Living Water

When you wake up each morning, and go to bed each night, it's your own eyelids you see the back of. You don't see the back of the person you worry most about, the one you love the most, or the lids of your harshest critic. You are with you, beginning and end.

Within those eyelids is an entire universe all your own: your own thoughts and your own spirit. There is a magnificent indweller behind those eyelids, and I wish each of us had the courage to preserve that denizen, to be a good caretaker by the choices we make, who we share our time with and how fiercely we feed and protect that beloved self.

But I have been weak. I've not always made the healthy choice, not been as fierce a protector of this person I wake up with everyday and go to sleep with every night. But dear God, I pray for that strength and discernment. To know when to hold em, and know when to fold em. So that when things don't go according to plan and people have the audacity to be imperfect, your soul is still in place. You are anchored because you are fed. You are not hungry for the things you don't need.

But when you have not fed and protected yourself properly, the world is a barren winter and every single solitary snowflake is called upon to quench an unrelenting drought inside. And this is the great paradox: you're equipped with living water and are never truly in need of a drink. I have the water for myself from myself, but I will not drink; I'd rather have another quench my thirst. This is fallacy.

I am spent from starving myself from what I need (and am in possession of) for the things I truly do not need (that daily, I seem to believe I do.) I exhort you to feed yourself. If you are thirsty, drink from your own well. There is more than enough there.

Now, this may seem like an over-decorated burst of cynicism or a narcissistic overture. I hope it is neither. I fully understand that life is no Disney film and people are imperfect. However, it is my own responsbility to cherish the only thing I have, the numinous me that I spend the most time with, and to surround myself with things just as healthy to my most precious possession: Me.


Maktub,

Z

She Forgot

She forgot.
What other explanation could there be? She simply forgot.
There was written evidence. There was infallible memory. There were tangible pieces to grasp. Yet, she forgot. No one ever thought it would happen, but it did. She slipped. And forgot.

How does one find themselves in such a predicament? Well, it takes quite a bit of falling into the rabbit hole. Quite a bit of falling. The silly part of it all is not realizing you've even stumbled across the damn rabbit, let alone the hole! But, you arise from some sort of slumber and wipe the debris from the body you once vaguely knew, and there you are. Location: unidentified. Origin: Gold. Destination: re-routed.

Then you remember that you forgot. Damn.

Bottle It Up

There'll be girls across the nation that'll eat this up

babe, I know that it's your soul, but could you bottle it up?

and get down to the heart of it?

No it's my heart

you're shit out of your luck

Don't make me tell you again my love love love love.

Love love love love.

I am aiming to be somebody this somebody trusts

With her delicate soul

I don't claim to know much

Except, soon as you start

To make room for the parts

That aren't you

it gets harder to bloom in a garden of Love

love love love

Love Love love love

Only thing I ever could need, only one good thing

Worth trying to be and it's

Love

Love

Love

Love

I do it for Love

----------

Thank you Ms. Sara Bareilles. You took the words right from my own heart.

LOVE,

Zarina Dawn

Direction

All my life, I've gone on impulse. I'm a great impulse speaker and an excellent impulse teacher. A superb impulse shopper (in my past life. *ahem*) I'm "naturally" gifted. I suppose. But, I can't remember a time when I knew what I wanted to "be." I've always known that there was something I needed to accomplish at any given time, but no real driving force to "be" something. There have always been attributes I've wanted to acquire or qualities I wanted to hone inside myself, but nothing pulling me toward "be"-ing something. I know quite a few attorneys, many counselors, some future wives, a public health ex-pat and too many artists. They all knew they wanted to be something or somewhere. I've just been floating along, wondering where I'd end up, hoping I'd be the best me in that place. Never selling out to any one thing. Never giving my all to any one thing. Never really resigning myself or dedicating myself or my efforts to seeing something happen for myself, something I really want.

But now I want to BE something. I'd like to think it is very difficult to be derailed when one has made up their minds about what they want to be. I've been told (often) that I'm very hard-headed and that when I am determined there is nothing that can deter me. The only problem is... I'm not determined about much. My job? Not even. My health? Not always. My wellness? Not enough. But I desire to BE something. To feel that my life is being pulled in a specific direction that no one, nothing and no opinion can supersede. I believe that finding this thing could revolutionize my life. It could provide stability in my innermost places where my identity has been ever-shifting and way too easily influenced. I could stabilize. I could plan. I could believe. I could be unshaken because I'm confident in what I am here to do. How awesome that could be!

It's planted inside me already. It is already written. But now I must find it.

I guess I'm a bit like Santiago. {from The Alchemist} Ha! I can hear his own inner-dialogue. I am also afraid that my heart will suffer, Santiago. But you found your treasure, so I must be as courageous as you and find mine too.

Maktub,

Z

Raw & Unbeautiful

I wrote something back in August and it's so authentic that I owe it to myself to publish it here.

8/2010

If I were to write a book, it most certainly would not start with a day like today:

A young twenty-something veg's in front of the couch all day, losing track of all reasonable grasp on the hours of the day watching endless re-runs of The Hills, only to re-emerge into the moving & bustling world 3 embarrassingly amateur paintings later, gasping at the new (and old) tire around her midsection that makes her psyche crumble, and then goes to Borders to spend her Friday night.

Who's watching that movie?

Well this is my life and my location on today. And though I'd like to fancy myself and my circumstances as beautifully moving in an odd direction, sometimes it's not so beautiful. I emerged from a dark place today where absolutely nothing (n-o-t-h-i-n-g) about me was right. A drastic turn from yesterday when everything (and I mean everything) about me was beautiful and on the threshold of full acceptance. What a flip flop! And the reality is that everyday just might not be beautiful. Some days feel wrong and ugly. But it all adds up and I'd rather live my destiny imperfectly than to live someone else's reality with perfection.

Maktub,

Z

Women's Pleasure

Sitting on the bed, moving to my own beat, after a long shower featuring my favorite I'm-a-natural-woman Malaysian Mango body wash, listening to my girl Erykah Badu "Gone Baby, Don't Be Long," singing along. Sipping Chocolatemint water. These are a woman's pleasures. At least, this woman.

Ready to shine,

Z

5 Years

Five years I've had this blog... Five years of...? Should I even attempt to qualify the experience? Hmmm... not ready for that.

I will admit it is difficult to witness and review the moments of utter shambles. {exhale}

But I must write. So here I go...

I Must Marry a Chameleon

Wise women know that life comes in waves. Wild women are wise enough to ride them.

For this wave in particular, it is the contemplation of a mate. Not yet the full measure of seeking or planning, but simple meditation and contemplation on the concept. What is a mate? What is a mate TO me? What is a mate FOR me? Is it a rite of passage I must participate in? There's been so much talk in the media lately about this notorious "42%" [the Black Woman's new favorite/dreaded number], and after my initial fist pump and then utter frustration over this belabored subject, I asked myself the most important question I believe every black woman must ask themselves regarding the issue:

"Have I found one I want to keep?"

For me, the answer is unabashedly NO. Though I see jitters in my future, I tell my nerves to stand down. It's still early. Bells and whistles must silence themselves momentarily as I pause to contemplate and meditate on the idea of "mate." I think I've come to at least one conclusion...

I must marry a chameleon.

It tickles me just to write that because its much more complex than it seems. Women are such breathtaking mosaics that I must close my eyes to type this as I absorb the full girth of the thing.

I've been reading the most phenomenal book on the nature of women that my fingers have ever sifted through. The most delightful hills of pages that my soul has ever danced through regarding my own nature. "Women Who Run With the Wolves" by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes is THEE book every woman has already read... in her soul. But there are treasures yet undiscovered that are revealed to women in various stages of life AND in the pages of this book. One of the most tangible yet intangible issues Dr. Estes points out is the dual nature of women. Duality. She says,

"Anyone close to a woman is in fact in the
presence of two women; an outer being and an interior criatura, one who lives in
the topside world, one who lives in the world not so easily
seeable."

Indeed! And every woman I know has let out a soul-holler at this well known yet unacknowledged fact. We know it. We feel it every night when our heads hit our pillows. There is one within us that lives underneath. While there is one everyone sees with their eyes, there is also one that seems to play 'devil's advocate' to our daily lives and yearns for "we know not what." It is vitally important to be in touch with both of these women, because they both make up an entire us. A complete and whole woman. But how does one find a mate that can traverse these worlds with us?

I must marry a chameleon.

Mating is not so much as 'time-spending' as it is life-creating. I believe it is my physiological and spiritual purpose in the world to bring forth life. I believe we are created to create. Therefore, I view my dating/marrying life decisions as a sort of 'matching up;' creating a situation in which the best life force can be brought forth from two symbiotic life forms. (Too much? Ok. Take 2...)

Love-ing is when God first blew breath into man. We two, together, form that breath and breathe it into another thing in this earth, be it animal (child), mineral (career) or vegetable (earth).

So the idea of 'mating' is not simply dating. It is more akin to imprinting. But I am two women living at once, so then what? Sometimes I feel like a poet. Sometimes I feel like a simple southern gurl. Sometimes I wanna go to the sports bar. Sometimes I want to only hear, see and feel art/life. Who will come along for it all? Folly would be to bind with a one-dimensional man and expect both the women inside me to be fed equally. Therefore...

I must marry a chameleon; for I myself, am a chameleon also.

So how does this come to be? What is the avenue upon which we must turn? What type of man must we open our eyes to? Dr. Estes says it best,

"The mate for the wildish woman is the one who has a soulful tenacity and endurance, one who can send his own instinctual nature to peek under the tent of a woman's soul-life and comprehend what he sees and hears there. The good match is the man who keeps returning to try to understand, who does not let himself be deterred by the sideshows on the road."

"So, the wildish task of the man is to find her true names, and not to misuse that knowledge to seize power over her, but rather to apprehend and comprehend the numinous substance from which she is made, to let it wash over him, amaze him, shock him, even spook him. And to stay with it. And to sing out her name over her. It will make her eyes shine. It will make his eyes shine."

Shine On,


Zarina Dawn.

The Cusp of Knowing [1.10]

Even the most splendid pen runs out of ink. She had endured half a decade of literary winter and creative desert, in huge contrast to the lush half decade of plenty. And no matter if it were Bic or Mont Blanc, she just simply ran out of ink.

Her mother once told her, "You aren't gonna wear yourself out, you gonna rust out!" So maybe she hadn't run out of ink; maybe she simply allowed her soul's salve to dry up. Pity. Because rumor had it that she was a real talent. Sacrilege. Because it was cruel neglect of the Divine. Blasphemy. Because who could doubt God's promise?

Whatever the circumstances, her pen stood still for almost 5 years, when once she couldn't keep it from bleeding upon her journals, her books, her homework, schoolwork. Even her napkins were not safe. Now she waited for the numbness to wear off. To be inspired. By something. 5 long winters. Harsh winds. Drought. Barren lands. Only small buds every now and then that petered out prematurely. No jewels on the dew of daybreak. Just a struggle to make it all make sense. To understand. To make the puzzle pieces of life fit together from moment to moment. A constant sheet of gray. This was her introduction to her 20s. She was on the cusp of knowing.