I’ll Cry Tomorrow

Self-Trust, Inner Guide, the Knowing Voice Within, Strong Internal Core, Ignoring the Experts; These appear to be the latest Buzzwords in the ever present Self-Help craze that has been going on since the 1970s.

Well I beg to differ. I know I’m about to stir up a Hornet’s Nest but that’s what writers do, create controversy, ignite debate and hopefully make readers think. Much to the consternation of the New Age Gurus yes there are wrong choices and bad decisions.

I’ve learned to run major decisions by trusted friends and professionals. Got tired of making bad decisions which backfired on me. You need a few good friends as sounding boards because most of us cannot be objective regarding our problems, thus wrong choices. You need someone or several somebodies to hold you accountable, slap you upside the head and say, “Get with the Program before you Kill Yourself!!”

Friends, ministers, pastors, some co-workers and close family can give objective advice. Sometimes we are way too caught up in our emotions to make correct or wise choices. That guy may be so in love with yet who is violent and abusive is the wrong man. Time to take off the Romantic Blinders and see him as others view him. A violent, abusive, evil tempered jerk. Poor financial choices. Buying a home, car or some other big ticket item could be a very bad choice if you don’t have enough income to cover the outgo.

People have lost homes, jobs, their families and even their lives behind bad choices. The lesson is learned too late for correction. It’s like being a little bit pregnant. No such thing. As humans we are influenced by our fickle emotions, family backgrounds, how we were raised, and society’s expectations. We can’t see the forest for the trees.

For years I was a prescription drug addict. Though the doctors who liberally dispersed the pills are somewhat to blame the lion’s share of the blame is on me because I made the choice to keep taking them nearly to the point of death. Now that I’m in my mid-50s and living a cleaner life, yes my “Internal Core” has improved but it is still not as strong as it should be. Also I still must live with the consequences of previous dumb stupid decisions. Yes I’ve lived through being evicted from my apartment in Queens, been in and out of various hospital emergency rooms, I have a terrible credit rating, plus certain health issues that I’ll be battling the rest of my life. My Inner Guide was a damn fool and an idiot. No I should have gotten professional help. I put my trust in people who I thought loved me and who I assumed would help me. I made choices out of fear and poor health and an addled mind. Finally after seven years of struggle I’m beginning to see daylight. I know my limitations.

I also know that at any point I could backslide but I believe I’ve finally reached the point where I no longer want to live in the Valley. I want a Mountaintop experience. Trust me when I say this wisdom and insight I now possess has only come with fighting depression, fear, panic attacks, and anxieties. Once you hit bottom and you’re tired of living there you’ll find a way to go up. I learned to stop make excuses for my bad behavior, stand up for my rights as a middle-aged Black Woman living in a racist, sexist, ageist society, stopped dating men who don’t respect me, my dreams or goals and who really mean me no good, junked all the pills except for my high blood pressure medication, eat right, exercise and renew my faith. I’m now an active member of the New York Shinnyo-en Buddhist community. Through Buddhism I’ve become a stronger Christian. Truly I’ve begun to understand what it means to work out your Soul’s Salvation. The means of escape you seek is only a delusion. Life is meant to be faced head on. This life is only yours to live. No one can live it for you. Now I’m on a better pathway because I have a clearer more focused mind. I still have some setbacks but my life has improved 95% in the last two years.

Moving Forward.

Please check out the link for a Bio on the actress Susan Hayward star of the movie I’ll Cry Tomorrow. Susan Hayward a BadAss Brooklyn Beauty who even with her cracks, fissures and faults didn’t take shit from anybody. Susan Hayward’s story resonates with me. We are both Fiery, Hotheaded Strong Willed Redheads. Hers was natural. Mine is from a bottle. I Love actresses from the 30s, 40s, and 50s because they overcame so much and were some of the best actresses ever to grace the stage and films. Exotic Beauty, Fame and fortune do not always bring happiness, sometimes just a new set of demons to conquer. Ms. Hayward’s pain made her a better actress because she approached each role from her gut. My pain has made me a better writer. Like her there were times when I did not want to live. I wanted to leave this earth because the pain was too great to bear, yet God sent someone my way to save me and make me realize the foolishness of my actions.

I suffer no fools and I pull no punches. Shipwrecked. Lost. Perhaps. But learning to rely on G.P.S. ~ God’s Positioning System. Shattered Portraits, we picked up the shards, put them in the kiln to create an entire new piece of pottery changed but not consumed by fire.

Like her I struggled with substance abuse. Mine was prescription meds, hers alcohol. Like her I’ve had many failed romances. But through it all we Strong No Nonsense Women prevail, persevere and triumph over defeat. As the title of Susan Hayward’s movie states, “I’ll Cry Tomorrow.”

Ready for my Second Act.

http://youtu.be/jh_Q9BOVUyo

Reflections from the Woman with the Skinny Legs

On December 22, 2013 By dancingpalmtreesIn Catharsis, Diabetes, Ethiopian Goddess, Fantasy, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, Goddess, High Blood Pressure, Joe Tex, Mable Elizabeth Palmer, Mable Palmer, Menopause, Negritude, Redemption, Refuge, Rejection, Rubenesque, Sacred, Sanctuary, Scars, soul, Stigmata, Suffering, Surrealism, Tattoos, Tummy, Walking Wounded, Wisdom, Woman, Woman with the Skinny Legs2 Comments

Reflections from the Woman with the Skinny Legs

One Thin Woman’s Hopeful Journey towards Cultural Acceptance

Skinny Legs And All – Joe Tex (Dial)1967

As a Black Woman who has been called skinny, bony, stick lady, po’ and various other negative names for years. I can understand wanting to fit in. I’ve actually had women especially Black women come up to me and tell me they hate me or call me some nasty names I won’t repeat. I remember gaining a lot of weight when I was in my 40s due to taking anti-depressants. Believe it or not I received tons of compliments from my African American co-workers.

Prior to my forties, when I was a young woman working in an office, co-workers would leave all types of cookies, cakes, snacks, even cans of Ensure telling me in a not so subtle way that I needed these foods to “fatten up” and become an accepted member of the tribe. If my weight suddenly ballooned to 195 lbs, something that is genetically impossible for me, but if those numbers did rise would my Black Woman Membership card arrive in the mail?

Right before I started work at my present job I stopped taking the anti-depressants. Of course I lost the weight. Sadness. Bullying from some female co-workers. One brother told me I had a body like a white woman. Someone else said I looked Asian. I love my Caucasian and Asian Sisters but like anyone else I want to be accepted by my own community. I want to fit in. Devastated. I cried myself to sleep many nights. I even tried to explain to my female co-workers that my thinness was due to genetics, which is true. My mother Mable Palmer never weighed more than 95 lbs in her life even after having kids.

BTW my mother had diabetes as does most of my family on my mother side. Many of my cousins my around my age, (I’m 54) have died from the disease. I had my own brush with death November 7, 2008 when I was rushed to the hospital from my job for extreme high blood pressure. To show you how brainwashed I was as I lay on the hospital gurney in the emergency hooked to a machine monitoring my pressure, my life passing before my eyes, I looked down at my thighs and felt shame because I was so thin!

Like most women I look like my mother. I carry her DNA. Also since I have high blood pressure I can no longer eat certain foods so that prevents me from gaining additional weight. I weigh about 117 or 120 depending. Am I a fat basher? No because I know from firsthand experience just how sensitive weight issues and the ensuing insults or assumptions can be. I want to know how my weight got to be a determination of how Black I am or how womanly I am.

Does everything depend on the size of a woman’s breasts or butt? Have I been banished to a leper colony of neo-Blackness? Is a woman not more than her body? When do we stop promoting the superficial and concentrate on substance. Sometimes I think my body type has made me an outcast. Does the fact that I’m slim make mean my membership in the African race has been revoked?

Eye of the Beholder

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t5qwyWl0xw&feature=colike

I’m not handing in my Black card just because my facial features and body structure are considered all wrong. Oh by the way does my dark skin and nappy hair get me reinstated to the Land of Negritude? Define Blackness! Does it not run deeper than the outside package?

Finally I confided in one of the African American supervisors what I was going through. He reassured me I looked fine and said I looked good. He explained to me that some of the females at our workplace were jealous.

Then after 50 I started gaining a little weight. Thank you Menopause for helping me enter the realm of semi-Rubenesque. I was received back into the fold, somewhat but I still get those funny looks and comments not only at work but even within my own ‘hood.’

Books with titles like “Skinny Women are Evil” do not help the situation. I hate that our patriarchal society has pitted one group of women against others even within our own race. So if I was stacked, voluptuous, a “brick house” would I then hear the Gooble Gobble song.

One of Us – We Accept Her

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C4uTEEOJlM&feature=colike

: Squats

Okay you know that I was intrigued by this picture. Anything to add curves to my stick frame. I looked up Squat videos on YouTube and found one that “Looked easy.” Not!! As I was doing the squats I could hear my knees Snap, Crackle & Pop more than a bowl of Rice Krispies. Maybe I should forget the Donkey Booty and just stay a “Black Twiggy!”

This is a Squat video by a Colombian Sister. Really now it would just be much easier to be reincarnated into her body!! LOL!! OMG!! Isn’t there an easier way to snag a husband? If I click my heels together 3 times will my stomach fat move downward towards my butt or upward to my boobs?! Dang my knees are creaky and clicking more than Savion Glover tap dancing!

Still trying to return to the Summer of 42. Not 1942 because I wasn’t yet born but age 42 when I had a nice hourglass figure. So I’ve been planking since Dec. 1st and now I will add Squats to my program. Let’s see if all this exercise results in romance when I turn 55 in Feb.

http://youtu.be/xK9jzjsTJts

I considered using one of my cats as weights but they would not cooperate and thought the better of that idea. Leave sleeping kitties lying on the bed. My cats already think I’m crazy for Planking. Now every morning Sylvester and Weezer take up a position in the Living Room watching me make a fool of myself and sometimes rubbing their little furry faces against mine.

The Journey Towards Self-Acceptance Continues

A Building at Rest ~ Goth Holiday at the Museum

On December 8, 2013August 16, 2017 By dancingpalmtreesIn Abuse, Ambien, Battle, Black Unicorn, cacophony, Death, DeBorah, deception, Delusions, despair, Dissonance, Dreams, Evil, Expectations, Fallen Angels, Fantasy, Fears, Grim Reaper, Hades, Hallucinations, hell, horror, Hotel California, Hypnos, Icelus, Insomnia, Instability, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Koyaanisqatsi, Limbo, Loss, Lost Souls, Malevolent, Manufacturered Reality, Memory, Midnight Marauder, Mind Altering Substances, Morpheus, Museum, Mystical Creatures, Night Bird, Nightmares, Oneiroi, Orpheus, Phantaso, profane, Protean, Purgatory, Rejection, Ritual, River Styx, Scars, Skeptic, sorrow, Stigmata, Suffering, Suicide, Surrealism, Swords, Thánatos, The Twilight Zone, The Walking Dead, Trifecta of Terror, Vampires, Visions, Walking Wounded, War, Werewolves, Wicked, Zombies6 Comments

A Building at Rest

The museum Thanksgiving Day 2012 –
the museum is populated by a wonderful yet mysterious quiet & peace undisturbed by the frenetic masses. Silences punctuated only by flowing water, the endless hum and shifting of building machinery.

Even normal noises can be unsettling. Especially those associated with people. The building has become a living breathing organism Uttering creaks moans sighs groans from nearly 150 years of footfalls, voices, radios, songs, cantatas, the chiming of clocks, exclamations of awe & wonder. Whispers from an Archaic Victorian century long past to digital diversity.

Oh what secrets lie transfixed within these silent walls yearning for release. The Hunger has been unleashed upon the populace.

The immortality of brick, mortar & steel record the march of ethnicities & nations who roam free these hallowed halls.

Sometimes the sudden interruption of footfalls becomes ominous, invading the sanctity of the Holy Sanctuary. Even the sound of my own steps is somewhat menacing. What spirits accompany me on perambulations among the saints and sinners?

The feeble burbling of the fountain stream’s half-hearted attempts to empty its essence, struggling to pollinate magnificent coins.

The day is at end, the light has faded. Now the night crew enters to continue the evening melody.

Reflections Goth Holiday 2013

Cadaver Mind A.D.D.

Heaving sighs and moans. Creaks, chrupping of brick, mortar, steel and glass pane windows. Blood oozes and drips from open wounds in Laymen’s red brick walls. Elevator doors open and a thousand wailing, howling, grieving souls swoop through the air and into the Medieval Court crying for revenge. Flight of the Valkyries. The Martyrs avenge their unjust and untimely deaths. Swirling and whirling like profane dervishes from netherworld’s portal of the undead.

Hail Mary Echoes from thousands of Knights, monks, Nuns, bishops, and church saints racing through Byzantium corridors. Spirits of Reliquaries issue forth warnings and admonishments to modern day savages. Reliquary Fingers of Blessing Inflict Pain Yanking Opening Death’s Door breaking off bits and pieces of flesh, bone, teeth and hair for deposit into ossuary banks.

Slats opening and closing mindfully as though giving some secret Morse Code. Dioramas of Death act out murderous suicidal dramas. Eagle slays Dragon plucking out blinded eyes from empty orbs.

Medieval castle built long ago by invaders long forgotten. A grand foyer flanked by two long hallways of Byzantine art leading into Medieval Sculpture Hall filled with statues of Madonnas, Saints, Mystics, Relics, and tombs from Egypt, Europe, Greece, Cyprus and South America. Kali goddess of the sarcophagus raises her many arms in Victory. Subterranean pipes hissing steam clanking unrest.

Secret panels opening up to Mausoleum subterranean chambers containing overturned ossuaries, bones bleached white scattered throughout the tombs.

Abruptly Angels on the Christmas tree come to life and like ravenous vampire bats attack unsuspecting visitors. Reanimated Reliquary Arms reach out to throttle throats of fleeing patrons. Fang toothed Egyptian mummies arise and break through display cases to satiate their ancient eon hunger upon frenzied victims. Their desert saliva spreading infection causing festering vile pus filled carbuncles to captive prey.

Emptiness and Futility of Life — Life’s ignoble Ending

Desire run rampant as sacrilegious effigies coupled and reached radiant necrophilia orgasm stone bodies now made supple. Mystics and Monks glowered lecherously all the while reciting Gregorian chants, dirges and cries for absolution filling the room with the intensity of their mating.

Gargoyles descended from illicit trysts with human females and warlock man beasts gave into the licentious behaviors’ anointing themselves and fleeing clienteles with seminal fluid oily slick.

Orgasm became an exceptional obsession.

Viscous gleaming blood, shimmering with glided preternatural flakes of light. Black Iris her breasts like soft fragrant pillows.

Descendant Daughters’ of Jephthah and Tamar

On December 8, 2013 By dancingpalmtreesIn Art, Broken Hearts, Catharsis, Fallen Angels, grief, Jesus, Loss, Lost Souls, Love, Malevolent, Nirvana, Paradise, profane, Redemption, Refuge, Rejection, Rescue, Sacred, Sages, Sanctuary, Scars, sorrow, soul, Spirit, Sticks & Stones, Stigmata, Suffering, Suicide, Swords, Vanity, Walking Wounded, Wicked, Wisdom, Woman, Zion

Descendant Daughters’ of Jephthah and Tamar

Lord I Believe Help me overcome my unbelief. Father please remove all fears, self-doubts and my nagging sense of failure from my troubled heart and soul. I am the broken winged sparrow lying shivering cold, bereft of hope, hungry for acceptance, on yon forest glen. A Woodland Tragedy. Will Jesus the Gentle Woodsman gather up my shattered heart and bind up my bloody infected wounds? Lord Hear my plaintive cries.

Which voices do I believe? The Judging critical voices of men with ravenous sharp toothed dogs or the brutal voices of women holding sharp knives ready to strike and drive men into grave ground. Or Dear Lord your Tender Still Small voice as you Cradle me in your arms, safety bound. Oh God comfort the descendant Daughters’ of Jephthah and Tamar that we may find solace, peace and sanctuary in a weary heartless land.

http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/p349.htm

Fort Tipii

On November 2, 2013November 2, 2013 By dancingpalmtreesIn Abuse, Ambien, Bimbo, Body Snatchers, cacophony, Catharsis, Craving, Creativity, Death, deception, Deliverance, Delusions, Dissonance, Dreams, Explore, Fallen Angels, Fantasy, Fears, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, grief, Grim Reaper, Hades, Hallucinations, hell, Hive, horror, Hotel California, Hypnos, Innovation, Inquisitive, Insomnia, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Koyaanisqatsi, Limbo, Loss, Lost Souls, Malevolent, Manufacturered Reality, Mark of Cain, Memory, Midnight Marauder, Mind Altering Substances, Morpheus, Nature, Nightmares, Nirvana, Orpheus, Paradise, Phantaso, Pharmacia Cornucopia, profane, Protean, Purgatory, rabbit hole, Red Woods, Redemption, Refuge, Rejection, Rescue, Ritual, River Styx, Sacred, Sages, Sanctuary, Scars, Skeptic, Slugfests, sorrow, soul, Spirit, Spirituality, Squatters, Suffering, Surrealism, Thánatos, Uncategorized, Visions, White Rabbit, Wicked2 Comments

Fort Tipii

I couldn’t build a proper tree house. Too high up and anyway I’m afraid of heights, so instead I built this little fort of sorts as a place to gather my thoughts after a hectic day. Made my best efforts with whatever materials the forest floor offered up as building materials. There were enough twigs and branches to construct more ground level tree houses or make my current enclosure larger but I chose to save some for kindling for warmth against the chill night air and the rest I kept stacked as a type of cord-wood in a womb like nook Mother Nature had carved into a tree that had been struck by lightening. Eventually I decided to construct another Tipii twig abode to store my few belongings I had gradually began to sneak away from The Family Residence.

These Tree/Tepee/Tipii/Twig aka T3 structures became my holy sanctuaries and safe havens I return to again and again to re-connect with Mother Earth and nature. Too small to stand upright clicking my heels together three times was not an option so I was forced to remain seated. With some degree of discomfort I could lay down in a fetal position while I imagined myself re-entering an alternate womb to be reborn into better circumstances. Mine were a tepee shelters without the buffalo skin covering all exposed bones and framework.

Sometimes I’d hug my knees and rhythmically rock back and forth while repeating what I thought were calming mantras, occasionally wishing that the earth would open up and swallow me whole transporting me some place free from pain, misery and cruelty. Like a shaman I chanted using my homemade rituals attempting to silence the drumbeat of voices incessantly chattering inside my head versus the declarations of the Family. They created a dissonance tear in the time frame continuum of my thoughts.

You see our house, The Family Home if you could call it that is a ramshackle structure; a hodgepodge mixture of stone, wood and stucco additions and afterthoughts as different parts of the building were constructed at different times upon the whims the directors and caretakers.

I was forced to share this mishmash cottage with twelve other inmates, bordered on this expanse of woods providing me a refuge from leaky roofs, busted walls, peeling wallpaper, lukewarm baths, moldy musty scented showers, not to mention all the yelling, screaming, arguments, fights, thefts of food and personal belongings and constant disagreements of a house too small to accommodate the number of people residing within its creaky ramparts. The Family nicknamed it the Hotel California. You know the place where you check in but never check out. The nails across chalkboard voices of The Family were constant knife thrusts to my brain making daily life a constant battle that did not end even has the diurnal gave up residence to the nocturnal for they all snored, wheezed and gasped through the night abyss. The utter desolation of the place crept into your bones and took root nourished by hopelessness.

The Family’s house sits on an oddly place piece of land, our house gives way to forest which in turn after several miles gives way to craggy, rocky shores of a steep cliff, where if one sits perfectly still you can hear the violent waves crashing against rough jagged rock formations that looked as though they were designed by the devil himself. It is said that in olden times there used to be many shipwrecks where sailors were either impaled on the razor sharp Stalagmites. Sometimes you can even hear the shrieks, moans, cries and groans of the unfortunate wretches mixed in with the howling winds. The few who weren’t dashed to pieces by the razor sharp jagged rock formations tried to climb up to safety but were thwarted by the steep incline.

So I periodically retreated to my exoskeleton asylums as a sentry medium between earth and sky. I can never turn my mind off completely but within my secret hiding place the voices were kept to a low roar and bid to change direction and pace.

The last straw that broke the camels back came when my moronic addled brained cell-mate Pearl kept throwing her nasty, dirty towels, underwear and flip-flops over to my side of the room. When I returned from the canteen or our common dining area there were moldy wet towels plastered to the floor like throw rugs that accosted the dividing line between our two living areas. Pearl was known as the filthiest female in our wing tossing food and drink to and fro fully expecting that a squad of personal maids and sweepers were following in her wake. One night after I returned from my many woodland sojourns I decided that I had, had enough and soaked all her grimy towels in gasoline and lighter fluid obtained from an unlocked supply closet near the motor pool. Pearl had a tendency to drink like sailor on shore leave and sleep just as soundly so she never had an inkling as I piled the towels around her bed, built a kindling fort for good measure and added effect, led a fuse from a doorway to an open window, climbed out and lit said fuse.

The Kindling delivered me from The Family’s vocalizations. I tried to warn them before. I tried to silence the voices through escape, but it was not working so I had to try another plan. The crackles and pops of my campfire seem to be in sync with the screams and cries for rescue from the patients locked inside their rooms but eventually those voices will die out also, and then sleep. Blessed sleep.

Love,

Cassandra Verity