How do you know that what you’ve experienced is real? Versus another dream in your head that is so… “real”istic? I read past memories through this blog and some of the actual memories feel like a distant dream. What makes those real? How do I know for certain I went through them? Unless I have someone who can verify… and then… could it be the stuff of mass delusion? Occasionally I struggle… with this question. I suppose it’s an offshoot of the more common “What is the Meaning of Life” question that folks like to ask. My mission is to discern what is real from what is feigned and the line blurs way more often than I care to imagine. I touch my hunny’s skin and it feel real to me… soft and chocolatey and wonderful. And he reacts to my touch… with a smile or some goosebumps. And in that instant I think he’s real. Not a figment of my imagination. Not a cast member placed here to help play out the whims of my life story. Some one truly real in my life and here. But that fleeting assuredness is chased away by the thought – “one day he won’t be real anymore…” Just like Grandma and mom and dad aren’t anymore. They were a bastion in reality for me. And now all I have is the concept of them. The remembrance of how real they WERE. But are no longer. Then I try to soak up all the “realness” of each moment. So I don’t forget. Collect all my “pretty pictures” so I have them to go with me when all is said and done.

I watched “A Beautiful Mind” last night. I’d seen it before and was always intrigued that someone with something as severe as Paranoid Schizophrenia could overcome it or at least cord it off so he could live somewhat of a normal existence and still benefit from his genius. What I noted last night is that the schitzophrenia had him in such a way that those characters that followed him around were all as real to him as the regular people roaming the earth (according to the movie). He would engage in conversation with them. He could interact with them. Touch them. Feel them. They never actually “went away” he just stopped interacting with them because it would lend to too much of a fantasy world that was not actually a part of our reality. But for all intents and purposes, until someone told him “no – these are not real people – we don’t see them. This is all in your head,” they were a very real and regular part of his life. The mind is Beautiful in its constructs. What it makes you know to be true versus anyone else’s interpretation.

I thought about it a lot last night. And this morning. I thought I’d write it down. Maybe that makes it real.

On another note, I got my hands on the new Erykah Badu album. It’s called “The New Amerykah Part II – Return of the Ankh”. I’ll say honestly that I’d not loved “Worldwide Underground” or “The New Amerykah Part I – 4th World War” with the passion that I loved Baduism, the Live Album or Mama’s Gun (the latter being my absolute FAVORITE Erykah album). But I DO love this new album. It immediately surpassed the last two in my mind to take up position as the 4th Erykah Album that I truly enjoyed. With that, I’ve already identified a song that I can relate to in a very surreal way. Although it’s done in the same three movement style as “Green Eyes” (for which I adored ALL THREE movements), “Out My Mind Just in Time’s” first movement hits me right *here* (pointing to my head and my heart). Music. Sentiment. Emotion and execution all join forces for it to sound like Erykah has watched my past relationships and took a little while to quantify what she read. But finally found the very simplest words to express my addiction. My compulsion. I expressed to MJ yesterday that the main issue with me is that I remember vividly and sometimes still feel in my heart how very deeply I loved… EVERYONE. It’s still incredibly real to me. But as a side effect… I also remember how hurt I felt.

I’m a recovering undercover over-lover
Recovering from a love I can’t get over
Recovering undercover over-lover
And now my common law lover thinks he wants another

And I’d lie for you… I’d cry for you
‘n pop for you and break for you
And hate for you and hate you too
If you want me to… ahhh ooooh
I’d pray for you… Crochet for you
Make it from scratch for you
Leave off the latch for you
Go to the Store for you
Do it some more for you
Do what you want me to
Guess I’m a fool for you

I’m a recovering undercover over-lover
Recovering from a love I can’t get over oooh I
Recovering undercover over-lover
And now my common law lover thinks he wants another

And I’d lie for you… and cry for you
‘n pop for you… break for you
‘n hate for you and I’ll hate you too
If you want me to… I gotta do
My Love for you
Chop and Screw for you
Paint it Red for you
It’s true it’s true
Poor Badu…
Ooooh oooh ooh
Thought I was through with you
Guess I’m a fool for you….

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I’ll start with my favorite musical remakes of all time. No profound commentary – I like songs that take the original and flip it on it’s ear and make you look at it in a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LIGHT. I really mean it. But somehow maintain all the purest elements of the song. Musicians are genius!

I threw in the Estelle song as a bonus. I can’t hear the Screaming Jay Hawkins one w/o thinking about Estelle’s flip on it.

*small disclaimer for the first song… errr… it’s a little explicit… so if the kids are around, you might wanna tell them to run & play for 6 minutes and 15 seconds*

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Where I pick this dream up is that a bunch of people I know, mixed company from all the walks of my life, are getting together for some kind of a party…. game night… beer night… watch tv at a bar night – something non monumental and E and I have decided to go. So we’re getting ready to go and there’s all this debate between he and I about which car to take. I, unusually, am lobbying HARD to take both cars. And in my dream mind I’m positive this is the right thing to do because if I don’t, I’m pretty positive that I’ll be trying to find a ride home at the end of the night. Obviously in this dream, Earl is someone who might flat leave me (which is furthest from reality). But I win the argument and we take both cars but now he’s on a mission to make SURE that we don’t come home together. He’s on the phone calling the male persons in our get-together party and trying to set up “after” party activities – namely drinking and hitting the strip club. (Now I’m POSITIVE that I’m dreaming because … like… not Earl in real life… like not never. Not drinking. Not strip clubbing).

So we get to the club and it’s a pretty decent club – nothing amazingly shocking or anything. And it looks like we have a full house and as I’m looking around, I see a lot of people from my life who might have been a part of it at one point, but not as a main character. You know… the ones that were always around in the hall at school or hanging out in the game room at the dorms or work in a different department than you at work and you say hi in the halls — but not necessarily the ones that you’d invite to your wedding or expect to see there by your side in times of need. But this particular room was filled with those characters for my life and all age appropriate. The folks that were there from Elementary school were about 35 and looked as they do now. The folks from HS and College and work… were all their proper age. Playing pool, having beers, chatting it up and away. Seemed like a prety okay night for the most part.

At one point I start looking around and can’t find Earl. And when I start to seek him out, some of my friends begin to put up some chaff and flare for him, distracting me and trying to make me change my focus. I see what’s happening so I don’t petition too hard to find him and decide that maybe it’s better to just do something else. So I grab 2 friends – Li’l Vic and Mani (my co worker) and we go to the corner Bodega which seemed to be juiced up like a 7-11 – it was bright inside and stocked heavily with everything. Mani comes over and asks me to borrow a dollar. I reach in my pocket and pull a rather tattered one out. As I try to hand it to her she points to a case behind me of lottery tickets and tells me to buy the Mega Millions Scratch off (or something along those lines). So i purchase it and turn around to hand it to her. She hands me a nickel to scratch off the area. I do and it reveals “CONGRATULATIONS!! YOU’VE WON THE 1 MILLION DOLLAR GRAND PRIZE!!!” I start to get very excited and I show Mani and she snatches the card out of my hand with glee and starts parading up and down the aisled – “I WON! I WON!” she’s exclaiming. And I stand there watching her wondering… wait… it was my dollar… I even scratched it off…. And I feel a brood coming on. She comes dancing back over to me and says “Well??? What do i do?” I remember from my very limited knowledge of lottery that you have to give it to the store owner for verification and possible pay out because the store gets a cut as well for being a winning location. So we hand it to the store clerk who looks at he ticket and looks at us and then at the ticket again and says that he won’t be able to give it to her in cash – she’ll have to accept a check for now. She shrugs and says, “Well can you write it out for $100 less and give that to me in cash? ” The clerk shrugs and says “Why not”. Still wrestling with the idea that it was my dollar and I scratched the ticket, I ask Mani if I can hold some money till pay day on Friday. And she gives me a screw face and announces that she MUST have it back by Friday. Now, I’m annoyed. “Damnit, girl… it was MY dollar you asked to borrow to get the ticket!!!” And she says “Yes… so you’ll owe me one dollar less on Friday when you pay me back”. (Editors Note: Mani in real life is NO WHERE NEAR this catty and horrible. She’s the friendliest, sweetest girl EVER). So she instructs the bodega guy to make it 200 and hands me $100 that I slide into my pocket and begin making plans for and accounting it in my head for removal from my check funds on Friday.

We head back to the club and she’s really low key about winning and we’re all still hanging together when my elementary school friend Rossana comes up to me and says, “I hope you drove, honey… cause you’re husband left a WHILE ago with the guys to hit the strip club…. You look tired.” And I nodded that I was. And now I was hurt as well.

I gradually woke up and had this song in my head. (sometimes the songs are related… and sometimes not…)

Truly Beautiful

I lost my Maternal Grandmother in August of 2001. It was earth shattering for me, because in my life at the time that would be the first “real” family member that died. You know how it is. Various “other” people die that are distant… and you feel poorly. But Granny RAISED me. She sat with me and my brother when we watched TV. Chased us around the house when it was time to wash up and go to bed. She took every spoon of porridge and blew on it good before I ate it so I wouldn’t burn my tongue. She hummed sweetly when she washed the dishes and her voice boomed low when she was upset (man… when that woman frowned… it was so serious – luckily, she didn’t do it often). She was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years before I entered high school, struggled with the idea of a mastectomy, lamenting “I fed my children with my breasts…” but eventually knew what she had to do. Had the surgery, did her very painful and sickening rounds of chemo, lost all her hair and then grew it back into the cutest little silver fro. The whole experience was harrowing for her but she took it like a champ. When she was in remission she decided she wanted to venture out and live on her own… experience something new (mind you … she was about 60 something at this time). So she moved to Ft. Lauderdale where her 2nd youngest son, Wilhelm, bought her a ranch home in one of those new communities (new back then). And I remember seeing the station wagon driving her away from us down Denman street for the long 24 hour trek… and I cried… and cried and cried. I didn’t want her to go… She’d been a part of my life from day one. But she felt like she had to move on for herself for once. And that was my first lesson in letting go of a loved one.

She lived down there for a few years and we made our visits to her – for Christmas when we drove down (My brother and I have countless laughable memories about this ride down); when mom sent us for summer vacation for 2 weeks when I was 14 – perfect timing as I was getting over breaking up with my “first” boyfriend; and she made her visits up to us and they were brief and far between. She was enjoying her time down there, meeting new people. But it was a big house and she was all by herself. One day mom was feverishly trying to contact her. She’d been complaining of not feeling well so mom was being a good daughter and checking. But to no avail. She asked one of her nearby neighbors to go in and check on her and found her on the floor, barely audible… barely moving. She had had a “mini” stroke. After a brief hospitalization, they packed up her stuff and rushed her back to New York where we could all keep watchful eye. But she went through her rehab pretty effortlessly and made what seemed to be a full recovery. During this time she was in a building about 7 – 10 blocks away from our apartment building. Not a heavy trek at all, but more “work” than the apartment she previously had which was around the corner from our building. I made those trips to visit her sparingly. By this time, I was almost out of college… “busy” doing my own thing; growing up and becoming a woman. I didn’t have time to make visits like I did when I was kid. (shaking my head thinking about how much time I wasted where I could have been with her … enjoying her… ) The years started to go on and there was a wear and tear on my mother to keep visiting her out there as my mom’s health was beginning to decline now and she had to rely on my father to take her to see her mother more and more (which -if you knew my dad back then… NOT. COOL). They saw less and less of each other but they spoke numerous times a day on the phone.

Finally at one point an apartment opened up RIGHT next door to us and we jumped on it. Spoke to the management company so they wouldn’t put it on the market and lock it down so that we could get Granny in there. It was perfect – a one bedroom… and it was literally? NEXT DOOR. Coming off the elevator to head to our own apartment, we’d pass that door. I thought gleefully to myself… Oh my god… it’ll be SO EASY to visit her now!!! I’ll see her every day!!

We helped pack her up and carefully moved her to the new apartment. She expressed a great deal of excitement to be so close to us too. We all couldn’t wait. We got all her personal effects in the apartment; set her up real nice like… shared some coffee and chatter with her at our apartment before she made the long trek back to apartment down the hall. Only about an hour or two went by before mayhem ensued. One of us was holding up the bathroom in our own apartment. And so my father took this opportunity to maximize use of the brand new bathroom that had made itself available right next door instead of fussing with whoever was holding up the progress. He got to grandmas apt and something wasn’t wright. She was laid out abnormally on the bed, muttering something about “always be there… i… will… always… be there…” over and over. Her temperature had shot up and her gaze was distant. We called 911 and all the siblings and everyone made it back to her in record time. The ambulance came and took her away to Elmhurst Hosptial (closest hospital for an emergency and worst. decision. ever). I remember NOT hearing the ambulance put on it’s sirens when it drove away that night with my Granny and wondering… what was so NON urgent about her not being well. I feel angry about it till today. Even though five months would pass while she deteriorated under the lack of care at EH – I felt that the need for her care was URGENT. She would appear to be making a comeback… and then get sick again. There was a question of bedsores that were forming but weren’t being taken care. I never saw it / them but I understood one bore down damned near to her tail bone. She would eventually start having respiratory problems and they would intubate her. At first it was pretty voluntary… but soon, it became the only thing keeping her animated. And what a miserable animation. Watching that machine literally fill her full of air and pull the air away. Abnormally jerking her body up and down. And then…. there was the gurgle…. *shudders* I can’t even bring myself to describe it. Out of the 5 months that she was there… she’d spend about 3 1/2 of them in this condition. Deteriorating every day. Recognizing faces less and less. Not being able to converse due to the tube in her throat with this MISERY in her eyes. And soon she animated less and less.

The afternoon of August 8th, which was a Wednesday, we got a frantic call from mom to drop everything and hurry to the hospital right away. My brother, Earl and I were all at work… so we hurried, met up at times square 7 train station and rode into Queens together. But it was rush hour. And there were train delays. Everything was backed up. We were stuck between the express stop of Queenboro Plaza and 61st and Woodside, when we got the call from mommy that she was gone. I fell apart right on the train. My brother kept up a good manly face, but he’d just lost his second mommy too. We got to the hospital… had a chance to say goodbye to her through the empty shell she left behind… just in case she could still hear and went home to plan the next few days.

A few weeks after we interred her body, I had to go away on business for training. A day trip at best but they sent me flying. As I sat in my window seat with my CD Walkman playing the new india.arie album, Acoustic Soul, I looked out over the clouds and remember stories of being told how heaven was up here… here in the clouds and sky. So if I’d ever be close to Grandma again, this was it. Staring into the clouds… maybe hoping that I’d see a glimpse of her… I heard her instead. Over gentle guitar and drum. Finally explaining why she really left…

“The time is right… I’m gonna pack my bags
And take this journey down the road
Cause over the mountains I see the bright sun shining
And I want to live inside the glow.

I want to go to a place where, I am nothing and everything
That exists between here and nowhere
I wanna go to a place where… time has no consequence and oh yeah…
the sky opens to my prayers…
I wanna go to Beautiful”

It might have been india singing… but these were my Grandmother’s words. Calling up images of the 5 months of suffering… the long life of hard decisions and sickness… and letting me know that where she is now… it’s better. It’s beautiful. It’s without pain or suffering and I shouldn’t lament her being gone – instead… rejoice that she’s at peace. The message was clear and I accepted it.

Lately, I’ve been hearing the song here and there… in a movie… in passing at the station… but I don’t stay to listen to it for fear that it’ll dredge up all sorts of emotions that I’m not ready to deal with yet. The anniversary of my mother’s passing is coming fast upon me and I’m not sure how I’ll handle it all. So it would come on and I’d walk away or turn off whatever media was streaming it and keep it moving. Driving alone yesterday there was NOTHING on the radio so I plugged in my ipod and put it on shuffle. First song to play…. Beautiful. I heard the guitar strum and the intial drum beat and started to chuckle to myself. Aloud I said, “Alright Granny… you win. What are you trying to tell me?” So I listened and sung along and took note of the 2nd Verse this time.

“Please understand that it’s not that I don’t care
But right now these walls are closing in on me
I love you more than I love life itself
But I need to find a place where I can breathe… I… can… breathe

I wanna go to place where I can hold the intangible
AND LET GO OF THE PAIN WITH ALL OF MY MIGHT
I wanna go to a place where I’m suspended in ecstacy
Somewhere between dark and light
Where wrong becomes right…”

Again, Grandma was telling me to listen as a message from Mom and Dad… mostly Mom, though… as I’d spend so much time before she died wondering… why she didn’t feel that Domi and I were good enough for her to consider as a reasons to live and persevere. Everyone needs a reason… why weren’t her children as good of a reason as her husband? And it burned and tortured me… But it wasn’t about ME. It was about all the circumstances wrapped up together. The longer I live with my relatively still new husband… the more I can’t imagine life without him. And we’ve been “together” for 10 years in December… married for 2 and 1/2 now. She’d been with daddy for 38 years. Regardless of what happened between them that was bad… they had so much history. And towards the end… they leaned on, nay, clung to each other – even if it might have been in fear. Between losing her own mom… losing her husband and feeling truly alone and that she was really losing this battle with her body’s ills…. she had to let go of the pain…with all of her might. What IMAGERY that gives me. It was so powerful that I had to pull over and sob right in the car. She had to go. I understand now.

It doesn’t hurt LESS… but I think Grandma gave me the keys to let go of the idea that any of this was MY fault.

Thank you Granny. I miss you and mommy INFINITELY.

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so many religions...

“Humdi Lila, Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, Dios, Ma’at, Jah, Rastafara, Fire, Dance, Sex, Music, Hip Hop…”
Erykah Badu

This morning’s song battled for another in my head, but they’re from the same album. This particular songs music took over in my dreams and colored it with pretty red sashes and gold trims and decorative gold jewelery dangling from foreheads and waistlines. It’s a very calming and motivating song all at once. Her lyrics are wonky… but if you really try to see where she’s coming from – they’re not all weird. The words go on to explain how Hip Hop is bigger than religion and I feel where Erykah’s coming from. Reminding all that I’m not a huge proponent of RELIGION per se. But I’ll support a strong spiritual link and engagement with your maker (whatever you call him / her / it). To those that were there from the very beginning – or for those whose perspective on life was altered as a result, Hip Hop gave them something new to believe in and was definitely a force to be reckoned with. Yes. I said “was”. I’m one of THOSE types. There isn’t too much more insight I can give into the song beyond encouraging folks to listen.

This song does call to mind another mingling of ideologies to blend them for musical (social) purposes. I’ll forewarn — hearing this song AFTER knowing Coolio’s Gangsta Paradise is difficult at first… but only at first. Once you get a taste of the original, you’re hooked and the gangter’s nirvana becomes a distant faded memory. Stevie began in the homeland with the constant gourd shaker then took essential classical strings and married them to the conga drum and laid it all on a bed of hare krishna chants and bells clanging in conjunction with the shaker and all the while a gospel choir sings “We Shall Over Come” — and beyond all that, his words call out the injustices people wield onto one another. You really? don’t get artists who take THAT MUCH TIME to get one point across. Stevie got you at many angles – subconsciously if you’re one of those types that only listens to the music and not the words and right up front with the wording. After peeling back the layers and listening to how he brought it all together, Stevie solidified his position as one of my top 3 favorite artists of all time.

Finally the song I mentioned earlier that was jocking for position in my head with Erykah’s Healer was off the same New Amerykah album. Makes sense that they were coupled together because it’s the immediate next song. It’s called “Me”. Very deeply insightful song for her. Not overly adventurous musically – but she opens up her heart and pours out her feelings about growing older, her body changing, raising children from different fathers, being in the public eye. And to those who may find her “strange” they get a glimpse of her being quiet normal and introspective.

I guess we can look for the Healer anywhere we want. But it’s always something we end up finding in ourselves. Good to know that you never have to go too far…

Creeeeepy…. LOL
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“… But she treats you like Glass
Yet you beg her to love you…
But me, you don’t ask.”
– Gladys Knight and the Pips

Jealousy is a disease...

So this morning’s song(s) are courtesy of my co-worker / sister Drenna. Her FB status updated and firmly planted this song in my head. And her comment on her own status after posting similar lyrics was “I just sang that song HARD in my pillow like I was Gladys,” and I felt her. I remember hearing and singing that song and having it touch me in a special place.

In all honesty, I think most women have probably shared a view from this same vista. Watching someone that you could love with all your might and make him as happy as you know he could be but he pines away for someone who isn’t worth his time and effort. And you sit there at times from afar (or maybe not so far) trying to gently convince him w/o breaking boundaries that maybe… maybe being with HER isn’t such a great idea for his life. Gently. And it can spin off in a million directions from there. He could completely ignore you. He could take you up on that suggestion and start dating someone else. He could decide to stay with her AND somehow be with you. All roads, with your rose colored glasses of what your particular future with him could be like, lead to fuckery. But it’s so impossible to see situations as they should be when you’re the one afflicted with “love” or “infatuation” as it were. You just know you could do better for him – appreciate him the way he “deserves” to be. There have been a MILLION songs written to express the same sentiments shared by women looking on as they “spend the rest of their lives knowing that someone else is married to their husband” (copyright When Harry Met Sally). A more recent version of the same sentiment was expressed over heavy beats and staccato piano by Mary J. Blige and Li’l Kim in “I Can Love You”. In the 90′s there wasn’t a girls head that wasn’t bopping to this jam. So I included it in the playlist.

Truth be told, I’ve been in that situation more times that I care to count. To say that my marriage sprouted from such a situation would be an exaggeration. Yes, he was in love with some silly girl who had NO idea what she had in her possession. But at the time that I found Earl romantically — HE had already made the decision that he could do better. I mean… it was after learning that she’d slept with… well… everyone. And when Earl is done? He’s effin’ DONE. So I didn’t have to compete with her in that regard. I did, however, have to fight her off a few times as she (of course) came to the realization of what Earl could have been to her later and she tried to *ahem* reclaim what was hers. Y’all that know me? Knows that was NEVER. HAPPENING. But the essential is that the lynch pin in the decision is HIM feeling like he can be loved better by someone else. Till that happens? You’ll just be in the corner pining and wasting your precious lifetime when you can find someone else who can belong all to you and appreciate all this love you have to give.

I’ve also been on the flip side… where some girl convinced my then man that she could do better for him – and he believed her enough to see her behind my back. And upon finding out, I’ll let him be with her instead, cause I didn’t want to have anything to do with that anymore. Well… those relationships never lasted long… but I ALWAYS found myself in at least one situation where he was there with his new girl… and she was giving me the side eye like I wanted anything more to do with them. And the last song on my list would have been PERFECT as a soundtrack.

It’s always better to put that lamenting energy in to finding someone just for you instead of making yourself crazy for someone who could give a shit.

(friends reading this off of my facebook feed who can’t see the playlist, click on “View Original Post” before the comment box to go to my blog and listen to the songs )

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