A Scar Is The Cousin To A Beauty Mark

So the other day, after over a month of dealing, waiting, imagining the worst of all possible scenarios, I finally had the bandage removed from my surgery.

Maybe a little history is needed here: The bandage itself was made of “steri-strips” taped over the wound where the doctor did the cutting. Over time, a collection of gook would form underneath this bandage, which I allowed the drizzle of soap and water from my daily shower to clean. This was the best I could do. After being told by the healthcare pros that I was not to pull on the strips, unless they were ‘very loose’, I became deathly afraid of removing the bandage myself for fear of the gruesome unknown, the fear of being permanently disfigured, and the fear of scaring the freaking horses! Besides all these fears, I’d also been told that the adhesive would wear off on its own so I should not attempt to remove it. But it never did come off on its own.

I have a visiting nurse service where a nurse comes to my home twice a week to take my blood pressure, measure my heart rate, make sure I’m healing, gaining good weight (not the bad weight, a weight composed of mainly fluid which collects in the feet, legs, lungs and eventually the heart, to which would be serious enough to send a patient back to the hospital).

The nurses, in general, are a crew of friendly commandos who are consistently checking up on whether I’m exercising and taking my meds. My main nurse, a feisty lady named Pat, always asks those probing questions about my bodily functions, and whether or not I’m regular. She’s also a helluva teacher who constantly informs me on medical facts I was never aware of, like ….how anesthesia can deaden one’s memory and recall, and how, many patients who leave a hospital will experience a certain degree of memory loss. I am one of those people. I forget shit. Shit, like nicknames of people I’ve known and loved for a long time, and like, suddenly not recalling where I place things, in effect, hiding them from myself! This shit can REALLY frustrate me, since I’ve never been the absentminded type before.

Anyway, Pat would constantly inquire about the mysterious incision beneath the bandage and whether or not I’d cleaned it, seen it, and just when was the mofo gonna finally come off. I figured she was one of the morbid peeps who got off on scars, deformities and those things that turn us into straight-up carnival freaks.
Truthfully, I was not in any hurry to see what lay beneath that damned bandage. When cleaning that area, I could feel this LUMP that was never there before on my upper chest. It reminded me of a goiter or some such gross deformity, so my imagination began to run away with me:

What if I’m reduced to some heinous creature? What if this new physicality repels people, animals and small children? What if I’m a shadow of my former, and yes, mad-glamorous self?

OK. On that last one, I was only joking. I kid. I’m kidding. I’m a kidder. I kids.


But anyway, I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit to the fear of becoming some physical freak. Not only was this new gizmo implanted in my chest making an unsightly bulge and reveal the contour of something strange resting there beneath my skin… but now I would be some new-aged Quasimodo with the kind of scar only rocked by cinema criminals, noir thugs and 1930s-style gangsters.

You have to understand that I’ve always been a very skin-conscious person. I’ve tried to take care of myself in general. After all, one’s outward skin is sort of the epidermis of one’s soul, isn’t it? If something isn’t quite right with it, people and the outside world in general will subconsciously think something is not quite right, internally, with its host.

People can be so cold, so shallow sometimes.

Anyway. I digress.

So, I go to my surgeon’s office, and I‘m mad nervous. After almost a 45 minute wait(WTF!?)I’m asked all the usual suspect questions about swelling, pain, and weight, and meds. My BP is taken and it has elevated from the norm, because frankly being in a doctor’s office makes a brotha kind of tense and anxious. You never know what they’ll tell you. You can go in feeling just fine, and they can so easily burst your positive bubble with a small pin-jab of medical truth.

Lastly, he asks about the incision, and how it feels. Does it bother me? Does it limit my movement? Does it interfere with my sleep. I answer, “yes” to some degree to all the above.

He then asks me when he did the surgery?

You mean he doesn’t remember? Of course not. The man probably performed such surgeries on the daily, to a myriad of different people.

I tell him, May 25th. Hell, even with my current bouts of memory failure I’m pretty sure I’ll never forget it!

He shrugs and says, “Well it’s due time we remove that bandage.”

What I expect will be a slow and delicate maneuver instead turns out to be a quick, unfeeling flip of his wrist which manifests in a quick, unfeeling RIP. After over a month of dealing, waiting, and worrying and imagining the worst of all possible scenarios…

BAM!

He rips that sucka off like he’s mad at it.

He looks at it with a slight squint. Is he repulsed, repelled? Is he admiring his work and nature’s way with healing we mere mortals?

I can’t tell, but a part of me wants to see what the hell he’s gazing at, and yet another part of me wants to flee, to dash down those medicinal hallways down the stairs and out the front doors frightening all the patients and townsfolk, screaming and mumbling Michelangelo!


Somehow, I managed to chill.


Here’s the reality. He hands me a mirror, and BAM: It ain’t ALL that bad. It ain’t that large. It ain’t that hideous. In fact, I think I can live with it. If there could ever be such a thing as cool scar, this one would probably qualify. Adding to this is the fact that getting this scar, and the whole scenario behind it has become the story of how my LIFE came to be saved.

Yes, I’ve always been a sensitive person when it comes to the skin, but this is a scar I can and will wear most proudly. This is the scar that’s enabled me to continue breathing.


Scars. What a concept. What I had saw and had previously thought was that a scar signaled the outward death of our human perfection. Well, truth is I was never perfect. No human being is, so what the hell was I so damn uptight about?


I now choose to see scars as something beautiful. In fact, this scar, my scar is my brand new Beauty Mark!

Behold!




Ain’t it purdy?





Snatch JOY!

One.

Rediscovering One's Own Voice

At the very start I need to preface this entry by stating that, I am NOT a singer. No, that description doesn’t quite fit me, at least not a singer in the true sense or meaning of the word. To me, Pavarotti was a singer. Luther Vandross, Donny Hathaway and Nat King Cole were singers. So, no, in the realest sense of the word or in its truest definition, nah, I’m NOT a singer.


I have, however, been accused of possessing the ability to: ‘carry a tune.’ Yes. Truth be told, I have pretty good pitch, and have performed a mad impressive Seal impression (‘Don’t Crrrrrrrrrrr-i-i—aye-eye… you’re not alone’) in a karaoke bar or two where my efforts were pretty well received. History: I once sang in my junior high school glee club, in my high school chorus, and in a pop soul band in my early 20s. I was that cat who could take a popular song and rework the arrangement and make it sound different, but somehow appealing.

So, I guess you could say I HAD the music in me.


None of this semi-talent would pay my bills and I am and have always been a realist, completely aware of the limitations of this. So, I NEVER went around proclaiming myself to be a ‘singer,’ never did wedding and bar mitzvah thing, never played the chitlin’ circuit, never tried out for Star Search in the 80s.

However, and this is the best thing of all, when you can carry a tune, you can sing quietly to yourself and brighten your mood, keep yourself company, carry a good Zen kinda feeling about the world around you that’s yours and all yours. Maybe people who don’t sing so well, but who love music also feel this way. They can croak and wail and cry like strangled cats and still enjoy themselves, because it’ s really the music that uplifts them.


Well, back in January, shortly after I’d quit smoking… a strange and terrible thing happened. I’d lost my ability to sing. Something about my wind, the sudden shortness in it, the lungs limited capacity and their inability to hold air turned any attempt at singing into a horrible sound that no longer felt or sounded like me. I would try and practice and nothing good or pleasant-sounding ever came of it. My favorite music was no longer something I could sing along with, harmonize with or accompany! This reality would soon add to my depression. Damn! I can’t even self-soothe what ails me with the power of my own voice, because my own voice no longer had any POWER.

I can’t even imagine what people who’ve sang all their lives, or who sing for a living and suddenly lose their voices go through. It must feel like a death felt deep in the spirit, or even worse. All I know for sure it that, for me, something beautiful and necessary was missing and I could feel it. I was reminded of its absence every day . The only place I could sing was in my mind… and that just wasn’t good enough. I needed to HEAR the sound of me, the sound coming directly from my body, my chest, my heart, my throat. My spirit! I needed to experience the colors I was manufacturing through the hues of my moods. I wanted this so badly that if wanting something, alone, made it so, then that wish would have surely been granted. But…

That was 5 mouths ago and I never could get use to it.

I am writing this entry to announce that just as suddenly as it disappeared, I’ve gotten my voice back! I’m learning to SING again. I’ve found or rediscovered my breath, my air, my voice… and this is a HUGE thing for me. It’s like the return of old dear and treasured friend. It’s like all at once music matters again! It’s like that terrible punishment I’ve been under was lifted and the freedom to open my mouth and make a sound that doesn’t hurt anyone’s ears has returned. This wonderful development is still brand new (less than a week old) .

I don’t know if it’s the meds I’m taking for my heart condition or whether the effects of time and much needed rest have conspired to make something mildly miraculous happen, but I’m counting it as a Blessing. Its one more thing in a gang of things I’m finding myself being grateful for. Second chances have been coming my way, and trust me when I state that I’m no longer taking any of them for granted!



Speaking of music and songs sang along to, RIP Michael Jackson, on this the second anniversary of your passing.



One.

A Page of Life From The Really Real!

Hello my friends, readers, people, fam and and lurkers.

This is more a notice than a blog entry. You see, I have been away because of my health. I have literally been at Death's Door for much of this year... (no jest) and for most for this year I was not even aware of it.

Congestive Heart Failure Ain't No Joke!

May 18th is now the day I think of myself as running away from home. I ran from feeble excuses, from confusions, from ignorance and from pat answers. I ran from fear, ran from the sound my own frightened heartbeat, ran from my own fearful voices and straight into the arms of the good doctors at Greenwich Hospital in CT.

After an an immediate EKG, it was deterimined that I had indeed suffered from heart failure, and I was told by more than one doctor that I was a "very, very ill man."
This is serious. This can and has been the death of far too many people.

Staying in a hospital, flat on one's back gives you reason to contemplate and to acknowledge just how fragile we are, and how fragile this thing called LIFE can be.


Sometimes those extended hospital stays are necessary, not only for one's health, but for a recharging of the soul. And so that's where I've been relocated for the last 10 ten days. I was TRYING to get well, trying to find my center, my voice, my freakin' Lin-nesss again. The good physicians and nurses have taken EXCELLENT care of me. I can breathe again.

But there's GOOD news too!

The fear I was living in has been overrriden. I don't think I will die today or tomorrow. There was a time when this seemed almost certain, at least in the quiet of my own mind.

I'm on a proper routine of meds regulated for my condition (which I didn't even KNOW I had)... and best of all I've had an operation that has given me a new lease on life! There is something extra inside my chest now. It feels like prayer but in actuality it is a machine will remain there counting my heart beats, making sure they are steady and strong.

I'm about 20 twenty pounds skinnier, and about 20 years more haunted behind the eyes, but I'm grateful.

The irony of this all is that on the same day the world said goodbye to the gifted writer/singer/activist Gil Scott Heron, was the same day that I was given another chance, a second chance at life.

That must mean something, although I haven't quite figured the grand scheme of things out yet.


I wish you all wonderful health. If there is ever something that doesn't FEEL right, please check it out! We lose people every day simply because we take far too many things for granted.


That's it. That's all. That's everything!

Happy Memorial Day!

Snatch JOY!

One.

Lin

Ode To Phoebe Snow

I hardly write anymore. So much of what moves me to write ultimately breaks my heart. I received sad news today. Sadder than even I'd care to admit. Phoebe Snow, the distinctively voiced singer-songwriter who penned the ’70s radio staple “Poetry Man” and toured with the likes of Jackson Browne, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, and Paul Simon (she appeared on his hit “Gone at Last”), has passed away following complications from a 2010 brain hemorrhage. She was 58. Some reports now give her age as 60.

Please feel free to talk and remember her uniqueness amongst yourselves.

There are certain things that come to mind whenever I hear her name:

For some reason, long ago and far away, as a teen, it always seemed as if this stranger had GOTTEN me... I mean gotten to the heart of me. She was singing directly to my internal self... long before I'd ever gotten to know the me no one else knew; the true and authentic me: Poetry Man. She was calling me out, my behaviors, my shynesses, my ways which were sometimes unexplainable to even me. Folk, jazz and blues were her calling card and she performed each with such soul-deep understanding. Unique is the only word that comes to mind.

A part of the fascination was that you could not so easily tell what she was or who she was. Her racial breakdown was an initial ambiguity, at least from the pictures being marketed around the time of her debut. Her album cover featured a curly-haired woman-child with a host of moles, but colorless skin tone. I get it now. Perhaps those who handled her career wanted her to be seen as anyone and everyone. I mistakingly thought she was bi-racial. When you heard her sing (SANG!)) you somehow KNEW that Black (and Blues) HAD to be involved. Turns out that in reality, she was a soulful Jewish chick with lots of gravitas.

I don't recall ever crying real tears when reading about someone I didn't know personally until I'd happened upon an old Esquire article reviewing the ins, outs and trapwires of Miss Snow's life, her difficulty in finding love, her feelings of being endlessly unworthy, unpretty, her first heartbreak, the death of her first and perhaps only real lover, the birth of her first and only child who would know a host of mental and physical hardships. It was as if Life had handed this one woman every imagined heartbreak, and had only given her this extraordinary voice as payment.

Snow’s self-titled 1974 debut was almost instantly successful, spawning the top-5 hit “Poetry Man” and earning her a 1975 Grammy nod for Best New Artist (she lost to Marvin Hamlisch... ummm WTF?). Many collaborations and several smaller successes followed, though Snow’s career was ultimately sidelined by the care required for her daughter, Valerie, born severely brain-injured in December 1975.

“Occasionally I put an album out, but I didn’t like to tour, and [the albums] didn’t get a lot of label support,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008. “But you know what? It didn’t really matter because I got to stay home more with Valerie, and that time was precious.”

Younger audiences may know her bluesy croon best from commercial jingles—she sang the theme song for the Cosby spinoff A Different World, as well as “Celebrate the Moments of Your Life” for General Foods International Coffees, and was featured in ads for Michelob, AT&T, and Hallmark. She also appeared frequently on Howard Stern, and performed at Stern’s wedding in 2008. Damn! Even HOWARD liked and appreciated her... and she didn't have to strip down to a bikini, or have cold cuts thrown at her ass!

Another GREAT song of hers is the autobiographical HARPO'S BLUES. It's so far and beyond being simply poetic... like the mark of any true artist, it tells you something real and deep about life and living. It is here that she croons:

" I wish I was a willow
And I could sway to the music in the wind
And I wish I was a lover
I wouldn't need my costumes and pretend
I wish I was a mountain
I'd pass boldly thru the clouds and never end
I wish I was a soft refrain
When the lights were out I'd play
And be your friend
I strut and fret my hour upon the stage
The hour is up
I have to run and hide my rage
I'm lost again
I think I'm really scared
I won't be back at all this time
And have my deepest secrets shared
I'd like to be a willow
A lover, a mountain or a soft refrain
But I'd hate to be a grown-up
And have to try to bear my life in pain
I wish I was a soft refrain
When the lights were out I'd play
And be your friend
I strut and fret my hour upon the stage
The hour is up
I have to run and hide my rage
I_m lost again
I think I'm really scared
I won't be back at all this time
And have my deepest secrets shared
I_d like to be a willow
A lover, a mountain or a soft refrain
But I'd hate to be a grown-up
And have to try to bear my life in pain

I wish I was a willow
And I could sway to the music in the wind
And I wish I was a lover
I wouldn't need my costumes and pretend
I wish I was a mountain
I'd pass boldly thru the clouds and never end
I wish I was a soft refrain
When the lights were out I'd play
and be your friend
I strut and fret my hour upon the stage
The hour is up
I have to run and hide my rage
I'm lost again
I think I'm really scared
I won't be back at all this time
And have my deepest secrets shared
I'd like to be a willow
A lover, a mountain or a soft refrain
But I'd hate to be a grown-up
And have to try to bear my life in pain
I wish I was a soft refrain
When the lights were out I'd play
and be your friend
I strut and fret my hour upon the stage
The hour is up
I have to run and hide my rage
I'm lost again
I think I'm really scared
I won't be back at all this time
And have my deepest secrets shared
I'd like to be a willow
A lover, a mountain or a soft refrain
But I'd hate to be a grown-up
And have to try to bear my life in pain
."

Damn, that song made me wanna cry, long after I was waaaay too old to be crying, like a baby, in the fetal position. She could DO that shit to you! I loved Phobe Snow. I loved the things her voice could do, the place it could take me, the way it could lift you up from darknesss and I think that was the gift she brought to her own life.



I will miss her in all her sublime and soulful and sadness.


One Love.

imprisoned, age seven

imprisoned, age seven



it is frozen

inside a sepia photograph. & i

am forever

its imprisoned child.

the dark brown child

grimacing inside, when the white

photographer demanded


"smile..." this is what

"happy" looked like

at seven. after

my father

brushed & greased my

defiant, black hair

into some semblance of


a part. tied a noose around my neck... &

fashioned from my squirming,

crying, wildness this

upright afro-

american child.


& so...

half-heartedly

slyly, then rebelliously, i

became "him"... this

little brown clown of

robotic assimilation.


posed, frozed in his

best sunday clothes, until

he did not look, or feel

or even smell like me.



"smile..." you little fool


this one's for

prosperity.






One.



 
© 2006 by L.M.Ross moaningmanblues

Rest in Peace, "Bessie May!"

"Marilyn Monroe was the sex goddess, Grace Kelly the ice queen, Audrey Hepburn the eternal gamine. Ms. Taylor was beauty incarnate." New York Times-Mel Gussow Screen Legend Elizabeth Taylor passed today, and I'm not feelin' too good myself. She was 79 years old, and she lived a life of great contrasts in happiness, fame, illness, sadness, triumph. Since early childhood she is remembered for her stunning dark beauty and violet eyes. Although physically blessed with otherworldly glamour, she also managed to seem very fragile and very much human. She went on to win two Oscars, marry 8 husbands, give birth to four children, and become the number one spokesperson for people with AIDS the world over. All in all, Dame Elizabeth Taylor was quite a broad!








When you happen to be beautiful in your youth, it's a whim, an accident of genetics. When you're truly beautiful in later years it has everything to do with the size of your spirit and the shape of your heart. Actress Elizabeth Taylor may well have been one of the most physically beautiful females ever created, and then... later, in her Third Act of Life, she earned that beauty by the physical and humane acts of BEING Elizabeth Taylor.

I've always admired that quality.


Rest in Peace, "Bessie May!"


One.

LMR

Inner Peace:

If you can smile like an imbecile, without a worry in your brain
If you can start the day with no nicotine or little caffeine,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring others with your troubles,
If you can eat plain food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,

...Then You Are Probably The Family Dog!







Bet ya thought I was about to get all spiritual on your azzes, didn't you..?



One.

6 Weeks Later, And Still, That Bastard Nic Is Trying To Fade Me!

I wish I could report that I’m maxin’ privately in Tahiti, laying in a hammock, sipping on a tangy island potion, all smoke-free, all contented, all chi-released, all chill, and loving every minute of it! But that would be a damn lie; a vast and blatant UNTRUTH. The truth is I’m livin’ la vida LOCO, all looped and lost in that special loneliness of another non-smokers Blues.


See, after engaging in that vile habit for over 20 yrs, inhaling, on average, 8-10 butts a day, I found quitting much easier than what I thought it would be...at the beginning, at least.

But as days and weeks passed, there came so many of those dreaded quitters symptoms, also, a very strange phenom I later discovered was called “quitter’s flu” (more on that strangeness later).

This is life presently: I can be going through the normal, for me, activities. Then, out of nowhere, I’ll get this dull, but growing pain in the center of my stomach. That’s always the first sign that something ain’t right. This pain will begin to gnaw and twist and literally crawl up my torso, then find a home inside my chest. This causes my heart to beat quicker, and my lungs to work in tightened gasps. This begins to feel like a panic attack. In fact, it mimics one to the fullest. The first few times this happens, it can literally FREAK YOU OUT!

You think: I’m going to diiiiiie!

Lying down only makes it worse. There’s just no comfortable spot. That night panic attack consumes you to the point where you HAVE to GET UP, walk around, open a window and feel some brisk winter wind on your face!

With me, this tightening chest, crazy uncomfortable sensation lasts a few minutes, and then it passes. The thing is, you Don’t Die!

The human body constantly amazes me with the tricks and games it will play. It even messes with your mind until the reality it manufactures BECOMES your ONLY reality.

Some people have called it a demon, and maybe it is. I now think of nicotine as a silent monster that viciously morphs, constricts, enlarges and changes its shape.
I quit smoking, cold turkey, on December 18th, a week before Xmas. It really wasn’t as difficult as I’d feared it would be (at least at the beginning). What I’d noticed beside the craving to light up, were the strange cramping pains in my belly. But that was only the beginning of the process, BEFORE the Demon Nic began to launch its cruelest tricks on me.



I mean DAMNNNNNN! Isn't it beyond IRONIC that once you STOP smoking it's THEN that the habit takes your breath away, at will??? I could be having a conversation, not even thinking about cigs, or be busy at work, and SUDDENLY it’s like someone hit me square in my chest with a 2 x 4, and the wind gets knocked clear out of me! Scary shit!

Because this has happened before, and then it stopped for several days, I was tricked by The Arrogant Nic; tricked and bamboozled into believing that scurry-ass symptom was gone! A thing of the past. Coooolness! Life was getting lovelier, and I could breeeeeathe again!

But NOOOOOOO! The Ghost of Nic was only biding its time, cunningly planning its next mortal attack. So it keeps happening, again and again. DAMN! When it does happen, I’ll try like hell to shake it off, to be normal, act normal, when normal is some three-dimensional flick not yet shown in the theatre of my head.

So this THING will come on me, big time, and I’ll try NOT to allow the quickness of this panic begin to affect others, but it’s in THOSE moments you feel like, OH LAWD! “THIS IS THE BIG ONE! I’m comin' to join you Elizabeth!” I’m not an actor. I can’t simply put on my cool-face, and act completely unaffected when that unexpected Nic craving has damned near CRIPPLED and toppled me to the ground!

But even worst than this is when you are trying to fall asleep at night. For me, that’s an impossibility!

You lie down. You’re sleepy. You need to rest. It would be next to heaven just to rest. But that bitch-gremlin in the belly begins to bite and as soon as you FEEL it, you KNOW! You KNOW it will soon latch onto your chest, and suck out your wind, and make your heart feel as if its collapsing, and there’s NO position you can switch into to ease the attack. You begin to cough. Not just some short little throat-clearing cough, but a LOUD, hacking, damn-near breath-stoppin cough!!! I mean, this is a serious madness COUGH!!!! And it doesn’t let up! You realize NEVER in all those YEARS of smoking, you'd NEVER COUGHED like that!!! This is that Hard Nic Craving COUGH… and it’s trying with all its might to STRANGLE your ass! You’re afraid to even close your eyes and TRY to sleep, because the mucus crawling up your system feels as if it will wrap itself around your trachea and murder you in your sleep. So you sit up in bed, and allow this thing to have its way with you! Existing in a state of mad anxiety, your mind begins to think maybe it’s better to live w/ THAT...than to risk falling asleep… only to never awaken again! It’s MURDA, yo!

So, for the past two weeks and counting, I have NOT known a decent night’s sleep!!!! It's strictly Vampire Hours for me. This causes a lotta unhealthy stuff, but the thing I never expected: hallucinations. I literally see plumes of smoke unfurling in my bedroom, and there isn’t a trace of smoke around. Lights flicker, flash on and off, and I’m the only one who notices it. In the dark, shadows of furniture become people, actual factual people I silently converse with, until I remind myself that no matter how REAL this all seems, it’s ALL a figment of my damaged, nic-ravaged mind!

It makes you wonder, WHY isn’t this getting BETTER? Why, now, after being SIX weeks smoke-free is it pulling this crazy shit? Why does it feel as if my entire respiratory system's shutting DOWN like THIS?


For my birthday, because I’d been housing this overwhelming need to preserve some slight piece of sanity, I’d gotten some nicotine gum. Nice gift. And although at first that seemed like taking a step backward, it actually helped, a little.


Extreme Junkie Awareness Moment: It was NOT until I’d placed that first piece on my tongue that I knew the True Meaning of RELIEF! It was INSTANT, yo! Like a addict feenin’, almost dying in the streets, then, to suddenly, miraculously receive that much-needed JOLT of a needle’s prick! BAM! It was soooooooo Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! DELIGHTFUL!! And all that damn PAIN was GONE! My mind, my body, my entire SOUL hummmmmmmmmmed. I was experiencing NIRVANA. I could not believe the quick-bliss-kiss I was getting in return for all that PAIN! You realize throughout these weeks of agony, that Bastard Nic was twisting its knife inside you and simply screaming: FEED ME!



But that ain’t no cure, yo. It only dulls the feelings of loss and desperation. It only gives the raging organs, a calmer, more livable pause from those chronic protests.

Here are some the changes I've noticed, some of which are things I have never heard about in those notorious anti-smoking campaigns:

“Quitter’s Flu” : WTF???? But that’s a helluva name for it! Imagine getting the worse case of the flu you’ve ever had in your life, and experiencing every single symptom without ACTUALLY HAVING it! I mean, harsh coughing, body aches, nausea, chills, fevers, sweats, running nose, chest pains, depleted appetite, chills, physical weakness, sore throat, loss of voice, the sleeplessness, and more. These all come along with the package.

Irritability has sometimes made me very creative, even active (until that crushing chest thing happens again!). I’ll clean the house, go shopping... answer email, but while out and about I’ll also witness signs of road rage...and a general feeling that I was becoming something I did not dig at all.

Bloating. Oh damn! Gone is my once-trim 32-inch waist! I’m now sporting this season’s latest bloated belly that resembles a pregnant woman, in her third-trimester!!! It’s hard to ROCK that, yo!

I would not complain (much) about this physical vanity, IF I were eating like a madman. The truth is I have NO appetite! Food still has NO taste! I live on water and fruits. I can’t even eat a whole burger any more, without throwing it away. Food tastes like cardboard, so I figure WHY ingest more empty calories if I can’t ENJOY them? So to SEE this mass form around my middle section seems like another cruel and vicious joke from this freakin’ Nic monsta!


Sometimes, when it’s 3:15am, and I can’t sleep, again, I try to convince myself that I’m actually doing something positive for me, my friends and family.

I just HAVE to believe, that, with time, things will be getting back to normal...the thing is, I cannot think of how. All these so-called experts talk about withdrawal symptoms that last for a few days, or even a few weeks. Really? Then I recently spoke to someone who has been smoke-free for 7 months and she’s still trying to convince herself she’s doing the right thing.

Yes, I know the human body was not designed to inhale thousands of toxic chemicals...but someone has to try and explain the side-effects of quitting too, so that we do not feel we should be going back to cigarettes.

Suddenly, I can recall something I once said to a friend of mine who was so damned INTO health and fitness, and carving the perfect body: “Coolness. You're ripped. You don't drink, you don't smoke, you don't stay out late...good for you… maybe you’ll l die perfectly healthy!”

Sometimes it just makes you wonder if all this pain is REALLY worth it. I really hope it proves to be.

That’s it. That’s all.

:-/

One.

It's MY Burfday... I'll Be Verbose If I Want To!

This is my Natal Day Song To Me. I am composing this entry on the eve of my Natal Day… the anniversary of my first breath, first obstacle, first scream, first cry, first bitch, first song, first moan, first piss, first enfant terrible protest...

I pen this as another year reels and rolls and undulates before me like the hips of a dangerous strip-teaser.

And I come unraveling too, baby… yes, this crafty Capricornian comes at you, unraveling my drag, in metaphor galore, prose by poetic prose, until I'm all nuded up and naked as new birth. Oooweee! Can you stand a more naked me… naked in word and deed… naked in this most mortal coil, naked in my vulnerability?

This evening, I am more likely to be a soft blue refrain played quietly in those insanely late night hours. I am more likely to be dancing a slow-slow-grind under single a red bulb on the dance-floor of my mind. I am more likely to be the sublime subtext beneath that knowing glance I could never quite define or seem to finesse at 21 or 25, or even at 30.

Until recently, I would likely to be lost to that drag at the end of a long cigarette… and framed by the smoke exhaled after it. Instead of this, I am feeling the strains of new pains, new challenges, new things erecting in my psyche, effecting my rhythm, my breathing, wrecking havoc on my sleep patterns, making demands upon my heart, spirit and brain.

Meanwhile, this here be my constipated BIRTHDAY SOLILOQUY… no jazz refrain played softly to assist or regain my rhythm. There's-- just me-- solo, my instrumental improvised on these keys. Color me Thelonious Moanman. That's who I be, tonight.

What I’d like is to reencounter my inner child, go back to my initial negro, my pure, unadulterated angelic other… in short, as Joni Mitchell once wrote: I’d like to get myself “ back to the garden.”

Methinks we’ve some things to work on, work through, work out, renew, recapture, refine, revisit and redesign.

Smell me? Please feel free to reread if in case you got lost in the heaviosity.


Slowly, but surely with age, we begin to dismiss the bullshit pieces and pages and chapters from the book of our lives. Slowly but surely we pick up the gist of the things that Matter.

What matters most to me, is that I still aspire to inspire and to share my passion’s fire. I aspire to Love and to be loved in return, to write and to be heard, to touch and to be touched.


Yes. This is my song to me. It is penned by crescent moon, by starlight and the swoon of sanctuary. There's, just me, solo, my instrumental improvised on these keys. So color me, Thelonious Moanman. That's who I be tonight.


My keyboard has many letters, many notes, and many keys to play on, play on! My pen flows with multitudinous colors and these reflect all the hues to my soul. And all of them may be beautiful— and ugly, too.

Realizing this, I must be here for a reason beyond some inarticulate existence, beyond the rules of ram and cyber transmission, beyond electronic riffs of poetry and shit, beyond this cathode ray tubage, and so I am grateful to be among the still-living.

And this, this is my song to me, my rhythm and blues suite, sang acapella… on this, my Natal Day. Ooh-wee, can you stand such beauty! No, not a beauty composed of vanity, but the beauty of a Gift bestowed upon me, the Gift of Letting the JOY unfold; the Gift that's grown Strong from years of pain, fantasy, struggle, disappointment and perseverance, a Gift that's ultimately grown wiser, surer of its appointment with destiny.

So, this is my song to me, composed by crescent moon, the glow of starlight and the improved prose of sanctuary. There'll be no sad jazz refrain played softly to assist or regain my rhythm's kick. There's, just me, solo, my instrumental played upon these keys. Color me, Thelonious Moanman. That's who I be, tonight.

I pen this riff in selfish celebration, with determination that despite those theories of me being stardust and million year old carbon, I plan to live my Life, like it's Golden.

In the end, it matters not, what name, what number we christen this year, this month, this day to truly be… it only matters that we paint it golden and MAKE it matter.

But whether in times of good or bad and no matter my hue, I'll be sho nuff be Snatching JOY! And I invite YOU to join me.

So, Happy Natal Day to me! Now, could somebody please bring in the damn cake!






One.

 

Reflecting Upon Dr. King’s Legacy

In his short 39 years on earth, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr witnessed the all- encompassing darkness of injustice, and yet, was continuingly imbued by the Light of Destiny.

In his short 39 years on earth, he'd loved us so much as a people, that he would dedicate his entire life to fighting so valiantly on our behalf.

In his short 39 years on earth, he’d chosen purpose over power, right over might and freedom over finance.

In his short 39 years on earth, he’d chosen to embrace his capacity to Love over the treacherous tripwires of hatred.

In his short 39 years on earth, he possessed the emotional intelligence and sher boldness of heart to diagnose (& tried like hell to remedy) this great American Sickness.

THANK YOU for giving your life to protests and marches leading to jail cells and speeches, and by doing so, with your time here, you made an immeasurable difference.

THANK YOU for being a shining example, and not some foul and flawed excuse.

THANK YOU for being reflective of the very Best in us, our hearts, our spirits, in our potential as a people and a Nation.

THANK YOU for possessing a strain of Greatness which will never be unsurpassed.

* * *





Martin Luther King, Jr., The Measures of Man, 1959.

“Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy.”



Happy 82nd Birthday, Dr. King!


One Love.