Seeking direction...

wandering through the wilderess
of the west
lost but blessed
we be for all the
sacrifices
made
tests passed without mistake
mistakes made less regrets
regrets that make for great stories
stories that bring light
to the wilderness
whilst we wander
looking for ourselves

Faded Hiatus

So I have been out of the office for 3 weeks...the first to take care of my sick 2-year old son, but the next two to write and basically move myself into the zone of finishing this dissertation.  It has been a grind, but also a lovely experience to just be researching, interviewing, thinking and doing at least a lil bit of writing.  Now-well, I gots to go back to the gig.  It is always difficult after being out for a while to get back into the saddle-but I have to hit the ground running.  There is a lot of different moving parts at my job and well I have to get everything in order and quickly.  I may not be there, so much mentally right now but it is where I have to be.

I have spent an inordinate amount of time on here trying to get my mind right...this is sort of like my safe space.  In between words and sentences...consonants and punctuation-I am free in this space.  Writing just whatever comes to mind.  That is even what I have been doing with the dissertation, however it comes to mind.  Tomorrow...well, it will be different.  The difference for me is though, well, I have to approach it all in a different way.  Only take on what I feel I can handle in a particular moment.  Understand that it is not about me, but the process of getting work done.  Empower others.  Lastly, don't take it all so seriously.

Prayerfully I can listen more, talk less, and just allow myself to fall back into to work.  Another hour it will be a new day.  Not back to the same, but on to a more positive perspective.  Pray for me yall.

34...to go

Before I enter a new decade of existence.  A little over a month.  What is next is almost cliche at this point, I say it so much.  Don't really have an answer for the question that now haunts me.  What is next, at the big number.  I mean age, cliche coming at ya, is nothing more than a number anyway but well, it has some relevance in life.  I front sometimes, or rather try to act as if I am not affected by the total revolutions of the earth but I am...especially when a new decade approaches.

I think the problem with birthdays after a certain age as they speak more to mortality than immortality.  Like, when you are young the next birthday brings with it so much excitement...13, 16, 18, 21, 25, 30...umm, yeah, kinda stop getting hype round there.  Still it is all very much about being young, or your age...hey man, I am just 30 something...not. Anymore that is.  I will not be.  Have not really grasped it all yet.  The literal aspects of it-the number you know.  Like, I am entering a club I heard about but it doesn't look like a lot of folks inside...lonely maybe.

On the flip side of anxiety regarding the sheer number itself is the practical and competitive me with me.  So, what have I accomplished?  What am I doing with my life, and am I en route to there?  Where, well, that next level of course.  Getting paid, living large, ballin...or just really enjoying what I do and being financially okay at the same time.  Questioning that right now you know.  The number does that to people.  Makes you question if you have really been working hard...enough.  Time is getting shorter...like days in the fall; wish I could fall back sometimes...midlife savings time.

But regardless of anxiety and emotion it is coming.  The number approaches, the number approaches...run for your life.  At least exercise more and eat better.  That is what the number does, makes you think a little bit more about the Venti Carmel Frappucino-and say naw-just black coffee for me.  And a water.  Side of boredom.  But seriously, I got to get it together only 34 more days to go.  Really like 33 and 1/3 as today is about shot.  33 days.

Maybe I am tripping because my wife is younger than me.  I mean, I knew that when we met.  She is great, just young...:-)  I can't say I don't love that, but it does make me think about my age sometimes.  Probably should up my life insurance.  Just jokes world...just trying to cope with this aging process that is all.  Just trying to get all prepared for the number.  Never really cared but for some reason this time it is on my mind.  At least right now.

I think it is all really about where do I feel I am in life, and basically how do I get to a "best" space?  Not so much worried about getting older, just analyzing whether or not I am moving forward as time progresses.  This is the question.  33 and 1/3 days to think it through.

Worthless...

It's gonna rain
It's gonna rain,
You better get ready...
and bear this in mind
God showed Noah on the rainbow's sign
He said it won't be water
But fire next
time

Fire like flame from cannon spit
hot shells shot
hit lil boy not meant for punishment
so severe
lying in a pool of his own life
hopes, dreams pouring out
of his insides
and inside this sick ego tripping
wannabe policeman racially motivated
murderer
there is no conscience...
same as the legal system which supported
this institutionally justified homicide
same as the six culturally insensitive females
that decided bruises on skin of man more akin to them
legalized the killing of a colored child
armed with nothing more than pride
and a bag of candy...
can't be reality-yet it is
black life simply
worthless
having no value or use
despicable

not held in the same regard 

as those of a different hue
not deserving of justice
nor redemption
meaning black life is
less than
a negative factor when entered into any
equation
and thus equating the designation
worthless
so there is no thought of self defense for
a child stalked by man
with ill intent and no authority
to perform any action against
the child's person...
there is no sympathy for a black mother
who identifies the screams of her child
as truth...her truth denied as a lie
there is no question raised to a perpetrator's
actions simply because he feared for his life...
as if the black child did not, but since his life worth less
than it is fair that he died
Justice it all seems to be
to a society
centered on moving past apologies
of atrocities of the past
past legislative policies that address inequalities
masked as discrimination to the majority
past urban school systems that work
past equal pay for equal work
past decisions that cast doubt upon
any illusion of progress that an African American may
possess
the election of a president has not changed
the present...
seems we have seen it all before
this acknowledgement of our people's worth
burns our hearts
like crosses on the front lawn
firehoses outside Woolworth's store
broken dreams left lying on hotel balconies
strange fruit hanging from Georgia trees
or the face of a young Emmett Till...before and after
on cover of Jet magazine
we are familiar with this recognition of value
admittance of indifference
and it blankets our community with anxiety
about the future of our children
the lives of little black boys
Priceless...
invaluable in my mind
but fear clouds my thoughts...
how will our babies survive?
and all I see is clouds
praying for our sons
all I see is clouds
praying for the sun
For it rained on Saturday...a mighty storm it
came a falling from the sky
waterdrops fell violently
similar to the tears from my eyes
hush now, they say...rain will pass,
but I ask what happens
when the rain
subsides...?
will we be better
when the fire comes...
next time?

Can't Stand the Complacency

Of me currently

be 40 in a few weeks and it seems 

been on cruise control for a few

years

and in a few years

I just want to cruise into the golden age

but can't do so if aint no wages

made presently 

so complacency got to change

like dollars to cents

or diapers full of shit 

and I been full of it

for some time but 

it has run out...time that is 

and I am tired of just running my lips 

talking 

loud 

saying much of nothing 

or alot of the same 

but the game made for franchise players

and I aint even starting

late comer perhaps 

woke from my midlife nap and see 

cats out here eating

better than me and I am working on 

a 3rd degree

no black belt except the one holding up these

dungarees  

he who wears the pants sometime is worse for wear

and I am worn out but not faded

clear thinking...thinking I got to make some paper off these papers

sense to dollars

the ink of a scholar worthless if nothing has been written

light hidden by the darkness 

of doubt

statements made permanent during internal conversations 

turn down the volume in my mind

turn down the noise...

background noise just jazz in my granddad's caddy

traveling music taking me 

from here to where I am going

gone from the land where a man stands

still

waiting for change to happen upon him

he is adjacent to opportunity

I rather be perpendicular 

opportunity and I intersecting 

crashing into one another

falling recklessly into my future...

embracing the past like a great novel read 

on vacation

never read novels twice do I 

reflect but don't repeat 

moving toward the vision of tomorrow

the un-accomplished...mission possible

and even if they call for rain

I will carry an umbrella

or dare to get wet

drenched in ancestral optimism

can't stand so I sit and write away the blues

Distracted Dreams

This entry was actually written last year...well before D-Rose blew out his knee.  I posted it now, because...well, it should have gotten posted then but you know, I got distracted.  LOL

So I sit here in front of the TV, watching an excellent NBA game- Chicago Bulls vs the New York Knicks.  Good hoop-love my TV-52 inch flat screen-yeah, and well not really being too productive.  I have a lot on my plate, but you know how that goes...sometimes you down to eat and other times you not hungry at all.  Still, I have been thinking about alot of different things...Carmelo just hit a J...but yeah, so much on my mind that sometimes I just want to veg out and not deal with anything...Carmelo went up for the shot, blocked out of bounds-TO.  So, instead of always managing my time to deal with everything that I am responsible for, I, well, sit down in front of the TV and drift off.  Landry Fields from Stoudamire, lay-up is good...Knicks down 1 with 16.6 to play.  100 to 101.  Yeah...but I digress-commercial-is that the new BMW?

Okay, I don't care about that.  What I care about is moving forward and maintaining the discipline to do what I need to, to progress. Game back on, Chicago ball on the throw in...Kyle Korver fouled-bad foul, this guy can knock them down. Buries the first one.  I think the Clippers play after this...knocks down the second.  I mean my day was introspective for me.  I am having reviews with my team and really got into some conversation about dreams, and what is next for individuals.  When I have these conversations I think about myself.

Knicks throw in, 3 ball for Amare-wide open...no.  Foul on Taj Gibson-knocks down the first.  This is over.  The Bulls are up 4.  Anthony fouled on the throw in.  Knocks down the first.  This is over...knocks down the second.  Chicago time out.  Dreams.  Today really had me thinking about my dreams.  How did I get to be thirty-something years old and still wondering if my dreams can come true.  Chicago on the in-bound, 6.3 seconds...Derek Rose gets the ball, fouled.  5 seconds left.  Rose misses the 1st...knocks down the second, Melo on the in-bound...dribbles over the half court line-for 3...no.  Gametime.  Bulls.

Okay, I am focused now.  For the moment.  Dreams.  What has gotten in the way of my dreams.  Well, in some ways the same things that have gotten in the way of this blog entry-distractions.  I mean, in talking to one of my interns today, I reminisced on how I used to be in the theater-an actual major of mine in my freshman year in college.  I wanted to act, actually become an actor.  Then life happened upon me.  Wow...who is playing next?

Cataclysm

I am supposed to be writing...real writing.  I have this dissertation that is staring me in the face like a starving lion needing to be fed.  It is hungry...for words, research, thoughts.  I am less motivated than I would like to be to write at the present.  Regardless, it is going to be completed-just not at this moment. Why, the least interested reader may ask?  Well, I am somewhere else right now.  I am on a mental joyride racing over and through the dense forest of my own thoughts...trying to make sense of all the emotions that are within me.

I am home with my LO right now, but he is napping.  So Daddy, well Daddy is trying to figure out how to give him the world and find a sense of purpose for myself at the same time.  Whenever I am truly stuck...like not knowing which way to turn or even what to think about my future I feel the need to write.  I do not always follow the need, or else this blog alone would be voluminous by now.  No, there are times when I just want to say something but do not know how to say it...and since now, if you say something-anything here, it will follow you forever I say nothing.  But that was before.

Before I thought that the transparency of emotion was a good thing.  I mean, I am having trouble with the next step of the dissertation...maybe the trouble is not trouble at all but the battle between myself and the words.  I know I am not the first man to fall prey to indecision and doubt in this process, and therefore the world may judge me but others may applaud the emotion-because it is familiar to them.  Most will say nothing as they will never read this and that is okay as well.

In addition, I am a husband and a father, and I work hard at those titles as they do not come without substantial responsibility.  However, I am also an individual.  In that individuality, I am trying to find the space-be it career or outside the office work, that helps to define me...to me.  You see, it really does not matter, at least not that much, what the world thinks about you.  I say that because regardless of what you do the world will have an opinion of you-the earlier you learn to accept that the opinion you have of yourself and the world view may at times differ, the easier life will be.  But still, you make an effort to be a good showing out there to the world.  But you cannot put on a show for yourself.  Either you are happy with you or you are not.

I mean from a child you are taught how to act in public, be it at school or church or at a restaurant.  You learn early the rights and wrongs of social behavior.  But, no one takes the time to tell you that whatever becomes of you is okay.  I mean literally-if you are clumsy, goofy, not good at anything in particular...all that stuff is alright.  Yet, there is no one going around saying hey-great job being, well, not great!  So, some of us are left to question ourselves all the time.  Therein lies the cataclysm...the grand tragedy of humanity is the dissatisfaction with who we are.  Not who we are becoming, or who we are when we get dressed up or who we are when we are with this certain group.  No.  The cataclysm is the dissatisfaction with who we are right now at this very moment.  Period.

The fact is we are this ever-evolving mass of humanity, that often considers the world, and everything outside of ourselves first.  Simultaneously, we judge ourselves based on how every other person in the world functions...pretty, smart, rich, poor, black, white, gay, straight, Christian, Jew...yadda, yadda, yadda.  The reality of it all is that we are all, individually necessary to make the world function...as it was created to function and therefore we each need to truly get right with the individual who dwells within us to ensure that we add value to this entire world.

So now that it is understood that the individual is of the utmost importance to both him or herself and the greater community-how then do you tap into the individual and the greatness within?  Moving from the great cataclysm of man to the continuum of self-awareness?  Well, the LO is awake and duty calls...is this not an ironic moment in time?  Until the next mental joyride...