the coldest winter ever...

a dear, distant friend of mine (what's a dear, distant friend? well the kind you don't connect with often but always hope the very best for them and they can make you smile - oh yes - by merely thinking of them) asked how i was doing, and this is what i had to say:

"what of my life? there is much writing and editing, but as for the becoming/unfolding/transforming - i cannot see it (yet). to be completely honest, i am on the recovering side of what i believe to have been depression. suffice it to say it's been the coldest winter ever. somehow i still manage(d) to come across in my workplace as an ambitious, high-functioning, self-starting individual, so that's good. (it's also brought about this notion of a functioning depressive which, as black women, may just be a new name for a very old reality; it needs further study.) HomeBoy has seen more of this side than i ever wanted to show him, but i applaud his endurance - he done good. we are love laborers, he and i - indeed.

but thankfully, spring is near (man i love it when the seasons are a metaphor for my life! i could do without it being in realtime though, i'm just saying...) i feel like i've had to relearn alot of the lessons i've professed (even subtly) to know for a long time. but i don't mind that, as long as i learn them. (maybe i'll even write them down.) that's all i have to say about that...

i've been thinking about a design certification program (to up my personal aestethic and also be more marketable for freelance work). it's a way to kind of "get my feet wet" in the academic environment again, in preparation for grad school? MFA programs? world domination? who knows? but my job will help foot the bill, so i'm down.

no babies - not even on the horizon. the most traditional-family-like thing i'm looking forward to is working on the house once the weather breaks. (i can hear the sanding... i can see the paint samples... i can feel my emptying wallet from overpriced contractors - ah to be a homeowner!)

i don't know if that's not enough, more than you asked for, or exactly what you wanted to know. either way - you're welcome! ;)

take care [to] be well."




this is not my photo, but i thought it fitting. google helped me find it here.

hiatus and hindsight...

more than 2 months have passed since i last posted, and you know what? that makes coming back to this space even harder (though i'm finding even the simplest of tasks difficult these days). i had this big plan, see? i was gonna revamp my blog and start posting regularly in the new year, and there would be essays and photos and content oh my! but the new year approached, and there was all this other sh*t to do, see? so then it was january 1, and it was all still the same. and the weather was sucking and it was cold and (blah blah blah, cry me a river, i know). then february rolled around and it was more than just the weather that sucked, and i was in this funk that was damn near terminal - terminal, i tell you! optimism, ambition, love, hope - all of it nearly flatlined, and i didn't even want to talk about it so i damn sure wasn't about to write about it.

it was a dark time, and i'm not saying it's all unicorns and rainbows now, but it is better. i'm on the other side of some days, some weeks, that i was certain would take me out (figuratively speaking). see, when your heart is sick, you can hang on to it for a while – nursing the sickness because you want to feel your way through. but when you decide to start to heal your heart, and your body gets sick immediately following (seriously, like the next day) you realize that health – on every level – is the most important thing there is. it was surreal, having my body feel, for one week, what my heart/head was feeling for months. Some scary sh*t.

anyway, all that to say, life didn't stop. life never stops, and maybe we (read "we" as "me") incur the most trouble when we try to make it stop - when our answer becomes no. no to trying, or seeing the bright side, or picking ourselves up, or even letting someone else pick us up; no to looking for answers; no (God forbid) to even asking the questions. we have been given life to live it, and the trouble comes when we try to just skate by, existing.

this may all be me just babbling, but that's cool too. gotta start somewhere, right?

it's good to be back.

**(what the hell?! she didn't post this on no 02/07! i know, but that's when i started picking up the pieces.)