i know something about love... possibly

whenever i talk about love (that is, love, the fixation, fascination, and #1 pastime in america, not the God-defined love), i generally preface it with some type of acknowledgement that i don't really know what i'm talking about. i have professed at times to have fallen in love, and felt all the feelings, and gone through all the motions. however, then subsequently, love said feelings, stopped said motions, and deemed myself to have fallen out of love.

in hindsight, it sounds rather rediculous. who just haplessly falls in and out of love as if love is some unguarded manhole in the street through which unsuspecting passers-by fall? perhaps when all you know is how you feel, that passive term "falling in love" may be the only way to explain it. i'm a little older now though. i require things in my life to be less haphazard and more controlled. so i prefer to believe now that love is not found or slipped and fallen into... but built. what if you just take the pieces and follow the instructions and voila, you get yourself a true love?

don't form your opinions too early, because this is just my theory and i haven't tested it yet. but research shows, that this whole "waiting to fall in love" or worse yet "trying to fall in love" thing is passe. you see, i'm searching for my own personal brand of victory. i'm at a job that i don't particularly love, but don't intensely hate. i go to it 3 days a week, half-do it and leave. i don't dislike it enough to quit, but i wouldn't need too much motivation and push to let it go. i need it badly enough to tolerate it and put in the least amount of effort possible to keep it. this whole situation is reminding me of a relationship on its way to going sour.

hence, i'm rather proud that i'm still doing it as of mid-august, when i've been wanting to cut it loose since april. this is because i know that in any relationship, be it a lackluster underpaying job or a romantic relationship where there are doubts and unsureties, there will be times when you consider calling it quits. in this case, i've been continuously reevaluating whether or not to hang it up for months now. always looking for reasons to stay, but never really looking for reasons to enjoy it. i'm just trying not to quit, and not trying all that hard at that. perhaps if i can learn to not just keep this job, but to function again in it, then i could say that i've learned something about love.

don't tear my theory apart though. i haven't tested it yet.

maybe i deserve this

It's true. Life goes around in circles. Sometimes ill happenings that occur are not the so-called fates being cruel or kind. It's just idiocy on your own part. Sometimes you just bring things on yourself. Like when I was growing up, I had a cousin about 12 years my junior who idolized me. I couldn't stand him. He annoyed like those Looney Tunes characters Spike the Bulldog and Chester the Terrier. Chester, ever exhuberant, always wanted to pal around with surly Spike, to which Spike always gave him a backhand in the mouth and flatly quipped "nah." Enough of this and my mother foreboded "you keep rejecting him like that and one day, some woman that you're really interested in is gonna reject you the same way." I'm inclined to blame the messenger, not for the times that it actually did happen and I deserved it, but for all the times subsequent that I didn't.

These days however, it seems like retribution is coming to me in a more direct 1-to-1 fashion with some things. You may or may not have read that I've been recording more and designing less lately. I go through these seasons when I'm highly creative and highly productive and then sometimes I hit "the wall" where everything stops, nothing works, nothing grows, and nobody gets anywhere too quickly.

“I got to pay back. I need some get back. Payback.” - James Brown, “Payback”

Unfortunately for a few of my drag-leg web clients, my patience ran out for these long-standing jobs that had lingered past the threshold of novelty into the zone of tedium. Some of them I jettisoned, and some of them I just ignored as if behind soundproof glass. In some cases, i was just sick and tired of hearing the their voice on my answering machine, and in other cases, I really did want to do the work, but my head was so glutted with minutia that i couldn't do what i wish i could for them. There were times when i avoided their calls... let their e-mails fall like trees in the forest with no one around to hear the sound... for whatever reason committed or omitted, i've let people down, disappointed them, frustrated them, impeded them. Choose your own disheartening verb. I did it. It was me.

Well, fast forward to weeks and months later. Now I'm in recording mode. And I'm at an array of disadvantages, not for talent, mobility, or inspiration, but for faculty. There are some things I can't do and I need other people. Wouldn't you know it. I feel like I've faced a suspiciously familiar wall of dead ends, red herrings, empty promises, and (more importantly) unanswered phone calls and e-mails, like a red sea with no one to part it for me. Whenever I experience such a rebuff, I always wonder... is this just due retribution? Did I do something to warrant this? What if it is fair afterall? Perhaps I “had it coming” like the chorus of vampy murderous female inmates sang in chicago. Maybe I deserve this.

Because I'm aware of Christ's grace, I know that I will always undoubtedly forget to dot an "i" or cross a "t". I don't believe that that alone is a guarantee that I will spend the rest of my life in a miserable existence of reaping repercussions of shortcomings that I was inherently born with. [Sidebar: if you're such a person who does believe that, you might want to let go of that pattern of thinking in hopes of avoiding miserable existences.] Nonetheless, I do believe that what goes around comes around. By this I mean that if you (read: I) sow irresponsibility, inconsideration, and faithlessness, you should not be surprised when you experience it in your life and you should make an attempt to minimize it wherever possible and eradicate it if at all possible.

“Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.” - Ephesians 4:28

As a matter of course, I always have to pose the question: What do we do now? Well, you can't change what's done, but you can alter what you will do in the future. I can try to make amends for offenses I've already rendered. I can start by apologizing. (Now that I'm older, my apologizer works a lot better than when i was a teen). If the people aren't too terribly sick of me, I can offer to compensate for what i've caused them to lose. The bottom line is, I don't like what I'm reaping, so I really need to go sow something different.

and if you're looking for me

“i've been down so long... / there were times i thought i'd never see the break of day... / so night after night, I pray ‘Lord, don't take your joy from me’ / and then late one night / I read in your Love Letter / that it's gonna get better / don't you know that i've been looking for you / i realize nothing else will satisfy me / i'm so glad i found you / now that i'm changed / no one can keep me away from you” - kirk franklin, “looking for you”

it's been a long time...
i hate to leave you...
but sometimes i do when i need to.

like old folks would say, it's been a “hard row to hoe” this week. last sunday's unexpected episode of grief came crashing down and really sent me into a tailspin. i wanted to believe i was ok, but i hadn't recovered from it at all. i spent monday and tuesday struggling to keep my head above water... wednesday, crashing into the water... thursday and friday, under water and mad about it... then saturday and sunday, calling folks to arrange some help hoisting my depressed carcass back out of the water.

it was pretty horrible. i was tired, upset, malcontent, surly. my face was just dark. i wasn't smiling much, unless forced to circumstantially. i don't like that. i don't know how many of you saw me this week, but please make note: “this is what mark looks like when he's having a really hard time”. if i was smiling, it was probably forced. well-meaning, but not natural. if you ever see it again, please pray for me. and if you feel lead to, ask me what's going on.

“they make me mad / i'm not happy / they make me sad / i'm unhappy” - tonéx, “mad”

the sad part is, for the bulk of the week, i had no idea what was going on and why it happened. i just knew i was consummately not happy. i didn't wanna see nobody, go nowhere, do nothing. oh, and don't even think about asking me for stuff. if i didn't wanna do it, it didn't get done. i pretty much did a lot of sitting and wasting time with my arms crossed and lips tightly pursed. i couldn't really even open my mouth to pray.

“keep your heart established. you gotta learn how to keep your heart in a state of constant cleansing. it'll be somethin' that'll attach itself to you in a minute. i bought a white pantsuit in florida... when i got to the airport, i realized... i had a spot on the front of my coat... by the time i got to airport, i had somethin' on my sleeve... when i got on the plane, i went to check my lipstick and turned my head and got lipstick on my collar... by the time i got to montreal, i looked like a dirt devil. i mean, it was horrible!

if that's true in the natural, how true is that in the spirit? you can find yourself in some kinda condition, find yourself in some kinda place where the enemy has total ground. he done messed you up, you don't even know when you got dirty, but the fact is, you are. and see when stuff affixes itself to your heart, it's hard to shake it off.” - minister ralphena dodson

i don't know how whatever it is got to me, but it did. and it got me gooder than i expected. shutup. gooder is a word. and i couldn't shake it off. i had to call some of my brothers at 2:30am on a sunday morning to pray with me, because i was seriously strugglin'.

honestly, i think i had been listening to too much brandy, seal, chaka khan, and other secular singers the likes of which i love, and whose influence is so enriching to my musical palate. still, i think i heard mary mary put it best. those girls have mentioned that they like to listen to brandy and other secular singers too, but they said “if you listen to too much of it, you will have a spiritual breakdown.” that's pretty much what happened to me. all at once, the lights went off in georgia. spiritually, my legs buckled under me, and i couldn't pull my own self up with my own power. it's a very bad feeling.

God prepared me though, he told me maybe last saturday that it was time to take a break from recording. perfect timing. i would have hated to in any way infect the integrity of these songs in progress during my period of funkiness. my mind was inordinately barraged with lustful thoughts, and i could tell that they weren't invited. honestly, i wasn't even “in the mood”, so i knew it was just an ambush attack from the enemy. but for the ways of escape presented (just as God promised he would make available in his word), i would have probably dove head first into looking at some type of pornography. lord knows the temptation was there. i had to leave my house several times during my work day, turn my DSL modem completely off, and one night the Holy Spirit just told me not to even bother going home. i slept over at one of my brothers' houses and then went to my day job the next morning.

now that all is said and done, God willing, i hope that i can put the necessary safeguards on... amp up my prayer and meditation time, and keep out more of the influences that were most likely to blame for the problem. i know that through familiarity, comfort, and just good common stupidity, it would be wholly possible and by no means unforeseeable to repeat the exact same mistake in the near future. so rather than look like a bumbling “idgit” in front of God and country, i think i'm gonna do right this time.

thanks to all of you who were checking on me and praying for me... i appreciate you so much. you know who you are. God bless.

it's been 7 hours and 16 days

salutations, top of the morning, and good morrow to you, magistrate. thanks for the consolation. hope you're doing well. a lot of time has passed since interaction functionally shut down. just wanted to officially register though. i went and got a life. i found some other similarly nerdy friends online. so i miss you less. but i miss you nonetheless.

“you're dear to me... you know who you are.” (c) amel larrieux

missing

“I step off the train / I'm walking down your street again / Past your door / But you don't 0live there anymore / It's years since you've been there / Now you've disappeared somewhere / Like outer space / You've found some better place / And I miss you / like the deserts miss the rain” - Everything But The Girl, “Missing”

I still have dreams about my Grandfather. Not often, but consistently. And when I do, they're anachronistic. I'll be living my life as it is today and my Grandfather will walk into the scene as if he hadn't passed on over six years ago. These dreams often take place at the house where I grew up (which has since been sold outside of the family). It's like when my mind gets an opportunity, it always takes me back there even if just for a moment. As if that place where I had always been is still where I'm supposed to be. Home base.

Whenever I have these dreams, they feel so real that it's normally quite a few moments after I wake up before I realize what's real and what's not. Not only did I have today another one of those dreams that mimicked reality. I had an odd anomaly of a moment in reality that mimicked a dream.

Our church visits a convalescent home in South Pasadena once every month. This is something I asked to do, but oddly enough, I always feel a bit averse to going. It is a bit assaulting on the senses to take in directly the ravages of age. Those who have aged, well and those who have aged badly. Normally in enough time, the compassion shows through and I come around when I get to find someone and talk to them.

The last person I talked to was an older Caucasian gentleman named Curtis. Wheelchair bound with both legs amputated, I decided before I left to stop and stoop down and introduce myself. Something about him would not let me pass him by. I found out that he had been a resident in the place for about 2 years, but hadn't stopped by to our one-hour church visit before.

“Please pardon me / But I'm longing to see / I hope you don't mind my staring / I don't mind / 'Cause your face looks so kind / And it's seldom you find someone so daring / You remind me of a friend of mine” - Rufus & Chaka Khan, “Please Pardon Me (You Remind Me Of A Friend)” (1974).

Generally, most white elderly men I see remind me of my grandfather. My papa was an African-American man, but it took him a lot of standing out in the sun to hold much pigment I can't remember much at all of what we said, but I think I mentioned something something about being glad to have met him. He said something to the effect of come back soon, but he said it with a sharp wit and a smile. As I had squat down talking to him, listening intently, I looked in his face, and it was almost like I was seeing Ralph Alexander Coston, Sr.

Suddenly, I was overcome with grief and had to dart out of the room so as not to cause a scene in front of the rest of the people who were there. I couldn't stop myself from crying as if I had just lost my Grandfather yesterday. That whole brief, brief interaction was too familiar and too odd, too inviting and too frightening. It just reminded me in such an intense way that six years later, I still miss Papa terribly. He was my grandfather, he was my dad, and he was one the best friends I've ever had. Once my grandmother passed, it was pretty much just us for the next ten years.

“...Back on the train / I ask why did I come again / Can I confess / I've been hanging around your old address? / And the years have proven / To offer nothing since you moved / You're long gone / But I can't move on / And I miss you / Like the deserts miss the rain”

I'm still not quite sure what to do with this. I remember being 10 years old and not really comprehending how to move on after my grandmother passed away. But after not too much time passed, I was a little more saddened that I was moving on quite well. Almost even forgetting what she looked like. And then I settled into a comfortable life that didn't require her presence to make sense.

Once my grandfather passed away, the first thing I did was retreat to back to my home in Los Angeles, where living day to day without seeing him made sense. So it's rather frustrating that after this much time has passed, I could still feel that type of grief that strongly with that little warning. It's a fault and a liability. Although at this stage, I'm more likely to just hope it doesn't happen for another six years than try and scratch and pick at it to find out why it's happening. I just want to be OK.

whatchalookinat?

i recently had someone sit-in with me while i was recording vocals for my new album. this is new to me because normally i make it a private process, hit my bad notes in secret, correct and re-record until i get it right and then present the finished product and hope people go "wow" and smile. however, i believe God's told me to not be so "secretive" about the creative process this time. so i've been allowing select people to hear unfinished songs, even invited some other people to sing with me.

i must confess though. this whole someone-in-the-room-with-me thing i'm not liking so much. while they were there, i went into entertainer mode. trying to make sure the guest is comfortable, engaged, not bored, etc. while i was doing this, i was observing and rather critiquing myself. and when they left, i felt like i had failed as entertainer even though that wasn't even the purpose.

i could be wrong. maybe they were as quietly enthralled with the process as i was and just flat with their affect in showing it. very little expression given. maybe they were quietly concerned that inputing their ideas would interrupt the creative process or something, but it made me a little manic. this is new to me. i was missing feedback or something... approval, disapproval, a smile more often than prompted... just some kind of reaction and interaction. really, i think what i was hoping for was something re-affirming, and little if anything was.

so i suppose, given that, i could assume that it was neither here nor there. yet it still resounds to me like a somewhat bad thing happened. it was even bothering me this morning when i woke up, so i just prayed about it and asked God to let me know what i was supposed to do with/about this feeling, and i believe i've gotten one answer already.

what i heard was that i need to get used to being looked at. watched. observed. just like this last tuesday at bible study, riding atop the crested waves of stage fright, singing, playing, and still being functional even while people were watching me, reading my expressions, body language, paying attention to my words, taking it all in and processing it separately in each mind.

in a sense, it's something of a call to examine and re-examine what i'm saying and know that it will affect people's lives, attitudes, interpretations, the way they walk. it's rather heavy. not that i need to use this as an in to give vent to my control freak tendencies and start trying to manipulate people with what influence i have, but just so that i know... people are listening and eyes are on me.

furthermore, it's probably going to take this and a few more such mildly uncomfortable situations so that whether people are present or not, i don't change my behavior patterns to suit them. i need to be able to be myself no matter who i'm around and not be afraid of rejection or misunderstanding (two things that have crippled me quite enough times previously).

i once heard character being defined as what you do when no one else is around. it was said as it relates to not having one way that you act in front of people and then a totally different way you act when away from people. i've got some distance left to cover, but i'm already at a point where i can sing in the car, hit most any note i want at a stop light with the window down and not be concerned that people in the next lane may be staring at me in horror or pleasant bemusement. let 'em look. sometimes i'll even wave and nod and keep singing.

someone lost their faith

i've recently been getting in contact with a lot of old friends and acquaintances who've dropped off or otherwise gone AWOL in the past years, and i was rather jarred to find out that, in their absence, one of them actually slipped into a bout of crack use. it's odd because i always make crack jokes to/about people. “let the crack go.” “that's just the crack talking. stop listening to the crack.” “uh huh, and would you like some crack with that, perhaps?” in context, i find them funny. however, now that i know somebody who personally has gone this route, it's rings a little odd now.

“someone lost their faith in / seeking God / so they / turned to the needle / back to the cradle” - seal, “dreaming in metaphors” (1994)

it begs the question what could i have done to prevent this? nothing. i wasn't around. i didn't know. and even if i was around and did know, i can't control the world even though i wish i could, and act like i can when i so often try. it just kind of pains me a little when i hear about these things because but for the grace of God, it could be any of us.

did i fail to mention that this is someone who has believed (and hopefully still believes) in God, but somehow their beliefs got diluted or contaminated or otherwise stripped of power? this is someone who ministered to me when i was still young and formative in my faith. how did i find a secure place in Christ and become strong where they slowly, quietly, and calculatively just slipped away from Him? how did they go from rising in temperature to settling for lukewarm, to waxing cold and distanced.

they've become cold and stony and it makes me react in almost a fear reponse to do whatever i need to do to not become them. none of us can really say oh i would never... and be able to back it up, because we haven't seen the future. i can say it's most improbable that you would ever find me doing any kind of drug. i'm too much of a control freak to want to turn it over to some narcotic.

i just saw a news piece of middle-eastern women who amidst the stress of war outbreaks around them, deaths in their immediate families, and censorship from hussein's regime, have become hooked on valium which is a legal drug there. i believe it may even be available over-the-counter. but i'm sure they didn't purpose when they were 13 or 14 years old aspiring to one day live a valium-addicted zombie of an existence.

this is why i so often pray for mercy. i may want to think i'm safe and exclusive and above such things, but as long as i'm human, built from the same materials that everyone else on the planet is, i'm susceptible. i'm not untouchable. and i pray for mercy right now.