Brand New Beginnings

Brand New Beginnings

 

Hello loves!  It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?  It’s April and you know what that means. RENEWAL and GROWTH!  My birth month always ignites something in me.  This month, I’m birthing new beginnings.  My main focus is expressing gratitude on a daily basis and shedding complaints.

One of the reasons I haven’t been as active on this blog is that I’ve been engrossed with my work as a matchmaker at Tawkify.  It’s been an amazing experience connecting people to their higher joy on a daily basis.  I’m combining my observations as a matchmaker and love coach in a new column at Tribe Called Curl called “Date Like A Queen”.  Check out my first article about the ground rules for you regal journey.  As always, I am grateful to have you on this journey with me!

Challenge Day 30: Score!

I swear I have the 30-day challenge blues.  After pushing day after day, I’m pretty sad that there is no more challenge left and that sucks the wind out of my sails.  Funny since I expected Day 30 to be the day to end all days where I would stand atop the mountain of my achievement and look out with puffed chest congratulating myself for daring the impossible.

I’m sure that I have the blues.  Now that there is no challenge each day, what will I do with myself?  Haha!  Anything and everything. The interesting thing about challenges is that they beget challenges–a sort of challenge-addiction.  Tomorrow or later this week, I’ll ruminate about lessons learned.  In the meantime, let’s get on with our last challenge!

Today’s challenge: Take stock of the last 30 days.  How did you do?  What did you do well?  What did you not do well?  What would you like to continue to work on?  How did it go?  What did you learn?
I’ll be sorting through the lessons learned on this journey for days to come but in the meantime, here are the stats of what I attempted this month:

• I blogged for 30 days straight
• I gave up complaining for 29 days
• I asked for what I really wanted instead of complaining for 28 days
• I practiced being peaceful for 27 days
• I brought gratitude to every situation for 26 days
• I gave up being right for 25 days
• I made sure I did not give up for 24 days
• I began clearing out my home for 23 days
• I committed to finishing things for 22 days
• I found something to celebrate every day for 21 days
• I attempted to write a novel for 20 days
• I meditated at least 3o minutes a day for 19 days
• I infused my actions with passion for 18 days
• I cleared my mind for 17 days
• I took time to reflect for 16 days
• I declared daily affirmations for 15 days
• I practiced exquisite self-care for 14 days
• I burst out laughing every day for 13 days
• I asked for help for 12 days
• I was impeccable with my word for 11 days
• I didn’t take it personal for 10 days
• I assumed nothing for 9 days
• I did my best for 8 days
• I let it go for 7 days
• I forgave for 6 days
• I had compassion for 5 days
• I stopped being late and procrastinating for 4 days
• I went with the flow for 3 days
• I wantonly wanted for 2 days
• And today I took stock of what I did

My closest friends can attest to the wonderful peace I gained in these 30 days as well as the struggle it was to complete these last few days.  I know I couldn’t have done it without them or you.  I also know that I’m not quite done yet.

While I was able to challenge myself to different things each day, I haven’t gained mastery over anything new.  I have an experience of what it is like to live a revolutionary life but I still have work to do.  Each day of these 30 days of challenges revealed so much about myself to me.

The greatest revelation is that this month was a buffet of challenges for me to choose from and work on extensively in the near future.  All the challenges have been interrelated.  They are all pulling for the same transformed, galvanized life.  The next step for me is mastery.

Gratitude: I am grateful for that I could complete this month of challenges when I’ve done nothing like this ever before

On the horizon: More results, lessons and mastery…the journey – to be continued.

This is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsNot with a bang but a whimper.1

Challenge Day 29: Dare to Want

One more day to go and suddenly I am incredibly exhausted.  I’d rather nap than blog.  The only thing that keeps me going is my promise.  Good thing I made one, otherwise I wouldn’t have continued.  Thank you for the strength you give me by reading and witnessing my journey.

The last few moments before the end of a grueling marathon can be the worst.  It is in those moments that your mind, body, being resolve whether to finish or to curl up in a ball right there.  The next challenge is important for me to keep going.  Come run with me.

Today’s challenge: Dare to want…wantonly.  Allow yourself to want for no reason.  Want things you’ve never wanted before.  Want until you want no more.  Write it all down.  Change your mind if you need to.  Keep going until you see what you say you want and match that to what you really want.  Write that list about ideal mate that you’ve resisted writing for years.  Go ahead, write it.  Want him and everything.  Go!

Wanting is such a odd thing.  Most of us don’t allow ourselves to want things fearing that wanting things that don’t manifest may kill us or be close to dying.  We treat our wants as if we will never have them and work to push them away.  In turn, we end up yearning those things that we deny.

We suffer when we live as if wanting is a reminder of our inadequacy.  We are stuck believing that we’re not enough to deserve or earn our wants.  What if wanting was a normal part of your day as simple and constant as brushing your teeth?  What if wanting was a tool that you use to design your life?  Today’s challenge is my opportunity to dream to the point of incredulousness, dance into the impossible and shed suffering.  So I will be writing that list and collaging my vision of heart-thumping future.  What have you not dared to want?

Today’s victory: I spent a wonderful weekend failing and winning at most of my challenges.  When I missed the challenge mark, I made sure I went back and hit it dead on.  That looked like heated discussions, impasses and, finally, peaceful resolution.  I’m glad I have these tools working actively in my life.

Gratitude: I am grateful for the incredible community that surrounds, supports and fuels my dreams.

On the horizon: The scoreboard

Challenge Day 25: For-Give

It would be very obvious to post today about giving thanks since it is Thanksgiving after all–Happy Thanksgiving, by the way.   But I’ve been giving thanks all month and that would not be a challenge for me.   Instead, today is about another type of giving.

Today’s challenge: Practice forgiving. Wherever you can let someone or something off the hook.  Even better, let yourself off the hook and see where that leaves you.

Forgiveness is an interesting concept.  Many people feel that forgiveness is something that you give to others and often withhold it to punish others for transgressions.  Consider that forgiveness is a gift that you give yourself.

Punishing others is like taking poison & hoping someone else will die.  When you forgive, you release yourself from prison.  You don’t have to keep living in the transgression or the reaction to it.

This a practice that I have to concentrate on since, unchecked, I can hold a grudge.  Forever.  I have to remind myself of what life was like without the burden of upset.  To keep up this practice, I’ll have to literally keep my eye on the prize, constantly reminding myself of the life I want to live and what I have to shed to live it.  I’ll do what it takes.

Today’s victory: I spent time with a friend who I’ve had a tough time forgiving and I began to let go and was gracious with her.

Gratitude: I am grateful for the open hearts, home, family, food and welcome I experience this Thanksgiving Day.

On the horizon: Flowing

Flesh

Don’t touch me that way.
The flesh won’t forget.

Won’t forget how it used to.
Please don’t.

Burns long after hands, eyes, care
revoked.

Begs for your burning
as if it is the cure.

Thanks LaToya! Poetry will make it’s way into these 30 days!

Why This?

As someone who blogs quite sporadically, I’ve had to take a moment or two and contemplate why I do this.  Why do I write and why here?

I write so that I don’t become one of the dull-eyed people, nodding nearly to the ground that you see all over this city.  Some are obvious addicts who just got a hit but there are many who touch no drugs but find themselves deadening to make it through.  I choose neither, so I write.

I write because my pen still loves you.  It holds onto our memories more steadfastly than my cluttered mind.  It strokes the side of your face to life and dips into your kisses for ink.  The pen never lets that dream disintegrate.  I can visit again and again begging for one more.  The pen always complies, so I continue to write.

I write because I often choke on my truth.  It burns my chest seeking its release.   I write of the permanent stain left without a glimpse back.  Somewhere someone reads and it may not be that who but someone knows.  In the writing, there is that solace.

I write to be known.  To be held here in some way.   To be had here in that way. To have here in this way.  Here, someone can almost hear me scream, laugh, sigh and may care.  I write here because breathing is not enough.

Remembering

We kissed here once.  Those were nice.  Very.

I like your kisses however I get them.  Distracting.  I forget the heart of the matter and cling to them like they’re all that is living.

Your kisses are hard and punishing.  I want to be punished this way.  Not always.  Just that last time.

You weren’t as angry this last time.  No less intoxicating.  Different.

Anger hinted at a possible similar abyss.  Shared desolation.  Maybe you felt what I felt when I was away from you but I’m never sure.

Never know.  You may have cured me of wanting to know.  Curiosity didn’t simply kill the damn cat.  Drove it crazy then it killed itself.

Mmmmm.  So addicted to those kisses–want you connected in that very way–I would sell out almost everything.  Almost.

Especially me.  Renounced myself, my sanity, grace and joy to have them when you seemed to look at such magical things as our kisses with indifference.

I remember them.  They sometimes rock me to sleep, those kisses.

And, yeah that time when you–when we…I’m so glad I had that.  Rooting in the desert of something denied, I have that jewel filed away.

Feeling you feel me feeling you.  Blessing.

And I know it was right and good because I still feel good.  No regrets.

Wounds heal.  Sun kisses.  Always.  Grateful.

Ready

Once was a boy so beautiful that all I wanted to do was kiss his eyelids and drench him in adoration.  Not sure it was the eyelids or the overdue need in me to love before it burst violently through my ribs.

I had gotten it in my head that he was the one to give all to and though he was nice and seemed to somewhat care, what I had rattling around in my chest waiting to be freed was not for him.

Not now.  Maybe for him when he was innocent and could understand the endurance of my illogical love, once given always abiding.  Back when he believed.  Now, not.

Maybe for his future self that might lay down weapons formed from betrayal and disappointment.  But I think that when he does it will be for someone else who, like me, yearns to kiss his eyelids and live lips tucked into the crook of his neck, his scent her only anchor.

He isn’t a boy really, though until we grow into creatures who claim their dreams, we remain children seeking succor.   And though I may focus on him, I know that this has less to do with anyone than with my delinquency.

Time has come for me to love like first bite of mango in summer, dripping juice.  I am ready to be someone’s home.  Someone’s deepest comfort.  His greatest escape.  I am ready to crawl onto his chest and know no harm can reach me.  I am ready to give him every ounce of light this body has because he would reflect it, our love-force perpetual.  Ready.

Lifeboat

I remember the rocking.
Made more awake than lulling to sleep.
Couldn’t fathom how this wasn’t nightly.
Rocking insistently declaring life.

I remember the uncertainty.
It was dark and I couldn’t see you.
Then you were there tugging me to shore.
I wanted to sink still rocking.

I remember the silence.
It would never be the same.
Dug anchor welcoming sinking.
You pulled insisting on life beyond rocking.

In Memoriam

On another day as bright and sunny as this one, we lost him.  I denied it as long I could, writing: Is it true?  The heart won’t accept what the tv reports…

So far, it has been confirmed by almost every other major news source except for CNN that the most prolific pop icon, Michael Jackson has passed away. I remain quiet, mouselike, diminished until CNN drops the confirmation. I expect that I will remain in denial long after that.

This has the same feeling that 9-11 did as I ran, covered in dust, away from the collapsing towers. The day was as beautiful and calm as this and yet something so unfathomable was happening. When I am done denying, I will no longer trust sunny, breezy days to keep me safe.

I am no longer in denial.  Denial shifted into mourning, then anger at an unnecessary loss and the treachery of summer days obliviously dealing out tragedy.  I spent much time being angry that it was only in death was Michael truly appreciated for mark he left on the world and the lives he transformed.   More anger came when the media sought to rehash the ugliness he had endured and was taken out on my tv as it was promptly shut off.

Many people understand Michael’s impact personally and the people who don’t perplex me or are just too young…or something else.  The death of Michael Jackson hit me like the death of a family member.  He was someone who was with me through every part of my conscious life: Billy Jean when we first moved to the US, praying that he would pick me up from school, choreographing dances to “Human Nature”, fighting my brother to play with his MJ doll, hiding my face during the “Thriller” extended video, bugging out to and then practicing the dance moves in the “Remember the Time” video, geeking out to him and Janet in the “Scream” video, praying with all my heart during his last court case and on and on…

After watching This Is It, the documentary on his preparation for his last tour, I knew my loyalties weren’t ill-placed.  Here was an inspirational, hard-working, gracious, loving, truly royal soul that deserved all our extreme adoration because he totally earned it and continues to.  That anger has become a profound gratefulness that I had the honor of witnessing his life exactly the way that I did.  His 45 years of achievement and sacrifice inspires me to do what it takes and give all that I have to give in a life that is worth living and easily lost.

One year later and though the facts say he’s out of my life, I remember that as long as he’s imprinted in all these memories, he will never be gone.  Rest in perfect peace Michael Joseph Jackson.