…yo viví, yo amé, yo crecí

by JOAN on DECEMBER 31, 2011 in UNCATEGORIZED

New year’s eve has always been the one night that everyone waits for to whip out their big crazy guns. You’d wake in the morning sleeping next to a girl, unknown to you, accompanied by a nasty hang over from another tepid party. the only good thing about it all is that you can blame it on New year’s eve.

Thirteen years ago new year’s eve was the one day we were allowed not to sleep. i’d be barefoot outside all day running in the dust of the african earth, not because we lived in a remote area- the lawn just didnt do so well! I’d wait for nightfall for some change. maybe the stars would turn red or better yet at exactly midnight there’d some sort of lazer scan from the creator himself, much like a barcode scanner, than runs over the face of the earth to account for each of his creations.

i could still run with these theologies today and get away with it, it is after all New year’s eve!

But tonight, 13years later, i sit on my couch looking out at the sky, my drink in hand. there are no stars in the sky- i guess i can’t look to them for the new year signal, the clouds blanket over the african sky, lightning flashing occasionaly luminating beauty of the african darkness and showing the crystal raindrops seemingly cleaning the earth towards the new phase. i guess this is the sign i been looking for?

perhaps.

if not, blame it on the New year:)

15 & 2 years

He was just like me and She wasn't. When they look at me they see him and feel her. I am a shadow of both of them, a footprint on the sand which slowly erodes with every whisper of the wind that sprints by. i become that beach, waiting for that high tide to finally erase any trace of that footprint, if possible.

They met awkwardly. An attraction that loomed at first sight. Not so long after an inchoate love blossomed as quickly as it started ending. Strangers living together, sharing a love. An illusion of forever floated on their veranda, well at least i think so.

After not so few long years it ended and they lived as strangers apart and in love. The only thing that was a memoir of who they had been was that they had me.

My father, he had so much heart and yet it existed inside a monster. My mother, she had so much courage that lived inside a fungus. And yet you wonder how it is they could possibly have a mind like mine? Well its highly probable that when two opposite forces meet they make one heck of an unstoppable crazy force that is caught in a whirlwind of his and hers. I'm unscripted, undriven, unpredictable and crazy enough extinct.

And 15 & 2 years later i look back at their lives and all its crazies. The unscripted lessons that were made not to learn from. A disappointing life and love lived to fiercely admire.

I love them both for their paradoxical complicated simplicity. Its the best thing to have such culture lost in translation. Regardless i really do love them both and hope that in the crazy noises of afterlife silence, they find solace in knowing that their daughter is still dead-living in this fucking crazy world!

Brilliance Kills

That’s what my friend said last night as we sat under on the kitchen stools sharing popcorn over the kitchen counter. As soon as she said it, i understood it.

There is a need for silence when so much runs through you, with you, in you. The voices. I know many times i sit watching the busy bodies walk by, everyone’s life seemingly so scripted. They seem to know where they are going, what they are looking for and of course have the idea of how to get it.

They sit in cafes starring at their monitors and/or mobile phones in anticipation of the next 16 letter text encrypted in the new code. In a second, its decoded and responded to with the swift fashion of tapping fingers on the gadget and off it goes into the already overcrowded skies of satellites waves and phone services.

When i watch though, i see the noises in browns and orange. I taste the smells and see the waves. i struggle to walk into a busy mall with all the color that floats blinding my aura. Its highly uncomfortable. In desperation i gasp for air in need for silence from all the thoughts i hear.

In a sense, death is attractive. The silence, nothingness. The idea of not having to see all that noise, to taste all the smells. The idea to just be.

But then again, what could i possibly know, i’m just a mind with a complicated soul.

...little big joys

It took a short drive to expose my heart to the purest moment i have had in two years. It didn't feel like much at the time as i sat absent-minded going through life like everyone else. The trees sprinted past my window, cars whistling by as we earthlings go about our day barely noticing all the good surrounding us. We turned off the highway into a smaller road. The grass stood tall beside the road, the trees waltzed to the wind slowly.

I stepped out of the car and looked around in awe. i could hear my footsteps in the emptiness of  the vast space, my heart sang as i listened to the silence whispering to birds. In that moment, i felt small. The emptiness embraced my soul almost into purity. A smile escaped my lips, a deep breathe and that moment i realised that i was blessed to have been alive to feel an untainted joy. Bliss. I thanked God (whatever alias He was using in that moment). Many things could probably be wrong with me. Nothing mattered, in that moment i was glad to be alive and to be with Her in such serenity.

Nothing is guaranteed, not life, love, not even friendships and/or family. Life passes by holding hands with time and beauty shows up in gasps. Mostly we barely notice. We spent a few minutes sitting in nothingness then finally we silently said our goodbyes and headed back to the lights, streets and world of broken dreams.

It wasn't anything, it wasn't nothing, it was just but a moment, but it was more than anything i could ask for.

Something Like Love...(if that exists)

Dear Old Love

The worst thing about the human heart is the inability to depict correctly that which it feels. Especially if its located in a body other than our own. And like the millions of us in the world we move aimlessly in a constant hopeless search for a fulfillment of love. A strong minority get it, they find their best friend and they marry them and live in mostly tranquility spiced up by good 'ole fights of jealousy and miscommunication.

Then of course the large majority float around the universe in a search of someone whom they are convinced they have found, time and again, like a broken CD. At the end of it all its filed as another inchoate love. Broken hearts fly higher than birds and Old Love's ghost seems to haunt the earth.

I wrote a while back about Old Love's disappearance, or maybe murder. She just isn't around anymore. What are we left with? Her ghost that succeeds time and again to fool us on what we think is love. Then she disappears as soon as it starts again like a punch line to a bad joke.

I've never thought i deserved love, it was a foreign concept that i had to work through for years. Finally i found my girl balls and decided to jump into it. I loved hard, dedicated my all and realized a little too late that it wasn't Old love, just her ghost. Again.

So i guess this is another attempt to cry out to Old Love's kind side, i know we've hurt you and broken all values that mean true love. I know sex has stopped being an intimate connection and now a currency. I realize that values of soul connectivity start with an orgasm and end with an actual connection, and furthermore that we lie using your name to gain selfishly whatever we seem to want from the person we spit "I love you" to meaninglessly. I do believe that there is still a handful of us that love dearly and deeply. That prefer cuddles to Facebook and enjoy a moment rather than "selfie" it. There are a few of us that still love the way the winder wind pinch our noses when you walk out of the house in the morning to watch the sunrise and notice the color purple when we walk by. For us, please, give us that chance to find you?

George: The Englishman

I could have been 14 or so, Christmas day. My mother would shake me out of dreamland. My eyes would slowly open and for the 10th time, I'd hope to see a white blanket out the window with a snowman sitting on it, wearing a real scarf, carrot nose and green hat. I always hoped African Christmas snowed too and that's all thanks to a Miracle on 34th Street. We had to go for a visit, it was compulsory. I quite hated it, i always seen Christmas on TV and people generally stayed home, opened gifts and did the whole family thing. It just didn't make sense to be leaving the house on a 'being home day'. 

We would pack the few groceries and go into the public buses heading west towards the suburbs. After a few lousy minutes sitting next to the few who made trips on Christmas day, we'd get off, walk a few metres in the beautiful streets of Marlborough, the trees seemed to all lean in creating a tent for the streets. The sun would sneak through where the leaves gaped, creating polka dots of light and dark patches where we walked. 

Soon enough, he scurried towards us, arms held out waiting for an embrace. My mom walks faster towards him and we'd take a moment to take in the warm feeling around the air. The sun seemed to shine a little brighter, birds sang a little sweeter. A second later, he'd turn to me, it was my turn. I walked into his arms as my mum had and threw my hands around his waist as i was supposed to. He was after all my grandfather.

I don't know much about him as i sit here writing this, i don't know where he was born or how he grew up. His childhood was just but a mystery we never seemed to have come across. He was born George, well at least i imagine so, though i cant be entirely certain it wasn't a name given to him by the white family that he worked for from his late teenage years. i don't even know for sure what year he was born, in his late life he turned 18 a number of times, at least according to him (lol). Most of his life he lived under the white dominated regime, worked for a white family and  did everything for this family. He gave them over 50 years of his life, waking up to clean, sometimes cook. They told him how hands had germs which seemingly wasn't the best of things to tell my grandfather. That day on, nothing was put in his mouth if it had touched his hands. I am talking about a man who ate everything, i mean everything, with a fork and knife!

He also vigorously adapted the British philosophy that "there is nothing a good cup of tea cannot fix". With a time table, nothing could go on if his tea wasn't served on time. I learnt this when he moved in with us. He wasn't particularly a fussy eater but if he was going to eat it, then it "better damn well taste good!" Liberal with a reckless tongue that dared to speak about the things many of his generation wouldn't ever mention. He found freedom in himself. Amazingly fluent in English, he'd hit half the crossword everyday, bet on horse racing, entered the lotto and never left the house without his hat. My grandfather was an English-man. Groomed and bred in the English culture, i's dotted, t's crossed.

One day i heard he died. He just died. I don't know where, i don't know how. He just seemed to disappear from my life for a few weeks that turned to months, that turned to years. In the end, the last anyone has seen him. he was walking down the road his hat on, a newspaper in hand, like he'd done many times before. Now we are only left with that image of him heading into the shadows

RIP Gramps
George Matute
  

Dying life...

So lately i have been having a feeling like my end is near, like my world is slowly closing in and that my "purpose" as it maybe believed as the reason for human existence is served. I don't know if that would make a difference if still i am not 100% aware what the purpose is. It could be in anyway religiously i could look at it.  I am not suicidal, don't get it wrong, and neither am i aware of how i would die but it just feels like i am reaching close to my expiry date.  Maybe its a reminder of how fragile life really is or maybe its intuition or a sixth sense of some sort. I could never explain it .

Lately i wonder about death in itself and incredibly there is an unwritten fear of death and anything that may seem dark that seemingly accompanies it. Its the questions we don't like to ask that keep us floating in uncertainty and hearsay, uneven belief and cold blunt fear of what is unknown. There are so many theories...heaven, hell, 72 virgins, reincarnation, silence. Its quite a fascinating subject. I heard a quote one time that reoccurred to me.

"Death created time to grow the things it will kill." 

That really dissected in my brain today when the sun rose a few minutes later than it would in this season. Time became a factor i meditated on tied up with the aspect of death. Made me wonder,

Is life really life or are we in actual fact killed to live?

Stick with me a second here...let me perhaps try to untangle my thoughts.

So there is of course the believe of human existence as we are on earth. We all wake up brush our teeth and follow the paths of our lives wondering what exactly we are here on the earth for. We have gotten used to the capitalist world were money and sex are the main reasons of life and the proof of meaningful existence of whatever time we have spent on this earth. Perhaps back in the day people were slightly deeper in the sense that the pursuit of happiness was more than worldly possessions but the extremity of the joy and happiness one possessed not necessarily what one owned.

That said, If what makes the body actually live is the soul, that would make the body a vehicle which is driven by the soul and maybe dumped (death) at anytime. Therefore the soul may live (exist) on without a body (heaven/hell/72 virgins) or maybe may disappear to thin air? (Silence). Perhaps the soul does exist before it enters a body when it is born and exits when the body dies to "after-life" does that makes the soul immortal?

If this is the case then can i say we are born into the world to die? and if this is so, does that makes the act of being born be considered as dying?

If the souls are everlasting then when we are born we are actually dying and that means living life then becomes nothing but an experience of dying. And on the extreme that makes the act of dying the moment we gain life. Why? Why be born to die?

Who knows? Perhaps to prune the soul to maturity? To generate humanity? To be?

Perhaps when i do die live at the end of this human existence, my soul will find out the fundamental essence of a dying life.