Ends and beginnings
This has been, umm, some journey? It's strange when you come to a place and you are not sure what direction you were going in to get there, I mean forwards or backwards and such.
Listening to the UMBC graduation speaker talk about his useless degree and how he was going on to get a Ph.D. in said frivolousness. Watching a slide show at my best friend's fancy graduation party with pictures of us through the years and silently crying into my fancy water glass. Running into an old friend at Karaoke night at the Phoenix and saying I didn’t know what I was doing with my life and still seeing green envy in her eyes. Being at UMBC graduation and then putting my behind right back in summer class. Random beautiful ridiculous forbidden pointless sex. Being broke as hell and making more money than I ever made. Being at the potential highest point of my entire life and feeling so low and clueless.
Funny thing about success, it is pretty damn lonely.
Future parents: Alert! Be careful telling your children that they can do everything. There are additional provisions. If they are like me, the can do everything, and most of the time that is the problem. You can’t friggin do it all at once, and you have make decisions and deny those that you love. You have to prioritize, which has definitely become one of my least favorite things to do and which always seems to cast a shadow of failure. But, yea. Encourage your kids and all that. They will grow up to be whatever they want to be.
I haven’t been in good shape lately. I don’t know why. I mean physically, I lost 4 pounds with my new program... emotionally, everyone still loves me and thinks I am a funny person... mentally, well I dunno I mean am getting smarter everyday, at least my mom’s pocketbook says so...economically, well let’s not go there but at least I have a job right now... and ummm is that all of them? Socially... ah yea, socially...oh boy... let’s just suffice it to say it would be really nice if some people would call me or simply answer when I call or send me an short im saying “Thanks hey I got the nice things you sent me”... yea some of you should be my friend again, cause through some of these times, all I needed, all it would have taken to cure me, was your smile. Speaking of which, I was down in College Park today walking into the Performing Arts Center where I am taking a stage makeup class and in passing this professor looking guy made eye contact with me. He looked at me as a person, smiled, and greeted me as if he was happy to see me. The moment was very penetrating; I couldn’t help but to smile myself as I walked away from him, out of the bleak weather and into the enormous building which consumed me.
Matt McGloin says to me last night, as I was doing him a small favor at 11:00 at night after work and school all day, “I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t here to save my life.” I laughed, impulsively, and continued doing my duty. He said, “I guess I’d be dead.”
I replied, “And I guess I’d be at your funeral feeling sorry that I didn’t save your life.” That just stuck with me today for whatever reason.
The things I can do for other people are things that I mostly can control. I try very hard, not superficially, but I do attempt to please, to impress, to astonish those around me in all things everyday. So here I am always conscious, and afraid of standing still. Afraid of stopping to check the script because I will lose the captive audience. Afraid of asking for help. I’m afraid of letting you just live your life without me cause I am mostly afraid of living my life without you. I stand here afraid of looking behind me for fear I have already seen where I am going to end up. I am terrified of what lies ahead and refuse to stay here and let you have a piece of me without me finding out. But I feel, well I have been taught, to take action. To continue to make decisions and drive forward because it is the only way I will ever know. So I am not sure how I got here. I don’t know what this place is. But I won’t be here for long.
It was a fine affair,
But now it's over.
And though I used to care,
I need the open air.
You're better off without me,
Mein Herr.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Religion
What I meant to say was
For a long time I could only find
Religion in the church bulletin board signs
Outside on the road
Telling me which way to go and what way to lead my life
What I really mean is
Underneath it all I only found
Religion in your smile
But you've been gone more than a while and so I've been sinning
What I really mean to say is
Sometimes I want to go for long walks away
But I won't
You prey on me with religious temptations
I've lost myself
I don't mean to stay
But I can't tread away from the altar in your eyes
Thoughts tumble down green hills
Into the shallow naked valley that is my mind
Mine that you unwind and yet contracted
I want to go back and spend
All my offerings unto your lap in friendly recompense
What I had been meaning to say is
Some day is
Too soon and I know
That day is near
And I fear I won't have my salvation before then...when?
I'm scared
But what I was really saying is that
I deposit my soul into your plate
And I will wait
And Well
Wait
Until you notice that it is gone
That is to say
What I really want to say
-Me.
All fights reserved. And rights too.
What I meant to say was
For a long time I could only find
Religion in the church bulletin board signs
Outside on the road
Telling me which way to go and what way to lead my life
What I really mean is
Underneath it all I only found
Religion in your smile
But you've been gone more than a while and so I've been sinning
What I really mean to say is
Sometimes I want to go for long walks away
But I won't
You prey on me with religious temptations
I've lost myself
I don't mean to stay
But I can't tread away from the altar in your eyes
Thoughts tumble down green hills
Into the shallow naked valley that is my mind
Mine that you unwind and yet contracted
I want to go back and spend
All my offerings unto your lap in friendly recompense
What I had been meaning to say is
Some day is
Too soon and I know
That day is near
And I fear I won't have my salvation before then...when?
I'm scared
But what I was really saying is that
I deposit my soul into your plate
And I will wait
And Well
Wait
Until you notice that it is gone
That is to say
What I really want to say
-Me.
All fights reserved. And rights too.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
My great aunt died this morning. On Monday she was diagnosed with cancer, and the doctors said it had by then spread throughout her whole body. It was all very sudden.
I remember on Christmas Day Aunt Hilda was walking around, just as active as can be, defiant... She didn't want to sit at the table where we put all our "elders" every year, she wanted to sit in the living room with everybody else: there among all the great grandchildren that were playing, among the presents, across from the white guy nobody recognized but assumed was a family friend and welcomed into the family anyhow, next to the piano where later on we would all gather around to sing, next to the piano where my cousin would play kneeling on his knees and my aunt Wanda would, singing, search frantically for songs we used to sing through Grandma's old piano bench, surrounded by her brother's (my grandfather's) family...
Aunt Hilda's hands were shaking.
Wait, lets go back a bit.
I called her something more like "Ain't Hilda" since she was my great aunt. But she was the only Hilda I knew.
So Aint Hilda's hands were shaking as she carried her plate filled with all the home cooked food my mother and her sisters had prepared for the whole family. I was scared she would drop the plate and the sweet potatoes would get all over the rug. We all looked out of the corner of our eye. She paid no mind, just kept on, determined. There was other chatter about her around Grandaddy's small, Bowling Green, VA house:
"You know they found a spot on Aint Hilda's brain."
"What?"
"Aint Hilda say, whatever it is on there, she is taking it with her when she go."
"Hmm."
Aint Hilda thanked everyone for the delicious food. It was exceptionally good this time too. Later on Christmas Day found her listening to us sing gospel songs around my grandma's old piano, cousin Reggie playing the way she used to play when she was alive. The keys are all messed up now. I did it when I was a little girl, wrote on the keys of the old piano with a chinese marker, wrote the notes down, stuck tape to the keys with the notes written on them so I could remember how to play. A few years later, my mother bought me my own keyboard. I still never learned to play either one of them. There are alot of things in my life like that. I even sold my trumpet for cold cash, because I was too shy to join the band at my new school. My cousin Reggie taught himself how to play the piano and several other instruments. My aunt, who had not been herself for quite some time, whose son and his troubles have seemed to take a huge pound on her, opened up and sang with a voice like Mahalia, the rest of us harmonized, and my grandfather added some base every now and then. Aint Hilda shushed my great Uncle Mel and Granddaddy, her brothers. The house was filled with song. It felt like family for real again.
The funeral arrangements haven't been made yet but I assume they will be this weekend or so. A strange piece of me feels excitement to go, I haven't been to church in a long time, and something about the bonding together of family in the time of mourning just sounds good to me. I have been very fortunate, so many wonderful things have been happening to me recently, nothing truly hurtful has happened to me in a long time. Or perhaps I am getting stronger. I look out at the world around me, and compassion pours out from me, sometimes involuntarily, for those whose suffering mine cannot compare. I cannot help but love the world against my will. Otherwise I feel I too have died.
I remember on Christmas Day Aunt Hilda was walking around, just as active as can be, defiant... She didn't want to sit at the table where we put all our "elders" every year, she wanted to sit in the living room with everybody else: there among all the great grandchildren that were playing, among the presents, across from the white guy nobody recognized but assumed was a family friend and welcomed into the family anyhow, next to the piano where later on we would all gather around to sing, next to the piano where my cousin would play kneeling on his knees and my aunt Wanda would, singing, search frantically for songs we used to sing through Grandma's old piano bench, surrounded by her brother's (my grandfather's) family...
Aunt Hilda's hands were shaking.
Wait, lets go back a bit.
I called her something more like "Ain't Hilda" since she was my great aunt. But she was the only Hilda I knew.
So Aint Hilda's hands were shaking as she carried her plate filled with all the home cooked food my mother and her sisters had prepared for the whole family. I was scared she would drop the plate and the sweet potatoes would get all over the rug. We all looked out of the corner of our eye. She paid no mind, just kept on, determined. There was other chatter about her around Grandaddy's small, Bowling Green, VA house:
"You know they found a spot on Aint Hilda's brain."
"What?"
"Aint Hilda say, whatever it is on there, she is taking it with her when she go."
"Hmm."
Aint Hilda thanked everyone for the delicious food. It was exceptionally good this time too. Later on Christmas Day found her listening to us sing gospel songs around my grandma's old piano, cousin Reggie playing the way she used to play when she was alive. The keys are all messed up now. I did it when I was a little girl, wrote on the keys of the old piano with a chinese marker, wrote the notes down, stuck tape to the keys with the notes written on them so I could remember how to play. A few years later, my mother bought me my own keyboard. I still never learned to play either one of them. There are alot of things in my life like that. I even sold my trumpet for cold cash, because I was too shy to join the band at my new school. My cousin Reggie taught himself how to play the piano and several other instruments. My aunt, who had not been herself for quite some time, whose son and his troubles have seemed to take a huge pound on her, opened up and sang with a voice like Mahalia, the rest of us harmonized, and my grandfather added some base every now and then. Aint Hilda shushed my great Uncle Mel and Granddaddy, her brothers. The house was filled with song. It felt like family for real again.
The funeral arrangements haven't been made yet but I assume they will be this weekend or so. A strange piece of me feels excitement to go, I haven't been to church in a long time, and something about the bonding together of family in the time of mourning just sounds good to me. I have been very fortunate, so many wonderful things have been happening to me recently, nothing truly hurtful has happened to me in a long time. Or perhaps I am getting stronger. I look out at the world around me, and compassion pours out from me, sometimes involuntarily, for those whose suffering mine cannot compare. I cannot help but love the world against my will. Otherwise I feel I too have died.
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