Emotionally tortured artists

"I never expected God to make my life perfect. Didn't get angry at him even when I hurt the most......I'd survived by being me."

I have to share with everyone my new favorite book written by my new favorite author. The book Douglas' Women was written by Jewell Parker Rhodes and after reading the entire thing this past Saturday I have to admit I am in love. The fact that I am in such a state two weeks after my own novel was released could possibly be strange to those that don't know me, but not to those close to me. I read and write for stress relief and lately I have been under immense stress. I am not sure if I am experiencing coming of age pains or simply being tried and tested for some greater purpose but I have found myself unable to find Christal in the midst of everything going on around me.

So I pick up this book at Wal-mart during my weekly shopping trip and bring it home and it changes my life, or at least initiated a change in my life. The book is depressingly enlightening as it is written from the perspective of two very different women. Up until the last part of the book, I was deeply saddened and pitied Frederick Douglas' wife Anna (whom he referred to as an old black log). Her life sentence of spending her life with a man who was disgusted and ashamed by her made me pity her. I was indifferent to the educated and sophisticated mistress who was intent on taking Frederick away from his "oafish" illiterate wife. I devoured the book struggling to keep tears at bay, sometimes succeeding sometimes not.

What is surprising about the entire story is that the author Jewel Parker Rhodes manages to evoke a sense of empathy in the reader for Frederick, whose actions by anyone's standards are at the least selfish and at the most purposefully hurtful. Being born a black man in a time and culture that considered that fate a curse had to have been emasculating for many. Frederick's love/hate relationship with the white race is easy for many black intellectuals to understand but not explain. Still to learn how that issue affected his relationship with his wife and ultimately his shame of her is disheartening and one can't help but draw the correlations to figures in our society being plagued with the same issues lo these many years later.

As Frederick's intellect was his glory and what made him special it also acted as his curse. The simple phrase ignorance is bliss has always been one of my most used phrases. Once your eyes have been opened and you are enlightened your burden becomes that much heavier, that much more overwhelming.

As one who creates from feelings, emotion and even pain it is oftimes hard for me to turn on and off the emotions that motivate me to write. I find equal parts pain and pride in my African American brothers and especially my sistahs. The ills of slavery and being separated from our homeland still linger on in our attitudes, norms and culture a haunting reminder of the Willie Lynch papers and Carter Woodson's warnings in 'The Miseducation of the Negro'.

Out with the old and in with the new

It's December 30th, well technically it's December 31st so I guess this thought process I'm stuck in is relevant as it is officially the last day of 2005. Today, or rather yesterday has been epipheral, because it has marked the ending of so many things and the beginning of others.

While running errands and answering a gazillion phone calls about a New Year's eve event I'm involved with, I had the unfortunate experience of hearing through that proverbial grapevine some negative things said about me amongst colleagues. Since venturing on my own in business a while back I've been learning that negativity follows closely behind progression, but that still doesn't make it any easier to hear or burden. So as I've been learning to toughen up my sensitive Libra skin, I've been dealing with several situations where there were negative things said about me that were completely untrue. You have to understand that it has been my natural inclination for the past thirty one years to fly under the radar to avoid the spotlight. Never one to enjoy confrontation or negativity, I've often stifled my true aspirations for fear of drawing too much attention, and we all know attention equals positive and negative feedback. I think I would've continued flying at a mediocre altitude had I not been forced this year especially to shake things up. So I'm shaking things up carefully trying not to kick up too much dust and yet the dust finds a way to come to me.

So as I'm driving home with my stomach in knots mulling over how to handle the latest situation I get to my front door and there is a box waiting for me. I look down and realize it's my baby. The first actual live copies of my debut novel are waiting patiently for me at my front door. Still plagued with the idea that no matter how much I try, everyone is not going to like me, I put the books in the house but don't open the box. Things have been happening so fast and I am not one who welcomes change.

I decide to contact my old boss and confront the situation. Letting her know that I respect her and hope she doesn't buy into the negative comments being tossed back and forth about why I chose to strike out on my own. After deciding what to say I sit back and look at the box. In one year I've gone from a subservient employee to an entrepreneur and published author. Now to some that sounds like a great year, to me it sounds frightening. My familiar altitude has been stripped away and I'm out there flying higher than I feel comfortable, I feel like a baby bird that's been kicked out of its nest.

A lady I used to work for once used that analogy when encouraging me to go on my own. I can still see her gesturing with her foot like she was kicking the baby bird out of its nest, "Fly, go on now fly." That's a conversation that stuck with me over the last six years. Six years ago I pushed the instruction to the back of my head and sought the safety of yet another corporate job. I found one and settled into my comfortable clock of mediocrity.....now the cloak is gone and I'm wide-eyed vulnerable and scared to death but backed up against the wall, one has no choice. Since then the next corporate job just wouldn't come, I found a job working for a company I loved, then was laid off.....did everything short of going to McDees to find a job, but nothing worked. "Fly, go on now Fly."

You see having a conversation with my previous employee is like shutting the door on that chapter...a chapter I wasn't really ready to shut. In the back of my mind, I wanted to leave the door open thinking perhaps I could go back one day. I've been that way with all my previous jobs nursing relationships with my supervisors and co-workers in an effort to rather be safe than sorry. Hearing the thud of that door close then lock is so final, but I get up the guts and make the call. I don't reach her so I leave a New Year's Eve message thanking her and wishing her well. Later she responds and I realize the door has closed, there is no going back. I'm saddened but I know this was inevitable, I'm being forced to grow. I read over her words with a phrase standing out and I know this was meant for me in more ways than one, "I am governed far less by other people's opinions than I am by my own
conscience," she replied. I nod, her words resonating within me, translated they encourage me "Fly, go on now Fly."

Speaking of growth, I finally get up the nerve to open the box and the feeling is surreal. I pick up a copy of the book and dust off the cover, it's mine. My name is emblazoned across the front and I flip through the pages immediately recognizing the all too familiar dialogue. It's mine. I smile at my husband and he returns my smile, I call my mother, my brother, my best friend and my old writing partner. They are all happy for me, but I realize this moment is for me. It's so symbolic its almost insulting. One door has closed, another is beckoning for me to walk through. "Fly, go on now, fly."

It reminds me of when I was in middle school and my body was developing faster than my brain, it's an awkward place, but you can almost taste the promise...seeds splitting, then bursting through a barrier to become a flower. I decide that regardless of what is around me I will remain true to myself. Admist the negativity I have to remain positive or else I am just guilty as those perpetuating negativity. Plus my inner soul reminds me I have been blessed with the intuition to know that negative words come from a painful place and usually have more to do with the lips they are uttered from than the target. Still I ask God to send me a tougher layer of skin as I prepare to face 2006.

I try to conjure up every relationship I am presently involved in socially and or business related and I vow to suffocate those that aren't positive and nurture those that are. I promise myself to make a conscious effort to stand closer to the morals and attitudes I am constantly telling others about, and then I forgive myself for all the times I've fallen short of those standards, over the last year and the years prior.

Most importantly I promise to cherish those things that I have taken for granted such as my husband, my beautiful children, my relationship with my mother and brother. Then I open my heart and mind to the possibilities, challenges and growth waiting for me in 2006.

Crackheads gone wild for Christmas?

While listening to a local radio stations this morning I over heard a skit pertaining to the upcoming Christmas season and giving examples of "ghetto gifts" now available for the ghetto fabulous ones in our lives. While I do have a problem with the term "ghetto" and how we as African Americans seem to go out of our way to glamourize that in which our forefathers struggled so hard to escape.....I have to admit there are some things and some folks who manage to live up to the connotative meaning of the word.

In any case, one of the hosts mentioned this new equivalent of "Girls Gone Wild" is made specifically for those who find endless comic relief in the fact that humans when under the influence of narcotics act in what can barely be described as irrational behavior. The video is appropriately named "Crackheads Gone Wild" and consists of footage taken from the ghettos and slums of America where drugabusers are just as familiar as broken windows, unkept children and roaches on kitchen floors at midnight.

Its not just this new video, I dare you to watch any stand up comedy show, where there isn't at least one or two mindless jokes about "crackheads" that undoubtedly deliver peals laughter from an audience of healthy or rather non-addicted patrons. And its doesn't stop with comedy shows; movies and music are both notorious for pointing out the de-humanizing antics of those addicted to what a large population of our community is proud to sell or at one time have sold. Every platinum rapper, save Will Smith has penned lyrics about the glory days of selling rocks on the block.

The interesting thing is most of us have family or at least know one person who has danced with the deadly white horse to their own detriment at some time in their life. Although I didn't know a person in my family who was affected by the disease one of the most important people in my life, paid the ultimate price for their weakness. In 2003 my father died unexpectedly from overdosing on crack. That is a hard sentence for me to say and equally as hard for me to type. I didn't grow up with my father and so I never saw him strung out and pathetic like we envision drug abusers, but sporadic conversations with my grandfather leave me without the benefit of hoping my father's bout with the powerful drug wasn't a tragically humiliating struggle.

Two weeks after his death I recall watching Comicview on BET with my husband when a comedian made a random joke about crackheads. He automatically laughed while I ended up bursting into tears. I don't know if many people understand how hard it is to cope with someone you deeply love being de-humanized because of an addiction. Even moreso it brings into question one's own self-worth and value if you are the offspring of another human being that is reduced to such an worthless, unvalued sect of our communities.

To be fair, I won't pretend that I didn't laugh at the same type of jokes a few months before my father's struggle was a reality, because I did. I won't pretend that I felt a genuine empathy with the drug addict in Menace to Society that O-Dog ruthlessly gunned down, because even though I cringed at the scene a part of me dismissed the violence as less than a casualty of the streets. I won't even pretend that I was overly impressed with Halle Berry or Samuel Jackson's portrayals of dopefiends in Jungle Fever because the extent of my interest was that Halle Berry could make herself so "unpretty" as to take on such an unglamorous role. My concern was never the person's story behind the dirty face, slurred speech and animalistic need for a substance that kills.

No, I can honestly say my perspective on "crackheads" changed when I put my father's face that has so many similarities to my own on each and every one of those characters. When Chris Rock made a joke about crackheads, instead of laughing without commitment, I envisioned my father. When watching movies where drug addicts are raped, tormented and even killed for sport, I couldn't help wondering if my father had been in similar situations and that was a feeling even worse than the grief I felt over his death. To imagine one's parent being treated worse than a dog and still begging, clutching, needing some man made substance, is I think one of the heaviest crosses for a child of any age to carry.

While dealing with my demons triggered by the undignified way that my father died, I met several other people who had parents, siblings or other family members plagued by drug addiction. Many of them were experiencing the same shame I was carrying and everyone had different ways of dealing with their emotions, but the majority opt to shut the person out of their life and heart distancing themselves from the reality of what their loved one is facing. If you can pretend the person doesn't exist, you can accomplish a double feat, (1)separating yourself from the person's weakness which is needed in order to reassure oneself, and (2)block out the emotional and spiritual pain that comes with seeing a love one self-destruct in a most pathetic and physically inhumane way.

Again I will not pretend that I wouldn't have opted to deal with my father's addiction this way if I'd been given a chance. I think this is how our society deals with everything that we are ashamed of and can't explain from child molesters, to child killers. Our natural instinct is to look for a way to distance and separate ourselves from the "bad person" else we be tempted to think badly or to worry about our own mortality. Although this is basic human nature, it isn't totally effective, because it results in a society of de-sensitized adults that don't cringe when they watch a gruesome rape or murder on television. These same adults later display the same nonchalance when the television show has turned to reality on the news or a crime documentary. Later these same adults can watch the struggle of another father,mother, sister or brother as they fall prey to an addiction that subjects them to be internal and external abuse at their hands and others, and be entertained. When you look at it from that standpoint, things aren't so funny.

So in closing I'm not suggesting that anyone take a stand against the unfair treatment or "crackheads". I don't mean to suggest that rappers cease talking about their heroic feats cooking up crack in the kitchen or that you feel guilty everytime you laugh when someone pokes fun at a substance abuser. My request is that you simply take a moment to digest the fact that no matter how dirty, pathetic, trifling or ugly that person may be, there is a story behind their existence. Somewhere down the line there were two pathways and that poor soul chose the wrong one. Who knows what lead them to make that choice. The adage, "there but for the grace of God, goes I" can be haunting, yet so prolific. Afterall their story began exactly like yours and mine, with a mother, father, grandparents and siblings, and although those individuals may not be active in that person's life and may never be again, just because they shut them out and we close our mental doors at their very existence, does not negate the fact that there is a human life under the degradation that is the "crackhead".

True love fact or myth

One of the first things people learn about me after they realize that I am vertically challenged black woman is that I am married, happily married 98% of the time, which is good considering I've been married for all of my adult life. I married my husband when I was twenty years old and he was twenty three, which for all practical purposes is extremely young and although I consider my marriage successful I wouldn't go out of my way to encourage marriage at that age to anyone.

We were in college at the time, and having a serious relationship of any kind, was a huge challenge. College is the one time in your life when you actually get a voucher to be irresponsible and selfish. As conservative as I can be at times when I run into a college student I always end up giving them a knowing smile and encouraging them to enjoy this time as it can be the best time of their life. Best time of their life usually constitutes getting to know the opposite sex and finding out what it is they want when choosing a mate. I've heard mothers tell their sons to get everything out of their systems in college, and although we don't quite instruct our daughters to do the same, we don't encourage them to get bogged down in serious relationships.

My husband was your average fraternity guy, drinking all the time and popular with the ladies much to my fustration and dismay, but for all his negative points his smile made me blush and my palms sweat and caused me to forget his numerous admirers and bad boy ways. While I always prided myself on being smart and avoiding bad situations, when it came to my husband I was a total airhead.

Beyonce's Crazy in Love was my favorite song for all of 2003 and much of 2004 as it was the summation of that feeling every girl experiences early in life of being unequivocably and irrationally sprung. From the heart palpitating beat to the lyrics

Got me looking so crazy, my baby, I'm not myself lately, I'm foolish, I don't do this. I been playing myself, baby I don't care. Cause your love's got the best of me and baby you're making a fool of me, you got me sprung and I don't care who sees, cause baby you got me.
You're love's got me looking so crazy right now, you're touch's got me looking crazy right now,

the song is a perfect explanation of the kismet that is "first love". I remember listening to the song the first time and thinking to myself, that girl is in love. (Just for the record, I think her and Jay are going to make it, but I digress.)

So I'm nineteen years old and sprung "Crazy in Love" on this twenty-two year old junior that I think resembles my eternal flame Denzel Washington. He shows some interest and the next thing I know, we're talking on the phone six hours at a time,I'm giggling at his corny jokes, we're holding hands in the movie theatre, kissing for hours at a time, and eventually after much drama and heartache end up getting married. I can remember thinking to myself during the rehearsal dinner, "Christal what are you doing?" but quickly shrugging the thought off in anticipation of wearing this gorgeous gown and seeing the man I was in love with at the end of that ceremonious isle.

Eleven years later and I am still in love with this man, but the dynamics have totally changed. When he smiles at me, I no longer blush, in fact I'm not even sure if I have the ability to do that anymore. When we hold hands while watching TV at night, my palms aren't sweaty, and I'll admit most of his jokes aren't really all that funny. We haven't spent six hours doing anything together except sleeping and if there was a camera in our bedroom you'd probably discover we don't do that together for all of six hours. I don't know when the last time the two of us went to a movie together was and when we do, we don't hold hands as there is usually at least one child between us. And yet I can tell you that I love this man just as much if not more than I did all those many years ago when I was sneaking him into my dorm room.

I was prompted to write this entry after reading an article that talked about "true love" and how most couples experience this "in love" feeling for one year and then its back to business as usual. I then had a conversation with a friend where the question was posed "Does familiarity breed boredom?" I answered honestly yes which raised several eyebrows. But I quickly followed up with the idea that love is not the stomach flutters and sweaty palms that most of us equate with the word. Loving someone goes so much further than just enjoying physical chemistry although that is a part. My personal opinion is that its very important to really marry what you like, physically, mentally and spiritually so you have the best possible odds of being happy or at least content in your marriage. If I did like a lot of my people I've met and settled for someone I wasn't that physically attracted to....and then years later the fireworks died down...I'd be extremely disappointed right about now. The fact that he was my choice initially, helps me deal with the fact that everyday life doesn't in the least resemble the romance novel I'd made it out to be. Is it boring sometimes yes, but it's boring because I know that when I wake up, things will be the same as they were when I went to bed, consistent. We love each other and yes, that can at times be boring.

As a writer I have always been a melodramatic romantic. Twelve years ago, the word marriage had me conjuring up images of being "taken on the kitchen table" night after night while I wore beautiful lingerie and made sure my hair fanned out around me just so. I entertained thoughts of coming home to roses and jewelry and other special surprises just for the sake of "love". Never once did I envision my husband holding my hand while my son had surgery and I could barely stand because it was so hard to leave my baby on an operating table alone at six years old. Never once did I envision him just rocking me in his arms quietly after I learned that my father passed away. I didn't have the wherewithal to envision his face after coming home with his first real job, eager to surprise me with the results. Or the warm feeling I got when watching our daughter asleep on his chest when she was barely a month old. Or even the look on his face today as he plays soccer with our son in the backyard.

Those experiences don't result in sweaty palms, or even butterflies in the stomach but to me they are the measure of love. After being married for almost eleven years I know that those are the things that tell me that my husband loves me and in turn tell him the same. The sweaty palms and nervous admissions were good while they lasted but these things are what a lifetime is made of.

Smooches,
Christal

PZI-A celebration

This morning as I pulled on my PZI jeans, I felt like celebrating
Celebrating the skin I live in, the curves I’ve been blessed with,
As the denim hugs my rounded hips, circles my waist, and clings to my thighs,
I envision myself a Nubian goddess rising proudly to show off a heaven-sent body,
As my custom made jeans stand up and testify to my womanhood.



This afternoon as I walked to lunch in my PZI jeans, I felt like celebrating,
Celebrating the fact that I am woman, strong and beautiful,
My jeans fit me like a second skin, accentuating every aspect of my feminine wiles;
While society may place boundaries on beauty, I am proof their boundaries are illogical;
My ample curves lead me as I boldly place one stiletto clad foot in front of the other.



This evening as I stepped out in my PZI jeans, I felt like celebrating,
Celebrating the euphoria on the dance floor, grooving in my dark denim;
Smiling to myself, I watch the brothas stare, hypnotized by my Perazzi clad assets,
With an extra bit of sass in my step, I stroll by, acknowledging their appreciation,
But undeterred, I keep moving ahead, knowing my true value lies within.



This night as I step out of my PZI jeans, I feel like celebrating;
Celebrating the secret the my ancestors passed down to me;
Leaving me and sistahs everywhere a legacy of strength, grace and internal beauty, that far outweighs our curvaceous figures;
A legacy that fills me with pride and challenges me daily to reach for the stars
I close my eyes knowing PZI is celebrating right along with me.

by Christal Jordan-Mims

The Candy Shop

I'm sure many of you have heard Fifty cent's song entitled "The Candy Shop". While the lyrics to the song are overtly sexual, the video concept shows a very muscled (and phoine)Fifty Cent walking through a mansion with dozens of beautiful girls lounging in various nooks and crannies of the home waiting to cater to him. The Candy Shop being the house or place where one can find many different types of sweets or candy (i.e. beautiful women) to satisfy one's cravings.

When I saw the video for the first time, after salivating over my guilty pleasure Fifty (and yes I know he represents the definitive bad boy/thug that conscientious self-respecting AA sistahs like myself should be riling against....but all that aside..the man is phione), I recalled a conversation I had with some single girlfriends of mine lamenting over the fact that they could not find a good man. As black women we have been told for ages that there is a "good black man shortage" and that we are lucky to happen upon a decent man these days. On the flip side there is a overflux of beautiful, professional African American women aggressively battling over these handful of good brothers, or so we are lead to believe. In any case my single friends and I discussed how there were always an endless supply of beautiful, beautifuller and beautifullest girls on hand whenever we went out to mingle, and that's not to say that we didn't place ourselves in one of those three categories, but the "competition" is often overwhelming. I shared with them my belief that women were created to be pleasing to the eye, while men were built to protect and provide. (Not to take anything away from the beauty of Mr. Denzel Washington, Tyson Beckford or my man Fifty, but compared to the female overall physique, men are built to protect. Women on the other hand were created to please men, who we all know are visual creatures.

Our conversation continued and we debated over what it was about a woman that attracted a man when there were so many at minimum equally attractive opportunities in an environment like a nightclub or college party. It occurred to me that for a man, a club, especially a club in a city like Atlanta, must be much like going into a candy shop chockful of sweet, colorful treats. While I am not certain what prompts a man to choose one piece of candy over the next, I do know that candy, while pleasing to the eye, lacks substance after devouring one piece of candy....it's not uncommon to want another, and another and another. As a sweets addict I also understand that while I enjoy a piece of caramel, on any given day I could also go for a piece of laffy taffy or a pack of Sugar Babies. They are all sweet, and all three types regardless of their differences, satisfy a temporary craving. Once the craving is satisfied the relationship with the candy is over, until I happen to get another craving or some candy is placed infront of my face.

When I uttered the last staple of my theory, my girlfriends looked at me with wide eyes and opened mouths. That is deep, one of them said in awe, and after I took a moment to process what I said, my eyes widened along with hers and a chill ran down my spine. Could it be that I had just uncovered every woman's dilemma about why a man they enjoyed a romantic experience with once hadn't called the next day, or any days thereafter? We pulled the theory apart and found more correlations between the two such as the way candy is attractively packaged, etc. etc. Later on I shared the theory with my husband/then fiance who laughed at the fact that females spend so much time creating and proving theories about men, but then reluctantly agreed there was some truth to our findings.

I thought about my Candy Shop theory last night while out at a popular nightclub in Atlanta, trying to talk business with a very distracted club promoter. Several model troupes paraded by as I tried to engage him in conversation about an upcoming event. Beautiful girls in all shades under the rainbow switched past him and his eyes hungrily took in each one. I smiled to myself as I watched him equally appreciate every girl, just like I would in a candy store with caramel, chocolate covered cherries and banana laffy taffy. Just as one of his friends would exclaim over one girl the next would get an equal to or even greater reaction. So with all that said, where does that leave us as women?

First of all we have to know that we are much more than pieces of temporary enjoyment, candy. If we realize this, then we understand that our true value lies not in our beauty which is surface and temporary at best, but in those character traits within us that define who we are. Many of us draw confidence from our outward appearance or the fact that we are able to draw compliments from the opposite sex. I would say to those women that compliments on your physical appearance are one-dimensional and are not exclusive. If you ask any man how many women he finds beautiful, I guarantee you he will not be able to give you a rational number. Men find beauty everywhere as God created women to be visually pleasing. While beauty cannot be yours exclusively the inner talents that God has blessed you with belong to you and you alone. In the end those are the attributes that will attract people to you for life. A God-fearing woman, with a caring heart, warm personality and strong sense of self is a woman a man will value long-term and will win his heart as opposed to the beauty that offers a sweet moment on his lips that will no doubt soon be forgotten.

Smooches,
Christal