One of my favorite cousin's plays basketball professionally. He is 9 days older than me so I have watched with great admiration the evolution of his career. When we were little all the cousins and kids from the block would go down the street to the park to hoop. It was a thing. My family is large and overrun with really tall males whose parents kept them out of trouble by keeping them in sports. So sports are a thing in my family, especially track and basketball. At one of my cousin's houses we raised the hoop to 10 feet in order to learn to dunk. The theory being that if you can dunk at 10 feet you can dunk on anything. For my male cousins that decided to pursue a higher education, sports paid for it lock, stock and barrel.
When we were little everyone would get together and play for the love of the game. The neighborhood kids would come over and ball lasted all night. Or at least until the food was ready and the street lights came on. I personally never played when the neighborhood kids were around, although I could, because I understood very early that no matter what their mouths say, boys do not like to be beaten by a girl at "boy" things. Fair enough- I get pissed if a guy can out-cook me.
As my cousin got recruited to play by other people I noticed that he played less and less with the kids in the neighborhood. At first I attributed it to him not loving the game anymore. But that wasn't it. I have watched him ball long enough to know that it's in his blood. Then I thought that he was maybe getting snooty. But again when I went home we would kick it at the club with all the usual people from around the block so that wasn't it. Everybody was still cool.
So I stopped to listen. As I listened I understood. Now that my cousin had a little fame and a little shine it became the neighborhood ambition to try to beat him. Everyone wanted to say that they had beaten the Great (insert name here- gotta respect family privacy) in a game of Street Ball! It was no longer about the love of the game for them, it was about making themselves feel better by trying to make him feel worse.
What they didn't understand, and I did, was that he was working his butt off. When they were kickin it- he was on the court. When they were playin with the girls from the block- he was on the court. When they were gettin high- he was on the court. When they were playin video games- he was on the court. When they were sleepin in- he was on the court. He paid for his place in the universe with blood and sweat and some tears. I knew that they could never touch my cousin, not because he was just better, but because he was hungry and worked for it. No excuses.
That seems to happen often in my family. My Grandmother raised a phenomenal breed. The expectation she passed down was be the best. No excuses. But be the best you. This is from a woman who ran a Juke Joint, distilled hooch, and didn't hesitate to shoot at her husband when occasion called for it. She was also a skilled nurse in a time that Black nurses usually didn't treat White patients. So our parents instilled in us the belief that no one is better than you, not ever. Do what you want, be who you want, the sky is the limit. And leave the excuses at the door. Nobody cares.
When you have that running through your veins it makes it impossible to aspire to mediocre. You compete with yourself. And that enables you to always set new record. When you race yourself, you forget about the rest of the world and ultimately you end up leaving it far behind. It's a gift and a curse.
Like my cousin and the host of family around me, I strive for excellence in everything. Not out of a sense of competition but out of curiosity. Who am I when I am my best? What is my best? Because who doesn't want to be the best? Who is good at good enough? Who doesn't want to see what they can accomplish at full speed then faster still? It's fun and it's freeing.
Like my cousin and the host of family around me, I struggle to understand when the world decided that I was a target to get knocked off of my proverbial throne. I really don't understand why a) anyone thinks I care and b) why it's a good game and c) why anyone thinks that I would waste time sitting on a throne... It doesn't occur to me (until blatantly put in my face) that people see me as- I don't know, a threat? competition? a target?? I really don't see the sport in that. And frankly, it seems like a bad use of time. I'm so imperfect. I have so much growing to do. I am nothing in comparison to what I could be, to whom I want to be. I am not great or even really very good. I am tenacious. And I work hard for it.
I suppose the trouble with being a superhero is that some bad guy always wants to prove that you have weaknesses. Make themselves feel better by proving that the superhero isn't impermeable. But the superheros already know that. They just want to do the right thing to the best of their ability with the tools available to them. There should be no penalization in that. But there is. What a silly world.
What is that quote, "Small minds discuss other people. Average minds discuss things. Great minds discuss ideas."? Something like that. Maybe it's comparable to "Insecure people measure themselves against other people, Mediocre people measure themselves against what they have, Great people measure themselves against who they could be if they really hard worked at it."
And ya know, I really don't care if anyone else wants to be small or average or mediocre or great. I just wish they wouldn't be so mean spirited and silly in the words that they choose to utter to make themselves feel better. But I don't know. Maybe that's all that they have. Mean words and spite.
Sad.
Kat Williams says, "Don't be mad at the Haters, that's their job, to hate. If you got 5 Haters today you need to have 10 by this time next year...." Man that's exhausting, who has the kind of time that enables you to keep count? I guess I'll just blog it out and move on. I have bigger fish to fry.
I've wasted enough time complaining about it. Life awaits.
And nobody really cares anyway.
Thanks Granny.
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Sunday, November 20, 2016
2:00 am
The worst thing about being single is 2:00 am.
I am nocturnal by nature and I require a very minimal amount of sleep. Factually if I fall asleep before 10:00 pm I am awake at 3:00 am and unable to return to sleep.
Around 2:00 am I am frequently struck with a desire to wake someone up by asking if they are sleeping. Of course they're sleeping. I know they're sleeping, they know they're sleeping. I just want to talk. About everything and nothing. My house is quiet. The world is quiet. My brain buzzes. And to some extent the girl in me wants someone to share the quiet with. Or at the very least to listen to some else's heartbeat in the middle of the night.
I suppose, objectively, if that's the worst thing about being single my life is fine.
Yet. Still. It's 2:00 am and I'm wide awake.
I am nocturnal by nature and I require a very minimal amount of sleep. Factually if I fall asleep before 10:00 pm I am awake at 3:00 am and unable to return to sleep.
Around 2:00 am I am frequently struck with a desire to wake someone up by asking if they are sleeping. Of course they're sleeping. I know they're sleeping, they know they're sleeping. I just want to talk. About everything and nothing. My house is quiet. The world is quiet. My brain buzzes. And to some extent the girl in me wants someone to share the quiet with. Or at the very least to listen to some else's heartbeat in the middle of the night.
I suppose, objectively, if that's the worst thing about being single my life is fine.
Yet. Still. It's 2:00 am and I'm wide awake.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Is it Evolution to Go Back to Where I Began?
Actually I'm a poet.
Early on I was seduced by Angelou and Giovanni. That began an affair with words that came to include the likes of Blake, Wordsworth, Shelly and Frost. Not to mention Bard, Hughes and Dunbar. As I matured my favorites became the artists at the Cafe's who, although unknown, spoke to me eloquently.
I love words. The more ambiguous the better. I like the cadence of the ones that caress your tongue and stroke your teeth before they leave your mouth. I love the hard ones that feel painful and abrupt. The ones that demand you stop and pay attention.
I love that a string of words can draft a thought and tell a story. Make the human condition seem universal as opposed to isolationist. I found my voice through words. The kind that encompass your soul.
I have written so much and for so long. Most of my poetry is raw. Is elemental. Is human. It is my emotions set to phonetics. As such it's venue has long been privately kept or expressed in poetry cafes. I can rock a mic.
And now, as the evolution of my blog continues, maybe it's time for the real writer in me to emerge.
Early on I was seduced by Angelou and Giovanni. That began an affair with words that came to include the likes of Blake, Wordsworth, Shelly and Frost. Not to mention Bard, Hughes and Dunbar. As I matured my favorites became the artists at the Cafe's who, although unknown, spoke to me eloquently.
I love words. The more ambiguous the better. I like the cadence of the ones that caress your tongue and stroke your teeth before they leave your mouth. I love the hard ones that feel painful and abrupt. The ones that demand you stop and pay attention.
I love that a string of words can draft a thought and tell a story. Make the human condition seem universal as opposed to isolationist. I found my voice through words. The kind that encompass your soul.
I have written so much and for so long. Most of my poetry is raw. Is elemental. Is human. It is my emotions set to phonetics. As such it's venue has long been privately kept or expressed in poetry cafes. I can rock a mic.
And now, as the evolution of my blog continues, maybe it's time for the real writer in me to emerge.
Planetary Rotation
You turn your face
from
the Brilliance
of the Sun
To the pale cast of
moonlight
Not Realizing or Realizing
that the moon can only
Reflect
It carries no luminance of
its own
The sun nurtures the soil
and sweetens the air
that
caresses your cheek
With Brightness so Beautiful it Blinds
Meanwhile
the moon
is content
just
to glow
You turn your face from the brilliance
of the Sun
to the pale cast of moonlight
Realizing or Realizing Not
that She
can never
Be Me
12/1998
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
21b- Two Shorts
Short #1 Tangles
If I had to describe myself at my happiest I would say that it's when I'm dead in the middle of unravelling a tangle. I find so much satisfaction in being handed a hot mess of problem and cautiously while confidently unwinding the thread. A pull here, a tug there, loosen- go back, under, over. You can't pull too hard, it will break or become inoperable. You have to have patience. Then when I have the tangle untangled my endorphins reign.
They say that learning happens in the "zone of proximal development". This means that if you already know a thing you aren't learning it. And if you don't know it you haven't learned it yet. There is this very fine gap between the known and the unknown in which learning happens. The Zone of Proximal Development. And once the acquisition happens, according to the MRIs, the pleasure center of your brain lights up and you get a feel good hit of natural chemicals. Our brains are literally wired to be addicted to learning.
In this life of mine I often land, quite purposefully, right in the middle of a tangle. Currently I am in the middle of a professional tangle. Purposefully. I have to say I am loving the challenge of working out the knots. Friday was a pretty rough day. But I took the weekend, regrouped and bounced back stronger. I castled queen side. It is my observation that I loose battles often, I'm just tenacious. And I play to win. So I win.
I am learning this thing. I am learning this thing well. My brain is flooded with endorphins. It feels good. A natural high.
I love my brain.
-Dewb
Short #2 End at the Beginning
It was a very boring night about 3 years ago when I decided to kill time by Facebook stalking. I spent an impressive amount of time looking up various exes and following rabbit holes. At the end of the night my Blog was born. My original blog. You see, I'm not into social media. I don't snaptafacetaintstabookgramchat my life because my life plays like a movie. It's almost unbelievable. To advertise it on a social media site would invariably feel like either bragging or extreme exaggeration. And I am incredibly private.
When I had spent that night on Facebook I walked away sad. I was sad because I felt like people that I knew and had loved felt the need to represent themselves in a way that would make them appeal to the masses. When I take the time to date someone I generally like them not for who the world thinks that they should be but because they are unapologetically who they are. When I saw them on social media I could see where they had blurred their distinctive edges in order to fit in. As a result I started writing. It was my answer to them not being themselves in the same venue in which they were hiding. Cyberspace. I never imagined that I would like blogging. But I did. It became my echo. (All of this is covered in my original blog, which has since disappeared...) I blogged 21 blogs there. That is why all of these are numerically the b sections.
I found myself on Facebook again last night. Firstly I was surprised that the account I thought that I had deleted was still around. Maybe FB deletion is impossible. Good for Zuckerman. Yet again I found myself Facebook stalking. And as was the case last time I walked away dismayed. I had found myself in a rabbit hole that I wasn't expecting and I was unhappy with the results.
There is something to be said for a person being the orchestrator of their own story. Of mystery. Of seeing photographs in albums and hearing the narrative that goes with it. I was able to virtually walk the life of a person via social media. -Sigh- I was even more disappointed in the apparent popularity of the person. I mean, I get it. You're hot and you're smart and you're well put together. Great. Bully for you. But to see all of that displayed so blatantly felt like a guided tour of a person's ego. Yelch. (Btw- who Facebooks anymore??? Still played.)
I had the same reaction to it this time as I did last. A need to write it out. To clarify for myself why I was so disappointed. Maybe it has to do with the tangles. If there is nothing for me to unravel why would I purposefully grab the yarn? To be dragged?? No Thank You. Maybe it has to do with my disdain for all things wildly popular. My hubris has dictated that my high brow taste can't possibly like what everyone else does (unless it's a classic. Like a LBD). So seeing the apparent popularity of person put me off. Maybe it's that I feel like if you need to broadcast your life- you're possibly seeking approval in a way that I don't want to have to validate. Confidence is too sexy for all of that. Maybe it's that I find social media shallow. I tell my kids that, "If they were your real friends you wouldn't need to facetaintsabooksnapgramchat them because they would be in the pic with you." Perhaps that's what I dislike the most- this constant need for validation. It's thirsty. I still believe it has created a society that would rather skim the top than dive deeply. And did I mention that it's thirsty?
I suppose that is why it bothered me so much. I thought the person was better than that. What a judgment. What does that say about me? What a snob I am. I will think deeply about thinking about working on it. Annnddd probably decide not to. :) It's also kinda double talk. I mean, I do blog. My high brow wants to point out that I get mad when I find out that people read my blog. I even blogged about it. 6b- Blog Dilemma. My id says it's all really the same.
Okay, okay, okay- So then what? I guess now I have to decide if the person I google stalked is a person that I will continue to explore (Funny, I didn't actually expect to find him. Maybe I should just stop Google stalking. Obvi solu right?). Now I have to determine if my blog, having come full circle needs to evolve again or just drop the b. Now I can lay my Facebook rant to rest- again. Swear it off- again. Try to delete my profile- again. It's time to end this where it started. With Facebook.
That's real ironic.
-Dewb
If I had to describe myself at my happiest I would say that it's when I'm dead in the middle of unravelling a tangle. I find so much satisfaction in being handed a hot mess of problem and cautiously while confidently unwinding the thread. A pull here, a tug there, loosen- go back, under, over. You can't pull too hard, it will break or become inoperable. You have to have patience. Then when I have the tangle untangled my endorphins reign.
They say that learning happens in the "zone of proximal development". This means that if you already know a thing you aren't learning it. And if you don't know it you haven't learned it yet. There is this very fine gap between the known and the unknown in which learning happens. The Zone of Proximal Development. And once the acquisition happens, according to the MRIs, the pleasure center of your brain lights up and you get a feel good hit of natural chemicals. Our brains are literally wired to be addicted to learning.
In this life of mine I often land, quite purposefully, right in the middle of a tangle. Currently I am in the middle of a professional tangle. Purposefully. I have to say I am loving the challenge of working out the knots. Friday was a pretty rough day. But I took the weekend, regrouped and bounced back stronger. I castled queen side. It is my observation that I loose battles often, I'm just tenacious. And I play to win. So I win.
I am learning this thing. I am learning this thing well. My brain is flooded with endorphins. It feels good. A natural high.
I love my brain.
-Dewb
Short #2 End at the Beginning
It was a very boring night about 3 years ago when I decided to kill time by Facebook stalking. I spent an impressive amount of time looking up various exes and following rabbit holes. At the end of the night my Blog was born. My original blog. You see, I'm not into social media. I don't snaptafacetaintstabookgramchat my life because my life plays like a movie. It's almost unbelievable. To advertise it on a social media site would invariably feel like either bragging or extreme exaggeration. And I am incredibly private.
When I had spent that night on Facebook I walked away sad. I was sad because I felt like people that I knew and had loved felt the need to represent themselves in a way that would make them appeal to the masses. When I take the time to date someone I generally like them not for who the world thinks that they should be but because they are unapologetically who they are. When I saw them on social media I could see where they had blurred their distinctive edges in order to fit in. As a result I started writing. It was my answer to them not being themselves in the same venue in which they were hiding. Cyberspace. I never imagined that I would like blogging. But I did. It became my echo. (All of this is covered in my original blog, which has since disappeared...) I blogged 21 blogs there. That is why all of these are numerically the b sections.
I found myself on Facebook again last night. Firstly I was surprised that the account I thought that I had deleted was still around. Maybe FB deletion is impossible. Good for Zuckerman. Yet again I found myself Facebook stalking. And as was the case last time I walked away dismayed. I had found myself in a rabbit hole that I wasn't expecting and I was unhappy with the results.
There is something to be said for a person being the orchestrator of their own story. Of mystery. Of seeing photographs in albums and hearing the narrative that goes with it. I was able to virtually walk the life of a person via social media. -Sigh- I was even more disappointed in the apparent popularity of the person. I mean, I get it. You're hot and you're smart and you're well put together. Great. Bully for you. But to see all of that displayed so blatantly felt like a guided tour of a person's ego. Yelch. (Btw- who Facebooks anymore??? Still played.)
I had the same reaction to it this time as I did last. A need to write it out. To clarify for myself why I was so disappointed. Maybe it has to do with the tangles. If there is nothing for me to unravel why would I purposefully grab the yarn? To be dragged?? No Thank You. Maybe it has to do with my disdain for all things wildly popular. My hubris has dictated that my high brow taste can't possibly like what everyone else does (unless it's a classic. Like a LBD). So seeing the apparent popularity of person put me off. Maybe it's that I feel like if you need to broadcast your life- you're possibly seeking approval in a way that I don't want to have to validate. Confidence is too sexy for all of that. Maybe it's that I find social media shallow. I tell my kids that, "If they were your real friends you wouldn't need to facetaintsabooksnapgramchat them because they would be in the pic with you." Perhaps that's what I dislike the most- this constant need for validation. It's thirsty. I still believe it has created a society that would rather skim the top than dive deeply. And did I mention that it's thirsty?
I suppose that is why it bothered me so much. I thought the person was better than that. What a judgment. What does that say about me? What a snob I am. I will think deeply about thinking about working on it. Annnddd probably decide not to. :) It's also kinda double talk. I mean, I do blog. My high brow wants to point out that I get mad when I find out that people read my blog. I even blogged about it. 6b- Blog Dilemma. My id says it's all really the same.
Okay, okay, okay- So then what? I guess now I have to decide if the person I google stalked is a person that I will continue to explore (Funny, I didn't actually expect to find him. Maybe I should just stop Google stalking. Obvi solu right?). Now I have to determine if my blog, having come full circle needs to evolve again or just drop the b. Now I can lay my Facebook rant to rest- again. Swear it off- again. Try to delete my profile- again. It's time to end this where it started. With Facebook.
That's real ironic.
-Dewb
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