• Currently playing in iTunes: Promise by Ciara

When I first entered Second Life, I was far more interested in the business applications of the world, and of course the music… (and the shoes…. and the clothes. Oh my, and skins, bodylights, prim hair, but the SHOES!)

Last year, I’d met a few friends who flirted with me, but I just as demurely as I could deflected their interest, and just maintained my distance while remaining friends.

This I think was my emotional state at the time. The fall out from my last relationship in real life was so personally life changing and crushing in its weight, no one could get through the door with me. What’s more, I have been largely reclusive since I got pregnant. For the longest time, I’ve hardly gone out, for obvious babysitting concerns.

Read more…

I was going through my old posts and undeleting thousands of comments (not sure how they got deleted, but I think it was during The Great Comments Crash a while back).

I found this post, and wanted to share the whole thing, and why not? Poetry this beautiful should be shared and shared again.

I. Your love has penetrated all within me
Like honey plunged into water,
Like an odor which penetrates spices,
As when one mixes juice in… ……
Nevertheless you run to seek your sister,
Like the steed upon the battlefield,
As the warrior rolls along on the spokes of his wheels. Read more…

My, my, so much to report on, so little time. My child is asleep so I steal a few to write.

I am very tired. The last week or so, my little fella has been having a hard time. He ran a slight fever from Monday through Wednesday. It came and went, and never got very hot. Then he had a case of the shits, that’s still sort of going on.

The culprit? Two eye teeth are putting in an appearance. Poor little fella, we’ve had nighttime screaming fits from pain and discomfort, and the shits brought on a case of severe nappy rash.

He’s been so uncomfortable, and of course so have I. I’ve been in tears over his own pain, so there you go.

So I am exhausted. To add to all this teething pains, the yearly Sahara Dust cloud that was hanging over Bim the last week or so, produced a nasty reaction from my sinuses., so in addition to being tired, my sinuses were clobbered.

Despite all of this, Dayo still went to daycare every day last week, and played hard and had a ball. Child, he plays hard no matter what. Dayo doesn’t seem to have a ‘cool out’ mode. He’s either going, protesting sleep or sleeping.

Taking him to daycare in the mornings, has also brought a little flirtation into play. With whom? Indeed. I know little, but it doesn’t stop the flirt from getting on.

I am loving work. Corporate adventures have taken me into town on a few occasions, and this has also brought on some overwhelming male attention. So much so, last week I had a man step right up to me, and ask me point blank if I wanted a man. He was very attractive, but waaaay too much gold. I hate, hate, hate jewelry on a man, and he was in OVER DO zone.

I find this interesting though. Personally, I need to look at me when I come up against this.

There has to be some quality I possess that some men find irresistible, even when I am in my current state of voluptuous matronly roundness. I may have lost 22 pounds when Dayo was born, but I damn near put it all back on coping with stress in the last eight months. I also do not feel sexy in the least. Or should I say, I didn’t and haven’t. Until now.

I think too, the fall out from CFWanker (Yes I fucking said it. He’s a WANKER!) was severe. I’m still dealing with that of course. CFWanker’s betrayal of myself and his son, still kind of colours everything. It’s hard to just forget it, because I look at my son everyday and who his father is, what his father has failed to do for us both and the very specific abuse I suffered at his hands is something I have no choice but to struggle with. As much as I loathe the man, I regret nothing, because I have Dayo. Yet, I still loathe the, uhhh (sarcastic) ‘man’.

The emotional dramas, melodramas and histrionics that living in the same house with my mother and brother produced also killed the motor for me in regards of sexual desire or feeling. Add to that my consumate disgust with the penis sizes that I encountered and the ‘don’t know what the fuck they’re doing’ I experienced with EVERY single man I dated in the UK including CFWanker, and the decidedly NOT small penis size of YMK and the memories of the best sex I’ve had to date, did a lot to kill my inspiration further.

Let’s not forgot the 10 months of pregnancy with vomiting and extreme peeing, bladder agonies, childbirth and sutures, you know, it just don’t make a sister feel sexy or up for any kind of sexiness.

Recently, parenting and work have just taken all the energy I have, and with my mind far away on these two activities, I haven’t had time to notice if some kind of ‘fuck me’ pheremone has begun to make it’s way into the atmosphere from my body. Maybe it has, because of late, I’ve been getting ‘attention’. Even being mismatched, unpressed and hair wrapped in cloth or under a beret and on my way to and from daycare in the mornings, the brother’s are saying hello.

I have to take that back, because men were making comments even when I was big bellied and walking like duck in August. So I guess it’s just me then.

: sigh : I’m not up for any emotional ‘I love you’ crap. CFWanker has kind of burnt all of that right out of me. It will take a really special man to undo some of that hurt, and I am still healing from it.

That doesn’t mean though I mightn’t be up for some fun, oui?

Of course there is one I like. I can look at him and see he is young, but I’m afraid to find out just how young. I have a feeling the gap is even greater than that between me and YMK. He’s the flirtation in the morning taking Dayo to daycare, and occasionally at other times, and during other movements.

He waits outside the converted shipping container that’s the only shop for miles, and is owned by a wicked old shit who only opens said ‘shop’ from 6pm to 11.30pm every night. He — my flirtation — waits there every morning for a ride to work.

He’s there when I take Dayo down to school, and he’s there when I walk back. He’s one of the local fellas from this neighborhood, but young enough or moved out here recently enough that I do not know him from my generation of kids who grew up out here.

All I know is his name, and that everyday I see him, my desire to see him naked gets just that much greater.

Today is Monday (all day, yes I know) and because of the bad diaper rash and the shits and the general discomfort, I’m keeping Dayo home until he feels better.

I wonder if my young friend, noticed that I didn’t come out. If Dayo doesn’t go to daycare tomorrow, will he notice that I didn’t pass two days straight?

Friday, for the first time in the weeks since we first started our little flirting thing, he asked me, “So how are things with you, differently?” He’s trying to initiate conversation, he’s so cute. Not cute, like in looks. He’s got his own thing happening. Nah, he’s cute as in sweet.

Differently though, Big Mami may be coming to the end of an 18 month drought. May it make up for the last three years of no, mediocre and just plain BAD sex. May it do much to heal my spirit and soul from the abuse of CFWanker.

Differently for real.

I found this on Assata Speaks, and really wanted to share it.

I think if Black Men and Black Women really took this to heart, including me (with the right man of course) there would be less divisiveness among the African family in the Diaspora.

But I guess, that’s a little to Afro-centric and Pan-African… too Black Nationalist for some. I stand by them and where I found them though; these are words to pay some attention to.

—–

1. Unselfishness and selflessness–Consciously put your loved one at the center of your heart and cultivate awareness of his/her needs. But don’t go overboard; remember to also take care of yourself.

2. Generosity–Give of yourself, sharing time, things, and emotions.

3. Acceptance–Commit yourself to patience, forbearance, tolerance, and accepting your mate not as a fantasy object–but a real person.

4. Respect–Your mate is a gateway to God and so deserves your respect, trust and support.

5. Honesty–the hard work of communication, revealing yourself, truth-telling, listening (these are big practices)–all lead to authenticity.

6. Empathy–Genuine love involves working hard to understand, and share, the feelings of your loved one. And to offer compassion and caring even for feelings you don’t “get.”

7. Play–Don’t take your love or yourself so seriously. Remember to leave room for fun, whimsy, joy and meaninglessness too.

8. Passion–True passion is not the romantic fascination we associate with teenage crushes; it’s a deep wonderment and interest in the other.

9. Mystery–Being open to not knowing, to not having it all worked out, to the discovery of being together.

10. Mission–Strengthen your bond by having some shared “mission,” purpose, direction.

From: Assata Speaks – Hands Off Assata – Let’s Get Free – Revolutionary – Pan-Africanism – Black On Purpose – Liberation – Forum

It’s a good thing I’m working hard.

Bluemoaner cautioned me about letting my heart get too attached to my sleeve and so I wanted to assure my peoples that I am not pining too much.

I am missing YMK. I really am, but you know, you don’t reach to a certain age as a woman — more to the point a black woman — and depend too much on what men say.

Thing is, me and the young man have unfinished business. It’s that simple.

The Young Mr. K and I are still dancing around whatever it is between us. We may get a chance to see it through yet.

Some fine ass man who’s just right for me might show up and YMK will be unfinished business steadily receding into the past. For now though, it’s just nice to know he hasn’t forgotten me, and he’s still thinking about me. It’s warming to know he wants to pick up with me; that he’s hoping for it.

Ya’ll been reading what I write about the sexy bitch, you know  our pragmatism is too well grounded to be too enamoured of fleeting or flighty fancies.

It’s still nice to know he’s missing me; thinking about me and glad to hear me when I deign to call.

So no blue, the boobs are always out, shoulders always up, strut in tact, head held high and the heart is protected by the rib cage.

Bless…

Ok… the money situation is grim. Ah broken to teef, but I am so blissfully in love all those troubles seem to fade away.

It’s weird how love does that to you. I mean I am so crazy about this man that even talking to friends can be a bit of a strain, because all I want to do is talk to him.

We spend hours and hours and hours on the telephone, just talking. We talk about getting married; we negotiate like businessmen, lay it all out pragmatically and flirt endlessly.

What is doing it for me, is his ardor. The way he says what he says and the way he’s as crazy about me as I am about him. Reciprocity of respect, affection and love is just the coolest thing! :laughing:

A ma bu Sango Ye e — Ella Andalllike WOW!Trying to put all my thoughts right now into words is hard… I am at a loss for words. So rare in my experience, but so true tonight. True every night when I am left to contemplate what’s happened. I am just stunned into relative silence. It’s rare anything or anyone has ever done that to me.

Show you how gobsmacked I am, this has been going on for almost a month and I haven’t been able to talk about it to more than two or three people and even then, only one in depth.

I am falling in love… I have fallen in love for the first time in years. I want to pick apart the minutiae of this thing, but I’m not sure I can. Where I could fill pages and pages of journals, write thousands of words about other men, I am struggling to write a thousand about this one.

I am still so shocked that I don’t think I can bare to expose it to the world. I can’t buss the mark and tell all the gory details, because it’s made me look inward to find my old dusty dreams and see what’s salvageable and I don’t know if I can stand to be that vulnerable and open. It’s hard enough doing that with just him and me. I am still looking inward to make sense of it all.

Thing is loving me is a big job for a big man; and this man has been in training for the work for at least ten months. He’s the only one who understands. He understands the thing that stalks me, he understands me, sees through me in ways I don’t think anyone else ever has. He KNOWS me, and I just don’t know how to talk to anyone else about what I am feeling besides him. He’s the only one I can talk to fully about what’s in my heart and that alone adds to the unusual and unique nature of what’s happening between us, because he echoes me, mirrors me… he’s the one I feel most comfortable talking to about what’s happened between us.

Seven years ago, before I knew anything about myself really, before I knew anything about Orisa, I wrote this:

The man I wish to love, the man I already do is in his early or mid-thirties, he is beautiful in spirit, loves art, loves to read, has a heart that is kind, he is very strong, he loves music of all kinds, he is financially independent and secure, he wants babies, he loves to dance and he will let me lead and he will take the lead from me only when he knows I’m ready to, he touches my skin, my heart, he loves the texture of me, he’s highly intellectual and loves mine even if he doesn’t agree with everything, he loves cats, he’s interested and willing to pursue and exploration of sexuality and divinity and all its interlocking parts, he likes my body as is, he knows how to communicate, he forgives me when I hurt him, he likes to travel, he’s a believer in justice, he wants to adopt children regardless of his own fertility, he’s interested in the occult (good stuff) and believes in good over evil, but understands evil has its place, but that good is the stronger, he has a close tight-knit family and loves big family gatherings, he loves to go to poetry readings, the theatre, he’s very sociable and enjoys having people come to visit and going to visit people, he is very vocal about his political views local, regional and international, and he’s strong enough to love despite reservations and will give all and demand all, will commit to sharing a life and will work at making love and not war, he accepts his faults, the faults of others but he works at bettering himself. He accepts me.

I have met him. This man I conjured with dead trees and a ball point pen, and had given up all hope of meeting. Now one or two things on that list don’t apply anymore, but like 95 per cent of it does, and well you know, compromise isn’t the same as settling. All the real important things on that list is there, even some of the less important things. It’s not about perfect, it’s about perfect for me, right? He was there… and I just never saw him until I saw him, until he wanted me to see him I suppose.

All I need, all we both need is a blessing… a sign from the Orisa that it’s the right thing, the right one, the right man and I’m the right one for him. I feel it in my stomach this is a keeper, and to the marrow of my bones I want it to be this one. This particular, special one.

For me, this has been and is a test of all the shit I say I’m about but never seem to have the strength to make real. For the first time in my life, I feel all those discarded dreams can be real. All of it and my entire nervous system is focussed, expectant.

Some will ask “Why wait?” You feel it, you do it right? But I think waiting is good. Being made to wait is good, builds up a certain kind of discipline. In this case, waiting has it’s own reward; I know. Besides, this is what I’ve said I wanted: a man who valued me more than my pussy, and who could wait for it when put to the test. He loves me and wants me. Wants me the right way. Wants to protect me and take care of me and fuck me until I can’t sit down or walk straight, but with the proper license.

Besides, we had months and months of building up a friendship completely outside of the normal man woman sexual dynamic. We built a foundation of friendship, spirituality and intellectual discourse and that is what shines through the dramatic shift in our feelings for each other. If we don’t get that blessing, our friendship will survive, but not without wounds. Now our minds as well as our hearts are engaged, so without an opportunity to thoroughly requite what’s between us, will hurt and wound, but we will recover. Also now I think it’s too late for us to retract our feelings, so whoever the ‘right ones’ are, they’ll have to get used to the ‘unique nature’ of our enduring friendship. I suppose to, if you put God first in any relationship it’s quite impossible to go wrong…

He has laid his life and heart at my feet, and I am willing to do the same, and it’s in friendship and now love I want to pick it all up and take it into me and let him do the same with me and mine. More than anything, his willingness to gather me to himself and protect me from harm, his desire to give me babies and make those old dreams come true is melting me to my core.

How could we NOT receive the blessings of the Universe?

I was told that my husband was coming soon. That I shouldn’t choose based on looks, and this was a man who was deeply spiritual.

Of course, this is now the same message I’ve heard repeated to me for the last five odd years.

I’ve met men who weren’t even close to spiritual and given them a chance and it has ended up not being about anything worth talking about. Shucks, my adventures and misadventures with the infamous YMK was worth talking about. No one I met in London is worth a passing mention.

Thing is, with men it’s always such a crap shoot, and it’s hard enough to find a man, but spiritual men, priests with experience and devotion and strength enough to match me are so few as for me to unequivocally say, I have met no such man to date. None I was interested in the way men and women are interested in each other you know.

Truth is I am tired of being alone. Many of the battles I’ve been fighting would be easier if I had someone strong and devoted to me on my side.

A couple nights ago, I dreamt about YMK. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, but it’s just weird how many times I’ve dreamt about him in the last year.

In this dream, I was living in a huge, and I mean HUGE, complex. It wasn’t modern at all, in fact it had a distinct feeling this was an old building, built in the early 1800s. In any case, it was huge. So much so, it’d take you like 15 minutes to walk from one end to the next.

My mother and my brother were there as well, but because of the size of the place, we lived in opposite corners and my brother had his own space as well. While we were living there, there was a whole section of the building that scientists were making experiments in… preparing for something.

In the dream I went to my mother, and was looking a little down in the dumps, and she asked me what was wrong. She was getting ready to go to some party (typical) and was primping and preening. I told her I was feeling lonely, and she said, it’s time to find a man.

I laughed, but didn’t really study it, because I get the sensation we were pretty isolated in this mammoth building and well scientists don’t have the most suave of social graces.

So we talked a little more, then she left for her party and I went back to my ‘room’ (it was really a suite of rooms, almost as big as a house). When I got back to my suite, something told me to open one of the empty rooms, opened the door, the room was huge and with just a straight-backed chair in it. I liked this room because it had a huge picture window and in the afternoons, sunlight flooded the room and it was soothing to sit there.

This afternoon, when I opened the door, YMK was sitting in the chair in a pool of sunlight.

I was shocked to see him. He was the last person I expected to see. He turned to look at me when I came in, stood up and walked towards me. He touched my face, stroked my shoulder and pulled me into his arms.

We made love in the sunlit empty room.

Later in the dream, the scientists that were working there, sent me, YMK and my brother into space to gather more research data for them. Somehow this involved dipping in and out of a star. (Don’t ask me the science, but that’s what we were doing.)

During the last dip, it seemed as if the star got angry, because a solar flare scorched the ship on it’s last exit and we nearly exploded. However, we pulled through.

YMK and I talked about barely making it, and that we were glad to have escaped and be alive and together.

When we returned to terra firma, we discovered I was pregnant. We didn’t return to the big, big house. Instead we went to live in a smaller (relatively) house on the same property, which was very reminiscent of Caribbean houses with huge verandahs and such.

The last scene of the dream is of he and I in a huge bedroom with french doors, me with a big bump, he standing at the window waiting for me to come and look out on the forest.

—

I guess what is weird is these dreams tend to repeat some theme, and although I have ideas, I do not know what to make of them. I mean, he and I weren’t inlove, there was passion yes, but there wasn’t this ‘we in love’ vibe. More to the point, he’s the only man I have ever dreamt about this way.

Other lovers have appeared from time t

Since coming to England, I have almost consistently and almost constantly been approached by African men, Nigerian men in particular.

I want to tell you it’s weird, but you know, I know that I’m the kind of woman in terms of looks, that appeals to the African man. I ain’t going to play and tell you not, or tell you I don’t know what it is, or why.

However, I’ve been quite horrified by the state of my Nigerian brothers in this country. I don’t want to come down on one set of people, but I can only speak for the Nigerian men I’ve met and interacted with.

I am saddened that they know so little about their spiritual inheritance, unimpressed by the materialism and their lack of knowledge, their inability to speak English so I can understand what their saying (but that’s just my need for clear communication being deeply frustrated by mumbling and lack of diction).

Before I came up to England I signed up for a couple of Nigerian dating sites, and proceeded to be deluged by men wanting to connect with me. Except, the messages weren’t really, “Hi I want to get to know you,” although a good many were. No, these were messages that looked like, “I red ur prfile, an ur baeutifull. I want b ur luver man. Call mee.” Followed by their digits.

Others required someone other than me to translate, “I need you! I love you! Hello the most beautify Osun, how are you? Your presence here on NDL is so paramount, yes indeed, it is the totaly blue print of this outlet. Your opulence and wondrous phenomena has attracted my ultimate purpose. I am pleasantly interested in getting to you better. I pray my admiration for you will be conducive for your royal splendor, cause I need you to be my friend. I hope your reply will spontaneously blossom into a favorable form sometime soon. May you have a blissful day. Itallica.”

I’m sitting there reading, thinking to myself, “Heh?”

It’s been weird. Because I’d meet one, wether through the internet or minding my business going about London, and one by one they’d turn me off. So much so, that I can only report two sexual encounters. Allyuh know, if I ain’t commit these encounters to any journal in anything other than a passing references, then my darlings other than to say they were disappointing and unworthy of any detailed documentation.

I don’t know what it is. It isn’t that these brothers are uneducated, some of them have been downright clever. However, a little too clever for their own good, and most definitely for mine.

I couldn’t see anything of myself in them, and you know, I need a man to mirror me at certain levels. I have also been plagued by the, “What does that word mean?” comment enough for me to be like, “I sorry Dada, I going to pass, oui?”

Yet, they keep showing up. The thing that disturbed me the most, is the way they seem incapable of keeping their hands to themselves. They have to touch me, hug me, kiss me all on the first date. Chile, within one minute of the meeting. Before we have had even a proper conversation. “Hey! Personal space. New concept for you, I can see, but you going to have to step off a little.”

Whatever it was, the way they smelt, their hair, their attitudes, the clinging fawning, the inability to understand their English, the loud talking on their mobiles while I sit completely clueless, the OBVIOUS, PAINFULLY OBVIOUS macking… I mean really, they took me for a pretty face and nothing more. A female to fuck and it was completely transparent. They all have been.

Lest you think I feel this way only about the Nigerian brothers, think again. In England, no Black British brothers approached me at all. The only ones that did were African, predominantly Nigerian, but there were a couple of Jamaican brothers, a St. Lucian… all not so latent stalkers, and patently unsuitable.

Even when I didn’t immediately dismiss them and their efforts, after a few forays into either their world, or them into mine, clearly revealed someone who just didn’t have a clue.

There were the ones who declared themselves ‘Christians’ and talked about ’saving souls for God’, and I immediately went, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ I have reported a few of these flirtations, but on a level, they’ve made no impact on me, so I have chosen to leave them at that. I resigned myself to near celibacy, while leaving the door open to the right man to come along.

I bought myself a late birthday present, a couple of sex toys and just dealt with my own case. (Buying said toys was an interesting experience in and of itself, and bears reporting, but ultimately I don’t have love thing with sex toys. I always, always want the real thing. Auto erotica is more often purely about physical release, and is more often empty than not. :sigh: Totie darlings, totie is the healing of the Nations.)

I have to rack it up to cultural differences, also to the deeply ingrained issues facing young men of African descent, no matter where they are. I made my intellectual excuses, while rejecting them each as unsuitable for me in seriously commit to.

Certainly, because of both my spiritual and political affiliations, a strong brother is all I am interested in. A strong African man or a strong man of African descent; that’s the man I want in my life. A man strong enough to hold me, to compell me, to match me, to take care of me, to protect me, to help me, to love me unconditionally.Someone who understands my spirituality, is spiritual enough to either accept my spiritual practise or to join me in it or already be there already.

That man was just too elusive to pursue. I had to wait for him to come to me. So I guess that’s what I’ve been doing. What I’ve been doing all my life.

Back in February, when there were a handful of fellas buzzing around, and when I felt like I needed some overall spiritual guidance, I undertook a visit to a competent, reputable babalawo, and incidentally began a domino effect in terms of my personal relationships at the time, and ultimately brought me the events I have detailed in An Ode To HardSlap.

One of the things I went there to see about was about my wish to finally settle down, get married and have some pickney. Divination has helped me to clear my mind about what my future is, but you know, I’m still getting up in the morning alone, going to sleep at night alone.

So what I realise is this, if all I have before me is these brothers completely ignorant of history