you incite me to chorus

God's pulling me back in

2005-09-23T17:07:00.000-05:00

So everything happens for a reason. I've been trying to comprehend this past week's happenings but i couldn't. two years and a month ago my grandmother died. let me tell you how this happened. I lost my wallet. in it was everything valuable to me, and everything that makes me a functioning citizen in this world where money and identification rule. so i felt useless. I called my dad who wouldn't tell me he was at my grandmother's death bed, but helped me figure out what to do with the lost information, how to cancel credit cards, etc etc. so on that day i probably called or talked to him like 4 or 5 times in a row - when i normally would call him once a week or every other day or something of the sort.

The last time of the succession of calls, i asked how grandma was doing, he grew silent. I didn't press him but got off of the phone and carried on my way.

he called me back a little later to tell me he didn't want to tell me there, but while i was on the phone with him, she passed away.

further observation of the situation led me to rethink the events and see how God plans things to get you back in line with him, with family, with life. sometimes we get so caught up in the everyday things (here i am/was fretting about three exams and a quiz next week) that we forget the eternal things and the things not of this life, but the next. we think too much on the present and not on the everlasting future.

this epiphany led me to a spiritual awakening among other things, but i remember the series of events sheltered around the loss of a wallet and everything that makes me "something" or "someone" in this material world.

so when i got my wallet stolen this past monday i was like "ok God, what's happening, who's dying?" and it wasn't that someone around me was dying, it was my spiritual self that is/was dying. we are all dying everyday. I'm learning about how the 16th century poets wrote about time's diminishing qualities, and it's true. each day we walk further west (like in my sonnet), and further away from the day we were born, closer to our graves. and i'm learning that each day without God is a lonely existence. Of course, whoever stole my wallet got about 25 bucks in cash from me but thankfully realized that all of the credit cards would be cancelled (within an hour after i perceived it stolen)and debit cards rendered useless.

today i got a package in the mail. I was confused - it was from a Lutheran Church downtown. Someone stole my wallet, gutted it of its monetary value and threw it infront of a Church. The church sent it back to me. I got my wallet back at the "cost" of 25$ but with a value that is ineffable. God's got great ways of speaking to me in terms that he knows i'll listen. And he's learning to speak to me in patterns.

i'm listening. I hear You.

A sonnet and things

2005-09-14T20:20:00.000-05:00

first, here's something i wrote the other day. I've been so busy, that writing isn't easy for me as it once was, how sad. but i refuse to let my spark die. (of course, it's sad, would you expect anything else?)

sonnet 11798

What solemn steps, his tread through the streets, weaves
through valleys, shadows, death. He fears only
the morning journeys, the idle chatter
on stranger-lined pathways to hospital,
where he will wait judgment. Soon, his functions
will fade from flashes meant to cure, too soon.
I watch his steps with back towards the sun
rising. He stumbles. I wince, pray his legs
steady; call out to him in instinct. He
hears me not. In car I pass this man on
sidewalk, walking West. In him, I picture
Grandpa: his same processions in face mask.
I think to this man to change directions.
I know the consequences of this walk.

okay. so that was my sonnet in blank verse.

what else? I've been exercising a lot more lately. getting up at 6:30 each morning to run 1, 1.5 or 2 miles. i love coming back and taking a cold-ish shower. i love the feeling of accomplishment when i see my car and my house on the return. I also have grown a love affair with yoga. more for its stretching purposes than it's meditative purposes...i've found that the repetive slow motions work up a nice sweat, and then as you're warming up your muscles, you're stretching them at the same time and it's pretty nice.

i still dont like it here, in case you're wondering. i still want to go back to chapel hill where things seemed a little more simple.

okay. off to do some yoga, then reading then sleep. got 2 miles to conquer in the morning.

closing time

2005-09-03T19:55:00.000-05:00

that's the title (at least, i think) of this song that is sort of the theme for the way things look to me. like things are wrapping up, ready to transition to other places, other times. and i dont just mean with me. I mean with this world.

i cannot begin to comprehend what has happened to the peoples of the gulf coast. but i can remember a dream I had once, i woke up in a deep sweat, gasping for air, as if i had drowned. in my dream, i did. it was a really big, elaborate dream constructed by my REM and i guess a depiction of what my mind thought at that moment "the end" would be like. I've had more than one of these dreams, I should add. it's kind of weird, really.

anyways. back to the dream. so the dream has me starting on a beach with some friends. we're playing something. i go to change my bathing suit. come back out, dark clouds, thunder. and BAM! lightning flash and it's like a scene change. i'm standin in line with my friend (who is faceless, at least, i can't remember who i had in my dream with me) and we're holding hands, ankle-deep in water. then, another flash. scene change. we're all apologizing to each other. i realize i hadn't apologized to my friend (i can't even begin to imagine what i had done to warrant that) and so i walk up and before i open my mouth, she just simply says "it's okay, i forgive you, He forgives." then we're back in line walking deeper into the water, as if driven by some force beyond our control, only, i could have gotten away, but i was pre-occupied with the fact that my best friend couldn't swim and was walking out to sea. so another flash and we're wiped out by a big wave. a huge, wave. my friend doesn't survive the wave. it's just me and God and Satan. (i add satan in as i look back. i was fighting something in that water) i start praying, saying the Lord's prayer and each line it feels as if my body is getting heavier and heavier, but i'm determined to finish before i go under. i think this is how God is going to end the world. say Amen and sucuumb to the waters rushing into my lungs...then i wake up coughing and gasping for air.

and i mean, i look at the destruction all of the millions of gallons of water dumped into the gulf coast region, and i can't help to think that to them down there, someone's had this experience. I can only pray that they called out to God before they left. but it's kind of scary, having these dreams, seeing pieces of them come to fruition. seeing this one dream that i think has some bits and pieces of prophecy being fulfilled....that's a bit scary on my part, but i shall not reveal it just yet. i dont know. it seems as if maybe i have something greater than me within me, and i'm afraid of it. perhaps i am. maybe i'm just imagining everything, and nothing really exists but time, and we're just images that will fade away -

i hope to at least leave a good impression.

so yeh, this was a bit random, i just had to get my thoughts out on it all.

thoughts of the night

2005-08-30T22:38:00.000-05:00

i miss chapel hill

i am sad

i cried a little on sunday. i would say for no reason, but i know it all too well

i am overwhelmed with work already. too much work.
all work and no play makes lana also sad

i wish i could see you again.
i am sometimes deathly scared of death.

i pray for all of those who have suffered from natural (or Godly) disasters, like Katrina. the devastation is beyond my mind's comprehension - i dont want to know a loss like that. not yet.

i love you. yes, you.

Lemondays

2005-08-15T22:48:00.000-05:00

i've come to love mondays.

well, no, let me not say that. i hate mondays. the start of a new week - the fact that the weekend seems sooo far away in the distant.

anywho. i do love mondays because of the monday night blues open mic and poetry and music series here in charleston. (i'll share a little secret with you...i may be hosting the show very very soon! but don't tell. it's not confirmed just yet)

so. i go to it tonight. and there's this wonderful family of musicians. they are very hippie-ish, which is cool with me, very peaceful. reminded me of an older version of one of my friends from chapel hill....gosh, i do miss that place...anyways. and this lady, of course i dont remember her name because i could not hear her, did her poetry and then this kid on guitar blue me away and i just had to meet him, and hopefully i'll have a little more direction on my own guitar pursuits.

so there's this black couple that comes in - you could tell intimidated by the older/white crowd tonight (i admit, i was a bit at first) but came in to get coffee, and sat near me. the woman asked me what this was about, asked me if i would be performing poetry, i confirmed, she talked her husband into staying. the set ran a little long, and i didn't get up there until 10:15. i did "the water's fine" which has become a favorite of the monday night blues crowd...and a new piece i wrote that night for my best friend preston (i'll post) and then a relationship piece called "My Adam" which parallels a relationship to that of adam & eve (duh) and yeh....then i asked for requests. some of my "topics" are love, societal, anecdotal, and then like nature/obeservation-esque pieces. they requested love. i flipped it. i decided to do sacrificial love. love of family. did a piece i wrote with my grandmother in mind. i miss her. i was thinking of her earlier, and my aunt and my high school best friend who are all buried here in charleston. in a poem, i wrote/had an epiphany that it's funny how God pulled me back here, how i find myself unknowingly flocking here where Gloria and aunt Olive and grandma Griffin are buried. the poem, Letters of consolation for the grieving is 4 parts. in the second part, it says "...i've come to charleston/where i forget you laid to rest/homing pidgeon/ i flock to where i feel most loved."

and i do feel loved here. in some strange way, i feel energies from everyone i miss (dead, alive, far away) in the people i meet here. one of the musicians just came up to me and asked if she could just hug me because she felt so attracted to my vibes/positive energy. I guess i'm learning to give off what is given.

sorry this post is so random. so are my thoughts right now.

school starts in a week and i'm petrified of new beginnings (again).

here's the poem:

We are compliments

We were born for each other -
destined for our life-lines to mee,
hash marks on God’s canvas.
(such divine are we are)
We mesh well.

Our limbs inter-lock easy
like they were made to embrace
the way we do, perpetually,
as friends
lovers distant to keep embers
burning past hours of
late-night conversations.

Our words fit together
as puzzle pieces, I step away
to view the bigger picture:
minds in unison, I find
lost thoughts ready upon
your lips –

Surely
our garden expands
beyond places we’ve traveled together.
The paths we walk are unbridled
labyrinths; endless probabilities.

Please
meet me at the zenith
as it is planned.

slow down, literally

2005-08-13T11:10:00.000-05:00

i'm going to try and write everything at once tonight. a lot has been going on. i just got finished doing a yoga video that i bought today...on impulse. i decided it was something i've wanted to try, so i'm going to and that's that. kind of like life, i'm learning to go with impulses, because nothing is guaranteed.

i could have died last night. it's so surreal. so real. the fact that i would have died on an inconspicuous road down in georgia and none of my family would have known where i was, and i wouldn't have been able to tell anyone good-bye...and yeh. here's the scoop: i went down to georgia to visit my chapel hill friend and my best friend from high school for a couple of days. on my way back, it was raining, and i needed to stop to get gas. i changed lanes to the right lane as someone was changing lanes to the left lane immediately infront of me. I'm guessing the water they kicked up was not compatible to the direction my wheels were going (or that it was just a bad spot in the road) and my car began to hydroplane. you never really learn about how to handle a car in conditions like what i was in. anyways, so because i was slowing down for the exit, the car infront of me was gone, and by the grace of God, no one was behind me to be in the path of my car performing two pirouettes on the interstate before landing in the ditch on the right side of the road. i remember tryingt o get control of my car and counter it to keep me from going into the middle median, and perhaps onto oncoming traffic (there was no middle guard). i remember as the car was going towards the ditch, time slowed down...or maybe it feels like it slowed down now that i think about how that could have been the last sequence of my life. all i could do was press the breaks and hold the wheel and prayed out loudly to God not to let my car flip over. I envisioned it flipping two or three times. I even braced myself for the impact. but God had other plans - the ditch cradled me and my car safely. i couldn't move my car, but i was not bruised or hurt or anything. i thought to call 9-1-1. i couldn't even talk. luckily, in other acts of God's mercy and grace, at the same time of my dance down highway 20, a highway patrolman was coming in the opposite direction and another person both stopped to help me. i'm sure i probably looked like a deer caught in headlights. i was just hyperventillating - about to die in amazement that i didn't die. i just hung up with the 9-1-1 dispatcher (now that i think about it, it's kind of messed up they didn't call me back to see if i was all right) and the patrol guy assured me that i was going to be all right, that my car didn't look too badly bruised and he had a state patroller and a wrecker on the way to dig me out.

so. i had to call my dad. who, an hour and a half before totalled his car - man. Satan was really out to get my family yesterday. i was scared he'd be mad about my vacation (although i'm grown, i usually do tell him when i leave to go somewhere)...and more scared about my accident. he was just glad i was all right. then i called preston. who i probably scared just from the phone call. while i was waiting and thinking about how my life almost ended one of my best friends from chapel hill called me - Jamie - who spent the summer in South Africa...my sister in Christ. perfect timing.

so. i think i see my near death experience as God's way of speaking to me. You know how they say he speaks in terms so that we'll listen? well, i think he speaks to me in terms of death. i had to almost die to get back on track and back in line with my purpose...and caring more about him and myself than a lot of other things i've been focusing on lately, and shouldn't. just the fact that i felt my car on two wheels and it could have easily flipped over...or any of the conditions could have been different - it could have been a cliff instead of a shallow ditch. the trees could have been right there. there coudl have been a barrier up and i could have wrapped my car around the metal pole like a tortilla shell...i could have been ejected from the car and landed on my back and that could have been the end of that.

all i can say is - thank God for second (and third and fourth and, well, numerous undeserved) chances. Thank God for having something greater and more for me to accomplish here that you decided not to take me away last night...and thank you for your messages - even the ones that may hurt us or scare us...and for the ability to listen and heed.

the lesson: slow down (literally), and take it all in. life's not long enough to make too many mistakes...but sometimes, if you need more time to complete your purpose and tasks, i think God will throw in a little grace.

finally feels like home

2005-08-06T21:41:00.000-05:00

so i moved into this place july 31...out on james island, which i've come to like i must say (outside of the commute to both places i work, which sort of sucks). it took me until friday to get the mattress to my futon/bed, which was crazy...but now it finally feels like i live somewhere, like i have some place i can call home.

now...if i could get my act/life together from here, i'd be good to go.

for the record: i'm still really scared to start school in the fall.

here goes

2005-07-27T10:01:00.000-05:00

So.

Just got out of a realllyyyyy hot bath - used as a muscle relaxer. Working 60ish hours a week aint no joke!

anyways, back to the purpose of this blog.

Yesterday was my feature at Monday Night Blues. May I just say that Charleston's literary scene has embraced me like none other, and as far as my art and writing life is concerned, I think I definitely chose the right place to be.

This poet guy, marcus, is in charge of Charleston's poet's webpage . He has been so graciously helping me get acclimated to the area, we have poetic rap sessions, and he will be the one to help me design Sage in the upcoming month (Look for a late September or Oct 31 release!). Anyways, so they hype me up, which is cool...telling everyone that i'm the "most talented, beautiful poet to grace the local poetry scene in a while." *blushes*.

Anyways. If you're interested, or know any of the poems, here's the set list. It was divided into two sections. I think I did somewhere near a full hour of just pure delana entertainment:

set moja (one, in swahili).

Back where I come from

My dream for the misbegotten

These hands

Teaching to fish

A meeting

Letters of consolation for the grieving, (pts I & II)

Vicious Cycles

Set mbili (two, in swahili)

Poetic Rhapsody

The water’s fine

Reality TV (behind the scenes)

Nightmares

Connectivity

To my grandmother

Yellow rose

Israelites

So, again, if you know many of my pieces, you'll know that a lot of these are 1) from my book, Sage and 2) Written on a page.
I tried to give a nice even mix of written and memorized pieces, but then I realized as i was performing that the first set was heavily written, where as the second, only the last two pieces were read from the page.

The performance of it all, however, i must say (and this is the part where i brush my own shoulders off) was pretty flawless. The room of about 30-40 people (at max, people of course, coming in and out) was totally silent, like, i could hear EVERYTHING goin on around me. Usually, if the poetry isn't too interesting, or the music, people will be at their tables chatting, or doing something. I looked around and saw everyone was just fixed on me. It made me wonder if they were just gazing out of boredom - i wondered if my set was too long. Ellie - the organizer, and person who scooped me up - said it was perfect. That i was phenomonal. lol, so i know this just may sound like i'm just tooting my own horn, but i guess it's sort of exciting to me, really. Like, this is part of the reason i came down here, to get my career off on the right foot, and there you have it.

the best part? working at a coffee shop, and seeing some people come in the next morning and sit down and talk to you about your work, and its impact, and i think it's wonderful to be able to connect with people who you would never connect to on any other level. He said he was a financial banker (older, white guy) and that he was "never exposed to those kind of things, but decided to check them out, to give him a chance to expand his mind" and said that i "raised the bar, and blew him out of the water." then we just talked about some of the subject matter i raised - single parenting (poems - to my grandmother, vicious cycles), charleston segregation (the water's fine) to just how he talked to one of the more respected poets who he said had the misforturne of reading right after me, and he was like he was still mesmerized and impressed by my work (both the poet and the guy) that he didn't feel right reading. (ironically, i remember, that's when the talking started back up again).

it was also cool to see some people in the audience that were moved by my open mic performances, and i told them about my feature, (and they're not regular attendees) and they showed up.

anyways. I'm excited. I'm starting a yahoo group as a mailing list-of-sorts to keep incontact with my audience members (and people i know) who will be interested in buying a book (or ten) and attending my book signing, i want to be able to keep in contact with them.

book signing: Ellie Davis demands I do a book signing. I wasn't going to push the issue, being that 1/2 of the stuff i read monday night (or have read at all at the open mics) have been pieces from Sage. So i didn't want it to be a repeat of Monday night, but then again, I guess I would like for people to become familiar with my work, have "favorites", make requests. Who knows. More details on that special night later (and Stacy, you BETTER not have excuses for that!).

Anyone want to feature a young, budding poet, let a sista know. As long as you're within driving distance, we're good.

here's to the writing life.

nothing left to say

2005-07-22T20:53:00.000-05:00

so i've been frequenting my blog numerous times, trying to figure out exactly what to say as to what's been going on in my life since i last left you all a message.

i'm still at a loss for words. Life for me is getting a bit difficult, harder as each day goes on, and i realize the impact every single decision has on your life. Then i think about religion, and the idea that God has a plan for everyone, and I wonder if he planned for such events to go on, and their outcome, and my response....then I think about Free Will, and I just get confused - almost to tears - that i cannot make sense of anything going on in my life.

but, one thing's for sure - i can stand in awe still, at the beauty of some of it. (very random, but the moon was gorgeous last nite)

beautiful surprise, beautiful struggle

2005-07-10T13:33:00.000-05:00

so this weekend (beginning thursday, as i had thurs-saturday off) was pretty good. I had orientation, so I'm officially a college of charleston student. Wow, this summer is almost over, isn't it? I got my ID card, my schedule...declared my major (officially...and it's not history anymore) and yeh.

then friday two really great friends from chapel hill came down for the weekend to visit me. Vanessa and Warren. And i'm soo thankful they did. But i think when it was time to leave, I felt a little sad.Leaving chapel hill wasn't that hard - i was busy with RA stuff, checking residents out, people busy with exams and such that you dont have time to muse over the reality and finality of things. then it just sort of washed over me that i wont see them as often anymore.

i have to say that i didn't really expect anyone from chapel hill to visit me - i mean, it's a 5 hour drive. i sort of expected to dissipate into the state of south carolina, chapel hill barely even knowing i was there. so when they said they were coming, i immediately got happy. I mean, here, i dont know anyone past the few guys i've met, and the people i work with - but it's not a relationship where you want to hang out after work hours, you know? so i'm pretty lonely most of the time - working on poetry, reading books, sleeping, working 50 billion hours a week only to give it to my landlord at the end of the month. life is hard. i wondered for a while if i was depressed. i look at how happy and at home i was this weekend while they were here...and i realize i havent found a niche here, and it'll be hard, starting in the middle: in medias res. it sort of made me realize that perhaps i had a niche at chapel hill, i just didn't take advantage of it.

so what do i do for these next two years? how will things turn out? a part of me just wants to finish school, not make any commitments, if i meet people, it happens, if not oh well. i can suck it up for two years then be on my way. but i guess i would at least like to be happy for a little while, for once.

in other news: yeh...my two year time-limit for publishing (other than going the self-publishing route) seems to be more realistic the more i think about query letters and such. and even worse, a lot of people are looking for "poetic dedication" shown through a large publishing curriculum vitae and well, i was published in a high school lit mag, but that i doubt counts as much.

anyways. i have the rest of the day/evening off. who knows what i'll get into.

2005-07-02T22:55:00.001-05:00

smile again. i think i really like this picture.

2005-07-02T22:55:00.000-05:00

dunno how i feel about that picture...i sort of like my eyes, that's about all i have to say.

2005-07-02T22:54:00.001-05:00

smile :)

2005-07-02T22:54:00.000-05:00

i sort of like side pictures when i'm not smiling and not looking into the camera. is that bad?

2005-07-02T22:53:00.000-05:00

wanted to see the length of my hair

how can i give you the benefit

2005-06-30T01:39:00.000-05:00

when all i have is doubt?

alana davis.

so i haven't written in a while - well, a couple of days. i've been busy busy working at Port City Java as a coffee barista (i swear that has to have been my dream job for a while, and i'm finally doing it!) and Gap. I've also been keeping company of this new guy i met. i'm not sure where it's going, just sort of enjoying the company for a while. is that bad? am i using him?

or am i being used? okay i dont want to think about it anymore.

nothing else is really going on. just performing weekly at open mics, haven't written anything lately either. i think that speaks to my new occupation, and as to why i need to get that under control, yanno? i've got dreams. i can't be swept away.

slowly dying

2005-06-16T21:51:00.000-05:00

no musical line tonight -
i dont even have the time to enjoy or listen to music anymore.

i guess, the moral of the story is...patience is key. sit back and watch God work, stop trying to undermine Him and try to figure him out, and sometimes backup plans aren't always the best thing. backup plans are a sign that you dont trust, dont have faith...are scared of failing.

and i am. i admit it. i remember junior year of high school when i mentally broke down. 3 ap classes 5 other classes, newspaper, track and field, work, student council.....not getting home until 11 pm, having to do 7 classes worth of homework (the 8th to be completed in class that morning.)....only to go to bed, wake up at 6:30 am and do it all over again. i remember just breaking down. i look back and call that period of my life when i committed academic and mental suicide. and i remember promising myself i would not ever do it again.

and here i am again. upset that the college of charleston will most definitely cost me equally or more than chapel hill. i have managed somehow to get four jobs...(and an interview on tuesday that i guess now i need to get out of)....and already my body is yelling at me. i dont know if i can take it. part of it is pride. i could just accept the loans, and pay for my housing and not have to work 30-40 hours a week while in school (not to mention having to take 15 hours every semester, and maintain a 3.0). but then where will that get me? when people ask why i left chapel hill, i was sure that coming back in state would be better financially for me. who knew it'd be signing over my death certificate, or signing over more loans that i would even think of doing for chapel hill?

and all of this has me thinking. the value of it all. the actual purpose of education, the purpose of securing these jobs to be "financially stable" in a life that is sure to end. like, if one thing's for sure, i know i'm going to die and leave all of this behind. and the way things are going, it makes me wonder if it's sooner than i think. like the way nothing in my life has ever been permanent for me. i'm just a constant drifter, trying to find some anchor to weigh me down. and i haven't found it. i'm just slowly drifting away to what seems like a meaningless existance.

but then that denies God's greatness in my life. i'm torn. i'm always trying to please - hate saying no, can't say no. i hate disappointing people, causing people to stress. i wish i could do this all on my own. not fully on my own, but my dad's not healthy enough to support me. we're no where near independently wealthy...and other family members (even people who aren't in the family - because they know my dad has the same weakness i have: saying no) are sucking him dry, and i dont want to be another notch on his belt.

i wonder if i interpreted God's will wrongly? was this another selfish act on my part? what in the hell is going on....and can i just crawl into a corner and wake up and everything's different.

but no, that only happens in the television shows and movies that we make up to make people feel better or worse about their lives.

right now, i'm already feeling as if a train has run me over and kept going as if nothing is caught within it's wheels....and i'm just continuing to be grinded into a fine dust.

love's ultimatum

2005-06-14T01:10:00.000-05:00

Love’s ultimatum

I bet it must have torn at your heart –
leaving the house you protected when
your father left, making promises never
to forsake blood the way he left you all
as scabs, forgotten scars on his life.
I know you watched over grandma,
until it was time to harvest your own field.
Daddy, you didn’t reap what you sowed,
planted love, protection, in effort to salvage,
connect. What resulted:
too short trips to your homeland,
Charleston, paying homage to your mother,
city you loved, through distant phone calls
and faint whispers of “I love you, too” I heard
you at night to grandma long after mama
retired to her throne. I know you made
promises, and concessions, daddy,
but I would have loved to see grandma
a little more. Mama never wanted to understand
this separation – the way a child spoiled
is unrelenting in anything other than
getting her way. You said vows in her church,
lived under her roof and relocated, regenerated
your roots in a city foreign to you. I never
really saw it as home, did you?
And your children, would see grandma
occasionally. We grew an unfair bias
against her, never really knew her,
wish we did when she was gone. Daddy,
I wouldn’t have minded going to Charleston
a little more, hearing more of her stories.
I know mama held you to your promises,
and you vowed never to become your father,
but I know it must have hurt to leave
your family, start a new one.
Daddy, I’m sorry I helped
make this hard on you;
made you choose.

at least

2005-06-13T21:44:00.000-05:00

at least, i met a cool girl tonight.

that's about the only positive thing i can say about Charleston right now.

broken

2005-06-12T20:57:00.000-05:00

Broken

I always got the hand-me-downs
from my older sister; made treasure
from her disregard, felt it was all
I’d ever get: second-hand wishes
and throw away gifts – the things
not pleasing to her eyes. I hope
I have not become your secondhand
gift; one taste of me deemed unworthy.
I cannot help my being used before,
set aside after losing value. I pray
you find part of me worthy; hidden
secret treasure, search beyond
my surface wounds for value.
My exoskeleton marked with graffiti
reveals life-scars, pure tender heart.
Peel away the layers, watch me molt,
accept this bare, broken sacrament
of myself I offer. In the end, it’s all
I’ve left to give.

rainbows

2005-06-12T20:53:00.000-05:00

so I've seen many a rainbows in my time, i must say, i've been blessed to witness the way light reflects off of the clouds after a storm. Althouh I did not see a literal rainbow, I'm a true believer that these past couple of days, and how i've dealt with them have been a true tempest, and i've weathered it, and yeh...God's great on keeping to his promises - much more than i can say I am. but i'm human and fallible and able to admit such things.

I'm also realizing i cannot do everything on my own. Even the most independent souls have some dependency and I've got to get off of my high horse and learn to ask and accept help when it's given.

i'm thankful for the people that God's put in my life, even if for a moment...even if their only purpose is to appear for a mear nanosecond and ensure me that everything's okay, and reiterate God's greatness in my life. They may disappear, and I'm sure i'll miss their absence, but their imprint on my life will last as long as i live, maybe more.

as of late i'm really pursuing the progress of my book. Right now i have 30 8X11 pgs. Which means resized and add in pages for table of contents and a bio page and pages for each section that i separate and epigraphs and such, it's probably nearer the end of 40. I would like to have 60-80 pgs at least - a real book length, not chapbook edition of Sage. I keep reiterating that i'm not rushing it, but really working towards getting it somewhere to be published. I'm realizing the reality of a real big publisher picking it up may be a little far-fetched for me right now. We must all start small, and in all honesty, i'm not sure if my life experiences can support something of a caliber as some of these famous poets that i know and revere, but rest assured I will strive to get to that point. It's in my cards, in the hand i've been dealt. sometimes you have to save the best for last to make sure you win, (like in spades) even if it means losing the king this round, that i may have counted on for a win, some other works in the cosmos will allow other cards to slide through my hands, and take the books, and the joker later on i have stashed away for rainy daze will take the book and give me a win.

this i know for certain.

thanks

2005-06-10T21:46:00.000-05:00

thanks to everyone who let me just rant today....and get some pent-up emotions out. it means a lot.

in other news, crying for an hour straight can exhaust you. i think i may be peacing out soon. nite all.

it is what it is

2005-06-10T01:53:00.000-05:00

so the bad thing i've noted about being called a "narrative" poet is that people think every poem is an anecdote. and while a LOT of poems are....some are just imaginings...picturing scenarios, and thinking up outcomes.

tonight at barnes and noble (after retrieving my car from the towing fantasy land...out on upper-upper meeting street) i overheard a preacher-guy-turned-couples-counselor telling about a woman's place (and man's place he was sure to also iterate) in marraige, how it was fated ever since Adam gave his rib to Eve long long ago.

so that concept was stuck in my head all night, and i was determined not to go to bed until i wrote something. this was in first person, then i thought about all of my christian friends and how they'd probably gasp at the content, (lol although i just killed that by acknowledging that it was originally in first person)....but it is what it is. it's a poem. nothing more, nothing less. something i know someone out there in the cosmos can relate to. here goes:

Her Adam

She saw you lying there in peaceful
slumber. Shall not disturb, just
observe your shallow breaths –
try to match the concave, convex
of your chest, unnatural rhythms to her,
your breathing. She pictures you the day
you were made, molded from the dust
you laid on as lovers. Shapes sand in your
image next to you, where she would be
were things different.

How selflessly you gave your rib
so she could join you in paradise. How
you forget you were made to last eternal
lifetimes, this peaceful existence shared.
No, she shall not wake you for fear of ruining
what you have. She watches you sleep on your
linen sheets turned dust in her mind, once
wrapped around as protection from
Omnipotent Eyes. Her intentions were not
to corrupt – possessing fruits
you could not resist.

How she wishes them back now as you
slipped away from bliss, wonder what could
have been.

And who would guess
how easy your fall from grace?

live to love life

2005-06-10T01:21:00.000-05:00

i'm learning everyday that my dreams are not easily obtainable. and that's okay, everyday it gives me something to live for. i pick up a pen sometimes and just scribble meaningless words on a page, sometimes i come up with something worth showing others, and other times i draw a blank. this is the writing life. not always fruitful.

sometimes i wonder if i have enough life experiences to be the writer i want to be. i've yet to really love someone. you can only write about the death of loved ones so many times before it becomes trite to your readers (i'm sure people are like, ok...enough about your grandmother, and grandfather, and aunt and best friend)...and to write about race and history of african americans seems...predictable with me being a black woman

so where to then? religion? i've touched on that before, and i dont think i know enough about that to write more than surface-level-what-you-learn-in-bible-study topics...

i guess this writing life is about living....and living to love life, then turning it into art, into poetry, into music. i'm trying to write about things i haven't, and wont let myself experience becasue i'm closing myself up trying to write about them. such a vicious cycle.

this of course, slows the production of my book, Sage. How i wish it done before the end of the summer, but i dont want to rush it. I want it to be grand and marvelous and everything everyone who has ever supported my writing wanted it to be and more. I'm considering short essays to throw into the mix, but i dont know. perhaps that's a sell-out move for someone who can't think of poems, of metaphors, of beauty in life. i can't possibly have written about it all, but i dont know how to say differently what others have said. the comfort of not being well-read in poetry is that i dont know what's out there...once i get out of the ignorance-is-bliss i learn that we all have a lot of similar life experiences, and what i think i'm battling alone and that should belong in a poem, someone more famous than me has already captured so wondrously in a poem that is already on barnes and noble's shelves.

i dont know if i want to be a famous poet. i just want something that people can relate to, will want to come back to, will want to sit down with a cup of coffee and delve into my works of art, which are pieces of myself, parts of my life and suffering and living and learning and loving.

lazy daze

2005-06-08T22:23:00.000-05:00

so today i slept in until about 12ish, then got up made some coffee and an english muffin for breakfast...er...lunch...and waited around until my phone interview for the Body Shop. It went well, I have to say. Funny, i slipped in the word "crap"...i wonder how that will affect me.

regardless, i was myself, which i'm learning is a lot more funner (i know, not a word) than who i was when partially depressed and lonely. I'm learning i crave interaction with people, i love conversation, and even though i can seem like such the introvert, put me in the right situation with the right energy and i'm golden.

so after the interview i played around on the compy...meaningless google searches in an attempt to find something to do/occupy space and time. then i opted to do my hair, which is a 2-3 hour commitment once started...today i did it in about 2 and some change...and my roommie scored me a bottle of red wine, i had a cup and some cheese (you'd think this was lifestyles of the rich and famous)...and watched a lil TV while the roommie prepared a wonderful dish of stuffed green peppers (altered the ingredients to adhere to my no red-meat-eating policy) and sourdough rolls....then i was off to meet up with marcus for a session of poetry rapping, which is always fun....then i came back and it was only 9something and i was not about to wast away the rest of the night in my house, so i went to barnes and noble and picked up a poetry book and read it - Sharon Olds - and got some ideas/inspiration for some new poetry.

this is how i wish life was like...all the time. maybe one day. sipping wine, reading, sharing poetry/intimacies of one's soul....enjoying the world God gave us.

to someone:

2005-06-04T23:36:00.000-05:00

no music tonight. i realized that i haven't sat in a bookstore since i got here. how i loved to just sit amongst books and write, as if i get inspirtation from the mere company of the printed pages, bound stories of lives and events and fairy tales i wish to write one day.

a lot has been going on in my life. i almost wasted away today infront of the television. it'll do that to you when you're lonely i guess. something just doesn't feel right here...

it's hard. but still i know i'm blessed.

here's the one of the fruits of my bookstore sitting:
(maybe more later)

Lamentation

I am drunken on imagined syllables you’d emit
if I’d admit my feelings this moment now.

I follow words sliding off your tongue
the way you let water slip down

crevices of your grin. I watch you take
a drink from the well of calmness

we frequent as friends. I wish it were
other occasions. I find in this life

all I do is wish and drift listlessly
like a summer dress, sway with

uncertainty of reciprocity – I would like
for you to see me as more than a girl.

my dream for the misbegotten

2005-06-04T01:26:00.000-05:00

My dream for the misbegotten

To think their world different would be a disservice
to what the children salvage and make wonderful –
cannot compare the beauty even in iniquities:
playground as kingdom, I view sidewalk chalk Picassos
of a child’s chance at claiming what may never
be theirs, but call home – sentenced to a separate
piece of town, boundaries not crossed without
a change of heart.

I can but witness from outside its walls, cannot
fathom their realm, only try. I’ve seen this struggle
before, in history books, blacks begging what
should have been theirs, more than a glance
at this dream, want for chance to be seen human.

These children, like jewels, tarnished.
I cannot ignore their potential. Their life,
subsidized, witnessing the sun set each night
on visions I’ll never wrap my mind around
understanding. They grasp illusions of a better
life with the uncertainty of a wish
upon dandelion spurs. I’ve watched them pick,
close their eyes, blow away the seeds as effortlessly
as we push them further out of our minds,
further away from our lives.

To think their world any different
would mean obligation to change.

How I wished away pains on the wandering
drifters as a child once, picking dandelions
and blowing, hoping the wind would
hold my whispers and deliver an escape – I see
this desire in their eyes, the untold, hopelessness
of cycles repeating, see it in their actions, cries
of attention from a world outside of their reach
that will not listen to their screams in darkness
we succumb them to endure.

I hear them in my sleep, fear they’ll evaporate,
their joyous cries, my lullabies. I breathe a prayer
the shackles would dissipate, the children set free.

blah

2005-06-03T01:12:00.000-05:00

p.s.

i hate being a girl in a world full of double standards.

(and i'm not feeling so hot)

friends. how many of us have them?

2005-06-03T00:33:00.000-05:00

so that was alana's rendition of this song. who would have thought? sometimes i do think that though.

*warning - ramblings ahead*

i wonder at times how good of a friend i am. sad, i know, kind of...selfish, maybe? perhaps that's not the right word but hey it's 1:34 am and my brain has been sufficiently fried by 4 episodes of the OC and just wasting the beautiful (but hot and muggy) day away.

but i still think about that though, how i'm perceived at times. some adjectives people have used in the past to describe me: abrasive, mean, emotional, sarcastic, cynical, very loving, strong-willed, opinionated, nice, caring, selfish, self-less. weird mix huh? i mean, i'm glad i'm not the same all the time, but sometimes i wish for more consistency....if that makes sense. then i wonder if my niceness is taken advantage of at times because deep down inside i have a very hard time saying no. i'd rather avoid and find loop holes than tell someone no.

then i think if no (in some contexts) is a selfish act. if i could physically do something that is asked of me w/o killing me, making me commit some sinful act, perhaps mildly inconveniencing, but inconvenience is temporary, you know?....then should i say no? what if i want to do something else? there's that memememememememememe mentality coming out. i guess it's so prevalent in a world where "I" comes first and then everything else follows suit. but is that how things are really supposed to be when it comes down to it?

i think of my two best friends from growing up, and how i would give them the world if they asked me to, and if i could do it, probably my right arm if it meant they would be happy, would be happy around me (but is that being happy around me selfish? saying they shouldn't feel the things they do?). i see these acts in friendships forming down here in charleston. how i tend to want to bend over backward because i know what it's like to be depressed, i know how it is to fee llike the whole world is against you (and sometimes, perhaps it is...i'm learning, it's all a test though)...and i never want anyone to go through it. i'd give away my heart if it mean someone would be happier and not see only hopelessness or just smile sometimes. i remember what it's like to be afraid to smile, to not like to smile. i remember. not that i think what i've been through is the end-all-be-all, i just don't wish pains upon anyone. i have a big heart, sometimes it just doesn't show.

and even more what doesn't show is my emotions, how i feel for people. i keep that locked up, hidden. makes me wonder if they'll ever surface one day? i think the overall view is that i'm pretty much a cool chick, calm, sarcastic, but emotion-less. a few years ago, i'd be pegged as a cry baby. i was talking about being vulnerable earlier today, and as much as i like to think i make myself vulnerable, i still have this thick concrete wall up around me...and i wonder why i'm so lonely sometimes - even when someone is sitting in my face.

then i think of all the things i never said but should have, could have. how things would be different. how i could change destinies by opening up sometimes, feeling. i don't want to hurt again. break me gently. (a song lyric i read earlier today - it's funny how things in life connect, how it's all a cycle.)

maybe my turn is coming back to brighter days...i just gotta learn how to deal with them and not push them aside....but revel in the beauty that is life, even in it's not-so-beautiful-parts.

despite it all, sometimes i'm just happy to be alive. Glad God caught me at the right moment...his timing is too perfect. i might not have been here (earth), been the same.

why do you make me wonder

2005-06-02T11:29:00.000-05:00

(new alana davis CDs courtesy of Marcus....*eek!*)

so despite everything that has been thrown at my face in efforts to shatter my teeth, and happiness here, i'm still enjoying myself immensely, discovering more about myself....forming great relationships/friendships with people that i dont think match up to anything i've experienced at chapel hill....that's for sure.

gone out to make new discoveries.

catch me if you can

things just aint the same

2005-06-01T18:33:00.000-05:00

times are a changing

So God's been testing me a lot lately. More so than I can say I'm comfortable with dealing with, but who am i to complain to God, right? Anyways, so i'm learning that this being on your own thing is a lot more difficult than it seems, actually living on your own, i'm talking, not dorm-style living on your own. but it's liberating and frustrating at the same time. It all boils down to growth though.

The internet, i've learned after a week and some change without, is over-rated. (see post about Reli 88: technology and self) Although i have it back, and enjoy its conveniences as far as taking care of important businesses, getting information that apparently can only be found online (how in the world were things done before this??), i still dont feel like i belong on it all the time anymore. Olive (my guitar) and I have formed a great relationship. Allegra (lol my bike) and i have formed another great relationship, and it's given me more time to devote to my poetry and writing and living and just experiencing this world outside of the technological realm.....and yet, here i am, right? i know.

but it's not the same anymore.

anywho. so other realms of life have been a little more complicated - tangled in a lot of confusion and insecurities and what ifs. I'm just sort of in this permanent limbo. some of it, i admit, is jealousy...some just utter confusion about the world and life and struggles. oh wow, yes, it's all crazy around me now.

to take the first step in this game would be deadly.

you say i only hear what i want to

2005-05-29T09:43:00.000-05:00

work work work

all work and no play makes Lana a not-so-happy gal. give me a call peeps...i'm beginning to forget what some of your voices sound like. seriously! on another note, internet should be back soon, like wednesday.

p.s. worked on my song last night, nick (it's totally different from the original post)......kinda kewl i guess

at lastttt, my love has come alonggg

2005-05-26T11:23:00.000-05:00

so yeh, i've been listening to lots of dinah washington and etta james lately. expanding my musical influences.

internet is down until June one. can only access from the library. blah. so yeh...don't look for many updates until then.

charleston's great, and wonderful, meeting so many new and exciting people. can't wait to hang out....

the poetry scene is wonderful as well, inspiring me to write write write

the people are wonderful. makes me want to love them all

the water's fine

2005-05-22T16:44:00.000-05:00

The water’s fine

Daddy, I saw some little brown kids
at the fountain, Waterfront Park. I remember
you showing me from the window of the car
all those times we went down to Charleston
to see where you grew up, but you would
never let me play in the water, you said They
didn’t allow brown kids to soil the water the
children baptized their innocence in; you always
had to watch.

Daddy, it’s okay now, I saw this little brown
girl today playing in the water. She’s about
as black as me, so I know that if you had just
let me get my feet wet no one woulda cared.
Promise. But daddy she was alone, kinda like
how I would have been. No one splashed water
in her face, or laughed with her.

It was a Sunday afternoon just like when you
wanted to play but Grandma would never
let you, remember daddy? You were my age
then. I bet the water would have felt wondrous
against our skin if we could just play for a moment.

Daddy, I thought you taught me that they said
segregation was bad now? I know they wouldn’t
let you then, but I’m sure no one would care
if I just went in and played in the water
for just a bit.

If it were me daddy, like that little brown girl there
I would have asked you to join me – contaminate
those waters with our chocolate skin, make them
taste our sweetness and see that it was all right.
I wouldn’t want you to watch from the sideline,
keep guard. Let it down. Come play.

Daddy, I think the water’s fine now.

2005-05-22T15:30:00.000-05:00

i was trying to get this kid's face. what a wonderful picture

2005-05-22T15:29:00.001-05:00

i could do stuff like this

2005-05-22T15:29:00.000-05:00

if only i were a kid again

2005-05-22T15:28:00.001-05:00

beautiful

2005-05-22T15:28:00.000-05:00

waterfront again

2005-05-22T15:27:00.001-05:00

Waterfront park pier

2005-05-22T15:27:00.000-05:00

so cute

time's a wastin'

2005-05-21T08:35:00.000-05:00

don't you take your time young man, keep on driftin', aint no tell where you'll land...ebadu

sometimes i dont feel like time is wasting. i know that it's passing, and that it cannot be regained, but somehow, even though at times i think it's passing too slow for my pace, i would never change a thing about it - i think God gave us 24 hours for a reason, and we have to enjoy yet make the most of what we have.

i dunno, i'm just rambling, as usual. I hate that with the onset of jobs, times equals money, and there for we put a value to each second. we wonder, can we just sit back and enjoy the greatness that is before us, or could we be doing something more "worth our time". i know that God's got all of the financial situations worked out here, I'm not worried about that anymore. I realized I may be making up the money that i had to pay at UNC to simply live here in Charleston, which i'm beginning to not feel so bitter about (basically, it's going to cost me the same). I just have to stop advertising my reasoning for transferring as "it cost too much" when in reality, it was because God no longer needed me there...i no longer belonged up there. This life i'm living is not for me, but I was trying to live Chapel Hill for me...and you see how far that got me, eh?

Not to mention all of these creative spirits around me. Beats chapel hill by a billion. I think these experiences will already make up the few experiences in Chapel Hill, i hope i can take all of this to my advantage and make the most of my time here (if i must put a value on it, it definitely is "worth my time"), serving and being creative, writing, and playing Olive...loving up on God and just the people around me. Yep, that will make for a very happy and full Lana.

solitude

2005-05-19T22:01:00.000-05:00

so today i was a bum around the house for a bit. for some reason, i woke up before my alarm clock went off. i've discovered that's a much more peaceful entrance into the awake state. less hectic, less of an ordeal about i-wanna-sleep-for-just-a-lil-longer.

i ate breakfast, fixed lunch (yummy potatoes...mmmm) then finally decided it was time to head out of the house so i walked to Gap to pick up my schedule. 15 min flat. and then i walked down to the post office to check my PO box and stuff. then i decided to venture on further past Broad to the battery. i sat down there and started this pouch/wallet thing stayed there for about an hour, then came on back.....30 min straight shot to my place. but it seems a pretty cool route for jogging. maybe my goal for tomorrow.

tomorrow nick wants to see Millions. seems like a kewl movie. I'm up for it. Weather bug says scattered showers. boo. i really have got to get to a beach bfore i die down here. wish my toes to play hide and seek with the sands....legs brushed by the ocean's waves....

okay, gone to go find something more productive to do

and i'm losing my grip

2005-05-19T11:21:00.000-05:00

and i'm choosing to destroy all the rest of my yesterdays ~ alana davis

song i wrote yesterday in Marion Sq. Park:

how delicate those hands seem now
how magnificent the gift
your life for my sins
how delicate your hands
pierced by nails of my transgressions
symbol of your crucifixion
and i deserve nothing you've given

now humbly i come to you, Lord
in deference for your magisty
and all i have as offering
is all of me, i sit at your feet
and praise your name
my thanks for the price you paid, for me

how beautifully you made me, Jesus
crafted in your image, how
marvelously you saved me
and now i cherish this love you give

how beautiful
how marvelous
your love.

(Amen.)

love rain

2005-05-18T23:16:00.000-05:00

love rain down on me, on me, down on me

met him on a wednesday, sunny afternoon, cumulous clouds, 84 degrees he was brown and deeeeep. said he wanted to talk about my missions listen to my past life...took me on long walks to places where butterflies rest easy....

haha. so that is a quote. lol not a real post. Jill Scott, Love Rain.

But seriously, today was "mahvelous, dahling". lol for some reason i woke up at 8:30 voluntarily. made breakfast, played around for a bit then decided to unpack and make my room feel like a room someone would want to live in. Then i sat around, tuned and played Olive - the finger tips grow used to the pressure with time i suppose. I learned two new chords: D and G7.

then i fixed lunch. this amazing sandwich (which sounds really gross, but oh well, it's healthy and i like it)...that you make with granny smith apples and a bunch of vegetables and mustard....yeh. lol pick on me, whatever. then i went and walked allll over downtown charleston. then back up to Marion Square Park, and i wrote a song (post later, perhaps). I dont know what it is and my fascination right now at this moment with hands. but it's a song about Jesus, based on the hands theme (see couple posts back). it felt good to write again, though.

it felt great outside too, not too hot, sun if you catch it on your cheeks just right, makes you smile, and you know, i realized today - that despite all of what it took, i belong here.

then brian and i met up, went shopping (bad bad i know) then to this coffee house where i did some poetry, and it reminded me why i do it - people are amazed by it, especially if they've not been exposed to it. it meant that i would be skipping out on a slam, but...yeh, what can you do?

thennnnn it was splurge time. so i'm trying this healthy eating thing (i realized today i went all day w/o eating meat!) and brian was begging for a vanilla milkshake, so we went to hardies, and i had one, and it was wonderful. i should also tell you that i was wishing for ice cream all day. i guess when you have such a healthy diet for a day, your body doesn't know what to do....

i start working at gap sometime next week. I'll probably mosey on down there to get my schedule tomorrow...maybe walk down to the battery. man, i love having so many options of what to do! solo time is wonderful.

so this turned into one of those "this-is-what-i-did" posts. blah. but i guess i should let you beautiful people know that i love it here, and despite what anyone may think, and what i may feel once school starts, i know i made the right decision, finally.

i think i shall read and head to bed.

cause it's You and me

2005-05-17T21:23:00.000-05:00

and all of the people with nothing to lose, nothing to prove...

well, after swimming downtown to get to a bank and get some groceries for food for the house, i went to this service thing called Annex which was wonderful.

i'm sufficiently exhausted, however.

drove down to charleston, met the roommate - hopefully it'll be great...then unpacked the car...went to storage...got lost...unpacked car times two. went to Moe's then food lion...spent wayy too much on food. but it's healthy and i hope to not spend much on food anymore this week. at least until i get paid.

and i will call her

2005-05-16T16:23:00.000-05:00

Olive.

So i set out today to browse for a guitar. it's something i've wanted for a while...but never got the guts to purchase. i went to music stores, and this guy saw that i desperately needed some help with picking out one...he did the talk, tried to get me to get a guitar with a "package" deal of a bag and some other garbage and instruction books. and i knew i didn't need all of that thanks to my Aunt's collection of books. i just needed the guitar.

so i was like "well, how about just the guitar" and he showed me this cute little jasmine guitar, then explained that it was the last they had in stock, the cheapest, but that this particular one had some scratches, but was a decently good one to start. the price being 200....he said b/c of the scratches (like two at the bottom) he'd give it to me for 130. and i got a kewl gig bag and a strap all for less than the original price of the guitar.

i spent way more than i planned, but this at least will keep me company when i'm poor and starving in charleston trying to pay my summer rent.

but God and i will work at this together.

the name, Olive, was my aunt's name. She passed away 13 years ago now. Apparently everything that i'm doing, or thinking i'm doing, she did. and even more weird, i look just like her. My grandmother told me, because she knew that i was a music afficianado, that i could get all of my aunt's musical stuff. she owned a piano and guitar and taught lessons on both, so i have all of the books and stuff. but my aunt lent her guitar to someone before she passed and when she passed, it disappeared. so this i guess, is in honor of her. I'm sure she would have taught me to play guitar and piano if she were still alive. i remember sitting on her lap infront of the piano pecking chopstix.

so fitting, Olive. We'll make a perfect match this summer.

poem to devour

2005-05-15T12:53:00.000-05:00

i found it unfair that i've been giving all of this time to my reading, and none to my poetry writing since summer's begun. i also find it unfair that i say i'm a poet on this blog page thing, and have yet to grace the page with some poetry. so here you go. enjoy, please.

oh, and comment and let me know what yyou think. the form is a sestina. 6 end words repeat each stanza and allow for variations, thus palms=psalms life/live and so forth.

it came from this line that seeped into my head last night while trying (though unsuccessfully) to stargaze on a cloudy night. i still sat outside for a bit, sang some songs, and came up with the line "these hands are all i know". i tried to figure out if it's from a song i've internalized or something, but i think it's original to me, at least. so yeh, this poem is a product of last nights late-night musings outside on a beautiful night, though i did not have the stars as company. ok. enough glossing. here goes.

These hands

I compare the scar on my hand
to Jesus’, his wounds, proof that he rose from
the grave, blood stained on open palms,
out-stretched so we could see his pain.
He suffered so that generations after he’s gone –
but before his return – we could live.

I remember the doctors wondering if I’d live
past the week spent in hospital, swept away from
kindergarten world, five years old, heart pulsing in pain
pumping harder as I screamed, did not want I.V. in hand.
I didn’t understand its importance until it was gone.
This scar, forever imprinted on my palm,

was proof of my deliverance. Just as Jesus’ palms
were evidence of God’s mercy. These hands
are all I know. I’d imagine feeling his pain,
dying on the cross so I could live
to know him, know that when I’m gone
these scars will erase, and from

memories, I’ll learn not to take for
granted experiences, knowledge that with pain
comes life, joy, the ability to live.
I don’t think I’ll ever wish the mark gone.
I’ve accepted its purpose. The mark on my hand
will serve as reminder of Jesus’ palms.

I have never had nails driven through my palms,
but I’ve had needles. Needles that gave life,
not like the nails that were the source of Jesus’ pain,
causing him to die on cross, discovered gone
from the tomb where he was laid to rest. He had risen from
the dead. In the Gospels, I learn his hands

served as testimony to God’s greatness. I think of my hand
and the scar and the week in the hospital and the pain
of my heart trying to escape my chest. I wonder if our palms
would ever embrace one day? My hand free from
evidence that I once was dying, still dying. I live

now to see my hand as canvas of pain,
saved from death twice, and can write and live
my own psalms like David, and tell God’s love before I’m gone.

reli 88: technology and self-ethics

2005-05-15T09:57:00.000-05:00

So, first semester freshman year i was still juggling around options up until the first day of classes in order to complete the "perfect" schedule. The class i was to choose as my last had to be intriguing. i remember being in the library, skipping the class i was just about to drop, and looking for a more fitting one, one that would be relevant to me. so, i found this one: reli 088, technology and self-ethics. the course description was rather vague, i just remember it being a religion course, and it was talking about technological advances and how we as people cope/deal/are threatened by it all.

it really wasn't a religion course. I guess it had to be classified as religion because it had two bibilical readings throughout the whole semester. it was more like philosophy, but i liked it none the less.

the professor was this awesome 76 year old white guy who's had so many life experiences. My grandmother hadn't passed yet, but it was fun seeing the similarities. I guess i'll be like that if God allows me to make it to 76+. Anywho, his lectures were fun for me. He had no objective, he would just talk - what seemed like pointless rambling to others - and shower bits and pieces of universal truths, or just interesting ways of looking at things and people and this life. i remember my favorite paper i ever wrote. it happened by accident.

the assignment was to cut off all use of our cell phones or anything we use in excess and write down notes, ethnographically, about how we cope/or didn't cope. i dont really use my cell phone much, but i am a stickler (wayyy too much) for AIM. i was planning on just "saying" that i didn't use it for half a day, and just think up what i thought would be my responses. Low and behold, my computer contracts a virus, and on UNC they will kick you off the network in a minute. soo....i didn't have AIM for about 4-5 hours so i took the time then to write out my feelings.

it's a lil sad to think about it sometimes. How it is used as a facade, how people can feel they can "be themselves" or others can create these alternate worlds of who-they-wished-they-were-in-real-life, and live a lie from day-to-day. Now, that part isn't me, although it was becoming me, I was not yet full of Christ, and so my thoughts on myself was that i was ugly and unattractive, and that no one would ever want me, so i must only converse with people online as that would be my only chance to speak to people. i also had this shy-ness factor (that's still there, to some extent) where i would not be comfortable holding a conversation with people face-to-face. I attribute that to not being fully encompassed with Christ's love, so that i could not all that to permeate my pores, and force people to see that, other than me. I was allowing Satan to make me believe that i was worth nothing, so that AIM was my crutch.

i remember giving up TV when i discovered that all i did was endlessly eat infront of the TV and did nothing productive with my life. Then i began experimenting with other things, learned some instruments, practiced my craft of crocheting, painting, drawing, other artsy-fartsy things, being active, interacting with people. Now i see that i'm replacing TV with AIM and while things are under a totally different context, i see myself growing too comfortable in the convenience and no-risk of communicating through a medium such as this.

i remember before internet became hip with my generation, i used to write letters. Letters to my family members, i had a penpal in Utah from 3-11 grade...wrote notes to friends in middle school each night to be exchanged in class...writing is my forte, yes, but it need not be my handicapp.

my prayer/goal for this summer is to relinquish AIM to the generation of people who need it for whatever reasons, but not grow dependent upon it for communication, or for self-assurance that people will like me for who i am, not how i look. God will change the eyes of those i need to keep in my life to see the beauty of the inside and not value the outside. I must trust and have faith he'll do that...

and then i'll have more time for Him.

sexy summer reading

2005-05-14T20:43:00.000-05:00

books i've read since my summer began:

1) Blue like jazz
2) Faces at the bottom of the well

Currently reading
3) The children

this one is about 780 pages. so i definitely won't get through it as quickly as i have the others. I'm looking at sometime within the next week. i'm at 200 pages right now (started today, i'm a dork, i know). it's about the strength and maturity of the college kids in Nashville during the civil rights movement, who participated (and very valiantly, may i add) in the sit-ins to help in the mass movement towards desegregating the south. very interesting read. especially interesting after i took my course on AFAM hist since 1865, and I read a book, Local People (600something pgs) about the civil rights struggle in Mississippi. both events happen at the same time, even mention some of the same people, yet totally different ends of the spectrum on the basis of struggle and obstacles, etc.

dang, i sure am a history major. i confess.

what shall i prepare to read next? I'm thinking something...religious

okay, back to reading :)

breaks my heart

2005-05-14T10:21:00.000-05:00

God did not give me a heart of stone. Sometimes, I wish he had, just a little harder than it is. I have a way of exuding this confidence, this air about me that shows that i'm hard as rock. no dice. i listen to my dad sometimes, listen to his struggles, and i just want to cry. Sometimes i do. the fact that people, we, can run someone soo thin to where his daily existence is not worth living, it's just heart-wrenching. Daddy said he wishes he could do one thing, go fishing. I wish i could take my dad fishing, just let him relax a little. but no, then you have people who have no idea of struggles and sacrifice. i try to sit down and grapple with the idea (his upbringing): growing up with one parent, three siblings, struggling to survive, living off of the charity and grace and love and mercy of people within a community.

then i look at my life: i'm spoiled rotten, i get-anything-i've-ever-wanted-in-life and although i try to remove the rose-colored glasses, i cannot so much put myself in the position of my father to really see the hurt he feels.

I wonder how Jesus did it? Maybe the key to sacrifice is NOT knowing all of the struggles of those around you, or the ones you're saving, just giving yourself, w/o regards of what you're giving up to do it.

i'm sorry i'm just rambling. it's just scary, sometimes. i know i said it last post - watching my family unravel like a ball of yarn. each tug makes it tumble away, and the ball of yarn gets smaller and smaller until it's all gone. one day the blocks* will fall, i know it. and i'm scared of that day, really scared.

*post later on the significance of the blocks...

how good it is, how good it is

2005-05-12T22:18:00.000-05:00

"he gets to smile and i get to be orange...shines so bright. he rules the day, i'll rule the night."

ebadu. orange moon. another good one. yes, kids, i'm always listening to music. always. it's a given. if not, then...something's wrong.

"my world it moves so fast today, the past seems so far away, and life squeezes so tight that i can't breathe..."

from l-boogie. i think sometimes we just need to listen to those one-lines of songs that just say soo much. like, if the situation that ebadu is singing about in orange moon is true...man, i wish i had that. i remember writing a poem about a concept based on that, with my own personal twist. having someone - a significant other - being a reflection of yourself. i have a poem now that i perform based on the concept: "he took me and he placed me in his universe, saying that i was like the moon, and he was the sun, and he was telling me that i was only visible because i was shining from the reflection of his smile...."

how i wish that was true. that i knew someone like that. sometimes i wonder if i'll just be forever a hopeless romantic - if my lot in life is to be a successful black woman. but it's like, success comes with a price. i mean, look at Oprah, right? the epitome of success and yet single. not that happiness is equated with a relationship, but i think that woman have biological clocks that tick more than just around the time for having babies. maybe it's not just woman. maybe it's just man's (humanity) quest to not be lonely...that God didn't intend for us to spend our days alone...but does not being alone mean you have a significant other, or should we take advantage of our spiritual and blood families and build community and work within those?

i think there's some merit to both ideas. i remember reading Lady in Waiting - about serving God while even single, and not focusing on getting the guy (yeh i know...i did learn stuff, i promise). I remember it talking about serving the community as a single, how singles should help those who are in committed (marraige) within a church and all of this serving....and i'm down for that, i guess i'm just like, OK God, what's up with my end of the deal?

anyhow. i still get frustrated over a lot of things going on in my life. sometimes i wonder how Satan can work up enough guts to manifest himself in a place that is supposed to be where God dwells? like, how can churches turn cultic in practice, and brainwash people, and you get those crazy you're-going-to-hell-b/c-you're-not-in-church-everyday type people...who've become my mother. my mom is one of "those" now. and i dont even know if it's right to say it's Satan, but I know God's love is not soo fervent that it causes people to be hateful towards others. At least, my prayer is that it is not. It's hard to think sometimes, we pray to the same God. And i don't mean to place my spirituality or my relationship with God above hers, but i just dont understand a lot of the thinking, the reasoning sometimes. How everytime i come home, if i do not accomany her to her church then i'm essentially a heathen....i shouldn't do what i want to with my hair "because i should pray and ask God what he wants me to do with it" and it's just all sorts of conflicts that end in her calling me some sort of evil and expressing a disappointment in my spirituality. i mean, it's not like she's explefiying Jesus' love to me soo much that i want to follow in her footsteps.

sorry, i'm just rambling. not much else to do here in columbia.

my family scares me sometimes. just sitting back and watching it unravel like a ball of yarn. my prayer is that my dad finds God again. he grew up with probably the most religious mother in the world. but i think somewhere between that upbringing and raising a family of his own, and finding a crazy wife...he's lost touch with God. God reveals some things to me in dreams, and I know that he'll come to acknowledge God, and pray, and mean it one day. I just wish it were sooner. But having my mom as his only spiritual connection is not going to help him flock to God quicker. Which is i guess it's important that we are for real good stewards of God's love and impact on our lives. That we shower people with so much goodness that they will want waht we have, not shy away from it. which is why i think the uber conservative christians have it all wrong. singling out a group of people just because they're different is not the way to bringing them into one accord with the Lord. but that's another post, another day.

God never said this would be easy, I know.

i can explain

2005-05-12T10:25:00.000-05:00

"we both knowww...darlin that's not fair"

more rachelle ferrell. i could listen to that song every single day, a couple of times a day, and not get tired of it.

so, God's been showering me with many things lately, and I'm not sure if i can truly say I deserve it all. But, i will take it, and thank him for it.

I'm sooo thankful for him putting Brian in my life. which subsequently meant i met Nick, who is equally as awesome, but in a different way, so i'm not sure if that's equal awesomeness or what...lol...but we won't go there. they're both amazing.

So, in the event of trying to find summer housing, in all of this craziness, Brian tells me about this summer conference thing that c of c does, and i should look into it, which is supposed to be cheaper and i e-mail the people, but still look for other things. So i find this sublet for just the summer (my apt lease starts aug 1) which it's kind of steep for a lil tiny place, but it was all i had going for me at the moment. but then this morning the conference housing people called me to say they had an opening, and would i still be interested...and i was beaming, cause Brian told me about it, and he's wonderful....but then i just felt like a punk, because i essentially told this girl i could move in..and yeh. i dont know.

I think i need to start going to God more for my decisions...He knows what's best. I've been winging it a little too much as of late

"freaky radio"

2005-05-09T23:27:00.000-05:00

"my work is personal, i'm a workin person, i put in work i work wit purpose."

(lol mos def....)

so.....i'm going to spend my free minutes (yes, minutes) this summer to catch up on reading the books i'm accumulating for my library that i want to have one day.

here's the list i'm compiling (not so much in order). These are books that I already own:

(currently reading) Faces at the Bottom of the Well
Women, Culture, Politics
CHE
When God Writes your love story
hip hop generation
Huey P Newton reader
Do they hear you when you cry?
Mythology (I want to know the stories...)

book i'm told i'd like:
city of joy

add in random poetry books by various authors...and literary journals.

have you read any of these? would like to add to the list?

let me know!!!!

i'm charleston bound in two days! whoooo

"God did not make me a fearful person, only fear i have is my failure to adhere his path" mo' mos. haha.

you cried i wiped away all of your tears

2005-05-09T20:35:00.000-05:00

"you scream i fight away all of your fears..."

okay - so that was evanescence. my immortal. love it. so...beautiful.

"there's just so much that time cannot erase."

One day I will write some songs, and they will be wonderful. lol. So, i've locked and secured yet another show at Dean's List this semester. Basically, by the grace of God, because I was totally too lazy for my own good. And the two grades that are posted right now that I was unsure of definitely showed that. B+'s in both. Here's the problem. In History, we have journals which are 30% of our grade. So, lazy lana that I am, would always do them half-way and at the last minute. Needless to say, this history prof can definitely see through the BS, and gave me a grade to prove. C+'s. So 20% of my grade was composed of C+'s. Now, for me to pull off a B+ with a 30% final and 25% midterm....is crazy. lol. meaning, if I hadn't slacked off and cared a little bit more, I could have easily gotten an A or A-. Same thing wiht my performance literature. There is NO excuse for that to be a B+ other than sheer laziness. Oh well, no need beating myself over the head. Just means that I will be starting over with a clean slate for GPA, and that means i BETTER to better at charleston.

that's all i really have to say right now. i'm too tired to think much else. but trust - i do have something to say...i always do. more later.

blue like jazz

2005-05-08T21:19:00.000-05:00

God has a pretty cool way of figuring out how i listen (or sometimes, don't) and speaking to me in a form he knows i'll get. i kind of like that about him, that he makes himself real, and real in a form that we can understsand and love and praise and worship.

in the past week or so, i've heard mention, or seen, or was told to check out a donald miller book, more specifically, blue like jazz. So, i was in the christian book store getting mother's day things (which i sadly realized, I only had two to buy....even more sadly i had a hard time figuring out what to purchase)...i saw blue like jazz on sale, and right in my face, so i was like OK God, i hear ya, and i picked it up and purchased it.

This was last night. I just finished it tonight. i absolutely loved it. Many parts it felt as if i had read the book before, which was scary, but intriguing at the same time. I just connected so much with this guy's story. I think that's the beauty of it, the structure, the telling, the realness. I loved the fact that it's not a preachy christian book, I can go to the bible for that, but ti's sort of like, sitting down and listening to this guy give his testimony, and I respect that. a lot.

tomorrow is my final final. then i check people out all day. tuesday much of the same thing, checking people out....and then wednesday i go home. i leave this place. half of my friends have already left. a number of ones who've meant the most will leave tomorrow....and yeh, it's over.

it's really over. time to turn the page in this chapter. my book's just starting to get good :)

dear....mom

2005-05-07T23:22:00.000-05:00

So our relationship has been weird. I don't know if it will ever quite get where you want it, but i try. Growth is something that is gradual. It was nice (though i know i didn't say it) to see how excited you got when i came home. Like i said, relationships change, evolve, and maybe one day i'll be able to vocalize the appreciation i have for everything while growing up (even the little things, even the things that hurt). But i guess hat i also wanted to say is that it's wonderful you've found your relationship with God, and made it what it is. But, be careful, what i'm learning is that sometimes, we're just harvesters for God's transformation in others. Sometimes your over-zealous love for God becomes something that people shy away from, and instead of wishing to know the Lord as you may, they want to run. Jesus sat and ate and loved even the sinners. Trhough His unconditional love, the Holy Spirit ignited them, and they wanted m ore...He warns us "do not incite your brother to anger." I think becuase He wants everyone, personally, and on their own, to hear his pleas to be in a relationship with him. They'll change. They know what's right. We just may not be around to witness. Please continue to be a messenger of the Lord, but don't forget family...i'm learning it's whats most important.

Love, Lana

kicking my own butt

2005-05-07T16:12:00.000-05:00

so i didn't have any music today.

i just got back from running. stupid me didn't bring my ipod shuffle - duh! that's half the reason i bought it.

now that i no longer have jogging class (may i add that i got an A in that class?) it's harder for me to get motivated to get my butt out there. but i think it does get contageous after a while. like today, i watched my girls (high school track kiddies) kick butt at the state track meet. it made me miss those days, preparing, sweating, standing infront of the crowds receiving medals. sort of pushed me to come home and run. i was just playin around with speed, so i didn't go very far - and my neighborhood is pretty hilly. i ran half a mile and beat my normal mile split, so that made me happy. but this 81 degree weather was crazy so i decided that's all i'm doin'.

i gotta work on distances if i'm going to get to my 5mile goal. I think i'm going to work a lil slower. pushing myself is how i got hurt a week ago. i wanna do a 5k next spring, and then 10 k my senior year. maybe that's more plausible. what do you think?

okay. time to chill out for the rest of the day. read a book or something. i'm supposed to be meeting a friend for graduation festivities. USC finished today. It's kind of exciting...i can't wait for my turn!

have an awesome saturday. it's really luvly outside. makes me happy and giddy a lil :)

hunger hurts

2005-05-06T23:03:00.000-05:00

(subject line is thanks to fiona - i dunno why i've been listening to fiona lately...oh well)

so. no cave canem.

I wasn't sad. I expected it. I drove home today for the weekend to meet a pile of mail - credit cards i don't want, bank statements, a literary magazine (you get an automatic subscription when you send in a submission)....and a little envelope with the Caven canem dog in the left hand corner

I remember junior year of high school, Preston's cousin came to speak to our class for our "pride assembly". he talked about awaiting admission from colleges, and said "you know when you've been rejected or accepted just by the envelope. If it's a big envelope, you're in. If it's small, well, expect a nicely written rejection."

so when i saw the little envelope, i knew it. I sort of already knew it when my poetry professor talked to Marilyn Nelson and she said that they've only ever admitted one undergrad and they were a senior. Yeh, it just wasn't my time, i guess. blah

so Raina's like "send it in next year". like all i have to do is sit around and wait for cave canem to deem me "ready" to work with the poets. it's so frustrating, to have people dictate to you when you're ready for something. how they assume you're not serious if you're still in college.

makes me wonder ifi should seriously pursue writing as seriously as i was considering after undergrad. because if all it is is a bunch of people telling me when i'm ready to be out in the world, then that's whack, and it makes me almost want no part of it. I guess it's no different than schooling, you go 12 years before they deem you "ready" to pursue your career. only to go 4 more years before you can really seriously pursue your career with a master's or phd or other garbage. all of this domination by people who don't know you from a statistic. at least then, you can test out to prove you're ready. with this, i'm just a sitting duck until someone up in the ranks thinks "yeh, she's ready." maybe that's why toni had to wait until she was 41 before her first book was published.

if all i want to do is write, then what on earth am i going to do for 21 years??

i can explain

2005-05-06T11:33:00.000-05:00

i come to you, with a heavy heart. don't know quite where to start

that was rachelle ferrell. I can explain. wow. blows me away everytime i hear it.

So it's amazing how many pieces of clothing one can accumulate over a lifetime. I definitely need to be a better shopper than what i am. I could be so much richer. I bet Jesus didn't worry about designer clothes. lol. so I gave away two black garbage bags of clothes today. half-way because I could no longer fit most of them, with losing weight and all, and the other part was i just didn't feel like taking them home. I've got to stop hoarding so many things. I've got little cards and trinkets and things - lil memoirs that i think will make a difference in my life. and they do feel good when i first get them, but then you realize they become more of a burden after the fact...i had so many poetry revisions and sheets of paper, and just random things that take up space, but make me who i am, but it's like, i dont need the representation of who i am in the physical form, i carry around who i am each day. you can see it in my eyes, on my lips when i speak. why do we need a program of a play we'd seen to remember the greatness you felt that night?

so i think i'm going to try something different. capture everything through pictures and words. no pamphlets (i'm one for picking up a pamplet or booklet or something everywhere i go. i kept my metro card when i went to nyc, haha).

please forgive me for my distance... (lol, that's fiona)

i have been really distant though. like picking and choosing who i want to spend my last days with. time is very valuable. I dont want to spend it hanging out with people who just appear right before i leave - where were you when i was totally hating this place, or needed someone to talk to? i'm not bitter, really. I'm moving on, but i'm not down for fake smiles and even faker "i'll miss yous".

fast as you can, baby. okay i must finish packing up my life and get ready for the first installment of moving out. here's to summer 2005 in charleston. i'm excited.

2005-05-05T23:36:00.000-05:00

boop oop a doop. I adore her.
(also practicing putting pictures up
this is a part of a tin poster i have
on my wall. I was playing with my new
camera, Betty)

no reason to get excited

2005-05-05T22:32:00.000-05:00

the hour is getting late....

i'm usually listening to music. In fact, I'm always listening to music. So the past few entries have started with either songs i'm singing in my head or really listening to. Right now it's dave matthew's band wailing jimi's all along the watch tower

it's sort of bittersweet. rummaging through my year here in the remnants of things i've hoarded in my dorm room. and packing it up, throwing it away, giving it away...

it makes this transition so real. I think i tried hard, too hard, to compartmentalize this transfer. To not mesh the leaving with the realization that some of these people i'll never see again. That chapel hill barely even knew i was here...and now i'm leaving never to return again. and i say that lightly, but i really do not foresee anything to honestly bring me back to chapel hill. i tell people to come visit me in charleston. i think it's the admittance that charleston is where i should have ended up to begin with.

i've explained this numerous times, but who cares. this is my journal. i see my life right now as being a potted plant. a friend of the family told me a while back when he knew I sort of wanted to transfer from chapel hill, that i should "bloom where i'm planted". and it makes sense, and I believe God gave him that to tell me, but I dont think i should take it literally, or how he probably intended it. I see it as, you know how you have a plant that you nurse or raise or grow up. Or i remember getting trees when i was little, to plant in our yards. but you needed to grow it in a pot first, then when it's big enough you can transfer it to fertile soil. so chapel hill was my pot. i was only supposed to be here for a time anyhow. graduation was never in the plans here. i got what I needed to, I grew, i'm stronger, and now i'm ready to be where I was really intended to be in the first place.

you incite me to chorus

2005-05-05T11:52:00.000-05:00

you incite me to chorus

so there's this guy right....and i kinda like him, right?....

it's so sad, but kind of exciting, to have a crush. To know that this person you talk to, and who talks to you, incites you to this happy place, where the thought of him makes you smile, and you imagine the possibilities.

but then it also kinda sucks, just imagining. I sometimes want reality. the realness, the ability to call someone and see what their day was like, how they're doing....hear the words said "i love you" from someone other than a relative...you know, stuff like that.

and guys say girls are enigmas (haha thanks nick). but they're not. it's really simple. girls want it like it is in the movies and how it was done back in the day. they want to be pursued, to be prized as a jewel. they want the prince to search all over to fit the glass slipper on her foot and know that she's the one. (read: they want guys to do work, too)

and it makes it difficult in a world where the trends are changing, makes it really difficult for girls (like myself) who want it done like it was back then, where the guy pursues the girl, and such. but today you have shows like sex and the city where it puts on this air that girls are sexually motivated to just attach to any guy on the basis of getting him in bed, and aren't looking for relationships, and while sometimes it may very well be the case with some girls...i hate to be brushed under one umbrella and assumed that i'm just like the rest. cause i'd like to think that i'm not. you know?

then i see a girl i know, one of the first people i met when i came here, and i watch her evolve from this timid girl who just wanted guys to like her, to this girl who confuses her sexuality with guys caring for her. a guy whispered in her ear some nice things one day, she gave herself to her, and watching her has been like watching someone open up pandora's box. she drowns her insecurities in a few muffled "i love you's" and latex. i cry for her a lil sometimes, to think that she thinks that's as good as it gets.

shoot, i cry for myself sometimes to know that this is where our society is going...and to know that i may very well be alone for a good portion of my life, because i dont want to give into demands to put out sexually, and it seems like all of the good guys are taken, or intimidated by me, or aren't christian and it just leaves me in a daze....sometimes kinda upset at God, wondering if we weren't made to be alone, then what's going on???

okay, i'm just running my mouth here, sorry....

just not urban enough

2005-05-04T23:51:00.000-05:00

baby don't worry bout where i been or who i saw or what club i went to with my homies baby don't worry you know that you got me....

i'm so glad i went to see urban sophisticates tonight. they're crazy live, man. So Glenn, this guy i led a freshman bible study with last semester, knows how crazy i am about music, and let me borrow one of his cd's, Urban Sophisticates. He kept raving, and i listened and liked it and what not, reminded me of a pretty cool (but definitely not) version of the roots. Live music, which is always hot in my book, complete with trombone and trumpet....pretty cool vocals...and yeh, it's just pretty much hotness.

So they're native north carolinians, infact, i think they all go to unc-g and they play at this place called cat's cradle here in chapel hill. Glenn knew about it and decided that as my "going away" present , he would buy my ticket. there were a couple of bands that went before them that i had to admit, i didn't like, but then they came on and it was way worth it.

But it made me really want to expand my musical influences, or expand life experiences. Like i'm definitely going to explore more and just live and love life. that's the moral - just enjoy it all.

"nights like this seems so unreal...." (quoting the urban sophisticates)

not relatively new

2005-05-03T21:42:00.000-05:00

I'm not relatively new to this, Christian thing, but i love the idea of renewal. The idea that forgiveness is forever, and God will forget as long as you will.

Sometimes i just renew just because i love the newness of it all. Sometimes I need it. We're always falling, been stuck in a perpetual fall even as we attempt to climb to perfection to be closer to being Christ-like, we're doomed to failure. perfection can't be reached, but the key to surviving it all is not allowing the pitfalls to destroy you, and getting caught-up while down.

I've been a victim of that, i admit.

but because of renewal, and His refreshing me, and putting such wonderful people in my life, I can put that beside me, start over, do it as right as i can the second time around (lol just reminded me of the Step-by-Step theme show. i am sooo old school for even my own good)

Other than that, He's gotta continue to remind me that no, I've not transferred yet, and I need not be a slacker. I must stop procrastinating and do as II (?) Timothy says, and study to show myself approved.

good nite

latex with your chocolate?

2005-05-02T17:55:00.000-05:00

i know, sounds bad, doesn't it? It is though. I go to my trusty vending machine in my dorm - the one who's provided me with many late-night snacks and try to figure out what I want to eat. To my surprise, i look down to the bottom right of the machine, and what you would think to be a nicely individually wrapped bag of popcorn ready for the microwave, is really a pack of condoms.

I mean, really. who does that?

what kind of message is that sending to the kids? That instead of even thinking of inconvenicing people and making them even think about going to the mini mart for such amenities, you can just go down stairs and buy a coke and twix along with the purchase as well.

ick.

so, I studied for 5 hours straight today. abandoned my computer and my room for 5 hours in the union. just me and my ipod shuffle and history 76b (African American history since 1865) material. I love that i'm good at what i will be doing for a living. like, i guess to any other person, if they put off the amount of work i put off until the day before the exam, well, i guess i'd be worried too. but i'm not. if i took the exam right now, i think i'd do relatively well. So i'm not going to stress out about it. I'm taking a break right now, maybe quick nap then review a lil before i give up for the night.

i do not stress out, nor do i study past 12. it will never be that serious in life.

the beginning

2005-04-30T21:28:00.000-05:00

Exams are in the midst right now. I'm not really scared, sort of have a nice peace around me, know God's going to work it out.

He also revealed my work to me through Conitras today, caught me by surprise. So this group God led me to last year out of loneliness, Saturdays in Christ, is a relatively new Bible study group here that helped tremendously in my growth. With my transfer on the rise, I was talking to Conitras (founder) about it, and she was basically like, well, let me know when Charleston is ready for Saturdays in Christ and let me know so I can help you out, fund it, and put you in charge.

then my eyes got big. Thanks God.

I need this type of direction in my life. I need a purpose. My family is a big purpose, and a big reason i need to come back to be a lil bit closer, or attempt to, and work on my sister and God and making that an equation....and just a lot of work on me too. I thank God for growth, and growing...cause He knows I've got a while to go.

and I know I fell off for a second, but I think that's why he ordered my steps the way he did in preparation for Charleston. It is by NO coincidence that the first people I've met there have been Christians. I just have to whisper a little thanks to His way, and accept the gifts as they come. This should be pretty exciting.

it's sort of humbling when i think about it. How, Chapel hill was a decision at first for ME. I swore at the time that I had control over my destiny, and that i was making the best decision for myself, and God allowed me to think that, then after He opened my eyes, and showed me that it was really He who allowed me not to screw up my life by going to Coastal Carolina, and growing me here, and will be putting me back where i think i really belonged in the first place, but was not ready and willing to accept that as his will. I dont want to think, but sometimes i can't help to, on what blessings i probably missed, but i can't discount the blessings i came across at chapel hill. C'Cora and Aiyana, Anthony, Abrina, Conitras, BSU, Saturdays in Christ, and just people wanting to love up on me, and allowing me to love up on them....

So now that i'm finally on the right path to my purpose, wow, i dont so much know what it holds...i must be ready for the unveiling.

let there be light...

2005-04-25T17:31:00.000-05:00

so, i realized with the popularity of my livejournal i could no longer fully express everything going on in my world without fear from the outside world seeping in. Besides, that was of a life in UNC Chapel hill, and time are-a-changing, so i need to change with it.

nothing will look the same anymore.

so here's to realness, no-holding-back journaling. we'll see how this goes.