“I’m listening to Dido’s “White Flag” at the beginning of this entry; there’s something so nostalgic and smooth about her voice – it’s soothing and alarming at once, restless.
So much to say yet so little time: I should be working on Classical Mythology right now (we have a quiz on Monday). But my heart pulls me aside and tells me to just take an hour for you. Finally, I sit down and I’m here.
I’ve met so many interesting people and learned so much about them over the course of a couple months and the weirdest part is… I can feel that I’ve grown. Not just in the sense that everything about me is different…. just refined, really. Yet I can feel my brain ready to explode from all the information I’ve retained in such a short period of time! It’s infuriatingly beautiful, I suppose you could say.”
– July 2017
* * *
Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
“What a year it’s already been. 2017 came and went with a surge of ups and downs one can always anticipate but never understand until caught up in the aftermath.
Not that the last half of 2017 has been that unkind. Not at all, really! I’ve made a bunch of new friends, watched Charlotte work on and then present her thesis, felt the support of those around me, continued to make awesome purchases (though my wallet cries for me at times) and managed to keep the house together despite all of our lives threatening to unravel time and time again…
Did I get a little carried away there? Not even close. And there’s so much more. So much more.”
And I’d like to take a minute just sit right there
I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-air
“I’ve lost bits of myself only to gain new bits and realized my own potential – that I do actually have support in what I’m doing from those around me up here and that it’s all about my mindset – despite those voices that constantly nag me about impending failure. But I’ve also come to understand that I can’t brush my problems off that easily…
“Depression is dreadful,” warns Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Or, at least, that’s what I think she was trying to tell me in The Yellow Wallpaper. A singular, simplified extraction on my part, sure, but when I was reading it I found something of myself in it. For those of you who have read The Yellow Wallpaper, please know that I am okay. I’ve never had post-partum psychosis and my over-bearing physician husband has yet to lock me up in our colonial mansion… yet.
Really, it’s the feeling of being trapped – feeling isolated. The details of any room become vivid when I’m steeped in those feelings. Similarly, the inner bounds of the mind are explored and uncomfortable questions are asked… or, you simply lose yourself to your own train of thought – it only derails when you’re interrupted. Left long enough to the inner walls of the mind, one regresses even further within themselves: unable to speak their mind, often inattentive, irritable, and lazy.
And, in the depths of that loathsome pool of energy-sapping emotions (or lack thereof), I’d often find myself dreaming of my childhood…”
In west Philadelphia born and raised
On the playground is where I spent most of my days
Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool
And all shooting some b-ball outside of the school
“Basketball was a summer tradition among all my friends. You could often find Shawn, Anthony, and any other configuration of pre-teens and teens hanging out and shooting some hoops at Trafalgar (our public school), or taking it away from our headquarters to Holy Cross or Lester B. Pearson. Shawn and Anthony were the crux; without them, I don’t think I’d have seen half of those games. Then again, I was never an overly-sporty kid. I got involved because of who was inviting me (i.e. Shawn or Anthony or both).
I still find myself lost in those thoughts at 21. I know I’m still incredibly young (though it feels less and less like it everyday), I know I have more life ahead of me (*knocks on wood*), and I know I’ll have so many more experiences beyond the plethora I already have under my belt. There’s just something so… necessary about transporting myself to the past every so often… okay, maybe more like everyday at some point.
A time when freedom was freedom. God, that sounds so American.
When does it become dwelling? Or losing oneself to a time before? Nostalgia is tricky.
And so is getting older…
Love came. Then, Sex. It seemed like those two would fight over me for the rest of my young life. Of course, Charlotte made that aspect of life more tangible, concrete, permanent. Then, Knowledge revealed the truth of the world, of people. I had always considered Knowledge a docile but useful friend to accompany me on my journey through this life… but the Knowledge I’ve been encouraged to discover for myself in university has shown me the effects of Colonization – of a world constantly in pain, only stopping at brief moments in history to capture some fleetingly beautiful moment or image.”
When a couple of guys, they were up to no good
Started making trouble in my neighbourhood
“The immortal cries of the dead. Well, they never die.
Despite plumbing the depths of human depravity here, I’ve also been shown that Beauty (as George Elliott Clarke would write it) is still out there. For every Rudyard Kipling, there is a Chinua Achebe. What I mean to say is, though the “Western” world indeed grew out of Colonialism and misogyny there is still ‘good’ in this world – still some anti-thesis to the evils that plague more morally-defined people.”
– April 2018
* * *
I got in one little fight and my mom got scared
And said “You’re moving with your auntie and uncle in Bel-air
But now life is rich with possibilities.
I’m on my way to becoming a Master’s student (already technically taking the main Master’s course despite the fact that I still have yet to finish my undergraduate degree… SHHHHHH)!!!
And that’s really the biggest development in my life, at the moment. Something I can really sink my teeth into though. My life is moving faster with each passing year.
I whistled for a cab and when it came near the
License plate said “fresh” and had a dice in the mirror
If anything I could say that this cab was rare
But I thought nah, forget it, yo homes to Bel-air!
Oh, and we moved.
Charlotte’s Grandma bought a property up here in the Bay and, well, one thing led to another (a.k.a. a mild shouting match between our previous landlord and her Grandma) and now we’re at our new place! It’s a lot more put-together than our last house and we finally feel like we’re getting our ‘money’s worth’.
I pulled up to a house about seven or eight
And I yelled to the cabby “Yo, homes smell you later!”
Looked at my kingdom I was finally there
To sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-air
I’ll write a more detailed post in the next day or so – I’m taking a new course, “Professional Writing: Digital Contexts,” which has led to my decision to jump back into this blog and use it for that class to put the skills I’m about to learn to good use.
Here’s to the start of a new academic year and to this on/off disjointed post (you’re welcome)!
thatfroninja. 