yesterday, i cried

this isnt in reference to the Iyanla Vazant book unfortunately. maybe i will pick it up one day and give it a read, then report the lessons that i learn via this forum, but until then, my latest tale will have to suffice.

so, yesterday, i did in fact cry. these were not tears of sadness, or tears of joy. these were tears of realisation. tears of fear.

i was watching 'vicky christina barcelona' last night at my flat. the lights were low, and i had my kfc (not the most appropriate meal for this type of movie, but a craving is a craving). i had seen this movie before, but this time, the experience was different. i was kept silent the whole way through, and transfixed not only by what i was seeing, but also what i was feeling.

after the movie, i burst into tears. i was laughing at the absurdity of crying through such a film, yet, like i said before, these tears were not of laughter. i realised that i was afraid. in fact, very afraid, and let me tell you why.

i like to believe that i am romantic and reckless. although i dont expose this part of myself (except maybe in part the recklessness), i like to think that thats how i want to, and do, live my life. looking for the ultimate moment with someone to share. naive in my ways of life, love, lust and passion, and not afraid to believe and experience it. in constant search of that ultimate moment between two people where they can just be together, and feelings, thoughts and actions are not questioned or rationalised, and instead are accepted and enjoyed. shared with others through tales and song. i like to believe that i look at the world through Christina's eyes.

"Christina on the other hand expected something very different out of love. she had reluctantly accepted suffering as an inevitable component of deep passion, and was resigned to putting her feelings at risk. if you asked her what it was she was gambling her emotions on to win, she would not have been able to say. she knew what she didnt want, however, and that was exactly what Vicky valued above all else"

however, in the real world, i dont behave like this. forever cautious, wary of what feelings or actions might mean or entail. constantly looking to protect myself from certain situations, and continuously rationalising and trying to enforce some authoritarian control over my life and the situation instead of letting it just be. too afraid to think and act. being eternally realistic, and tending to take the safe option instead. i believe that i live like vicky.

"Vicky had no tolerant for pain, and no lust for combat. she was grounded and realistic. her qualities in her man were seriousness and stability. she had become engaged to Doug because he was decent and successful and understood the beauty of commitment"

this didnt sit well with me. and still doesnt in fact. life is a beautiful, precious thing, and moments are short lived, unique and special. being afraid of life, love, passion and experience does not award you the luxury of truly enjoying each and every magical moment life presents. i fear that continuing on this path that i have travelled so far down, i will reach a point where i cannot turn back, and instead live with regret. satsifaction, but with regret nonetheless.

and then i cried (and the fact that javier bardien/juan antonio was sooo incredibly beautiful didnt help the situation)

"...the trick is to enjoy life. accepting it has no meaning whatsoever..."

rabi

(organic) asian lentil mix and the financial mail

i was at woolworths the other evening and left with an asian lentil mix and the latest financial mail and i think that this seemingly contradictory selection summarises my current phase. well, not "phase"...that seems to imply that there is a beginning and an end, like my early 90s billy rea cyrus crush. i guess it is more of a stage...one that developed from the last stage and will form the foundation of the next stage. possibly not a "stage" either, but at this juncture you should get what i am saying.

the ideological void

in the passed 3 months i have undergone somewhat of a transformation...from a peace- loving, marx- quoting socialist hippy to a...
well, i am not entirely sure yet. the world seems to think that if you are not a socialist then you are a capitalist...this is not the case. i just came to realise that what i found flawed in the caplitalist system...that it is based solely on material and utility and is in that sense quite one- dimensional...persists in a socialist system too. i think that to a degree you have to believe in capitalism if you are a socialist...there has to be something to re- distribute and i suppose in this sense, it is also based on materialism and utility. again...one dimensional. the void runs deeper and covers alot of bases, this is just the most pertinent example.

i think the point of all of this is that i am 22, my views are transient and i don't want to be "liberal" or "conservative" or a "capitalist" or a "socialist" or a "communist". i was listening to a talk where the speaker was accused of changing his mind alot and his response was that he changes his mind as new information comes along...anything to the contrary would be completely arrogant.

so that is where i am at... my current "ism" is that i am thinking and i hope to never stop.


#imjussayin


jamie

the age of innocence

yesterday i went to the park. not the kind of park where there is only grass and dogs run around. the kind of park where children run around and play on swings and seesaws. do you remember that? open up the archive, and look at the files from that part of your life. you might have to dust it off, but its there.

do you remember what it felt like to go to the park? to go on adventures to find the coolest parks in your neighbourhood? telling your mom that you'll be back later, and you get on your bike and just go? without so much as a care or worry about what will happen next, just concentrating on what is happening now, and embracing that feeling? all those memories and feelings came tumbling down like a ton of bricks around me yesterday afternoon. took me back to the age of innocence.

as i sat there watching the newest generation living the life in the reality they have created for themselves, running around playing with their fathers, laughing, screaming, crying, i was filled with a sense of jealousy. these children were all completely oblivious to anything that wasnt important to them, or directly impact their lives. they werent worrying about school work, relationships, family, money, crime, any of the things we bother ourselves with. they were just concerned with the immediate present, being alive and taking in every experience as a new one. forming perceptions of a new world with every waking moment, and using it to establish their own reality.

now we are at an age where our reality has been created, and now we deal with things and issues beyond our means. instead of just living in the here and now, and embracing it and just laughing, we are constantly concerned with the future, stressing out about work and relationships, money, material things that add very little inherent value to our lives. life itself is about a lot more than that. its about the immediate experiences one engages themselves in and learns from. its about taking that experience and teaching others what you have learnt. spreading your own personal gospel to those who you feel deserve it and empower from it. we all have a purpose, and it isnt to be rich and famous, its to live life and learn from it, so that we can empower those around us and those in the next generation.

watching these children hop around with an air of nonchalance reminded me how important life actually is (not that i was forgetting, cos i live a very charmed life by choice), and that its up to you yourself to decide how you want to live it, and what you want to make of it. yes, there are extraneous variable that may impact the degree to which you are able to take on certain things, but those should be taken in their stride and one shouldnt lose focus on what is important-life, love and learning.

i left the park with a new sense of self. a slighltly brighter view of the world. pretty colours. sharper images. and a groovy tune playing in the background. it was glorious, and that feeling is still with me a day later, even though i have returned to the life i normally lead. its phenomenal. if ever you are feeling overwhelmed by the bullshit that life throws at you, go to the park. ride on the swing.

#imjussayin

rabi

...but he is nice and has good itunes

...i am back...for how long i don't know, but i am here for this very moment and that is all that counts. i would like to think that my absence can be explained away by the fact that i have alot of august ideas prancing around in my head...and don't really know where to start. something that has been in my mind for awhile now, and something that the other half of the diad and i have been talking about for the better part of 2010...is the phenomena of the "nice boy with the good itunes"



oh...and "august" is not a typo. forget what your mother told you, "august" means "noble, venerable, majestic, awe-inspiring" (and i know this because i was looking up a synonym for "glorious")



back to the "nice boy with the good itunes". i think we'll tackle this in two parts...the first being "the nice boy". my brother would interject here to say that the problem lies in "boy" not "nice", but for the sake of this discussion we'll focus on the latter and not take the former to be an indication of age or maturity. men of the 21st century do not have the greatest street cred (this is not based on some neo- feminist conception, but rather a general perception). so an encounter with a "nice boy" is accompanied by a possible flutter and (re)entertaining the idea that tupac, elvis and michael jackson are in fact alive and well on an island that is yet to be discovered by the masses (fame just became too much for them).



now, if this demeanour is coupled with exposure, however brief, to said boy's itunes...shit starts getting real. and, if said exposure leads to your itunes discovering it's other half then in the words of my dear friend:

"shit is going to get so real, that it will get up and call us real and
then we will all laugh at the craziness of shit calling us real"

what is the problem with this?, you may ask. my answer to this is that with this sub- culture, you cannot be sure if the shit is actually getting real or whether said shit is only real in your mind. you might get caught up in the enthusiasm of the phenomenal music taste and manners that would make your gran proud, but the "nice-ness" prevents said boy from sending you the "i am not as enthused" memo or being anything other than "polite" which in the state of elvis-is-alive-befuddlement could be interpreted more favourably than it ought to be.

this should not be taken as an infallible observation...all observations are fallible because all observations are subjective. instead, this should be taken as a public service announcement of the "stop, drop and roll" variety.

#imjussayin

jamie

it doesnt matter if you're black or white

those were inspiring words spoken in our history and continue to reverberate in our thoughts and hearts. RIP MJ. but no, im not here to talk about the legend that was (and with that RIP Lolly Jackson). im here to bring up an issue that was brought to my attention this weekend by my aged father.

so, sitting at a fabulously trendy lunch, we get onto the topic of marriage and such. i tell him that i probably wont get married, not because i dont want to, but because i am insanely picky, and the the truth hiding beneath this 'pickiness' is pure fear. anyways, so he chirps that i will probably never get married due the kind of males i surround myself with. obviously i jump to agreement and launch into an explanation as to how young, lost, misguided and lacking in the balls department these guys i hang out with are (as lovely as they are with all of their amazing itunes!), but it comes to light that my father and i are on completely different pages. his response was, 'its because you dont hang out with black men'.

this statement stumped me, and i was actually lost for words. i didnt know what to take from this comment or how to internally process it. all i could reply was, 'sorry g, i just look at people. a guy is a guy is a guy'. and that was that. we didnt elaborate, we didnt continue. i think because we both knew that we had hit a sensitive topic in a sense, and that neither of us were going to understand the other parties argument.

my issue with this statement was this: granted, we all have different skin colours, and inherently different belief systems, its just the way that we are. its great. but is it on this premise that one must choose a potential life partner? or a friend? i have black friends, i have white friends, i have coloured friends, and although i do realise that we are all of different skin colours, its the person on the inside that i want to be friends with. with whom i want to engage. and it disturbed me that my father made it appear that that wasnt important. im sure that that wasnt what he meant. he probably meant that 'like is supposed to stick with like'. but is that something that can still be enforced in this day and age? have we moved on to a different evolutionary path? do people choose partners based on their race? what is it?

i was brought up in the post-1994 generation. black kids were allowed to go to white schools and have white friends. in fact, it was encouraged. we had sleep overs at melissa's house, and cara's mom would drive us to hockey practice. this was the norm, hardly the exception. my parents continuously encouraged my sister and i to look at people not their colour, so thats what we did. today my best friend is white. is it because of the colour of her skin that i have chosen this? is it because of who she is and how she makes me feel?

i grew up, like many other, in a world different to that of my parents. i grew up in a 'white world'. my sister-from-another-mother and i were discussing this, and she made an interesting point. she said, 'rabi, because of the way we have grown up, we will never fit in with white people or with black people'. she had hit the nail on the head. it was crazy. she continued with, 'we dont fit in the black people because we didnt grow up in the townships and went to predominantly white schools, and we dont fit in with the white people because, lo and behold, we are black'. i raised my arms and shouted 'testify!', because she was totally correct. i couldnt fault her on that, and she had put into words what i had been feeling these past 22 years.

this brought me to the point where i asked if we ever wanted to fit in anywhere. we aren't black enough and we are too white. there is no space for people of our kind, we just find other like minded individuals if one wants to be a part of a group to indentify with. which brought us to the conclusion that, because of this, people are forced to identify us according to who we are, not what we look like. yes, i am a black woman, but that hardly defines who i am on the inside. 'awesome' is how i liked to be defined (if one is REALLY looking for a definition).

bringing my back to my dads comment. i didnt respond because i didnt feel the need to respond. for me, a life partner is someone i can identify with and who makes me happy and totally understands me. the colour of his skin is just the carrier of the soul. everyone has inherently different values and beliefs, and has to deal with consolidating them in their home. the people in my life are cherished and loved because of the value they add to my life, not because they fill a quota. we are taught to love people regardless of their exterior (which is difficult at times, cos lets face it, we are all inherently prejudiced. lets not lie here), and its time that our black parents understood that by bringing us up in this new world, we are approaching life and relationships in a new way.

#imjussayin

rabi