A dream deferred (3 of 365)

What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.Or does it explode?

-Langston Hughes

Before I start this blog to all my Facebook friends, this will be the last blog showing up on my page.  If you like my blog and would like to follow my journey please click A CHAT WITH MATT or go to www.achatwithmatt.blogspot.com and click FOLLOW this blog.  I am going to have 100 readers by the end of the month.  Please be one of them.  I will be writing some naughty and some nice but all authentically me so if you wanna ride....COME ON!!!!  

I remember memorizing and reciting that poem over 20 years ago when I was just starting my journey of discovery.  And sitting in the doctors office today hearing some things I did NOT want to hear I wonder.  I know, I know, 'ya gotta believe, ya gotta hold on, keep on keepin on, keep hope alive, stay positive, stay in the NOW, pray, go to church, meditate' but dayum!  Can a sistah get a break.  What was Langston really saying?  Does everyone's dreams come true?  Or do some just explode in their face?  Is it their fault, did they give up to soon?  Were they dissallusioned in the first place?  

I told an old friend today the story that I used to tell my Weight Watcher members when they got tired of gaining and losing the same 10 pounds over and over again.  

Howard Carter one of the greatest figures in the history of archaeology known best for discovering King Tutankhamun's tomb.  Little is known of him other than this.  He had this dream since he was like 17 years old and had all sorts of odd jobs and wasn't taken very seriously from time to time in his life.  He was a tour guide, a water colorist but his dream was alive.  He knew that King Tut's tomb existed and he fought for over 25 years sometimes with no support until finally someone fueled his dream.  He discoved the tomb only days before the digs end.  This story really resonates with me.  It's like when you have a dream or are working on creating something from nothing.  People have all sorts of advice.  All are not haters I must confess.  Some are people that love us dearly and don't want to see us hurt they don't want to see us hurt again and again or they just honestly don't have the vantage point that we do.  Like Moses and the promised land.  He led his people but was not permitted to go.  So it is for many of our parents and loved ones.  They nurture us as much and as far as they can and then it is up to us to make that final climb.  I have read that many thought Howard Carter to be a bit of a quack or a looser and he is known for having made one the major discoveries of our time.  So who am I not to believe in my lil old dream that I actually have something unique, worth sharing with the world.  It has been a dream of mine since I was a lad.  Lad sounds so corny but that's how it came out. lol!  I used to dream of performing in front of hundreds of thousands of people and I saw myself on talk shows sharing my joy, my light, insights from my journey.  And tho I do not know what tomorrow brings, I take heart from Howard Carter, his journey and I continue on.  Maybe my dream is just on a detour...

Rest (2 of 365)

And on the 7th day.....sometimes it is hard to just do nothing but I felt it important to be still and know...I felt my energy return and feel prepared to access some of the insights that have come my way.  There is an important link between rest and success.  Recent studies have shown a great advantage to students who study and then sleep.  The brain problem solves and assimilates information while sleeping.  Yet sometimes when I am resting I feel a restlessness like I should be doing something else.  I remember hearing Puffy say that he rarely sleeps and the sleeping don't succeed.  He is successful and he doesn't sleep...sooooo....okay I am sleepy as hell my brain ain't working so I am gonna copy Puffy right?  How many of us hear things like that and then hold ourselves to someone else's standards no matter how futile?  Today, I just sat with myself, hung out with mom, caught up with a few friends, cleaned my cars out, watched a bit of TV and somehow my joy just snuck back on in.  I released my attachment to the outcome of events and am ready to put some time in and take some risks.  Yeah.....rest is important.

ENCOURAGEMENT:  The body is an amazing machine, take the time to allow it to do its job.

COMMITMENT: I will be still more...

REMEMBER (1 of 365)

After a long hiatus, I am back.  Writing, sharing, doing.  My motivation?  JEALOUSLY.
I really do believe that behind every destructive thought or action is a positive intention.  Even the most hideous.  I watched a few of my friends on FACEBOOK, do their thing.  I had been laying in bed after a day of eating way too much, smoking way too many cigarettes (I know surprise right) and after my 5th pity party of the week I felt a bit like I did at my father's funeral (my current job at the time was driving the mail truck electric cart at UCLA while waiting for acting gigs).  I felt like my father himself was grateful to have passed on because he now had a clear channel.  Through my tears and sadness I heard him say, "What the hell (not sure if he actually used that word) are you doing?  Do you know who you are?"  I felt greatness and destiny passed through me at such a low point in my life.  It is difficult to explain but I felt it.  I felt and feel I have a potential that I have still not lived up to.  And today when that feeling of jealously swarmed through my veins like a fever as I watched my peers sing, perform, write, LIVE out loud I remembered.  I remembered that I must keep believing in myself and my dreams.  That no matter the present challenges that are sitting on my front door I AM and always have been DIVINE.  I remembered that I have a gift that the world needs.  I remembered that I deserve all that I desire.  I remembered that I AM LOVE.  I remembered that I am so blessed and that the great spirit that protects and guides me is really routing for ME.  I was reminded in so many tender and kind and precious ways.  This has been an extremely tough week for a diva.  I am here, re-commiting myself to mySELF and my journey.  Thank you to all who are routing and praying for me.  The blessings fall down on me like manna from above.  I actually receive and feel them.  thank you.


ENCOURAGEMENT: When you have a negative feeling instead of judging or beating yourself up, take a peek underneath their is a lil prize in there for ya.  An insight that is the bright side of your dark cloud.

commitment:  I will write everyday for a year (I didn't say how much!!)

YESTERDAY

Betrayal of an intimate hopeful is heartbreaking but not nearly as wrenching as the betrayal of a friend a bossom buddie, a golden girl.  The loss is profound and felt deeply.  I have experienced all sorts of betrayal in the past 365 days since my last birthday and I have learned from each of them.  I thank the lessons and the lesson giver and make a clear and concise decision to leave these sorts of lessons as lessons of a younger more tragic me.  As I shed the skin of yesterday and welcome a tender yet older and wiser me I invite the blessings of the lessons into the next phase of my life.  They are so close I can almost taste the nectar so light and fragrant like a warm tropical breeze that tickles the peach fuzz on the back of my neck like a kiss.  I am eager, I am excited I am ready.  For love, for success, for opportunity, for laughter, for joy, for good health, for honest communication with EVERYONE I come in contact with, for heart-centered listening, receiving and loving, for holy unions, for sacred practices and magical outcomes, for miracles and good luck, for good fortune, for synchrodestiny and synchronicity, for love, for friendship, for peace, for acceptance, for success, for my true life and the bounty that the Creator has intended for me.  I gratefully and graciously accept and fervently wait to share all that this year has to share.  I seal this intention in the purest of light and love.  This or something better for the highest good of ALL concerned.  AMEN.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.

The Artist's Way

I am taking a class with the prolific Julia Cameron.  I feel so lucky and I feel that finally I will actually finish several books in my lifetime.  I have, in the past felt so freakin overwhelmed, actually I wanted to say another word but I am afraid of judgment so I said freakin instead of fuckin, but I was so freakin overwhelmed by structure, and how to tell the story, and I think I wrote this before, and what if I just find it I wont keep starting from the beginning and just write the same damn story over and over never moving forward!  But alas, I will take my messiness, my millions of journal entries and all my writings, from blogs, books, computers and longhand and I will complete a manuscript by Jan1, 2011.  Omg.  I can not believe I just said that.  Well folks I said it....I will complete at least one manuscript by the first of the year.  This is really freeing to me because I actually have a hell of a lot to say.

Speed Dating

Not for me but a fun time had indeed.  My girl Kim stood me up.  Somehow girls standing you up is more forgivable, I kinda knew she would so when I signed up for the 8-Minute Datingg from the email she sent I knew this would be something I would be experiencing alone.  I never really thought I would meet my soulmate or anything but 1 you never know and 2 it would be something to blog about and 3 I could make some great friends from the experience.

Being on the other side of the fence I can truly say to anyone thinking of it, its probably more fun to go with someone, but you are more likely to put yourself out there and really interact with people if you go it alone.  Another thing I learned which just is something we should all remember but probably always forget, you are not alone!!!!!  There were like 3 people who were supposed to come with friends and their "friend" couldn't make it for one excuse or the other.  Most first-timers are as nervous or more nervous than you are.  And everyone hopes in the back of their mind that they meet that certain someone.

For me overall there were no matches.  There were two guys that were kinda okay but I am looking for that perfect someone not the kinda okay someone.  The other problem for me was that I am in that  in between age bracket.  The organizer put me at the bottom of my age bracket category because the guys in the higher one looked old enough to be my dad.  And let me add my dad is no longer among the living.  The guys that I seemed to gel with were way to young for me.

Several guys I met, admitted that they had tried the online dating thing but that it left too much room for lies.  One recounted a story of a 58 year old woman using a 20 year old picture.  They preferred the one on one non commital yet intimate idea of quick dates.  You can cut it off if it is like pulling teeth and you can meet again if there is a spark.  I must say it is the only venue where you can date a guys friend and not be considered a slut.  There was a guy I finished up a date with and his buddy walked by and I exclaimed, "hey!  I just dated him!"

What I learned on Wednesday, June 2 2010

So I played a woman who lived her life as a man until her death at 84.  It was an amazing experience for me.  Primarily because I knew this was going to be a challenge.  I have been looking for a challenge.  My spirit leaped out of my mouth and exclaimed, "YES!!  YESS!!!" during my conversation with Philly director, Michael LeLand, before my brain had an opportunity to say 'girl don't get up there and make no fool outta us!'  It was already done.

It did not hurt that the playwright Renita Martin wrote a beautiful piece of what one day I would hope to be American Literature.  Blue Fire on Water touched me and I became more curious about this guy Jo.  On the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina, countless people who are a part of the fabric of American culture, died dirty deaths.  Drowned in filthy, disease infested, dead body infested swamp water.  Bringing some of these characters alive was not only a way to pay homage to the thousands that died in Katrina but a unique way to explore long lived secrets and how they are release. And how death can be a freedom from the limitations of life in a way.  This play is a must see.  And if I am in it, a must MUST see, but a beautiful work of art none the less.

When I left Philly on March 28, 2001, a part of me thought it was for good.  And maybe that is true.  Maybe a part of me did leave Philly for good.  I have been back on the east coast for exactly 1 year now.  Caring for my mother was the drive but I have realized many blessings within that aim.  Many times when you help others you are helping yourself.  Revisiting a part of your history you would have otherwise left covered.  Spirit has arranged circumstance and I have obeyed so that I can not run from my past anymore.  And wow, I had a few things wrong.

Last Wednesday there was a sprinkling of old and new at The Painted Bride.  I was so filled up I almost wept.  Lisa is now the Assistant Director of the Bride and has two beautiful children and is just more of her beautiful self.  Anthony Kalmani was there working and supporting the Director of the Bride. I had never performed at the Bride so I was so excited to be a part of anything there.  Team UN a small group of runners from across the globe that get together each week to run and share in the ups and downs of physical adventure came out in strong numbers.  All the characters of the day along with Connie Norwood, and Meryl Lynn Brown, Phil Sumpter all taught me an important life lesson.  I can feel the impact of the lesson but I am not sure I can articulate it.  When I left Philly, I was involved with a cutting edge organization who's chief goal was personal transformation, it met that goal lest/minus the head and the core.  I had made them and it my life.  I learned on Wed. by the small but powerful show of support at the Painted Bride that was and still am more than a part of one organization in Philadelphia.  I was and am a part of a well oiled creative community that I helped build.  I loved Philadelphia when I left but I didn't know what to do with "Philly" when I returned.  New York was and still is my goal but lets not forget about the creative beasts that come out of that fine city of brotherly love.  Philadelphia, you are my heart!!!!  My journey began in Philly and healing met with creativity damit it has come full circle.

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