Broken nail

When was the last time you cried? I mean really cry? The kind of cry that the tears burn your eyes, turning them red, snot dripping, veins popping kind of cry?


Its funny because I watched a show one afternoon after I knocked of from work quite early and in the show Chasing life, April woke up one morning only to find that her new husband had died in his sleep right next to her. Her best friend though hadn't really cried for anyone, she explained that she hadn't cried because she hadn't lost anyone close to her. While helping April in a treasure hunt, they went looking for a clue in a hospital room. She broke a nail which made her burst into tears like she had had her hand cut off.


I understood that feeling of bottling up emotions, not living in the disappointment or anger, not wanting to let go of all you feel and just feel despite how bad you may look to the next person. Its in that moment that when the silliest things like banging your knee on a table could cause so many emotions to overtake you in one magically stupid instant.


I've had a few tough years...with a lot of good within that of course but its been a whirlwind of keeping myself together. I walk with a bounce and smile with a twinkle but every night alone in my bed I let my mind float into the darkness dreaming outside my head. I ponder and dissect my exact feelings with not much emotions involved. It took April's best friend's nail to make me realise that I hadn't cried in a while. .


But now that I did, I sigh and look to the heavens and smile. Everything will be alright after all. At least that is what I feel in this moment and that is what I need for now.

The Woodsman: Movie review

" Do you believe in fairy tales?"

I understand why many would have down voted this movie. No one wants to ever understand the sick mind of a child predator. No one wants to have a reason to forgive or excuse a person who harms others, especially our kids. Personally, I wanted to watch it and get into that mind, so I did. I watched it objectively with a somewhat open mind to try and understand the thoughts behind the act and even after watching, I have to admit, I still do not understand.

The story is about a man who was convicted for ten years for molesting little girls. It seems it started when he was younger, just a little boy who innocently napped with his sister who was two years younger than he was. In his first memory of these inappropriate thoughts, he remembers getting pleasure for smelling his little sister's hair while she slept. Later on in his life, this fantasy or maybe addiction turned to him stalking little girls and luring them into liking him with candy, chocolates, toys or whatever it is that he could do. Eventually he would ask them to sit of his lap and perhaps smell their hair while he "moved his legs funny." It became sexual gratification.

The movie plays out his struggle to get over these feeling which he recognised were inappropriate. He struggled to keep himself from acting on his sick obsessions and seemingly was fighting to be "normal". 

In his words: "Normal is when I can see a girl...be near a girl, even talk to a girl...and not think about...That's my idea of normal"

Regardless, it brought up the question: If it were true that there are people who want to be "better", who would rather not be this way, Are we willing to tolerate them? Give them a chance to be and forgive 

the acts of the past? Do we have the ability to, I guess, recognize their willingness to change? As humans we evolve everyday, we better ourselves daily. Should I dare then think that this is not the same for these predators?

Morality is highly subjective. Thieves, addicts, terrorists are given that chance to turn or change. Sexual predators though, we do not give them the time of day. Maybe then we fail to break the cycle of the molester molesting a kid who in turn molests other kids and so forth. What if that act of tolerance and forgiveness of one could break the cycle, could we consider it then?

I'm an aunt and I would possible turn violent towards anyone who touches my babies. I do not have the answers to all these questions. Hell, I do not even believe I have that "Christ-like" nature of giving second chances and forgiving all people regardless of the gravity of their sins. Its unforgivable tainting our little kids in such a way. Getting them to feel loved even appreciated, stealing their trust then violating them in what they might think to be 'okay'. They are kids, our world's future. Perhaps in another world where the cycle hasn't started we would find a way to avoid it. Perhaps in that world all sickening acts would have a cure. Perhaps then, the world wouldn't be full of perverts. Just perhaps, it would be worth giving a second chance.

a love warrior's return from battle

I wish it were like it is in the movies. A simple emotion acted upon by two people who realise that life is much better growing old with someone you love. But its not. We've developed it into an intangible emotion which is in its pre-extinction.

I should know, I've been in my fair share of relationships, shared many promises and cuddles and just as I start engraving the idea of forever, it fades as curiously as it blossoms. And yet again, I learn the lesson even I'm not sure I know to learn.

Wouldn't it be nice to have it? The real deal? Old love herself. She's a very rare phenomenon that I admire in gasps as she screams across me so rarely. Couples who have understood the sacrifice of love and dare I say the simplicity. Their relationships seem to be carried by an emotion that many people in this age have forgotten.

I look back - in my memories and experiences, my observations and perceptions - at the number of couples that have spent more than 10 years together and it seems when we got rid of wars and the fear of dying at any moment, we lost a reason to love truly in a deeper level. Now, embedded into our kids are safe sex and status-quo. Quickies, all the temporary pleasures of friends with benefits and booty calls.

What I would give to find that little joy, simple joy of a partner who I can wake up next to for decades.

I Guess the one thing that I have learnt from all the falling and failing is that it is never guaranteed. Its like an idea, it floats, it lands and the only thing you can do is try. Afterwards you find a lesson of how not to do things, what to look out for and most importantly what mistakes to never make again. Then you take it as it is, happiness, sadness, pain, guilt, frustration, whatever it may be. And for a moment you feel it, indulge in it, take it all in like a breath of morning air and again, wait. You may never know, maybe next time you'll get it right and forever can become, I'm hoping, a very long slow ride.

I've never written about her

I've never written about her. TP. I hope that from wherever she is after her soul vacated, leaving her container barren and bald, that she smiles knowing that she does exist in my memory.
I don't know about her family, not much. I don't know if they speak of her while they sit out by the fire or during dinner. After 14 years of silent whispers, I write for all to see.

Who was she?
Well, she was my first. The first girl to really look at me. We were young, teenage love in boarding school. She was my senior, three years older and was my first hug when I was scared of being alone, away from home in another city.

She possessed a glow which hid a sorrow I had never seen. She was an amazing vocalist. The most beautiful singing in the school, they told me.

We connected in the most unusual ways. She'd lay in her bed, ill - "another attack" they said calmly. Not for me though, I was a panic-stricken chicken. I wanted to help, needed to help. She'd ask me to sing her a song from the 90s until her asthma attack calmed down. I'd hold her hand and smile with her as we played song games.

Its probably an insignificant love affair considering I was only 13, but its definitely worth remembering. The days in the dining hall where she would walk across the overcrowded hall to bring me an extra piece of chicken from her plate. Sunset watching from the balcony of the 'sickbay'. The times I'd be ill in my bed and she's the first to come make sure i was warm, and the last to leave even if she was risking detention.The little love words scribbled on a torn page from exercise book, and the perfume on valentine's day. She was my first kiss and realisation of what seemed at the time a curse. the simple pleasures at the smallest gestures of love.

It was a few months and a fewer days. Then a phone call - she was dead.

I've spoken about her in gasps, whispers, in the evening night secretly among only the closest people that i know would never dare utter my words to anyone.

Its 14years now and i finally realise that love is that innocence, that connection and that lesson she taught me before she finished dying and started living. For we are born to die, that means she's finally alive.

So my words today, to whomever will read, is a dedication to an unspoken hero, a lost love a teacher, my long lost best friend. A girl who hadn't become a woman - a lady of my past.

Dear T.P. 

Your memory is embedded in my being... for as long as i continue dying i will keep your memory alive.

 Love

Joan

somebody change the world. . .

my heart sits at the bottom of my stomach,
everything i live for means nothing,
my pellucid heart heart seeks understanding from humanity-
even though my mind knows that the men that partake in my sentencing know not of such. Before it is said, my condemnation has been stated
i hold my children's hands and bid them goodbye
i smiled as if tomorrow would be no different.
i swallowed the lump in my throat sending tears to burn my eyelids,
i’ve known not of any such freedom,
death is on surprise when judgement is passed
i hold my hijab tightly to my face,
my heart longing to seek some grace
non of it matters when a whimper escapes my mouth as tears roll down my cheek,
their echoes deafen my ears,
“she shouldn’t be this way, she should be left to die”
i say my last prayer right before the first stone hits my eye. . .

For Soraya M. (The Stoning of Soraya M.)

Ohhhh...

most times you don’t realise shit is wild until you have realised that you have realised that shit is wild. it always impacts in an “ohhhh. . .” sorta kinda way.

i recently journeyed to South Africa. I love travelling by bus going long distances because well i get to view life in a different way and get to enjoy the silent vibrations ascending from under the bus.

oh yeah? lets not go there. . .

by JOAN on NOVEMBER 9, 2011 in UNCATEGORIZED

On the front row, right window was my seat on the double deck sleep-liner. i was sitting next to a woman who was seemingly young but acting old and cold, literally, could have easily been my last stroll. she whined most the way and kept begging me to give up my seat for her husband who sat in the seat behind mine.

as if!

Why do you think i went days before the trip to secure the front top seat, lazy bum?? She slowly started getting on my nerves but when i looked outside though, and watch the trees running past my window and spotting wild animals in wild Africa i felt as though i belong on the road. i love the thought of travelling through weird lands and meeting the strangely beautiful and capturing it all.

So overall, i had a really fantastic trip. i love bonding with my cousin and talking about things i’d rather we hadn’t. Meeting her beautiful little girls. Laughing and having such a great time. Thats when i realised that i’ve realized i indeed don’t have a place to call home. i’m a nomad!

ohhhh. .

motherhood…?

THE FOLLOWING CONTENT IS BASED ON A TRUE STORY. IT CONTAINS SEENS THAT HAVE BEEN A NIGHTMARE SINCE ITS OCCURENCE. READ AT OWN RISK

A long time ago, maybe 5 – 4 years ago i was walking home after a tough day at work, or was is school? i had my friend invite me for dinner which i accepted quickly, i wasn’t in the mood of cooking for myself on this particular day. On my way down the hill was a woman laying on the side of the road seemingly in pain, next to her was a face i recognised. It was my friend, the same friend i was going to have dinner with. At the sight of me an in one long word it seemed she yelled “pleasestayhere-gottago-berightback!”. I was obviously confused about these instructions but i figured she’d be back and was going for help since there is a woman rolling around in what seemed to be pain. Walking closer i asked the one man amoung many of the all-male spectators that had gathered around what was wrong with the woman. He told me she was pregnant.

Great! Pregnant! how hard could this be?

I stepped closer to her and she was rolling uncomfotably and obviously in pain. Instantly she started yelling she’s hungry and thirsty and needed to poop. I felt the blood rushing to my head, my brain was obviously not processing the information correctly and was in overtime as i was trying to recall any episode of ER or Greys Anatomy, for fucks sake, any medical show that had labour pains and giving birth in the twist. All i got was “breathe and push!”. Ii wasn’t ready for her to push!? Why no thank you, i was hoping to keep my appetite for dinner. She like charlie’s next angel took off her underwear effortlessly in a sleeping position. I smiled at her, pretty amazed at her ability. I am thinking how sexy that could be if i’d pull that one off in bed…*insert one brow raise + smirk here*

I’m nudged back to reality when she starts to push. Somehow in it all, she starts trying to close her legs while pushing. *PAUSE* Now who in their right minds close their legs when their pushing?? The baby needs a door, open it! But then again she wasn’t really in her right mind. *PLAY* I’m speaking in tongues trying to stop her from crossing her legs and not show my disgust to the audience who had now made themselves comfortble to watch the reality show. Real life labour on the side of the road…no pressure to perform now! Well since i was the midwife i then told her to breathe and push and she seemed to be doing well. Finaly i gained the courage to look at the horrors of childbirth, there i saw the crown – the top of the baby’s head – covered in a white paste. a deep red colored blood trickled down the side and the flow was met by – wait for it – POOP!

Dinner? No thank you i think i’ll pass.

 So i’m gag-instructing, the thought of poop, blood and probably sperm? *insert gag here* I began desperately looking for an older woman, anyone older. Anyone to take this baby out. The head was half way out by now, i’m now in omplete panic when i saw the woman, a much older woman…*insert cloudy heavenly pictures of smiling older woman with orchestra soundtrack*

So after the dificult odeal, the baby was out. The older lady arrived in the nick of time and finished the delivery just as the head popped out. She had turned to me and joyfully and declared that i will be a midwife one day! ermmm no thank you, i like my dinner everynight! where was i taking this? oh yeah. I think i would want a child of my own one day, I could just about raise a kid now, i have it all, experience and patience. and lots love for those little buggers! lol