i really do appreciate the little things, such as:
hello/good morning/good evening/or a compliment from a stranger...
"thank you" for a job well done...
a quiet day at work...
watching butterflies...
good and creamy vanilla ice cream...
warm days and crisp nights...
hot tea - no milk, no sugar...
homemade mashed potatoes...
coffee with milk and sugar...
autumn leaves...
reggae music...
the steel drum...
good reading...
but... sometimes we get so caught up... so clouded... so run down that we can't even see the little things.
about a month ago i was leaving work, en route to church and i was running. running to the one train, to another train and then finally a bus that would get me closer to church with very little walking. i was hoping that each mode of transportation arrived on time, in sync so that i would get to my destination timely. when i got to the bus, my last transfer, (YES!) the bus was on time and as i began to board, my friend kept telling me to look up and i ignored her. finally i did and lo and behold there was the biggest, boldest, most beautifullest rainbow. i would not have seen it. i would have gotten on the bus and worried about the time but i am sure i would not have looked up.
i am glad i did.
it had been raining like crazy and that evening we finally had a break in the weather. the sky was perfect and blue and God had gifted His children with a beautiful rainbow. in the midst of my life and my running and trying to do and be so much, that rainbow signified that everything is always going to be all right...
"Since we all came from a woman, got our name from a woman, and our game from a woman. I wonder why we take from our women, why we rape our women, do we hate our women? I think its time we killed for our women,
be real to our women,
try to heal our women..."
this week's fine man friday is...
tupac amaru shakur
Lesane Parish Crooks... 2Pac... 2Pacalypse... Pac... Makaveli... when Tupac hit the scene in the 90s with his flat top hair style, his intriguing eyes and a smile that melts the heart, he won me over. He was known for his controversial lyrics and lifestyle and though his rhymes consisted of explicit lyrics, one thing I always felt about Tupac is that... he loved women.
He sang about his love in songs like "Dear Mama" and "Keep Your Head Up" and in Tupac: Resurrection, 1971-1996 he states "I love women. I'm not going to lie, I love women with a passion. Sometimes I just wanna call up Prince and be like "can we hang?", cuz I love women like he loves women."
Now why he had to go and add Prince to his mix?
There's more I can add about Tupac... for he was known for more than loving women but... loving community... "We talk a lot about Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr, but It's time to be like them, as strong as them. They were mortal men like us and everyone of us can be like them. I don't want to be a role model. I just want to be someone who says, this is who i am, this is what i do. I say what's on my mind."
and loving people... "You gotta make a change. It's time for us as a people to start making some changes, let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live, and let's change the way we treat each other. You see the old way wasn't working so its on us, to do what we gotta do to survive."
He loved... and he thought it not punk nor puny but manly. He professed his love, openly and often and I appreciate him for it.
I end this post with a poem he wrote titled Jada...
eventually i may come up with a better term than "fine man friday" but for the time being, that's the tag i'm giving it... fridays are my days to pay homage to the fine men i like to look at... perhaps i'll add a little content like i did a couple of years ago with my chocolate brown brother/brown brother lust week...
the fine man i've chosen for this friday is....
Lonnie Rashied Lynn, Jr. AKA Common Sense- now known simply as Common
this past weekend i had the pleasure and privilege of being surrounded by my sisters in faith. we traveled to sandy cove ministries in northeast, maryland and i excitedly looked forward to retreating from the monotony of the everyday... responsibilities and engagements.
the focus of our retreat was to rediscover our dreams and our long lost plans. like little girls, literally, we crafted... cutting out pictures from magazines and creating vision boards. we examined the negative scripts we mentally repeat, the negative people in our lives and we assembled forward plans to aspire.
i awoke to remarkable sunrises and basked in break-taking sunsets... i sat quietly by the water just breathing and thinking and being... i was spoiled beyond belief by the freedom to just relax...
we sat in circles and shared our stories... stories of sadness and triumph. we cried... we released... we got angry... we prayed... we laughed and as the weekend ended we rejoiced.
i remember a time when my women friendships were few... when i had more men as friends than women... when my thinking was that women were catty and men were simply cool... and while some women are catty, my circle of friends is more feminine than masculine and i love it.
this past weekend we were both inspired and inspiring... another group from another church heard our joyous resounding and came over to witness. when they saw us women, old and young, clapping and singing, crying and dancing, they gave us their contact information and told us to notify them anytime we did anything because they wanted to be part of the number... that has been one of our visions... to touch women globally.
last summer i traveled to visit my friend and we came upon a circle of women. he said something like hmmm, that doesn't look good, must be some man-bashing taking place in that circle and i responded telling him that women, when gathered in circles, aren't even thinking about men! it is about sharing, growing, healing...
over the weekend i grew a little and some of my wounds were healed. i received clarity and my dreams of writing and publishing were reawakened. 5 years ago i earned my master's degree and turned 30 and i felt like i had done everything i was supposed to do, i felt complete. but in these past 5 years i've been feeling a need to do something new... and now my wheels are in motion to do just that...
i was set up... well not really... rather one of my friends tried her hand at match making. i think she really did it to get me back into the blogging groove but according to her messages she thought he'd be good for me or me for him...
i was reluctant. for several reasons. my focus, right now, isn't on meeting anyone new or developing anything serious. my match-maker has only seen about 2 people that i have dated, 2 very different men... so i was wondering who in the world would she pick for me. i have never been set up before so that right there is a reason for me to hesitate. lastly, in her initial message, she didn't give me a lot to go on. she gave me his name, his number and told me he's a really cool guy, he's really nice, she wouldn't steer me wrong...
hmmmm...
well there's not much to tell about the set up because the set up fizzled... however, i learned a little more about myself through this experience.
i broke one of my cardinal dating rules... i took the first step. look here, i am not the pursuer. i am not the one who makes initial contact. call me old-fashioned or whatever but i have my ways and my way is allowing the man to pursue. to appease my friend and stop the text blasts, i contacted him first. he followed up but he really wasn't saying anything... which made me wonder if he was interested in being set up at all. i made another attempt... "a getting to know you attempt" and i was left looking at my keyboard with a questioning look. by the third message i knew her endeavor was in vain...
i am not cut out for the new age of dating... texting, messaging... no, ummm... call me! let's set a date, let's meet. while we may not have ended up in wedded bliss, we very well could have had a good first date. i explained to both her and him that i had a busy schedule but no effort was made to place a call, hear a voice or even meet face-to-face. i found it odd but not weird in today's social networking climate...but the time it takes to send a message and then wait for it's arrival is just too much time wasted, for me... i know email and other messaging techniques are instantaneous however a phone conversation is way quicker.
you gotta get me at hello... time is of the essence and at this stage of my life, my patience level is almost nonexistent. i did say i'm not looking to be in a relationship so for me to be interested, the man has got to perform a cartwheel, a flip, a magic trick - from the jump! well not literally but there has to be a little something, a wow factor, to captivate me.
it starts in way someone greets me... a hello, how are you? beats a hey, what's up? any day. the getting-to-know-you questions should be stimulating and inviting... producing more questions and more conversation... to establish similarities and things in common... that didn't happen.
and finally...
after the intros have been made... allow the chips to fall where they may... i am not a fan of set ups because there's seemingly a third party in the mix hovering, wondering how everybody is dealing. in my experience of "no dealing", the third-partier wanted to find out what happened, what went wrong... and then she felt responsible and apologized when she heard my side and i'm sure she apologized to him once she heard his... see that middle-woman figure wasn't good for me.
i could be overly critical, burned by relationships past, scrutinizing and skeptical... my energy alone could have stunted the possibility... maybe i just didn't give it a chance... perhaps...
yet...
i am reminded of a song that i think is fitting for this... a song by amel larrieux called "earn my affection"...
"you got to earn my affection / put your back into it / before we get this show on the road / don’t make me lose all my self respect / I ain’t desperate yet so / come on now stop actin’ out and act like you know"
