someone on okayplayer posted a question about whether or not one could be both afrocentric and homosexual. I had a lot to say during that thread, but the following rebuttal to one of the more naive afrocentric participants is most amusing:
I was responding to these comments (which are intended for people generally), so did not reference "him" specifically, but rather a "he" to give context to my responses:
_________________________________
he said: yes. i was more identifying the source of the taboo and a culture that isn't greek or roman that had homosexuality. in new zealand, again, fa-afafine people tend to end up all out gay and pimping themselves. i see the current manifestation of mass media gay orgie irrsesponisble sex and drug consumption as a hard core escapist symptoms of very real depression. you don't have that in samoa pre colonialism.
I'm sayin: you don't have "mass media" and a drug "industry" in pre-colonial anything?!? I wont' point out which logical flaw this is, but the analogy doesn't hold piss.
he said: would you define homosexuality as the desire to engage in sexual acts with others of the same sex and that alone?
I'm sayin: I'll only speak for myself, since I think it's a range of things for different people. there is no singular source for same sex desire. as for me, it speaks to my emotional desire for romantic companionship with men (with or without sex, but generally leading to sex, as it is, even for most heteros, the consumate expression of romantic love between two adults). the sex act alone does not establish sexual identity. I know plenty of straight men who suck a dick now and then, but they are not "gay" because they don't identify with the sexual identity...they only indulge the act. and I think it's an important distinction. Also... i didn't have homesex until I was 19. i knew I was gay as early as 5. most straights know they are straight long before the first sexual act. it works the same way.
he said: for men, is homosexuality when you want to stick you penis into another mans bum and vice versa? on a very basic level i object.
i'm sayin: thanks for sharing. I'll consider your objection for a nanosecond when I'm out getting my mack on.
he said: if you want to argue that anything is unclean, anal sex is unclean. animal sex, child sex, bum sex. not clean.
i'm sayin': sex, you could argue, is unclean. bums can be cleaned, as the vagina must be cleaned. cleanliness is a very, very good thing... unless you've had a bad experience and are speaking first hand. i been diggin boys (pun intended) for some 15 years, and have (generally) not dealt with unclean bums. when there is an issue, it can be quickly and respectably resolved. all asses should be regularly washed: gay, straight, male, female... Also, anal sex is not exclusive to homosexuals. many, many, many straight people love it.
he said: i think it's great to love your friends, but i don't see the physical consumation of that love as anything more then severely damaging, and in the case of men, illogical. and that's what homosexuality is. bum sex with other dudes. no bum sex. i think that bum sex is demeaning.
i'm sayin': your phrasing here is very suspicious. illogical is your transition from one statement to the next, not the homosex between friends. what is heterosexual marriage if not sex between friends (I'd hope)? maybe that explains the divorce rate.
he said: i know that i can get more physical spiritual and mental enjoyment from a game of basket ball or a musical jam then sex with anything or anyone.
I'm sayin': I could agree with you here. homosex is not tantamount to my self-concept or identity, except for the ways that heteronormative culture and its enthusiasts impose their traditons and belief on my kind. i would prefer a romantic and sexual life that wasn't politicized. unfortunately, people like you make that difficult.
he said: and i think that's the problem. trying too hard to impose my life style on others to their detriment. i think the over politcizing of homosexuality would be to the detriment of black people and thus damaging to african spirituality... although if we can make it through crack, cointel pro, and 400 years of slavery, maybe this too is just another test to triumph over.
i'm sayin': so we shouldn't politicize blackness or africanness either, right? so politicizing of identity is just plain wrong? again, the politicization of identity is often the reaction to identity oppression, and that alone. when I'm with a group of folks who ain't trippin on my liking guys, I'm not thinking.. who am I gonna have to bust in the face... and i'm cool. it's not until someone gets testy that I start to have defensive thoughts.. LOL. but the point is that, my gayness, like my blackness are beautiful and perfect, as they are... until around people who question this... and I can choose to internalize the majority opinions about blackness or gayness... or love them both. I am proud of my gayness BECAUSE I am a proud black man... an honest man, a man of integrity, a man who believes in truth... i ain't goin go out like no punk/ LOL
he said: on the other hand, i know some people who are just gay.
i'm sayin': like me?
he said: but look at this. in a gay parent house hold, there is an increased chance that the child will 'choose' homosexuality as a lifestyle.
i'm sayin: actually studies suggest otherwise. there IS an increased chance that children won't feel like they will be ostracized, kicked out of the home, these children will likely be less prone to suicide, if gay. hey... I was born to heterosexuals (I think... I actually haven't asked them about their sexual orientation...and we tend to assume, perhaps wrongly, that our parents are, necessarily, straight).
he said: i think it drives another wedge into the rift between man and woman in the black family. i understand what gays are pushing for. if they were not discriminated against, perhaps they wouldn't have a wounded spirituality. or be physically wounded/threatened with impunity on the part of their attackers.
i'm sayin': i think you have no idea what gays are pushing for. see...there are a lot of us... and there is no single agenda... because a lot of us don't agree with each other... or have differing beliefs and values..... you should understand this, being of african descent. gays, in some ways, are like black people.... we use the (blanket) term as a convenient mechanism for political or cultural solidarity, but blackness, like gayness, signifies different things to the vast number of people who identify as such (respectively and/or simultaneously... as in my case).
he asked: do you honestly advocate homosexual marriage and the raising of children?
i'm sayin': I'm not sure how I feel about marriage... but if straight people get to get it wrong half of the time, why not gay folks? I don't know if it's for me. the idea of possessing anyone as property and the contractual shit seems to get in the way of my notions of unconditional loving... but I do feel that the healthy and functional rearing of children has less to do with the sexual orientation of parents and more about preparation for children, self-sacrifice, and other basic principles like love, understanding, and economic stability. funny how heteros can be str8 crackheads and have a better chance of raising kids that two functional professional culturally conscientious black guys who love each other and their children.
he said: how does it work, kind of like "she hate me" but the opposite?
i'm sayin': see, you really lose points for even referencing that (Spike Lee) piece of trash. "she hate me" was the highly romanticized dreamscape of a impotent man who wants to have a harem where he can play king and dicktate "quasi-lesbian" fantasies. nothing more. any real queer person of color would have found it as ridiculously laughable and unrealistic as I did. It was an entertaining movie... to see that this is how some straight men conceptualize their sensitivity to the "gay" issue...
he said: a womans eggs are valuable! it takes nine months to make a child... would you only choose from lesbian females?
I'm sayin': 9 months??!? didn't know that. man... get outta here! personally, i plan to adopt, so this isn't relevant for me. I do know of gay men and lesbians who are deciding together to have and/or raise children. some straight people are cool enough to help with the process as well... .providing sperm or carrying a child into term with (or without) contractual parameters. children deserve committed, loving, nuturing parents. 9 months in the womb, or 9 months of a legal battle and tons of paper work and quality assurance visits... and it's hopefully a beautiful black child in the home of some loving parents. that's what's up?!?
he said: isn't that just way too much? we have so many obvious problems in the black community at home and at large that why do we need this as well? would there be more or less instances of child molestation? is child sex next? and then animal sex?
I'm sayin': you are a bit late of this as a "new" problem. it's always been an issue. i suppose you'd prefer that we continue not talking about it like black people have for the hundreds of years we've already been here on earth... but it's not new. As for child molestation, child sex and animal sex? those are catagories that I, neither a pedophile nor proponent of beastiality, can speak to. you're heading into an illogical slippery slope here with no clear and necessary relationship between same sex desire between consenting adults to sexual acts that are non-consensual. maybe some of your hetero friends know more about child molestation or beastiality than I do?
he said: because there are people out there who think that's ok. there are people who want to fuck animals. and kids. and they do. are these people sick? where do you draw the line? what about golden showers and scatt and all that nasty business? is there a straightforward code of conduct in the homosexual arena? will the socialization of homosexuality create such a code? what about the rent boy thing? doesn't that suck (no pun intended) that youth have to submit sexually to their teachers and benefactors? it seems wrong to me and indicative of a social sickness.
i'm sayin': wow... seems you are much more informed than me about sex fetish... see these are catagorically unrelated, and not sexuality specific, so... again... there is no clear and necessary relationship to homosexuality: r kelly or woody allen might have an answer for you. I don't think that homosexuals have contributed any more to sexually deviant behavior than heterosexuals. two consenting adults who want to bum fuck is sex between consenting adults: gay or straight.
what I said last time: >lastly, I don't see how homosexuality is necessarily seen as a threat to the perpetuation of the black race. many or most black gay men and womyn I know are having and raising black children (or considering it).
he said: well, if they are raising their kids black and proud of their african heritage and with a militant mindset filled with knowledge and upholding african unity and not overtly imposing their beliefs on them (which is very hard not to do!
I'm sayin': why is it hard not to do? i was raised by hetero parents who (now) support my decision to live my life as a gay man. why is it hard to imagine gay parents who wouldn't support straight kids. our children are not clones of us... they will come to make their own decisions about how to live. we provide a foundation...which I'd hope was not grounded in what the children will come to desire sexually, but more fundamental things: culture, spirituality, heritage, education, etc... as for militancy... which is often the foundation of fundamentalism... I won't be raising any of my kids to be "militant"... rather, I want them to recognize and fight for justice, for all people.
he said: children do as you do not as you say!)
I'm sayin': well me and most of my gay friends have straight parents, so I guess that blows your argument.
he said: then i suppose it's more good then bad. would these people have two or three children and devote their time and energy to raising them adequately? many of the problems i'm citing don't have homosexuality as a sole cause. i think in general the lack of community culture and education amongst black people is leaving us out there in the wilderness for any wolf to come along and steal away with.
I'm sayin': and I'd agree with you here... thus, consider yourself a bit more educated on blacks (Afrocentric or not) who are same sex desiring. There's who afrocentric based movement where people identify as "same gender loving" as opposed to gay... as a way of marking the distinction between an afrocentric approach to same sex desire and the onslaught of media notions of gay as euro. I don't necessarily subscribe to it, but know a lot of people who are in it: rastas, yoruba clergy, black muslims, etc... people are clearly in the dark about how "gay" manifests in the African diaspora. go to any Afrocentric flea market in most urban US cities.... you'll see plenty of us, if you take the blinders off... we look just like ya'll .... for the most part. I think that's what scares ya'll so much.
he asked: let me ask you this, would you sacrifice your sexual lifestyle for africa?
I'm sayin': no. my sexual lifestyle IS african. embracing myself is embracing africa, is embracing my desire. these things are inextricable... and it's unfortunate that many of my brothas and sistahs on the continent have to struggle to do the same, in hiding and hunted down by gov't authorities. africa will never be whole until it starts to address the holes.
he said: it just doesn't add up...
I'm sayin': like most of your arguments are on some 1+1= hetero, type shit? ahhite man... i'm no calculus genius, but all i've said adds up quite well for those willing to accept the verity of variables that are the basis of my very essence.
I said before: >seems like folk trying to rationalize their hateration. >denial and disillusionment are the enemy of collective black >empowerment. heteros could gain a lot if they'd access the >minds, energies, and talents of some 10+ percent of their >population who've been reduced to half-men and half-womyn >because they choose not to pretend to be heterosexual. >
he asked: were you ever molested or improperly dealt with by an elder or a member of the white 'race'? were you just born gay? if such is the case, if you are not a product of a dangerous environment, and are just gay, then so be it.
I'm sayin': I had virtually no contact with white people until middle school. no improper dealings with elder whites. as I've suggested before... born gay, as I see it. born a perfect child of the creator. so be it. so it is. dig or not.
he said: a female ancestor born a man. it happens, i guess. if your ready to die for africa and her people, then so be it. we'll work the rest out on the other side.
i'm sayin': not a female ancestor born man.. just balanced... receiving guidance from both male and female ancestors as I tred this wilderness called North America. they've guided my steps beautifully thus far. I am a man. I am every expression of man you'd expect in a man except that I desire men like myself (masculine, resolved about their blackness and sexual identity, prepared to kick ass if it comes to that)... I do not view women as my sexual/romantic companions any longer. at one point I was succumbing to social pressures and the vast acceptabilty and comfort involved in hetero pretending. but, ultimately, i think that "pretending" causes more problems than it solves. some afrocentrists would prefer a DL African diaspora where we continue to endanger our women and blame them for our unwillingness to be truthful with ourselves. that needs to stop. Africa simply needs to come out of its constipated closet. Shit stinks in there.
he said: please hear me. i may sound over zealous, but i am honestly trying to find out the best way home. and i am willing to listen.
I'm sayin' though... finally: don't follow the yellow brick road, yo. or the any afrocentric bible. follow what you heart tells you is just and fair and right... and in the spirit of love... and you (probably) won't go wrong.
peace.
tim'm t. west
african in america, warrior, poet, emcee, revolutionary, activist, teacher, guide, griot.
Monday, January 24, 2005
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
he-art
i want to find the wholeness in the hole
mend my heart’s deferred agility
breathe muscle and mass into it
till it beats on beat with my sensibility
lately it has been sounding flat-lines
dimming my sunshine
shamelessly stuttering my moon’s lullaby
therefore rendering it b-9
before belittling bystanders constantly vexed
who wouldn’t know he-art if it stopped
dead cold in their chests
so i’m looking to attest the tests,
arrest their underdevelopment
circumspect the madness
breathing fire through my pen’s sadness
i’m reaching back beyond myself
to begin again
be my own best friend
own heart physician
witchdoctor and prayer-circle
own emotional technician
i got red dirt clay fingers
writing words to spool thread
through heads stupidly sucking on next blood
from the living dead
but enough of butter cuts
from punk ass fools
who talk loud but never lodge
in live inside the POZ
and they won’t win a war with God
still there is nothing more horrific
than to not feel feeling
not dance when house music
has always been your healing
starve yourself of metaphors
when poetry has been your salvation
walk among rebelutionaries
who think their anger builds a nation
there were no boxing gloves
soft enough for my hardened black fists
so i dismiss the faggot diss
to bring real realness with a twist
and dare revolutionaries to dream bullets
braver than my words
come harder than the cross i bear
crucifix for a thug turned nerd
the new gunshots i pop
not jellycaps for bloods that bugg
but words i hope will heal my heart
rewrite myself as love
mend my heart’s deferred agility
breathe muscle and mass into it
till it beats on beat with my sensibility
lately it has been sounding flat-lines
dimming my sunshine
shamelessly stuttering my moon’s lullaby
therefore rendering it b-9
before belittling bystanders constantly vexed
who wouldn’t know he-art if it stopped
dead cold in their chests
so i’m looking to attest the tests,
arrest their underdevelopment
circumspect the madness
breathing fire through my pen’s sadness
i’m reaching back beyond myself
to begin again
be my own best friend
own heart physician
witchdoctor and prayer-circle
own emotional technician
i got red dirt clay fingers
writing words to spool thread
through heads stupidly sucking on next blood
from the living dead
but enough of butter cuts
from punk ass fools
who talk loud but never lodge
in live inside the POZ
and they won’t win a war with God
still there is nothing more horrific
than to not feel feeling
not dance when house music
has always been your healing
starve yourself of metaphors
when poetry has been your salvation
walk among rebelutionaries
who think their anger builds a nation
there were no boxing gloves
soft enough for my hardened black fists
so i dismiss the faggot diss
to bring real realness with a twist
and dare revolutionaries to dream bullets
braver than my words
come harder than the cross i bear
crucifix for a thug turned nerd
the new gunshots i pop
not jellycaps for bloods that bugg
but words i hope will heal my heart
rewrite myself as love
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Letters, Public Disclosure, and the Discontents of (De)Contextualization
i remember his letter. as warm and comforting as recycled long-johns my mama "scent" along with her love. i remember that it made me smile. i was scrappin for some trace of a boy who wasn't so scarred by love that he could adequately respond. i've lost sight of that hopeful energy. i was heartbroken beyond the break: the house i was building with someone, a mansion memory; the man who welcomed me to share it, as haunting as an imaginary best friend who promises never to leave but does. i loved a'shar more than he'll ever recognize. never thought I'd actually bring a man home to moms and say "he's it". so i'm still healing.
this letter was my new friend's disclosure-- I suppose some response to the various revelations in my "red dirt revival". when you write memoir, you are sometimes not prepared for people who will think they know you because they've "read" you-- people who will fail to see you beyond their "reading" and who will not make room for your 7th breath or the ways you overcome your own self-circumscription. through the warmth of his letter and the exchanges that followed, I did feel that i'd gained a friend. i was appreciative. i get a lot of letters and while I know I don't respond to them all with letters, I do know that I've said "thank you" in some small way; and if I have not, i hope that it was charged to my disorganization or schedule and not my heart.
we had a number of conversations by phone about his letter. a writer, i struggled with how to respond to it. there was something in it that hinted to a desire for a deeper knowing. and perhaps i could not find the courage or cop-out to say, "I'm not attracted to you that way", or simply, "i have not found courage to try to love again." so I kept his letter near my ritual space where I prayed for time and isolation to be band-aids for my heart-hurt. i'd resolved that the only person i could love was some black boy i'd claimed as my soul mate back in 1997 and who continued to make knight "appearances" (shining armor if he happened to be "feeling me" at the moment). it felt safer to try to love somebody whose love was so crudely unrequited and non-reciprocal. i wouldn't have to be the "bad guy" and could continue sulking in self-indulgent pity with my "black men ain't shit" manifestos. but i have to wake to myself everyday. I don't believe that "black men ain't shit". That would be suicide. i do remember entrusting this new friend with some very private thoughts about my longings for a reconnection with my unrequited soul-mate, not as a hint of my unavailability, but was a way to share a piece of me beyond the ways I showed up in my artistic products. I feel that the ways we respond to unrequited love are, perhaps, the greatest testimonies or our capacity to love. it's ironic now. this letter about my loving some other boy wasn't about him, so i suppose it didn't count towards the getting to know each other *credits*. he claims that I don't know him. I don't think he knows me either.
we continued to have conversations, email, IM, though the phone calls died down between the thousands of miles between us and other preoccupations. i didn't consider that my non-response to his letter would be a thorn in our friendship. it would be the psychoanalytic "event" through which all other actions would be judged. i don't tend to operate that way-- holding people to the expectation of my desire, so it's tough for me to understand. i have been the victim of my own failure to act as others have desired. I'm a believer in "compersion", in the excesses of unconditional loving-- even when everything around us suggests that we love "because" or love "in order that". it's a task to check your expectations of those you love... realizing that no one really owes you anything... and that not getting what you desire, has everything to do with you, and less with the person you desire. my friend, who'd written this beautiful letter, surely had a preconceived notion of what would qualify as a response. I don't know that anything short of reciprocating his desire would have sufficed. I am sorry for the fallout, for miscalculations in my judgment, maybe even for the intensity of my preoccupations after a failed relationship and the pitiful attempts to be with someone who didn't want me. I am not sorry for not feeling the same way.
we recently saw each other again. he continues to be a supporter of my work, though i'm not clear anymore if it's about his own phantasm of the ways I satisfy his desire for me or if he's genuinely interested in me beyond the ways i'm consistent with his envisioning. he recently made it clear that he does not like hip hop, which, because I am an emcee, i found interesting... and this spiraled into a conversation about the ability to like or love people outside of our projections for them. it explains why he never responded about the (complimentary) CD i sent to him-- another inadequate self-disclosure I didn't get right. he's made comments before of people not being who he desired them to be... and it occurred to me why I might have been fearful of responding to his letter. His "aggression" is about a dynamic. it's the father the little boy is so afraid of not pleasing that he becomes stuck on stuck-- unable to find the confidence in his agency to displease, move beyond what others want for him, become his own man. he knows someone else i'm close with and has articulated his distaste for this person for not corroborating his desire. it's a thread in his way of thinking that honestly baffles me. for whatever ways I've longed people to show up for me, I have not held them as failures or inadequate for not doing so. people get to be the people they are, where they are, and I have to own what's going on with me if i cannot accept them for that.
we discussed these differences. i felt i learned a lot about him in that conversation, for all the ways we differ in our approach to "knowing"... but i did not anticipate that my suggestion that he was "aggressive" would become the decontextualized subject of his blog. I honestly felt a bit hurt and misrepresented, though he didn't disclose my identity. it was if he was looking for a jury of empaths to corroborate his feeling that "it's [my] loss", or that I wasn't deserving or worth the friendship in the first place. And he did get that: a chorus of sirens rebuking the non-responsive ghost of letters past. but it felt really wrong. I'm a bitter, aggressive, black phaggot sometimes. so I'm ghostbustin'.
all in all, i still have love for the guy. i don't think we will be able to have a functional friendship anytime in the near future. he seems to be always looking for my failure to show up in accordance with his "desire"... and so i remain like the letter i still haven't found words to write: hesitant, cautious, scared of misspells, bad grammar, or just plain not getting the answer right. it's not "aggression" it's the dynamic of those who cannot accept people where they "be". And I've had to own that my response to it, is MY shit! I'm working on clearing my eyes of the stench. i need to smell myself more clearly. LOL. I've been a good friend, I have a lot of people who love me, and I'm very deserving of a lot of good things. Now i just gotta really believe it so that people's blogs don't become emotional setbacks for my progress.
i have learned a bit about myself through these recent disclosures. this big little boy, like that letter that I may someday find words to respond to (whether or not it meets his "approval") is, very simply, a work in progress.
tim'm t. west
1.12.05
this letter was my new friend's disclosure-- I suppose some response to the various revelations in my "red dirt revival". when you write memoir, you are sometimes not prepared for people who will think they know you because they've "read" you-- people who will fail to see you beyond their "reading" and who will not make room for your 7th breath or the ways you overcome your own self-circumscription. through the warmth of his letter and the exchanges that followed, I did feel that i'd gained a friend. i was appreciative. i get a lot of letters and while I know I don't respond to them all with letters, I do know that I've said "thank you" in some small way; and if I have not, i hope that it was charged to my disorganization or schedule and not my heart.
we had a number of conversations by phone about his letter. a writer, i struggled with how to respond to it. there was something in it that hinted to a desire for a deeper knowing. and perhaps i could not find the courage or cop-out to say, "I'm not attracted to you that way", or simply, "i have not found courage to try to love again." so I kept his letter near my ritual space where I prayed for time and isolation to be band-aids for my heart-hurt. i'd resolved that the only person i could love was some black boy i'd claimed as my soul mate back in 1997 and who continued to make knight "appearances" (shining armor if he happened to be "feeling me" at the moment). it felt safer to try to love somebody whose love was so crudely unrequited and non-reciprocal. i wouldn't have to be the "bad guy" and could continue sulking in self-indulgent pity with my "black men ain't shit" manifestos. but i have to wake to myself everyday. I don't believe that "black men ain't shit". That would be suicide. i do remember entrusting this new friend with some very private thoughts about my longings for a reconnection with my unrequited soul-mate, not as a hint of my unavailability, but was a way to share a piece of me beyond the ways I showed up in my artistic products. I feel that the ways we respond to unrequited love are, perhaps, the greatest testimonies or our capacity to love. it's ironic now. this letter about my loving some other boy wasn't about him, so i suppose it didn't count towards the getting to know each other *credits*. he claims that I don't know him. I don't think he knows me either.
we continued to have conversations, email, IM, though the phone calls died down between the thousands of miles between us and other preoccupations. i didn't consider that my non-response to his letter would be a thorn in our friendship. it would be the psychoanalytic "event" through which all other actions would be judged. i don't tend to operate that way-- holding people to the expectation of my desire, so it's tough for me to understand. i have been the victim of my own failure to act as others have desired. I'm a believer in "compersion", in the excesses of unconditional loving-- even when everything around us suggests that we love "because" or love "in order that". it's a task to check your expectations of those you love... realizing that no one really owes you anything... and that not getting what you desire, has everything to do with you, and less with the person you desire. my friend, who'd written this beautiful letter, surely had a preconceived notion of what would qualify as a response. I don't know that anything short of reciprocating his desire would have sufficed. I am sorry for the fallout, for miscalculations in my judgment, maybe even for the intensity of my preoccupations after a failed relationship and the pitiful attempts to be with someone who didn't want me. I am not sorry for not feeling the same way.
we recently saw each other again. he continues to be a supporter of my work, though i'm not clear anymore if it's about his own phantasm of the ways I satisfy his desire for me or if he's genuinely interested in me beyond the ways i'm consistent with his envisioning. he recently made it clear that he does not like hip hop, which, because I am an emcee, i found interesting... and this spiraled into a conversation about the ability to like or love people outside of our projections for them. it explains why he never responded about the (complimentary) CD i sent to him-- another inadequate self-disclosure I didn't get right. he's made comments before of people not being who he desired them to be... and it occurred to me why I might have been fearful of responding to his letter. His "aggression" is about a dynamic. it's the father the little boy is so afraid of not pleasing that he becomes stuck on stuck-- unable to find the confidence in his agency to displease, move beyond what others want for him, become his own man. he knows someone else i'm close with and has articulated his distaste for this person for not corroborating his desire. it's a thread in his way of thinking that honestly baffles me. for whatever ways I've longed people to show up for me, I have not held them as failures or inadequate for not doing so. people get to be the people they are, where they are, and I have to own what's going on with me if i cannot accept them for that.
we discussed these differences. i felt i learned a lot about him in that conversation, for all the ways we differ in our approach to "knowing"... but i did not anticipate that my suggestion that he was "aggressive" would become the decontextualized subject of his blog. I honestly felt a bit hurt and misrepresented, though he didn't disclose my identity. it was if he was looking for a jury of empaths to corroborate his feeling that "it's [my] loss", or that I wasn't deserving or worth the friendship in the first place. And he did get that: a chorus of sirens rebuking the non-responsive ghost of letters past. but it felt really wrong. I'm a bitter, aggressive, black phaggot sometimes. so I'm ghostbustin'.
all in all, i still have love for the guy. i don't think we will be able to have a functional friendship anytime in the near future. he seems to be always looking for my failure to show up in accordance with his "desire"... and so i remain like the letter i still haven't found words to write: hesitant, cautious, scared of misspells, bad grammar, or just plain not getting the answer right. it's not "aggression" it's the dynamic of those who cannot accept people where they "be". And I've had to own that my response to it, is MY shit! I'm working on clearing my eyes of the stench. i need to smell myself more clearly. LOL. I've been a good friend, I have a lot of people who love me, and I'm very deserving of a lot of good things. Now i just gotta really believe it so that people's blogs don't become emotional setbacks for my progress.
i have learned a bit about myself through these recent disclosures. this big little boy, like that letter that I may someday find words to respond to (whether or not it meets his "approval") is, very simply, a work in progress.
tim'm t. west
1.12.05
Monday, January 10, 2005
Friday, January 07, 2005
New Year 05: Resolution?
New Year: Resolution?
What does it mean to be guided by sign and song? 2004 is a loose end longing for closure. I am a journeyman searching for someplace I can call home. I am living in DC but it isn’t yet home. Oakland wasn’t either. Oakland was a blanket safekeeping fears I could avoid and with people who would protect me with their pens and manifestos. I had to leave that warrior tribe to expose myself more fully to my weaknesses. This year I resigned from a job I loved that grew to weigh on my heart with the burden of compromise. I wanted more for myself and the students I taught than to guise greatness. I risked certain comforts in doing so and was more afraid about it than I let on. I grieved over this family of 14 and 15 year olds that I’d lost for much of last year. There was something genuine in their expression of unconditional loving that I trusted—above blood and romantic attachments. I suppose they didn’t have to love me at all: just do homework and follow the rules. But in some small way they encouraged me to teach beyond those parameters. Education would be about growing from all the lessons our world provides. I was so often vulnerable enough to admit that I didn’t know something that they admired the process of truth-seeking. It wasn’t so much about finding truth—but the process of wanting it—the sensibility for knowing like when you know your mother’s love or that your heart isn’t where it should be. I am so thankful for their lessons.
I did feel abandoned for a bit. I traveled to NYC twice to sing out the pain, but only left with a longing for dirty pavement, the edge that comes with 24 hour bodegas or house music havens hypnotizing my feet till sunrise. March 2004 through August was this purgatory limbo where I felt very uneasy with my position in life. For all of my noted accomplishments and loved ones, I did not feel love. This time I’ve owned that it’s my shit. I am deserving; but there’s a bitterness about times past when I’ve most longed for it—unrequited or failing to fall for me in the ways I’ve fallen so furiously into it. Through this I’ve learned that even grown folk need new starts.
So I met this chocolate boy in NYC who made me believe that there was love for me somewhere beyond Oakland. And I realize now that it was not at all about him—seductive as his softness was to me. It was about growing uncomfortable with the particular comforts of my past life. I’m not suicidal anymore. I have a great handle on my health and HIV. I plan to live to get a ripe old age—even as I feel that the earth is sick of us here. I know that I’m among those people who will provide roadmaps to our heaven.
In 2005 I’ll be shedding a consciousness of poverty or “just getting by”. It’s my calling to have abundantly because I have the good heart to share generously in ways that can improve the quality of life for so many beyond me. I’m gonna be more happy in 2005 and more resolved about shit. My music deserves to be heard and will. My writing will find needed investments to flourish; and I’ll take myself more seriously as an artist. I will claim that I am, first and foremost, an artist who has gifts to offer in other areas, but who wants, more than anything, to scribble and sing and dance in ways that solicit the sounds and stories of others. I’m a gatekeeper.
I am no longer afraid of being alone. Tonight I am here writing in the house of a friend I love beyond the ways friends are told they can love. There are many men in my life who I love deeply—and womyn too. I honestly don’t know that I want to restrict this loving to whatever artificial, contrived boundaries we create when we “do” relationships. I have and will always love with passion and intensity; and I do hope to someday find (or be found by) a complement. But I do know my residue. And it’s some shit that demands, not therapeutic talk-through, but more time. Time to wake alone from time to time feeling that I am waking with the most amazing, loving, sexy black man there is.
This year I’ll creep out of fringe shadows of celebrated critical review and do a few things to popularize my presence. I’ll remain humble and consult my mother about love and business matters. I love her more than my sporadic contact would indicate.
Nothing is promised, not a next page, nor the pen with which to stain it with ramblings. My soul is continuous though; and so it has returned to accomplish more than I’m currently aware of. It’s a large task and I’m being prepared for the magnitude of it with each challenge or obstacle. Happiness in 2005 will be butter pecan banana cravings in soft pajamas: action flicks with brothas I love and who love me. It will be oatmeal in the morning while I rush to get to work on time, so that I won’t have to work on the same way this time next year. It’ll be sharing the stage with one or a few icons who respect my contributions to the world we are resuscitating.
I have a lot of healing to do, a book to write, more than a few people to forgive, many songs to write, a home to create for myself, teaching to do, and great sex to have in more abundance. I must remember that I am never alone. There’s a raw passionate, turbo energy that says LIVE, LIVE, SCREAM, DANCE, SHOUT, be more fully aware of the ways that you touch the world and are touched in return. This is a very happy time—even as my introspection and stirring in sleep sometimes seems to indicate otherwise. The ball dropped just blocks from here 30 minutes ago. I’m gonna go party and start practicing being happy and smiling more. It’s bound to manifest my most profound hopes and dreams.
Tim’m T. West
01.01.05
12:30 a.m.
What does it mean to be guided by sign and song? 2004 is a loose end longing for closure. I am a journeyman searching for someplace I can call home. I am living in DC but it isn’t yet home. Oakland wasn’t either. Oakland was a blanket safekeeping fears I could avoid and with people who would protect me with their pens and manifestos. I had to leave that warrior tribe to expose myself more fully to my weaknesses. This year I resigned from a job I loved that grew to weigh on my heart with the burden of compromise. I wanted more for myself and the students I taught than to guise greatness. I risked certain comforts in doing so and was more afraid about it than I let on. I grieved over this family of 14 and 15 year olds that I’d lost for much of last year. There was something genuine in their expression of unconditional loving that I trusted—above blood and romantic attachments. I suppose they didn’t have to love me at all: just do homework and follow the rules. But in some small way they encouraged me to teach beyond those parameters. Education would be about growing from all the lessons our world provides. I was so often vulnerable enough to admit that I didn’t know something that they admired the process of truth-seeking. It wasn’t so much about finding truth—but the process of wanting it—the sensibility for knowing like when you know your mother’s love or that your heart isn’t where it should be. I am so thankful for their lessons.
I did feel abandoned for a bit. I traveled to NYC twice to sing out the pain, but only left with a longing for dirty pavement, the edge that comes with 24 hour bodegas or house music havens hypnotizing my feet till sunrise. March 2004 through August was this purgatory limbo where I felt very uneasy with my position in life. For all of my noted accomplishments and loved ones, I did not feel love. This time I’ve owned that it’s my shit. I am deserving; but there’s a bitterness about times past when I’ve most longed for it—unrequited or failing to fall for me in the ways I’ve fallen so furiously into it. Through this I’ve learned that even grown folk need new starts.
So I met this chocolate boy in NYC who made me believe that there was love for me somewhere beyond Oakland. And I realize now that it was not at all about him—seductive as his softness was to me. It was about growing uncomfortable with the particular comforts of my past life. I’m not suicidal anymore. I have a great handle on my health and HIV. I plan to live to get a ripe old age—even as I feel that the earth is sick of us here. I know that I’m among those people who will provide roadmaps to our heaven.
In 2005 I’ll be shedding a consciousness of poverty or “just getting by”. It’s my calling to have abundantly because I have the good heart to share generously in ways that can improve the quality of life for so many beyond me. I’m gonna be more happy in 2005 and more resolved about shit. My music deserves to be heard and will. My writing will find needed investments to flourish; and I’ll take myself more seriously as an artist. I will claim that I am, first and foremost, an artist who has gifts to offer in other areas, but who wants, more than anything, to scribble and sing and dance in ways that solicit the sounds and stories of others. I’m a gatekeeper.
I am no longer afraid of being alone. Tonight I am here writing in the house of a friend I love beyond the ways friends are told they can love. There are many men in my life who I love deeply—and womyn too. I honestly don’t know that I want to restrict this loving to whatever artificial, contrived boundaries we create when we “do” relationships. I have and will always love with passion and intensity; and I do hope to someday find (or be found by) a complement. But I do know my residue. And it’s some shit that demands, not therapeutic talk-through, but more time. Time to wake alone from time to time feeling that I am waking with the most amazing, loving, sexy black man there is.
This year I’ll creep out of fringe shadows of celebrated critical review and do a few things to popularize my presence. I’ll remain humble and consult my mother about love and business matters. I love her more than my sporadic contact would indicate.
Nothing is promised, not a next page, nor the pen with which to stain it with ramblings. My soul is continuous though; and so it has returned to accomplish more than I’m currently aware of. It’s a large task and I’m being prepared for the magnitude of it with each challenge or obstacle. Happiness in 2005 will be butter pecan banana cravings in soft pajamas: action flicks with brothas I love and who love me. It will be oatmeal in the morning while I rush to get to work on time, so that I won’t have to work on the same way this time next year. It’ll be sharing the stage with one or a few icons who respect my contributions to the world we are resuscitating.
I have a lot of healing to do, a book to write, more than a few people to forgive, many songs to write, a home to create for myself, teaching to do, and great sex to have in more abundance. I must remember that I am never alone. There’s a raw passionate, turbo energy that says LIVE, LIVE, SCREAM, DANCE, SHOUT, be more fully aware of the ways that you touch the world and are touched in return. This is a very happy time—even as my introspection and stirring in sleep sometimes seems to indicate otherwise. The ball dropped just blocks from here 30 minutes ago. I’m gonna go party and start practicing being happy and smiling more. It’s bound to manifest my most profound hopes and dreams.
Tim’m T. West
01.01.05
12:30 a.m.
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