Sometimes You've got to Take A Chance on Yourself first || Big Changes || JULY 2019 Catch Up

So what have I been up to let me tell you!

Writing and writing and writing.
Getting ready to self publish.
Getting into grad school.
Realizing that I have no way to make that dream happen and having to defer.
Loosing the ability to defer and having to make big decisions about my future, my job, moving, being a student again but this time in a foreign country while low visioned.
Doubting E V E R Y T H I N G
Waiting on God.

So....I got into Grad school y'all! I am about to start the degree of my dreams in a matter of days! I...cannot tell you what I am thinking. I just keep chasing my dreams, ending up in bigger and scarier situations than the last.

Is this the summary of life??

I have been packing and praying and trying to stay calm and failing and filling out form after form. I've sought scholarships and loans and done so much searching and asking question after question that just keeps leading me to dead ends.

I have come face to face with people in the position to help and have been forced to come to terms with the reality that they will not because "I just don't believe in you."  Yeah, that sucks to hear doesn't it? It sucks to live too.

Now don't get me wrong, I have a score of wonderful people who believe in me. So many people who have kept me feeling empowered. There are people in my life who have done all they can to help me take a step forward and I wish there was a bigger, weightier word than 'Thankful' and 'grateful' to express to them how I feel...

You see in this life it's already hard enough to get someone to believe in your ability. It is even more so when you HAVE a disability. This is why it has taken me so long to write about this...because it's hard to go here. It's hard to have this conversation about what a disability is, what an INVISIBLE disability is, why disability is not a bad word. Why because you know me and you've seen me adapt to get by successfully in some case or another, that does not disqualify me from that term and why, that term does not belittle me or box me into being a person who is not able to succeed. I want you to understand how saying to a person "Yeah but you are not reeeeally disabled though" says more about what you think about people who have disabilities and their ability to achieve and live normal, happy, lives than it does about me or that word.

I know we've come far but people get very defensive with words like those. As if you are belittling someone else's struggle when you imply that you too have an uneven footing to get past.  That is a whole different discussion however, I am not hear to fight over disability, what it looks like, what you think it should look like to gain your seal of approval.

I am here to say that I got into grad school.
This legally blind girl from the Caribbean who has had over 10 cancer cell removal surgeries.
Who is the first of her family to get this far.
This girl who learned to read at nine years old because she couldn't see the blackboard or the books.
This girl, who survived it, you don't need to know what it is.
This girl someone took a chance on and let into primary school.
This girl who squinted at too small printed in a primary school exit exams and passed it independently on her first go.
This girl who was told by her then secondary school principal that she would never amount to anything less than a month before graduation.
This girl who got an Associated Degree in humanities anyway.
This girl who even after being told by that same principal who ended up being her first boss, that he would "Never allow her to teacher" taught for thirteen years, reading and literature and self worth to every student she met.
This girl who saved every dime and financed her self through university and finished with a Bachelors in English and Literature with Education.

This writer girl turned woman. This one, who wrote these words you are reading and has wrote words you've read before. Who has loved and mentored and fought to make her country better with both her hands and still been told I just don't believe in you. when it came to taking the next bold step by every bank and credit union in the country she loves, when it came time to take the next step.

This girl is going to get a Masters Degree in Creative Writing anyway...somehow. Scared and all.

So for the next two years of my life I can honestly tell you I have no idea what is in store and I, a type A, engram one, stubborn Aries hate the unknown. When you're visually impaired it's like living in a pool of unknown around the clock already for goodness sake. Your very foot step is a step into the unknown because is that a step or is that a shadow and will I be safe and how and-

Watch this space because this girl? This girl is going to take another crazy chance on herself.

Will you route for me? I hope you'll route for me friend. I'll be honest, for as much as I just said, there are NO grantees. I could fail. I have only saved enough money for the first semester of this big crazy dream and...I could fail pretty bad. But I'm getting on a plane, I'm leaving everything I know and love behind anyway and I'm going to chase my dreams like my life depends on it because I'll be honest, it kind of does.

Want to help?DM my facebook page thewordyphoenix and lets talk about it!

Peace. Love. Let's Go get'em!
This post was written in July 2019

Grenada Chocolate Festival 2019 | Brunch At the Tower & The Magic of Old Houses

I had the pleasure of attending Brunch at The Tower as well as be part of a Garden tour there during this year's Grenada Chocolate Festival; 2019. I don't know about you but for me being in extremely old houses has an air of magic. There is a mysticism in the reality that generations of people walked and worked these halls. Especially, since this house has a colonial past. There is history here, in every brick that was carried over on slave ship, then made part of this house's foundation. There is life energy in every flower planted by hands willing and unwilling both.

The Tower Brunch grows a plant seen all about Grenada called Butterfly Pea Flower. I admittedly, had never heard of it before attending the brunch. I am so glad that changed! Of course I looked it up and what did I find? Small island beauty as it is the Butterfly Pea Flower is famous and has been used in many a drink due to it's vibrant blue coloring!

 The Butterfly Pea Flower, when used for tea releases a richly hued dye that gives The Tower's signature blue ice tea it's mystique. It's an experience worth having to be handed a brightly brewed blue ice tea . I suggest strongly that you have a visit to The Tower and request it!

Brunch was an island mix of locally grown, organically tended, unique dishes. From warm dark chocolate doused savory dishes to juicy, fun shaped fruit salad that lavished your tongue in sweet fruit flavor, the moment you bit down.

And of course, tea, always tea! We are not, regardless of Columbus's fabricated ledgers, savages after all. Har har, see what did there?

Did the awe of this property stop there? No dear friends, it was just beginning! Onward, to the garden tour!!

 

The garden is alive and is felt all over the property, not just in it's designated section. It grows, extending leaves, branches, hands of praise to the sky. It embraces pillars and stairs, benches and pathways.  You cannot escape it in a way that you do not want to do.

I have come to understand that, at least in the case of my people, when we say that we are islanders people do not hear it all. They do not hear that we feel it. That we are saying we are part of this fertile soil, that we fill ourselves on this sweet, sacred Caribbean air. That we grow food with our hands and bent backs and knees. That we are kissed by freedom on the breeze.

Maybe they would understand better if they took a slow stroll through a living, breathing garden too...

Or maybe they still wouldn't understand. Maybe there is no understand the bones of a culture...there is experiencing though that I know for sure, in smiles, silence, skips and laughter like these...

I hope you get to feel that too some day. Maybe even at the next Grenada Chocolate Festival?!

Thank you to The Grenada Chocolate Festival for having me for yet another year! It was my extraordinary pleasure to be there and to be provided and opportunity to share these moments of magic with you dear reader. For date of the next Grenada Chocolate Festival 2020 click here!

Do you think old houses have a life of their own?

Peace. Love. Brunch!!
All photos taken by Grenada Chocolate Festival