Audre Lorde- Takira's Vision

"When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid"

Last night, I contacted a high school friend using Facebook chat. I asked him why he was sending me subtle, hostile messages. He answered that he knew how I was in high school and that I had changed. He said I had low self-esteem and he always told me that I was pretty. He said I didn't think I was better than anybody else, which was different from the person I am today. He rambled on about how unfair I am and the only way to make things right would be to apologize to him. I couldn't continue the conversation because I had always thought this man was foolish and always had a hard time maintaining a talk with him. I told him I had to go, even though I was furious and wanted to scream at him. We ended the conversation.

As much as I try to be humble, I definitely am proud of who I am today. As shy and reserved as I am, I am certainly happy with the many ways I venture out of my comfort zone. One thing that is very important to me is sharing my heart with my family and friends. One way is posting my poems on Facebook. It's an easy door to my heart. The fact that I can share that with people is a stepping stone for me. Another is the time I take to give kind and hopefully guiding words to them when they come to me for answers or comfort by way of phone calls, texts, or inbox messages. The fact that I can no longer be the scared, shy, hidden girl I was 7, 8 years ago is a good thing to me because of all the positivity I think that I bring to the people around me. I am obviously not physically strong. But using words as my tool, I feel that I possess a mental and emotional strength that others cannot see by looking at me.

Snow Day

I am reminded of the teenage movie by the same name as this blog post. It was pretty entertaining. In the movie, school was also cancelled due to the abundant snow. I stayed in all day even though I was itching to leave the apartment. Maybe I just didn't like the look my dad had after coming from a quick walk to the store.

Neighborhood Ode

In my old neighborhood, Jamaica Queens, I grew up with my 2 younger boy cousins. I think the tomboyish ways I developed was due to this. I didn't play with Barbie dolls and Polly Pockets until way later, it was video games and basketball for us. We played tag, freeze tag, red light green light 123, acted out action scenes from movies or wrestling shows, or just ran down the block to get away from the house. Running was just about all we did. Except in and out the house. Collectively, we had about 4 times to run in and out, then we had to choose one to do.

Since my house was in the middle of a cross street, it seemed like we had a better advantage over those who lived on one end. Those kids had parents who didn't want them at the other end where the vision was limited. The environment we were in was kind of safe. The corner store was perpendicular to my house, so getting candy was just a matter of asking for a little change and running up the block. Our money went to that or delighting in ice cream when we heard the ice cream truck down the block.