WOMAN: Open.Close.Kneel.Stand.

“I used to be stuck”

I am stuck. Not a permanent thing, but have gotten my feet caught in the quicksand in a time when I thought I was ice skating through these mean streets.

I’m not ice skating at all. In fact, I might be just getting by some times. * shrug*

This morning, I woke up with Cruising in my head. I really can’t wait to see what blog happens against the beat of that song. It was one of the other main motivating forces for me doing this series. I caught myself engulfed in the lyrics and realized that it was so similar to my last experience, word wise. Hearing the lyrics made me think that I wasn’t necessarily in the wrong for how I felt (maybe the way I played it out). Once again I caught up in the thought that my way of thinking and feeling is abnormal when in reality it’s not. Cruising’s lyrical content seemed ‘refreshing’ in the sense of bringing me back to the Light of truth. But that’s not the song for today.

The song is Say Thank You.

It’s one of the other main motivators.

“You keep ignoring the signs

Listening to it happened to me again songs

And putting your alarm on

SLEEP

Inviting new dumb shit”

…..OH!

Let’s back up a few lines and then add to it:

“I used to be stuck, how about you

Inside a lie

That you know ain’t near the absolute truth

Feel it all in your membranes and deep in your tissue

But you keep ignoring the signs

Listening to it happened me again songs

And putting your alarm on

SLEEP

Inviting new dumb shit

And more loss of peacefulness

Everybody, everybody can use a little help sometimes

Come on, you know things ain’t moving right

Ask for correction

Ask for direction

Ask for protection

Since you want to feel like you’re you inside-

Say thank you.

There that is.

This is what it looks like to be called out in a song with a ridiculously drunken melody that begs your attention before the lyrics do. I was driving, on my way home from work when the lyrics caught me at my neck and strangled me until my eyes bulged into my telephone, searching Google for the lyrics to fact check what I thought I heard. Did she really just sing those damned lyrics or nah? I know sometimes you will think you’ve heard one set of lyrics and it turns out they are saying something completely different.

“You keep ignoring the signs/

Listening to it happened to me again songs/And putting your alarm on/SLEEP/Inviting new dumb shit”

I heard correctly....the more I listened the more I saw every photoshoot I've done creep past my eyes like I'm the woman before the mask. How the same person in the pictures is the woman who either allows to much, jumps too soon or runs too fast is fascinating to me.This part of the song jolted me straight forward in my truckie seat!! It was me. I poured out of my speakers in a liquefied melody that filled up my ears in an absolute refusal to be ignored. I rewound the song and matched the lyrics with it as soon as I found a red light to stop at. I admitted to myself in a blank stare at a red light that Jill Scott was indeed very vividly and directly talking to me. In this solo excursion to my home, I think my face turned red.

Oh vey, this embarrassment. I’m so fucking tired of typing that word. Or am I? Why do I keep embarrassing myself? Who am I embarrassed to? For? Why? Did I think Jill Scott saw me naked, standing in a pool of poetry breaks and blog tracks? It surely felt like she did. It felt like a passive aggressive close friend that sang my life in a show and tell performance. “You keep ignoring the signs/

Listening to it happened to me again songs/And putting your alarm on/SLEEP/Inviting new dumb shit/and more loss of peacefulness”: I don’t know how long I can do this.  This collection of lines strung me up like wet laundry because it’s so me. It’s so exactly what I’ve been ‘embarrassed’ about. It is the sorcery I have continuously allowed to control my actions in relation to men. In one of the previous blogs, I talked about losing my confidence when I start talking to a new person. I’d like to liken that to “putting your alarm on’. That’s when I go to sleep and all the ‘new dumb shit’ enters the room. If only it were ‘new’ most of the time. It’s the same dumb shit that I’ve pointed out in the past. It’s the same dumb shit that I promise myself in poems, blogs and pep talks in front of private mirrors will never happen again. It’s the same dumb shit that I feel safe from when I’m in the company of friends and family, dogs and selfie sticks. It’s the same dumb shit….just a new name. To the spoils go the non-victor.

They say love is blind but desire is a darkroom where pictures get developed without sight. When the lights come back on and you see what you’ve created, the double exposure is the stuff ‘loss of peacefulness’ is cut from. Oh how I have lost all sense of peace after wrongfully canoodling with someone too soon. Gun jumping too close to the start line. The first thing I do is change my music. Run either to the arms of hardcore rap that doesn’t make me think too hard or the total opposite; melancholy ‘shit is fucked up’ type songs that make me exorcise the tears away. “Listening to it happened to me again songs”.  I do that shit well!!! And I will sit there and let the lyrics take me to the face I am trying to block out of my memory and in his face, I will cry because….songs. Because…..it happened to me again. ….because, I AM MY OWN MUSE.

This is why there really haven’t been any new blog entries of past relationships. Currently, I am my own muse. I am my own park, my own ride. I am the controller and the player and right now, I’m playing to lose. I play to win in every other aspect of my life. I compete with myself with every poetry show I participate in. I try to make the next as good as the last. I continue to confront the blistering fear that comes over me when I know folks are intently watching me walk in heels to show off a dress and serve face at the same time. I strive to keep my home afloat and full of two happy, spoiled dogs. I am selective on my friendship energy and who gets it, why and how. I mean, everywhere else I am a beast master of my own destiny. But men…..when men enter the game, I become the muse of these lyrics falling out of Jill Scott’s singing voice. I am the guitar solo in the song. I checked and it turns out she wrote this song with only one other person and although his name is credited on the liner notes, I can’t help but wonder am I the mental doppelganger that helped write such a brutally honest, self-awareness checking song. Its crazy how close this song is to my current state of things and how I’ve operated in the past, as seen in this blog.

“I used to be stuck”

And apparently, still am. In a ravine, rafting around on a boat that doesn’t fit me AND my luggage, plus two dogs and a bunch of shoes. I stopped buying shoes so I can move. I digress tho as that was unrelated information.

“Inviting new dumb shit”…… actually it wasn’t unrelated…I started to see how dumb it was for me to keep buying shoes….some of which fit perfect, others not so much, some too tall for everyday and others just too artistic. I want to leave. MOVE. Get out of the Midwest. Every pair of shoes is another day in Indianapolis beyond the deadline I set. Not to say I won’t buy another pair at some point…I’m sure I will. But I will also be conscious as to what I am sacrificing to put something on my feet for a short amount of time. I love heels a lot, but I’m in flats most times these days. I need to be closer to the ground that I’m trying to get off of. It seemed as though continuing to buy shoes would be me ‘inviting new dumb shit’ into my life. So how come this concept doesn't leap over into my love life or what’s left of it ? Why can't I  identify ‘dumb shit’ when it comes into my presence?  Or better yet, why don't I? 

“Everybody could use a little help sometimes

Come on

You know things ain’t moving right

Ask for correction

Ask for direction

Ask for protection”

I need to write that down somewhere. “because you know your request is filled/you will see/so act accordingly/live like you believe/and say thank you”  <<<along with that too….I need to remember that in my prayers, I want to ask God to correct, direct and protect me. I NEED those things and I need them from no one but God. I want to be ok. It’s to the point of tears because other than not enough God, I can't understand why I am NOT ok yet. And as long as I am NOT ok, I can't date anyone because I will do the same shit. Again. "Stuck/inside a lie/that you know ain't nearly absolute truth/". I can’t understand this part of my life and as much as I don’t want to try anymore, I have to do something. I have to make it right with myself. I have to not neglect myself and treat these low budget ass niggas like they are some suicide door Bentley that’s coming to take me to California. (Cali …could you imagine me in Cali?). They some suicide doors alright, but definitely not a Bentley. I want this period of being ‘stuck’ to be a thing of the past. I want out of the ‘lie that ain’t nearly absolute truth’. I want to stop ignoring myself, the signs and I want to cut out the song switches. I want my alarm to not be what keeps me sleep; I’d rather be sleep from sleeping with a King. Instead, I’m napping on a king and suffering random bouts of insomnia. I know right from wrong. Good from bad. Poor choices from rich ones.

Hell….I know energy. But what I know VS. what I crave gets misconstrued when I hit the AMuseMENtPaRk.  I don’t want it no more. I refuse it.

 I love this song. I didn’t mean for this blog to be that long and maybe folks won’t read it but maybe I don’t even care. All I know is this song is gonna take me away from these lyrics by the time I finish listening to it. And it all starts with God. This is a deeply spiritual song and I hope others catch God in it the way I have. I’m done losing my peace. I’m done with my invitations. My fool’s gold mining. All I want is the me that I am ALL other times to be the me I am when in the presence of a man. That ME knows what she should do, how she should do it and why. She knows about the pursuit of man to woman. She knows way better than her recent actions have shown. She can’t be embarrassed again. Or anymore. It’s not fair. It’s definitely not fair.

But its life I guess. Here’s another chance to get it right.  There’s this part of the song that is my favorite. The guitar has a solo that crushes the competition! But Jill’s voice comes out of nowhere with the answer. This part of the song makes me very aware of praying and the power of God and whether or not I have humbled myself to Him, despite how often I pray. I have humbled myself to the arms of many men.

But hardly God.
Here’s another chance to get it right. 

“Open. Close.

Kneel. Stand.

Hands ….in the air. Head down.

Knees on the ground.

In a silent whisper.

Out loud.

Somebody say thank you.”