The Foreign Tsunami

It’s hard to be apathetic for things you don’t understand. When I heard about the Japanese Tsunami last week*, I shortly gasped and feigned shock. I rhetorically stated how awful it was. This was my reaction not out of organic concern but because I knew I had to get it up for the messenger delivering the news. I know when a reaction is expected and more often than not I give it. I didn’t understand what had occurred in this foreign land nor did I have the concern to really get into the details of it. I saw the media typhoon covering the international disaster and wondered why my internal reaction was so minimal.

Yet, I still remembered distinctly a scene from a fictional dramatic series leaving me literally walking around my apartment sobbing and babbling in a fit of hysteria. Even more recently, Maya Angelou on Oprah’s OWN network discussing her life, emotionally touched me in a way that left me in a complete state of stillness. The vast difference between the disaster in Asia and my reaction to scenes played out on my television screen is not of magnitude. Instead, the difference lives in my connectedness to the issues.

Generally, this is the difference that resides within all of us. The difference that makes us seem insensitive when someone else’s heartstrings are tied and pulled tightly around an issue. We all have led lives with varying degree of experiences, helping to facilitate how we view and react to the things put before us. I reacted weakly to news of the Tsunami because beside the images I viewed over at CNN I have no point of reference for it. Not only did Tsunami feel foreign to my tongue as I played with it in my mouth, the concept of a real life natural disaster was remote. Simply, Tsunamis are someone else’s devastation, not mine.

What’s disastrous to me are the saddening things that happen in my orbit of reality on a daily basis. If I want to see disaster, I don’t have to look across an ocean, disaster lives in my own backyard. When I heard about the eleven-year old girl in Texas getting rapped by close to two dozen men—that was disastrous to me. I could relate—not because I have ever been sexually violated but because as a woman, who was told at an early age to always let her parents know if anyone touched her, the possibility of sexual violation has always been in my orbit of reality.

Not to mention, that I think I have just become overtly desensitized to large scale disasters. Literally, a plane went through, at that time, the two largest buildings in New York. And I sat, at age fourteen, a few states away watching it on television. I watched people cry, bleed, and die in the street. But wait, two years prior to that, at age twelve, on every news station there was coverage of a boy walking into a high school and killing thirteen people. And then more recently we had black people, my people, floating in dirty water for weeks--the president, apathetically, in plane flying overhead. Approximately two thousand people died from that--and I watched it on my television screen. Then to round things off, in 2008 there was a lunatic running around the streets of D.C. playing a game of Russian roulette. Those disasters are in my backyard and the frequency of them numbs me for the next disaster. Thus, when I heard about Japan’s Tsunami—a natural disaster I couldn't understand it. I understand man-made disasters. I understand people hurting people. A tsunami--is just foreign.

And this awareness is what is starting to transform my own reaction to others who seem cold and indifferent to things that deeply affect me. I am becoming more apathetic to those whose icy dispositions I can’t understand. Prior to, it would anger me when people couldn’t understand how I felt, or seemed to meet my emotion with coldness. Within the last few years, as the result of personal experiences, I understand both sides of the coin on a few issues. Now, I understand both being apathetic about those issues and later being deeply invested in them. You can't fully empathize with something unless you have been through it. Now, I understand that the person that hurts me and doesn’t apologize isn't necessarily a jerk. The person just hasn't experienced that kind of hurt yet. That kind of pain is foreign to them.

Race relations, from a very broad lens is not about ones hatred for another’s race. Instead, it’s apathy for a group of people and the issues of those people we know only abstractly. I can’t understand the issues that specifically affect white people. I realized this was the case when I, during my time abroad, sat in a room of predominately white people and watched a movie about the Holocaust. They wept. My eyes were dry. Yet, I have not ever attempted to watch Roots and every time I try to watch The Color Purple I can’t deal with the emotions it elicits. Jewish suffering—I don’t relate to. Black suffering—I do.

As I watched a woman back in September (the same day that I had the “chance encounter” that I discussed here) become uncontrollably emotional, I realized the power of relevance. She was sitting outside of Pottery Barn with a woman that looked to be of relation to her, a flow of people passing by, a steady flow of tears freely and shamelessly drawing lines down her face. The way that she cried seemed so natural and effortless that I surmised she had been crying for days, at minimum the entire day. She seemed comfortable, so settled into her sadness that I couldn’t imagine her as anything but.

There would have been a time that I would have looked at this young woman and quickly and disgustedly labeled her weak. I would have figured that she was weeping over a man and that she should just wipe her tears, have some pride about herself, and pretend not to care. There was a time that I believed a nonchalant exterior created an indifferent interior. On that day, though, I understood that you cannot pretend away pain. There’s not enough pretending in this world for that to be a plausible remedy. At that point, I had comfortably sat with my own pain and therefore didn't look at her with pity—but instead with understanding.

And so, while I don’t understand what is going on in Japan—I will have empathy. Not because I can relate to the Tsunami, as I’ve said, the Tsunami, the natural disaster, the country, all of that is foreign to me. What isn’t foreign, though, is the suffering. I understand suffering. And for that, for that which I understand, my heart is genuinely heavy.

*I started writing this the week of the Tsunami. Out of respect for the people affected by the recent events, I halted writing and decided to postpone until now.

His Sad Story--Her Happy Heart

There’s open and revealing and then there’s this: vomiting your life in my lap. I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Long ago, I was cautioned that boys who quickly relinquish stories about their lives were not the optimal recipients to, with the same haste, relinquish my heart. I didn’t buy into the anti-thesis of what seemed to be the obvious: if he trusted me with his sad stories then I could surely trust him with my happy heart.

Back then I refused to believe what I now know to be true. I was being used as a trashcan for someone else’s emotional garbage and the person’s purging had nothing to do with me. It was most assuredly not an indication of substantiated feelings and emotions. At best, it was a fairly perceptive person desiring to hone in and optimize my innate nurturing tendencies for his own devices. At worst, it was an opportunistic mechanism used to push a hidden agenda. There is no room for deviating from that comparative structure. It was an “either or” “one or the other” spectrum—no more, no less. Best case or worst case, pick one.

I am seemingly audacious to make assertions that demean the very moments that I, over the years, replay in my head incessantly. One could argue that I have degraded someone else’s legitimate and sincere motives to bolster my own insecurities. Arguably, I have taken beautifully candid and unpretentious instances and turned them into something sadistic. Rest assured, I didn’t reach this premise swiftly—but I had to come to grips that these moments were less an indicator of the intensity of my relationship and more a preface of how intensely I would tie myself to him. More than anything, it was an indication of how quickly I would charge myself the position of saving him.

And this is why I write this post—because it is a cautionary tale. It’s a self-actualizing warning. A warning that I want every single woman to heed, keep secretly tucked in her breast, retrieving it to use as ammunition to protect her happy heart. I write this because while it’s flattering to believe that men spilling their lives in our laps is something that we have single-handedly resonated —it is also to our detriment to believe so. I now understand that for as long as I tenaciously cleaved to the notion that I am different and that I somehow facilitated a space leaving men incapable of keeping their traumatic and sad stories in their mouths—I trade in the truth for self-sustaining lies. The truth is, regardless of his motives, when said man vomited in my lap, his life—he was left cleansed and I took on his waste as my own. I vowed to protect him and keep his sadness as my treasure. What we, as women, fail to realize is that the woman before us—who spun vomit into pearls and adorned them carefully around her neck was unable to do—we probably won’t either. She couldn’t save him—and neither can you.

When you look at it practically, a person that shares such intimate aspects of his life within weeks, can’t measure those details the way that you think he does. What have you done to prove your trustworthiness? Yet, here he is seemingly trusting you with such profound information. And you take the pseudo trust that he has created to sustain your desire to be his truest confidante. You are no confidante though; he would tell what he is telling you to a stranger in the street. Really, for all intentions and purposes you are a stranger in the street. Still, we listen intently believing that this is the first sign of many on how intimate he is willing to be, how deep he wants to go. He certainly could never have revealed these dramatic and heart wrenching stories to anyone else. We happily transform anecdotes into commitments; all the while he is using us as a second-rate therapist. And when he feels he has gotten whatever he wanted from the relationship he gets off the couch, brushes the invisible wrinkles from his pants leg, nods and exits. And we sit aimlessly trying to figure out how to save him—not knowing that he is probably long gone already using his sad stories on the next one, not knowing instead of saving him we should have been trying to save ourselves!

Interestingly enough, a friend of mine has too recently discovered that there are no positive relationship benefits from choosing men who evidentially need saving—or at minimum some good psychological evaluation. We both laughed when I told her what my new plan of action is for these men. The next time a man starts in with these morbid stories of his life and childhood ---I am going to sit, listen quietly, and once he finishes instead of looking at him tears welling in my eyes, sad for everything that he has endured, I will ask—“and how have you grown from this?” And I will wait for his response. And I will wait for him to match this incredibly unequivocally uninspiring story with something uplifting and rousing. And if he isn’t able to conjure up anything but a blank face, what I will leave that conversation with is an understanding that the man in question is nowhere near ready for me in his life. For, if he cannot take some of the most profound incidences of his own life and spin that into something positive then I know there is no way he is ready to contribute anything beneficial in my life. If he is not growing—then he is not learning—and he is just a boy in a man’s body. The kind of man that I want, that I need would not use stories of trouble as opening liners but would instead use it later to show how he has become the phenomenal man that I see before me. No longer, do I have either the inclination or the space in my happy heart to allow another stranger to come in and debilitate me with his sadness.

I, too, do not want any other woman to mistake men with stunted growth patterns as men offering intimacy. So, I advise women (and men if this actually happens to you as well), to not allow strangers to leech onto your heart and suck it dry. I’ve already got a plan of action for how I will deal with these type of men. But for someone that has never had the opportunity to see firsthand the circus show that is men flipping trouble as an attractant of good women—let me briefly paint the picture.

His face—it will go completely blank and he will communicate emotive stories about himself as if they don’t touch him. He will go on for a while—he isn’t looking for you to integrate any commentary though—this isn’t about you—you are suppose to just listen. And while I have enough experience and too many heartaches to listen and not give two flips about what he is talking about the inexperienced woman who may not be able listen without growing emotionally invested--should silently start humming to herself. Make no mistake, it will be difficult—it’s that time when you’re getting to know someone and everything is new and exciting and everything they say is of the utmost importance. However, you have to tune them out. So, just hum. And you will feel bad—but I promise if you listen and you use those stories to justify anything about how he feels for you—then you will end up feeling a whole lot worst in the end. Let him tell his sad stories—but please please don’t let it touch your happy heart.

I'm a Hypocrite--but Need Dual Stimulation

It was hours before I was scheduled to take a Constitutional Law midterm. Instead of studying I sent the following black berry message (bbm): “Pookie! How do we feel about dating men that don’t have college degrees. In theory I think it’s no big deal…in practice??? What are your thoughts.” The recipient of this seemingly trivial bbm had a midterm of her own, and as she is quite the grinder I couldn’t believe she entertained such antics so close to test taking time. She responded. We had a short exchange. Once discovering that this too was an unresolved issue within herself, said: “That should be your next post!” Funny, because that would imply I could resolve how I feel about the issue. I haven’t.

This bbm was not unprompted. Every night up until then I woke up from horrible dreams with a motif theme. What prompted both the dreams and the bbm, was an encounter with a young man. He was cute, gave me butterflies. I rarely get them. Like, never. He seemed upfront, said he wanted to know “everything”. Eluded things about himself that seemed revealing for a first encounter. He wrapped things up by asking when was a good time to call. So, here I was with this guy that from the offset seemed open, not into playing games, yet, still elicited nightmares.

These dreams, they came from a place of fear. While this man seemed nothing but genuine, I was fearful of his pedigree. In my world where all my dates and relationships have stemmed from academia or spaces where supposedly forward moving progressive men migrate, the manner in which I met him gave no indication to his background. So here I was, having bad dreams about a seemingly nice guy solely because I was fearful that he did not hold a degree, fearful of the depth of his intelligence.

How could I, the same person that wrote here that I was more intrigued and moved by men in jail than the ones in my intellectually confined world, be so quick to qualify a man by his educational transcript. Here was my time to put some actions behind those words of equality, yet, I was like a sheltered catholic girl afraid to fraternize with the ungodly people. I felt like a hypocrite. I was a hypocrite. My mind continued to go back to the words I wrote in that post. I continued to remember the men that inspired it, the men that made me smile even during client interviews at the local jail. But still, my nights were filled with dreams.

And the dreams were awful. In one, my date and I in the car, having a conversation about President Obama. My date, ignorantly believing that President Obama the President of the entire world, not understanding other nations have other leaders. I had to try to make him understand. I had to teach him. And there were other dreams---the encounters were each different but there was one consistent quality—the men. They were all faceless.

And so, for days, I struggled. Not only was I inwardly feeling like a hypocrite and terrorized by the men of my dreams, I was also flashing back to a conversation that I had a week prior. I remembered saying, “People generally don’t interest me. I need someone with something besides a college degree.” (read: as lightly as possible. It did not come from a place of righteousness). The guy who was on the other side of that statement laughed in disbelief, then asked what I needed: “A man with a rap sheet!?!” I was irked by his thoughtlessness—the lack of depth. I don’t remember exactly how I responded but probably vaguely (“No, just something more.”) What I meant was that I wanted someone that stimulated from a place of abundance. I wanted a man, unlike him, that understood instantly what I meant by this kind of request. Still, if my only request was, “something more” then why didn’t I give the man I met a week later the chance to have it. Every morning as I woke up from another dreamful night I wondered what my problem was.

The problem, I recognized over some weeks, was that a girl who formerly said she could date any boy regardless of his educational background, graduated college and became a woman who realized it wasn’t just the education that was so impactful, but the experiences that came along with it. My college experience facilitated the woman I am today. I need a man in my life that has a similar experience. Not to say, men without degrees don’t have equally impactful and positive experiences. Simply, we have different impactful experiences. What I fear, though, is the lack of commonality we would share regarding the most defining parts of our lives. College, education as a whole, is an integral part of my story. A man lacking that experience would not be able to share in the conversation the way I would want him to. We would speak entirely different languages regarding it.

A year ago, three women and a man—all college educated, all striving to obtain a juris doctorate had a conversation on this very issue. Although the man of the discussion was outnumbered in gender and ideology, he held his own. He was strong enough in his opinion to seemingly paint us as silly superficial women. I was at an advantage—I understood exactly what he was getting at, for I had argued the same position of impartiality several years prior. I wasn’t about to back down and agree with him though. I couldn’t accept his premise, that a man working at McDonald's* had the same probability of being as compatible with me as someone with higher education. While his position speaks to his down-to-earth nature, it misses the mark on what many progressive women look for in men. Women are an evolving, ever-changing species. Women tapped into that quality and wanting to reach their full potential understand that the man they choose to stand beside often dictate the potential of their own evolve.

I confidently said then, and I say now that while I could be crazily physical attracted to a man that works at the McDonald's down the street, I do not believe we would ever have enough of the good stuff to make it work. I am not discriminating because I fear societal ostracize. I do not care about the amount of his paycheck. None of that is the true basis that allows me, without fear of coming off as an elitist witch, vow against men working at any kind of local fast-food establishment. I am able to confidently make this assertion because I know we would be unequally yoked. In his decision to choose a career at McDonald's would live the fundamental contradiction in how I choose to live my life. The decision to choose a higher education is indicative of one’s mentality about themselves and the world they live in. Understandably, this is a pretty simplistic generalization, not taking into consideration the various challenges in actually choosing higher education, still, generally speaking one’s will to go speaks to their mentality.

Not to mention, I am frequently underwhelmed. I smile—am friendly, but at the core there is something there that won’t easily stimulate. My mother says, “Erica, you have to give people a chance.” I agree. I am striving to be a little more open and patient. I want that whole package though. While this post seems a complete contradiction of “I Wish He Wore an Orange Jumpsuit” and that I am at the other end of the spectrum, blowing up men that hold degrees, I am not. I like the progressiveness of men that choose to better themselves through education. However, I cringe at the generic conversations that I seem to have with them. Similarly, I like the colorfulness of men who do not hold degrees. However, I wish we had the ability to go deeper with our conversations. I’m not putting one above the other. I don’t want either. Really, I don’t . You can have them both. What I want neither can offer. I have nightmares about one not fulfilling me intellectually, while I have daymares that the others will never emotionally move me.

Maybe, it has nothing to do with a college degree or the lack thereof. Maybe, it simply has to do with the caliber of the man. In my dream the faceless men were neither interesting nor intelligent. Under my premise then, they didn’t fit into either category—college going or not. Instead, I think these men, prompted by the mystery man, represented my fear of never being dually fulfilled. I did not have the information to determine which category he likely fell within, therefore, I had dreams that not only spoke to the anonymity of this man but the anonymity of the man that I ultimately want. The man in my dream, faceless, devoid of intellect or intrigue had nothing to do with higher learning—it was a manifestation of my real life terror that a man with both—doesn’t even exist. College going, or not.

* The McDonald's example was an extreme exaggeration. Most men that do not go to college do not necessarily have minimum wage jobs. Actually, many do very well. Also, I understand that there are alternative respectable careers that do not necessitate a degree. In fact, I would love to date an artist (good with his hands!) To make the point I used extremes.

Thoughts?

The Resolved of 2011

I don’t believe in them. Nope. A friend asked what my new year’s resolutions are. I quickly dismissed it. New year, same shi*t. It’s just my mentality though. I am the same person that doesn’t believe in time, not really. I believe in yesterday and I believe in today. I believe yesterday is the same as today. Life—to me, just one long day. We die the same day we are born. We construct minutes, days, weeks, months, years to make sense of it all. We try to organize space into something called time. Time is just space evolved. In essence, there are no natural time markers, therefore, I am not going to go against nature and try to make importance of trivial socially constructed touchstones. So, nope, I don’t believe in them.

What I do believe in is what I told my friend I want for 2011, my forward moving. I believe in progression. I believe in evolution. I believe in my own personal growth. I told her that I want to (full disclosure) continue moving forward, not fall back into old traps. No backtracking. No backpedaling. I want to skip the whole three or four months of traditionally and crazily texting, emailing, and calling a mirage. Let’s just skip right over that. I want to continue forgetting. I relish moments when I realize that the past is finally beginning to blur and feelings are contemplating subsiding. Feelings I clutched to, I now am freely willing to let go of. I want more of that for the upcoming year. I don’t need a new year to make me want those things for myself though. I want it because instead of whispering before I drift to sleep, “goodnight *******” to the darkness, to a man no longer in my life I want to say “goodnight Erica” roll over and be content with whose in my bed—myself.

So, while I don’t have a list of resolutions, what I do have is what I know to be true. I know the following list of moments, things, songs, movies, etc. were my favorites from 2010. That’s the only thing that is resolved as I go into 2011. Enjoy.

1. Kanye West’s Runaway video and song. Pure artistry. I listened to only that song for an entire month. The full eight minutes of it, loving the end best.

2. Love Jones. I’m late (I know I know) but I get giddy every time I watch (like three or four times in a row each time). Nina and Darius dancing at The Wild Hare makes me blush, oh and the scenes right after that. Wink.

3. Darius from Love Jones. He changed my entire “type” from unattainable to available.

4. Me asking a friend, tongue in cheek “goodness how have I gotten so wise” and her responding: “this bitch called life.” Hilarity. Honesty.

5. Me in the kitchen every week over the summer baking, trying to ease my restlessness, quiet my heart.

6. “Hard in the paint.” Shamelessly. I wont even say who that’s by. We all know.

7. A discovered love for Erykah Badu. Pleasantly.

8. Smoothie King. Every single morning.

9. Yoga. Quiets the soul. Controls the body.

10. The boy that made me see there are others at a time when thought I had met the only one. The hours that I fell into him, while still understanding he was only in my life to whisper the secret that there are more .

11. Benadryl. Don’t knock it til’ you try it, it’s helped through many sleepless and difficult nights.

12. Cupcake runs! Yum.

13. Cardio at sunrise.

14. The Sartoralist. (http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com)

15. The night friends got together to do speed dating, staying out until the wee hours of the morning. Good night. Funny night.

16. The moment I realized I was talking to a murderer during a client interview in an attorney booth, said “ohhh, ok! Murder one!” tried to balance my tone and make sure I could make a quick exit.

17. Realizing drug dealers are seriously deluded. They really have a skewed sense of reality. I lost respect. Sad. (And yes, at one point I did in some ways respect the hustle of a drug dealer...that’s another post.)

18. My birthday spa treat. Amazingly thoughtful.

19. When I realized only I write “multiple choice questions”. It’s really quite rare. I’m really quite rare. Smh. Smile.

20. Finally becoming proud instead of embarrassed that I have the depth to allow a short affair to profoundly and positively change my life. Literally, change it. Change me.

21. The space of this blog. I love this space.

22. The readers that let me know how much they appreciate this space.


For conformity's sake..."Happy New Year!"

"She's Simple!"

Grey’s Anatomy. A sentence in itself. Even Microsoft Word identifies it as such, as it fails to give me the green squiggly line beneath, yet does so for the “sentence fragment” following it. Those words are strong enough to stand alone, I guess. And as I watch an episode each week I wonder if I am. You know, strong enough to stand alone. The show is strong. It articulates the realities of life, heartache, love, joy, pain, sacrifice and does so heartbreakingly. Sometimes it does—you know, really break my heart. It is my excuse every week to become a little somber, a little reflective. For an hour, more like forty-five minutes, I watch the art created by the writers of the hit series. True, I find art in most facets of life, however, I label this as such because it’s like the writers sit before a captivating painting that speaks all the frailties of life. Then they later go back and recreate those frailties through the lives of their characters. The acting—it is flawless. There are moments when the characters surrender themselves in ways that are Oscar-worthy. There are three times that I vividly remember being deeply affected by scenes from the show. Recently, it was when Yang, a young Asian doctor that possesses a myriad of complexities, expressed that she sometimes wished she was easier in spirit, not so complicated, a simple girl. “A simple girl.” Those were here exact words. I connected to that. I realized she verbalized what I have wondered for most of my life. You know, why I can’t be one of those girls. Simple.

I almost threw up in my mouth. I seethed. For almost two years I had prayed this man would say one favorable thing about me. Two years. I didn’t seek reciprocity; I just wanted a kind word. Just one. Instead, he gushed over someone else. Why was it so easy for him to see positive attributes in her? If she was the sweetest person he knew then what did that make me? (que: Alanis Morissette “One”) That’s all I ever wanted—that kind of appreciation for the attributes I possessed. There I was, right in front of him, yet he was giving what I wanted so badly freely to her, leaving me on the other side of the phone devoid of anything resembling favor. If he found her wonderful then there was no way he could ever see me as anything but an array of unnecessary complexities. I was floored. “She’s simple!” It tumbled out of my mouth without warning. My subconscious heaved through my throat. It sounded abrasive, even to my own ears. I wanted to undo it, take it back, but the proclamation seemed to linger in the silence. It was like a trail of smoke, sauntering through the air making sure to take its time to dissipate. It looked like I cared—like I was still vying to be his favorite girl (que: Kate Nash “Nicest Thing”). It looked like what it was, I guess. You know, that although I had accepted not being the only girl I still wanted to be the favorite one. I was still holding out hope that such an intelligent man would appreciate defiance over conformity, reality over falsities, difficult truths over easy niceties, a genuine friend over a genuine acquaintance, someone that still smiled remembering the mole below his mouth over someone that made it clear she usually preferred men more attractive, a complex woman over a simple one. And while I make it a mission not to wish to be something I’m not—for words from him like that, for a second I wished I was. You know, simple.

Many of the friends I truly adore tend to be complex. Those friends who are both women and complex are on an entirely different level. They are the figurative shit. I am blessed to know each of them. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate my simpler friends, it’s just with the ones that are a little more aligned with my spirit, we connect metaphysically. When I had the above-mentioned conversation, I went to one of these complicated friends and discussed the trouble men might have loving a complicated woman. You know, like ourselves. She understood. She had abandoned simple men for that very reason. Fast forward: several weeks ago, I sat in a room with one of the supreme complicated women I know—she’s the matriarch of complexities—and while I walked in that room feeling rather lost—when I left I felt reconnected, re-energized. I was wandering around almost aimlessly, looking for something. When I found her I exhaled. I realized she was the one I was looking for the entire time. We talked about everything from our dreams, our fears, our current situations, our fascination with other countries. And all in less than thirty minutes. What draws me to these two women, and women alike is not only their introspective ability to understand they are not like most but also their sensitivity in understanding they have been gifted a curse. You know, the curse of being intricate.

How easy it must be for them--to take things as they come, not to have the impulse to challenge what’s put before them. How calm these simple girls must be. I don’t say this condescendingly, I am genuinely mystified. I can’t understand because for as long as I have had breath in my lungs and thought in my head I have been inquisitive, constantly wanting to have a better understanding of the world and everything around me. I have always been in my head—since a little girl. So, I look at these women and while often their simplicity makes me have a gag reflex—there are other times that I, like Yang, sit perched on my pedestal of complex and wish to just have one passing day where I too don’t have the impulse to go against the grain, where I don’t find myself wanting to name my daughter Jezebel while the other girls worship Mary. You know, days where I can just be easy.

Lauryn Hill. Amy Winehouse. Marilyn Monroe. Anna Wintour. All complicated women. All women I adore. And while they all are notoriously successful and talented it’s so easy for me to see in each of them the cost, the toll, of being complicated women. Often the world takes a functional complicated woman and pegs her “troubled”. I don’t know how it feels to be pegged "troubled" but I do know how it feels to feel that way in comparison to the other girls. You know, the simple girls.

* Please, Please check out this clip from Grey's Anatomy. You can find it here

Men That Beg: "I miss you"

It was in one of my previous post that I randomly said “art is pain.” I declared that I would do an entire post with that quote as the focal point. I will, but that time is not now. Today I refer back to that quote because as I sit in my apartment listening to The Chi-Lites “Have you seen her”, I am reminded that it is that pain, that raw emotion that brings a smile to my face. Oldies warm my heart. They take me from my current situation of observing too many men take too many good women for granted, to a place where men pour their hearts out for them. It’s like they bled on those records. They bleeeeed. They bled in a way that rappers who prematurely say “I’m going to bleed on this track” can’t even fathom. It’s exactly that back in the day “rapping” my mother refers to, when she talks about men knowing how to say exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment. She calls it rapping. I call it begging. And while I’m not fond of men who beg, I am favoring of men strong enough to be desperate for an incredible woman.

I have long established that I am generationally misplaced in a way that leaves me feeling like my old soul is being compromised by this modern age. I often wonder how I would have been “courted” if I dated men blessed enough to have the “oldies” as their generation’s music. Oldies, the kind of music that gave men a reference point on how to appreciate and treat women. Plainly, this music had an effect on how those men regarded women. I would even be willing to bet, if this kind of emotionally charged music was blaring from men’s radios today their hearts would reflect it. Life would imitate art. They would be better men for it.

The only genre of music I label, hesitantly, as comparable to old school soul is Rhythm and Blues* (R&B). Actually, this was the blanket label that all Black music received in the twentieth century. Sadly, even contemporary R&B is being phased out on mainstream radio. In its place, rap is monopolizing. To make matters worse, the pop like songs that fill the nominal place of R&B do not remotely scratch the surface of what soul sounds like. Erykah Badu, whose music I have recently discovered an appreciation for, I heard took to twitter recently to verbalize her disgust with the current state of the soul in music. I share similar sentiments. Where is the soul? Even when I hear songs that express feelings of love it seems so artificial and contrived when you place it alongside oldies from men like Marvin Gaye.

For several months I have contemplated the difference in the quality of emotion showcased in R&B compared to the oldies. It doesn’t make sense that these male artists seemingly pour their hearts out, and the end result is still-- flat. I listen to a Brian McKnight cover of Marvin Gaye’s Distant Lover and I literally laugh at his poor rendition of it. The fact that he would even try to cover a classic like Distant Lover is laughable, but more-so the way that he thought he could cover it without committing to the song was what really tickled me. His cover though, is a perfect indication of the current state of what use to be soul music—these men are trying to be cute with it. These male singers are putting artificial sweetener in the tea, and like artificial sweetener it taste bitter. There is nothing pretty about soul. An attempt to make it cute is going to be a failure on its face. Soul is a combination of desperation, pain, and bliss. An emotion intensified is what it is. This kind of exaggeration is not pretty. It’s ugly. You don’t smile through soul.

I watch people regard Trey Songz like a modern-day Marvin Gaye and it’s funny to me. Instead, I see him as an overgrown boy. He sings about sex often but the way he sings about it reminds me of an inexperienced boy mimicking what his older brother said on the subject. I’m not saying Trey Songz is a virgin, by any stretch of the imagination. I’m just saying that his attempt at trying to sound passionate and sexy comes off hoaxy. To be sexy and passionate when you sing about sex, I would think you would need to intimately know the soul of the thing. He obviously doesn’t know the soul of sex.

And this is what I have come to believe is the problem with male artists today. I don’t think they sing with any soul because they haven’t found it yet. It is my belief that soul is created through hardships. I think soul becomes visible through the evolution of that adversity. On both points, I think modern day men are lacking. Further, I don’t think you hear the soul in these men’s voices when they sing about losing a woman because they don’t know the pain associated with losing one. In order to feel that kind of pain he would have had to place a lot of value in her in the first place. I think that goes to the deeper reason for the absence of soul—men’s decreased value in a sole woman.

A friend of mine, who will smile as he reads this, is one of the best quality men I know. If I have a daughter one day I would feel comfortable with her loving a man like him. I asked this great quality man what he thought on the issue of modern music compared to the oldies. He told me that songs are different now because women have made men different. He thinks that the value of women overall has diminished in men’s minds because there are so many bad quality ones that allow men to run amuck. Although we go through different avenues we both arrive at the same dead-end road. The songs sound different because men feel differently about women. And again I say, this comes from one of the best quality men I know.

I try to do at least two miles of cardio a day. What takes me to three or four miles is when Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes I Miss You randomly pops up from my shuffled play-list. It gives me just the burst of energy I need to go another thirty or forty minutes. Its takes me to a whole different level. It excites me, inspires me. (Full disclosure: it sometimes makes me teary eyed, leaving me trying to camouflage the tears as sweat). And if the incredibly beautiful pitches and perfect harmonic tones are not enough, towards the end of the song he stops singing and just talks to her. He talks for five minutes of the song. At one point he begs“If I could just/If I could just see you/Can’t really say what you mean or what you want over the phone/I swear I miss you/You’ve done heard it ten times or more but/I swear I done changed/I swear I done changed.”

Listen to those words. It’s not the validity in what he’s saying that is so on point for me. Has he changed? Probably not. This man is saying whatever he can to get back into his woman’s good graces. He goes from “I’ve changed”, to” I’ve got a gig” to “I won the lottery”. Nothing in what he is saying logically flows. The point is, his words don’t have to necessarily be perfect. With perfection though he completely humbles himself for her. He puts his pride aside. I swear on this blog, if a man that I remotely still had feelings for just played this song for me because he was unable to find words of his own, without a second thought he’d be forgiven. I make this promise, so freely, because I know that men of my generation will never call my bluff. Men of my generation wouldn’t think to do this for a sole woman. Even if she is a soul woman.

* Neo-Soul definitely came to mind but it does not have the historical implication that R&B does.

**Please if you don’t know the songs I am referring to listen to them here, here and here. Even if you do, just go for the reminder.

And on The Seventh Day There was Light

Just days ago I wrote another entire post. As the sun beamed in my window this morning I knew that I would have to abandon that piece until a later date. To be fair, I feel that my readers should catch some of the sunlight that has been cast upon me. I’m not just talking about the sunlight that beautifully filled my living room this morning. I am talking about a light in my spirit. A light that enables me to internally close a book in my life without the impulse to open it for the millionth time, peek and see if the story gets better. I guess, this was the “peace of mind” a wise woman once spoke of. I was going through a relatively difficult experience and when she said it I did not understand how I was to find this hidden abstract place of solidarity. And today, as I write saying that I have found it, I still couldn’t say how. Luckily my purpose in writing this is not to tell others how to find it. That kind of peace of mind is either divine intervention realized or the natural progression of pain evolved. I write about my light because I want people to know that this light I am experiencing is at everyone’s window they just have to remove whatever it is that is obstructing it.

I find that wherever I go a literal break of sunlight always seems to find me and dances playfully on my face. There is no other time that I feel as content as when sunlight is near. Without it my spirit dies. It is not surprising then that other people sitting in a room with me would be blessed enough to catch some of my rays. What I have discovered though, is that if I don’t have the right person in that room with me, then they don’t understand a spirit like mine needs something of equal luminosity to balance it. They don’t understand me and therefore don’t understand the necessity of the light. So, they somehow make themselves over to my window and stupidly stand there, cutting off my light. And my spirit dies. And I am stifled.

I continued to think on this sunlight motif as I sat at one of my favorite brunch spots. I was enjoying some alone time, just me and the November issue of Vogue Magazine. I was sitting at the bar because Sunday brunch is obviously booming in the area and there were no available tables. As I sat there for a few moments the sunlight, once again, found me. It was there only for me as it put itself right in my face. I even did a once over of the room to see if the light was saying hello to anyone else. It wasn’t. The light and heat were so intense that I had to move over to the seat beside me. I hated to abandon my light but it was just too much in that moment. I then realized that the sunlight beaming through my window, that constant light that stays with me, is not for everyone. Just like I had to move because it was too intense and blinding maybe sometimes others feel similarly. The light that comes with me can only be tolerated by people that appreciate and value it. I grew continuously peaceful in spirit as my sun taught me that those leaving my room were not of spirit conducive to remain there. Understandably, if the heat is too hot, the light too piercing then they should leave.

As I sat in my living room this morning and thought about that sunlight and why I had been missing it I realized that it was there the entire time. I was missing it because I allowed a large figure to stand in front of it, not remembering that I need that light. Instead of saying “excuse me mam, excuse me sir, could you please stop blocking the window.” I just sat and let their shadow cast down on me. And in their shadow was my demise. They were soaking up all of the light, intended for me, and greedily letting me remain in darkness.

So, while I am happy for finding my light again, I hope it is inspiring to others to find theirs. It is just on the other side of that big brooding figure in front of you. The figure-- a person or something metaphysical. Whatever it is you should just ask it to move a little to the right. “Excuse me sir, could you please stop blocking the window.”

Aside: I worry that with this renewed spirit my pieces will lack heart. I find that I am most creative when my heart is heavy. Just know, I am bright in disposition but eternally dark at the core. I will have some heart wrenching stuff too. I’m just enjoying the light right now.