Efflorescent Memoirs

December 30th, 2014 7:56 PM
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.. Really, the entire internet is a place where perception is everything. I hate it sometimes. But what sucks is, I can’t just quit using them. I just asked my friends Show, Tim, and CJ why we need social networks ? 
"Communication." CJ answered first. 
"Come on! That's a cop out answer." Show retorted. 
"You right Show! It's for reassurance and validation!", Tim yelled across the table. 
"It's like you’re curating your life", Show waved one hand in the air as she spoke, while using the other to take a big sip of her Japanese imported sake. 
I felt like she was spot on. But I still wondered why? Why do we need a living gallery of our selves? Is it just to be accepted by other people? Is it to let others know how well we're doing? Is it to promote our homegrown brands? Or is it just because it's a "thing to do"? Probably a little bit of all of those things, depending o…

December 30th, 2014  7:08 PM  Now Playing: Drake, 0-100 


Show's sketching, I'm reading bell hooks, Tim is talking his sh't, and we got CJ in here writing poetry about his life. 
“Leave your story. Live everyday like your last."
“Okay CJ! Lemme’ find out you a rapper now!” Tim yelled, as if the music was louder than a bomb. 
“Nah.. I’m a poet.” CJ was calm and collective with his response. 
Tim nodded to the music, ignoring CJ's response, and then turns to me as he begins to say,
“Come on Clay! I need you to take the LEAD! How we supposed to GET RICH if YOU DONT TAKE LEAAADDD!!! You afraid… You afraid of your own potential. Stop being afraid of YOUR POWER!” 
Woah! I thought.. 
“You’re right.” I shook my head up and down, agreeing with his every word. Tim is always on point with his wise analyses of me. 
I am afraid of my potential sometimes... For someone else to see it, well... that is scarier than my actual fear.

I rode from the 20 Twenty Bike Shop on the Avenue in Hampden like it was my first time ever riding my bike. The cool wind piercing my face and gliding through my wool, Navaho-patterned coat put me in a trance. I was instantly reunited with my love for the natural world. I remembered how being outdoors brings me back to life. I'd been in my bed for days, attempting to read and write lesson plans, barely eating, and wallowing like a whale in my own ocean of tears. I fell into depression and found solace in the confines of the pale periwinkle walls of my room. 

I rode and rode, embracing the speed of my brand new tires, as I glided down the steep hills of Druid and the jagged  pavement of Scisson. 
I never grew tired and probably wouldn't have slowed down if it weren't for the young woman who sat in the middle of the sidewalk with her tattered cardboard boxes and dingy blankets.
I hopped off of my bike to make sure that I didn't accidentally hit her. She looked up, with eyes…

...I am human. I am messy. I'm not trying to be an example. I am not perfect. I am not trying to say I have all the answers. I am not trying to say I'm right. I am just trying -- to support what I believe in, trying to do some good in this world, trying to make noise with my writing while  also being myself...
Roxane Gay

I am grateful for this scripture: You don't know the path the wind takes. You don't know how a baby is made inside its mother. So you can't understand how God works either. He made everything. (Ecclesiastes 11:5)
I am grateful for learning that I won't always understand why ...and that's okay. 
I am grateful for how much I have grown over the last year. 
I am grateful for this Monday, where I can lay in my bed and read things that have nothing to do with work. 
I am grateful that Show got me a big bowl of soup from Whole Foods. 
I am grateful that my car is running well. 
I am grateful that my bike is finally fixed too. 
I am grateful for the 5 days I spent in Baltimore with Bae. 
I am grateful for the phone call I had with Nikki today. 
I am grateful for my body finally starting to feel normal again after 3 days of indigestion. 
I am grateful for the Coltraine that I am playing softly from my phone. 
I am grateful for my pursuit of individuality. 
I am grateful for my ability…

December 8, 2014 8:04 PM NP: Free Now, The Beatles
Sitting in Starbucks in Washington Mill. A man wearing a black, suede yamaka and olive green Nautica sweater sat next to me on the raw, cocoa powder colored leather bench. He pulled out a stack of blank, white 6 by 8 1/2 inch cards and a cardboard box of markers. He opened his 15 inch Dell laptop computer and began making cards that correlated with each slide of his powerpoint presentation. I'd been working on my culminating portfolio for my administration and supervision certificate for about 3 hours. I was growing tired and needed a water break. 


Before heading to the counter, I asked my neighbor, “Would you like a water?” 
“Thanks but no thanks.” He answered with a smile. “No one has ever offered me a water, at least not a stranger. What do you do?”
“Im a teacher. Are you a professor?” 
“No.. “ He chuckled and placed the cap back on his red marker. “I am a consultant. This is a sales technique I learned a couple of years back. Wha…

If I tell you I will wait for you, then I will wait for you.  If i tell you that you may lay your head on my shoulder, then you may do so.  If I tell you that i love you, then i will love you forever.  Twirl little ballerina girl, twirl.  You're heart is as flexible as a twizzler, your frame, elegant as life itself and your feet, as disciplined as a marine.  Little ballerina girl, you look so afraid..  So afraid to trust.  With a heart that has been stretched, a frame that is well past its element and feet that have been forced to go to their told direction, I would be afraid too. 
Amazing it truly is,  how one can hide behind a mask for so long.  Amazing it truly is, that masks can cover more than just a face.  Twirl little ballerina girl, twirl!  Distract me from my monarchy filled world.  When you look at me with mist filled eyes, you tell me you aren't just a ballerina girl.  That you're stockings and point shoes are but a mask..  That when things are getting out of hand, you can'…