This is the way that I love to write…

Dear Anonymous,

I texted you on Saturday morning, asking if what you had said to me the night before was really real. Still waiting on that response. Staring at my phone from 7 to 9 has made me think about it more AND MORE AND MORE and I cannot keep sitting here like this. Do you understand that what you said hurt? Then you expect me to wait a whole night while you make your mind up? No. That’s why I’m writing you this letter.

You said what you said, but would you still be saying that if you remembered how much fun we had everyday after school? You used to take my hand and sit with me on the train all the way to my house, miles away from your own, because you told me you wanted to see me get home safe. Remember that? Remember when we were walking to my front door and I introduced you to my friends down the block? They said you were cute. And they wondered how someone like you could actually be real, nice enough to look after my safety before your own. You would walk alone from my door to the train and go back downtown before your father or grandmother called you, wondering where you were. Your program missing you. You were very much like Ferris Bueller that way. Those were the days I couldn’t help but think about all night.

When was the last time you thought about that? Or, when was the last time you thought about that picture you drew for me? The one that had all the clean line work, as if it took you a year to make. You handed that to me on a Wednesday, the same day I told you I would have a song written for you, about you, that I would sing to you. I’m sorry I didn’t sing it. I’m sorry I choked and couldn’t find enough courage in me to bring it. I’m sorry you were so excited and I completely ruined the feeling. At least I made it up when I sung it to you that evening. You know the day we couldn’t find a place to sit? Somebody was already on that bench in the garden you showed me last summer, so we walked around and sat outside in the courtyard of a church. You’re not religious, neither am I, but it felt like that’s where we were meant to be. With your head laying on me, I didn’t have to stare into your eyes and sing, you told me I could look away and smiled. That big smile you had lit up the concrete. Are you telling me to look away again, now?

I can’t now. You gave me food and fed my mind with stories of great men and women who taught you every single thing you know. The fact that you could remember them all by name was so sweet; as if you never wanted them to go. Don’t you remember that time you didn’t want me to leave, but my mother was calling me and said I had to go take care of somebody precious? You understood. You let me go. But why not keep me close now that nobody else needs me? Why choose this moment to tell me that you’ll think about it and tell me when the sun rises? Well, it rose hours ago and I’ve heard nothing from your end. Do you see that I’m scared? You are the kind of person who can intimidate a shark in blood filled waters. You set your life on the line to save a woman underground when a man tried to hurt her, and in that moment you became the protector I always knew you would be for us.

When was the last time you thought about the way my hands shake when I’m sad? When was the last time you held them in yours and laughed at me for being over dramatic, knowing full well that I would only laugh with you if you said that? Do you even remember the day I couldn’t stand to look myself in the mirror and made a bad situation worse by yelling at the people I cared about? It wasn’t because I wanted them to feel my pain, it was because they never could; I tried to scream it into them. But with you I didn’t have to scream. I never raised my voice at you, and you never did with me. So, why?

Why haven’t you gotten in touch? Why is the feeling that I’m feeling saying I’m not enough? Why is the present I bought you on a shelf catching dust? How come in order to reach you, I have to deal with this frustration and temptation to call you out on a bluff? And catch a train or a bus up to your house in a rush?

Knock the door down in one kick and run to your room and assume that the only reason you haven’t spoken is this: you died and left me sitting there, phone in a fist, waiting on a response while I’m fuming and pissed. I love being in your room but come on with all this. You should know that we respond to one another real quick. 

But you’re acting like the sun hasn’t risen. Hurry up and answer me, you know my mind is a prison. I can’t wait to hear your answer and hope that “No” isn’t it. But this is killing me more than when we argue and spit. I’d rather go back to the old times, when we sat and talked. Wrote poems in the dirt and on walls when it’s dark. When we walked around the neighborhood caught up in the thought of one another, no better treasure than loving you brought.

So there it is, that’s my mind on a paper. Sorry it’s ten miles long and more hurried writing than actual fluent written script with meaning, class, and elegance but that’s the way my mental is when I can’t deal with mental images and you being a recluse while the reality of us ending is the only thing I’m witnessing. Look at me speaking gibberish. Just hit me up before the sun sets.

 Love,

2014-2016

My older siblings were just like all others in the sense that they were annoying most times and really made me, the baby of the family, all jealous of their “elderliness.” Trademark. I was subjected to the torture of watching tv shows where I didn’t understand the jokes yet, and listening to songs where everything had to be bleeped when I was around. But one thing that I was never told, by them, that I couldn’t do was play video games. 

My early childhood was jam packed with all different kinds of video games that one could imagine. The earliest memories of video games that I have are playing Halo in the eldest brother’s room in New Jersey; Stan definitely had a good eye for first person shooters. Along with that, we had an old Nintendo 64 console that we always used to play the original Mario Kart (still the best version), James Bond Goldeneye, WWF Wrestling, Mario Party, etc. That console brought everybody together just like in the commercials. We had this thing for years and competed against one another every weekend in each game all throughout my childhood.

Eventually it was just my brother and I, as all of our siblings had gotten older and moved back over to Jersey with their mom and her family. It was a sad transition to leave just my brother Tyler and I but we made the best of it. Now we didn’t have to share the game in fours, but between the two of us. What we did with this new setup was we would alternate between one another in games like Call of Duty, Halo 2, 3, ODST, and 4, Saints Row 2, 3 and 4, and so on and so on. Our weekends were fun filled with completing the games’ campaigns in under a certain amount of hours, trying to outdo one another. It became the norm for our room to be the loudest room in the house for hours on end. 

Something my older brother and I had to really learn to do was cooperate when it came to games we both loved. Overwatch was the newest game we had bought that enticed the both of us evenly. We put days of sleep deprived effort into becoming the best that we could be in the game, better than any pro player we followed online. Our skill in the game became incredibly respectable, and seeing as how we shared a single account, our joined level was something most impressive. We argue at times about who gets to play as soon as we get home first but beyond that we work as a team to destroy all competition. That’s not just for Overwatch, but in every game we played we tried to push the other person to be better, something we had missed out on in a house of four boys who were always in constant competitive mode; plus a sister who was indifferent and just played. To this day I can unleash a competitive side that many people I’ve known in my life have told me is the reason I’m difficult to play with, as I would get carried away and every game became a test of psychology.

Today I’m more tame with my burning unrest for triumph, and I just enjoy the game, whatever it may be.

A lot of people will introduce themselves and say “I’m from Philly.” Sure.. they may be from around there, from some small town that we true Philadelphians don’t even know exists and only pass through if we’re going to another actual city. It is totally harmless to say that but I gotta say it. I’m actually from there, I can name the streets and tell you exactly where to go if you want to see the night life. My shoes have tasted the asphalt in the north, south, east, and west, and if you’re from there, you know that each of those are their own place entirely.

The north side has a certain vibe to it that reminds you of a sleepy town. When I say north I mean Cheltenham, which is the town north of us, but the areas around there like Mt. Airy and West Oak Lane don’t make too much noise which gives the people from there no real space to speak on the hardships of neighborhood “activities.” The truth of the matter is, there’s north but then there is North, where the houses are dilapidated and people can tell you that they’ve seen violence like nothing you can imagine. People from around here are known for being extra rough, with good reason. You have to be made of something tough to not get knocked down.

The east side is lumped in with north, as anything on the northern side of Spring Garden street (in the middle of the city) is considered north, which includes east. The south side of the city is broken up into a couple categories. Anything on the south of city hall, from Market street to South street, is the downtown area. Downtown is where everybody comes together to make noise and hang around after work and school lets out. You can find a place to chill while watching a myriad of faces and personalities pass you by. This is where I lived, and there’s no place I’d rather be honestly because the city has a way of creeping into your mind and becoming an extension of your general knowledge about the world. 

Beyond South street you have neighborhood characterized by the majority of ethnic groups that live within them. The Italian Market on 9th street is everything you’d expect to see in a 1950s movie about Italians upholding their own businesses. A good number of Latinos live in the area, which makes the sounds of the area so sweet as you take in the Spanish beats and Raggaeton along with the melodies of Italian opera still played by the elderly in the street. In a one mile radius you can hear the familiar sounds of Black kids encouraging one another to sing “like you mean it,” children younger than 5 speaking Italian that makes them sound like theater poets, and Latino teens who are as rowdy as they are talented in any style of dance you can think of. I used to go on long walks during the weekends in these areas just to take in something other than the loud pounding of city dwellers.

 Far down south and you come across people of all races simply trying to mind their own business. Crime and poverty runs all around the city, as it does everywhere, but in the south it’s amplified. The people are just as numbed to it as those in the north. But the real danger comes in when you step into southwest. Now, anybody from Philly will understand that southwest is the last place a tourist would want to find themselves. It’s the badlands, not to be confused with the Spanish Badlands in the northeast. The people in southwest have this thing where everything is a fight for survival; it’s very common to hear the sounds of bullets flying or to see any variety of gang related crimes being committed no matter what time of day. I don’t like to go there, but my girlfriend and our friend Aicha could attest that nobody wanted to be there any longer than they had to be.

West is where everything happens. It seems like when there is a party going on, it’s in west. If somebody you just met shakes your hand and immediately puts on large headphones to avoid talking to you further, they’re from west. If you go to school downtown and you catch the el train, you’re either looking across the tracks at all the people going westbound looking as if their lives are about to take off, or you’re heading that way knowing that you’re probably going to see every friend you’ve ever met on the journey.

I’ve allowed myself to divulge many different point of my life that, I hope, are entertaining to read about. But, life isn’t all positive, the realities of daily toils and lifelong undertakings come with a particular weight known as grief. I’ve felt a kind of grief that children shouldn’t be introduced to, not when everything seems to be going so well around them. A few friends of mine were very open about their desires, and I use that word as literally as possible, to end their own lives because of different things taking place in them. To conserve anonymity, I’ll replace the name of particular person with a pseudonym while still telling the story as accurately as I can.

It was in the 8th grade that my best friend at the time, Alyssa, would come to school trudging below a cloud as dark as onyx. Her eyes were always so tired. I asked her multiple times about what sorts of things were going on at home but she wouldn’t tell me, which was understandable. On one day in particular, she hadn’t come to the second or third period classes and it made me very anxious to think about where she could’ve gone. Call it intuition or a lucky guess, but I went down to the nurse in search of her and found her laying in one of the beds around the corner, out of site from the nurse. She had tears streaming from her eyes.

 She turned to me when she felt my weight on the foot of the bed and sighed aloud, “I just don’t know.”

From there the conversation went down a number of winding paths related to the drama she faced at home and how her life at school was nothing more than a method of escape. Her fears regarding her home life were being amplified by her parents not communicating effectively, on top of her own feelings of neglect and sorrow. The way she looked at me while revealing her scarred arms is something you remember throughout the years. I took her hands and spoke about the good times we had, trying my best to alter her mood. Eventually, a natural, eye squinting laugh erupted from her when we started telling inside jokes and you could feel a new energy take place in the room. She told me more and more about her problems but I’m guessing that since the tension had been cut a little she was able to tell me while still smiling. Her words were more reflective than emotional, as if she saw the situation she was facing as a story.

The only thing that mattered at the time was that she smiled; when you really know someone and know how they think, seeing them smile if they’re upset becomes a good sign. For Alyssa, knowing she’s the kind of person who uses her smile to cover the pain, in those moments it was actually genuine. She gave me a hug and said something that stuck with me since: “I needed to tell somebody. Just some soul.” 

Just some soul willing to listen and engage. We often are caught up in the words of the person speaking that we become silent and notably stuck, which isn’t what the other person wants. They need love and care, a person who feels honored that they opened up for them and spoke the truth. She hadn’t had a person like that come along yet, as far as I knew, so to be her best friend at the time and be the receiver of such emotion was very much an honor for me. As a result, our friendship was a lot stronger and the new inside jokes were very harsh (the kinds you can’t say out loud). We had an understanding that we could joke about these sorts of things because humor helps to ease the pain.

In May of my 11th grade year, I had one particular night that changed me. The thoughts that burned themselves into my mind nearly caused me to fall victim to my own hand. I had a desire, a craving, to die. Hours passed and all I could do was convince myself not to get out of bed because I knew that if I did it would have ended badly. Against that even still, I hurried to the bathroom, trying to focus on the reality of the situation saying, “Nakoa, this is just your mind. Let it go, let them go, leave it alone.” My obsessive thoughts were flooding to the forefront of my mind in an attempt to break me. They’ve always been there, but on this night they had an agenda to overtake every level headed thought I made to combat them.

What it feels like, if you’ve never been there, is like hot water being poured onto your mind. This is the best description I can give while still trying to be as positive about the experience as possible. It persisted for a long time. And then, there was a single thought that came to mind that seemed to steal center stage like a loud opera singer who has absolutely nothing holding them down. My girlfriend’s face. Her eyes, her effortless laughter, the way she looks when we walk side by side through the streets of Philadelphia. I pictured all the fun times we had together. All the silly moments as well as the ones where we could just sit and exist with one another. Then I thought, “Am I ready to let that go?” Suddenly, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone so that I could look at all of our pictures and videos from the time before we were dating until then. And you know what? I was nowhere near ready to give that up. I told my obsessive thoughts to sit the fudge down and shut up, Vicky was way more important than they were!

Obviously she cried when I told her about the whole ordeal the next day. She hugged me so tight that I almost died just from the pressure; it was so sweet. We talked everything out in way more detail than I can offer here. Her perception of what had taken place was that she hadn’t done enough to keep me happy prior to this, but the opposite was true. To this day I tell her that she’s the reason I overcame that sensation and that I will always be grateful for that. The way that I was able to help Alyssa when she needed someone was the way Vicky did, in my opinion, and she didn’t even need to be there. She’s my person, that soul that I have alongside me in all my hard times who would stop what she’s doing in a heartbeat to see if I’m okay. And that is the product of the dark.

It would be a lie to say I haven’t had a few more conversations like the one I had with Alyssa. I’ve known people who shroud their faces in smiles who, in reality, would give it all up if it meant escaping the tyrannical grips of hardship. My advice to them all was the same: Clearly you could end it all. But then that would be the end. And that is a terrible way to end a book, isn’t it? Accept the fact that life is hard. Life will always be hard. But it isn’t hard on you, it’s hard on us all. People will always face something that knocks them down but you have a choice whether or not to let it stay wrapped around you. Accept that what has happened has happened, it won’t change. You either let it crush you or you lift it above your head and you throw it. Throw it far.

Also, there have been times when I, and others around me, have said that if you need to talk to someone but don’t know who, talk to anyone who would demonstrate the patience needed to listen. I’ve sat on the bus talking to elderly people about different things in my life as well as theirs, and there is a simple beauty to those interactions that provide perspective. You start to see that everyone has been through their own battles. Talking them out with people, whether in your home or in public, does help your mind make sense of it. For all those people who I’ve sat with only once in my life yet have shared those deep conversations with, I say thank you and may you always remember that somebody cared to listen.

Today, I see Alyssa from time to time and we follow each other on Snapchat. She’s a very talented dancer and actor, always filled with energy when she posts a dance routine. Her life has moved in its own direction, away from the threat of self termination and far superior to the place that it once was in, and I couldn’t be happier for her. That day, when her message reached into my heart, I put away a lot of my own worries in order to be the kind of person that anyone could approach. I decided to provide a shoulder to cry on for anyone in need. And that’s the beauty of these dim situations we face in our youth. If you focus on how dark things seem, you’ll never give your eyes the opportunity to adjust and see the cracks of light from far away. But if you dedicate time to speak on your worries, be that kindhearted person anyone can come to, you become the light.

For the majority of my life, I was told that I was a biracial child born to a Black father and a Puerto Rican mother. This guided me through my years to tell people how interesting it was to think that there are two sides to me, as if I was some coin. Honestly, I have taken a lot of pride in my Hispanic heritage although being somewhat separated from the culture (my mom died long ago, therefore neither my brother nor I learned much about Puerto Rican culture growing up). But there was something very interesting about my mother and her side of the family that I did not know until a month or so before coming to college. My aunt Mickie, my mom’s sister, told my brother and I that their father, whom the family lovingly called Weatho, was a German. 

At first this was a bit of a surprise because as far as I could remember, nobody ever made mention of any Germans in the family. Weatho was married to my grandma Maria, who was lovingly called Weatha, and she is still alive to this day whereas he passed away years ago. I don’t have any real memories of him, but Weatha looks like a Taino Puerto Rican woman and I just assumed Weatho looked the same. But no, when Mickie showed me his picture it became very clear that this man was German, red button nose and all. My immediate thoughts concerning this was that my mom didn’t look like a German woman, plus I had believed her to be a Puerto Rican my whole life, the fact that nobody told me years ago is pretty crazy.

It makes sense that he could have been from Europe; there was a time during the 19th century when many Germans immigrated to the island of Puerto Rico to escape British tariffs on imports and exports. German businesses on the island took  off well and the families that came from Germany decided to stay. This might explain where he comes from in some detail but it still is a big difference from the traditional Puerto Rican. A little backstory here, the Taino were the indigenous people of Puerto Rico and other places in the Caribbean before Christopher Colombus decided to commit mass genocide and displace everybody. But, the Tainos were darker skinned and had their own language that still persists in little ways within the Spanish spoken by Boricuas. Even the term Boricua, which Ricans call themselves, is a term that pays homage to the Tainos because it is derived from the name that they called the island before it was given its current name; once upon a time it was the island of Boriken.

So, Weatha being a Boricua and my grandfather David, Weatho, being a German means that my mom was mixed. I honestly feel a little betrayed in a hilariously amazing way. My roots run so deep in many parts of the world and I realize that as I am, a self proclaimed cultured individual, it is beautiful and fitting that the family lineage falls from so many different countries. A dream of mine is to travel to all of my “Homelands,” as I mentioned in a previous post, so Germany is definitely added to the list, right below Africa. Everybody comes from Africa so that’s a given.

In this blog I’ll do a little backstory just for anyone who’s interested. My life has been very odd and erratic but this sort of subject is pretty tame yet still wildly beautiful.

During the ninth grade, I had met this girl named Ambar while on a school trip to Temple University. She was in a different class and I had only seen her here and there in the hallways with her friends, but I always wanted to spark a conversation with her. On this particular day, while leaving from the trip, we were standing near one another in line when I said something funny to my brother and she overheard it and laughed. “Oh wow, really, Nakoa?” My first thought was, ‘She knows my name.. huh, that’s cool.’ 

After that day, we had developed this little friendship that basically survived on our occasional conversations during medical academy. At first it was minor, we spoke about our families and made little jokes here and there about the teacher. Our daily talks in a 45 minute long class were slowly turning out to be my favorite parts of the day. On one Saturday in particular, I took a gamble and decided to send her a text message asking how she was doing. Mind you, we had never texted prior to this day and I was nervous to even try because we weren’t necessarily “friends.” I told myself we’d talk for a few minutes and then say bye. She responded, saying “I’m good, how about you?” It ended up being a conversation that lasted until the very next morning.

Sadly, she transferred to a new school after the 9th grade and I was left to fend for myself. It was the kind of low point that every kid goes through when a friend leaves. My first few weeks in the 10th grade passed by silently until one day this girl named Aicha approached me during lunch. I was sitting alone, used to the silence by now, reading a book and she decided to sit with me to chat. At first it felt very invasive; she wanted to talk about food and her cultural heritage along with mine. She boasted about the Malaysian culture and how her African roots influenced that, and she asked me all about being mixed and eating different foods.  Over time I actually began to smile and enjoy the conversation.

To this day, Aicha is one of my best friends and we’ve had a long history of food conversations and hanging out with mutual friends. Our favorite thing to talk about is still food not surprisingly at all. Following that initial talk we had, I started sitting with her and her friend Vicky during everyday classes. They were an interesting pair to be pals with because even though they had just met in the school year, they already had this playful banter between them that was reminiscent of a sisterhood. I slowly grew fond of them and had this little feeling that everything would be okay; me losing my previous friends was bad but things didn’t have to stay sad forever.

Me and Vicky had this kind of banter that was totally separate from what I was used to. She had become my best friend very quickly due to the simple facts that A) we both shared a love of anime, B) the kinds of jokes that we laughed at were very dumb and unappealing to others, and C) she was so lovely to me.  I loved the way that she smelled, it was an intoxicating mix of perfume and lotion that made me melt, and I enjoyed the times that we would accidentally touch hands during class (we’d gotten used to sitting next to one another in each subject). Our classmates saw our friendship as more than what it was long before we ever did. We had a spark and it was undeniable.

Now, I am in a happily committed relationship with Vicky and there is no other person alive who I hold as dear to my heart in that sense. She was always there for me more than any of my previous friends ever were, which isn’t a knock to them but just the truth. I don’t know why I didn’t see it at the time; it took over a year, but she was always the one I wanted. Around prom time in 11th grade we finally started realizing the true potential of our connection. Aicha was still a good friend but we mostly spent time alone exploring Philadelphia after school and going to different restaurants that looked appetizing. Whether she was the one spending the money or I was, it didn’t matter as long as we had the experience together.

All in all, I think that I had a little hole filled in my heart when I met my new friends. And with Vicky, she was able to make that heart beat ten times stronger when it was fully healed.

Around the time I started the 6th grade, I began noticing how a few of my friends were becoming more introverted. I was going through the same thing, headaches everyday that led to my lack of focus in classes and outbursts of frustration towards people. It was hard to begin on this path of isolating oneself to avoid negative encounters with others.

Then, I had gotten used to sitting alone during classes and lunch, scribbling in books. I had a pretty good knack for finding words that, when paired, seemed to relay a thought, a trinket of my mental state without the breath it took to take them flying. I sought the afterthought of challenge when I no longer crawled through hardship, and instead pulled a flag and left it grounded. I’m not going to show off like that! Y’all not ready for all that!… anyway, I had these journals that were blank with lines that caught the eye and seduced scribes… I need to stop. What I’m trying to say is that I was becoming a pretty good poet who used all of his free time to write instead of hanging around people. I definitely would fit in at PYPM.

Instead of empty spaces, I fill these words on dark blotches/ A place in time that my people have forgotten/ Pieces of canvas that no artist has begot then/ I space them nicely with a shine, clear polish/ When they sound good enough to see the light of day/ Flip the script and start writing in a better way/ Some ears will be deaf to everything you say/ But most eyes can’t avoid where the sun casts rays/

I like to not only speak on things that people can relate to, but also speak on things that I feel some could never really grasp. Whether in reality they can or not, I’ve made it a practice to be as ambiguous as possible while still leaving a trail of thought to follow. Many poets do this, but I feel that it is unique to me because no one taught me how to do this, I came up with it all on my own. And, in a way, that is what connects us all as poets, we can come to the same conclusions whether we share notes with one another or not, like some kind of widespread verbal convergent evolution. Threw some biology in there… college.

Afford to spare a bit of ink and let another write/ The difference is just as clear as pitch black and white/ The pitch is changing like a singer raising up her height/ Or rather sloping like a graph in algebra, right?/ Not really good in math but I can see the end/ Hiding behind a matrix wall and dividends/ I’m not the only writer compensated with a grip of bands/ But I’m the type to shove it right back at the man/

Obviously not something incredibly deep but I still love the way that you can interpret a simile or metaphors right in between lines and capture not only an idea, but also an actual statement of fact. The difference is clear, meaning when you let someone else write something for you, you get to see their interpretation of words and meanings. The difference is clear like a song, a crescendo in a sense. Also, I have truly never been compensated for my work nor have I accepted an offer for it; I’ve always shoved the grip of bands (money) back to whomever offered. The joy of writing something you found to be awesome is all you need, along with imagination.

Now, read these words, but slowly try to analyze the message:

I miss the days your attention was in arms reach/ When I could see you from a distance you would care to speak/ Though you left I thought that we would still be close as we/ Are and now I think we’ve separated quietly/ Now all my focus went to tracing back the days of old/ Where I can see you smile and feel your gentle laughter grow/ I used to take the mental image home and hold it close/ But now they’re tearing from me, breaking for the door to go/ 

Do I need to say more or can you see the way I’m feeling/ You walked away and broke the walls down, falling ceiling/ Just to see you now would be to me the most appealing/ How can you take a heart then take a leave, always stealing/ Better call the law; I need to be before a jury/ I’ll tell ’em love is gone and this is means for rush and worry/ I’ll bring a search party out and play them music during/ They trample over our old stomping ground where we would journey/ Through the bushes that our parents told us not to go/ We snickered moving on the path that only we would know/ I held your hand and told you I could get us back to home/ Now I don’t know where to turn, you’ve let your grasp unfold

A big portion of my life was spent in silent thought. I became a shell, feeling only what I cared to feel and thinking about my life as this sort of projection on a screen; I wasn’t me, but I was watching me. So all the things I used to write about were very deep and touched on things that I would think of, but I would write them out with no problem because, in my mind, it was the same as writing about somebody else. Therefore it wasn’t difficult to lay out these raw emotions.

I say to try to analyze the meaning because that is how you get better at feeling the emotion within it.

It was a pretty sad time back then. Loving your poems felt like everything, but I had nobody to really share them with. Plus, in the 6th grade, I was a pretty sharp kid who always acted like he didn’t belong and other people didn’t vibe well with me because of it. It made me cringe to even think about having a conversation. All I wanted was a book and pencils as friends. But, of course, those around me who knew me well knew that I, like everybody else, needed attention and needed support. So, during the days that I along with my brother and a few of our friends would meet in the school’s conference for Public Speaking club, the entire group would write poetry instead of speeches. My friends there would force me (as in offer me Reese’s) to write about different things and use the best similes, metaphors, double entendres, etc., I could think of. That balance of being in class and disassociating myself from others was good for focus and creating new ideas, despite me becoming too antisocial, tagged along with having a room where I could enjoy what I’ve written and share it with friends was pretty good.

My goal is to one day find the time to write something as beautiful as my favorite poem, Cadenus and Vanessa by Jonathan Swift.

As diverse as my family background is, I would love to see the many different “homelands” I come from. One of those homelands is the beautiful island of Puerto Rico. Of course, before anything else, I wish the best for everybody there, family or not, affected by the storms. Let’s hope they are still keeping the energy up and making it through day by day.

A few years back, my uncle Darrin, who was in a committed relationship with his Puerto Rican girlfriend, Stella, decided that it was time to get married. And it would be super romantic for the ceremony to take place on the island, of course. As beautiful as destination weddings are, they are the perfect initiators of heart attacks for the common man’s bank account. Needless to say, I was very excited to go, because no bills were coming my way.

My brother shared in on the enthusiasm I felt to be heading to the place we’ve heard about growing up. We were so happy to be able to see the province with our own eyes; it was almost dreamlike. From the moment we stepped off the plane and weaved through the streets of San Juan, we were enticed by every bright colored building facade and every smell coming from restaurants. We imagined trekking through the foliage and making our way to different villages etc. But, the hotel pool was a good alternative.

We stayed at La Concha hotel downtown, a beautifully designed building with spacious accommodations, two pools, a gym, and the beach right out back. It wasn’t exactly the cultural enriching experience we had previously hoped for, but nobody at that age turns down random pool parties  for a walk to an old village. I thoroughly enjoyed being in the presence of native Spanish speakers while staying there; it felt surreal in a sense. At the time, when you’re used to your own life at home, you go to a new place, constantly hearing new words, always partaking in new foods, being in a culture not entirely mimicking your own; it really hit me. This was not my home, but it was A home, it belonged to somebody who lived with my blood coursing through their veins. From there, I was in a state of constant euphoria… it was a place I felt attached to.

On one day in particular, my dad, grandma, aunt, her husband, my brother and I made a run to Old San Juan, probably one of the chillest places I’ve ever been. The homes were modestly sized yet seemed as if they housed royalty. The architecture was visually pleasing to say the very least, it sets the portion of the city apart from all the rest of it. While there, we ate from a nice diner near the Plaza de Armas  and took pictures overlooking the ocean. I imagined myself as one of those pirates who shows up to a settlement to see where he could go, no real plans or direction. This was my foothold in an expanding world, connections to more places were on the way.

I have 3 other places that I need to go to in order to say I’ve completed the search for all of my “homelands.” We shall look at those soon.

It’s easy for a lot of us to forget that we are currently living on a giant sphere of molten liquids, rocks, oceans and large expanses of land. This place we call home has provided us with everything we have utilized to fulfill our passions. Life is subjective, of course, and your ideas aren’t the same as someone else’s and your goals could be far different. On that note, allow me to introduce the term known “Asolare.” More than just a restaurant, this Italian word means, more or less, to spend time in a meaningless yet delightful way. It is great to have your goals, your dreams, your aspirations, and it is wonderful to pursue them. But, sometimes it can do you well to do something delightful and not constructive at all. Nothing is arguably more delightful than listening to music and losing your sense of time dancing with friends.

A project that I was apart of a few years ago took this principle, along with this pass time, and combined them to create a video for the city of Philadelphia. And here you go…

If you watched close enough, the kid who did that cool spin kick in the middle of the video, that was me. No beard back in them days.

I was lucky enough to become apart of this project by being in a film class at my after school program YOACAP in downtown Philadelphia. The program’s primary focus was to get teens dedicated to their education through plenty of different means. The film class was one of many ways we were engaged in our community whilst still obtaining experience in a practice that wasn’t totally academic. Our teacher, Walter Wimberly, inspired my brother and I to take him up on the offer to join the production and even be on camera representing the livelier side of the population. In a somewhat ironic fashion, we spent the day trying to capture the right shots and gather certain people which really made for a stressful task. But, it was worth it to see how everything played out. 

Anyway, I don’t personally think that we were not brought to life just to always stress about what we have to do; it’s important to focus on what we simply have. A lot of us who do not live in poverty or suffer from hardships like war or widespread disease tend to focus our energy towards our day to day lives and struggles. It would do us well to take a step back from it all and just have fun in a way that doesn’t need to have meaning. This video project was the perfect representation of Asolare in my eyes; what we were able to accomplish in this day long project was that we brought together complete strangers in a happy environment, we livened up the streets with song and dance, and we did it all for the fun of it. Yes, this day had meaning, but it didn’t feel like it at the time, and that was okay.

Another blog that I came across spoke on this same topic and I wanted to share it here.

Asolare… figure out what you would like to do today and do it because you know that you have a lifetime to handle work and responsibility. Make good decisions, of course, but never forget to take a break and breathe every once in a while. Life will still be here when you get back.

Many times before, I have been called a “Renaissance Man.” This term mostly refers to those who have many talents and are well rounded as individuals. Before I knew the term even existed, I had a good understanding that I had a diverse set of skills and abilities that allowed me to amaze my friends. As a kid, we all know how great it feels to show your friends something and they actually like it. So, one talent in particular that I developed with the purpose of showing off a bit was the ability to write backwards.

     Here we see a picture characterized not only by its super stylish depiction of a flying machine, but also by the script printed below it. That is Ancient Italian written backwards, it was a way for Leonardo da Vinci to keep his notes from being read and duplicated. This kind of writing only allowed him to decipher the meanings of the strange looking words and, upon first hearing about this style, I began to practice the method myself.

Da Vinci was definitely a Renaissance Man in many aspects. His artwork is still some of the greatest examples of human creativity to date. His name speaks of illustrious pathways to history and artistic expression. I barely care about any of that. I just wanted to learn how to write like he did. What ended up being a night full of poetic bliss and success started out as a frustrating mess. I scrawled all over my books and random papers, trying to dot every i and cross every t, backwards. It puts a strain on your hand unlike any other.

When I got down to actually developing my own font and shorthand weeks later, it became as easy as writing forwards. Now this may not seem too interesting, but I found beauty and a sort of enlightenment in this practice. On one hand, it did serve as a useful tool in assuring people wouldn’t read personal things I wrote during classes. On the other, it garnered the attention of people who were simply unaware that this was even a thing. People who usually paid me no mind during classes were now staring over my shoulder, watching every stroke of the pen and saying things only slightly more intelligible than “Ooohh wow!” What an amazing feeling it was.

If, for any reason, you find useless (and I say this with love) talents to be interesting, I will provide a link to a website that talks about this style a little more and has a tool to show mirrored text. But, trust me, nothing is better than learning on your own. Using a couple nights to practice all the while planning to propose to a prom date would’ve been a great idea in hindsight.