precisely what my point is, but I'm gonna tell it anyway, because I don't think we talk about this stuff enough.

My kitchen is very therapeutic for me, when I'm doing something I enjoy there my mind wanders widely, other than that I cannot tell you why on earth I was thinking about Rihanna. But I was, I was thinking about Rihanna and the thing with that snapchat ad. She said she didn't take it personally and was speaking out for other victims of DV (domestic violence). I don't follow her, so whatever I have gleaned about her is by the way, and based on what I have caught by the way, she seems to be self assured, a fighter, outspoken.. and what I don't know about her personality aside... I definitely know she's a hugely successful multi-millionaire, who has what it takes to go out there and get hers... and I think it definitely takes a special sort to do that...you get my drift... the kind of woman that you can't imagine that domestic violence would happen to. But it did, and how long was it happening before the world found out? And how much longer would it have happened if we didn't? And, the biggest question of all, WHY did it happen to a woman like her? And why did she stay? To understand why I'm asking these questions, let me ask another question... do you think it could happen to you? Would you tolerate it? If you were not able to prevent the first blow (physical or otherwise), would you stick around to find out if he (or she) really "would never do it again"? Not me. And if your answer is also no.. this is why it's an important question. Because I think it can happen to you, it can happen to anyone, and a part of this post is how I learned, quite shockingly, that it could probably happen to me. But first, I'm going to tell you why I was SURE it could never happen to me.

I was sure no man could violate me in anyway because I am angry, and I have experienced a shame that I never want to experience again. My anger and shame come from my first sexual encounter, which was not consensual, I am hard pressed to call it rape, because he was my boyfriend, and I didn't cry (well, actually I did.. shocked silent tears laying confused beneath him as he had sex with me after I said no) but you get me.. no outcry, no yelling, no fighting, and because at 14, I didn't understand that was a sexual assault (and I don't think he did either), I continued to have a sexual relationship with him for another yr+, and a few months after that incident when his other girlfriend came to let me know that she was his girlfriend, and I was his girlfriend, I pretended that didn't happen either. So, I'm angry, angry that my boyfriend violated me sexually and I did nothing, angry that mere weeks after "taking" my virginity he had started up another relationship and when I found out I did nothing. Angry at myself, and ashamed for not being strong enough, aware enough to see, and to draw a line for myself. Ashamed not to be that "powerful woman" who would never let herself down like that. Of course, it actually took me a few years to get to that shame and anger... cause 14? I definitely didn't have the capacity for all that then. So, once I got to this great anger about what happened, and most importantly this shame for letting myself down, I promised I would never let that happen again... you know what I'm always gonna do? I will always stand up for myself. Always. There is zero room in that promise for allowing any man, woman, dog, puss, rat, lizard, whatever, be it in love, work, friendship anything. Nope. Not happening. But, you know what I discovered there is room for? Abuse in sheep's clothing. The sheep being you, and its clothing whatever way you dress up and justify someone's bad behaviour.

Here's how I learned this - and this is the long part of the story. I dated a guy from Zimbabwe. I have never been to Zimbabwe, and so I had no first hand experience of the culture there. But, based on my experience with him, and with Jamaican men, it seemed it was a more extreme idealogy of how (THEEE worst) men here think... my woman muss dis, my woman muss dat, a good woman muss... etc. You get my drift? And I wasn't having ANY of it. I was like dude, listen, I like you (he had some great qualities I thought, hell if I can tell you what now, but that's not the point the point is I wasn't having his shit), so I told him listen, you're a great guy, smart, driven, funny, sweet, and I like you, but if you want to have a relationship with me these ideas you have about how a woman should behave are not going to cut it, and none of it is open for negotiation. I go out alone and I'm not going to stop, if you have an issue, leave. I have close male friends and it's going to stay that way, and if you can't get over it leave, I entertain conversations with other men, these conversations are not an invitation to them, and they are not a reflection on my morality, and if you think so, leave. He didn't leave, nor did I. And why didn't I leave? This relationship happened while I was living in America, he had never lived in or even visited the US before he moved there, and so I JUSTIFIED his behaviour and mine. His by saying he didn't know better, that the problem was his culture, not him, and that he was struggling to learn; and mine by always thinking I was holding my ground - I never allowed him the room to make me feel shit, or less based on his ideals. And I certainly never conformed to, or even entertained conversations about his dictates. And he seemed to genuinely be trying to understand and assimilate into this new culture of relationships - cause I was like dude.. all this stuff you're telling me about how it works in Zim is not gonna cut it, you're not in Zim, and I'm not a Zim woman. So, we were struggling together to try and figure out how this different type, black, Jamaican woman (cause talk truth, there are some Jamaican woman he could have got over with that with), and this Zim man who were digging each other and living in America could make this ting work. Until I found out he had woman fi stone dog. I was so out I had nothing to say to him... I had a trip back home planned, and I had not told him yet, so for a peaceful life I decided I would wait til just before I left to let him know I knew what was up, break up with him, and just drop out to Jamaica quietly. In the weeks leading up to my trip home. I decided to play the model girlfriend just to avoid the fuss. He was visiting me one night, and a friend of mine stopped by. Now my friend is as gay as the day is long, and that is a fact you could not miss about him in passing. Nevermind that I'd told him that a million times (not that his sexuality matters, but just to show you how deep this was). So my friend stops by to discuss our plans for the thanksgiving weekend. His family had a cabin and we were planning to spend the weekend there. I am desperately motioning to him to shut the hell up cause I know this is going to result in an upset. Sure enough, as soon as my friend left, he started on how it looked, and what kind of woman would etc, Where I would typically have shown him the door, and said dude, leave if you can't deal. I was being the model GF so I said to him. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. I know how you feel about stuff like this. I love you. I won't go. Just telling him everything I figured he'd want to hear. And he said call your friend, I'd like to talk to him. So I did, he says to my friend "she's my woman and she's not going any where with you" etc etc. I played along with the whole thing, meek, and obedient. And his response was shocking. His behaviour, his energy completely changed, he became sweet as candy, he apologized, and said to me, I am only like this because I love you. He said I am sorry I was like that to your friend, call him back, I'd like to apologize. And he did.

At that point, I had been dating him for over a year, he attempted to alienate me from my family, he attempted to control my behaviour, he attempted to shame me for my independence, he attempted to erode the meaningful relationships I was having with other people, and all the while he was f*@king who knows how many women... but it was a lot. If I tell you this version of the story, which sensible self loving woman would put up with this? But the other version, the one where I was not tolerating his shit, I NEVER compromised anything, the version I was telling myself, where I was simply being patient while he learned to trust me, while he unlearned his Zim ideas of a relationship. The version where I'd never felt unsafe, or imagined that there was any sort of risk, because I was strong enough to stand up for myself.

That version of the story fell away the night I recognized the glaring alarm bell of an abusive relationship. I mean, the only thing missing were the bruises, and the roses. And this is how I learned it could have happened to me, because how much longer would I have continued to justify his behaviour with "he doesn't know better yet, but he's trying"? How much longer would it have been before a blow fell? And if and when that blow fell.. would I have been far gone enough to justify allowing there to be another? And another? I am humbled when I think about that trip we were planning to Zim, I think he'd never been violent to me because he would not have risked losing his scholarship, but on his home turf, with me completely vulnerable in an unfamiliar place, what would have happened? I don't know the answers to the how it could happen to women who we think are above, or beyond it. But I learned in that relationship how easily it could have happened to me, even while I was busy being the kind of woman it could never happen to. I don't think domestic violence is really about the type of woman it happens to, I think some women are easier victims than others, but ultimately, I kinda think domestic violence is about the kind of man that does it. You see, my man was one that kept me feeling safe the whole time, my man was one who seemed to genuinely want to outgrow the problem of what his culture had taught him about a woman's place, my man seemed to genuinely struggle with the differences between what he thought I should be, and who I actually was, my man was one who had an excuse that was tailor made for me and my compassion, my man was a good liar, my man was a patient one, who was willing to wait a whole year and a half to "break me" because the other thing I understand, is if what happened that night had been genuine on my part, I believe after than night, that relationship, and my life would have been all downhill from there.

Any one, including me, will tell you that they could never see me as the kind of woman who would be a victim of domestic violence, yet I spent a yr+ in a relationship that had all the hallmarks of an abusive one, and I didn't even see it, because the first blow had not yet fallen.

Mortality

2010-10-17T11:43:00.001-04:00

As the story goes, faced with two weeks of changing diapers while his wife was away my cousin Duane succeeded in potty training his 2yr old son before his mother returned.

He grasped the idea that he shouldn't go in his diaper before he got a firm hold on the "go to the bathroom" bit; so once early in the training when he really needed to poop, he just squatted in our cousin's back garden and let go. I wasn't there when it happened, but when I was told the story, I cracked up and said "Oh, I can't wait until he's old enough for me to torture with that story."

This morning I was remembering, and wondering what's the right age? At 12 he might have enough of an awareness of himself for me to tell him that story, but he might not truly grasp my reason for telling it - bonding. When my family retells my baby stories - a lot of them for a laugh at my expense - the laughter is only a small price to pay for the sense of well being I get, the gratefulness I have for the people who shared in my childhood, these stories are the evidence of the bond that has traveled with and sustained me since birth. 15 might not be much better, I think the 20's and older are a great time for the retelling of his baby stories, but that's 17 years and a few weeks from here; and I found myself wondering would I be alive then.

I am not terminally ill or had any great epiphany lately, nor do I have any great fear of the abstract idea of death. I've accepted it as an inevitable bridge I'll cross when I get to. I've also accepted that I won't know until my dying moment that I am leaving, and from time to time I stop to affirm that be it days or years upon years that I have left I accept my fate and am grateful for the time I have spent so far.

This morning though, I am hoping that in 17 years and a few weeks I'll be around to do in the retelling of baby stories what my family friends and family friends have done for me throughout the years, and I that I can hang around to keep sniffing that sweet spot on his neck so that when he's twenty he won't forget that I am the one who used to powder him with kisses because that's just what he smelled like.

Dream Animals

2009-11-23T14:48:00.004-05:00

I seem to dream a lot about animals (also ghouls and monsters but I've never posted about that).

I just found a dream I jotted down a few years ago. In this dream there was a hurricane that changed the terrain, and I am caught on a sandbar that used to be Lime Cay waiting for a boat to come and get me.

Many boats come and go, and still mine doesn't show so I decide I'm gonna just jump on the next one that comes in. Instead of taking me back to the mainland I end up picking my way across a craggy landscape. As navigate the sharp rocks dark and shiny with the sea water, in the distance I notice a spray erupting from the surface of the water. At first I think it's oil but suddenly I am with people and one of them says "no that's a fissure, air is escaping from the earth". As we continue across the rocks we see a network of pipes that suggest the fissure is man-made. The instinct to follow the pipes rises, but as I move towards them a boat comes. As I wait to board the boat I am suddenly aware that I have a pin and a needle driven horizontally into my heel, but I cannot get them out because my heel is frozen.

Standing at the side of the boat I ask for a container for the finless tailless fish I have in my pocket. The fish had been terrorizing my mother and I don't want it to die because I want to gift its fate to her. I knew I couldn't put it anywhere near the water at the risk of it escaping, so I'd put it in my pocket and poured some water in. As if it were magic to the fish the water made my pocket larger and gave the fish so much room to move around I was afraid it might escape.

I am aboard the boat and almost ashore when I check my heel; it has thawed and there is only a pin, the edges of which I can see sticking out so I try to catch a hold of it as the boat sways. The driver says to me "doesn't that hurt? Why don't you wait til you get to the shore to take it out? The boat's jostling." I yank it out anyway and say "Nah, it doesn't hurt".

He seems impressed by my bravado, as the boat pulls up the dock I double check that there's nothing else in my heel, check my pocket for Mummy's fish and step onto the sandy shack-lined terrain.

Temperance

2009-11-09T08:04:00.004-05:00

When I decide to accomplish something I have this great drive to do it and do it NOW; but I am figuring out that this great sense of urgency is a shortcoming as much as an excellent tool depending on the task at hand.

In the case of goals that need to be accomplished over the long term; this sense of NOW can be a set up for failure; because if NOW passes and you've got nothing to show, you've failed to achieve your goal. I am trying to learn now how to translate this energy into a long term sense of motivation. I kinda figure what I can do is turn that initial feeling of urgency to plotting the course of my goal, and everyday dedicating that sense of urgency to what I can do for it NOW.

No really does mean no.

2009-10-08T09:56:00.002-04:00

I watched Californications "Land of Rape and Honey" (where Marcy tells Runkle all women have a rape fantasy, and where his boss confirms by detailing hers) and I'd just like to put this out there:

That's the stupidest and most dangerous absolute to put out there. Not all fucking women have a rape fantasy; I don't.

I can't even detail how upset and disgusted I am.

The Skeleton Woman

2009-08-06T08:31:00.002-04:00

As told in "Women Who Run With The Wolves"

"The Skeleton Woman"Sedna, legend tells, was a beautiful girl who lived by the sea. Although many courted her, she would not leave her widowed father, and refused them all. But one day, a raven disguised as a handsome man came to her. He promised her a better life - and best of all, he promised he would also provide for her father. And so, full of hope, Sedna left with him. But he took her instead to a desolate island, where she was cold and hungry. When her father came at last to visit, he grew very angry. Taking Sedna into his kayak, he paddled into the open sea, but Raven caused a terrible storm to arise. And Sedna's terrified father, in desperation, hoping to save his own life, cast his daughter from the boat. Sedna clung to the side of the kayak, and would not let go, until her father cut off her hands with his knife. Then Sedna's hands and fingers fell into the sea, becoming the the fishes, the seals, and the whales. And handless Sedna sank to the bottom of the ocean to become the skeleton woman.

One day a fisherman came fishing, he had drifted far from his homeplace and did not know that local fisherman stayed away from this bay, saying it was haunted. When a heavy pull on the his line drags his kayak to sea, he thinks he has caught the "big one," a fish so large he can eat for weeks, a fish so fat that he will prosper ever after. As he daydreams about his coming ease, what he reels up is Skeleton Woman, a woman flung from a cliff long ago, her fish-eaten carcass left to rot at the bottom of the sea. In terror her flings her from his kayak and paddles with all his might for shore. Skeleton Woman is so snarled in his fishing line that she is dragged behind the fisherman wherever he goes. She is pulled across the water, over the beach, and into his house, where he collapses in the darkness in terror.

Thinking he has lost her, he falls into an exhausted sleep. The fisherman wakes in the morning, and lights his whale oil lamp, and there lies Sedna the skeleton woman. A pile of bones and fishline tangled on his floor. Perhaps it was the softness of the lamplight, or that he had passed the night unharmed by her, but feeling pity for her, slowly disentangles her. Muttering words like a mother to a child he untangles first her toes, then her ankles and so he works through the night gently untangling her. When her bones are in order, he dresses her in furs to keep her warm, and exhausted falls asleep. During the night, Skeleton Woman scratches and crawls her way across the floor, drinks the tears of the dreaming fisherman, and grows anew her flesh and heart and body. Her flesh from his flesh, her heart from his heart, the fisherman wakes to find himself wrapped up with a beautiful woman.

The people who cannot remember how she came to her first ill-fortune now say she and the fisherman went away and were consistently well-fed by the creatures she had known in her life underwater.

Wah eye nuh si heart nuh feel

2009-08-06T06:56:00.000-04:00

"if you can't see it it won't hurt you".

When we were little my sister was so afraid of thunderstorms she would hide from them under my grandmother's bed. Recently laughing at that memory she said "I don't know why I did that... it didn't change anything".

I know why: "wah eye nuh si heart nuh feel" - somehow, being unable to to see the thing that scares us makes us feel safe.

The Melodrama of my youth

2009-06-18T09:09:00.001-04:00

I think Mills&Boon and all the assorted romance junk (I was very particular to the historical stuff) I read as a child ruined my early love life. Gee... is your computer hot from my embarrassment? Aneeeeeway, I didn't grow up with both my parents (hell I barely grew up with one!) so I didn't have a realistic example of relationships in my life so when I got to a boyfriend having age, those relationships were what I modeled mine off - or mebbe I did but Mills&Boon made it so much more exciting to look forward to.

From age 7-ish when I smuggled my first cheesy novel under the covers to about 23-ish when I began to realise my formula wasn't working, the Mills&Boon idea of love is what directed my love life. I thought that love always triumphed, if he offended you you should slap him run away and he'd always follow, that girls always had an orgasm too, you were supposed to pretend not to need him while secretly spending your hours obsessing about him, and that no matter how horrible the stupid fight he'd always come back. I thought everything was supposed to be uberdramatic; and boy did I honour that idea by living my relationships in heightened drama. And in retrospect, when I look at how ridiculous I was, I realise those boys must have loved me extraordinarily much to put up with me - I dare you to try and guess just how many of my shenanigans were straight off the pages of one of those books.

Ultimately though, all that junk didn't work out so well in my favour, and I had a wake up call when I was 18-ish (I'm getting old enough now that I'm forgetting dates and ages) and my 2nd serious boyfriend left me. Left. Me. Rejected me really. I was utterly confused. The men NEVER left their heroines, at least they never stayed away. I'd kept breaking up with him cause that's what the girls in Mills&Boon did! And finally the last time I broke up with him, while I was busy preparing for our passionate make up he was getting to know a girl less obviously nuts, and who his mother actually liked . So after I bitched slapped him (I'm so embarrassed) and had him in such a tangle HE was the one calling me to apologize, he wised up and told me "Listen, I'm tired of this shit. I love you, but you're crazy and you're going to drive ME crazy, SO STOP CALLING ME! I'm gonna go date someone who isn't crazy" After being told that way too many times for a girl as smart as I am I realized that I was the only one following this formula, and um.. it wasn't working. It actually kinda was the opposite of working.

The months after that were one of the saddest times in my life, Sade's "King of Sorrow" album had just come out, and I spent my days behind blacked out windows, crying to the title track on repeat. I'm serious. DAYS on end in a dark room... weeping. I should get some kind of Mills&Boon award for that. "life most screwed up by Mills&Boon" or something like that.

After he kicked my "feisty heroine" wanna be ass to the curb I went to visit with my girlfriends on the other end of the island. I called probably in a last ditch effort to beg him to take me back, of course he said no his exact words might even have been "hell no crazy!" So I slunk into the dark kitchen to sob by myself, but I was so frikkin dramatic it was more like cow bawling that had everybody piling into the kitchen to see what was wrong. I explained everything to my friend Shani, and she put her cup in front of me and said "pour all your sadness into this cup and then throw it away". And me with my dramatic self started wailing and said "All my sadness couldn't hold it this cup." Wail! "All my sadness couldn't hold in this room".

This post is a public service announcement to say "Use my life as a cautionary tale, don't let your kids read that junk"
And since today is thursday, let's just file this one under TMI thursday cause you just might not have needed to know this tidbit about me:
***Alright, folks, you know the rules. Join us all in humiliating the crap out of yourself every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, "how many readers can I estrange THIS week??" TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else's!***
p.s. I learned about TMI thursday from Racquel at Smell the Glove

A recurring theme

2009-06-09T09:50:00.009-04:00

I've posted about my Ex here (I was in a relationship with an African guy who turned out to be the granddaddy of all liars) and here (Imagine my horror at the big reveal - he proved to be likely the biggest man-whore in all of Athens county. He had lord only knows how many girls, flings, and fuck buddies all over my campus, his, and quite likely the Internet)before.

I have a difficult time with concrete judgements, which comes from the awareness that there are so many angles from which to view things, and usually many of them are correct within their context; so my reasoning is always framed within the structure of "if...then" - If I am to look at it solely from the context of our relationship, then I should be mad and never forgive him for what he did - and what he did was really very awful.

But, there was never anything to forgive though he did me a terrible wrong. I was extremely wounded, and before I cut him off I took the opportunity to say to him

"I feel like you reached inside me and pulled my motor out. To experience this kind of dishonesty and cruelty is shocking to me; and I wonder if you understand that this affects the rest of my life. That a betrayal like this is a deep psychic wound that I will have to spend so much time trying to heal from."

Inside that paradigm (is that even the right word?) my responsibility to my own well being means I cannot have him in my life. Pardon the self satisfying digression - you'd think it would be obvious, but he had the gall to ask "If you really loved me how could you just cut me off so completely?" I am amused that he thinks I'm the one with a warped view of love.

Ah.. anyway the way he lied to me made me very concerned about how he will navigate and live a fulfilling life, and when I think of him it is always with the hope that he is becoming a better person.

It would be easy for me to think his betrayal was about me, and while I hold that he had, AND hold him to a responsibility to hold my trust and my love with absolute care, I understand that it wasn't entirely about me. I and my pain were a side effect of his struggle to make his way through this life. More amazingly, I am unbelievably grateful for the lessons I took away from my relationship with him, and I always hope that the pain he caused me earned him some valuable lessons as well.

In still another context, he was also a victim of my struggle to navigate my life. While I tried to do right by my choice, I always knew I did him a great disservice in choosing to be in a relationship with him; and in all my reasoning of our actions, it would be unfair of me to hold against him any disservice he did me, while expecting to be absolved of any I did him.

These different views stem from my larger belief that we should be primarily concerned with the execution of our own lives, and a step beyond that we cannot direct the course of any life except our own. To accept this philosophy we have to submit a down payment of forgiveness for any wrongs that will be done us, and accept as our right a certain degree of forgiveness for any we will do. It might seem a dangerous philosophy, but it is mitigated by the fact that despite our best intentions we will always hurt people, and the philosophy requires that we make a reasonable effort not to by first subscribing to the moral theory "do no harm".

By no means is he a proponent of this theory, but because I am I choose to hold him to the same standards I wish for myself. I didn't have to forgive him, there was already room for him to fuck up, but he violated his responsibility to within reason do me no harm. The consequence of that violation is there is no longer room - or desire - for him in my life.

Here's to my hero

2009-06-02T20:16:00.002-04:00

Recently I referenced some random little known fact to my sister and she asked incredulous "how did you know that?" and I said "You told me, don't you know just about 75% of the shit I know comes from you?"

It made me so happy to be able to say that to her because we've come such a long way. T and I did not grow up together. We are the products of an unfortunately typical Jamaican family dynamic. My father is a philanderer (we have an older brother born to another mother, plus a sister born between us - to an additional other mother) and a flake who left us when I was only three months old.

My mother could not afford childcare while she worked, so I was taken to live with my father's sister and her family of three boys and two girls, while my sister went to my grandparents who also housed my aunt and her son. We were both unplanned pregnancies, but completely loved and wanted and I cannot imagine how world wrenching it must have been for my mother to not only be left to care for us alone, but to have to give us up as well.

She got off to a rocky start but Mummy supported the hell out of us, largely unassisted by my father. She put us through high school and college (I did my part to ease the burden by dropping out after one year of college), and even now that we're adults (on paper at least) she still insists on mothering us every chance she gets, and when she can't find any she creates them.

Because of Mummy's financial sitation ---> need to finish her first degree---> scholarship to Germany---> our family didn't live together until I was 11, when I insisted I wanted to move to my grandparents house so I could be with my sister whom I adored even though she HATED my guts. I am nothing if not an optimist and I was convinced if I were around more maybe she would see how awesome I thought she was and then surely she would love me.

That did not work out as planned, I just gave her the opportunity to hate me year round while I cried a lot and whined to anyone who would listen "T hates me!" For the first 4 of my 5 years of high school I tried very hard to make her love me, but eventually my constant pain over our shitty relationship overwhelmed me into indifference to my entire home situation.

In retrospect we all in that house had embattled relationships with each other, but by the time we were both in college I figured out that T didn't love me because she didn't think I loved her. So I decided to wear her down by showing her a ridiculous amount of love and adoration no matter how mean she was... and it worked. Now she is bar none my favourite person in the world, and I'm pretty certain I am hers.

humble pie

2009-06-02T17:49:00.000-04:00

A while ago I had a conversation with my best friends about love without expectations, and whether it was possible. We back and forthed about if for a couple of days, but never did come to a consensus on whether such a thing was possible or existed.

Fast forward and I'm sitting at my computer dizzy with Metric when I suddenly recognise what we were really talking about is "unconditional love", and that it is entirely possible.

For the span of my dating life I have been at some stage or other the butt of jokes among my friends as "the destroyer" or " the inaccessible" because I am a confessed committophobe. My "committophobia" translates into flaws magnified into reasons for leaving, for loving less, reasons it's all wrong or not worth it, and those things translated into relationships left behind.

I've always imagined the only way I could have a successful relationship was by being able to see past the flaws - unconditional love; and much to my 'earth swayed and foundation shook' surprise, entering into another round of "love without expectations" I met someone I thought I could love unconditionally. We were entering the heartache bracing formula of "I know this is gonna end so let's not get too attached and make it complicated. I want you when I want you and vice versa, do what you want, I do what I want.. etc" I'll love you for the sake of loving you, don't expect it will translate into any expectations met - my fellow committphobes know the drill :-), and isn't that the right attitude anyway?

Didn't really work out as relationships go but a beautiful friendship blossomed from my realisation that I could choose to love unconditionally - bunk the flaws and relationship status. Even more, I never desired anything out of it outside of the freedom to love - not even love in return.

I was flying high on the euphoria of having my shit figured out when I had my foundations shaken by something extremely hurtful he said to me. That ish triggered my "I don't give a fuck switch" which is where all relationships end for me, but as I tripped into auto relationship shut down mode and started my preparations to abandon ship I realised I'd come upon the true test of unconditional love.

All along I'd had a single expectation of him, that he understand how I looked at our friendship, and while I thought that was a small thing in exchange for my love, it was a condition he had failed. I recognised I could make the choice to forgive and keep loving despite what I figured was as a horrible transgression.

I ate humble pie and it was exhilarating to realise that I everywhere is a lesson, and I've passed another hump in my evolution.

Dolphin skinned ducks

2009-05-22T08:07:00.005-04:00

I just rose from a dream. My head is still thick with a dispute with my landlord, who in real life is a difficult friend. I was a student and we had a quarter to quarter lease, I was having trouble coming up with my rent for the quarter and explained to him that by the end of the week he would be paid. I went out with friends and returned after a few hours to find that my room looked completely different, devoid of signs I'd ever lived there and was rented to someone else. I had come in out of a downpour and headed straight there to remove my drenched clothes, the new tenant had to lend me somethings to put on before I could go downstairs to confront him.

He had a flat beneath us, the wooden stairs that led from my room ended in a small space which was enclosed by a wall 5 feet in front of me, to the right a passage with a frosted glass paned window looking out onto the street, and to the left was his door. As I came to the end of the staircase I saw him sitting beneath the window on a nest of rugs and pillows with my longtime friend, who was apparently now dating him and had helped him to get rid of my stuff. I thought of my friend "Oh it's just like you to be that opportunistic" but instead addressed him.
"Where is my stuff?!" "How can you do that? Did you throw them away?"
He hesitated just to be difficult, then said slowly uninterested in my pique, "Where is my rent? You promised me I would have it on Tuesday"
"I told you you'd have it this week, how can you do something like that without letting me know?" "I'm not paying you now! Clearly I can't pay you rent for someplace I can't live. Please use my deposit, take what I owe you up to today and let me have the rest back."
"Fine." he said.
I turned to my friend who'd found the walls and whatever activity she should see on the street through the frosted panes riveting and said "You know that's not right, how could you let him do this?"

The dream is a little muddled after that, I learned where my stuff was but could not access it, I tried to steal towels from him to make up for the money he was holding for me, and followed him around to try and steal my money from his wallet. An old family friend, a man I often wished had been my dad came to speak with him about giving me my money back. Our apartment was adjoining a mall, and as we crossed the pathway to the mall to look for him we end up going in circles which lead us to a deeply sloped canal of moss green water that eased silkily between the walls and disappeared under a square tunnel.

There was a competition of two teams sliding down the canal, and we jumped in on the team against him. I slide down a narrowing lip that emerges from the right wall of the canal. I am afraid I might crash into the wall, but I am ok as the lip narrows to deposit me into the larger body of water, then reunites with the wall. We emerge from the canal on the street in front of our building. We have not found him, and somehow I am alone again. I feel as though I have found something of value of his to hold on to and now he is willing to negotiate.

He says, "Ok. You can have your money, how much do you think you should get back. I said "You'd said $40", I was optimistic though I thought he might only owe me $20. He looked at me as though he knew something I didn't. "Add the days of the quarter that have passed and let me know if I really owe you $40." I do the math and realise he owes me nothing.

We were sitting on the stoop capitulating and we looked up to see a glistening flock of mammoth ducks. Someone remarked "it looks like they just came out of the water". Hundreds of feet into the sky, they were featherless with thick skin drawn tight like a dolphins and so large we could see the coat of water that shimmered on their gun metal grey skin. As they powered in flight above us, we could feel feel the weight of them shift the air, and see the compacted muscles flex beneath heir glistening skin. Their back ends starting behind their wings were formed by whorls of skin folding around and around like a danish to form the shape of a turtles head. Their flight seemed to be held back by the brilliance of the sky, and looking up, the whole thing seemed framed in slow motion.

Pro Life V Pro Choice

2009-05-21T09:25:00.003-04:00

In case you underestimated just how much thought I've given the pro-life/pro-choice argument, you ought to know when I got pregnant at 19 I dipped pro-choice real quick. Based on a loose observation of my friends, it seems 3 out of 5 of us have. For some of us it happened with our boyfriends, for some of us it was a result of rape but none of us is "that girl" everyone thinks is the one that has abortions. We are all middle class girls with solid backgrounds and good reputations who were not provided the right tools to prevent this happening.
If you were a friend, or have ever asked, this is something you're likely to know about me, because one of the bones upon which my life is framed is the idea that if I can do it then I ought to be able to talk about it.

When I decided to have an abortion I was numb to the repercussions, and I mistook that for a certainty that some women suffer, but I HAD to do it so I would be ok. Before I would ever talk to a woman considering an abortion about the agony of giving up your child, I would tell her "Listen to me now, if you're allowing the idea that you wont react like other women to influence your decision, don't. This thing hurts like a motherfucker, for some of us it's before, others right when we walk out of that office, and others don't get that broadside till 50 years after the fact. Know this shit hurts like a motherfucker and it will turn your life upside down and drain you off all the substance you are made of and it won't be ok. Not for a long time.

The years after my abortion were a dark period when my dreams were overrun with blood. I floated just under the surface of life unable to look myself in the eye or think about what I'd done without recoiling in shame. My days ran together as litanies of "I'm sorry", and I was frozen by my inability to undo this terrible thing I'd done. I wouldnt allow myself to grieve - I didn't deserve it, and there were too many times I had to be rescued from that battle, pressed into exhausted tears in dirty bathroom stalls all over the city.

It was a dark time when the agony of my choice was pressing the life from me, and if I could have died from the refusal to live, I would have.

One morning as I sat on my third floor balcony looking at another day moving purposefully by me, I recognized I was a cop out. I was sitting on my balcony weeping about what a terrible person as was, refusing to move forward while people everywhere were pulling themselves away from unspeakable tragedies. I was a pussy looking for any excuse to stop living and my child deserved a better fate than a stolen life carrying the blame for my failure to live. I could end my life, or choose to live it in honour of the choice I'd made. I realised that life was about making mistakes, and the important lessons were to be found in how you moved on from them. I had not failed at life because I had an abortion, I had failed at life because I allowed that to make me stop living, and that epiphany shamed me into accepting responsibility for my life.

If I were faced with a woman who's had an abortion I would tell her "It gets better". You never forget, and perhaps you shouldn't. I cannot forget, I will not. I carry my child every day with me in my secret places, and I live to honour the life that had to be sacrificed in order for me to find my way through mine. And fuck it... every choice, every lesson was bought at a high price so it has to be worth it.

the colour of my dream

2009-05-12T07:37:00.007-04:00

This morning I dreamt I had a little boy. A son with copper skin and curly hair whose velvet baby skin felt right against mine.

My story starts among the rumpled white sheets of the bed of my boyfriend who is an ex in waking life - but I am maybe 23 in that dream, still past the time he and I were together. We are lying in his twin bed which is tucked into a 90° angle of the room facing a window. The sun pours across our idle conversation and unrushed intermittent make out sessions when suddenly a flood of memory comes to me. I had been pregnant. "Do you remember me being pregnant?" I ask him. "Did we have a baby?" "Suddenly I am sure sure I was pregnant, but where is my baby?"

Sitting on the out side of the bed, the white wall against my back him against my left side and the sheet resting around my legs, I search my memory and feel a trauma that blocks the release of any details beyond a baby bump noone knew to look for because I hadn't told; being in a yard when my labour pains started. Not knowing what was wrong but trying to get away from my family before an investigation revealed my condition Being asked "What's wrong?" Then "Oh my God she's pregnant!" Then nothing. No story I must have told or the decisions that had been made.

The dream segues to a beach. I am standing in front of a roughly constructed wooden stall that sells beads laid out on a counter, hanging from hooks, and from lengths of cord strung end to end in every available space, about 100 yards to my left I can see the deserted beach. The vendor is rastafarian, his locks are coiled around his head, his dark skin, smooth and shiny from the heat makes me think of an eggplant. He smiles at me from where he is leaning with his arms and legs crossed in the far right corner of the stall, but says nothing as I browse his selection. An SUV pulls up behind me parallel to the stall. I turn to see it is driven by my best friend from high school and inside is her daughter and a little boy who reaches for me and calls me mummy. "This is your son" she says as I reach for him. As soon as he is held against me I am drenched in the certainty he is mine. But where was he all this time? Who is his father? Who knows what happened to me?

I am wearing three strands of beads around my neck that hang almost to my navel and he loves them, my best friend says "He loves beads". He calls them something unusual but fitting (I can't remember.. maybe stacks), so I take him back to the bead stall because I want to make him happy. He looks like me and my family and the bead man says "that's a beautiful baby, is he your son?"

All the beaded jewelery is laid out or hung unclasped, so he doesn't understand that worn a lot of them are shorter than they appear. I shower his cheeks and the top of his curly head with kisses and he scans the beads and selects a short multi stranded women's necklace made of delicate pink translucent beads, I pick it up between kisses and explain while I clasp it "Look sweetie this is not the type you like, it's too short". I also can't afford the $32 it costs so I scan the selection for something he might like better that's also in my price range. Hugging him against my right hip I reach for a necklace of bamboo beads that's hanging on a cord strung from end to end of the stall and ask him... don't you like these much better?

I can't remember if he does, but I walk towards the water with him, and lying beneath us in the sand us are two oversized necklaces with beads as large as my head placed about a foot apart, one coral coloured with each divided by a smaller gold bead, I point to the other made of irregularly shaped jade hued beads and say "See don't you prefer these?"

In the distance I see a black shape gliding on the water, perpendicular to my gaze, it looks like shadow so I raise my gaze to what looks like an oversized black bird large enough to be a small plane flying low to the water. The black material flapping behind it reminds me of the plastic I used to use for making kites as a child. The shape hurtles towards the beach, the wind pulls back the black material to reveal a blue van which lands on its wheels revs a hard left, splashing the waterline down the beach.

I am back in bed with my boyfriend who is trying to make love, he is showering my with kisses that have no effect. I am still on the outside of the bed and he moves to stand facing me so his dick is pointing at my face, then smiles expectantly. "No, I'm sorry, I can't do that" he seems puzzled but gets back into bed and reassures me "You don't have to, it's ok"

He starts to deliver more kisses that have no effect and suddenly I am crying "Do you know what happened to my baby?" "How can I find him?" I look forward, to a life marked by the longing I feel sitting in this bed and repeat "I need to find him. I have to, I cannot live without him". "Where is my son?"

crash of the elements.

2009-05-11T08:05:00.004-04:00

I dreamt this morning that I was dragon boat racing on the ocean. The air was thick with heat and the sun was the kind of blinding that presses your eyes into a squint. Each time the drummer hit, I could see the sound flash outward and shatter the light into millions of diamond shards that scattered to glint across the water on either side of her.

How can I tell of the synchronicity and crash - all twenty paddles smoothly arcing forward in anticipation of the hit, then slicing into the water to send up a spray of trapped light that mingled with the fractured light.

That dream = magic. Mmmm.

Lemme just lay some framework

2009-05-08T09:54:00.004-04:00

Healthy relationships are a defense mechanism. Most of us would be fine living loosely inside our interactions with people, but our tendency to fuck up necessitates some borders to protect us from each other.

We exist on different notches on this spectrum of "healthy" in our relationships, some of us allow all people to be very shitty to us, some of us allow some people to be very shitty to us, and others allow a little shittiness from a lot of people, because healthy notwithstanding we all have to put up with some degree of shit since we really can't always be ramrod. We can't. - anyone who can is also probably alone.

I suspect there are people who think I have an unhealthy relationship with the older of my two sisters T because I would spend every day of the week with her and complain that I miss her when we're apart too long, or go out of my way to make her happy. See the thing is, I accept some degree of bad behaviour from certain people, but membah mi tell yuh, everytime you fuck up yuh name mawk innah di book and that shit has a limit. Except with my sister, all the shitty you don't get to be with me is resting on a platter that girl gets to keep because I trust her, and I am gonna love her no matter what she does. And I don't care what you say about that. She's the one person I am completely dedicated to and yuh cyaa talk to mi bout dat so don't even try. I. Will. Effin. Cut. You. If. You. So. Much. As. Look. At. Her. Sideways. Much less try an seh sup'm.

The good news is, she is great to me. She's the most amazing big sister and everyday I'm so amazed to have been gifted her. Because we trust each other our relationship is that one place forgiving and being forgiven any fuck up is automatic. It's crushing for me to consider disappointing her, but despite all my apprehensions I'm always surprised to find she she loves me no matter what stupid shit I've done this time. She doesn't judge me for being needy, or unfair or hate me for being mean. She's as much as said she doesn't understand me, but doesn't give a shit about my oddities cause she loves her some little sis.

People have said our attachment to each other is cloying, but i'm telling you, they just don't get it. We had a very bitter relationship up until my college years (the first ones), and it has been a long hard struggle to get to where we are now, and we're making up for all that lost time.

In my very roundabout way I'm trying to say my sister is my safe space in this world, regardless of the messups and hard truths I am always certain there is one place I'm ok when it comes down to being loved, and I will do whatever it takes to give her that same certainty... cause oh man I love me some big sis.

Story come to bump.

2009-05-07T15:02:00.003-04:00

I had this friend once, well really this model I met on the set of a music video exchanged info with and spent hours talking to for months - maybe years even - after (it too long ago and too long since we've fallen out of touch to remember) . Anyhow, she was an amazingly talented writer - usually the type I go for - and she turned me on to Bright Eyes.

Her lead up to them included the statement " I love Conor Oberst, I think we're soulmates and I'm going to find him". This was for me very odd, because I thought Jamaican girls were entirely too self possessed to make statements like that. Anyway, *story come to bump, because for weeks The Smiths have been on loop in my head, slicing into a mango just now I realised I kept repeating to myself "I didn't realize, you wrote poetry, I didn't realize you wrote such bloody awful poetry".

I'm beginning to think that this endless loop of The Smiths means something... but what? Why Morrissey have you rented space in my brain to erect a billboard I CANNOT decipher. Stop it. If you've got a message for me can't you come into world of normal and tell me like a regular person would. Plus.. you're freaking me out. Seeing how I talk to dead people and all.

*I'm not sure how to translate that... something along the lines of the story has come to a head.

More of same

2009-05-07T10:38:00.001-04:00

I have given a fair amount of thought to the social conventions to which I find myself subject. Primarily that love and trust are such unsafe actions that we are forced to invest our emotions/vocabulary in words like "moved" and "inspiration", when what we really mean are things like "I like what I see and I would like to look at the pieces you are made of".

I realise from my own experiences of being burnt that it is necessary to guard ourselves in this coded language, but it makes me feel so cheated of the time I spend tempering the headlong rush into discovering whether I like someone/thing or not, or puzzling how to feed my curiousities without misleading anyone into thinking I care more than I do, because even more distressing than this preoccupation with self-preservation is an underlying dedication to the ego that disgusts me into becoming a recluse.

Humility has gone the way of the dinosaurs people; we have fallen to such a preoccupation with self that we think any action directed towards us has no room for motivation that has nothing to do with us. I enjoy interactions with people , but really I don't give much of a rats ass about YOU specifically (in a forest for the trees sort of way), so if you're going to sour the whole thing by blowing my attentions out of proportion I'd rather not bother.

Without putting too much thought into the possible ironies of this post, I suppose my pique may be an example of a raging ego. Unfortunately for us both, at the end of the day, we will find that everything we've done was purposeful, but we spent too much of our time on lessons that should have been easily learned - and for me perhaps that means I should be more forgiving of people who have an overblown sense of importance, but it's difficult, because battling people's ego when I could already have moved on to the next thing leaves a most sour taste in my mouth.

Disclaimer: this post is not directed at any one/incident in particular.
actually, come to think of it, the post is directed at all the casual acquaintances who piss me the hell of by thinking they're that important.

this one time at...

2009-05-07T10:30:00.000-04:00

In my blog surfing someplace I remember seeing a 42/365 challenge - don't quote me on that. What the challenge entails is everyday for 365 days using the number of words that correlates to your birthday (the author was 42) to describe someone who has affected your life.

I'm not up to the challenge of blogging everyday for a year. A. whole. year. As it is I can barely hold down once per week.

All that blah blah notwithstanding it made me think of my friend Shani. We girlfriends were hanging out one weekend at her apartment when I snuck away to sit and sob alone in her darkened kitchen. She heard me - how could she not, as full of drama as I was then - and came in to find out what was wrong. After my half choked half wailed outpouring about my hellacious breakup she placed her red dixie cup on the counter in front of me and said " Pour all your sadness in this cup and then we'll throw it away". It was of course completely wasted on me, because *ah dat deh time mi buss out eenah waa peice ah cow bawlin an seh "All my sadness couldn't hold in this cup" and throwing my arms out to indicate her open living space (kitchen, dining etc) "All my sadness can't even hold in this room".

We were still teeneagers at the time, so as any good teenaged girlfriend should, she also called him up and cussed him out for making me cry - even though the whole thing was mostly my fault. This was maybe 10 yrs ago and I still remember the sweetness. Oh Shani, you're just the best friend a girl could ever hope for.

*that just made my crying more dramatic, and I said

One Word

2009-04-29T01:30:00.003-04:00

I found oneword.com from someone's blog. Neat idea. I have a cyclical obsession with words that on some days finds me exploring one word, scaping its underbelly for any escaped meanings, and testing its shape against all my sentences. I'm not usually conscious of the provocation that causes me to try find places to mark my day with just this one word but:

yesterday's word tumbled from a litany of "I want you". Litany is one of my favourite words, so I discarded oneword.com's "glossy" to write about it instead.

Eschew

2009-04-20T11:11:00.004-04:00

Eschew: to shun, as something injurious.

Some of us have good judgment and others not so much. We should figure out which we are before we eschew perfectly good advice.

The year I turned seventeen I inherited (helped myself to because she had the good sense not to want it) a jumbo silver eye pencil from someone's make up collection. That and a brown lip pencil represented my makeup collection and sadly, acumen at the time - not suggesting I've gotten a much better, but for what it's worth I now have a lot more excuses for making a mess of my face. Because:

At the time my routine consisted of brown lip liner blended into chapstick (I hadn't discovered any of those fancy glosses yet), and a swipe of silver eyeliner blended out to "highlight" my eyes. I thought I was pretty clever, but my boyfriend's mother said to me once "Why do you wear that silver eyeliner? It looks like you have "mattah" in your eyes".

I thought she was just being uncool - she didn't want me dating her son; she didn't like my nose ring, and she'd told me so with HER nose "skin up" (wrinkled) to imply what she was looking at -and smelling - was actually a small speck of shit on my nose; she didn't like my hair; or me for that matter, so her judgement was questionable.

My nose ring and most of the things she criticised about me can be chalked up to our generational gap and me being a "bad influence" on her son, but if I had listened to her about the eye liner I might have avoided going around for a whole year sporting what looked like huge silver clumps of mattah in the corners of my eyes.

*mattah is what we call that stuff that collects in the corners of your eyes while you sleep.

tree hugger

2009-04-16T10:04:00.003-04:00

I'm a tree hugger because they are email servers to the universe and some days I get so euphoric with blessings I just wanna say "hey friend.. thanks"; and they understand love.. really, they do - because do you really think you can hang around that long without getting to understand a few things? And cause we're all made of the same substance but strangers get weird when you run up to em and hug them (it's true, try it for yourself); and trees need love just like I need love, no explanations necessary.

I talk to bugs and birds and bees because I think they know a lot more about the thronging and pulsing and surging of life than they're letting on, and maybe one day I'll remember the language of their secret telling. But if I never do the pauses in my one sided conversations hold a promise and possibility so huge it absorbs me into a world of my own orbit.

Because a life that visits simplicity is like an easter egg hunt- (or an orgy, pick your flavour) there's a treat behind every bush!

Untitled Work in progress(oil pastel, oil, papier mache - sort of, charcoal, on water colour paper)

p.s. The new drawing I mentioned in my last post, is in the garbage, and after adding colour to flower girl I no longer like the look of oil pastel on brown paper.
and,
a new follower and comment, plus a good word from san and slowtumblinglife about my drawing has me bouyant today. Thank You!
and,
i'll be back to code links to san etc.

Here's hoping

2009-04-13T14:49:00.007-04:00

Out my window I can see students returning from school. Knowing nothing about their lives makes me wish my current school situation was as theirs seems, simple as going to class and back.

Unfortunately for that wish today is my last opportunity to register for classes and there is an unjust balance against my account that threatens to change my course. It's difficult to accept that something that seems so simply fixed has so much power over the decisions i'll be making tonight and into tomorrow.

But, I cross into everyday with the faith I am cradled, and that provides the optimism that any resolution will be abidable.

A few posts ago I said I was working on meteor and flower girl. Meteor is now hanging on the bedroom wall of my friend's 7 year old and Flower Girl stalled at a few lines on brown paper.

It hasn't been all idleness for me though, below is an untitled piece I finished today (almost, it needs cleaning up), and when I leave this post I will start applying media to a new drawing.

untitled

media: oil, charcoal, ink, oil pastel on watercolour paper

A life more free and hello hidden follower.

2009-04-12T10:11:00.005-04:00

I picked up a new follower a few weeks ago and I went over and gave his blog "a lick and a promise" of a proper read and a thank you comment. I tried to get to that this morning but he's no longer among my followers. In case you ever come back forgive my poor internet graces and thanks for reading, your subject matter was very interesting despite being a teeensy bit challenging to read.

On my followers page I noticed something else peculiar - it shows only four even though it says "5 followers". I'm somewhat challenged by (lazy about) the technicalities of blogging but I'm guessing I have a hidden follower? I'm not sure what to make of that - aside from it's tantamount to lurking in the bushes outside my house - but that's ok too, so long as you continue to worship from afar and never try to take me home to meet your parents and see your shrine - at least not without tricking me into it by pretending to be normal first, because if you're going to shock me I'd prefer you be gentle about it. But what I really mean to say is thanks for reading and leave a comment sometime so I can visit your blog and secretly follow you in a somewhat odd and internet stalkeristic way. Unless you're the one person I never want to find my blog in which case I already know you're crazy so go away, you're being creepy.

Ohh, and also you're a clever cookie aren't you? None of my other followers have so far managed to get an entire post dedicated to them, but don't get too swoleheaded because it might have more to do with me having nothing to post about than you very cleverly drawing me into millions of suppositions with your mysteriousness. Damn it hidden follower, you're clever. I'm going to go look for scarcely updated blogs and secretly start following them too.

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For the other part of my post; this week I have amassed a collection of fruit peel and other organic kitchen scrap that I can't bring myself to commit to a thousand years of slow decay in garbage mountain. Of course I have to, I have no acre of yard to throw it out to, cows to feed it to, or garden for which to compost it, all of which is what I've been accustomed to. I was reflecting on the contrast between living here and how much more free my rural life was so I was going to write about barefoot summers spent climbing trees and littering the yard with fruit peels and other such careless freedoms I enjoyed at my grandparents house. But I spent all my brain power writing about my secret follower and now I can't be bothered. See what kinds of havoc secretly following wreaks?

Break glass in case of time travel

2009-04-10T13:20:00.003-04:00

Perhaps if I could have offered a 10 year old me the benefit of my now eyes I would have said pay no attention to the rules, you will be labelled a rebel, but still too well trained to stray too far from the lines" pay no attention to the rules or you will make me a good hearted chameleon, with too much work colouring inside each of our boxed personas when you and I together only want to decimate borders for the freedom of escaping colours.

Pay no attention to the rules! You will spend too much time leaning into your whims, feeling triumphant for never floating away until you see there too is a world for the floaters. But you will have stayed too long inside the lines to retain the airiness that outweighs the fear you've gone too far.

I can see where this is going, and if I were you I'd simply pay no attention to the rules.