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2005-01-04 4 4:57 a.m.
"y'know what is the sure-fire cure for sleeplessness? pray. close yr eyes & start praying; Satan'll send you right off to sleep."
- my Aunt Barbara
i looked at her like...
*blink*
mad cockeyed, yo. like get outta here w/ that ol' spiritual psychobabble non-biblical stuff (yeah, i get my prejudice on too sometimes).
in spite of myself i found myself under the sheets talkin' to God...& then? morning. didn't even remember how the transition went down, but it was some of the best sleep i'd had in a while. i'm not ready to believe in my Aunt's theories, but i'm all for the efficiency of empirical findings.
this is the 2nd family i've stayed w/ since i've been here in Orlando. it's interesting to see how the different households work. in uncle dela's, it's water all day & granola bars for snacks. rice, plantain. we don't get down on the western tip at all. here, it's juice all up in the fridge & tortillas in the cupboard, burritos & ice cream in the freezer. but both families are ghanaian.
what difference the woman of the house makes.
& life in the suburbs...
still not used to it. not at all. at the same time, i think every family we've ever known in the states & ever come to visit (pre-2001, when i came here for college i mean), has lived in the burbs. some of them not so heavy in it, but always in the nice, pretty spacious & airy area of town. & here, it's like manicured lawns, rolling hills & all such nonsense. lit up reindeer on the lawns, etc. back at uncle dela's it's sprinklers for the shrubbery & lakes w/ fountains in the center.
just waaaaaay too tranquil.
i spend 24/7 back at school cramped in a cell, thrown up next to a bunch of other inmates doin' the same time as me. that's what i'm goin' back to. whilst, here? i was taking hr-long walks around the hood w/ my walkman on, just marvellin'. what's funny tho'?
they play Dipset in the burbs.
sitting in my room, i hear a familiar sound filter through the window but i can't place that frickin' sample. listen harder, what is it? Cam'ron's "The Bigger Picture". had me wylin'. i mean the week before, i'd heard 50 & Game's "How We Do", so it's more than an isolated incident. are the burbs part of "the hiphop nation" though? i'd argue not. it's way more than consumption w/ this, man.
sophistifunk42: i like the focus on the people
sophistifunk42: rather than on the music itself
Foneticcus: & i'm glad you noticed that...
Foneticcus: i dunno, that's been my focus for a long long time. i don't think the music matters as much as the ppl do, & that's the only reason why it really matters. if you take it out of the streets & out of the hearts...i'm not sure any of the vitality is even retained...so yeah, that's part of why i wrestled this semester in my poetry class, cuz i wrote a lot of poems for the people...
this time here has been good for me.
i fly in dishevelled, feathers ruffled, mind definitely not right. thought my flight was sunday, it was saturday. missed it, fought myself mentally to keep from panicking. called cheaptickets who said call the airline. called the airline didn't get through. eventually, after much calling & crossing of wires i made it to Orlando, was picked up by a couple who didn't recognize me. why? they'd never seen me before. they were on some "i'ma guess which one is the kid, cuz i've met his father" type stuff.
i quelled my "what the hecks" & made it to the empty house (family off in Cali for son's graduation). had some of saturday night (after wrestling to get the internet to work), most of sunday to work on my Afropop project due by monday morning. ended up e-mailing it abt 10am. teacher wasn't impressed w/ the time, but he was impressed w/ the work. A-grade, & a huge load of my chest.
but yeah, that was how my Crimmus break began. since i've been here though, i've been lavished w/ compliments on my abilities of expression, encouraged to continue in my analytical, layer-stripping approach to things, challenged to have a more self-critical view of the doctrine(s) i embrace, & forced to leave a lot of my insecurites behind.
conversing w/ someone as brilliant & yet confident & self-assured as Uncle Dela has really changed me. i mean i'd go so far as to say he's one of the most singularly inspiring human beings i've met, in 21 years of life.
Disembodied Voice: So, you're a philosopher?
KRS-One: Yes, I think very deeply.
he flew to England this morning to go take the interview on his Phd dissertation.
he calls me "prof". he told my father that it "takes one to know one"...
unlike some of the ppl here, he isn't even critical of the new direction i've taken w/ my faith. he has no problems w/ the critical, thinking attitude i've taken to what my parents & pastors have been feeding me all my life. all he wants is for me to take the same attitude to what i'm learning today, under my own instruction, wherever that may be happening.
this is in contrast to when i left his house to hang out @ my other people's place. my Aunt Barbara sat me down the first night i came to their house & spoke to me for around 2 hrs, trying to get the dirt on "this church" i've been attending, & "this girl" in my life. the church believes in the bible, aunt, even where the religious world deviates from it & the girl isn't in my life any more. i'm not even sure that she ever was...
Foneticcus: i think, & this was a hard thing to actually believe b/c i've always put so much faith & trust in our "friendship"...i think that perhaps we were never friends...
Zitta13: exactly
Zitta13: precisely
in spite of all the bumps (Aunt trying to force some twisted, hyper-inclusive form of the gospel on me, her daughters pulling up "you're part of a cult!" websites on their wireless laptops for me to read, Uncle Jojo's censored comments abt my lip adornment...), i've loved it here. not as much as at Uncle Dela's house, but a whole heap of a lot.
& the overall experience of being enveloped in my own kind? wonderlous. marverful. i love being around ghanaians. i love speaking in our accents, eating our food, cracking our jokes. i'm funnier as a ghanaian; i literally pull laughs on the hour, every hr & a healthy helping in between. there are some things that just don't translate.
& sometimes...
that's a good thing.