On How to Not Get Boxed In

The true tenets of life dictate the clues by which one must meander, decipher and endure in order to keep on living in this plane of consciousness.  Here I am, again, sitting on the A train like a perennial bag lady schlepping more pieces of my life back to Brooklyn.

I went a step further today to excise myself from the island borough by completing the online DMV change of address/ID order. It actually hurts to separate from the 212, but I do appreciate many aspects of BK.  MA helped a lot on Friday night when we sweated to the oldies from the last decade, reminiscing  our highschool and undergrad frivolities. If I could have split myself, one of me would have been videotaping the whole debauchery.... videotape.... I don't think I will ever completely sever myself from the old language and culture of the 20th Century...

MA is my true dancing partner! Saturday night proved that yet again for me. Shouting out the love, my dear.

On the real, though, she really did help me to point out the enormous burden of stuff I needed pare down in this moving out/moving on process. I could almost really fantasize about stepping out with a suitcase and an assignment, not caring a whit about piles of forgotten yet deceptively "important" papers, books, knick-knacks. She talks about chopping off much of her gorgeous curly locks, and a part of me quakes in fear sweetened with jealousy. Will I ever have such a beautiful annoyance?

It's not flippant- when one considers my own thick bramble of natural hair that takes on a character not unlike the rainforests of our home country transmogrified in the sweltering NYC summertime- but the real benefit of going through the mental dissertation is the value of perspective. That right there binds friends tighter and straightens my spine to keep looking forward to my very immediate future.

I met with LushTongue on Wednesday and Sunday to make up for the past few weeks of my awol spirit and body. Singing really is therapeautic for me, and I do enjoy this new opportunity I've fallen into where I get to practice with like-minded women in song and artistic freedom (improv, original, cover, it's all good!). I am so much more interested and determined to shake off some of myself that keeps getting in my own way.

The Life You Save May Be Your Own

This was just said to me, partly in joke and partly serious, from a co-worker/friend in response to my mentioning the mining officer that hit on me relentlessly while I was trying to enjoy a Banks beer in the Kurupung mining village. It was a singularly Caribbean experience, to say the least.

The interesting thing is what the intended effect that comment was supposed to have upon me.... Seeing as how I am in the deep jungle interior of Guyana at the time of this encounter, attempting to zone out from all that I left behind in New York.... one could say it was an ill-informed response.
Or, maybe the angels are making themselves known in both obvious and surreptitious ways.

Can you tell that I bristled just a little bit?

I wouldn't call myself one to ignore and chafe at sound advice, and I have been known at times to even entertain foolish commentary in order to open my mind to the grand exercise of tolerance and understanding.

And I cannot help but store this away like a chipmunk, in my cheek, for further ponderance...

To be revisited...

Courier Exploits of the Rainy Season

5/30/2012 2:30 p.m.
So.... late Friday night, practically Saturday morning my resourceful and auspicious Uncle Ken proposed an adventure that I could not deny..... Deliver surveying equipment to Uncle Eddie in Guyana! Leave the country for at least a week! To my place of birth! Reconnect with Dad's relatives and friends and family of folks in "foreign". Oh, and begin my plan of world domination ( foreign land ownership) by updating my personal documents! Who can refuse?? With all of this comes the requisite preparation... currency exchange, toiletry inventory, gazing at the mirror to see what everyone else might/will see, learning to say no to too many side requests for me to "send this" or "bring back that". I had to remind my mother that I signed up as a courier for one specific directive, not as a mule for everyone else's whim and fancy. It's like it's own institution among Guyanese.... and my good will only goes so far. I feel like I have already accomplished a lot... gotten over myself and my self-perceived level of confidence, comfort-level, and understanding of "my people".

Yes, I can  use a toilet with little to no running water, and yes, I still remember the value of a well-executed bucket of rainwater. Yes, I can appreciate why some relatives choose to live "in town" amid more crowded, stinkier conditions, while others are across the river and "out-of-the-way" and have a peaceful, less hectic life, away from city drama. The constant mugginess here lulls me into a midday stupor unlike any other endured in NYC.

I am not as averse to mosquitoes and the requisite armor one must use against them, although I shudder every time I find myself involuntarily inhaling OFF! (with DEET.... yes, not very environmentally sound)I find myself taking pictures of the ugly as well as the beautiful, an attempt to capture and retain all aspects of my homeland, whether in paradox or in denial.

Oh, The Places I Will Go!

About to embark upon an adventure within my South American adventure.... up the Kurupung River going west, from Georgetown past Bartica, Itaballi and points beyond. Dr. Seuss, eat your heart out.  Currently corresponding from Atlanticville, Greater Georgetown, East Coast N06 degrees 49'11.3", W058degrees 09'27.5".
Why all the nerdy mapping jargon? Well, I am about to embark on a surveying journey into "the interior", following the ancient trails of the Amazon River, as it were, with my enterprising uncle. I might as well enjoy every nerdy second of it while attempting to dodge possible malaria with a deft swipe of insect repellant!  More on the uptick... Lift-off scheduled for Saturday 1a.m. by boat, to return Sunday by plane.

Behind and Beyond the Lens

So I have decided to take a try as subject instead of auteur.... I trust that this will be a fortuitous journey that I'm embarking on, since I have always been fascinated with photography (it's a bit of a generational pull in my family) and longed for many years to really embrace it as a career that took me to faraway lands and meeting interesting people. I still believe that is part of my life, as my stints in international news coverage and personal portfolios lead me to conclude. But as any actor knows, getting into the director's chair or even the producer's helps to give a rounded perspective in the medium known as visual art and storytelling.

I will have faith...
(Originally published 2011-07-27 12:40)

The Namesake- -Part 1

My good friend is living across the country, so it is a rare treat to be able to see her, and while we are both busy getting our life on, even a 45 minute conversation is too few and far between. Either way, she is the constant gentle nudge when it comes to coming a bit more out of my shell and reaching tendrils beyond borders.

OOH-Rah, chica!
Of course, that means I am now searchable.

Funnily enough, upon looking for my public profile, I found a number of African (all Ethiopian?) bloggers with my exact first name! It is heartening and disorienting at once....

More on this later, but suffice it to say that in my quest for a defining self-identity, my name has been a source of chagrin as well as intrigue for me for almost thirty years.

Welcome, readers...

(Originally published on 2011-08-23 09:14)

Throwing Down (The Gauntlet)

"If you want him, come and claim him!" demanded the fierce and yet queenly graceful She-Elf Arwen, as her mare reared up on hind legs bearing the maiden and her charge. The three of them had stepped out into the swirling eddies of the River, and her sword raised in defiance while her left arm cradled the reigns and Frodo tightly.

There was no turning back now. Those Ringwraiths did advance. And she called up the spirits of that River to do battle against the abominations, as charging waterhorses swelling from the deep.

This is my re-interpretation of a film version of a captivating novel that I never tire of watching or reading, The Lord of The Rings, The Fellowship (to be specific).

Sometimes I feel like Arwen, in the zone, focused to a pinpoint, steady and with a surefooted sense of destiny and confident resolve. I am the mare as well, a beast of burden proud at my role and as natural as anything that may exist in my sense of reality. And I cannot be honest with myself if I don't identify with Frodo as well...

More on this later. The rain falls and I have already held back the floodgates once this afternoon.
Image credit: Pierre Vinet