Sing a Song

We used to play this song at parties all the time. And not matter the turmoil, I always sang along with vigor.

This is our Krio. Amen.

Come to My Window

"Sweet Mother" by Tilda

Sweet mother, I nor go foget you, fo di suffa wey you suffa for mi, ye

When I dey cry, mi mama go carry mi,

She go say, "Mi pikin, watin you dey cry?"

Stop stop...stop stop...stop stop

Mek you nor cry again, no...

My mother woke me this morning, on this last day of the year. She called me at about 9am. She has not called me in over 3 and half months and as you know, I have been pining for that woman's attention the whole time. There are several blog entries that are testaments to such.

My BF even commented recently that my blogs don't seem so crestfallen. I'm slowly moving on from my upset with my domestic situation.

This phone call along with my Auntie Yabom cooking my favorite soup, Krain Krain, seem to be signs to me. I feel as though it means there is hope for me and my family yet.

Eating my plate of rice and Krain Krain always makes me feel at home. It is so familiar and so comforting. I haven't eaten krain krain in several months because I have been away from my family.

God wants me to be at home, perhaps not physically, but He wants me to have a relationship with my family. And I want it too. Not eating Krain Krain for six months is ridiculous. Mothers pay so much attention to what their children eat and for several months, I haven't eaten my mother's food, the food from home. I feel as though I have been starving until today.

So I am interpreting this as a sign, that at the end of the day, or the end of the year, I still have a family, even if the relationship is not what I want it to be. I am trying to remember that because at first, after we talked, I tried to go back to sleep but lay down crying instead. I have missed her so much and she waited until the last day of year to call, talk to me, ask me questions, and let me know she cares.

Just when I was starting to come to terms with the idea that I will just have to do without a relationship; that I will have to bear with the distance; that I have to give her time...she calls and renews my hopes, without my knowledge even. I think I am a little optimistic that this new year season may give my Mommy the reconciliation fever. Maybe. Maybe not.

Nonetheless, I am going to continue with my plan. I will return to school next semester and finish up my degree. The other details of my life are auxiliary mechanisms to me graduating. I just want her (and my Daddy) to see that. I can manage without a real relationship with either of them. That will come with time.

However, I am still hurt about some of the things she has done or not done, as I am sure she is by me. I cried out of frustration. Any conversation we have is predicated upon me "taking responsibility". While I am totally willing to do that, I must say, I am not willing to be labelled as the sole culprit of this domestic mess.

I am no longer a child. Our relationship and my parents' role in my life has changed. Therefore, both sides are responsible and have made bad contributions. My parents, in old African style, don't believe that. It (whatever it is) is all my fault. So while I have missteps for which I have indicted them in my mind, they deny them all together and simply make me feel childish, paranoid, and overly sensitive.

But in this new year, I will try my hardest to be grateful. I will not say happy, because she is highly elusive. But I will be grateful. I am alive. I am well. I therefore still have opportunity and potential. This is especially poignant for me to remember now as two 'cousins' of mine have died in the last month, both of whom were my age. Marie of ovarian cancer at 22 and Khadija of a horrible car accident back home in Sierra Leone at 23.

Happy New Year Mommy. Forgive me for 2008. But please give me space, less criticism, and more support if you can in 2009.

Switch Lanes

"All I Want for Christmas" by Mariah Carey

...I won't ask for much this Christmas / I won't even ask for snow / I'm just gonna keep on waiting / underneath the mistletoe...make my wish come true / baby all I want for Christmas is yooouuu...

Merry Christmas. Or Happy Holidays.

I am having a wonderful time with family in Northern Virginia. I've been here visiting for the break for almost two weeks now. There is a lot of life here. My cousins and my aunt are so energetic and funny.

We talk loud, eat a lot, make a mess, insult each other jokingly, and sleep late everyday.

The house is warm and the televisions and game systems are plenty. And the merriment makes the walls all glow and we're all brighter for it.

Yesterday night we had a Christmas Eve dinner and had a pseudo-party as we cooked. We brought a CD player down and acted a fool to old and new dance songs from back Home. I haven't been able to have such moments with family and it felt so nice. I felt kind of human...and loved maybe.

We have been wrapping gifts for the past couple of days and have stuffed them under our small tree. There were 13 of us in the house for Christmas and about three times as many gifts under the tree. Although I argued that we would be ruining tradition if we didn't wait until we woke up to open our gifts, they were definitely unwrapping at 12:01am.

It's a wonderful Christmas. My younger cousins aren't so young anymore and they all have jobs and bought gifts this year. They are all such sweet, generous, considerate people, very different from the children I had to wait on hand and foot a few years ago.

We're all just happy, even if it's just for these few days. And I don't know if Christmas does really have magic about it, if it's all the food and drink, or if it's the media telling us to be happy during this season, but whatever it is, I love this season.

I love how kind people are to each other, how considerate, how selfless people are. This is how I wish the world could be all year round.

I don't think highly of my fellow human being to be honest. I think that we are a selfish bunch. We care about ourselves and possibly the few around us. We let party lines, religion, racial lines, culture, etc. to divide and categorize us such that we are evil to one another.

But during this time of year, the animosity seems to subside a little bit. We extend a loving hand that is rather paralyzed during other times of the year.

I read an article on CNN's website about another family facing foreclosure after some mess had occurred earlier in the year with illness and a jobloss. A friend put their story on her blog and set up an account so that people could make donations.

In under 2 weeks, the blog had raised over $11,000. How amazing is that? The really amazing part are the people who donated. They were people who had also lost their homes, had cars repossessed, lost jobs and the ilk.

This is a sad Christmas for a lot of people and I'm glad that despite it, people are able to preserve the spirit of the season and think of people above themselves. Go team human race. Maybe I underestimate us.

Gold State Politics

"You Don't Know Me" by T.I.

...when you see me in the street / homey, you don't know me...

I am ashamed of myself. I spent several hours of my day on a blog that is exclusively about "hating" on Beyonce. It was hilarious. Click here to go to the blog.

I read many of the entries and skimmed the others. I even read some of the comments by readers. It is such an involved blog. I want to put it on the list of blogs I follow but I feel bad because I do like Beyonce. I'm not a ridiculous fanatic, but I gets down with her music and her style (her acting, not so much).

But, I love celebrityism and gossip and all that. Bossip, MediaTakeOut, and Young, Black, and Fabulous are all great gossip blogs in the different ways and I sure do follow them to nourish my celebrity obsessed, idle, fantacizing side.

But I have never seen such an extreme thing as this blog. It has the fervor of a political movement and it's just about hating on Beyonce.

It got me thinking about celebrity culture. I love it and I hate it. I just don't understand how celebrity became such a lucrative institution. I am upset with the level of wealth of the people considering the level of poverty most of the world suffers from. I do understand that there will always be a discrepancy in earnings but it shouldn't be so ridiculous and right now, I think it is ridiculous. However, that is another entry in and of itself.

And it has taken over our culture. Celebrities are the news for the most part and it is becoming easier and easier to become a celebrity given the internet and 24 hour news. I wonder if there are any people in the world who don't want to be famous, even for something good. Even if I do something amazing with my life (which I hope I do), I'd rather not be famous. I just hope I do something for the good of humanity and go about my business.

Additionally, should I become ridiculously weathly, I'm taking all my family back to Sierra Leone so they never have to work again (aunties, uncles, cousins, and any friends that want to go) and then I will begin a campaign to get rid of all my money that I can before they put me six feet under by helping to rebuild Sierra Leone and ultimately the whole world.

30th Century Man

"Move" by MIMS

...homey, I'm the president, governor, and mayor / I control everything like a dictator...

I went on a date yesterday evening and it went very well. Believe it or not, it was only the second real date I have had in my life. I have been out with gentlemen before, of course, but typically with gentlemen I am already somehow entangled with. The date did not begin the "courtship" (because if I told you what was really going on in these other entanglements, you'd realize I'm sort of a fool).

I met the gentleman on whom I went on this date at a club performance. It was the American debut of a Sierra Leonean artist (Vida, who did not do well) and fellow Sierra Leoneans and other Africans came to support her.

He asked me out and we went to dinner yesterday. It was a cute, casual thing. He picked me up and met my brother Richard. We couldn't decide what to do for a few minutes. We had not really discussed the night's activities but we just wanted to meet up. So we ended up going to Applebee's (because I couldn't figure out where Chili's was).

We had very good conversation. He asked me a lot about myself and I sure did talk a lot about myself. I told him that I am (pseudo)self absorbed and he laughed at me. Next date though, I am going to make sure he talks more.

He was very chivalric, opening all the doors but not annoying. Chivraly gets strangely annoying. It is difficult to explain, but some will know what I mean. He was casually considerate and not overwhelmingly chivalric.

And my favorite: he is out of that t-shirt and jeans phase. He wore jeans, a simply decorated white button up and a light tan sweater overtop topped off with an adorable, plaid Kangol hat. It was very much of a grown man swag. I don't mind the jeans, the t-shirt, the kicks get-up, but that has to stop at some point, or it at least can't be his exclusive wardrobe. It becomes extremely problematic for me when he is still sporting such a wardrobe after the age of 30 (which is typically my dating demographic).

His other qualifications: he is liberal. He is educated. He is African (not from Sierra Leone but...that could be overlooked). He is handsome. He is not too "touchie-feelie", which is plus 50 points because I am not very affectionate at all. I have my times, but they are not often. I'll show my love other ways. (Strangely though, I am quite affectionate with friends and family, but almost wholly anti-affectionate with menfolk). He has the basics as well: his own car and residence. I would drool over the car, but I don't want folks calling me a gold digger (He has a beautiful, beautiful, clean, magnificent, orgasmic, awesome black Range Rover, of what year I am not sure, but am enamored none the less. It is my dream car which is why I am so excited and not so much because it indicates that he has money, although it kind of does because it is quite an expensive car to maintain. It's just awesome that I get to ride in a Range Rover, good Lord).

It was a simple, nice, normal evening. I don't have many such experiences with menfolk and it was so refreshing. It was exciting. It was cute.

I type all that to say this: I like him.

Dented Armor

Inspired by Fitting Accidents

Broken.
The state in which you found me.
I was battered and bruised
and zoned out and in u zoned.
On broken.
The answers I didn't have,you had.
The self loathing thoughts I
punished myself with,
you took my rights to and
at times you set me free
The new growth my healing brought,
you believed in almost as hard as i believed in it.
It was too good to be true.
Then I found true not at all to be you.
After copping your emotional field,
you've become another dent in my shield.

_________

This is an example of how language connects us. My blog entry about my broken heartedness (Fitting Accidents) reverberated with someone else. My language spoke to someone else as if it wasn't words talking but our pains talking. She understood how I felt from my words alone. And I didn't think that was possible.

I thought that language was miraculous but inadequate and I think now, she isn't as inadequate as I thought.

Her poem is just so beautiful. She answered my words with more words and I feel like she told me how I felt better than I told myself. I even forget my heartache to remember hers and I'd like to inform you of something madam.

The dents in your shield do not make it any less functional. And eventually, you will be equipped with what you need to strengthen your shield again. And hopefully after that, you'll find a place in which you are remade with indestructable material and shield will no longer be necessary.

Tap Water

"You Made a Fool of Me" by Me'Shell Ndegeocello

...I've allowed you to make me feel...I feel so dumb / What kind of fool am I? / You so easily set me aside...

I've come to realize that being one of the King's Kids comes with special privileges and protections. God is not one to allow his chosen people to be messed with, hurt, humiliated, trampled upon, beaten, harrassed, and/or disrespected without consequence.

--Suga (Naked and Natural)

___

Other people are important. I read an entry on the blog of a blogger who I follow about forgiveness and God. It was hard to read and it even made me cry. I want to be angry. Honestly, anger is fulfilling and comforting in a way that just makes me want to keep eating anger. But anger is fattening and I cannot live on it.

__________

I once read that anger is one of the most dangerous of our emotional indulgences. It is usually borne of our desire for some reward. When one becomes angry, he or she wants some kind of acknowledgment, which is the reward. We want someone to apologize, admit a wrong was done, have something corrected in order for our anger to subside.

__________

But I have come to understand that such a thing is not always possible. I cannot wait for the person I am angry with to correct the situation. I have to let it go. And as Suga said in the quote above, as I a child of God, I will be avenged.

_______

And I should be so cocky, shouldn't I? To forget about God's power and think that I could avenge the breaking of my own heart better than God.

__________

I should already know this. I am not stupid and I should know better than to hang on to such a thing but everytime something happens to me, I must be reminded about God's grandiosity. I always want to hang onto the pain and the frustration and no one is making me. I don't see him anymore. I don't talk to him anymore. I just hang onto the situation in my head such that the pain is as fresh as the day it all happened.

__________

So I am going to pray that I can forgive. I will move on and let God pay him back, with interest, for the grief that he caused me.

Sa Lone Krio

"You Put a Move on My Heart" by Tamia

...when the world seems a lonely place / I've got a dream that won't leave a trace / of the blues...

Language is miraculous and it is inadequate. It is so amazing that we developed this tool to communicate complex thoughts to one another. We have so many different languages with so many words and so many ways to express so many different thoughts.

But at the same time, there are so many things that are left uncommunicated or left communicated ineffectively. Language itself is beautiful. The efficacy of human communication is up for debate.

I speak a language called Krio. It is one of languages spoken at home in Sierra Leone and is under the umbrella of Creole languages of the world. It's a hybrid of English, Portugese, and an antiquated African language of Sierra Leone.

I love Krio. Of all the languages I have heard, it is the most fun, most alive, most versatile, most playful, and most far reaching (this is easily due to my personal bias). I love the language. She was my first.

When I moved to the United States, I forgot her for a little while but she was just dormant in my talents. When I grew up and had cousins coming from Sierra Leone, I wanted to be apart of their club. I had no memories of Sierra Leone, but I had her language. The stories that were told, the jokes that were made, the inside jokes that were maintained, the arguments/debates had were better in Krio. So, I listened very intently and I relearned to speak my first language in one summer at my Auntie Kadiatu's house surrounded by 5 cousins who spoke Krio and Temne better than English.

I spoke it exclusively, and I talk a lot. Eventually, I would slip up and think to say something in Krio, but would have to stop and switch to English mode for my friends.

Yesterday, a friend of mine and his girlfriend welcomed a baby girl. They too are from Sierra Leone. My older brother, his girlfriend, and I went to visit the family in the hospital. She explained to us what the pain was like. I have had people explain to me what childbirth is like and I have seen several myself, but the difference this time was that she spoke Krio.

The intentional hyperbolic stress on some words dancing with the raise in pitch of her voice in Krio made me almost feel what she felt. There is a tangibility about Krio to me. When some words are spoken, they have a life of their own. She used "heavy" to describe the contractions and heavy had a scent, and light, and a physical sensation to me. That is how I know I will need an epidural.

I listened to her say every word very intently (as I do when I listen to anyone talk). I hear the stresses, the pitches, the breathes in between. I hear everything. People would be creeped out if they knew the manner in which I listened to them speak.

And, I really liked the way she spoke. I do not like the way I speak Krio. I talk too fast so I eat the language rather than deliver it. I catch my tongue getting frustrated with the speed of my thoughts. At times she'll stop working all together in protest, as if to say she shouldn't be expected to keep up with the pace of my thoughts. There is time yet to communicate them. Chill.

But she also understands my excitement. I love to speak English but I love Krio more. I get to speak Krio to the people who love me most, who understand my history the best. Language is one of the few things that we could bring over from Sierra Leone and it connects us. We get to revert to our mother tongue and encourage fellowship after the American world has chewed us up, told us we are inadequate because we are foreign, alienated us because we are foreign.

Many foreigners, if not all, feel that way. You always feel some type of way, some type of closeness to a person you don't even know when you find out they speak your language while you walk along the streets with exclusive English speakers. This is the land of opporunity and the "melting pot/salad bowl," but sometimes, you miss home.

Sometimes, no matter how acclimated you have become, you feel that you can never be American. So when you run into some lady in the store, your ears perk up when you hear the syllables of your language and maybe you think of your mom and how she used to say to you in anger "Bo, pas na ya. La I no tel you 2 tem."

You know that lady knows your food, knows your music, has her flag hanging from her rearview mirror, yells at her children not to be "lek den American pikin den." And it's comforting.

Fitting Accidents

"So What" by Pink
...so, so what / I'm still a rock star / I got my rock moves / and I don't need you...

Amy [Winehouse] has this song, "Back to Black" whichis kind of the place I am always returning to. I feel as though I awaken everyday to give it a try although I am consistently disappointed.

At this stage, it feels like I awaken just to have the comfort of Black. Someone did the cliche thing of "breaking my heart" again. And I don't mean it in the metaphorical sense. I really feel, sometimes that something, most likely my heart, is really broken.

I keep too many secrets, primarily because when shared, they come back to haunt me. I told someone all my secrets, all my passwords, all my pandemonium, all my embarrassing idiosyncrasies and he blew my cover.

I thought, for a little bit, that I was possibly worthy of having good people in my life who loved me and would help and protect me. He made me think that was possible.

But skip all that sappy business. The bottom line now is I am pissed, infuriated, livid, red with rage, and all that. Not that I am blameless because I allowed my naivete to guide me despite the fact that I know I can be naive, especially about people. Other friends warned me but I always had a response, a defense ready that quieted them, even just temporarily. I did more than that, but he can write that blog if he wants.

I learned the hard way instead. He broke all of my confidences and meddled in my family life in a way that he never should have. He reinforced the mistrust, cynicism, and fear I already had for people. And it made me feel inadequate all over again.

The letters in someone else's name, logging into my shit, the mean emails and messages addressed to hurt my feelings, scouting for my number, telling people my business, and whatever other shit I may not be aware of is just the basement of the problem. The problem is the awesome skyscraper I have built to distract everyone from the crumbling city it is surrounded by. I will never show my damage or my vulnerability again.

But like an invaded country, I wear the scars, suffer the broken infrastructure, the casualties in the street, the debris, and all the signs of invasion, while he and his troops walk away, a little bruised, but back to a home that is intact as mine is burning to the ground. I feel like he gets to return to his life while I struggle to live mine.

So he lost a good friend. So what? I lost the progress in a relationship with the woman who made me. I cannot "quit" my mother. I have to deal with this ravaged country that is our relationship no matter how inhabitable it is.

And as if to add insult to injury, I get correspondence asking about how I am doing. Do you really care? I have to say I don't think so. Guilt and a search for forgiveness are possibly bigger motivators than your genuine interest in how I may be doing.

For I am not doing well. I am not doing anything. All the things I was ashamed of myself for are now common knowledge, but continue to go unacknowledged. I still feel ashamed. I never really forgave myself for the things I did that I told you in confidence, but you somehow felt it appropriate to share them with others, whose opinions really matter to me, whose approval I really need, simply to embarrass me, not to help me.

Yesterday came the text messages (when he shouldn't even have my number). And although I thought it a good idea to call and ask for a cessation of correspondence and say my piece, I didn't really feel any better afterwards. I cried so bitterly (again) to the girls because no matter how much time passes, I just don't understand how things went so wrong. I am mad at what was done but I blame myself, instinctively.

Simultaneously, I don't understand what I did that was so bad to deserve such a thing. I try to be a good person because I've had a crappy life and I don't want anyone to live as I have. But maybe I didn't do such a good job. Maybe I didn't show the love I said I felt. Maybe I'm just not a good person. I don't know.

But leave me alone, whatever you do sir, because it isn't fair that you pop up in my life whenever you want and make me relive the whole thing again. Things are no better. I am still angry and I still hate you. I'm sorry to hold a grudge but I ain't that good of a Christian. So to answer your question: No, life is not treating me alright.