Tag: thinking out loud

Speaking A New Story…

Be careful how you treat people today because they may have the fabric you need to create your story. Be careful what you hold on to from your past because it may stop you from seeing your future. Most importantly, be careful the words you utter because they may kill the stories waiting to be told.

There are times when we love to be a part of the story and we never want to be the story because it may have painful parts that we do not want to share or be exposed to. So we languish in the rot of yesterday’s garbage and wonder why we seem stuck in the same place we have been trying to get out of from ever since. Why our story is still the same and why everything seems to change except our situations.

Maybe we have spoken too much of the things we cannot do and refuse to speak and write about what we have the power to do. If we really want to tell our story we cannot wait on someone to give us the words to do or, worst yet, letting others use their pens to write it for us. No fortune teller can tell you what to do or what you need to know to craft a life you deserve. If that were the case where would that leave our connection with the Almighty. No one will create that movie worthy scene that will climax into you winning the day, triumphing over all adversities and coming out on the other side. You can’t steal someone else’s story to make your own. No matter how much you dream it were so. We have to make our own stories. Speak the words that will make it so and live lives that tell the truth of who we are.

You have been set apart, specially gifted but waiting too long to realise this can be the great error of your life. Before a story is written down on the page, it has to be lived and told and encrypted in the soul. When we take away all that we have accumulated here on the earth, without all those things, what is the story of ourselves, without the entrapments of titles and accolades?

Speak a new story that does not have the stench of the past but the promise of a new day. Each day is such, where we get the chance to build on what we have already been given, accumulating people unto ourselves we will play a crucial role in the totality of the story and not things that leave when the going gets tough and leave a bitter taste.

When we ask if there is something greater than where we are, chances are there is. The only problem is we do not know how to wait and see. So, we tell the same old story because we do not have the courage to be encouraged at the signs that tell us, better is ahead. The truth is, we are too scared to think of the possibility of another story than the one we have been fed all our lives.

Be prepared to tell a new story because change is a constant that no one can escape, even if we try.

Has this pandemic experience and quarantine period made you consider telling a new story of your life? Think about the ways in which you have been changed by what has happened and decide how your story will shape up moving forward. Do not wait for someone to come and tell you who you are and what you will do. The power and knowledge is already there within you.

Grace and peace to you from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come… (Rev1:4a)

Black and Red Typewriter

Coincidence?

I am currently working on a paper focused on Trauma in the work of Haitian-American novelist, Edwidge Danticat and I find the poem below and made some connections. The first time I was introduced to her work was via the daughter of a close family friend when I was in high school. That book was Breath, Eyes, Memory and I was both confused, distressed and captivated by the events unfolding in the novel. There was so much pain reflected in the lives if the characters, yet they bore it as best they could and were so strong. It taught me about the true meaning of being strong in the face of great adversities. Since then, I have read many of Danticat’s work and continue to learn about the Haitian spirit that I now realise can never be r truly captured by certain international entities that try to do so.

Breath, Eyes, Memory - The Barnes & Noble Review

I recently found a poem [that I will leave below] I had written as I became immersed in learning a little bit more about my Caribbean neighbours; a country that has been shrouded is mystery and misunderstandings. It is not a coincidence that I am now working on a thesis focused on this writer; stories that speak to more than a history of violence and traumas. It had not been my intention. However, when we step back and take a closer look we are able to connect the dots of events and actions in our lives that at first seemed peculiar, disjointed and disconnected.


The Cries of the Unbroken          .
 
Mwen pa two byen
I’m not too well
I can’t find dey way,
Di light gone.
Eske ouka ede nou souple?
Can you help us please?
It was the shaking,
The shaking Mama.
It turn mi on mi head.
It swell mi belly an’ shove dirt
Over mi.
Mi bone tremble,
Oh Lord!
Ah tremble!
Oh  Lord!
 
Father a sinking
Francois, Jean, Boukman
Save mi, a shaking, a trembling
Ah dying!
 
My brother, eske ou ka ede nou souple?
Can you help us please?
My pride stands on the other side,
Jus’ ova soah.
I am dry.
Brother man
Father man
Mother woman
Sister!
Touch dis descendant of a,
Slave…
Stop,
The worms running out,
Stop the hole.
Father!
Father…
 
Yes, I hear you.
You callin’ mi Daddy oh?!
 
I’ll fly away to glory,
I’ll fly away…
****************************************************************************
The water,
It in mi lungs,
I try to swim but I dragging under
I scream!
I cry,
I cry.
 
I cry!
My mind, my body
My soul.
My ears are filled with it.
The water,
In
Every .cell  a mi hair
Strand.
My heart is swimming in it.
I see
My ancestors.
                                                                      Chile wi gonna save yuh!
 
Sa ki pa touye ou li an grese
That which doesn’t kill you makes you fat.
The water can’t touch you, no more.
The pain in yuh chest,
Gone.
Hold di res’ inna yuh hand,
Squeeze it,  shut!
They can’t beat you no more.
The skin off yuh back,
Ain’t coming off,
Tenk God.
The water running in the
Basin,
That is you.
Wash them opprimer away.
What a friend we have in Jesus…
 
The truth is in you.
The black star shine
Bright.
Strong.
Up, Up an’
Kimbo…
Kery on pep la gen gonm
The people's pen can never be erased.

To Be Influenced or Not.

It seems quite common for people to act as a collective when it suits their agenda and be divided when it does not. One of the global cultural phenomenon that had emerged over the years is the influencer culture. When I was younger there were international personalities that I liked and listened to but never really thought about unless I was consuming some aspect of their productivity. So I had my favourite singers, movie stars ect. However, outside of those roles I did not know nor did I care to get to know them more. I was fine just enjoying their talent for a limited time and living MY life for the duration of my existence.

Today I notice that there are many persons who are obsessed with those personalities they admire, which for me is a bit strange and also disturbing. The idea of an influencer has moved beyond the ubiquitous definition of someone who has the power to affect the buying power of consumers to, for many, someone who they see as their friend. Really an influencer is like a salesperson, there to sell you something not to be your friend. whether that thing is an actual product or a dream at the end of the day that is it.

Yet many choose to ignore this one unchangeable truth, and instead become so invested in the lives of these persons to the point where they ignore their own lives to preside over those they deem as being “like family”.

Sure there may be qualities in a person that you admire and they may motivate you in some way but the key here is that no matter what you do, you can never replicate them or their lives. The danger comes when persons ignore their reality to construct a possibility on someone else’s sand heap. The tide will always come in and tear it down. Many people rely on the voices of others to direct them and never the voice of the Almighty. They look at what others have achieved and think they can do it too, while being ill-equipped to do so.

On the other hand, one may say that positive influence should be separated from negative. While this is true, often times we do not realise that even when we aim to do what is “good” it is because we are influenced and not because it is a conviction that we have. What this suggests is that we want to please, or we want others to like us, so, we censor what we say and do to match the narrative we want others to have about us. When someone is influenced to do something “good” or “right” does it make being influenced a good or bad thing? Wherever we stand, we must be honest enough to acknowledge that being influenced is a way of life that has led to many unhappy persons, who seem stuck in slow motion, as they grapple with where their opinions begin versus those who have influenced them.

The One Sitting on the Throne

Power can be very deceptive. This coming from someone who has never had much and who does not desire much, beyond a measure of control over my own destiny and how my story unfold and is told.

However, I have observed that any measure of privilege and lead one to be consumed with a sense of self importance. As I hear an old woman tell her young caregiver to look wood to roast breadfruit, instead of using the coal she bought, I see the evidence clearly. Her position as employer and her caregiver as employee, has given her the right, in her mind, to see her as less than. The man who has the handle is seemingly in a better position than the man who holds the blade. Therefore, the one at the lower end must be careful not to antagonise the other or else his very life may be short lived.

Jamaica Culinary Tours :: Home
Jamaican wood fire…

Imagine the one who has the power to determine, who eats and goes hungry. Who lives and who dies. What great power that persons has! And yet his or her power is never complete, it is always finite.

For all the millions, billions and even trillions, one thing the rich cannot buy is more time. At some point the fabulously rich, those who have some measure of wealth must face their own mortality. They will get sick, some will make it to old age, but, all will eventually die. When we think of all those great kingdoms around the world, the one thing they all have in common, is that at some point they only remain great in the memories of those who chose to remember and tell their story.

“the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever.They lay their crowns before the throne…” – Revelation 4:10

Even if you have a throne that you sit on here on earth, one day you will have to give it up. You will have to throw in the towel, give up the crown. If the natural order of life does not lead to this inevitability then someone else will come to claim or take it. Quickly the ones jostling at the top on their tippy toe point realise, maybe too late, that they were never meant to remain there forever, but only for a while. Because we all came and saw the world it is reasonable to assume that nothing here really belongs to us. The crown we wear, if we do, will have to be laid down as we acknowledge that any power we have is limited. If the elders around the throne of The Most High were compelled to lay down their crown in acknowledging a greater power than their own, what does that say about each of us!

For some it may be very hard to consider those who he looks down on from his lofty spot. He may shake his head in pity and the poor misbegotten souls. Never thinking that they can very topple from that envied spot. Some never consider that they are are very short distance away from where they started or sinking even lower. The horror at the indignity of once again being ordinary is a fate worse than death for many. However, it is a fate that we all begin with and all must end with.

Some will say that this pandemic has been the great equalizer, but it has also revealed that many cling to their throne to the detriment of many,and many cling to a crown of Pyrite.

cross on the top of the mountain sunset sunsetsky awesomeshots ...

Mad Thinking

You know what I tink?
eh?
you want to hear what I have to say?
I think you in trouble.
everyday I see you pass
you busy, 
go here
go there
but you nuh reach nowhere.
I think I do more 
in a one hour 
than you do in a year!
everyday you dress up nice nice,
but everyday
the frown line dem inna your face multiply and get deeper.
you catch a little cold
and you start to worry and fret.
You not strong enough,
your mind and body weak.
Look at me!
I eat any and every thing,
go everywhere and do everything and never sick a day.

So you think you free.
Alright,
When last you do what you really want to do?
When last you say what is on your mind?
you free?
So how comes you cannot live without so many things you going to dead leave.
You see I wake up any hours and a so my day start.
I don't owe no one nothing.
I answer to no man
woman
or child.
But even when you get old
you still a go tie up.
you still a go try to be free.

bwoy,
 it look like you might have to be mad,
 to really make it in this life.