Not Yet and Not First.

There is no one or nothing to blame. You just do not know and despite the best efforts you never will. My love right now is jealous and possessive. My heart is being held in the most precious hands and I wish beyond the greatest strength that every part of me could stay there. I am moving forward because my body knows it has to. My mind is living in a world of memory and imagination and will be until it becomes reality. I cannot let go. Not yet and not first.

Imagine Your Creation

I am learning to smile through my own defeat, to dance as if it is only me, to speak up for I am my only voice and to let my own laughter lift my heart. I am learning the beauty of my own creation. To create is constant. Do not stop and stand trying to find yourself. Your existence is now and your complete self has never been. You cannot find who you are; you can only find things to help create who you want to be. I am learning not only to create, but to imagine such creation.

Best Time Bath Time

If you listen, close your eyes and really listen, a gentle hush falls over a country. As the sun begins to barely break dawn small bundles of stripped palm leaves are held and swept over the land. Today it is outside my window. Today it is my turn; my turn to do the best I can at stepping into a life that has played itself over way before I came and will continue to do so after I leave. Emerging from the doorway I step out with an outreached hand enclosing my fingers over the gentle grooves of a handmade broom. My feet make their way step by step in calculated patterns sweeping at twigs, fallen leaves and torn remnants of a balloon that received one puff of oxygen too many. As the sun hits me with its gentle warmth now raised just above eye level all I am left with are small piles at my feet. Piles collected into a bucket with a twig broom and scrap of metal, and then walked to a dugout in the neighboring yard for rubbish. Sweat trickles down my spine as I then collect a bucket to fetch water for bathing. A cement block houses two taps, one large basin, a bucket and a crowd of people. Five Pesewas (five cents) later I walk away with a brimming bucket into the cement walls of the bath. Standing at armpit height once inside the bath is like a maze that decided it did not want to be after all. Three quick steps in, a turn to the left and the mazes center presents itself in an open square. Setting down my bucket on a centered cement block I reveal myself to what became the favorite part of my day; the favorite part of each day morning and night. Holding a small pail I scoop at the rippling water. The water hits my heated skin making its way through till it is a metal fist clamping my lungs. With quick breaths like someone hiding in a closet waiting to be found in a game of hide n' seek my body adjusts to the icy cool and I smile to myself. As I bath I am surrounded by the movement of the village; Men and women carrying machetes along with assortments of buckets and basins heading off to farm, heads bobbing past with buckets of water, schoolchildren passing into the courtyard to buy rice on their way to school and the general milling of conversation. It is the lives of these very people that I have been blessed to learn from. To provoke change in my life I am taking part in lives of the majority of a world, the greater part of a planet, as ironic as that seems. Although I am not sure I could ever express exactly what I have learned I have been taught to feel. Behind thoughts that I had and thoughts I have been given is new feeling. A physical presence in my heart that will forever affect how I think and the decisions I make. As the last droplets of water escape down my face the first of two favorite parts to my day comes to a close. A warm glow rises and spreads out in another smile as I stand and watch the people who stirred me to feel. A country that wakes up in a hush of sweeping has swept through and cleared some cobwebs from my heart instilling a bit more understanding.

Sometimes You Can Only Stutter

At times my mind cannot control the images of memory. What my eyes have seen, my ears have heard, my nose has smelt and what my body has endured overwhelms the organization of my brain. Thoughts race, saunter and flicker through my head allowing me to only briefly know all of what I wish I could say. So many emotions can be tied to the same image that words are too many. In my eagerness to speak is the perfection of saying it all. If I can only find the words for one path then I feel what is offered barely expresses the truth in completion. To express my truth means coming from all directions. Each direction comes in from different angles, heights and speeds. I cannot write now what I wish to share. I can only wait with you while each path finds me and I am allowed time enough to try and let you in.

Give Me What I Cannot Hold

The less one has the less one feels they have to give. So why is it the more one acquires the more selfish they can become? Is it the feeling that you have that much more to lose so you must hold on to it all a little tighter? Technically speaking if you 'have' more then don't you simply have more to give? Maybe we are asking to receive the wrong things. Maybe we are forgetting how much you can give without using your hands. Give your time. Share your knowledge. Be there for someone when they need. Give a smile. Share who you are; we all have that to give. I never asked for your things. So when did giving directly relate in proportion to possessions? My mind has been refreshed through many experiences in which it seemed the heart could not give enough from the person it belonged. Someone who perhaps had very little in possession and on the scale of things therefore little to give. I have been given so much help in such a genuine way that all I can ever do is stand in awe. One mentality seems to say "I only have this, but I have it to share." The other states "I have all this, these things are mine." Where is the balance between these two ends? The first direction is awareness; something I have acquired during my time here. The next direction I guess is feeling for your own answers. Maybe then it is your duty to live out these answers. This is just the feeling I have. The feeling that is comprised greatly from the care I have for the people I have learnt so much from that I will make a difference starting in myself.

"I won't be able to sleep"

There are those people who read their bodies easily. The ones who say no to coffee or maybe coke past eight o'clock pm as they "won't be able to sleep." I was never one of those people. Partly because I will never say yes to coffee as I just do not like it and mostly because I could always sleep. How to get over this? Put your body in a situation where food does not vary far and do not eat sweets for months. I am now one of 'those' people. It happened innocently enough when I thought maybe I would pick up a chocolate bar all the hawkers were walking with: some 100% Ghana cocoa. I ate it and it was good. Then I lay in bed till three in the morning. Not good. Did that ever suck. No matter the desperation I felt to suck myself under into the peace of sleep I only remained more desperate. All I could do was listen to my mind in its own desperation, "chelsea...chelsea...hey...hey what are you doing...you wanna do something..should we, should we talk?" Tossing, turning and cursing the chocolate finally it was morning and I needed to get up. It only took one nights lack of peace for me to read my body. In some sense it has not happened again. I choose these words because there is still the issue of care packages. Little boxes of love from family. More often than not love comes in the form of edibles. Now when you have the privilege of time on your hands as I do what else do you do but consume it all within the week. Now though I know better than to let anything pass my lips past six. That means I am left with the benefits of being this kind of sensitive: mid-afternoon jitters and spurts of energy. Thanks fam.

Blessed Imaginings

Inside the mind of a truly alone human is quite...I do not even know what. I have been able to explore this a lot lately and all I can say is, "thank goodness for imagination?" It happens in stages creeping slowly from step to step. The climb or maybe descent is so subtle that the resulting bottom of loneliness or perhaps boredom seems a regular transition. It starts with pure stillness; limbs thrown out, breathing steady, eyes unfocused and a repititious "la la la" running through the mind. How long an individual can maintain this status is completely dependant on that individual. This individual could last an hour on a good day. When the limit is reached a deep guttural groan rises from within. Such an instinct reminds the mind of such things as noises. This becomes the next activity: exploring the vocal world. Before long the room has been turned into a one mouth band complete with everything from trumpets to pterodactyls. The next natural progression now that the silence has been effectively broken is talking. To anyone or anything about everything. Well now that seems about as far as can be gone. You are talking to yourself. It's not. Props can be quite inspiring. Blankies can become puppets shows complete with song and dance, fingers morph into long neck dinosaurs , conversations are dubbed for people as well as birds viewed from the window and whole worlds appear from seemingly nothing. All of this seems rather normal to the broadening mind, but that is only until the prescence of another tells you maybe it is not. Why else are these things not done with others? Well, with the exception of conversation dubbing because that is just plain fun. Although if these are instincts of loneliness perhaps in company we are too conservative. This is the mind of someone truly alone, but thanks to imagination not completely bored. The benefits of being time-rich right?