Yea, I will allow myself to be human today. True, I am a black woman and there's no secret that I have alot to be angry about. However, I will NOT be defined by my anger because underneath it all are so many other things I feel. So, today I will sit with my disappointment. If I can be honest, I want to be angry right now especially after the events of the morning but I can't. Like, I can't get myself to be angry because I feel something else, I just don't know what it is exactly. And, that sucks. You know, feeling some kind of way and not really knowing how to put it in words but I guess that lead's me right on into my decision to share this piece from my book "Feeln Sum Type of Way". How ironic? Nonetheless, it's National Poetry Month so rather than continue to try and unpack all these emotions I am sitting with today, I'll just leave you with this poem...

 

ANGRY BLACK WOMAN 

The hell you mean? 

With the rolling of the neck 

and the smacking of the lips 

Every time I hear the legend of the “ANGRY BLACK WOMAN” 

As if 

Angry 
And Black 
And Woman 

Are tailor-made collocations 

Matter of fact adjectives 

to paint the picture of a female 
in color

Tell me, when did the melanin in my skin become the backdrop for my temperament? 

When will our Black men boycott these hand me down ideologies they've bought into? 

And ask 
Or listen 
Or seek to understand? 

Because then they'd know I'm not ANGRY 

Not at all...... 

I'M OFFENDED that somehow you believe that because I don't know what it is to be a black man that 
I'm exempt. 
That somehow my vagina allows me a privilege that excludes me from oppression when it is my vagina 
that makes me a slave to my own emotions. 

Tell me, have you ever been pissed on and told that it was raining?

Well, that's exactly how I feel when I'm told I'm crazy and deranged for having too many feelings

Or having the courage to love again after my love's been thrown back on my face

I'M TIRED.......Tired of being told I'm too strong as if being weak is a more desirable attribute. Truth 
be told, had I folded you'd have nothing to stand on. I carried you on the back of my prayers. Raised 
our sons and daughters. Fought through tears. While you took hour long lunch breaks to cemetaries and prisons.

And no, I may not have done the best job but I stood 
firmly in the gap until you could regain your rightful position. 

Annnnnnnnnnnd not one thank you (So, hell yea I feel some type of way) 

I'M RESENTFUL because I'll never be good enough. 
I'm too fat or too skinny 
too loud or too quiet 
too afrocentric or too european 
too lazy or too driven 
too needy or too independent 
I'm too that or too this 
No matter how I try to appease you 
When you look at me 
You look past my beauty 
For something more EXOTIC 
Then wonder why at times I'm insecure and self-conscious 

I'M EXASPERATED for having to explain myself and then apologize for who I am. 
I don't have the freedom of expressing my dissatisfaction without “having an attitude” 
I can't challenge you as a man without “wanting to wear your pants” 
I shouldn't embrace my sexuality less I be considered “loose” 
I mustn't speak my mind. After all “A woman should be seen and not heard.” 
Be submissive 
No, be less than human 
Be unresponsive 
Be accommodating 

Chile.......You want me to be a well dressed floor mat 
Better yet 
Just lie down and die in silence 
And I bets not complain or else be “blamed” 
After all, it is my fault that our men are cowards 
Apparently, I gave them too many hugs 
What was I thinking, to love them 
When we all know too much compassion makes them soft 
Had nothing to do with your absence, hunh? 
I'm also responsible for the sins of our daughters 
Only problem 
I missed the part that I was to stand guard in front of the pearly gates 24/7 to ensure she kept her legs 
closed 
And If I didn't teach her how to cook...clean...or keep house 
I somehow failed her as a mother 

When the truth is 

It was all a cry for you 
Her father 

But I deserve to be dogged out 
To have my heart broken 
I knew he was no good so I'm told “I asked for it” 
So no, I can't be a victim 
And no, aint nobody really trynna hear my story 
No, I aint got no time to cry 
I'm supposed to "Woman Up" 
Because somewhere in your crazy twisted mind 
I alone 
Am the product of my own decision-making 

Speaking of...... 

I'M VEXED about that 
Having to choose 
And damn me 
If I don't make the right decision according to you 
Like 
You ever had to weigh between having a career or having children 
Pursuing your dreams or falling in love 
Rest or the demands that constantly pursue you 
Why can't I have it all? 
If I'm bitter 

That's why 

My choices are few 
Let me get this straight 
Be average or be alone 
Monitor my work hours or carry the shame of being a bad parent 
Put a cap on my salary or forget about ever being married 
Be proactive in family planning and risk being barren 
Be weak or be abandoned 
Be all things 

Just don't be a woman 

Be anything BUT a woman 

Tell me 
How do you escape being MAD when you're denied the right to be who you were created to be 
“WOMAN” 
Without being both black and angry?

Sometimes, I sit at my computer and stare for hours because I have no words. Imagine that a poet; a writer; a psalmist with NO words! It's funny because I use to try all sorts of things like listening to music, taking walks in the park, reading etc etc and it would work but then something happened and it stopped working. I no longer had any inspiration whatsoever. It seems as though hours turned into days and days into months and believe it or not, I almost made it a year without writing a thing. I felt disconnected from my pen and my pad felt tired like it couldn't stomach another word from me, lol! So, I struggled silently. I would take engagements but they bet not ask me for anything new or original because there was absolutely nothing cooking thus; no new fire for my followers. Nope, all I had to offer was dead or recycled poems which was cool for them because some of my poems are pretty good. I think so anyway! However, eventually that got old for me. So, I learned to sit in it? Yep, I just rested in my moment of writer's block with no intention to force anything to escape my pen. There was no pressure to come up with something. I just sit in it and let it flow with no set agenda so if a poem is what was birthed in that moment; a poem it would be even if I intended to write on a manuscript. You see, timing is everything and what is needed most in that moment will come forth as your creative juices begin to flow unrestricted of deadlines, time frames, themes, etc. etc. So, I say to you today learn to rest in your writer's block and free yourself from the torment of having to birth something prematurely. The baby will come in its own time!

 

T Cooper 

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I'm pretty sure this is not how you're supposed to start a blog but that's how I feel. I don't even have a word to express the frustration I feel right now but I know in order for me to push through, I am going to have to release. So, I decided to purge on this blog hence the title "Po Little Tink Tink". Yes, you have been officially invited to my rant party. Welcome! 

I'm telling you this is what happens when you're an artist trapped at a 9-5 job. It SUCKS but you gotta eat, right? I mean unless you plan on being a starving artist "literally" and I don't know about you but I'm not missing any meals. Not that I can't afford to but that's another story for another day. Smile! Anyway, it seems that I go through these moments when my calling starts to pull on me and nothing seems right. I find myself feeling super irritable and ready to quit my job over the smallest things. My pencil broke, I'm quiting! The printer down? Awww naw, I'm out of here! One minor mishap and it's a conspiracy to get me out of here so peace! I'm on the verge of walking out the door at this very moment because I would rather be somewhere writing or visualizing being in the studio with some national recording artist singing my song. I'm just saying, I spent most of this morning preparing my acceptance speech for my first Grammy award. "Giving honor to God..." You feel me? I be on one. LOL! I guess this is why I'll never understand people who run from their gifts and callings. I mean I do but I don't. I understand not wanting the responsibility of it and trying to hide or even being afraid of them but running from them is almost impossible. Like, how far can you run? Really! I can even understand wanting to have someone else's gift but running from it, you'll be tired. There is an innate force that will pull and pull and pull until you give in to it. And, I've learned that until you answer the call or surrender to it, you'll be miserable. It will feel as though there is an emptiness that you can't even begin to describe or a feeling of failure that consumes you because it seems as though nothing you put your hand to ever prospers. You'll feel like everything around you is falling apart. Kinda how I feel right now. Yup, the building is collapsing on my head at this very moment. Not really but it is, really! No, it's not but I wish it would so I can be put out of my misery...Do you know how hard it is to work a job you're good at and love but still feel like somethings missing because there's something else you love more? I'm in a love triangle ya'll. What's I gone do????? I be trying to chill and just be artsy at 3 pm. That's what time I get off and that is when art begins. At least that's what I tell myself during my self talk sessions but it never works because I AM AN ARTIST, 24/7, 7 days a week, 365 days out the year. Even when I call myself trying to do something else because every now and then I have severe moments of insanity in which I pretend like I'm not an artist because I be tired. Tired of writer's block, tired of fans, tired of pens and paper, tired of poetry, tired of me and my whackness, tired of the scene, tired of people, just plain ol' tired! But eventually, when I get over myself, I have to accept who I am. Man down!!! SMH...

It is during these moments that I am reminded of the Disney movie Tinker Bell in which she spent the entire movie trying to operate in everyone else's gift messing up everything (throwing seasons off and whatnot, lol) because she didn't see the value in her own. Meanwhile, she was just a tinkering away because it was in her to do. Tinkering came natural. She didn't have to work at it or think about it. Why, because her gift was specifically designed for her despite the fact there were hundreds of tinker fairies and no matter how hard she tried to forget that she was a tinker, she always found herself tinkering with some lost thing. Crazy thing is in the beginning of the movie, when it was time for her gift to be revealed she asked "How will I know which one is my gift?" and the guardian fairy told her "Don't worry. You'll know because your gift will choose you." I was like hunh, she might be on to something? I mean, I know I didn't ask to be an artist or a writer or anything related. I didn't choose to be genius and insane. I'd rather have just been one or the other. Then I wouldn't be sitting here giving this keyboard hell as I type this post. Then I wouldn't feel like pulling out all my hair because I'm ready to go be artistic. I'm like a wild animal locked away. I now know why the caged bird saaaaaaangs. Lord, do I know! Nonetheless, I'm here and although, I do use my gifts such as ministry of helps and poetry, etc., I feel as though my artistic gifts are starting to pull on me more. It almost feels like they are trying to get me to do something crazy like REALLY quit my job and do what I love full time. Ooooooooooh Lord! I don't know about that just yet because the struggle is real but what I do know is that when it is your time to do something great, greatness will begin to call you. 

Will you answer? 

Even if it's just allowing yourself to become lost in your thoughts or being courageous enough to take that small leap of faith to see if your dreams can really come true. I mean, what do you have to loose other than your job, right? LOL! 

 

 

 

As I look over my vision board for 2017, I am faced with the reality that I (you ready for it) suck!!! I managed to only complete one of the four things that I so carefully thought about enough to beautifully construct onto a board. It was cute too!!! Truth be told, had I not been blessed, I may have very well been zero for four and that's the truth of the matter. I was soooooooo ready for 2017 and I felt that it would be a year of incredible progress. What I didn't anticipate was life happening. I know. I know. I know. Life is always happening, right? But it's one thing when life is happening around you and when life is happening to you. Yup, life has a way of showing up on your front doorstep like an uninvited house guest overstaying its welcome. Life happened to me in 2017 in a real way and to be honest, I can't even remember most of the year. All I know is that life brought death to my house and I loss 4 beautiful people who will be greatly missed. Annnnnd I didn't even think that I could feel grief like that again. I thought since I had lost the most important person in my life (my mother) nothing would ever hurt that bad but I was wrong. I can't tell you how I hurt in 2017. It felt like every time I started to feel like I was getting closer to acceptance in this cycle of grief, I was catapulted back to the beginning of the cycle. It was the worse feeling in the world so I went into auto-pilot as to preserve my sanity and keep from falling apart. This is not including all the other crap life dropped off when it decided to stop by my house. Needless to say, I wasn't thinking about no vision board, okay! I wasn't thinking about no goals or none of that. I wasn't tripping on a vision. I couldn't feel let alone see. I actually gained weight so that was an epic fail. I had some monumental things happen as an artist but it wasn't anything on that board, smh! And the furthest I traveled this year was a tie between Dallas and Chicago which doesn't count because I travel there all the time. Go figure! I wasn't motivated or passionate about much at all. That's my truth! However, as I look at this vision board and politely cross off those things I did not accomplish, I do so with a grateful heart. I made it to see another year in spite of life showing up unannounced.

What I realized at midnight, was that in 2017 I was truly blessed. You see, death is a gift because it helps us to realize how valuable time and love is. We get caught up in the whirlwind of life, resolutions, and the chase for success that we miss the little things. The moments that make it all worth it. That is, until death comes to open our eyes and hearts to what is most important. Although I will continue my tradition of writing my vision, the three things I will be certain to do in 2018 is love more, live, and not waste any time. I believe that in itself will help me in accomplishing the things I desire in 2018 regardless of what life decides to leave at my door. I loved and was given the opportunity to spend years of friendship and relationship with 4 very kind and beautiful spirits and death will never be able take what we shared to the grave. 

If by chance YOU didn't do what you set out to do in 2017, I have good news. There is still time!!! 2018 is here...

Love, Live, and Don't waste any time!