Dear Jethro ...

"Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You."
— Dr. Seuss (Happy Birthday to You!)


I have known your momma for quite some time. She opened a world to me filled with inspiration, passion, healing, and a whole lot of love. I've been feeling lately like your arrival into this little part of a great, big universe fills my heart in areas nothing else could touch before. The last time I was in a hospital it was for the arrival of your big sister, Aurelia. She came into this world when I was in a different place (and your big brother, Miles, two years before when I was in an even different place that now seems like another life time ago).

I can look back on what each of those times in my life brought me, and while each different, all were filled with as much love as I could muster. The three of you have wrapped your tiny hands around my heart and made me feel like I could recover bits of myself that I lost over 20 years ago.

You are so loved, by so many people. And I want you to know that you have such an amazing little circle of peace and safety created for you by your parents and the people closest to them.

I may not be able to hold you in my arms until you are 6 months old, but I've held you in my heart since before you even touched this world.

it's raining. and i miss him.

I was perusing an art blog (postsecret.blogspot.com), that features postcards professing secrets that are shared anonymously, when I came across this.



And of all of the practice I have had in trying to express myself, to tap into inner emotions, to touch feeling and be touched in return ... I have never felt like I did when I read that.

Maybe because my eyes kept scanning back over each letter, attempting to convince myself it was my own handwriting. Trying to comprehend that no, it wasn't my handwriting, meaning someone.else.feels.me

And as that idea soaked into me layer by layer, I couldn't decipher the memories of hurt from the present feeling of comfort from knowing that someone.else.feels.me

Dear Anonymous Sister of Homeless Soul, I feel you. I want you to know that while I can't promise to ease your pain or your brother's ... I can promise to hold every soul I connect with in the most sincere and gentle light so that you (and I) can find peace in knowing that our brothers are safe from harm. So that we can find peace in knowing that our brothers are brothers and you, my sister.

So that you can know today it's raining, and I miss him too.

to wonder (land)

Some of you may be wondering why all of my blog posts are filled with such deep, soul filled self reflection. You may be asking yourself if this is how I spend all of my life, sorting through such heavy emotion laden mind quandaries.









I assure you, I do not.








Instead, my "visible life" is much to the contrary. I spend a lot of time dancing. And even more time laughing. And story telling too. This chick loves a good story.

I plant veggies and take photos and walk around the city. I drive out into the country and stare at some of the most amazing natural creations I have ever had the pleasure of absorbing into me. I listen to hip hop every day, and I gain energy from it. I paint my toenails banana yellow or hot pink. I sip on raspberry apple juice.



I hang out daily with this really cool cat, also known as RMH. And we talk about our days and laugh together, call each other really weird names and generally just have a super fun time.






I connect weekly with my close girlfriends and chat about everything under the sun. We delve into social and political problems we feel passionate about and then relate them to our own personal experiences. We talk about work and life and our partners. We laugh a lot too. As I've mentioned, I spend a lot of time doing that.




I dance in my house, sometimes with RMH and sometimes alone. I dance with my baby sister (anywhere we are really). And we tells jokes to one another and laugh at things only we think are funny. And I text and email my siblings I don't get to see as much (because of school and distance and new babies!) And I send my love for them into the universe daily.

I lunch with my Ma and Gma. I learn a lot about my ancestry and have the opportunity to open my soul in ways I am not able with anyone but family. I talk about how I'm interested in learning how to sew/knit, in order to make cool pieces like vintage purses and neck scowls. I ask about new recipes I can try at home. And we discuss the importance of financial/intellectual independence as women. We also dissect religion and rejoice in our spirituality.



I research whole food diets (diet as in a lifestyle change, not a weight loss technique) and local protests. I engage in activism with my comrades nationwide. I read newspaper articles and blog posts related to women's issues, current events, sustainable food sources, worker's rights, and every other little thing I latch onto with excitement and passion.

I thrift store shop like a crazy woman. And I am a crazy woman. I scour for deals and delight in the bargain find. I venture to consignment shops, vintage stores, and architectural salvage yards. I have many o' partners in crime in this venture as well, might I add.










I dream about you. I wonder how your day to day is progressing. I send good vibes to my inner circle and the outer universe. I pray to love. I eat a whole lot of amazing foods. I sit in silence and feel blessed. I even draw a little too.










So when you come to my little place in the world and read about my inner most thoughts and soul searching endeavors. Know that I am human (a human with an old soul). And I do what I do to find balance. And sometimes that balance can be found in a really juicy apple or a really, really loud laugh. Sometimes I find that balance in your hug or the word that you are doing well, truly well. Sometimes I find balance in sitting on my roof deck with a book or in the small compliment I just gave a stranger.

My world is your world just with different colors.

i can see in color ... i have a new song to sing

Now, yall know that I have been on some "Precious" type mess since jump. "Push", the book by Sapphire, is real, raw, and inspiring to say the least. It was from this book that "Precious" was made into a motion picture.

Precious is one of those movies that gets inside of you. One of those movies that drills its energy into your soul. One of those movies that brings out your own inner most memories and elicits the most intense emotional response your body can muster.

For those who haven't seen the film yet (really?!), it recounts the life of an obese, black teenager who has been impregnated with her second child, both products of incest and rape by her father. Precious lives with her emotionally, physically, and sexually abusive mother. And endures ridicule, beatings, and poverty while desperately seeking more from the outlets and people surrounding her. Precious attends an alternative school, where she meets an intensely passionate teacher, who encourages Precious to find the core of healing, the power in self love, and the dire strength needed to carry the weight of what her life has beaten her down with.

Now, I can't even talk about this movie without getting that lump in my throat. You know that one that arrives because you are trying desperately not to open the tear valve. It's my body's internal reaction to an external stimuli that seeks to unveil years upon years of my own pain.

And that's what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about it because that is what healing is, my people. I want to let yall know that I am a survivor. And that's more than just the tool of empowerment women's groups use to label someone who has overcome abuse. That is the truth. It is the power of feeling, reliving, reviving, and reconstructing the experience of having been hurt in ways no one should ever experience.

My story comes with more than just my own pain. My story comes told within the resounding chorus of voices of women (and men) who have been shattered at the core of who they are because of abuse.

And it is shaming, that act of betrayal. Whether it is one singe episode of violence or years of abuse ... whether it is the first hand experience of or the witnessing of another, it is shaming. The power of shame silences people. It drapes the essence of you, the most delicate and vulnerable and light filled places of you and chokes them. It chokes them until parts of yourself die.

And I can't lie, those parts of you that die can't and won't come back. I haven't been renewed and made whole again because of my healing. And knowing that demands more than the act of surviving. It demands that we do everything in our power to keep us from ever having another part of our souls die again.

And when you have been silenced and shamed you find fear. You find fear not only in the world around you, in the dark alleys, under the covers of your own bed, in the eyes of every reflection of the hands that harmed you ... but you find fear in your own body. You find fear in the most common acts of living. The handshake, the smile, the hooded sweatshirt, the sound of doors opening, the whisper. And those are your triggers. Triggers that turn into road blocks. External manifestations of inner turmoil. Physical reminders of what you can't experience in this life anymore for simply what they are.

And you build a fortress. A home away from home, a world of solitude in the sky. And you live there. You live alone, devoid of feeling, for fear of what feeling becomes. And you sit silently.

And then a movie like Precious comes along. Or you meet a kindred soul. Or you listen to a song that speaks a chorus of words that shoot straight to your heart. And you have found something, someone that just read your own story back to you.

And that story doesn't look the same. It doesn't have the same characters or time frame. The plot doesn't unfold the same way, and the faces don't have the same details.

But it is your story.

The woman speaking it is you. And I cry.

I cry for my own pain, I cry for the pain of others. I cry for the moment my heart found something, someone who knew my story without ever hearing my words before.

And I want to talk about the power of sharing. The power of finding just one other person who can touch your pain through their own heart. And the power of using that soul shifting moment to re-learn trust. To re-learn faith. To re-learn life felt without shame.

We do not share enough, women. We do not share enough, my people. We do not open our hearts to the power of what our own stories can do for each other and in turn ourselves.

We are more beautiful than we could ever imagine. We have souls that shine like a million prisms of light, and we can not allow the pain and limitations of our bodies to keep us from feeling the beauty and peace that is intrinsically in us.

Please know that I feel you. Please know that whatever you are keeping under your veil of shame and silence is beautiful. Not the act that destroyed you, but the parts of you that can't be touched. The parts of you that will learn how much more magnificent a million broken parts of you will grow.

And the healing continues. The healing continues with each conversation, with each step, with each recognition that we are magnanimous beings. There is healing in the mediums that spark a new light, a new perspective, a new meaning for what we have experienced. Use what is around you, embrace what is inside of you, and share.

Share you.

where do we go, what do we say, what do we do ...

“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”

Let me take some time to let that soak in, a new thought absorbed ...

The unread story, does it live? What about the untold story? Where does it begin? In the initial act, the experience as it was? Or in the recounting of it?

Do we only begin once our own experience is shared? What was the experience before it was touched or felt or passed along from one mouth to another's ears?

Are we only that which we share? Are we developed like photos. Do our stories sit empty, blacked out, glossed over, indistinguishable until touched with intentions of sharing. When do our stories balloon into contrasted lines with rigged edges and smooth curves against faded backdrops? Only when another pair of eyes sets sight on the image that we have created?

Would our lives, our family ancestry, our cultural and political history, our daily interactions cease to exist without the sharing of ourselves?

What is inside of me that even I have not seen without the ability to mold and materialize through the act of giving. What is tucked away, left without the propensity to travel through centuries of time by the lips of men and women willing and waiting to share the story of ME.

Who am I? What is my story? Is my story me?

flash fire, the kind that lights your soul

“The mantra becomes one's staff of life and carries one through every ordeal. Each repetition has a new meaning, carrying you nearer and nearer to God.”

Rob and I were talking last night about mantras. The kinds of things you live your life by, even when you aren't aware that you have that mantra swirling around your head like a broken record. The kinds of things that lead you to react or not react based on what you stand by.

I realized that when I thought about various people in my life, the people with whom I share and receive much of my energy, I immediately saw words and phrases swirling around them. As if I could sift through the thousands of opportunities I have had to interact with them (or merely sit idly by as a spectator) and filter all of those details into one solid foundation from which they stand on.

Like at the end of "The Lorax", when you turn the page to see the tattered pile of stones that the Lorax once stood on, and the word "Unless" is engraved there.

And our discussion reminded me of when I was 17. It was my senior year of high school, one of my best friends had just passed away through a violent death, my oldest brother and I weren't on speaking terms after a lot of turmoil in his life, and I had just returned from 3 weeks of partial hospitalization in a mental health hospital (wow, talk about disclosure).

I wasn't in a very good place emotionally. And my step father overheard me screaming through tears in my bed that "I didn't want to live this life anymore". He pulled me out of the bed and into the bathroom where I couldn't even stand on my own because of the sheer weight of the emotions raging through my body. I felt like the power of a thousand screams were pounding inside of me while my mind felt nothing but fatigue. And that was the mantra I had been living with up until my 17th year of life, "I don't want to live this life anymore." I felt like every memory and moment I had experienced in those 17 years was laden with pain and misery.

I remember my Ma asking me that night, "does that mean you want to die?" And I distinctly remember thinking, "No, it means I want to live. This is what death feels like, and I don't want *this* anymore."

It was that night that I adopted a new mantra. A new foundation to live on, a new air to breathe. I have been living by that new mantra ever since, and to say it has been transformational doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.

I am a new spirit. I resurrected an energy inside of me that knows pain but grows through it. An energy that grabs a hold of the most painful experiences my body can handle and spins them into the most blinding light I have ever touched.

And I feel like I saved myself that night. Like I tapped into the universal energy that connects us all and freed my own mind. I freed my mind so that it could align with a soul that was soaked in love. A soul that knew all along that pain wasn't everything I was, because pain is a reminder that you are still fighting to feel. I was a soul that used pain to find peace through love.

So when I step away from my own tattered pile of stones, the stones that built the life I created, at the bottom you'll see "peace & love".

tick tock and ya don't stop

I always learn so much more about myself (and others) when I spend time with my family. Our recent vacation to Florida to stay with our grandparents and hang with my parents and baby sister was another shining example.

I have spent a lot of my time growing up ignoring my family, fighting with my family, cursing I was ever born into my family (Ok, that's an exaggeration. Ma did always say I was quite dramatic.) But I have also always had an intense loyalty to my family. This is in part how I was raised (the personalities of my parents, their own upbringing/experiences, etc.) This is also in part due to my culture/heritage. My Irish family believes strongly in standing up for yourself and your "own", even if this means resorting to knocking someone the eff out. No really, this is encouraged.

I'm sure you can imagine that coming from a family who encouraged loyalty at all costs, you would have several pretty strong-headed people under the same roof. I am sure you can also imagine this led to heated arguments, flying fists, and other crazy antics that I really shouldn't recount here.

And so coming back to that family, I am oddly comforted by the camaraderie we all feel in knowing that even though out in the big, wide world we are seen as pushy and demanding, opinionated and outspoken ... we can be that way together. And we can remember why we do it.

We do it because there is nothing greater we care about than one another. There is no stronger feeling I could possibly have than the innate desire to protect my family in any way possible. And while our actions confuse you, and you can't figure out one good reason why what we do would ever look anything like "love" or "care" or "compassion", this is what makes us work.

And I have spent a large portion of my time here on this earth trying to figure out how to "soften my edges", how to hide this part of myself to make me appear less aggressive, less angry, and more accommodating.

But fuck accommodating.

Because when you get me, you get me. And when you get me, you realize that the fight to keep myself together is the very way I am able to keep my heart open. And when you realize I fight for what I fight for, in order to love that very thing with all of my being without an ounce of hate in my body ... you can see that my family taught me well.

And all of those years I spent wondering what in sweet mother glory's name these crazy people were teaching me, I realize now that I have been given such an amazing gift. The gift of "give a damn". And I give a damn so much that I have no problem fighting to love you.