I don’t claim “bad news.” Nothing can top the death of a loved one, so I try to remain grateful for what is. So with the news I came across last week, I won’t claim it as “bad.” Instead, it will be known as an “opportunity,” like many small stumbles and bumps in our road. Sure, it has completely knocked aside the dream and goal I had set for myself with twelve years in the making. And yes, I only had less than a few months left to finally relish in my years of hard work. However, as of now, it is not happening.
The fact is that I probably attracted this opportunity--but in a necessary way. As I began to focus on trying to build a brand around myself, some things seem to take up more time than I wanted. Subsequently, the Universe moved it out of the way. I wanted to write more, now I can. I wanted to put more support in my Towel & Cornbread venture, now I can. It still stings a little, but I believe I have finally arrived at what is true to me.
I know this because I was offered a job promotion at my new job. Without much hesitation, I turned it down. I didn’t want it. I wanted to focus on the things I really wanted. I have been working since I was seventeen and have finally grasped some direction within myself. Besides that, I didn’t want to be responsible for my co-workers. I didn’t want to work night shifts five days straight, including weekends. I require the flexibility to follow my own dreams and goals--especially now that I‘m 30. It was great that my co-workers, managers, and even corporate, commended my dedication and work. However, I felt tested by the Universe when I was asked to take a promotion. I could limit the value of my time to settle for a $1 raise, and more responsibilities in a place that was meant to be temporary. Or I can decline the offer and keep putting my valued time into staying in my Truth.
So I declined. Now suddenly I see that other things appear to be moving out of my way, even the one thing I relied upon for years to service my life in the end. Nevertheless, both of these situations made me realize two important things: trust my instincts and keep the faith. I have moments of cloudy thoughts telling me things I don’t need to hear. And I manage to brush them away every time because there is a stronger impulse telling me that everything is so, so right. That I know like I know like I know what is happening to me is making perfect sense. My faith is so steadfast that I ask for answers and stay receptive to them as I act on inspired thoughts. I don’t have all the answers. Still, I know it only takes a moment for prospects to take off, and that God, the Universe, Source is on my side. All is well in my world.
So when we have set backs, even ones that seem to cut so deeply, the best attitude could be one of gratitude. As corny as that sounds.
On another note, Spring is finally here. Dear God in Heaven does Spring give me so much spirit. My favorite month is April and I hope it last forever this year.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Thursday, February 7, 2013
She's Who Detects
The thing is that I love detective fiction, cozies and mysteries. However, I always found it hard (at one point) to find African-American mystery writers who wrote African-American protagonists. Don't get me wrong, though. I die for Kinsey Millhone and Kay Scarpetta. Not to mention Eve Dallas, who I have recently decided to give up on (that‘s another story). Anyway, like most people who attempt to write, I wrote what I wanted to read. So I wanted to write about a young, black detective before she reaches professional status. She’s a secretary/assistant on her way to becoming a protégé, to be clear. Maybe somewhere in the future she will take ownership of the agency she works for, much like P.D. James’s Cordelia Gray did when her boss committed suicide leaving her ownership of his agency.
So I wrote this sort of sketch piece for a Gotham Writer's Workshop class...
At the time before Zadie Jones's entrance I knew nothing about the murder of Dorrie Jean Suggs, or either woman. I didn’t know Dorrie Jean was a Bishop’s wife. I also didn’t know she had a background so ugly and dark that one can only wonder where she got the resolve to ask God for mercy. And I certainly didn’t know she was murdered not even a mile outside of my neighbor. I didn’t care whether her spirit was disturbed because I was too caught up in my own personal disturbances, like many of us roaming this earth with blinders on as we attempt to find our way.
Nonetheless, at the time of Zadie's entrance I was sitting at my secretarial--or administrative assistant--desk struggling to put together a 1,400 word paper on determinism versus free will. It was for my Theories of Personality course. Dividing my attention between typing up clients’ final reports for my boss, Jiremi, and rearranging my thesis statement for the umpteenth time, I finally decided my eyes had enough of swirling over separate documents.
These days my life remained divided between school assignments and my job as the assistant of Hemlocke Investigations. In more than one aspect, I was always juggling my attention between the two. One night I’m chewing my pen’s cap while writing course papers in long hand (good for the creative flow); next I’m typing up FD 302 reports without a hiccup in the exchange. Then there are those occasions where I’m caught sneaking out of a class after receiving a text concerning the whereabouts of transcripts I’ve typed. Sometimes I’m out with my friends getting reprimanded for checking my phone, in case I’ve missed a message from my boss. I don’t argue with the divide in my responsibilities much, if anything I take pride in being enough of a damn good typist to handle the split. So whether it is course papers or client reports, my material is always tidy and presented timely. I find it difficult to walk away from responsibilities that are within my means to handle, and most certainly control. Once something is on my hands, I’ll see it scrubbed clean off. Incidentally, Zadie’s case would test my subscription to that form of thought.
With all that I had going on, an impulsive break seemed required to manage my pace. I gave the vacant, blinking cursor one last sucking of my teeth before swiveling around in my chair to grab my purse off the filing cabinet. I kept drinks in the kitchenette’s refrigerator, located across from the sitting area. I would grab one on my way out, check the coffee carafe (despite business being slow), and pursue my burst of inspiration to stroll to the second-hand bookstore across the street. I checked the bookstore weekly for illustrations, and fashion design books; my current inspiration being anything Katharine Asher-ish. This sounded much more appealing than beating my brains against my laptop for words to pop up.
My boss, and owner of the agency, Jiremi, remained shut up in his office for the past hour. I could hear him speaking to someone on the phone, making now the perfect time to dip out the office for a spell. It was early April, after all. How could I resist not giving God his due for creating such a beautiful day by not engaging in the sunlight and shadows of maple trees?
I became moved by the glint of sunlight waving through the windows. My chair banged against the small bookshelf as I stood up, unplugging my cell from its charger with one jerk of the cord. I glided my stocking feet into the pair of agonizing, black Nine West that my grandma bought me. She wanted me to look well-garbed for my first secretarial job, which translated to a decent and approachable black woman of twenty-seven. According to my family, my success as a socially functional human being was riding off my new position, after having failed at my previous job as a customer service cashier and representative because of my “attitude problem.” Evidently, my family didn't understand that any semblance of an attitude problem derived from them, particularly my mother’s side.
My father and his family lives two states away in Louisiana (too far to judge my behavior), and it was his side of the family that hooked me up with a position at Hemlocke Investigations. See, my mom rang my dad up once she found out I was fired from my previous job, as she takes absolute delight in sharing my business the second I display my knack for reckless conduct. Exhausted by my mother’s worn histrionics, my dad backed me up as dads will often do their grown daughters. My dad had the connection that I needed. He went to high school with Jiremi’s father, who later passed the business to his son. Turned out it all happened right on time, considering Jiremi’s last assistant walked out on him because of what he quoted her stating were “religious discrepancies.” Whatever the hell that meant because the checks I earned from Jiremi hardly make me give a damn about any discrepancies.
Bending to scribble a note just in case Jiremi stepped out of the office to find me missing; I heard the outer door open when the hum of traffic and singing robins slipped over the bellow of the office’s air conditioner unit.
Pen poised in my hand, my voice got caught somewhere in the slack of my jaw at the sight of Zadie Jones’s fraught arrival.
She stood in the open doorway looking as if she’d just stepped out of an Alice Walker novel, dressed in a dated, lime-colored church ensemble of suit (with nice envelop folds and banded tier), hat and clutch purse. She glared at me with a face beat with foundation, counterbalancing the natural coloring of her neck and hands. Her haircut curled with touches of gray, falling out of her swollen hat to dust her shoulders. She had to be about 60-ish, that much I could tell over her botched makeup attempt. And while it took me a second to absorb the brightness of her ensemble, what truly arrested my sensibilities was the flaring of her breath as she gripped the door handle with a slight arch in her back. Her nostrils were wide enough to swallow quarters, and I could imagine myself doing so at arm’s length. If that’s what it took to remedy what looked like a woman hanging around Death’s door in the gripes of a heart attack, I would do so with the spare change in my pocket.
Lord, please don’t let this woman fall down dead in front of me, was all I thought. Evidently, I was useless in emergency situations, as all I felt my body capable of achieving was an anxious stare. I was frozen in place, watching her stained, yellow cigarette eyes crease up at me. All I felt I could do was wait on her dirty eyes to roll back into her head as she crumbled to the floor. Only then would I felt capable of running to her side. Only then would I know for sure whether this was an emergency situation or something else completely.
Like many, I had a funny way of mentally checking out during emergency situations.
Nevertheless, my visitor did not fall over dead, nor did a pursing madman come trailing behind her. Yet, I felt little relief in my hush.
“Well, what’cha looking at, gal? Ain’t you ‘posed to offer me a seat or something?” Drawn between hard breaths, her questions came out of a pair of glossed lips that sneered at my uselessness.
So I wrote this sort of sketch piece for a Gotham Writer's Workshop class...
"Although it is Night"
0
Nonetheless, at the time of Zadie's entrance I was sitting at my secretarial--or administrative assistant--desk struggling to put together a 1,400 word paper on determinism versus free will. It was for my Theories of Personality course. Dividing my attention between typing up clients’ final reports for my boss, Jiremi, and rearranging my thesis statement for the umpteenth time, I finally decided my eyes had enough of swirling over separate documents.
These days my life remained divided between school assignments and my job as the assistant of Hemlocke Investigations. In more than one aspect, I was always juggling my attention between the two. One night I’m chewing my pen’s cap while writing course papers in long hand (good for the creative flow); next I’m typing up FD 302 reports without a hiccup in the exchange. Then there are those occasions where I’m caught sneaking out of a class after receiving a text concerning the whereabouts of transcripts I’ve typed. Sometimes I’m out with my friends getting reprimanded for checking my phone, in case I’ve missed a message from my boss. I don’t argue with the divide in my responsibilities much, if anything I take pride in being enough of a damn good typist to handle the split. So whether it is course papers or client reports, my material is always tidy and presented timely. I find it difficult to walk away from responsibilities that are within my means to handle, and most certainly control. Once something is on my hands, I’ll see it scrubbed clean off. Incidentally, Zadie’s case would test my subscription to that form of thought.
With all that I had going on, an impulsive break seemed required to manage my pace. I gave the vacant, blinking cursor one last sucking of my teeth before swiveling around in my chair to grab my purse off the filing cabinet. I kept drinks in the kitchenette’s refrigerator, located across from the sitting area. I would grab one on my way out, check the coffee carafe (despite business being slow), and pursue my burst of inspiration to stroll to the second-hand bookstore across the street. I checked the bookstore weekly for illustrations, and fashion design books; my current inspiration being anything Katharine Asher-ish. This sounded much more appealing than beating my brains against my laptop for words to pop up.
My boss, and owner of the agency, Jiremi, remained shut up in his office for the past hour. I could hear him speaking to someone on the phone, making now the perfect time to dip out the office for a spell. It was early April, after all. How could I resist not giving God his due for creating such a beautiful day by not engaging in the sunlight and shadows of maple trees?
I became moved by the glint of sunlight waving through the windows. My chair banged against the small bookshelf as I stood up, unplugging my cell from its charger with one jerk of the cord. I glided my stocking feet into the pair of agonizing, black Nine West that my grandma bought me. She wanted me to look well-garbed for my first secretarial job, which translated to a decent and approachable black woman of twenty-seven. According to my family, my success as a socially functional human being was riding off my new position, after having failed at my previous job as a customer service cashier and representative because of my “attitude problem.” Evidently, my family didn't understand that any semblance of an attitude problem derived from them, particularly my mother’s side.
My father and his family lives two states away in Louisiana (too far to judge my behavior), and it was his side of the family that hooked me up with a position at Hemlocke Investigations. See, my mom rang my dad up once she found out I was fired from my previous job, as she takes absolute delight in sharing my business the second I display my knack for reckless conduct. Exhausted by my mother’s worn histrionics, my dad backed me up as dads will often do their grown daughters. My dad had the connection that I needed. He went to high school with Jiremi’s father, who later passed the business to his son. Turned out it all happened right on time, considering Jiremi’s last assistant walked out on him because of what he quoted her stating were “religious discrepancies.” Whatever the hell that meant because the checks I earned from Jiremi hardly make me give a damn about any discrepancies.
Bending to scribble a note just in case Jiremi stepped out of the office to find me missing; I heard the outer door open when the hum of traffic and singing robins slipped over the bellow of the office’s air conditioner unit.
Pen poised in my hand, my voice got caught somewhere in the slack of my jaw at the sight of Zadie Jones’s fraught arrival.
She stood in the open doorway looking as if she’d just stepped out of an Alice Walker novel, dressed in a dated, lime-colored church ensemble of suit (with nice envelop folds and banded tier), hat and clutch purse. She glared at me with a face beat with foundation, counterbalancing the natural coloring of her neck and hands. Her haircut curled with touches of gray, falling out of her swollen hat to dust her shoulders. She had to be about 60-ish, that much I could tell over her botched makeup attempt. And while it took me a second to absorb the brightness of her ensemble, what truly arrested my sensibilities was the flaring of her breath as she gripped the door handle with a slight arch in her back. Her nostrils were wide enough to swallow quarters, and I could imagine myself doing so at arm’s length. If that’s what it took to remedy what looked like a woman hanging around Death’s door in the gripes of a heart attack, I would do so with the spare change in my pocket.
Lord, please don’t let this woman fall down dead in front of me, was all I thought. Evidently, I was useless in emergency situations, as all I felt my body capable of achieving was an anxious stare. I was frozen in place, watching her stained, yellow cigarette eyes crease up at me. All I felt I could do was wait on her dirty eyes to roll back into her head as she crumbled to the floor. Only then would I felt capable of running to her side. Only then would I know for sure whether this was an emergency situation or something else completely.
Like many, I had a funny way of mentally checking out during emergency situations.
Nevertheless, my visitor did not fall over dead, nor did a pursing madman come trailing behind her. Yet, I felt little relief in my hush.
“Well, what’cha looking at, gal? Ain’t you ‘posed to offer me a seat or something?” Drawn between hard breaths, her questions came out of a pair of glossed lips that sneered at my uselessness.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
The child you once were.
I can easily picture the child I once were. I can almost go back in time to each of my ages before 29 and remember large chunks of what took place each year. Hell, I remember when I used to go down the line of every teacher I’ve had from college to kindergarten. So I flex my memory--always have. I keep junk in my trunk dated back to many yester-years. Things that I cannot throw away because I am afraid that I won’t remember the memories they possess, as if I won’t remember me. See, there comes a time when you don’t feel like anyone else will keep up with your life and how special you feel about yourself. So you, as a friend to yourself, do so. You begin to hold on to everything that you feel makes you you. You hope that one day everyone else will see it.
So I can remember how I reacted to some past events and, when I think even deeper, what I learned from them that affect me today. I can trace some of the negative and positive influences that have grown in me. And some I absolutely can not.
Some memories are stronger than others. So while I can remember the child I once were, I also see that I haven’t changed too much at the core. Nevertheless, as I sit here and ponder this question even further, it only leads me deeper into certain regrets and anger-inducing issues that I have been fighting over the years. Things I wish were said and done to assist me in being who I want to be, who I hoped to be at the current stage of my life. However, we have to let all of that go and just focus on the future. The past is the past. And time truly is short. When two years ago feel like two months ago you start to feel as if there hasn’t been any growth in your life. But there has. If you can recognize this feeling then you just have to trust that you’re getting closer to who you want to be, because you’ve taken an assessment and are seeking modifications. Some people let years go by before they look back and realize that they ignored those moments that asks them to look back and make modifications.
For one day I was in a class teaching something to the degree of being a successful college student. My teacher was a Tony Robbins kind of guy. The kind of guy I needed so badly in my life that it hurts to think about the void. He spoke real life facts and motiviated us to understand the importance of a college education. At the end of the class he went around the room and asked each of us what did we take from class that day. When he came to me I knew exactly what it was that I wanted to say. It had stuck with me during the entire class. When I spoke it the teacher's eyes lit up. It was extremely simple and true...
"Life is about memories."
So I can remember how I reacted to some past events and, when I think even deeper, what I learned from them that affect me today. I can trace some of the negative and positive influences that have grown in me. And some I absolutely can not.
Some memories are stronger than others. So while I can remember the child I once were, I also see that I haven’t changed too much at the core. Nevertheless, as I sit here and ponder this question even further, it only leads me deeper into certain regrets and anger-inducing issues that I have been fighting over the years. Things I wish were said and done to assist me in being who I want to be, who I hoped to be at the current stage of my life. However, we have to let all of that go and just focus on the future. The past is the past. And time truly is short. When two years ago feel like two months ago you start to feel as if there hasn’t been any growth in your life. But there has. If you can recognize this feeling then you just have to trust that you’re getting closer to who you want to be, because you’ve taken an assessment and are seeking modifications. Some people let years go by before they look back and realize that they ignored those moments that asks them to look back and make modifications.
For one day I was in a class teaching something to the degree of being a successful college student. My teacher was a Tony Robbins kind of guy. The kind of guy I needed so badly in my life that it hurts to think about the void. He spoke real life facts and motiviated us to understand the importance of a college education. At the end of the class he went around the room and asked each of us what did we take from class that day. When he came to me I knew exactly what it was that I wanted to say. It had stuck with me during the entire class. When I spoke it the teacher's eyes lit up. It was extremely simple and true...
"Life is about memories."
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