A Healing Letter I Remember for Self...

This letter comes from an e-mail of healing and love that I wrote to a young sistahfriend seeking advice.

In rereading it, I discover it is worthy for me to reread tonight, to remember all over again, that I AM because THE DIVINE IS...

Good evening Mi Joven Amiga Querida,
I trust you have been blessed with a lovely Easter at this writing. I have!
First, let me commend you for what you have done. Many people would never have come out of their shells or stepped around the walls they build to say what you have said. It takes courage. It takes self love. It takes the willingness to learn.
Yes, I have lived long enough in my fantastic years to have been where you are now.
Please know that it is a blessing that you are there. It is where your soul desires you to be...or else you would not be there---here, to live and love and learn.
You have vowed to choose love instead of angry, to release the antagonistic individual you once were. That is a beautiful decision, a milestone of a transformation.
No matter how hard it seems to remain on this road of your journey, stay. It is well worth your time.
It is true, people take kindness for weakness. That has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with the other person. She is yet learning, and we do certain things until we don't. It's all good. Continue to be kind anyway. It is not for her that you are being kind; it is because you have chosen to be no other way (and remember Love is the Way).
You, mi amiga, are faced with a situation in which you must know what it feels like to turn the love you are giving this young lady, so desperately wanting her to receive, to yourself, to Miss Tucker.
The love you seek from her you must lavish on yourself!
That means you must love yourself enough to accept that (for whatever reason she is running and sidestepping your vows of love and affection) you can walk away. When you walk away, you affirm your love for her and, most importantly, for you.
No, you do not choose to go upside her head, call her a few choice bitches, and remind her she is not the only dime in the ATL, because you can collect 5 of her before you reach your block.
You are a new woman. You are choosing to love in the seeming face of no love. Before you leave for your trip, tell her how you feel about her, even though you think you know she knows how you feel. Tell her you don't ever wish to abuse her by staying around, when her actions are screaming "Go, sistah, go!" Why? You love yourself too much to do that.
Then you walk away. Don't look back. Keep your eyes straight ahead. Don't buckle and call. Don't inquire if she's okay? Don't look for her in the places you used to go, in the places you know she'll be.
Look forward. And if you must do anything, send her loving thoughts, send her good wishes. Want for her what you'd want for yourself: love, happiness, health and wealth.
Doing this is a healing act. You choose love in a powerful way.
I have lived and loved long enough to know....whatever happens, her coming back to discover where you went, why you aren't seeking her; you walking into the sun, where another young woman will be waiting to love you; where you may need to be alone, to know from deep within yourself that you are WHOLE, COMPLETE, and BEAUTIFUL already, and that YOU ARE ENOUGH, just as you are, every curl, every smile, and every gestures.
Trust that you will have what you thank the Divine for. She may or may not be the response to your desire to love. But know anyway that if you asked the Goddess for a woman, a lover, a mate, she will be there. Just for you. And when you ask, ask in gratitude, as if she is already present, for she is.
Allow the feelings of rejection and shame and inadequacy to course through you. They are emotions that come to visit to teach us. You are, like Rumi, a great philosopher says, a guest house, and at your front door, emotions will come knocking throughout your life. Welcome all of them...JUST do NOT stand in the way when it is time for them to leave. To do so is to create your own living hell. If you do, they will be worse than year-old fish grease in your nostrils, worse than tar on your soul.
So welcome each new day. It is a gift, another opportunity to love yourself and others.
I loved a woman much like you love this young lady once. Poured myself everywhere you could imagine. Wrote poems about her. Asked her out. Showed up on her doorstep. Took her home to my sisters. I imagined her accompanying me everywhere. Stroked her in my dreams. Woke with her in my head, on my whines. But the more I spread the feast of me at her feet, the faster she ran. And for the first time in my life, I met true sadness...and it was of my own making. Then the day arrived that I realized that I was enough. For myself and others. And I took sadness by the hand and led her out my back door.
I stood on the porch, reflecting. The love I was giving someone who did not want it I gave to myself, and from that day to this I walk with my head to the sky, my heart open wider than India Aire's desire to live with an open heart. The lesson I learned was I am a gift to myself. You do not continue to ply a gift towards someone who does not desire it. You are a prize. Walk like it. Talk like it. And others will perceive it, and receive you accordingly.

Beautiful Easter Blessings,

Savoring the Gift of Life....

Ooh the Euphoria of the Gift of Life!

Make no mistake, despite your belief or disbelief, life is a gift. You've heard it before, you'll hear it again..and might feel it, hopefully, before you reach the end of this entry (if you make it that far, and you should, considering I am making a conscientious effort to honor brevity).

Tonight I was reminded of this sweetly simple truth as I trekked around Stone Mountain, my celly clutched in my right hand, warming my earlobe with a queue of conversations. But one in particular slowed my pace, and marshaled my thoughts. Sharon and I chatted over the background music of her inquisitive children. So much so, I could barely hear her. I had to pause periodically to ascertain if she was speaking to me or to one of her little darlings. The four-year-old was vigorously suggesting she take him to McDonald's, while her daughter might have been singing. She was explaining why Mickey wasn't an option, and, listening, I mastered my inkling to bow off the line...until she casually mentioned the unmentionable.

The pretty, brown-skinned sistah sitting next to me at the feast, at the synagogue, did I remember her?

How could I not? She'd been a charming conversationalist, soft spoken and sisterly. We spoke of her hometown, the feast, my Sisterlocks, and her son, who appeared to be the hub of attention in a bevy of teenagers across the loquacious dining room. Her only son. Reminded me of my chap, when he was fifteen, hanging with his friends, Raphael and Rodney. Now my son is 22 and excitedly expecting his own papoose next April.

An original, her boy favored a typical teen, outside of a shock of curly blond hair under an unusual yet rakishly stylish hat that set him apart from other, hovering teens. He poked and prodded her when I first saw him. I was standing at the back of a serpentine, feast line outside the temple. He caught my eye. I admired the way he played with his mother so respectfully, so lovingly, incurring her playful wrath and dodging her poorly aimed pops and laughing into her eyes.

"That must be his mother," I commented, and Sharon nodded.

Upon closer observation, to my naked eye, they shared nothing in common, feature wise, except height, as both were virtual midgets, much like me.

Sharon smiled, shifting her weight while nursing an empty tummy. "That's her. They, too, come a long way to attend services."

We'd been speaking of several members who came as far away as Athens and other cities. One young lady, Christina, had discovered the temple online and come, alone, to celebrate Yom Kippur from a town beyond Athens.

I remembered everything as I walked, moving through the fast falling night. "Yes, I recall the sistah," I whispered, waiting.

Silence. "Her son died Wednesday."

I stopped moving then. Could be I missed something. Could be she meant to say something else, what with the children vying for her attention. I don't think the sidewalk vanished, but moving forward felt sacrilegious so I stopped to rewind time. "Wait. Did you just say----"

"Yes, he died. In a dirt bike accident." She couldn't provide more details.

In that instant, a thought, a reminder, to savor the beauty of life overwhelmed me. I breathed it in on the fresh Stone Mountain air, feeling Time intensify throughout my body. Around me, mysteriously, for the first time, as conversation had previously consumed me, the night began to scintillate with insect concerts, fallen leaves rustled, the breeze fingered my locs, and my eyes skirted the street towards the jet woods in hopes of catching another deer family frolicking on the edges of the lawn before a sentry of sleeping trees.

One day we're here, the next we've moved on.

But I'd just seen the sistah's boy last Thursday, and now this Thursday he was gone, leaving his mother to find her way in a coming maze of days, to seek the path towards normalcy, carrying with her the memory of the breaking of the waters that announced his birth. My heart went out to her. Then the sidewalk reappeared, and I walked forward on the thought that the sistah's son's life was a blessing to me, although I couldn't recall his name.

Seeing his jolly face once more, I savored, all over again, something I already knew---how precious life is. I understood how blessed the time we share with others. And I remembered that if others dishonored us with words and/or deeds far from up-lifting, then we should send them loving thoughts and move on, not allowing anyone to put us down.

Our lives are sacred, and sharing ourselves with others is one of the most beautiful gifts we can ever offer anyone. In short, I vow to use my gift to savor love and life instead of using it to weld the sword in the tongue.

Besitos y abracitos,
TheSiren