Your Little Red Hammer

If I were to write a letter to you.. this is what I would say:

Dear Little Brother,

Your heroin addiction isn't fair. It took you before I knew you.

I know you are lying, and trying to use my kindness.  After everything, I don't have the energy to fight with you and call you out.  You can think you are fooling me, and that is perfectly okay with me.

I'm angry with you, and disappointed that you let our family's past consume you.  Please stop making excuses.  You can't erase your criminal record now.  You will be in prison for life. Own that. Know you could have made a difference and there were people willing to help, but no one more able than yourself. And honestly, sometimes I wish you died when you ODed, because then I wouldn't have to see you where you are.  Trying to use everyone and everything for your addiction.  It's like my heart breaks over and over and over again, instead of just once.

No one will ever look like me, like you do.  You are my closest blood. A photo on my desk, a memory of red hammers and blond hair. But I don't know you. I love you, but you're empty and your memory is warped.

I love you, but I can't ever forgive you....

Sacramento, my love.

The most redeeming aspect of Sacramento is the sunset.  As the sun goes down the sky starts to burn with color. As I drive home, I look out how the colors line the railroad and the outline of barren trees.  On Tuesdays I usually catch the train passing through.  I know that the colors are a direct result of the level of pollution.  They serve as an indication of the working class city that Sacramento is and has been in the past.

Its like your heart is on fire.

And you can't ignore it.

Cities and geographic locations have captured more heartfelt confessions from me than anything or anyone else.

Thanks Pandora.

Not entirely sure if listening to my Spill Canvas Pandora station is adding to reminisicing over the past. Wow, and then there is that moment when you read over the last sentence you wrote, look at the date, and realize why.

Hoping that I get over this fever and shakes soon so I can go outside and do some great things for my personal wellness. I haven't had a lot of weekends off, so this is one of the first whole weekends I will have to myself for the next couple of months.  In fact, it will be St. Patty's Day.  Finally, I will have a housewarming (or apartment warming) and a joint Irish jig.

Birthdays are special. Here goes another year...

Mind Maps

I haven't written in a long while, so forgive me if this stems from a seemingly endless stream of consciousness. When things happen in rapid secession I tend to think in sentence fragments.  This may be why I found myself driving on the opposite side of the road this morning, or I started to just eat food that was placed in front of me without even bothering to look at what it was. Gluten fail...

People ask about South Africa. I go back to work. Massive projects. Configuring a calendar based off of email. More work. Friends, I miss you. Class. Social Entrepreneurship. Leadership. Date. Bowling. Family. Meetings. Driving on the wrong side of road. Phone calls. Walmart.

I wish that I had a wall that I could draw idea bubbles on, I would love to connect them and on the lines  write sentences or key words about how they are connected.  As a visual person, I like to connect the image concepts with words. Its like a massive web that I am constantly weaving and re-weaving in order for them to work. 

Could I blog with a mind map?  Would that work?

A taste of the wild

Whenever I need to be put at ease, or need ample head space to think, I usually find a corner of the world that I can be alone with nature. This doesn't always mean that I am completely alone, because usually I find a bird, insect, or small mammal to observe but it brings solitude. Initially, I was unsure how I would like the safari. Would it be loud and chaotic, or a form of animal exhibition? Well, I was pleasantly surprised by how respectful and knowledgable our guide Adrian was about the bush and it's inhabitants.

When we were driving and slowing down for the turtles crossing the street, the rhinos checking us out, and the elephants that were protecting their own, I felt the awe of nature. It was magical and brought me in. It was a new experience that I was unsure about but was able to embrace. While I was sitting there, I just thought of others people that I would love to share these moments with, because I knew it would touch their hearts. During those moments I felt like a small child excited by how a bunny hops. The animals and the landscape were new and unfamiliar and I wanted to soak it all in.

However, I wasn't very good at spotting animals. Jamie, Dante, and Onikah definitely get the prizes for pin-pointing them. To me, it was like playing where's Waldo when driving.... Not easy.

Wishing that I could post my pictures,
Crys

Robben Island

This blog is a little late, but its hard to kept day by day updates on our travel schedule, so here is my belated post about the trip to Robben Island. I find it hard to transcribe all of my thoughts, especially when in a new country with so many profound experiences, so I am going to focus on one aspect of the tour.

Despite being in such a beautiful place, Robben Island and the cells on the island are barren. Unlike the rest of South Africa, the cells are void of color, and its difficult to see the ocean over the dry tree line. From most of the cells it is even difficult to see the sun. What is so amazing is that despite the barren nature on the island, some of the political prisoners remained vibrant a, giving individuals. They were resilient and believed in cause bigger than themselves. One example of this is a story that we were told about the lime quarry.

The lime quarry was where some of the prisoners worked during the day. Long days were spent in the hot sand under direct sunlight. To go tithe restroom the prisoners needed to ask for permission. Although the conditions were hard, prisoners found a way to educate themselves. They wrote lessons in the sand as they worked. Many of the political prisoners were teachers, doctors, and men of high educational attainment and wished to share that with their comrades. One man entered the prison with an education certificate for 8th grade and he left with two college degrees.

Furthermore, the prisoners do not only share their skills amongst each other. They taught their wardens too. However, as higher officials heard of this they rotated wardens and even removed wardens from the island that they thought were sympathetic to the prisoners. Yet this did not stop the process of learning.

It's amazing how humans can cultivate the human spirit amongst the conditions of a prison. No man is an island, put if you put a man on an island, he will find a way to connect.

And to top it all off, we had a tour guide that was a former political prisoner there and he said to us, " it's all about introspection....check yourself."

In solidarity,
Crys

Re-purposing the Trash Can

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all. From now on you'll be traveling the road between who you think you are and who you can be. The key is to allow yourself to make the journey.”- Meg Cabot

When we were walking back to our hostel tonight after some delicious Greek food, I saw a shorter version of this quote on a trash can. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about courage and what it means to be of courageous mind and character. Courage is the ability to recognize that you may have fear about something, but you decide to work through that fear for a bigger purpose. And this message was on a trash can.

Seeing this quote reminded me of a young lady who gave us a tour at the African Leadership Academy. She was from Ghana and someone asked her how she found out about ALA. Timidly, she expressed that she was embarrassed to tell us that she had found the application on a trash can. Finding that application changed the course of her life. If her eyes weren't open to the world around her, even the trash cans, she would have missed it.

Trash cans are normally utilized merely for the disposal of trash, however in South Africa I've found and heard stories of how they provided opportunity and food for thought. What a great use of a communal space and changing the connotation of a common communal object.