Month: May 2023

Rain’s Response

POV of the rain not wanting to be a part of a storm because of the damage it once caused.

Wind, I hear your whispers growing louder. 

I sleep soundly refusing to be disturbed.

Thunder, I will not be taunted by your howls or your thunderous beckoning. 

I will sleep.

Lightning, your crackle and cackle of laugher will not tempt me to open my eyes to view mysteries in the darkness.

I am at rest.

I hear you.  I hear all of you. You do not wish me to remain as I am,  but I will not be persuaded to join your conversation.  You talk of storms as if you do not remember the last one.  I do remember and will not be judged for it again.

You witnessed what happened  before.  I was too much for them to hold.  By God’s power I answered their begging. 

I will no longer give in to their request.  I will not wake until I am ready!  I will not be moved! 

I will not look upon the Earth and pretend to care when hearing her cries.  Let the ground and the lips of her people be parched.  Let the wilting flowers and aging trees wither in the heat.  They will remember me and yearn for my touch.

Humans and Animals alike will not be quenched by the power of my waters.   I will not rejuvenate their rivers and replenish their lands.  My drops will not kiss their foreheads as relief from the overwhelming heat of the sun.  No, I don’t want to see them.  I gave them my all before and they cursed me.  They shall have no more of me until my anger has passed.

Whilst the clouds continue to wrap me in their soft embrace of slumber, I will remain at rest.  

They want me with them and this is where I will continue to be. 

I will not wake.

So Wind, become silent in your pleading. 

Thunder, relax your bold demands.

Lightning, calm yourself and allow your powers to weaken.

I am at rest.

I will sleep.

They shall have no more of me until my anger has passed.

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Gram Gram said WHAT?

Yesterday was Mother’s Day.  Happy Mother’s Day to all of the wonderful mother’s and future wonderful mothers out there in the world.  Happy Mother’s Day to the beautiful mother’s of the past, that despite the hardships still mothered.

For many this is an easier day to celebrate than Father’s Day.  For some it used to be an easy day, but the reminder of a mother now gone can welcome those bittersweet tears.  Yesterday I was with my mother, but her mind I’m sure was on her mother, but it might have also been on her grandmother.  Lately she’s been thinking a lot about her grandmother, whom she affectionately called “Gram-Gram”.

Gram-Gram lived a life.  Born in 1884, she remembered when them “Wright Boys flew that plane” and she remembered how life was before electricity and television.  She was a mourning survivor of the Spanish Flu, and a mother to 19 children.

She lovingly told Lil’ Katie, “We didn’t even have no radio back den!”  

As Katie, sitting on her grandmother’s lap looked into her grandmother’s sincere eyes in astonishment, her sweet little chocolate arms began to hold on to her grandmother tightly.  She nestled her round face onto the cusp of her Gram Gram’s warm neck. Katie was hiding a question and was hoping this would be a good time to let it loose.  How accurate were the history books of 1968?  Katie mustered up the courage and began, “Gram Gram…” 

“Yes, baby,”  Gram-Gram lovingly answered. 

“Were you a slave?”  she whispered.

“Speak up now, say it again?” Gram Gram replied.

Katie, born to Gram-Gram’s son, lived with her family up north in Chicago, but every summer they would make the drive down to Tutwiler, Mississippi to visit family.  Years prior, her father grew tired of the limited future of being a sharecropper and dealing with the open-racism he experienced for being a black man in the deep south of the United States of America (where the states were only UNITED if you looked a certain way) left.  He and his sisters journeyed during the great migration when multitudes of black folks eager for a better life, began to leave the south for a more promising life in the Northern states.

Ten-year-old little Katie had been learning about Slavery in school and was trying to understand why people could treat others in such a hateful way.  When she would ask questions about this during their family dinners back home in Chicago, her daddy would reply, “If they don’t see you as a person, but as an animal, it’s easier.  It’s easier to be cruel to something that isn’t a person.” 

With a mixture of Gram Grams coca butter scented body mixed with vanilla from the cake baking in the stove, she timidly asked again, “Gram Gram, were you a slave?”

Katie tightened her eyes to barricade the gush of tears she knew would break forth. 

“Oh, No baby.  I was born after that, but my parents was slaves and dey was freed by Abraham Lincoln.”

“Momma! Gram Gram said WHAT? That means…okay, hold on!  If Gram-Gram is your grandmother, then she is my Great-Grandmother.  So that means that my Great-Great Grandparents were … slaves?” I asked in astonishment.

“Yep, and my Great-Grandparents were….  That’s Crazy”, my mom said.

“Momma, that was just around the corner.  That wasn’t that long ago”,  I responded in disbelief.

“I know”, She said, “I know”.

Happy Mother’s Day Gram Gram!
pictured 1958.

Friday Night!

Friday Nights at the movies, renting from Blockbuster, or watching the shows that came on during TGIF was the beginning of the weekend growing up in the 90s!  Hanging out with friends at any of the last remaining game halls where one could play pool or arcade games without the odor of smoke and stepping into the drunken drizzle of beer on the floor was during my college years.  If not that, then a movie and on to dinner at Cheddars.

Not much has changed for me since then.  Going out to dinner at a swanky restaurant or a favorite common eatery continues to be ideal, for me and mine.  We tend to make plans, but fail to stay committed once we go home to let our pups out, because we sit down.  The dreaded sit down always leads us to staying home longer than we wanted to. By the time we encourage ourselves to leave, everyone else in the city is now off work and the waiting lists at restaurants begin to grow. Even in the drive-thrus.

Honestly, the Huz-band and I could care less if we went out on a Friday Night or not.  We are content with ordering food or whipping up a quick favorite meal at home and doing what we do.  Discussing a movie to watch (that never gets watched), eat a nice meal, and entertaining our individual selves with social media.  I try not to fall down the rabbit-hole of Instagram but I always become Alice.

We’ve taken to watching cruise vlogs together on the YouTube app on our television.  We might not watch a movie, but the cruising vlogs get us quite excited for the cruise we have coming up.  Some might think we’re too young to be so comfortable with such simple and quiet things, implying that we are an old married couple. We just do what’s appealing to us; and after a long week of caring for everyone else’s children, a simple evening at home with our boys sounds like quite the Friday Night to us!

Sweet Memory of Yesterday

  It is Tuesday. Back at it again. Today should be a bit better…we are closer to Friday.  Sometimes that doesn’t bring the energy needed and today, I’m already drained, already over it, already ready to return home.  Will today be a long day?  Sure feels like it.

Already this morning I’ve had to repeatedly tell students to be quiet during announcements, remove a child from their seat because they were continuously distracting others, and take up a stuffed animal?  Why are we bringing toys to school as 6th graders?  (Oh because we need more attention?  Because parents just send their children to their rooms when they get home and don’t talk to them?)  This happened all within 5 minutes of each other.  Before 9:00 this morning during a 6th grade meeting. 

Don’t allow the evil ones to defeat you I say to myself.  Who are the evil ones you say?  YOUR CHILDREN!!! YOUR CHILDREN are the evil ones that nest as Medusa’s hair!  They nap under the veil of Hades himself!!!  They sway, walk, and Tic Tok dance to the hypnotic beats of Pandora’s Box.

Sorry, I lost my self.  Allow me time to find it again. 

 Let me think back to yesterday.  Yesterday, just as I said I would do in yesterday’s writing, The Melodious Monday Blues, I did something spontaneous.  I asked the huz-band out for a pre-dinner date.  We do have the enjoyable privilege of working together, but yesterday he had jury duty, so we didn’t get to see each other before leaving the house.  We met up and shared an appetizer and drank sweet tea together. 

It was good seeing my friend.  We caught up and discussed each other’s day.  Frustrations were vented, Jokes were had, and sips were slurped.  This was time shared between the two of us. Even if just for a little while.  This is a sweet memory of yesterday.  

Now once again I can see the light at the end of this dreary week-long tunnel.  Sweet thoughts of him, encourage me to make it, if not just to see his sweet face again to sip tea.

The Melodious Monday Blues

It is Monday.  As a teacher, this is an exciting Monday!  We have two Mondays left after today before the end of the school year!  Do you not understand how much energy this brings to an educator?  We have been risking our lives, health, and sanity to continue to reach the future of America.  If I’m being honest, I enjoy my students and at times the only struggle I have is struggling to contain the excitement I have when I see the light bulbs of understanding clicking on during class.

On the other hand I also deal with students that, without hesitation, state that they don’t consider Teachers to be Adults because they don’t take care of students like parents do. (Because I guess a Teacher can’t be a Parent…)  This child’s mentality explains some of the issues of our current school system today in America. This type of disregard can cause a teacher to feel insignificant; but not today.

Even in the disappointment of students not realizing how valuable their teachers are to their lives, I refuse to make this day feel like a typical Monday.  I will not allow it to let me down or to feel like there’s no light at the end of the long dark tunnel of the rest of this week.  I will continue to be what I am needed to be.

Today I shall be productive and continue to be the best me for myself and for all those that I come in contact with.  I will treat this day as if it were a Friday! Perhaps when I leave work I will be spontaneous and by myself an ice cream or do an extra lap during my evening walk.  Either way, I’m not going to allow the melodious Monday blues to get me down.

Life After Death

While writing this, my thoughts were all over the place. As you read if the tone feels this way…I
m still not over it…I’m still not there yet.

Memories

I continue to write your birthday on my calendars, but the memory of your departure is also etched in my brain.   As either day approaches, “it” gets a little tough.  The memories of our time together come in harder.  The hate for you leaving is stronger. The acceptance of you being gone is weaker.

The Hurt

It hurts.   It hurts like Hell. This pain is unforgiving because my loved one caused it.  I miss them and I can’t stand them for what they did to me.  It can often feel unbearable. A suffocating helplessness. The feeling of hopelessness, of confusion, of uncertainty. Each day with them gone, I feel weaker…How could they just leave? Why was it allowed to happen?

Celebrate what?

Life is bittersweet.  Everyday someone dies and someone is born.  These are moments of pain and moments of jubilee.  Some cultures see death as a celebration. A completion of their time here on earth to begin their next phase into the afterlife.  

I don’t celebrate this.  Maybe I’m selfish… but I don’t want them to go.  I’ve been told countless times to be strong for myself or for another person when a loved one has died.  Am I not allowed to grieve?  I’ve been told to not cry or not to be so hurt because one day I would see them again.  That’s fine, but I want to see them as they were! I don’t want my last thought of them lying in a casket.  I want to be with them now.  I want to speak with them now…not speaking words into the air, wondering if my beloved hears me. I want to know that they’re receiving the text I still send to their phone and not wonder if a stranger is reading it.

YOU

I miss you and there is nothing anyone or anything can say or do to quench the desire I have for you.  How do I continue to live without you?  There’s a huge part of me that’s missing.  Nothing can fill it, except you…but you’re gone.  No matter how much I scream for you or cry out to you, you’re not coming back. To see you, smell you, and touch you again. 

One Day

They say the days will get better. That one day I’ll be able to think of you or discuss you without crying, without this anger you caused.  Maybe one day it won’t be so bad.  The grief will get better, it will become easier,…it will feel lighter, but I’m not there yet.

*To the reader,

The way this was written feels all over the place. This was how I was feeling at the time of writing. I hope it shows the frustration of emotion from the grief of losing a loved one.*

In My Solitude…

In my solitude, I sit along the sand and I energize myself from the tender touch of you.

In my solitude…

I sit along the sand as the winds lightly blow the waves against the beach.  The sounds and gentle silence relax me. My mind is clear and refreshed.  I am alert and unafraid.  Painful memories ease from my focus. They no longer hurt, they are no longer binding.  I feel peace.

In my solitude…

…my hands are outstretched and my feet are bare.  I energize myself from the tender touch of nature.  A sea of green grass delicately brush against me in the vast open field.  As I open my eyes I gaze into the aquamarine sky above.  The rays of the sun wrap me in warmth.  From a stream, the sounds of flowing water glide across rocks into a brook and enhance the melodies of a bird’s song. I feel calm and alive.  

In my solitude…

… The northern city sounds of horns and sirens are shut out by the security of the doors leading to the second house.  I rub my hands along the mahogany colored wood as I climb the winding stairs and breathe in its familiar scent. I’m Here!  I prepare to be engulfed in overwhelming familial Love.   I am deep in the south amongst the shadows of a hating past, but in the safety of Our land.  In the nearness of my people, and the strength of our history.  Standing near the unseen, of those that came before.  Knowing they are proud of the continuation of what they started.  The traditions will continue.  I feel complete,  I feel pride, and I feel family .

In my solitude…

…I’m with you, held in your embrace.  Feeling secure knowing worry isn’t an option.   Daily experiencing your love for me and only me. Never having to wonder or settle. Never a reason to doubt; I am where I’m supposed to be.  Creating memories… laughing at the past while being a comfort in the present.  Continuing to hope for a greater future. United as one until the glimmer of the stars fade away and the light of the sun overwhelms itself.  I feel me, I feel Us, I feel Forever.

In my solitude.

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