2017 Recap: On being the Princess, the Dragon and the Knight and his Horse

Cool picture aboard the Logos Hope

So here is what happened to me in 2017:


I stopped complaining about things I was worried about and started investing my time in activity that could fix it. Which is to say, I stopped saying I cannot cook, started cooking things, got better at it, got bored of it, started saying instead I do not cook, understood the difference and walked away from the experience understanding that I can feed myself and not die of starvation if I ever have to do so but generally, don't like doing it and have no time to waste in this life doing things I don't like doing, if I don't have to do. I did some serious adulting. I worked myself ragged. I was under appreciated for it. I wrote and wrote and wrote and thrived between the pages. I read like my life depended on it because parts of it did. I had a mental health break down of sorts or two or five who's counting? I got the heck outta dodge. My problems followed me because DUH. I let my problems talk shit to me for a long time. I let my problems talk sense to me on in empty train cars when it was just us. I danced! I walked. I trusted myself. I saw that I could. I believed that I could and I did. I got lost in the middle of an unfamiliar big city and freaked out about it. I got unlost and wasn't good to myself about it. I got lost a lot more. I got unlost and triumphed. I had pink hair. I let go.  I was ignored. I cried less. I smiled less too. I worried. I got very sick, a lot. I had surgery but you know that's like every year now and I tried to accept that this is my life now. I drank more water. I loved. I had love taken advantaged, I decided to stop giving away my trust. I didn't get out of bed. I got out of bed. I got really passive aggressive with God. I loved and trusted Him anyway. I got hurt by people who promised they would never do so... on purpose. I changed.  I appreciated leaves and rain and sea. I remembered that I am a boss. I was a boss. I got really sick some more. I got frustrated about it. I got angry at my body. I got angry at my heart. I grieved my past. I grieved my dreamy future. I was gracious with myself. I directed some of that wealth of kindness I had to give inward. I changed some more. I made great strides as a business woman. I did work for my clients and they were satisfied with it. My business grew. I planned. I had plans fail. I had to slow down. I got angry. I got loud. I fought back. I spoke up. I walked away. I appreciated me when others did not. I pin pointed character flaws in myself that though meant for good were miscommunicated. I saved those parts of myself for other parts of my life. I slept. I woke. I kept going. I didn't die. I found new dreams of which to be afraid. I didn't die. I keep going.

It's been a hell of a year but I'm still here.

Hey 2018, here's spit in your eye.

Spice Bloggers Meet Up : A Conversation on Listening

Yeah, I know these pictures are super blurry and completely unfiltered and I'm not changing a thing. What you see here ladies and gentlemen is a group of people changing the world with their talents and passions. Real people, with compassion and fear and a whole lot of bravery in an unfiltered real world.

Studios make me happy

I've been craving some truth lately. It's easy to loose sight of it when you're an influencer and a lot of your job brings you to places filled with filters and fame.

I don't ever want to forget why I do what I do. Why I am so honest and have such a big personality and love hard and laugh loud and smile far too big for the comfort of many. My shirt says hug a tree by the way, just thought I'd add that in, you know, cause it's important. I am a person who loves genuine connection with others. I am a person and I love people. I love talking with them and learning from them and teaching them. I also love dogs and the sky and long walks one the...wait where where we? Oh, right, people.

 Grenada Soul Adventurer and I lookin' all good ans stuff

This year was a tough one. Boy oh boy did I get sick. Not the usual sick either, not the albino in the Caribbean oh crap here is that whole skin cancer thing again. I mean that totally happened but that's not the star of this story, stay with me. I got sick in ways that changed my personality. That slowed me down and shut me up and got me fighting mad about it. Cause i'm pretty grand and I didn't like being changed from the inside in a painful way.

Fair to say it brought on quite a crisis of faith and I'm not even better! I am remembering who I am though, living and trusting what I believe and continuing just...continuing.  But you know what made it harder?  Believing the lies that surround us every day. The filters and the fame and the planned smiles and the speeches made without listening in return.

All those broad selfie smiles and kick ass accomplishments that I hadn't finished accomplishing not for lack of trying. For a moment there I almost forgot that we are real people who take blurry pictures and are living pretty blurry lives trying to make sense of it all.

Maybe some people have it complete figured out. To which I say, stay away from me you lying lier lie face. I'm kidding, good on you and well done but also give me the broken, give me the cracked. Give me those who mend their cracks with gold and say here I am, whole and beautiful still. Let me learn from those people. Where are their instagram pages?

I am not saying I have not been authentic in my struggle. The truth is most of the things you know about, most of the things I share on social media are pretty great! I finished my degree, I have a job, I travelled recently and I don't hate who I am. I'm also rather in love with my God and believe in Him with all of my heart and I stay unashamed about this. Not even asking you to understand that either!

I guess I'm just saying, here I am and here we are on this earth, a group of hard workers who deserve to be happy too. Real people who fail and succeed and then fail again so hard and then succeed SO GOOD and you don't always get to see the entire equation...but I want you to know it. I truly believe that authenticity will always be more healing and impacting than pretence. I have dedicated my life to the truest truth. Flaws and all. I have been hurt as a result of that decision so deeply you wouldn't believe....but something tells me, you totally would believe because pain my friend, is something to which most humans can relate even from the wariest and latest of age.

Msy.Chrissy, Malaika who facilitated our session at Spice Harmony Yoga Studio who hosted us, Grenada Soul Adventurer,  Kered, Amber Kane (serving up that face i love it!) and Antonio

So here we are living beautiful painful lives and changing the world anyway with our blurry pictures and silly smiles.

Listen well to your truth even if your truth is painful. Let yourself hear it and feel it. Then be compassionate to yourself and others. Maybe you wont be able to share it all but accept that that's okay because sometimes only you need to hear you. Since you're the only one feeling this, you are the only one that can validate those feelings.

Hey or you could write that shit down or dance that shit out. People are dumb and they will fail you but words and a good solo dance party? oOoOo BABY!  Maaaan, self doubt who?!

I hope that when you are alone at night in your bed fighting off the confusion of the pain you feel at some point or another that you remember: it hurts because you are alive, it hurts because you feel it. Feeling is one of the best perks of being alive!

So at this get together we sat and were real with each other.  We talked strategy and truth and moving forward with an air of compassion and with much admiration and laughter for what we have accomplished with our unique gifts.

I feel like compassion is a rare jem these days in these of consumerism and get rich fast or die trying. I was really happy for this space in time and for the realness.

Peace. Love. Feeling!

Book Boat in GND : Visiting the Logos Hope

So the Logos Hope returned to our shores recently. It is a boat full of books manned by a Christian organisation. Click here to see my visit via youtube video! I remember going when I was much younger. Our island doesn't currently have a public library so now it's even MORE of a thrill the idea of a boat being full of books, a library on the ocean, going shore to shore. Also, since I'm a Christian, it's double fold exciting!

I got a chance to take my little cousins who had never been on a boat before the experience.

The shy one wanted a puzzle book and pen, her little sister who is much more boisterous usually got them she informed me and she finishes them for her since her sister doesn't really like them. I hooked her up,

The loud one came to me shy and quiet with a Frozen book. When I asked her if she was sure she wanted this one she said in such a small voice 'I really love Elsa...' and in kind of hurt me because she said it as though she thought it wasn't okay for her to love the idea of a bold, brave, boisterous princess who takes on being different and fights alongside her sister for the good of their Kingdom. She's eight. What are we doing if our eight year olds feel like they have to grow up so fast that they are not allowed to want to read a story about a brave princess? I hooked her up.

There is quite an argument going on on my island about the need for and lack of a public library. Some say that because the people have rallied to create a modest community library in the capital so we don't need one. Some say libraries are archaic and no longer necessary.

When you out source help as an independent nation,  go to some kind fat pocketed people and ask them for money to build your country up and they respond so you are saying the people have rallied and volunteered and created a library of their own so clearly they want it and other kind donors have helped build school libraries though the continuance and expansion of those are largely in the hands of the schools...when they ask so what have you done as a government then and now to ensure sustainability? What do you say I wonder...

Here is my take as an educator, a reader, a writer and a citizen. The largest countries in the world have libraries on each block to this day. Organisation put founding aside year after year to build libraries in developing countries to this day. When they took the oldest civilisations in the world, they burned their libraries and put a stop to their language.

Children must see reading made important by the people whose opinion they actually respect. If our government does not think it is important to set aside space for a NATIONAL PUBLIC LIBRARY why should they believe that literacy is important, if the relevant bodies wont even give it designated space?

The easiest way to see a people disappear is to halt their cataloguing of their history. To destroy their libraries and their language. Libraries are the resting place of language and literature. Literature is the ultimate catalogue of culture.

Peace. Love. If Not Now When?