On Living and Dying (But Mostly Living)

I went home this past weekend to attend the funeral of my best friend's grandmother.  The night I returned, I dreamt that I had recently lost a grandparent.  In the dream, my maternal grandmother informed me that my aunt and my paternal grandfather had been in a car accident, and they didn't think that he was going to make it.  I woke up feeling uneasy.  The next day, I was told that my maternal grandmother's sister (my grandaunt) was in the hospital battling double pneumonia.  I prayed, and called on my closest friends to pray with me.  Yesterday, she died.  It was very sudden, unexpected, wholly preventable.  I have learned so many things.

We have got to listen to our bodies!  We have to know when things don't feel right.  That doesn't mean we should run to the doctor every few days.  It does mean that we should spend some time paying attention.  When I stay up late, I feel like. . .   When I eat this, I feel like. . .  When I'm around cats, I feel like. . .  I'm really tired, maybe I should . . .  Our bodies send us sooo many messages.  It is so important to be in tune with them.  Additionally, we have to know our histories!  "Okay, Greatgrandfather died of colon cancer.  Hmmmmm. . .  Maybe I should be more aware of my bowel movements.  Maybe I should cut back on dairy, and make sure I have enough fiber."  So on and so forth.  This stuff is so important!

The most important thing I've learned is that we have to be completely present in every moment, because all we have is right now.  We are not promised tomorrow, or tonight, or two minutes from now.  We have to pay attention, be aware, be present.  It is not enough to say I'm going to change my life.  It is imperative that we actually do it.  People (myself included) spend so much time thinking about how to get to point B five, ten, fifteen years from now, that we don't enjoy, we don't do now.  We get so many lessons and messages every day about the importance of planning for the future.  The entire idea, though, is built on the faulty premise that you can actually control your life.  The reality, however, is that we have very little control. 

 "You can have a pretty picnic, but you can't control the weather."

  

Well, you'd better enjoy that picnic while you can!  Once upon a time, I had a nice little plan for my life.  In fact, I had a plan A, B, and C.  And then there was a hurricane.  Shoot, didn't plan for that.  Things changed.  I was so busy holding on to my plan(s), that I was unable to adjust.  I was battling with a depression that very few people around me were aware of.  I could not get myself together for the life of me.  But the life of me did not stop.  It kept going.  And so I had to let go.  I had to realize where I was at that moment, what was going on in my life right then, and make some decisions.  They might not have been popular, they might have been life-altering, they might not have even been right, but they were mine.  And they made me happy.  And I was blessed because of them.

Sometimes I lose track of the things that I've learned due to all the melee in my mind.  That's when I have to get back to basics. :)

My ancestors talk to me in my sleep.  They tell me things that I need to know.  Last night, I dreamt of a big family gathering.  There was lots of love, lots of laughter, lots of getting reacquainted with folks you haven't seen in years.  There was sadness, awareness of a loss, but there was happiness nonetheless.

Ase.  

Playing catch up: Writing, Renting, and so on.

So much has been going on lately!  I never realized how hard it is to sit in front of this computer.  Normally, I'll have so many ideas.  I'll think to myself a thousand times a day, "I have to write that down!"  But I never do, and then I forget.  

A couple weeks ago, a professor of mine died.  He was so young, and so incredibly smart and talented.  I did not make it to his memorial service.  Instead, I vowed to honor him by taking some advice that he gave to my graduate class a year ago.  He told us to take fifteen minutes out of everyday and write.  It doesn't matter what it is, just as long as you write.  It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be something.  

So I've been trying to do that.  I figured that it shouldn't be that hard.  I've always loved writing.  I'm starting to feel like I've lost it, though.  For the past year, I've been suffering from the most intense writer's block.  I have these really dope thought processes about really random things, and I just want to share them, but as soon as I sit down to type, they vanish.  I guess I just need to do it.  Just follow Chet's advice.  Just write.  You can't get better unless you do it, right?

Here's my five-pronged strategy for becoming a better writer in the new year: 

1. Blog regularly
2. Write poetry
3. Work on my thesis
4. Pitch articles for CR10
5. Review books

Hopefully that will work out well.

We've been looking for a new place to stay.  In the past 3 days, we've looked at 12 houses.  I think we've seen maybe four we liked.  I feel good about it all, though, because we've given ourselves a nice cushion.  The last thing that I want is to be stressed out and not know where we're moving a few weeks before the lease ends.  I'm so ridiculously happy to be moving out of this house that I can't express it with words.  

The only thing I'll miss about living here, I think, is Amani's room.  I gave birth in that room.  There's a lot of emotion attached to that room.  There is definitely some sadness connected to leaving that room.  That's really the biggest downside to renting.  There will always be some memory, some part of you, that you leave behind when your lease is up.  So many things happen in six months, or a year.  You live, you love, you grow.  And then you leave.  I've lived so many places in the past few years, moved so many times.  I've left pieces of me all over.  I'm hoping that soon we'll have a place that is ours.  Someplace to gather up all the pieces that are left and rearrange them, reassemble them, admire them, make a better me.  Someplace to live, love, grow, and stick around for a while.  

(From time to time I realize that I've left a big chunk of me in New Orleans.  Hopefully I can go back and get it soon.  And maybe bring a big piece of the Crescent back with me.)