In A Sentimental Mood

Well, not really but I was listening to Coltrane and Armstrong’s classic piece bearing the same name ( while writing my paper, might I add) and these words came out of me. I just had to stop and write:

An Unexpected Memory

I remember those kisses
Ooh those kisses
I could partake for days on end
My lips bruised by your lips
But I loved it

Your body’s heat made me quiver
Before your skin touched mine
And I melted in your arms

The nights…
When you woke me up just to make love to me
And I would be sleepy the next day
Laughing at the incessant yawns

Meeting you at the local coffee shop
Our love mixed with honey
Playing “footsie” under the table
You shy
At your unwelcomed excitement
I’m giddy
Taking a sip of your coffee although I hate coffee
Pretending I was sipping you
It was warm and creamy
Just like you

Then one day the milk became sour
The taste bitter in my mouth
Reality caught up
Lies were spilled across the table
And all that was left for me to taste were my own tears

For months on end my belly was filled with emptiness
Sweetness lost its taste and my heart turned cold

Then another entered my life and tried to woo me
We dined and danced
He smiled
I was polite
And when we kissed
I immediately thought of you…

It Will Be When I am Ready For it To Be

I am in a local coffee shop near my apartment, studying for my final. In the midst of grasping the concepts of Narrative Therapy and Solution Focused Therapy, Stay or leave by Dave Matthews is running through my head. The weather is overcast and I am both reflective and nostalgic. Reality is also sinking in– I am graduating, I am turning 30, I am growing up and I desire life more than ever before. In the midst of accepting that I know nothing but that I am sitting here typing this and that I all I have is the present— I am yearning for fulfillment. It will come and I believe I am finally in a place where I accept that it will be when I am ready for it to be…

 

 

The Bliss of Ignorance

I should write about something profound like the food shortage in the world, or the riots and protests all over the world because of it or even the way in which politics seems to be sucking Obama in. However, all I can think about are the little things that me happy, like rainy nights, finding an old Rilke novel on the shelve and my nephew’s laughter over the phone. I want to postpone (if only in my head) the papers, the tests, the presentations and pretend that I am on vacation. Sometimes you just got to ignore reality a little, just to keep ya sanity!

Used Book Find…

Poems are not . . . simply emotions . . . they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and things . . . and know the gestures which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must be able to think back to streets in unknown neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you have long seen coming; to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained . . .; to childhood illnesses . . . to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel . . . and it is still not enough.

– The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

“…and it is still not enough,” I love Rilke! Found the only novel he wrote at my local used bookstore- Silver Spring Books,today. I yelped in glee when I looked up and saw it!

This is What I Get for Reading my Textbooks…

My fellow West Indian, Junot Diaz, won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for 2008!!!! AWESOME!! So well deserved. I was just talking about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to a friend of mine last week! I just emailed him in glee! See this is what happens when I focus on my studies. Lol!

Sunday Mornings…

I love Sunday mornings. I woke up at nine this morning and forced myself out of bed. I had to get food and I craved Ethiopian for lunch, Ethiopian food that is. I have an online job from 12-4 and so I knew I had to buy my food from this awesome Ethiopian Restaurant on Fenton. The weather was overcast. I just had a pedicure yesterday–color, pink, and so I slipped my sandals on and walked. I ended up at Starbucks for my mocha and croissant and continued. I loved the songs that were playing on my ipod– world music, from Asha Bhosle to Baba Maal and everything in between.

Stopped by my local used bookstore; it was closed. I was kinda bummed out about that, they were suppose to be open. Stopped at the restaurant, made my order and enjoyed the meeting between English and Amharic. They were serving Sunday brunch– doro wat, misr wat and other favs of mine, yum! Got my order… thought about having something for my birthday there– just a thought. Lovely place.

On my way back from the restaurant, the bookstore was open (yippee), the lady said she had a late start. They didn’t have the Orhan Pamuk book I was looking for. (That book is awesome! I may devote another post entirely to it!) Said goodbye to the lady at the store and the books, and continued walking. I switched my songs on the ipod to a play list I created entitled, “One,” a combination of songs of praise and inspiration from different faiths. I had Eva Cassidy’s “How do I Keep from Singing,” on repeat until I got back to my apartment at 11:50. Hmm, I had a beautiful Sunday morning.

I Think I Made You Up In MY Head…

Went to Borders today, and after browsing decided to take a couple of books off the shelves. One of them was Sylvia Plath’s book, The Bell Jar. At the back of this edition there was a brief autobiography on Plath’s life, primarily focused on her works. There was this poem (below) that I fell in love with:

Mad Girl’s Love Song by Sylvia Plath

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)”

Don’t you just love it?! What an awesome continuum: “I think I made you up in my head.” The title is perfect, fitting for a newly jaded heart…

Another Rainy Day…

“Got taken in. We feasted on olives from the fridge…” Those are the first two lines from Corinne Bailey Rae’s song, Another Rainy Day. I love that song– it is so genuine. When I first heard that song I wanted to believe that it was a song about Corinne and her husband when they were courting. It is so sad that he died. I usually do not get caught up on celebrities’ lives that much… well, let me say, I try not to get caught up on the lives of celebs. Anyhoo, it was a hope of mine that someone whose songs are so beautiful and pure would have something like that in reality. Maybe that’s just me being a hopeless romantic, but it would be awesome, wouldn’t it? Who’s to say that her life isn’t or wasn’t that way.

By the way, what are you doing for the summer? I dunno but here is a list of places I would want to go to if the funds will allow me:

1. Boston ( I love that place, maybe stay in Cape Cod for a little bit)

2. Chicago

3. Portland, OR ( Would finally get to visit Powell’s bookstore!)

4. London

5. India ( Although it would be crazy hot, I would love to go. It’s my dream trip)

Oh, to be a dreamer…

Oh, What A Feelin’

I was listening to the public radio, WPFW on Sunday night and the program featured music from Brasil. A beautiful selection by Bebel Gilberto came on entitled Aganju and I loved it. Gone were the worries of papers and tests, in that moment I felt a combination of emotions, all that were good: warm, sexy, feminine, relaxed, loved. Is smooth a feeling? I felt smooth. There, I claimed smooth as a feeling. Well, with that kind of music anything can become a feeling…

Music does that to you, you don’t even have to understand the words but if you are really in tuned, you understand the feeling.