20 Adventures in 2020!

So I haven't done much in the way of yearly goals on here yet. I thought I'd start with one first and not put to much pressure on myself as I continue my MFA. This year I will be attempting to have 12 adventures in 2020. Once I get that out of the way, as I suspect I will, I am going to up this goal to 20 because I mean, come on, 20 in 2020! Who could resist?

If you're wondering what exactly they are the truth is I do not know...yet. I'm embracing the unknown this year in this way.I'm letting myself do more than plan Truly crazy for me but hey, onward ever right?

I will be cataloging them here.
Watch this space.
The first one will be posted soon

Happy New Year y'all!

Christmas in NYC 2019

So what does Christmas in New York City look like exactly?

Well, when you're away from home, largely dependent when you're not used to so being, submerged in a completely different culture than your own, it looks like excitement and loneliness wrestling for top rank.

It means classmates and people asking you "So what do you miss about Christmas at home?" and you opening your mouth to tell them but not being able to put it to words in a way they could relate to just then. Understanding in that moment as you feel the absence that Christmas at home is sensational. It is the smell of cakes in homes and shops. It is people in the market desperately searching for sorrel. It is stores all lit up and more people in the city than usual, speeding along, looking and looking and planning for feasts with friends and family. It is eggs gone scares and upped in price  It is stepping into a bus and sighing as you exclaim 'prang already!?" but singing along before you know it. It is Christmas music over the radio system of your favorite grocery store.

It looks like sitting back and realizing that you are an adult who has spent the last decade establishing traditions and happy habits that are now across the ocean. It means missing watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or Home Alone for the gazillionth time with your mom as you eat lunch at dinner time because you did more laughing than cooking in the kitchen that day.

It means missing your big brother's laughter as he comes barreling down the steps of your home with sweet cakes, yelling Merry Christmas over excitedly.

It means not running into friends you haven't seen all year, on the streets or more importantly, in the grocery store, bonding over the exorbitant prices of turkey hams.

It means missing your dog and your cactus plant and your miniature Christmas tree and the bedding, pillows and lights you got yourself, with money you worked for that you put up just once a year to decorate your room. Decorations that you'd been so proud of putting together in a space that is yours.

And it means doing this alone, in the dark. Not telling anyone because you understand that you also have religious affiliation with this holiday and you're in a country where they'd rather you keep your beliefs to yourself thank you very much.

It also means your friends will go out with you on eve of eve and see the city of New York fantastically alight.

It means eggnog for the first time.

It means red, green and Christmas lights used and appreciated in a new way.

It means Christmas dinner with an aunt you spent a large part of your teen years missing. Laughing with her and eating cranberry sauce with turkey.

It means the extra ordinary kindness of strangers.  Like a sweet new friend buying you a Rudolph plushie to keep you company while you miss your mom. Your friend giving you a journal to remind you that this too is part of your story and you've got to write it down.  Live it in the moment and appreciate the moment because this moment too will end.

It means being homesick for your best friends and telling them and feeling connected to them even from far away because the solid true friendships you built cannot be shaken by space. It means Caribbean new friends giving you warm bottie socks because they thought of you and how you would struggle through your first Winter because they know that struggle well. It means your Puerto Rican friend sharing his cultural, home made drink with you after telling you about it for years! It means...so much.

It is a melancholia...knowing that no backwards step will ever fill this spacing where something is newly missing and no forward step will ever compare. It is understanding and accepting that they don't have to do that that they don't need the weight of that responsibility. It is coming to grips with the fact that change is okay even though it is bitter and sweet both.

Christmas, away from home, has the ability to make you cherish your intangible national treasures.

Peace. Love. Appreciations.

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