33
"Life is a lot like toilet paper- the closer you are to the end of the roll, the faster it seems to run out."
My father, who had the tendency to teach me in cliché, felt this quote was the best way to sum up his 58 years. I gotta hand it to pops- at least he's making an attempt at metaphor.
Tomorrow, I turn 33 years old. And true enough to my father's adage, I can recall how the years seemed to drag when I was 10 compared to how my 20's just seemed to fly by so fast I can't differentiate what I did at 23 to what I did at 28. In fact, it really DOES feel like it was only yesterday that I turned 23 thinking, "Great, my car insurance is going to drop!" and here I am 10 years later wondering why I no longer have the urge to drive a car past 100 mph and cursing at those who are for cutting me off. Give me the option of hitting the club and partying until 4 am or going to the pool hall for drinks and pool hall wins every time...less hassle, more parking. And yeah, I miss 90's music and I think today's music (with some exceptions) are crap and kids dress like idiots (forgetting that my era once thought it was cool to wear pants backwards and wear beepers on their boots).
But I don't think this has to do with getting old. I think this has more to do with nostalgia. The things we love are the things that ended up shaping us as adults. Our teen and young adult years were our most formidable years- what we did, saw, heard, experienced- they all had an impact on who we became which is why we tend to look back on those years as the best years of our lives.
Life isn't over yet, though. And to think such things at 33 is a sure fire way to speed up the rest of your life (I'll be 43 in just a blink if I'm not careful.) Instead, I'd rather live and believe each year will just get better and better and life still has something big planned for me. It's not about being in denial that we're getting older- it's about KNOWING that age has never had anything to do with youth. I feel young because I AM young...at least by the standards of life lessons I've still yet to learn. I know there will still be things I'll learn at 50 that I never figured out before. So the key is to keep your eye open, pay attention to your surroundings, and find new ways each year to elevate your hustle.
Which leads me to this: 2009 sucked! Though there were certain highlights (BET J Lyric Cafe taping, APCA National Conference, GK Benefit Concert in UNF), for the most part, the whole year just felt like one day repeating into the next. It's mostly my fault- getting too comfortable, getting too complacent, losing sight of goals, choosing stability over risk. I guess we all get that way from time to time- but maybe that's the problem. We forget to elevate...we figure it's safer to be content where we're at until the years roll by and we find ourselves in the same position we found ourselves years ago and then wonder why life just seems to pass us by quicker the older we get. We find ourselves saying that it's all downhill from here despite that we haven't even reached the top yet. We're going up halfway and deciding that time is telling us that it's time to start coming back down.
When we were young, the days went slower because we didn't know what awaited us the next day. Each day in school was drama, the weekends were full of parties and kissing games, the bike rides seemed like adventures. We were growing up- and along with that came the uneasiness, the fear, the awkwardness, and we couldn't wait to grow up and prove ourselves.
That's how we should be living: always wanting to prove ourselves to ourselves. Push the envelope. Push the boundaries. Elevate the hustle. That's the plan. That's 2010 and every year after. That's me at 33 and 58. So what I'm getting older? Tell em all somehow I'll see them at the top...that is, of course, if they haven't given up yet. Read the full story »
My father, who had the tendency to teach me in cliché, felt this quote was the best way to sum up his 58 years. I gotta hand it to pops- at least he's making an attempt at metaphor.
Tomorrow, I turn 33 years old. And true enough to my father's adage, I can recall how the years seemed to drag when I was 10 compared to how my 20's just seemed to fly by so fast I can't differentiate what I did at 23 to what I did at 28. In fact, it really DOES feel like it was only yesterday that I turned 23 thinking, "Great, my car insurance is going to drop!" and here I am 10 years later wondering why I no longer have the urge to drive a car past 100 mph and cursing at those who are for cutting me off. Give me the option of hitting the club and partying until 4 am or going to the pool hall for drinks and pool hall wins every time...less hassle, more parking. And yeah, I miss 90's music and I think today's music (with some exceptions) are crap and kids dress like idiots (forgetting that my era once thought it was cool to wear pants backwards and wear beepers on their boots).
But I don't think this has to do with getting old. I think this has more to do with nostalgia. The things we love are the things that ended up shaping us as adults. Our teen and young adult years were our most formidable years- what we did, saw, heard, experienced- they all had an impact on who we became which is why we tend to look back on those years as the best years of our lives.
Life isn't over yet, though. And to think such things at 33 is a sure fire way to speed up the rest of your life (I'll be 43 in just a blink if I'm not careful.) Instead, I'd rather live and believe each year will just get better and better and life still has something big planned for me. It's not about being in denial that we're getting older- it's about KNOWING that age has never had anything to do with youth. I feel young because I AM young...at least by the standards of life lessons I've still yet to learn. I know there will still be things I'll learn at 50 that I never figured out before. So the key is to keep your eye open, pay attention to your surroundings, and find new ways each year to elevate your hustle.
Which leads me to this: 2009 sucked! Though there were certain highlights (BET J Lyric Cafe taping, APCA National Conference, GK Benefit Concert in UNF), for the most part, the whole year just felt like one day repeating into the next. It's mostly my fault- getting too comfortable, getting too complacent, losing sight of goals, choosing stability over risk. I guess we all get that way from time to time- but maybe that's the problem. We forget to elevate...we figure it's safer to be content where we're at until the years roll by and we find ourselves in the same position we found ourselves years ago and then wonder why life just seems to pass us by quicker the older we get. We find ourselves saying that it's all downhill from here despite that we haven't even reached the top yet. We're going up halfway and deciding that time is telling us that it's time to start coming back down.
When we were young, the days went slower because we didn't know what awaited us the next day. Each day in school was drama, the weekends were full of parties and kissing games, the bike rides seemed like adventures. We were growing up- and along with that came the uneasiness, the fear, the awkwardness, and we couldn't wait to grow up and prove ourselves.
That's how we should be living: always wanting to prove ourselves to ourselves. Push the envelope. Push the boundaries. Elevate the hustle. That's the plan. That's 2010 and every year after. That's me at 33 and 58. So what I'm getting older? Tell em all somehow I'll see them at the top...that is, of course, if they haven't given up yet. Read the full story »
FLOOD
The day the flood came
I took one final breath
Opened my arms and
Surrendered the levee in my throat
The water came rushing in
Spilled into my lungs
Until the heartstrings snapped
And my ribcage busted open to
Release me
The waves
I can hear them crashing inside my chest
Press me to your ear
You can hear the ocean in my breath
It rolls and swallows
Curling around my stomach the way hunger used to
I couldn’t fight the hunger then
I couldn’t fight this now
Floating face down, I let the waves
Place me in its mouth
Carry me across that salty sea and
Wash me up on the front steps of
Your church
Through the window
I saw you
Pressed my wrinkled fingers against the stained glass
Watched as you clenched your eyes in prayer
Mumbling something about
A promotion and unpaid bills
I wonder
If you knew
That while you were
Praying to God
We were on the outside looking in
Praying to you
I wonder if you knew
God isn’t the one that performs miracles
People do.
You have always been the one
God works our miracles through
We
The forgotten
The children of rock bottom and broken concrete
Our existence scribbled in dirt and
Swallowed by the ocean
Do you see us?
Do you find our names in the middle of your prayers?
Washed up by the flood we have come
A sea of faces with
Sandbags beneath our eyes and
Water in our lungs
We are pounding our muddy hands against your church
The poverty in our fingerprints smudging every inch of stained glass
Have you noticed how sunlight can’t penetrate through?
And still
You wonder why the windows don’t shine like they used to
You wonder why church pews feel so hard on your knees
The weight of a nation forsaken
Laying so heavy on your shoulders
Breathing down your neck, that for
Every time you dip your fingers in holy water to genuflect
The reflection staring back are the faces of prayers you have yet to answer
Every time you bow down at the alter
The Eucharist melting on your tongue
Your shadow is the shape of children like me
Back bent searching for scraps of food behind restaurants
Did you know...
We make our living refrying those scraps
Then sell them to the people in our village?
Did you know...
We sometimes daydream of eating
Until the hunger pangs no longer hurt?
Did you know...
God has never counted
How many Sundays you've spent in church or
How well you've kept your sacraments or
How often you've tithed
The communion will always taste dry
If on your way inside
You ignore
Our starving eyes
Our tattered clothes
Our outstretched arms reaching towards your chest for
You are the miracle that could
Save us
Reach down
If you want to find God
Stop looking up
Look around...
Find him
In the shelters
In the makeshift homes
In the faces of children swallowing the flood they couldn’t outrun
Find him
In the eyes of the mother
Waste high in a sea of floating bodies
Praying to find her son
Tell her
You've found him
Standing on the outside looking in
Fingers pressed to glass
Tell her
How you opened the door
Dried his clothes
Cried his name in prayer so heaven may let him through
And there I will be
Waiting until the moment your own flood comes calling
I will see you
Washed up on heaven’s front steps
God standing at the gates asking if anyone can vouch for
Who you are
And I will step forward
My arms wide open
My skin still drenched
And I will tell Him
You are the reason
I am here. Read the full story »
I took one final breath
Opened my arms and
Surrendered the levee in my throat
The water came rushing in
Spilled into my lungs
Until the heartstrings snapped
And my ribcage busted open to
Release me
The waves
I can hear them crashing inside my chest
Press me to your ear
You can hear the ocean in my breath
It rolls and swallows
Curling around my stomach the way hunger used to
I couldn’t fight the hunger then
I couldn’t fight this now
Floating face down, I let the waves
Place me in its mouth
Carry me across that salty sea and
Wash me up on the front steps of
Your church
Through the window
I saw you
Pressed my wrinkled fingers against the stained glass
Watched as you clenched your eyes in prayer
Mumbling something about
A promotion and unpaid bills
I wonder
If you knew
That while you were
Praying to God
We were on the outside looking in
Praying to you
I wonder if you knew
God isn’t the one that performs miracles
People do.
You have always been the one
God works our miracles through
We
The forgotten
The children of rock bottom and broken concrete
Our existence scribbled in dirt and
Swallowed by the ocean
Do you see us?
Do you find our names in the middle of your prayers?
Washed up by the flood we have come
A sea of faces with
Sandbags beneath our eyes and
Water in our lungs
We are pounding our muddy hands against your church
The poverty in our fingerprints smudging every inch of stained glass
Have you noticed how sunlight can’t penetrate through?
And still
You wonder why the windows don’t shine like they used to
You wonder why church pews feel so hard on your knees
The weight of a nation forsaken
Laying so heavy on your shoulders
Breathing down your neck, that for
Every time you dip your fingers in holy water to genuflect
The reflection staring back are the faces of prayers you have yet to answer
Every time you bow down at the alter
The Eucharist melting on your tongue
Your shadow is the shape of children like me
Back bent searching for scraps of food behind restaurants
Did you know...
We make our living refrying those scraps
Then sell them to the people in our village?
Did you know...
We sometimes daydream of eating
Until the hunger pangs no longer hurt?
Did you know...
God has never counted
How many Sundays you've spent in church or
How well you've kept your sacraments or
How often you've tithed
The communion will always taste dry
If on your way inside
You ignore
Our starving eyes
Our tattered clothes
Our outstretched arms reaching towards your chest for
You are the miracle that could
Save us
Reach down
If you want to find God
Stop looking up
Look around...
Find him
In the shelters
In the makeshift homes
In the faces of children swallowing the flood they couldn’t outrun
Find him
In the eyes of the mother
Waste high in a sea of floating bodies
Praying to find her son
Tell her
You've found him
Standing on the outside looking in
Fingers pressed to glass
Tell her
How you opened the door
Dried his clothes
Cried his name in prayer so heaven may let him through
And there I will be
Waiting until the moment your own flood comes calling
I will see you
Washed up on heaven’s front steps
God standing at the gates asking if anyone can vouch for
Who you are
And I will step forward
My arms wide open
My skin still drenched
And I will tell Him
You are the reason
I am here. Read the full story »
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