Through the Looking Glass

There are many things she sees when she looks in the mirror. 

The child who lost a parent and disappeared in the grief that followed. 

The 11 year old who noone else saw except to wonder how she miraculously appeared at mealtimes.

The teenager who stuffed her mouth with sweets to drown the bitter taste that flooded her tongue everytime her father looked past her.

The young lady who rebelled against everything her father held dear just to get his attention; tattoos, minis, piercings, dyed hair, see-through clothes, nightclubs...

There are many things she sees when she looks in the mirror.

She has tried to show them to him but he pays her no mind. He sees none of it even though she has painstakingly taken the time to point them out to him. She has tried a few times to tell him the story behind each of the people that stare back at her fom the mirror. Each time, he has succummbed to sleep before she was finished with her tale.

At first, it annoyed her that the stories that had held so many spellbound bored him to sleep. Soon she had fallen in love with the man who slept through the retelling of her past but was awake for every second of her present.

'Zome' He calls to her from the bedroom where he is seated, reading a newspaper and drinking his coffee. She can see him from where he sits at the edge of the bed. He is more beautiful than anything she has ever seen.

'Yes!' she answers.

'How many more minutes till the pancakes are ready?'

She laughs at the joke; their joke. He teases her about the time she spends applying her 'pancake' and how it would have been better spent making real pancakes for breakfast.

She is still smiling when she turns her attention back to the mirror. There is someone new staring back at her; someone who outshines all the others and blurs their images into near nothingness. Through the looking glass,  a woman whose smile reaches her heart smiles back at Zome.

She places her hand on her belly and the woman mimics her. They both look down at the same time and smile even wider at the unseen child kicking his way into the present.


I wrote this for my friend Asiya...she is beautiful, she is strong and  she is a mom! :)

Song of the day: Mae- Breakdown

May the appetite sicken and so die...

Love is a two way thing.

And yet too many times we are caught in situations when love is the loneliest thing in the world.

 My favorite Shakespeare book is The Twelfth Night and for those of you who haven't read it, the prominent theme is unrequited love. (Kindly go and read it. You will laugh your socks off) Almost all the lovers in the play loved someone they could not have.

It is the play that has this famous quote...

'If music be the food of love , play on
Give me excess of it
That surfeiting the appetite may sicken and so die'

Unlike most Shakespearean plays, it ends happily and everyone finds love at the end of the day. Well almost everyone. Poor Malvolio. I even recited Viola's longest speech in front of the whole school one time.

I have never felt what it means to like someone and not have that person like you back. Everyone I have wanted, I have ended up being with even if it was for a short time.

There is always a first time for everything. 

Here is to all you unrequited lovers out there.... 'may the appetite sicken and so die'

Song of the day: Mary J Blige & Patti Labelle- Aint No Way ( the original was by Aretha Franklin by the way)

Right direction

These past few weeks, I have been James Bonding around the US. 
DC, Baltimore, Richmond, Orlando and now Chicago and soon off to California. Yup...my life.

Don't get me wrong; I love travelling and seeing new places. Its just that every time I get on a plane/bus or whatever, I feel like I am going in the wrong direction. 

It makes me long for the things I do not have, all these traveling does. I stand in line at TSA and babies smile at me and my womb literally contracts. Older men open doors for me and I miss my father. Young men wearing their multicolored Nikes make me wish my brothers were right beside me to see all the amazing things the world has to offer. Lovers holding onto each...sigh, lets not even explore the multifaceted feelings seeing them bring. 

I just want to stop. In the midst of all these crowds racing to make sure they don't miss out on their destinations, I just want to stop. Stop and breathe. Stop and close my eyes. Stop and remember why I was going that way in the first place.

It has been a minute in this space. Life continues to happen. I miss blogosphere. All my favorite bloggers are MIA. It is maddening. I find myself going back to their blogs, reading their last posts and looking for hints of where/how they might be. I am a storyteller. Believe me when I say I have made up stories about the lives of each one of these bloggers. T-Notes is really a pervert(duh) in real life but some girl finally  has him on the path of change. Muse is in his early forties and experiencing a mid-life crisis. Rethots is still rethinking everything and is a PHD type guy.

Christmas will be here soon. All I want is to finally be on the right plane, the right bus, the right whatever it is...I just need to know I going in the direction of home. 

Heaven only knows where that is...

Song of the day: Oleta Adams - Get here if you can