A Christmas Story #Circa2011

I didn’t open a single gift on Christmas for the first time in my life.  I was gifted a bag, with a box inside (which turned out to be a heater for my desk that works great but was essentially a walgreen’s gift for Saks Ave woman), but it didn’t even have tissue paper to cover it.  I guess Small Fries made an executive decision to spend as little as he possibly could and still get me something that I would halfway not complain about because I wanted it anyway.  Well, it worked.  I haven’t complained but I did offer, very clearly, the chance for self-redemption.   My bday is a few weeks and if Small Fries can correctly pull of the fifty dollar gift I want, then I will forget that he bought my Christmas Gift from someone selling heating units in front of the gas station.  Yeah, this is my life. This is why I say folks don’t understand the personal turmoil I am in.  Lots of it, I continuously allow myself to be in, but it doesn’t make it any less turmoil.  It just makes me have a hand in the concoction of it.  I’ve gone from a woman who was got diamonds for Christmas to a woman who gets Walgreens.  To say I’ve grown as a woman and shrank as a girlfriend is false.  I have grown as a girlfriend, but, I am no one’s girlfriend.  I am simply a lover and a filler flower.  I know my place.  I know what lane I’m traveling in.  I want to park the car, but truth is, I’m fearful that no other man out here is interested in me in anyway outside of being his “sister”, that I lay stagnant with the person I can 100% be myself around, all while knowing I am sacrificing my heart and pieces of my sanity in doing so.  But….that is far from what this post is about.  So, I digress. 

I didn’t open anything from Christmas.  Not from friends, family or strangers.  I also didn’t put up a tree, didn’t see anyone outside of family, didn’t do ANY Christmas shopping, which are all first for me for as long as I can remember.  This was a very different Christmas.  I spent most of it parked on the couch, watching Nip/Tuck.  It was sunny and unseasonably warm for December outside.  Nothing about it felt like ANY of the Christmas’ prior.  There wasn’t a gift in sight or a Santa for miles. 

Yes, this was a different type of Christmas. 

In life, you have to count your blessings.  You have to see them, for what they are, where they are, when they are, and realize that blessings are tiny pieces of sparkle that fall from Heaven’s grace, into your lap and touch so you barely….so lightly and almost fickle, that if your blink lasts too long, you run the risk of not realizing you were blessed.  Blessings don’t come on Christmas Day simply because the rest of the world is out here boosting the economy.  The biggest blessings aren’t gift wrapped under a tree or falling out of Santa’s broken bookbag as he stuffs himself down your chimney.  Blessings are blessings.  And they come when God sees fit.  If that day just so happens to coincide with a day deemed important, either by you or society, then congratulations, you are in luck!! But sometimes, they don’t coincide with anything…..except for time.  Timing is never perfect but always just right for a blessing.  This Christmas, I didn’t open a single gift from anyone except for Small Fries and that one, though needed, left me feeling slighted and quite possibly disrespected but again…I digress.

And before I let you continuing to think this blog is a complaint about not being able to open some pretty gift wrap and then trash it and sit my gift in the closet, to be forgotten about until I am randomly searching for something totally unrelated at a later date, let me get to the meat of the menu.

Christmas for januarie was not on the 25^th.  Christmas came twice for me this year.  It was wrapped in love’s cloth and hand delivered by over 100 Santa Clauses, not dressed the part.  The tree, fully decorated and well lit, sat on the stage at writeon the poetry spot.  Christmas for me, was December 17 & December 23^rd.  Those two nights were the nights great Christmas’ are made of.  Without going into too many details, beause if you were there, you would certainly already know, I created and executed my now poetry stage show, The Exquisite Pain, successfully, to a room full of people, two weeks in a row.  For two straight weeks, one Saturday and one Friday, I had managed to pack out writeon with great like minds.  CDs were bought, sold out….Unity Sand was shared.  Laughter and seriousness were standing in the room with us.  We cried internally and blurted out one liners like “GO HARD NSAY!”…..two totally different rooms of people, gathered to celebrate the work of me and both times ended in a standing ovation.  Both times were greeted the following days with messages of inspiration and love.

 Apparently, I have the gift in my hand.  The gift of being a blessing to other people.  The gift of words and articulating self in worldly understanding way.  The gift of making people laugh and think all at once.  The gift of honest and as repeatedly stated to me, Transparency.  I have the gift.  What could I have opened on Christmas that would have been more indefinitely fulfilling as that? 

My people, my community, my peers and even some of my family, all were there to support me.  To see the vision I had worked so hard to create.  When something was missing, Kevin (writeon), was Johnny on the Spot with the backup.  When the vase for the unity sand was forgotten, it was Kevin that found me TWO replacements.  When the mirror for the second show was unavailable, Kevin stepped in and found me a grand mirror so there was no need to pretend.  Outside of Kevin, there was my dream team behind the scenes clocking shit!!! Anitra Malone, Toni Brown, Victoria, Courtney Cage, Ro and Unwritten Lines all came together at some point, and helped me get this vision to the forefront of the people who appeared on the edge of their seats waiting to see what would happen.  From helping me stuff giftbags to selling my CDs, to participating, these women helped me give them The Exquisite Pain.  I don’t have to speculate one what would’ve/could’ve happened if they weren’t available.  That is not the case so there is no need to create what didn’t exist.  They were there.  They were available and they did help. 

Gifts from the biggest and most fabulous cake I have had since my bday last year to a shirt w/my CD cover on it to people wearing shirts with my CD cover on it, to writeon hanging up a shirt w/my cd cover on it to gifts from the East Coast, including my own Oscar Bradley with my name on the gold marquee; blessed and gifted are two understatements for what I am. 

I wanted something different.  I wanted something French.  I wanted something honest, low on gimmicks and above all things, poetic.  And I got it.  I did it.  Myself.  I came up with the show idea on my own, randomly and what started out as an attempt to spice up what happens at a CD Release Party, has now turned into a full show with its destination set on Broadway.  All the reviews of the cd & show have been great.  The amount of poetic energy that was on the stage from those who wanted to but couldn’t make it was power in its own right.   The weather was full of sunshine and snow-free.  The day was low on the stress but stress was definitely available for the taking.  It was everything I prayed it to be and more.  The people who have supported me the most were there.  The only thing missing was Small Fries.  But I didn’t expect him there.  He doesn’t understand the concept of realizing when a girl turns into a woman while you are dating and how to respect it.  That’s my own shit I got get away from.  The bone in my closet that just won’t fucking break.  But even his absence didn’t matter…..actually it never does.  The only real thing that was missing was the Beefcake I was searching for to carry me to the stage shirtless, but that’s ok too. 

Two weeks in a row, I dominated.  I did my thing and came out proudly on top of my game.  I called that #Winning #FirstPlacing #OpeningChristmasPresents

That was the epitome of love.  The first night was magical.  The second time I was worried but it came out just as dreamy.  I have no complaints.  It ALL came together perfect.

It was indeed a different type of Christmas. 

I hadn’t spoken to my mom since Thanksgiving Eve. Christmas Eve brought us our first phone conversation in over a month.  Christmas Day brought us our first visit since early Nov (or maybe even Oct to be honest).  It had been awhile since I saw my mom/neighbor.  Whatever that sounds/reads like, it is the total opposite in my heart.  I feel a digress coming along.

I spent a few hours or so over my moms.  I ate well, laughed, played with her nice little bird and kicked it with her and my g-momma for a while.  It felt like forty monkeys climbing off of my back.  It felt good.  A few times I wanted to cry, just based off the fact that in a room of 3 generations of women, someone has to be the first to die.  We’ve wasted SO much time.  So much.  We’ll never get it back or make up for it.  Its impossible.  But it was the only other gift I could’ve received on Christmas.  I don’t get along often enough with my mom, and when we are on the outs, it eats away at me little by little.  So this was perfect.  Hopefully, I can do my part to keep that camaraderie going.   

I didn’t open a single present this year.  Not money, not body spray; nothing.  Oh yeah, the heater for my office.  I got that and I love my office now.  But there was nothing under the tree that stayed in its container for the first time since 2004 when I bought it. 

Christmas was definitely a lil different this year. 

But what is a Christmas light to the Sun??? Nothing.  I am the Sun. 

For two weeks in a row, I was gifted the ability to command an audience so profoundly with such an honesty that halted the usage of any cell phone device or side conversation.  For two weeks in a row, I packed the house.  For two weeks in a row, I brought my own self to tears with my own words because as much as I tried to hide behind character names, when its you, its you all the way.  I made the determination before the show that every poem I chose would be PERFORMED; but not like an actor who pairs the crying voice with tearless eyes.  But more like the woman, who wrote and lived every fucking word coming out of her mouth. 

I became …

I stared myself in the face and spit poem after poem and looked myself in the eyes while doing so, breaking character only once, but never breaking away from my audience.  I was successful.

There isn’t anything that honestly could have spent time under anyone’s tree that would have made me feel more blessed and joyful internally.  Happiness depends on what happens, or so I heard at church once before.  Happiness is an office heater.  When its on, its working, but when its off, no one is smiling.  Cold shoulders become heated arguments.  But internal joy, however it is you must find it, sustains and lasts even through weatherization.  Blessings come in many forms.  Many ways.  So do Christmas Gifts.  This year, my biggest lesson was not taught by what I did not receive or get to open on Christmas day.  My biggest lesson came from the many gifts left to me by some strangers, some supporters and all my peers. 

Respect. Love. Understanding.  Support.