sleepless nights 101

by JOAN on JANUARY 15, 2012 in UNCATEGORIZED

at the rate i’m going, i could safely say i’m more than capable to teach on insomnia. i spend most of my nights wondering what i’m still doing up late. its crazy how restless i could really be when i had a tiring day.

I hoover about the house at night, watching the shadows, listening to the differents sounds of the African night. i been trying to hear an owl close by. maybe it would be White Knight, the owl we discovered and named.

My thoughts rush through my head with super speed, its exhausting trying to keep track of them. when i don’t keep track of them, they get louder and i have to constantly suppress the urge to shout back at them!

they get almost as annoying as sitting to a woman in the cup who is three times my size but yet she manages to sit partially on my hip and sit close enough to drain air from my lungs. as if thats not enough, every movement is forcing her elbow into my bone. she’s got a cute baby-regardless of that, she still gave me the worst squeeze.

i don’t remember any other time i’ve ever approved the bus driver to drive above the speed limit!

my thoughts are like that woman at the moment, picking into my brain, probably partially my sanity. i close my eyes and see the empty dark space. its such a drag, later today, its going to be a mission to just keep my eyes open, worse of my mind quiet enough to allow me to think of the general household day to day duties and activities. thank goodness for you all you get to learn from me.

so i guess the Q is what do you do when you have insomnia??

A. go pee!

blue smoke

by JOAN on JANUARY 11, 2012 in UNCATEGORIZED

i hate it when i feel its time to post up something new and yet there is absolutely nothing going on in my head. Hmmmm, let me rephrase that. I hate it when i try to write something but the only stuff in my head are actually stuff that makes sense. I dont like making sense sometimes, it gets too deep. Who wants to have a serious life in the so-called last 11 months of human survival, supposedly the world does end in a few months time.

Okay so how about an update on what i’m doing in my life at the moment in the beginning of this revolutionary year – if the 2012 end-of-the-world stuff pulls through. Generally i’d have said ” if the 2012 end-of-the-world shit pulls off”, but i’m keeping my tongue clean in case it actually happens and i have to meet almost at the end of the year, the Maker, bigger than all of us, floating in the heavens, kinda blue smokish complexion. I know, but work with me here i’m building an image. He would look down at the group, but seemingly strait at me and say, “Who the fuck said the 2012 stuff is shit!?”

So just to be on the safe side.

Okay, where was i? oh yes – the update. I’ve taken up interest in war movies. I am not sure what exactly about people in camouflage running away and shooting  little yellow sparks at each other with semi-electric weapons. Don’t judge me. Maybe thats why I’ve been having really loud thoughts lately?? I find that most True-life dramas  are war based or a girl that gets kidnapped and others – unsung heroes. But with war movies I fail to figure out though why and how these wars start. Its incredibly fascinating how most of the men walk  in their platoons to fight for a war they barely understand. Then what the hell you fighting for?

How will all those men do in December – if the 2012 end-of-the-world stuff pulls off of course, and they see the blue smoke? by blue smoke i mean the maker’s complexion of him floating the air looking down at us. Don’t you think its kinda silly of me to imagine the Maker blue? I mean “He made us in his own image”, the Bible says. So what human being is blue – well except for the Smurfs and these are the exception. They are all a pretty sweet bundle don’t you think??

Anyway, my point is i don’t want to call him any “human color” in case. But you never know, we may all be shocked when the world does end – if the 2012 end-of-the-world stuff pulls through, and we see the blue smoke floating through the skies. And by blue smoke i mean the maker’s complexion…

“Who the fukk said i was blue!!??”

“…errrmm.”

Resolutions

by JOAN on JANUARY 6, 2012 in UNCATEGORIZED

at this time of the year, soon after the new year’s day craziness people sit down with the previous year at hand and look to make resolutions for the coming year. i on the other hand haven’t done either. i spoke to a young woman today, who profoundly said she doesn’t make resolutions but she does have a goal to live a better life this year than last year.

for me i live life with one goal-regardless of the old year or the new year- and that is to Live. life is much fun when it unfolds unexpectedly.

i could be met by an unexpected cliché of meeting someone when they’re about to leave from close to where you are and won’t see them in a long time. my share of this one was today, met a sweet little 4year old and also said goodbye.

but that wasn’t all for one day, i found courage to meet a stranger and look into his eyes with my camera and capture his story. an unexpected truth of life and living. when he sits on the side of the street day after day expecting nothing but just another chance to breathe life the next day. and on the other side of the coin, i met a hungry woman and her children who have just stopped expecting anything.

but when life decides to treat you, you will unexpectedly sneeze and fart at the same time in a bus full of people before the engine starts, just so no one will miss the moment! when that happens, gawd dayem embarrassing as is, look ahead and don’t blink and hope to God that no one laughs!

all this was just today. i wonder what tomorrow holds!

…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.