Red Lipstick: Given Homage to how life can work sometimes...

Red Lipstick: Given Homage to how life can work sometimes...





"Let your past make you better, Not bitter"~ Unknown

Jonathon Green,artist



Today would have been my 1st born son Donovan Perri's 40th BD had he lived. He died @ 2 1/2mos from what we now know as SIDS.






Tomorrow would have been my third born son Joshua Marion-Roi's 35th BD had he lived. He drowned tragically in my landlord pool.






There is this thing called anniversary grief that those who have lost a love one can well attest to. Time does not heal wounds. What it can give you is time...






You change and you see things perhaps from a different perspective as you move through the tide of time. Everything must change... nothing stays the same including how or which way you grieve.

When I was a young mother at the time of both their deaths age 21 at the time of Donovan's death and 31 at the time of Joshua's I wasn't sure if I could ever breathe properly. In fact at age 21 that year was a fog once I was told about Donovan. I was alone. Even at his funeral it was only me, my 2 daughters, the baby sitter at his services. I went through motions and it took a year before I could breathe properly.




Donovan was what people would have called a "good" baby quiet & easy to care for. He was a beautiful baby and was very close in personality to his older sister Andrea.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq0XJCJ1Srw




Then Joshua came into my heart.



I went into labor on would have been Donovan's 4th BD. I prayed that I would not give birth on that day naively, feverishly thinking somehow that would have meant I could keep him.




Well it didn't although I "kept" him in essence for 7 years. Joshua was indeed born on a Sunday Morn which in essence why this song by Angela Bofill entitled "Rainbow Child, (Little Pas) that she wrote ironically in 1979 2 years before Joshua's death when she experience the tragic death of her nephew.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LdQHCdH5VY

Almost a decade later, I choreographed a dance based on this song & danced  beautifully by my daughter Trishaa in homage to her brothers.

Somehow I made a pact with myself that their lives would not be in vain. It wasn't a conscious pact not much different then my praying that Joshua would not be born on Donovan's BD, but the pact was there. Through the subsequent years I held up that pact; other years failed miserably. But I kept on getting up.


So here I am 40 years later still vertical, still caring still falling and yet even moreso getting up. In a small sense of irony, the day before the anniversary of Joshua's drowning I have a exhibition opening reception on Nov 11th. Joshua's ashes were flown out to sea on Nov 22nd which with even more irony would have been my wedding anniversary if the marriage lasted. My former husband and I separated for the last time a few months after he died.

There was no resurrection, that ship had sailed.
But I was still here!

I'm still here.

It also was for those who would remember the date of the assassination of John F. Kennedy so it would be near impossible for me to "forget" as if I would really want that to be.

Since I had more time with Joshua I can tell you how apropos this song was. He more then Donovan was remarkably like me in personality. Joshua was like cayenne pepper, adventuresome, bold, curious, imaginative a heart as big as all outdoors.

He was bold, funny highly intelligent for someone so young. And I do not say that through the scrim of time and grief. He was a special kid well like & popular even when he would drive you crazy with his high energy living. And lived he did.


Loved Star Wars, water was strong like the fictional character from the Flintstones Bamm Bamm.

So ones would know this does not take away from my living children as tey have all grown into beautiful, responsible, capable caring human beings who in their own individual ways are making their mark on the world.  I simply wished that my sons also had the same opportunities.


This morning I got up not necessarily feeling down more of a there were a couple of matters that needed to be said to some people that I had not said a few months ago as I wisely thought to give it time and would come back to revisit.


I revisited...



It wasn't a telling you off kind of visitation, more of this is where things are at & I get why it happened but now I simply want an adjustment & we will be "adjusted".


I had adjusted so this was really the epilogue.




Life can work itself out if we allow it and get out of the way of ourselves given time. So I put on my red lipstick and got out of the way.




So today I pay homage to my sons & continue to function well as one can be with whatever life and living issues. I can be bold, fearless, adventuresome, funny and have a big heart as large as all outdoors. AND I can also be quiet, easy going and good as circumstances can allow. I continue to revisit my ownself, making adjustments corrections caring for things not cared for, hoping that ones will bear with me as this is indeed a work in progress.



Know full well again that everything must change.



And we can.

We do...
We must, whether we want it to or not...

Life will continue to work.

Jonathon Green, artist




"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could"...~- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer




www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKIIYk8tdgE

Poetic License~For all we Have-Kipling

aalallalltallthallthiInteresting how this ties in so much to 2011 culture! 


"For All We Have and Are" 
Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936 

 

Stand up and meet the war. 
The Hun is at the gate! 
Our world has passed away 
In wantonness o'erthrown. 
There is nothing left to-day 
But steel and fire and stone. 

Though all we knew depart, 
The old commandments stand: 
"In courage keep your heart, 
In strength lift up your hand." 

Once more we hear the word 
That sickened earth of old: 
"No law except the sword 
Unsheathed and uncontrolled," 
Once more it knits mankind, 
Once more the nations go 
To meet and break and bind 
A crazed and driven foe. 

Comfort, content, delight -- 
The ages' slow-bought gain -- 
They shrivelled in a night, 
Only ourselves remain 
To face the naked days 
In silent fortitude, 
Through perils and dismays 
Renewd and re-renewed. 

Though all we made depart, 
The old commandments stand: 
"In patience keep your heart, 
In strength lift up your hand." 

No easy hopes or lies 
Shall bring us to our goal, 
But iron sacrifice 
Of body, will, and soul. 
There is but one task for all -- 
For each one life to give. 
Who stands if freedom fall? 
Who dies if England live? 


 




One of his most popular poems: 

If 

IF you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; 
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 
But make allowance for their doubting too: 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, 
Or being hated don't give way to hating, 
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; 

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master; 
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim, 
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster 
And treat those two impostors just the same: 
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken 
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, 
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools; 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
And lose, and start again at your beginnings, 
And never breathe a word about your loss: 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 
To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 
Or walk with Kings -- nor lose the common touch, 
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, 
If all men count with you, but none too much: 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son! 

Rudyard Kipling 

Move Along...Please!

 

Miranda Wu,photographer 

I so dislike the term "move on". It needs an early retirement.  I am only saying out loud what some others are thinking, but won't say anything because they have er, ah, ahem "moved on? 

Moving on is a myth; unalterable things do indeed change us; we find ways to work with it around it or through it. We function more or less as well as we can with the things that are thrown at us. 

We may regroup, we may restructure, we may even generate a new life! But I so get weary of hearing the phrase move on with usually is preceded with "get over". It is in my Top Ten words are phrases that truly needs to be gotten over! 

I mean what is that we really have to "get" to "move"? 

I GET move on because we got the beat, I GET we should shake our groove thing to move to better health (and because it is pure fun), I even GET why some folks like Lady Gaga 

 

or Justin Beiber! 

 

But why are we in such a rush when something happens to move on? 

True, there are some things that honestly way too many people spend way too much time agonizing over something that really at the end of the day doesn't have anything to do with the price of tea in China. However now we have swung far too much to the other end of the pendulum with that phrase using it so indiscriminately now that people tossing it around so casually as if worrying about well lets say oh almost everything until it is beaten into being almost unrecognizable submission. 

And then what? 

Oh yes then we have to take "the journey". Never thought life was a journey. 

 

Mark Gilbreath,photographer 

I thought it was. uh, living! 

Truly I am not putting anyone down, so please do not think I am criticizing the reader if you do indeed use these phrases. 

My annoyance is in sometimes in the U.S. with people thinking "moving on" is some laudable point & by simply uttering the words, though more like hurtling them at someone, that they all of a sudden become enlighten the issue is gone and life is great!  Life is great even when there is the challenge or a temporary glitch! 


There is no shame or less virtue if someone gives some honor or dignity to the suffering or the sometimes painful work that one is dealing with .  There's a distinct difference in that and wallowing in the vomit, so to speak. 


 No one, absolutely no one can decide for the person when/ how/ why they should go from deal with it (facing the issue)  to dealing with it  (working on it) or have dealt with it (now finished). 


I submit, having a sneaky suspicion, that usually the one saying that to someone's plight whether real or imagined, is more about THEIR inability to perhaps cope (well) with whatever may be bugging THEM.  We've come up with really weird ways of feeling enpwered, more & more of using tactics to disempower others so we get a self-satisfied smugness by saying "Oh we're not like them".


Yes, someone could say that is what I am doing, but so you know...


I'm dealing with it!

I am saying can we find something else another word another phrase or something? 

There are big ole dictionaries, thesaurus and the Internet where there is a wealth of words to use! I think when we reduce things to a few catch phrase, it diminishes the speaker & the hearer as if "perhaps we are to busy to really care much so let me just toss this out and that should be enough for the moment because I simply do not have the time or want to be bothered". Or have we've become such a microwaved society that we have rushed headlong into the "culture of busyness" to feel important or to drown out what is really happening? 

And while we are rushing do we really accomplish much. Oh yes that's right we have to we must Multi-task as if that is a requirement or even worse a virtue and if you can't or won't something is wrong with YOU! 

We talk at each other, we've reduce words down to "wl C U 2morrow tnx " with now a whole generation cannot spell any longer and depend far too much on spell check... Or now we have to use Wiii so our children can get some exercise because they have lost the ability to move on... 

Make no mistake I am not saying we need the good old days, because if the truth be told the good old days weren't all that good. We see it through the scrim of time & nostalgia & selective memories but then again, I guess I can say that because... 

I've moved on...  

 

If it Doesn't Fit.. You must Remit

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it.~-- Maya Angelou 

 

Looking through the Window in the Mill -ECO Village at Sabres in the Landes France ~Photographer Jackie Walker 


Ok y'all I am getting ready to do some serious "cyber kicking booty" today! I was writing something to a group of  amazing friends today when something struck me that was said which I've heard many a day from many a person and that is in regard to when things go bad people will beat themselves up for having a "pity party". 


As I am reading I am wondering so what in the world is wrong with a pity party? 

pit·y: 

Noun: The feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others. 

par·ty: A group of people who have gathered to participate in an activity. ... 

re·mit: Verb: Cancel or refrain from exacting or inflicting (a debt or punishment) 

I know having any sense of anything but a keep a stiff upper lip is reminescent of the Christian-Puritan pull yourself up by your bootstraps there are people who have it worst then you  hysterical background of the U.S. but c'mon now.  People get rewarded somehow no matter how perverse it is if we suffer but suffer silently, don't bother me by showing your grief.  If we cannot be kind, merciful and yes pitied our circumstance how on earth can we show it for anyone else? 

Shucks, man if I had that kind of pain, anxiety & sorrow that some deal with I would have a massive blow out of a party. It is a painful, no pun intended, that some circumstances are so horrendous for some that anyone of us under the same situation would go running screaming into the woods. 

Each one of us have our own challenges that we have to contend with each and everyday.  Some are so awesome it would take one's breath away.   I am always encouraged & excited when I see or read of each and everyone of you as you find a way to manage to have some sort of a life each and every day! 


Whether perfect or ideal, don't matter, you are living! Your humanity shows!

Having compassion is important. 

And its legal... 


And its alright...


And should be done, regularly...
It is pity with power and who better to empower yourself but yourself? And sometimes that means g'wan and have that party, have that sorrow, blow it out big time , then put it away, clean up and get up! 

I was thinking the other night as I was in my bed in my new place & thinking "wow I am now a year with no discernable income how on earth did this happened? How on earth did I managed to survive not knowing from one day to the next how I am going to do it? How on earth did I make it through a year"? 

But I did. 

And before I could feel badly, I realized I have been held up mightily with strength beyond what is normal , not of my own design... I am in awe and gratfeul for big and small, people who have stepped up to the plate in many ways & held me up; not knowing where I would be right now if I had not continued and persisted. 

No by no shape am I out of the woods. I cannot even tell you what will happened next day let along next week. I just have to be like Celie (from the Color Purple) when she said to Nettie: 

"I don't know how to fight back. I know how to stay alive". 

 
Pond- ECO Village at Sabres in the Landes France ~Photographer Jackie Walker 


In essence that is all that everyone of us is doing. 


Now then, if it doesn't fit, we must remit! 

Whatever it takes to not give something or someone more power then they earn in your life.   Give it the exit strategy, let it go wherever it need to go, just not flow with you.  It ain't easy, brother. It will hurt, lots. Some days you wil be far more magnanimous about things then others, some days you will want to scream to high heavens. But everything has a beginning & an end. It has already begun but now you have to wait for the end. 

I think we have to have a pity party once in awhile. Having pity is not a bad thing, people need to find ways to have more compassion (pity). We are not talking about being self-indulgent; we know what that looks like, but even if we indulge for a moment to be kind to ourselves and what we are dealing with so be it! 

Let it be.... 

I will say again at the end of the day, this too , I promise you, will pass. What is that song George Benson used to do "everything must change/nothing stays the same"... 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBgcgzBi-is&
feature=related 

So let us remit: 1.To refrain from exacting (a tax or penalty, for example); cancel.
b. To pardon; forgive: 

3. To restore to a former condition or position. 
 
Orchid~Photography by Mark Gilbreath 


"Never miss an opportunity to make others happy, even if you have to leave them alone in order to do it". ~Author Unknown