Archive for November, 2008
reflect
Nov 30th
So. It’s been a long minute since I’ve posted. My apple-logies.
I’ve been traveling buttercups. Doesn’t mean I love you any less. I’ve actually been on a journey for the soul. I’ve been surrounding myself with the love of my family. It was LONG overdue. They are my stability. My balance. My heart. My strength.
I thank God for them.
SO. I will do my best not to neglect you while I tend to myself. I can do both. I’m a multi-tasker like that **smile**.
The end of the year of steadily approaching.
Before we look at what we are to achieve, Inshallah (Godwilling), in the year to come, It is absotively, posilutely essential that we take a look at everything we’ve accomplised in this one.
You just don’t know how magnificent you are, do you?
Take a second and a close look as only you can. The trials, the tears, the tests, the imbalance, the struggle, the overwhelming, the overcoming, the hurt, the pain, the triumph, the gain, the way you surprised yourself by doing the impossible, the way you got over what you never thought was conquerable.
Look at it all.
Compile it into a “Why I’m that Ish” list.
Then read it. Over. And over. And over. Again.
You’ve been writing history this whole time.
Now won’t it be magical when you recognize you hold the pen?
~ cyu
new video from ne-yo: mad
Nov 26th
This is one of my favorite songs off his album. I appreciate the message and the fact that the video is somewhat creative. Enjoy
friends. how many of us have them?
Nov 25th
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity. – Kahlil Gibran
As I grow older, I learn more and more about friendship. I think back to my freshman year in high school. I was so excited after my first week of school. When my mother asked how it had gone I told her that I was so happy because I had made so many friends. She stopped me mid-sentence and said “Always remember: In life you’ll have about four friends. The rest are ‘associates’.” I didn’t understand her, then. I thought for whatever reason she was trying to rain on my parade. But it didn’t even take me completing high school, to realize how right she was and is.
Friendship, not unlike love, is action. It’s not enough just to call yourself someone’s friend. Just as it’s not enough just to say ‘I love you’. Love and friendship are both verbs, not nouns, in that they are kinetic words. They have built-in suffixes, if you will. No -ing needed. Their motion is their existence.
There are many people I once called friends that upon further examination were associates at best. And not at all to belittle what associates are; associates have their own special function.
But associates are void of the activity that is involved in friendship.
There is obligation in friendship. There is necessary, albeit genuine, obligation.
The difference between associates and friends, then, lies in unconditional duty. There is such a magic in flame-resistant friendships; the bonds that last through the fire. But the beauty lies in the unexpected; when circumstance molds associations into firm friendships with lifelong resolve.
I have been blessed in the friendship category. I can sincerely say that I ended up with a little more than four, mommy *smile*. But I do know how necessary it is to once in a while shake the dead leaves from the tree. Every friendship has its time-span. Some last a lifetime, some a year, some a month, some a conversation. Some go away and come back anew.
The most important part through it all is to try, try, try your best to nurture the ones you have. A letter, a visit, an IM, a call, a lunch meeting, an email. Do what you can to fulfill your friend responsibilities.
That’s the only way to, in the words of EnVogue “Hold on to your love.”
It’s so important in a world increasingly void of it.
~
the empty vessel
Nov 22nd
Everything feels so much easier when family is around. Just knowing that they are in the other room. Knowing that someone who loves me unconditionally is in my immediate proximity. It makes me feel so much more sure of every decision I make, everything I do. Maybe because they are my safety net. People who will support me no matter what.
What goes for familial ties, goes for human connection, in general.
My screenwriting workshop teacher, who is completely dope, described human connection using the example of a little child who falls in the playground. If no one is around he/she gets up and continues to play even if they are hurt. But the second a family member or someone who cares shows up, the tears pour out as if the incident just happened–even if it happened hours ago.
I understood what she was saying but it wasn’t until the end of the workshop that I truly got it.
She showed the class a short created by a Palestinian-American about a girl in modern-day Palestine. She was about 15 and the film was about her trying to get up the last bit of money she needed to buy a cake.
She tries everything. She’s out in the streets all day. She tries selling gum, attempts to beg, even to steal, all for this birthday cake she doesn’t have enough for. The highs and lows of her journey pull at your emotions.
High: she finally gets the money she needs.
Low: By the time she gets to the store the owner is closing it.
High: He opens it back up and she buys the cake.
Low: She gets home to find her mom outside, pissed. Her mother shakes her by the arm to reprimand her. The cake crashes to the ground.
The mother sees the cake and immediately regrets her actions. They collect the salvageable pieces of the cake and go inside. The last scene of the short is the family sitting around the table singing Happy Birthday. The camera pans from the girl to her sister to her mother and finally to a picture frame holding a picture of her deceased father with the cake in front of him.
The short was so emotionally stirring that the entire room remained silent as the credits rolled. But it was so much more emotionally stirring for me. I felt myself losing it, jumped up and went to the bathroom.
The looks I got when I returned revealed that my eyes were apparently still red. I asked my teacher if I could speak to her in the hall. I didn’t know why. At the time, I figured I’d explain to her why I was crying. She hadn’t asked and probably wouldn’t have. Looking back, I know why I did.
Earlier in the weekend-long workshop we did an exercise of human connection. One person speaks for three minutes and the other person says nothing; no remarks, advice, encouragement. The other person just listens attentively and after three minutes they switch.
The beautiful part about struggle is that it’s never as difficult when you go through it with someone else. No matter how intense the struggle, it is always easier in the company of another. So we were forced to struggle through the awkward silence of a stranger listening and struggle through our own thoughts.
I’ve always been taught that you can learn a lot about a person just by letting them talk. Well, this past weekend, I discovered that you learn a lot about yourself by speaking, uninterrupted, about anything.
I guess my teacher’s lesson had sunk in. Because I found myself in the hallway with this 40-year-old Jewish woman who was a stranger to me two days prior but in that moment was exactly the catalyst I needed to open up. All she did was hug me. But her hug was like turning on the faucet. Within seconds I was sobbing uncontrollably on her shoulder.
“I want you to cry like this for as long as you need to Qimmah. After you’re done, only if you feel like it, you can tell me why you are. Only if you feel like it.”
I cried until I was physically tired. I thought I was done. She disagreed. She hugged me again and the faucet continued to run.
Finally, I started speaking and months of no sound poured out of my mouth. I spoke of so many things I didn’t even know were there to speak of. I spoke. I cried. l laughed. I sobbed like a baby.
And she sat.
And listened attentively.
I realized I hadn’t spoken to anyone who knew my father, even through me, about everything I was feeling because they were already so full with their own emotion over my dad. I was afraid me pouring my emotion into them would make them overflow. Overwhelm them.
She, this 40-year-old Jewish screenwriter, my teacher, was empty.
I was the little girl who had fallen down and gotten right back up to play.
And at that moment she was the person who cared who had shown up to the playground.
~
two days of soul – part four – curtain close
Nov 20th
The chants for Prince’s return continue. Not one person in the crowd has left. The band starts to leave the stage one by one. Prince’s drummer prepares to leave last.
She’s B.A. They’ve all been. His drummers, that is. They’ve all been female and they’ve all rocked out on the drums harder than any male drummer I’ve ever seen. From Sheila E. all the way down. I wonder if she saw me starin’ so that I can mimic her moves when I finally learn to play. I wonder if she gives lessons.
My mind wanders into a dream sequence. Cue smoke and wavy vision effects. I’m on stage rockin’ out on the drums. Prince stops the song and calls for me to do a solo. “Hit it Q!” I bang those drums like they cursed my mama. Effortlessly. Masterfully. Prince is awestruck. Percussion. Snare. Repetition, repetition. Boomdabip da boom bip. Cymbal clash. I toss my drumsticks in the air for effect. The crowd goes wild. Just make this catch…
The smoke disperses abruptly as an actual drumstick comes falling toward my face.
Wtf??
It falls to the ground and I scramble to collect what’s mine. I give the earnest fool who was on stage with me just moments earlier the gas face to let him know he done lost his damn mind. He releases his grip on the stick. I stand back up and come face to face with Prince’s drummer. She’s exiting the stage.
“Yea, I saw you checkin’ the technique,” she half laughs, having witnessed the tussle for the stick. “You should have the stick.”
I stand in disbelief holding the stick with the same dumb look on my face that Leroy had in The Last Dragon when he’d finally attained his glow. I stay that way until I’m snapped out of it by the crowd cheering. Is Prince back? No. The crowd had bullied Dave Chapelle into impromptu stand-up comedy. He had finally complied and was taking the stage.
“I don’t know what’s wrong witchall. This AINT my show dammit!”
The crowd laughs. I think he was serious yall. He continues unwillingly.
“Aight what the hell yall want me to talk about? Yall gon’ get me killed. Prince don’t play. I ain’t even s’posed to be up here.”
“Tell us about Africa!” someone yells from the crowd.
“Africa?? What the… alright fine. I will tell you this… and I don’t wanna offend anyone in the audience.”
“Just tell us! C’mon!” The crowd continues.
“Alright. Alright. Damn. Yall worse than a lynch mob. Anyway, something pretty damn funny did happen to me in Africa. But let me preface this by sayin’ I love my Latino people.”
Laughs.
“But I went into this African restaurant and I swear to GOD, there was nothing but Mexicans in the kitchen!”
More laughs.
“And all I could think was gotdam! Is America really THAT fuc….. hol’ up … lemme watch my mouth cus Prince don’t play that…”
He looks around to the back of the stage and the back entrance and whispers the rest.
“Is America that EFFED up that the Mexicans are migratin’ to gotdam Africa and ish????”
Everyone cracks up.
“Oop hol’ up…” He looks to the back. Then whispers, “Is he comin’ back… Is he…hunh? …Oh shoot. Gottagogottago.”
He jumps off the stage in time for the band to climb up in his place. The crowd cheers. Prince’s background singers follow closely behind. The music starts. The crowd goes crazy as Prince saunters from the back. But this time, he doesn’t climb on stage. This time, Prince, the man, the icon, the living legend, takes his guitar and sits on the very four stage steps that I am less than one foot in front of. He sits. And he plays.
Everything around me becomes dark. It’s just him and I. It feels like he’s sitting on my stoop, playing just for me as I stand in front of him soaking it all in. I am close enough to see his gaze behind his sunglasses. He looks at me and gives me his signature flirtatious smirk as if he knows I’m pretending there aren’t a couple hundred other people in the room. He plays for a while with our eyes locked. He’s perfected the art of melting women’s knees Qimmah. Keep your knees locked. Stay cool, stay cool. Ice cold.
After about 10 minutes on the steps he finally takes the stage for what turns out to be another hour or two of emotional sound and powerful melody.
“Don’t front on me. I can go all night,” Prince says smoothly. “I got too many hits yall.”
As the set winds down, Prince decides to sing “Purple Rain.” For some reason the diehards seem to find this underwhelming as they were itching for new material.
But for me, this being my first live Prince experience…
…for having had the chance to not only attend his private concert but to be in the first row near the stage…
…to have danced behind him on stage…
…to have his drummer’s stick…
…to have hugged, laughed with and danced alongside Dave Chapelle…
…to have looked Prince in his eyes as he played his guitar one foot in front of me…
…this: him singing “Purple Rain” the way he is, right now, in this space in time
…this moment is magical.
I close my eyes and sing out the last notes of the song with the rest of the crowd.
“Oooh ooh ooh ooooooooh, Oooh ooh ooh ooooooh.”
I reopen them to see Prince’s backup singer wink at me as if she knows how this moment is moving me.
I feel my father standing beside me. He’s with me in this moment.
A tear rolls down my face as I experience life with him.
Electric word, life.
It means forever.
And that’s a mighty long time.
~finition
the heights
Nov 19th
I have yet to see this play, but it is in my plans to do so as soon as possible.
I heard that it was a wonderful production.
And, yes I know I’m late; spare me the comments (ahem Michelle).
BUT I am just seeing this acceptance speech by Lin-Manuel for the 2008 Tony Awards.
It was by far THE most creative and sincere acceptance speech I’ve ever heard.
He free-styled from his heart. And sincerity and genuine emotion always come across the strongest.
So I just figured I’d share. Enjoy.
obama x gq
Nov 18th
hot damn. who knew the day would come when i could say my president was fine/sexy as hell?? he and Denzel need to bottle that ish up and sell it! let me stop before the First Lady comes at me with a blade. anywho, President Obama graced the cover and GQ and dare I say personifies the mags name sooo very well.
the piano lesson
Nov 18th
I suppose the point of several people telling you the same thing over and over again is for you to heed the advice. I took my first piano lesson Friday and it turned out to be much deeper than I thought a piano lesson could ever be.
My teacher, a Buddhist who also happens to have several degrees on his Karate black belt and who was a child prodigy on the piano at the age of six, broke the piano down for me like it never before had been broken down. I decided when my father passed that I would master the piano. He had always told me I should make that one of my goals. Initially, I thought his suggestion was rooted in our shared love of Nina Simone. I explained this to my instructor in response to him asking why I had chosen to take lessons. Now, I wonder if my father knew that his daughter who was just like him would need exactly what the piano could provide.
“Balance,” said my instructor. “The one thing you will come away with through your years of struggle in mastering the piano is Balance, Qimmah.”
I repositioned myself on the bench. This was getting to be ridiculous. Did everyone have a private phone conference to discuss what they were going to drill into my head?? Did someone mail out a class curriculum??
“In life,” he continued. “There is the ying and the yang. Note the black keys and the white keys. They are in an eternal battle. Both strong and beautiful. Neither stronger nor more beautiful. They complement each other in the battle of life like the sun and the moon.”
I feel like I’m in Karate Kid. If he calls me Daniel-san I’m breakin’ out.
“The balance every pianist masters if they are to ever master this instrument comes with the necessary duality it takes to play it.”
Deep.
“Position your two hands at A on opposite sides of center C.”
I placed my hands as instructed, with an idea of what the instructor was going to say next.
“A pianist must play two versions of the same song simultaneously. Have each version fight and complement the other. While your hands are doing two different things, you must be excellently aware of both, Qimmah. Pulling your mind in several directions and then… Then–if that is not enough to handle– one must offer his/her heart. Putting your spirit behind the duality. And paying special attention to that as well.”
Silence.
“A lot, yes?”
“A lot…. I believe I can do it though.”
“Ah, that is because Qimmah…”
Please don’t.
“You are destined to attain balance. You Will attain balance. And the piano, as you have come to it, has found you.”
I sighed, readjusting to carry another layer of the already weighty and continuously reiterated message.
“Your father my dear, was a wise man.”
Yes. Yes, he was.
~
this is why he is my husband…
Nov 17th
We clearly have the same mind. And apparently, the same favorite book. What he’s saying is what I live by. I can do anything I put my mind to. And you can too.
sidenote: boooooooo to Tavis Smiley for not even knowing what an alchemist, much less the book The Alchemist is. Get it together Tavis.
in case you missed it: the obamas x 60 minutes
Nov 17th
The President Elect and the First Lady went on 60 Minutes for Obama’s first on-air post-election interview. View parts 1 & 2 below.
(Happy Birthday Daw’ud. May your soul Rest In Peace. We will always love and miss you.)