Monday, July 26, 2010

Float

I don't seem to sink well. It seems I am better made to float back to the top. Mentality is a choice and we all have a choice to chose how we feel. What hinders us as people is the interference of things outside ourselves, unless we are self-obsessed (in which I can't help your soul either way).

In one split moment it fell on me that it I needed to steal back my time and it's time to take control.

I'm back again.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Self-Massacre

Michelangelo, "la furia" (The Fury)
Who have I become? I am not the person I envisioned myself to be at this point in the game. How come I feel more sad than I have in a longtime? Why can't anyone properly pronounce my name? I moved forward in good faith, my heart tucked away as my compass and my good intentions as the beacon I thought to highlight my way - but it seems that I have not really come too far at all.

Lately I have been feeling like a failure, not someone I am proud to call a carnation of me. My mind feels stagnant, I am frustrated that I have yet to finish my degree and pursue the passion I have for history as a career path that is meant to be. Historical sexuality brings such out-pour from me.

This feeling sinks in my circuitry and it resembles a momento from the past that I never wanted to see again; helplessness without the focus to regain concentration and get back on the train.

I don't feel excited when I see my writings published anymore, I am not sure if I am really helping anyone with my thoughts afterall. I am not usually like this, I am compromised, vulnerable and in a weaken state. I feel embarrassed that I can't just shake it off and move away from the confusion and the pain.

A hit of a wooden bamboo stick across the side of my head. I lay in the gutter and what sinks into me is  falling away. I look in the mirror and I am sure that something has gone wrong. I push my loved ones away for when I am like this I want to be alone in my misery without impacting those around me.

I swear I am not usually like this, maybe all the pressure, disappointments and routine to work only to pay is making me fade away.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Route 29

29 times around the track and somehow she had managed to keep her breath, for the most part.
29 rounds she had danced around the ring avoiding most blows, but sometimes being impacted by a hit and hiding the bruises that lurked below the surface of her skin.
29 times she had held her heart in her hands and asked mercifully why it hurt so much to love.
29 times she had healed with her unfaltering faith that aligned with her everlasting faith in love.
She imagined how she, the little girl that had become a young woman would be when she was 29 -  the only sentiment that she sang was a feeling of protection and pride for her little young lady.
It was close to the 29th that she has found the gray ball of fur that would become her first born responsibility to understand affection beyond human capacities.
29 times she had asked for help when her own senses became deaf to seeing what it is that she really saw and felt, each 29 times her family and friends had pulled her through.
29 jobs she had tried, some she has liked other she came to dread, yet somehow she still found a shoe that fit her petite flat foot.
All 29 years she saw the beauty and then pain, flushed out the miserable and tried to regain honesty in training herself to be that which moved away from the pain.
For 29 minutes she looked in the mirror and felt fat.
29 tracks around the lap and now she was looking back.
In the constellations she sought guidance as to what the next 29 laps bring, or would there even be 29 more before extinction became evident and her body became dust?
29 years she had seen the strongest, bravest and kindest woman in her mothers eyes.
Where did she have left to go, nobody knows but 29 had gone by, she knew this for sure.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Pridometer

It is official friends, my ass is old - I realized this when I thought about the fact that this is my 11th Pride in Toronto. 11 is a pretty mature number, wouldn't you say?

With all the squalor and scandals around the this years festivities, like many I sat with the moral dilemma of wondering if I had any interest in spending my money at events that did not support the freedom of expression and politics.

Obviously the Israeli apartheid dialogue created quite a stir among conscience queers, and I agree that queers were not without merit in being pissed about this decapitation from the grassroots movement of what Pride stood for in the past: a platform to speak differences, to be heard, and to force those who did not want to listen to hear.

Aside from the corporatization of Pride and the trademark floats with men and women dressed in gear that would hopefully make your mommy blush, Pride is a moment to sit and reflect about how lucky we are as Canadians to be able to hold our partners hands on the street without fear of being put into jail, about being open to show love with another human being despite the fear of feeling outcast or alien. Pride is about coming together as a diversity of sexualities, backgrounds, intellects and experiences to show that we all have a common cause of togetherness in a world that is often full of such hatred and judgment.

I did not party as hard as I have in my younger days this year at Pride. I did not hit-up any events that were hosted by Pride Toronto, but I did take advantage to the unique atmosphere that is created across communities, both straight and gay. I took the time to see the queers and friends that I love and who have supported my queerness over the past 11 years. We drank, laughed, hugged and caught up about those special moments that we have missed in each others lives. Friends from near and far showed that they are true friends, each year they have always been at these celebrations with me.

I also made new friends and I am thankful for being given that chance to show them who I am, a complicated and simple queer ethnic dyke and strong, independent woman.

I took a moment to squeeze my girlfriends hand and tell her I love her as I past other queer women, I applauded those who walked in heels that my dyke-ass could never handle with such poise, I smiled and all my coloured brothers and sisters and exchanged a thought - we sure have come a long way, but lets not forget that there is always need to reach for higher ground.

Applaud the freedom we have as queers living in Toronto but stop segregating those in the community from feeling a sense of belonging. Gender is a thing of the past when it should come to organizing social events, lets love be free to flow into safe spaces where we can all show that our affection reaches beyond a hook-up or simply standing for ourselves without regard for anyone else.

In Pride together we should stand, hand in hand, heart to heart, mind to mind. Let this be an open freedom call to queers to voice the causes and woes of those less fortunate, of those living in constraints and always remember the struggles of those queers that came before us.

Be full of pride each day.