When the lights turn off

I had an experience, for some reason I am having a difficult time putting it in the right words. That’s weird, me, a writer unable to put something into words.

I have attempted however it’s all foggy. I woke up in the middle of the night and I released all I felt. It was better, I felt better. The context is love affairs and casual affairs. The confusion of what it all means. How is one suppose to act in love affairs and casual affairs. Is there a rule book? Are there do’s and don’t? WTF! So this writing, these writings are split into two

Friendships and love (affairs) Pt. 1

Are like campfires? There only burn if someone keeps putting in the wood.
Wood is like the effort that keeps the fire burning, lets the fire produce all the warmth. It’s not a one person job, whoever is involved in the friendship/love affair is responsible for putting the wood in and blowing the air (is that a pun)

Both these things take effort… from everyone, once one person
is responsible for everything, the putting in the wood, the blowing, the sorting etc. it can
become rather exhausting.

That’s how friendships and relations end, when one person feels like their doing everything
to keep the fire burning but the other is lacking off.

I’ve seen fires go out and others get lit in life. Some fires I was responsible for letting them
die, some I felt like I was doing all the work. There is even the worse experience of going back to try and light the fire that died long ago, to try get back all that warmth, but then when the fire starts warming up you realize the reason you left it in the first place.

I’ve been the bad guy; watching the other person use so much effort to keep the fire burning and I stood there starting other fires on the side. When other fire didn’t work, I’d come back to this hot, warm, burning one. By the time I awoke, I was alone in that fire, the person who kept it alive had moved on.

This brings me to the second part of the writing. I urge you as a reader to find your own meaning here; I have this feeling of sharing these writings as there are, with the feelings I had when I woke up in the middle of the night to write.

When all the lights dim off pt. 2

What goes through your mind when you’re watching all the lights turn off. You watch all the
moments you were a part of disappear? Life basically telling you to move on, that chapter of your life is gone; it was bright for moment but it’s gone.

You watch these lights which are all you or rather moments in your life that you wished could stay lit forever. You start looking around to see if all the lights are really turning off, you run to see if the old lights, the ones you never took care of still work.

Yaaay! this one came on, but the moment an old light comes on, you remember why you
moved on from it in the first place; that light started to mean something else.
You stare at it again, you unplug that light, you make the decision of being the one to turn it
off.

As you make that decision, you then realize why some of the lights were turning off on
you. It’s not nice to watch all the lights turn off, it’s not all of them because there are lights that seem to always stay on in our lives no matter what happens, but there are ones that turn off, all the moments, all you have to do is nod, smile look ahead and work on other lights

Let me tell a writing story

I was told of a writer who took his characters on dates, so he’d get to know them better. He’d literally be driving and engaging in conversation with characters that existed only in his mind.

Writing is an experience, and the word experience comes in different formats

The line “write from what you know” really has deep roots than the obvious literal meaning, at least in my recent evaluation of self.

Many years ago I believe I wrote how each character I’ve created in whatever work I’ve produced has been embedded with me in it. Whether it is a self- righteous character in a community that’s falling apart or a graduate who is uncertain about his future or the country’s future about education or a father who can’t seem to form a bond with his child.

All these characters when put together form what in essence is me, each flaw, each strength separated but in all, I am the one in the park, I am the host.

In this writing however I want to delve deeper into what exactly all this means; the whole idea of writing from what I know.

For example, I once wrote about a wrongfully convicted criminal and their release. Of course I have never been convinced of any crime before, however I did read the story about this person. That reading became my experience, it became something I know, however there was still that sense of who is this person, I didn’t know, and that’s when writing from what you know gets deeper.

I started to wonder for all the years in prison, what did this man yearn for. I tried to think what I would yearn for, but I was selfish, I thought of childish things, but then it hit me; this man who had been claiming his innocence for years, the one person who believed in him was his mother.

So I began there. I looked at my own experience with motherly relationship, how it is, how I dreamt it was, what went wrong or right etc. It was then that I built something for this character.

Writing from what you know means realising fantasies, desires and history of course. All these become tools of what you know. What you know is something vicariously lived to. I put my ear on the table a lot of times, when you’re silent, you hear a lot. These stories people share become roots to something that can have life later on.

I love writing, I love putting my experience on paper, that way it makes it more unforgettable, it exists for someone else to experience it with me. When I experience something beautiful, something intimate, I like taking pen and paper and undressing the experience, when I read it again, it’s like I am reliving it.

Every experience is beautiful, even the ones the we don’t like, at the end we can tell stories about that experience thus in turn someone can say really “oh I had something like that happen to me once” then an experience has turned into something common, a conversation.

So, when you feel like you don’t know what to write or even what to say to someone, start from what you know!

Tranquility

“time goes by so slowly” ~Madonna

Due to many circumstances, one being covid restrictions in China, I haven’t been able to attend any live performances. Let’s all take a moment of silence and sadness for me.

I appreciate the moment

Live performance/Theatre is peaceful. It’ really is a place were you tend to forget reality and be transported into that moment. This ofcourse dawned to be today when I watching a student talent show. I found myself absorbed in the moment, I found myself reminiscing about my days in theatre whether during rehearsals or performance.

I miss that space

In theatre time moves differently in both literal and figurative terms. You are taken in a different world, into the moment or lives of people you are watching, and suddenly reality falls at the back of your mind. Days and months can pass in theatre yet it’s just minutes on your clock, but for that moment, if you are absorbed, you transport yourself to that time, and suddenly you forget the world outside.

The theatre itself is warm, the lights are bright or it’s dark depending on what the work is about. However these effects play with the mind, either making you believe it’s day/night.

How it can it not be therapeutic, it’s a form of meditation for real.

If you come across live theatre performance, even if you’re not a fan, go in there, agree with yourself to get lost in whatever world is being presented to you. Agree that your eyes will believe the light that exist, the period being presented. When you agree to all these, answer the question.

Did you not experience tranquillity?

What makes you experience a state of peacefulness?

Father Figures I

~black
When I was growing up I use to tell myself I grew up without a ‘father’. In essence it’s the person that contributed to my conception I didn’t grow up with. I had a lot of father figures.

In this next series of blog posts I want to list almost all the father figures that I have had in my life. These foreign individuals who have played a role of “father” in my life without ever knowing they did. Media really is a fascinating thing; it can build a person or can break them down. I guess I am the lucky few. So, here is a rather interesting odd list of the father figures in my life.

Jackie Chan Movies “Funny, inventive, none violent (well)”

Being bullied is something most of us fall victim, it’s hard to speak about being bullied when you’re a kid, especially if your mom is a hardworking strong black woman. So you learn to keep quiet and try to survive school life. I chose that route rather than telling mom who would have whipped me for being “weak”. It’s in these moments you need father figures, someone to teach you how hold your fist straight up, or your leg up high for kicks.

Jackie Chan is probably the only non-black person I will mention in this post as a father figure but that he was. I’ve written too many times on how watching Jackie Chan helped me as a kid. It was not only to defend myself but I learned how to use my body for a variety of things, especially for expression.

Being able to love while watching someone fight was enjoyable, Mr. Chan showed me that “running away” is not necessary a bad thing, just puts you in a better survival position and survive I did, not only that, I learned how to get stronger.

One on One “How to raise a daughter”

I grew up with one parent, which wasn’t easy for her I am sure. My siblings and I were lunatics to say. So I never imagined what mom went through, furthermore I could never imagine what if it was my ‘father’ who was raising us.

So watching Flex raise his daughter on One on One was something special; to see all the dynamics, ups and downs of being a single father were a learning curve. Young as I was, I took a lot of lessons from this father. How to approach being a father, to learn from your daughter as much as she learns from you. Yes, of course the young girl was a grown up but none the less there were really good lessons and conversations that happen in that household.

Yes, of course Fleex had support, even the daughter he was raising supported him, guiding him on how to be father. I appreciate you Flex, for giving me good lessons. I appreciate these father figures.

As the list continues to go on, I am sure you might bump into a series or character that made you become better as a person or like me, was able to help you grow. If you have any to share before I post the next blog of father figure be sure to do so. I am a 90’s child, so some series might not be familiar to those who are very young.

Stained

Def. : a taint of guilt :

Dirty, like I haven’t washed in days, I wasn’t washing in days.

Skin crawling with invisible insects, I scratch til I bleed yet I still feel stained.

I feel dirty by the laddered words ‘it got worse and worse’. Each day the night was a repeated nightmare

Repeat, repeat, repeat!

Unclean, no matter how many times I stand, sit under the raining shower my body still feels stained.

I feel stained, I feel drained. My body is chopped up into puzzle pieces, I can’t seem to put myself together nor fit myself together.

If I am feeling like this, I can only wonder how worse it might be for you.

Stained

Every memory of me and you is now foggy, like shards piercing my skins, each time I remove one, another one explodes in the distance, before I blink it has dug itself into my skin.

What was real? What was not? Lines have been blurred, I kneel to the ground searching for these lines, there is no answer there on my knees, just emptiness, stained with silence.

The Male Spec-actor

Def. : one who looks on or watches |One who pretends, but secretly watches.

Welcome to 2022 on this blog were we still talk intellectual bullshit. Oh I’m kicking the year off with an intense topic. Should men not be involved in solving issues that women face?

You know I am here to collect your perspective so after reading, please leave a comment.

Ideas are started by individuals, and then further perpetuated by those (social masses) who agree with the individual. This is not to say the social mass was not thinking this all along, no, it is to say, someone made a point they agreed with all along, and it’s refreshing and releasing when someone does that. So you form/ join the social league.

So, can you take away an individual thought in a big idea? You can’t really. In huge social movements there exists individuals. We resonate with these individuals.

So, let’s agree.

Yes, there are problems. These problems are someone’s fault, we technically know who’s fault it is, but the aim is not to point fingers, because we know pointing fingers leads to some fingers being pointed back.

How do we solve the problem? This problem of men treating women certain ways that are wrong! How do we solve these socially constructed ideas about women either their looks, intelligent and their worth? I don’t know really, but I know including the people who are part of the problem is definitely a good start. Making statements that “they don’t have knowledge to understand” the problens, that won’t solve it. Instead it’s a fire being built by a group of people, and it’s not warming everyone up to new ideas/thinking.

I understand people who shut Asian/White people down when it comes to conversation about race as we note “they won’t understand the problem” I do it too really, I’m guilty, but being guilty though I don’t shut it down completely. I go back to throw a few jabs again to see if they understand, if they don’t I get off the ring and maybe wait I don’t know until when.

I have been a witness of so many ill events/actions caused by men unto women yet it doesn’t give me enough knowledge because I am not in the body, I am viewing it from the other side and that makes it complicated.

I can never be women, it’s hard to even imagine being one. I am guilty that even when I imagine being one, I childishly think of having breasts.

Everyone needs lecturing, of course men need to stop being spec-actors of the multiple issues occurring; Women on the other have to know they can’t come into that battle alone, without some “men” on their sides. Yes, but who are these “men”

My problem is I don’t know where I stand, I am a man, I am probably guilty of many inappropriate acts towards women, some aware of, others not, I just need to be put in a circle of men that need to be educated.

So ultimately here are some questions.

1. Can men, us be trusted to listen without reaction?
2. Are we dumb that we don’t understand women’s problems? Like are we thinking they don’t exist?
3. When the fuck are we going to fix “Black/Coloured people” issues? Why is the race issue always being pushed backwards
4. I’ve said too much

Remember leave your intellectual bullshit, I want to here your thoughts. A link that was shared to me. It was interesting to listen to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmqq9_XTelM

My mother calls me by name.

This image is one of the oldest images of my mom I have. I was shocked at how I don’t have any new images of my mom.

I have never failed to articulate how much love my mom has for me…. Money😂

Yes, my mom would work long hours of the day to earn money, to feed us of course but ultimately, secretly she just loves money. If the sun is Superman’s way of getting strength, money was my moms. Then like any darkie mom from back home, she’s go and buy kitchen ware she will never use. I generally think everyone loves money.

Knowing this fact, I grew naturally afraid to ask mom for money, on the basis of course that we didn’t have much but again ultimately because mom would turn into Gollum “Smeagol” as money was her “precious”. Mom could feel when you touch her money hiding place. She’d call ” I know how much money is there “😂

So I grew up afraid to ask for money in regards to anything. I would need new school shoes, books or whatever, I just couldn’t do it, not that she wouldn’t have given it to me, she is my mom of course she would have given it to me, I think, I just couldn’t do it.

In the beginning of varsity it would get worse. As any students not financially secure, one would run out of certain “essentials” yet still I couldn’t get myself to do it.

My mom would call me asking if I needed anything I would say I’m fine, then she’d say “Thiza, are you sure? “

I’d be quiet for a while, then she’d know that perhaps for weeks I was not properly eating. When I finally got financial support I’d send, as most kids in my day, send almost all the funds to her.

Travel to years later, in this time, this present, now as a stable young… old man, I am financially okay, fuck in many standards, especially my country’s standard, I am now well off, I send money back home as often as I can or as often as someone requires money, yet I have an issue.

My mom fears asking me for money😂

How the wheels of life have turned, not for the better as it seems. No matter how much I tell my mom, it is fine, anytime she needs money I’ll gladly send it to her, she has become that boy I was at a young age, afraid to state when in need.

Yes of course she makes truthful statements that she asks for money constantly, which I don’t mind as long as I have saved for myself.

This is a psychological thing isn’t it. I am living in a reverse psychology world with my mother.

Many months back I had written a blog about black tax, a financial strain we as darkies often suffer from, the fact that you have a family to feed. Often if not planned accordingly this has dire effects on the future, were it could lead to you not being financially stable in the future thus creating a cycle of needing your own kids to feed you.

Fuck me?!!

I don’t know how to get my mom out of this cycle; I mean I agree with some of the facts or reasons she gives, but she is of course still my mother.

Now, what’ story do you have for me when it comes to family and money? Write to me, my ears, or rather eyes are on the screen.

Multiple Personalities

This post is about friendship(s)

In the movie Split the main character suffers from what psychology terms “multiple personality disorder” I tell you right now if the disorder was like that, it would definitely be more interesting.

I want it!!

I want to use the analogy of the movie as basis to this post. None of my friends are the same, as a reader you can attest to this by looking at your friends and seeing how different they are to each other. Although we are all friends together, and resonate on the same frequency, we very much differ; We differ on how we approach certain things or life itself, I think it’s why my friends have their own friends as do I.

This comes to me in how I saw my friends reacting to something I had sent them. Each found a different aspects of it..in one scenario, I didn’t send a joke to a certain friend because I knew it was not their type of joke, this of course doesn’t mean friendship over.

This phenomenon if I can call it that is clearly visible in my own emotional needs to them “friends” as well.

I never approach a certain friend with a certain problem, because I know they will not get the whole picture of the issue, they will offer support yes, but it won’t be the kind I’d need.

I have a friend I always approach if I have women problems, not because he has a lot of women problem surrounding him, no, because he has a certain understanding that I can resonate with… he also has lot of women problem, please help him!

I have a friend I can approach if I have family problems or thinking about future prospect. I have friends I can talk about artistic work, some of my friends get repeated in different loops.

Friends to talk dumb and serious shit with you know!

These friends in a way tap into different personalities that exist within me. I can listen to my friends music but not all their playlists, gosh I’d die.

I am not sure they’d be able to listen to my playlist, I got too many love songs, Taylor Swift ringing in my ears, what can I say Teardrops on my guitar is my shit!!

Anyway, friends are dynamic, some of them you can’t call to be honest because they’ll tell a joke to get you into unnecessary trouble, some you can’t call to speak “the truth” because they will really speak honest truth, bitch read between my lies.

Yeah I learned that lesson the hard way, that’s a story for another day.

I have a few circle of friends, I mean the people I can really tell my shit too. The ones that know I am really shy and quiet, the ones that know I am smart in certain fields and totally clueless in others, but that won’t stop me from listening to them rant about their shit.

Most my friends and I support the same teams, except Fiddy, he’s a bitch, he supports Arsenal, I don’t get that.

Friends, countrymen, people of earth, what are your friends like? Drop me some comments, let me laugh at your shit.

Theatre Work On Sale

See this as a review.

‘Idyllic Lives’

You can walk out of a show not liking how it happened, ‘the structure’, but you can fall in love with so many aspects.

The wonderful dancers that move so well they make your muscle orgasm, no, truly my muscles still have a shaking spasm for how well the performers could move.

The design, oh, what a design it was, like sex for the eyes, not everyone loves sex, so replace sex with whatever you desire and be charmed by that image, yes, that’s the stage design.

The music, I suddenly wished the live musicians were the show but I understand how without bodies dancing, the music would have been useless.

The work as beautiful as I have described it lacked a certain structure. In the world of comedians, its something they dub “Callback” the work began a certain way, a very beautiful way I might add, it lied to me really, it drew me in with the opening, dancers rolling like hay on stage but so hypnotic, I was caught in their web but after that it was filled with “moments” rather than a line structure, I was left saying ‘Oh wow that piece is nice’

Yes, it didn’t really connect together, the movements/dance although very wonderful there didn’t connect to the concept of the work, there were so many movements but they didn’t feedback to the concept at all, I felt again I was left watching how these performers could move wonderfully but not necessarily how they are creating a working narrative.

I want to defend it and say perhaps if I was Chinese, I would have gotten it more, but the audience around me although enjoyed it, I felt they too sensed the disconnect.

Can I go back to talk about the design? I get jealous, perhaps it’s because I hardly get to work with designers on my works. The design was something to feast your eyes on, it wasn’t like the best stuff in the world but I envisioned so many ways it could have been utilized, I felt all types of emotions.

Sand falling from the sky, something I’ve seen before, but totally worth re-seeing, animation, it could have been used more, it really could have. Bamboo sticks, OMG, they used those sticks for just a short moment but I screamed no, you are using them wrong, bring them back here in this moment, so it connects with what you did earlier.

I walked out content, I walked out understanding that we create differently, we work in certain ways, while some of us work in imagery others work in narrative, I am the latter, I want to connect my work to a certain line that when it ends you understand how it began even more.

I walked out wanting to create again, to build that connecting story, now I wish I could steal those performers.

What work have you seen and connected with lately or disconnected?

Cut/Crop/Save

So often we put ourselves in positions were we want people to know that we did something or we feel a certain way about something, to in a certain way prove ourselves to “them”

I find myself in a weird/strange position of shouldn’t it be enough that I know were I stand? Aren’t I enough to self to know that my position is here, that I don’t need to defend it because I know it?!

There are very much places designed for you to defend yourself, like court. In court you have to no matter what defend or prove your innocence, even if you know 100% that you didn’t do something but by the standards that someone said you did it, places you in a difficult position of defending yourself.

This is a very different situation if someone says you are racist/homophobic/sexist etc. If someone blames you for being any of these things and you know that you aren’t, what reason do you have to prove yourself to them that you are telling the truth?

I don’t think there is really; there are things we don’t need to prove because proving them makes them not real, it makes you look as if you are justifying your own truth.

I am not racist because I have black friends! Having black friends doesn’t make you not racist, lack of respect/empathy, belittling black people makes you one, and you can really still be one in that position of having black friends, that’s just an example.

The pictures of food we take & post showing we are eating healthy! Who are we taking them for? You already know you’re eating healthy, for you and your body that is prove enough that you are doing what you tended to do, informing others about it isn’t necessary a need.

A part of the reason I am thinking about this is that I’ve been walking quite a lot lately, at times I’d forget to wear my watch which usually calculates the steps I take. It rattles me a bit to not have the steps counted, but then I started thinking, wait, who am I doing it for, am I walking to calculate steps so others can see or what?! I mean I know I walked a lot, shouldn’t that be efficient? Who needs to see that I walked so much today and why?

Proving or disproving certain things isn’t necessarily, but we are trapped in this reality of if people know were I stand, I can be liked more or can be relevant or I will be acknowledged.

It’s sad we live in this reality, even I. I dance and I take videos of me dancing naturally because I want others to see that I dance and made something beautiful or interesting.

It’s the world we live in, I think we need to re-evaluate certain things, try to understand what really is significant in the world we live in

In essence it comes down to a few things, one being I understand how the world is structured now. The world is built in a way that fame or entertainment can happen at any time, that a simple video or image that you took can become an instant hit. That’s the type of world we are in.

However the other part takes me back to something that comedian Dave Chappelle does which is he take people’s phones away during live performances; for some I am sure it’s like taking them to rehab, taking away an addiction they have, but I think that’s precisely the aim.

People can’t seem to live in the moment anymore, to be satisfied with experiencing things in that moment and be fulfilled with the idea that it’s all in your head/heart, you didn’t capture it with any device.

It’s totally okay for your film recording to be your brain, yeah sure likely no one will believe you, that you met who you said you met, but you know it happened, that should be proof enough.

We are stuck in a forever changing world, a complicated world that is asking us to think too much, to forget human feelings and emotions, making us react to each other in a delayed manner because we are so busy caught up on being relevant.

It’s a scary world out there people, but it’s still a fun world.

What is your take, talk to me, I am all ears