A God Who Eats Sausages

"Welcome to Heartbreak" by Kanye West

...and my keeps spinnin' / can't stop havin' these visions / gotta get with it...

This wonderful week was spent with my wonderful family. My two cousins, Mankappr and Shahedah came to visit Richmond for this last leg of the summer before we all return to school and work. Mankappr came down from Delaware and Shahedah came up from North Carolina.

Our family is very, very dramatic. The pair of parents in the network are demanding, unforgiving, emotionally unavailable, but expect a genuine, strong relationship.

Little do they know, all the kids they have raised feel no real connection to them. They are ready to pack and leave as soon as they have the financial means to do so.

I have written a journal entry about this and expressed that I think it is so sad. We actually have such a wonderful culture that teaches us to be selfless, self-motivated, self-reliant, responsible, considerate, and encourages unending generosity and helpfulness to one another. We have such funny and fun times together and it is amazing to see us in action when there is a crisis to handle.

However, the judgmental, gossipy, irrational characteristic is overbearing. It negates an emotional relationship between parent and child. The child resents the parents' harshness, a harshness that is a little out of place in this American bubble they are raising the culturally hybridized child. It sucks.

So, Mankappr, Shahedah, and I have been bouncing from aunt's house to aunt's house, visiting and having a good time. One of our aunt's made a stink about me sleeping at her house. I told you my mom talks shit about me to anyone that is familiar with me and will listen.

For that reason, my aunt just doesn't want me to spend the night with her children, although while she was in school and her kids could not drive, I would keep them on weekends and chauffer them around anywhere they needed to go. I catered to them like they were my own children because I have paid attention to our culture and that is what is accepted as appropriate.

You think it would end there right? My aunt is being a little annoying. I won't go over there anymore. Situation over. Nope.

She calls and complains to Shahedah's mom (yikes, that is a mean, scary lady) that we have all left and gone to our Auntie Oumie's house. Now they are all wound up. Auntie Aminata (the disgruntled aunt who said I shouldn't sleep at her house) talks more shit about me that is not true, but what can I do?

It becomes such a situation that Shahedah is screamed on during a phone call from her mother and told to come home the next day.

Then God explained to me that they are all like this. The whole family is suffering from the same disease of ridiculousness, konzosah (gossip), and dramatics. They don't mean to. They are trying to protect us. But there is no need to suffer under such hurt feelings at the hands of parents with good intentions and bad decisions.

But I have left them all behind. I have found a place, a purpose, a use in this world that is all my own, not contingent upon the approval of the family that is most inconsistent.

Now I am just waiting on the love of my life, with the wonder of lavender, to be all mine and make a family of my own.

Barnyard

"Closer to Love" by Matt Kearney

...oh, it's your light / oh, it's your way / pull me out of the dark / just to show me the way...

In the third grade, Ms. Miriello assigned us a project that required us to look at the moon every evening at the same time. We were supposed to record our findings in order to incorporate it into our lessons about weather, climate, weather and climate patterns, etc.

I always forgot to look at the moon at the same time each night and some nights I would just forget totally. I basically had to forge the information because I had no clue what the moon looked like that night. I forgot to look! I was 8 years old in 1995. The internet had not debuted in my life so I could not look it up and write it in on the calendar we were provided.

I cannot remember if my parents knew about my project and my delinquent reporting. I do remember, however, one night, my mother waking me out of my sleep to show me the moon. She gently held my hand and dragged my sleepy body to our back porch in our house in Raleigh, NC.

I could barely open my eyes and I was paranoid that I was in some kind of trouble so I was very disoriented. She stood behind me, held my shoulders, and rested her chin on the spot where my neck and shoulder met. She whispered in my ear while pointing up, "Look at the moon."

I looked up to a huge, blue glowing full moon, the only one of the cycle we were recording in school. I remember thinking how gorgeous it looked, that light cobalt blue against that almost black sky with sprinklings of small white stars.

I cannot remember if I recorded it or what, but that memory has always stuck with me. It was my little moment with my mom. I didn't have to share her with Sheikh or Lima. It was our little moment where my mother paid attention to the details of my life, woke her daughter up to look at the spectacle that was the moon.

I remember what she smelled like, the light pink pajama outfit she wore, the brand of her whisper. That is the woman I remember. I am angry with her. I am frustrated with her. But I remember that moment and I remember the woman that I love, the woman that I want to learn from, the woman I want to be like.

Since then, full moons have always meant my mother is watching, thinking of her daughter somewhere, with her hands on my shoulder and her whisper in my hair.

Goodnight Mommy.

Signature Architect

"RoboCop" by Kanye West

...just looking at your history / you're like the girl from Misery...

Yesterday, I took my little sister to dinner at this highly rated sushi place called Kyoto Sushi. She has been wanting to try it but wanted to go with someone who is familiar with sushi. I LOVE sushi. Sushi first debuted in my life a week before college. My high school best friend Ravi dragged me to lunch at Osaka's before we were all to leave for our respective dorm rooms. I couldn't bring myself to try it. I did eat the shrimp tempura though.

But the introduction did something to my curiosity. When I moved into the dorms, my roommates and I went to the magnificent dining hall. In the center of the sprawling hall was the sushi station. I thought of Ravi, our pact to be really cool, cultured people, and decided I had to try the sushi. It was step one in turning into a cool, cultured adult.

Since then I have been uncommonly obsessed with sushi. I spent all my dining dollars and meal swipes on sushi my first semester of college. My mom scolded me and said that's why my guts are all remedial. Really though, I just have irritable bowel syndrome and my GI tract is lazy. And I have the curse of having a tongue that likes the taste of all that is foreign and unusual. I am the least picky eater ever.

Back to yesterday...after the dinner, my little sister and I sat and had cocktails all night. We drank into absurdity, laughed at everything, told sad, serious stories to each other that were still funny. After punishing a nice bottle of spirits, we let go of the world and went to sleep.

We awoke this morning, hurt, dehydrated, hungry, and nauseous. But the Sex & the City movie was on. I quickly recovered. She kept asking to die.

As I watched these obscenely wealthy White women prance around New York on free sidewalks and rent sized stilettos, my superficial ocean was stirred. I can't wait to do that...pile my car with Prada bags and not be too sure of how much I spent even. Then go to Ravi's house and eat fish roe for brunch. I always imagine Ravi in my rich life because we are complicated and awesome and shallow and dull all at the same time. Love that kid.

The other thing the movie did was remind me of potential. Life is bad. It isn't fun sometimes. It's hard to get through. It's boring. It's stifling. It is rank. It is tedious and heartbreaking. It is hard.

The adjectives don't stop. Life can be anything. I do believe that there are some lots in life that are hard to change. But it is always possible to change. I think my problem was, although I was aware of this, I wondered why some had to fight and work so much harder than others to change. That was my frustration. I did not and do not think I should have to fight so hard, try so hard for the basics.

However, I am guessing that happiness and stability are not basics. No one is just handed a sensible life. You are just handed a life and how much sense it makes is halfway up to you. I say halfway because of course we are all born into circumstances that we most definitely cannot control. When you get some sense and some power to make decisions in your life, the onus is on you to make it what you want.

That said, I still understand why some people don't want to try, don't want to change, and maybe just don't care. Even if the onus is on all of us, sometimes the burden of the onus is enough to remain stationary or sink.

I haven't really decided what it is I want to do, or maybe can do. I could reply to the onus and make my life sensible. Or I could live maybe below mediocrity so as to avoid fighting. I sway back and forth between these options.

In reality, I am fighting. I am fighting really hard. I probably don't feel like it because I am not seeing the change I am fighting for quite yet, but somewhere, I know I am fighting. I ain't gon' lie, this depression is a stunner but I'm still in love with my life.