as always: a writer in praxis?

i have always said that writing is a lifestyle, not a profession. i have chosen a profession that allows me to engage in my own writing, and service others in finding their voice. but this has never meant that i have ceased to be a writer. make no mistake, i still have hidden blogs and secret chapbooks that i publish to close circles. i will always photocopy zines and press the warm copies to me before collating and stapling. producing my own history is deeply embedded in my marrow. somewhere along the way, i lost my thirst to make my own name known, but this does not mean that i don't still read voraciously, in search of the root. my writing forces me to face myself in the mirror: magnifying my faults, loving my idiosynchrocies, trying to calibrate my heart to the rhythm of my community, forcing me to keep searching, to never sit idle in complacency.

practice what you preach they say, and i say. so i am deeply engrossed in revision, in taking those tongues i sometimes speak and fleshing out their forks. i remind myself in the summer that i am many other selves besides a teacher. listen to janelle monae's "many moons" if you don't quite feel me. i am brooklyn, am BX, am southwest D, am maple and dexter, am abbot elementary, am community, am dancer, am poet, am healer, am masseuse, therapist, activist, theorist, am femme and butch in a single cell, am party, am baby mama, am noogit, i am part of la isla de verdad, UP 4 life, LPS all day, i am the roundtable, the harlem renaissance, the boogie down and downtown, i am intergallactic, am vampire, am zombee, am space and time continuum, am tears in time and the jurassic period. i am 2pac and biggie, dilla, eazy e, left-eye, aliyah, jam master J, i am emily e, dave, dustin and my own fallen angels. i am buddha and peace personified. i am water and air. soy el corazon. watashi wa omoshiroii desu ne.

how many sides does your prizm have? i haven't yet discovered all of my facets, and i hope that i keep growing, becoming an endless valley of geodes. there is so much that i want to become and have yet to live. will i have time? my arms are open to the life that embraces me. there is nowhere to move but forward. i will go as far as my breath takes me.

freire speaks of praxis: the beautiful symphony of theory and practice. i strive to live my life in a way that i am simultaneously thinking, reflecting and acting. it is a cycle, a process, and each day we are a work in progress. i will fall from your pedestal, as certain as the sun cresting an eastern horizon, waning western. i am in freefall right now: busy rebuilding myself in cocoon and fearful of what my shell says about my seismic splits. we are our harshest critics and i am venomous in my own veins sometimes. but i break out each year, hit prospect avenue and remember my resume.

objective: the elevation of today's generation, if i can make them listen. (pac)

experience: if love is the answer, what the f*** is the question? (invincible)

references: the eastern wind, western rain, southern snow and northern hail. midwestern grit, new york grime.

this is my time.

xo
lo

sittin on the dock of the bay...

i am thinking of the ebb and flow that we experience in our lives, with the influx and exodus of people. i have not mastered the ability to communicate at all times (and have inhibited communication in staunch protest... aka fb, just joined in april, twitter i'm strugglin with), and sometimes it's important to pull back. one thing that i've learned about my life is that i must force myself to rest. i expend more energy than i ever knew i had inside of me, and do really leave work in june feeling like a wrung-out, overused dish rag. i have given myself to the point of exhaustion. i just can't give any more. it's time to close up shop. just be me, for me. and nobody else.

as i continue to grow on the glittered path i see before me (for i am already precious and soooo blessed), i need to remember to replenish along the way. i cannot continue to disregard myself during the school year and then need to collapse when summer finally crawls over the horizon. i have made large strides in taking better care of myself (quitting smoking, going to the gym with some regularity, being more active) and i have a partner in crime who gives me new perspective and loves me regardless, but challenges me. i learn so much from him, and from everyone who has ever loved me. it causes me to ask, why do we create so much senseless drama in our lives? we can withstand it, learn from it, if we only step back and not overreact.

anyway, back to other ppl. i used to say "the good ones come back around", and natasha negated with "not always. you have to live everything for each moment, in the present, not what it was or could be." now, at the cliff that is this saturday morning, overlooking the surf off an island called truth, i say that it can be both. sometimes ppl take leave of my life, but they return. if not physically, then online, in a book, a photograph, a painting, a video, a dream or a song. i will always have the memories of these moments i've spent with you, and i can also re-create a situation to conjure your energy.

yes, i can read and interpret energy. i am an airbender.

xo
lo