Showing posts with label adversiTTy. Show all posts

By Covid Caged?




I MISS meandering.
     Though, unlike others have expressed by word or deed, I'm not gagging to get outside and engage in activities I deem more important than, say, staying alive.
     The Government decided, "Stay home" (not even just ours, but ALL around the world) for safety's sake, so hey, I can do that. Throughout history we've witnessed governments demand all kinds of vicious, appalling or asinine behaviour from their populations in the name of patriotism, so you would think that people could put things in perspective, eh.
     Wait. Wait. I'm not getting into governance here. This isn't Trinbago Come Good. This is Trinbago Shine On. Let me get a grip and get to glowing.

The lovely little things


     So ... I miss making my long, winding walks, catching all the small wonders I meet; that I love to share so much. I miss the exercise, too. What are long legs for if not for striding free? I miss seeing brimming sky, as opposed to bits I crane for out badly designed windows at my rental. I miss getting caught in the rain and the feel of grass underfoot.     
     It's not only Nature I miss. There are things like the library, long bus rides, eating Saturday morning Indian delicacy, jalebi, bought specifically at the Tunapuna market, because NOBODY makes it as good as that fellow there.
     Basically, like people all around our Earth, I miss muchly the lovely, little things taken for granted until it's not there. Then the question, "How long will I have to do without this?" or even, "Will it ever be here again?"
     

Bad to beyond


      Listen, happy, healing walks happened before World Wars I and II. Such walks happened after. People held hands and hugged before Cholera, Typhoid, Ebola. Such contact happened after. We are human beings; we don't just survive things like Covid. We truly live beyond it. 
     We tend not to remain unchanged by the challenges, however. What's gone? What's been taken? What have we become? We may think: Only time will tell. But what if we apply will and decide for ourselves how to go forward from these differences in ourselves.
"Will is wish, and liberty is power." -- Voltaire
     
Right now people crave freedom from Covid lock-down. But what when Covid no longer "traps" us? Will we be free, then? Will we really be? 
     There are so many things we could choose to do each and every day to live lives unfettered by addictions, apathy, non-productivity and shame. 
     Perhaps rough things like Covid remind us of this. Thus, while we think we're being caged by them, we're actually being helped to be deeply, meaningfully free.


Shine on
Connect to my other blogs via: Jhaye-Q Shows
For downloadable inspired Caribbean images: Jhaye-Q Trinbago photography


    
All photos by Jhaye-Q Baptiste. All rights reserved. For free images, link to Jhaye-Q Trinbago

     
adversiTTy
Share:

Blinded by the Blight



Are you hiding to not be seen, or hiding to see? 


 SOMETIMES THE WORLD seems to not see you; and you wade through the rivers of life in a state of invalidation. 
     It might be about the colour of your skin. It might be about the texture of your hair. It might just be about the very core of your soul. Whatever, people act like you can simply up and change these things to make folks comfortable enough to acknowledge your existence.
     Listen, there are those in the world who will try to make you evaporate. Trust me, I know. The thing is, they can't make you fade away unless you fade away. 
     Don't get me wrong, there are terrible things that can be done to make a human being die inside and disappear outside (let's not get into the die inside and die outside issue in this post). But as long as you keep seeing you won't go anywhere, no matter what perception depthless people hold on hard to. Understand, they are trying to blight you into going blind to your worth. That's the only way they really "win."

Ignorance and lack


      For the image above, I thought I was taking a photo of a fabulously grungy jeep and interesting vine tracery. But as I set up the shot, the dark face and bright eyes of a dog came into focus. I don't know how many of you saw that at first. 
     I didn't know the dog was there. Did that make him not there? 
     Had I gone to the gate carelessly in my ignorance of his presence, he might have barked and startled me off. Or I might have reached through one of the squares to get a certain angle (as I have been known to do) and might have got bit for my lack of vision.
     People who try, out of cruelty or being deeply misguided, to intentionally wipe other human beings away are ignorant and lack vision. The person they are doing this damage to can be like the dog: definitely still there even if unseen; able to bark, able to bite.  
     The world might not see you all the time. Still, you can work to always, always see the world.
     Take it from someone who has survived metaphoric burning at the stake, and yet lives to tell these tales: YOU HAVE SOMETHING. You have something that is good and true. See it. Use it. Make others see it. And shine.

Shine on

 Photo by Jhaye-Q Trinbago from Pexels

Helping others is a great way to stay valid. Link a suffering sistuh to my endometriosis blog at: ABC Endo: A Trinbago Survivor's Guide
adversiTTy
Share:

Back to the Bare Basics

"We polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides by a sort of amicable Collision. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a Rust upon Men’s Understanding ... a destroying of Civility, Good Breeding, and even Charity itself.” Lord Shaftesbury (philosopher, moral thinker)
This Poi tree sheds its flowers at the heart of the University of the West Indies campus:
a wonderful visual metaphor for the beauty of balancing Nature and nurture.


THE BITCH is back!
At least, that’s how I always promised to herald a return to the media; alluding to my strident, long time ago ended column, “Bitch’s Brew.”
What a loud, brash, indomitable word-warrior I used to be. So naked. So brave. I'm not quite that anymore, except in traces, shadings, corners of me from which I sometimes still come out to play.
But I think I'm stronger now, and weaker; less sure of what I am, but far more sure of what I don't ever want to be ... feeling my way forward like so many of us today, in this country, in this world, the way they are.
The thing I want, more than anything, is for writing to be smooth again. For it not to be the troublesome, breaking, bittersweet labour that it has become. Writing used to be easy, as easy as closing my eyes. Now, after the rapes, it’s not easy any more. 

 Ah, made you sit up.

Rapes? What rapes? The rapes perpetrated on me all along my life. The rapes perpetrated on you. The rapes more and more of us are now turning around and exacting on anyone who seems weaker than ourselves, on anyone who will let us.
These rapes are literal, metaphorical, psychological, emotional, cultural, political, medical, professional. Just know that today, when you look into any stranger’s eyes, that person has had some kind of rape inflicted on her/him ... as surely as you have had on you.
We have to make the rapes stop.
But how the hell do we do that? Not the way we’re going, that’s for sure.
Do we each honestly ever feel ourselves open and caring enough so that another person can look into our eyes and see empathy; hear our voice and words and sense kindness; face our smile so sincere they can only respond in kind?

More like war


When we look at many of our politicians, big business leaders, teachers, law enforcement officers, ourselves in the mirror, can we say that our intention toward our fellow human goes beyond making them fear us, worship us, desire us, come under our power or give us their money?
People see this happening. People feel this happening. People react to this happening.
This state of happening is more like war than peace. We are each a country besieged: hunkering down, hyper-vigilant, hurt yesterday, hurt today, already hardened against the hurt tomorrow – the hurt we have been conditioned to expect.
Thus, as in any war-torn time, at all levels of society people are exerting energy to attack, defend or protect themselves.
So this is where we are ... and we cannot keep hiding from it.
What do we do? We do something. I know that sounds simple, even silly; but it is simply sensible.

Differences can come together so
beautifully and brighten up the bland
Listen, it seems terribly impossible to think of baring your Self. Yet, that’s often what people do when they intend to make love. 
So each one must try to take off, as best you can, all the hurt-crafted armour you’ve assembled around your true, loving, able, joyful soul, and let that better, less burdened, more deeply empowered you-know-who-you-are shine through.
Then seek out purpose and meaning in everything you willingly, or even not so willingly, have to engage in as you live this life.
If each of us, in whatever way we can, decide to do what we do towards the goal of making something better somewhere, sometime, for someone; if we do this all the time, or as often as we can, or just one time a day (one day at a time?), it is a mathematical fact that all these little “somethings” will add up to something more.
Take your talent, take your talk, take your time and make something good happen each and every day.
Doesn’t seem like much when said that way? Super. Then it should be easy to make a start.
Your mission: Strip. Search. 

Shine on!
adversiTTy
Share:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)