Category: Musings

From Disappointment to Hope

After having been introduced to Ennio Morricone through Yo-Yo Ma’s translation of soundtrack hits using stringed instruments, I went beyond the Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone album to fully explore Morricone’s music.  I rented movies from Netflix whose soundtracks he scored.  I rented a VHS tape from the school library and watched it with my then-boyfriend (who still had a VCR).  I even watched a movie online (illegally) because I could only find it at a download site.  Listening to Yo-Yo Ma’s amazing renditions were one thing (he successfully translated Ecstasy of Gold to strings after all).  However, experiencing the original music en scene provided more depth to what was, previously, an auditory experience only.  I was hooked…


Although Morricone was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy Awards, he does not perform often in the United States.  There have been times when I’ve been out of the country and found that he was performing (or worse, had performed) somewhere nearby.  However, timing and money always conspired against me.  I recently made an online purchase that has me the recipient of “hey, check out our LATEST great deal” emails seemingly everyday.  Typically, I ignore them.  For some reason, Wednesday I decided to actually open one of the emails to peruse its contents before deleting and what did I discover?  A package deal for Morricone’s concert in New York!  The email came a little before two weeks in advance, the concert is in New York no less and basically impossible to do.  I was elated AND deflated within seconds.  A coworker asked me about any upcoming trips around the time I was at my deflated lowest.  I told her about how much I would have wanted to see Ennio Morricone in concert but missed the opportunity because I had just found out a few weeks in advance.  We talked about other vacation/trip related minutiae and we both then proceeded with the rest of our workday.


For some reason, I went back to look again today and what did I discover?  The concerts have been postponed because of a back problem that Morricone’s doctors did not think would heal properly with long-distance travel.  Now, instead of less than two weeks away, I have three months to see if I can make it to one of his concerts!!  I do not believe in attempting to profit from the misfortune of others but I do find that the postponement has now made a far-off dream a far closer possibility.

Ahhhh, the difference a day makes…

The song that, when I first heard it, stirred that “something” in me (album purchased based on this one song):

 

The original version from the film, Una Pura Formalita, with Gerard Depardieu on vocals:

One of Morricone’s more recognized hits, en scene:

Yo-Yo Ma’s stringed interpretation:

And, a remix:

The Pauper and The Queen

This poem came through me during the lead-up to my leaving to study in Switzerland. One day (or several days) I reflected on the up and down nature Fortune played in my life. At the time that I wrote the poem, I had very little money and the austere lifestyle I lead was far different than the one I previously led as an executive assistant working in corporate headquarters for Fortune 500 companies. Yet, the lifestyle I lead as an executive assistant was far different than the one in which I grew up. My early (memorable) life was spent in my grandfather’s house. There, I had to be careful to not run in the house (hard assignment for a child with a LOT of energy to burn) because my great-grandmother’s china collection was housed in the china hutch and there would be hell to pay in several lifetimes if I made anything break. After we moved from my grandfather’s house, we moved into a housing project. That too, was in many regards far different from living in my grandfather’s house.

While sitting at my favorite coffee shop and thinking about the various changes of fortune that I had gone through up until that point, I realized that each period contributed to who I was as an overall person. The Pauper (not having money) taught me how to survive without much. The Queen (having plenty of disposable income) taught me how to thrive. After having experienced both and finding myself not quite pauper and not quite queen, I was able to understand and accept that funny place I found myself – in between.

THE PAUPER AND THE QUEEN

I once was a pauper, I once was a queen
But now I find myself in a place in between

I’ve known how it feels to hoard and how it feels to waste
Both coexist like bitter and sweet on the tongue – just a taste

Sometimes I use the lessons of one, sometimes I use the lessons of the other
Just as a child differentiates when to call its father and when to call its mother

The queen provides lessons on how to thrive
While the pauper provides lessons on how to survive

At the core of my being exist the pauper and the queen
Offering a rich wisdom to this place in between 



 

A Victim in my Skin

Several years ago (over a decade now that I think about it), I wrote a small collection of poetry that seemed to flow effortlessly.  A lot of it was relationship-based.  Yet, one day I decided to write a poem based on what I perceived an adult Black man may feel living in the United States.  This was written over a decade ago, however, the murders of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis make this poem seem a bit quaint in comparison to current events.  To more accurately reflect today’s reality, I should probably change the title to “A Target in my Skin.”

Please note, this IS officially copyrighted material…

A Victim in my Skin

To hear you and the media tell it, I’ve done it all
From raping a woman to shoplifting at the mall.
I walk around everyday just trying to mind my own
But naww, you just can’t seem to leave me alone.
You pull my car over in the middle of the night
With a bad drawing of someone I don’t even look like.
You follow me around when I shop in your store
As if I want what I can afford and a lil’ sumthin more.
When I walk down the street on a quiet, dark night
You hold your purse tighter and step quickly in fright.
How many days and nights have I innocently spent in prison or jail,
Because when it comes to us, the justice system continues to fail?
The picture you paint is always “perpetrator of the crime”
But really all you see is the brown skin, time after time.
Have I lost my right to a judge and jury because of my melanin tone?
Or, are all of my rights forsaken and just plain gon’?
Even when I present a polished, professional look and hold my head high
When the raises, promotions and opportunities are passed out, I’m passed by.
I matriculated and earned my Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree and Ph.D.
But with all that said and done, even I must live in fear of the LAPD.

I ask the question, when will the painful racism end,
And I can stop being a victim in my skin?

If I See Him

When I lived in Saint Louis, I had two relationships – one that set a high standard for relationships and another that plunged the depths of low.  The high standard relationship was everything I could ask for – until it ended.  I took the end pretty hard.  I lost about 10 pounds instantly and didn’t really function much day-to-day after the semester ended.  Despite the difficulty I was going through attempting to adjust to the loss, I still vacillated between wanting to randomly see him and not wanting a visual reminder of that which I felt I had lost.

One day, a while after the breakup, I saw him.  Based on the myriad emotions I felt at that moment, I decided to write what I thought would be a poem.  However, there were no rhyming words at the end of the stanzas.  It felt like poetry when I wrote it and still feels like poetry when I read it now.

If I See Him

If I see him, all that was good in my life is forgotten, replaced by the deep well of regret that I wasn’t The One. 

If I see him, my heart’s staccato rhythm is for several moments erratically offbeat. 

If I see him, my heart relocates from its usual spot off-center of my chest and instead is on the ground. 

If I see him, despite my better judgment, I want to walk into his arms and have him hold me. 

If I see him, I instantly wonder if I look good or if I should have worn a different outfit that day.

If I see him, I always want to place my hand on his back, underneath his shirt so that I can feel his body heat radiating on my hand. 

If I see him, I struggle to keep the emotions of my heart from flying out through my eyes.

Fortunately, I don’t see him.

Vitamin D(elight)

Ahhhhh….the sun.  The outdoors.  I’ve had the fortune of spending time outside absorbing some much-needed Vitamin D(elight) and enjoying the feeling of well-being that it imparts.  In addition to sitting outside soaking up the Vitamin D(elight), I now see a flock of seagulls.  Not the ’80s band who immortalized the lyrics, “And I ran.  I ran so far away.  I just ran.
I ran all night and day.  I couldn’t get away.” but a literal flock of seagulls circling and gliding on the wind and doing what seagulls do. 

“The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds — how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives — and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!”

John Burroughs (1837 – 1921), Birds and Poets, 1887

Sleep or the Lack Thereof – Part II

In the previous post, Sleep or the Lack Thereof, I mentioned having gone through a sleep study in which the doctor forbade (for lack of a better word) me from caffeine because of the altered state it creates with my sleep pattern.  Despite the warning, the evidence supporting the reason behind the warning, and just plain obeisance, today, I had a café mocha.  After 3pm.  Not a good idea.  Although I lay down to go to sleep a little after 10pm, my mind has raced while my body has lain prone in a horizontal position.  Before now, I did not physically move much but my mind has bounced from the mental construct of a new year (potentially the next post after this one); nutritional deprivation in an environment of seeming bounty (aka food deserts);  reconnecting the memory of taste with the actual experience of tasting (rediscovering the lost flavor of a strawberry on my first trip to Paris); and the list literally goes on.

I start a new assignment later today and do not foresee sleep anytime before the time for which I have the alarm set.  Despite that, as soon as I post this, I will resume the horizontal position to see if there will be a reprieve from my Sebastian Vettel driven Formula 1 thoughts.

Hopefully, good night (literally morning)…

The Russell Brand Rethink

Brand

These are the words, written by Russell Brand, that made me do a major rethink of the aforementioned “over-the-top comic actor who starred in movies I’ve never watched.”  For me, there is a definite “before” and “after” when it comes to Russell Brand; and the defining moment is the reading of this article that he wrote regarding his ongoing struggle with drug/alcohol addiction.  I’m not sure what made me read the article in the first place, but the honest (and even vulnerable) look inside the mind of someone who struggles to live a life beyond the ever-present pull of addiction makes me glad I did read it.  In addition, he has given back to the Universe by launching Give It Up for Comic Relief earlier this year to raise money and awareness for abstinence-based rehabilitation options in the UK.

Conversations

I often end up in conversations with people who relay their very interesting (to me, at least) stories.  Sometimes, it may not be the story itself but the story coupled with the personality or what is going on at that moment that makes the moment so interesting.  Without divulging deeply personal AND identifying information, I’ll share some of the conversations that lingered after the talking stopped.

Creativity: Making the Abstract Concrete

Artists such as musicians and painters (two groups who are truly considered artists) have honed the ability to tap into their creativity in order to produce new works of art.  However, in the process of everyday life, non-musicians and non-painters create as well.  Sometimes it’s not recognized as such.  Whether it is the meal that is explained away as “something I just threw together” or the coordination of disparate clothing items to create that “look”, creativity is reflected by almost everyone. 

Growing up, I could see an everyday item in different ways and then use it for alternate purposes.  My grandmother’s old bushel basket became a round telephone table with the help of some cloth draped over it.  I learned how to crochet early but it was so early that I can’t remember what I made because I also stopped relatively early.  I learned how to sew almost by intuition and ended up making a pair of pants, a top and a jacket in seventh grade home economics instead of the pair of recommended elasticized shorts.  As a preview for the future, I didn’t do so well when it came to the cooking part though.  In addition to creating physical things such as clothes or innovative furniture, I also wrote poetry and could deeply visualize the plot of books I read.  Even today, sometimes the longest laughter comes when someone tells me something rather innocuous and I’ve visualized it in my head.  To them, they probably didn’t find it that funny, to me, the mental picture is a hoot.

With the passage of time, creativity manages to fade into the background as worries, concerns, deadlines and, basically, life steps in to redirect the focus.  Skills once learned lie dormant.  Hobbies once practiced are forgotten.  Memories of being in the flow recede.  And life goes on.

Such was the case for me.  However, I recently decided to pick up several creative activities and tap into the creative flow once again in order to create something concrete from the abstract.  I started crocheting a cap a while ago and finished within two days.  However, I followed the directions for the wrong size and it seemed only appropriate for a boy’s head and not that of an adult.  The rework is in progress.  In addition, over three years ago, I purchased a variety of gemstone beads in order to make jewelry.  A few pieces were made on-demand for my sister’s birthday and as gifts to two people (with one design being duplicated for me).  Life got in the way and the hundreds of dollars of supplies just moved around from spot to spot, place to place.  I finally started working on pieces that I had already begun but needed to finish and created another piece from the beginning.  I now have two totally complete necklaces and matching earrings for one necklace; two almost-complete necklaces that just need clasps in order to consider them done and some abstract ideas for other pieces that need to be fleshed out with the appropriate materials.  The box(es) of gemstones are still very much full with stones of various sizes and colors awaiting the transition from abstract concept to concrete design.  So, when 3am arrives and I’m struggling to return to sleep, maybe, just maybe, I’ll lie in bed, not with visions of sugarplums dancing in my head but the next necklace or earrings arranging themselves in my mind’s eye.  As for the poetry, it is still on hiatus at the moment.  However, it could make a comeback as well.

Supportive partnerships and encouragement help in any endeavor, creative or otherwise.  I recently met a photographer and hope that we can be creative sounding boards for each other.  At some point, I’ll even have a recent photo of me and she will have a new necklace.

Creative flow is always swirling around in the ether; it’s just a matter of tapping into it.  I’m trying to consciously tap into it so that I may produce items that will provide alternative revenue streams.  Yet, with or without the revenue (hopefully with it), it feels good to make an abstract idea take on a concrete shape.

Sleep or the Lack Thereof

When I was a little girl, I used to sleep the sleep of the dead.  I would fall out of bed in the night and not wake up due to the fall but rather because my mother was waking me up telling me to get back in bed.  When we moved from my grandfather’s I had my own room with princess furniture.  I continued to fall out of the bed, but now, the floor was less forgiving.  It was a concrete floor instead of wood.  When I rolled one time too many, I probably sounded like a dead body.  The few times I fell from the bed at that place, I would wake up crying and disoriented because the impact hurt enough to awaken me.  However, my mother found a workaround – she placed fold up chairs next to the bed so that when I rolled over the third time of two allowances I would roll onto the chairs.  It worked.  The chairs caught me and I never hit the floor after that.  Who knows how long it took me to not roll out of the bed though…

In college, our dorm had a serious prankster who would trip the fire alarm at 2 and 3am – repeatedly.  Usually, I would scurry downstairs and out of the building with my roommates and complain about it with everyone else the next day.  However, there was one day where everyone else was complaining about evacuating the building – except me because I knew nothing of it.  When I returned to my dorm, I confronted one of my roommates and told her (full of righteous indignation) that I could not believe they left me in the apartment to potentially die (there were times the prankster would start a fire in the trash chute as well).  At that moment she gave me a look of complete incredulity – and cursed me out.  She explained that I was awake and in my robe when she last saw me.  I was going to put on clothes to go outside.  She and our other roommates left because we were all awake and preparing to leave.  The only problem was I wasn’t really awake but sleep walking.  I managed to crawl right back into bed and go back to sleep (or resume the position of sleep since I never really woke up).  When they returned, they assumed I somehow was the first to get back in the room and thought nothing of it.

In my thirties, I was presented with another sleep conundrum – seizure-like behavior during my sleep.  The first times I heard about it, the reports were innocent sounding “you must have gotten cold last night because you were shivering” or “what were YOU dreaming about because all of a sudden you started shaking.”  Because the behaviors were described rather innocently and were random at best, I never thought anything of it other than, “oh, that again.”  That is, until it was thought I was having a seizure.  As in the scenario with the fire alarm, I woke up innocently the next morning feeling like “hello world.”  Until I saw the worried look on his face.  Instead of the innocent descriptions of shivering, I was presented with a report that my body was shaking all over.  It started in one part of my body and increased to include my entire body.  Behavior that was perceived as innocent tics had now turned into an alarming case of something else.  So much so that he was scrambling trying to figure out if he needed to get a spoon and struggling to remember what else you do in the event of a seizure.  I had no realization of what had transpired and would have thought he was joking, so fantastical was the nature of his description, if it had not been the look of “there is something severely wrong” on his face.

It was then that I scheduled the sleep study.  I spent the night with electrodes attached to places all over my face and scalp for one night.  I went back to the doctor for the results.  No seizure-like behavior ever presented itself (of course).  However, he did note that I had the WORST sleep pattern possible.  I never remained in REM long enough, I cycled into and out of REM repeatedly.  For that, he prescribed a sleeping pill which I took until just before the bottle ran out.  I lived alone and didn’t want to be soooo out of it that I didn’t know what I was doing, although, come to think of it, that was the state I was in anyway.  He also suggested/recommended/advised that I stay away from caffeine.  He made it very clear that he meant caffeine and not coffee by rattling off a list of things that contained caffeine – including chocolate.

Years later, here I am awake at 2:56am writing.  I woke up around 1:20 or so and felt fully awake although I couldn’t have fallen asleep until around 11pm or so.  Usually, the three o’clock hour is my waking time.  It would seem coffee could be a culprit (I did have some today) but I quit Starbucks a while back and have had sporadic coffee since then but regular three o’clock (or some other off hour) awakenings.

Sleep (or better yet, sleep of the dead), I miss you.  Come back.  Soon.

PS:  One night, while not sleeping, I ran into this short story on insomnia from Jackie Summers who posts at The Good Men Project.