Photos: Exploring And Affirming My Beauty. And I am Indeed Beautiful!

I am done with playing to the small lesser story. I am stepping into and owning my unique beauty.
Look at me! Look at me and say get it Sister! I'm done taking myself apart... seeing only flaws and mistakes that need correcting. I am God's child and I need to revel in that. YES! I am working on weight loss. And yes I am working on getting fit.  I am beautiful as Is right now! And I have a mean Wig Game! HA!
I'd like to get to my modeling weight... a size 14. Right now I'm a solid 22 dress and 24 pant. I am owning who I am right now! Right NOW!

So Love. I am. Come For Me.

Loveships do not have to be complicated. I really do believe for me the trouble always begins when I want someone who is just not quite right.... and I drag myself through the craziness based on a few qualities that I am convinced are enough. WRONG!

I know when shit ain't right...but I go down the garden path anyway hoping for what? I turn myself into a pretzel, taking my cues from the object of my affection.  I go into "I'm not enough as is"... that somehow I must become MORE MORE MORE in order for love to grow deeply. Like this last fiasco... listening to his little criticisms masked as deep concern (which were really just bait stringing me along) for possible togetherness.  The more he talked the smaller I became.  He damn near extinguished me. Every time I think about that mess and the time it took for me to burn brighter and put his ass out, I crack up laughing. I AM A SMART WOMAN! How could I have been such a fucking fool?

I was a fool because I was more into "what might be" rather than being in "what is" Oh I knew better, I just didn't do better.  So know I get it fully.

I am enough. and there is someone who will dig everything about me...WITHOUT CRITICISM.  And he will come with his own accomplishments and successes. I've learned that you can't build someone up from scratch.  Their life reflects their efforts, their fears and their courage. I need and want someone who has courage and faith.

I was mad for a bit... mad at my own handiwork in that doomed relationship. Mad that I allowed it to go on...doing my best to craft it into a love for the ages. Ha!  So now I am laying that down.  Yes I did this reflection months ago.  But I've done some more work on this...soul searching and truth telling.  It was never about him... it was always about what I allowed. That's where I've been the biggest fool.

I am relaxing into a different phase around love and dating. I am not changing shit and I don't mean that in a defiant way. I mean I am not going to invite or allow anyone to criticize me, as if I am not the guru of my own life. That's it. So love. I am. Come for me.

Ruby Dee 1922 - 2014

"The kind of beauty I want is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within - strength, courage, dignity." 

Ruby Dee.

I do believe Ms. Ruby Dee left us with a prayer for our lives.

What a Star!

 What a Woman!

I've got some more living to do! She has given me.. us, a wonderful road map on how to walk this life! I am inspired!
I am not sad. Sad would be if she left us too soon. 
I am grateful 
that she has given us a real definition 
of strength, courage and dignity. 
How could we not be inspired?
She calls me to live bigger, fuller and without reservation! 
WOW!

My Business To Mind

My business adviser said to me " You have to decide if what your doing is a business or a hobby"

I have been turning this over in my spirit for weeks now. The truth is, he's right. I have been too afraid to step all the way out on faith and do what I do for money. I do what I do for free.  It's as if I don't feel worthy to charge for my talents. It wasn't until my business adviser clearly stated that what I am doing is just a hobby, did I get it.

The time for turning this over in my spirit is over. All the things I want to do I must do them. NOW! The passing of Dr. Maya Angelou caused me to revisit her work, to listen to her talks and to pay attention to what I am doing, has re-energized me. Sure, I've been energized before and somehow I fall back into a pattern of doubt and unworthiness.  But the news of Barbara Smith... B.Smith's diagnosis of Alzheimer's stunned me and I immediately thought, I can no longer wait or dream about wanting to make things happen. I gotta move now. I gotta jump high now! Sure, I have this surge of energy. I've started and started and started countlless times... too many to even name.

Yesterday I sat down and actually started writing.  And the distractions came swift and hard.  And for the first time I could see how I get sucked into shit that has nothing to do with me. I allowed all manner of things to take over my attention. From the biggest  to the smallest attention draining things. I had to work hard to stay on task... I was determined. For the first time I put real value on what I was doing.  I didn't just see it as some indulgence or whim.  I pushed myself to stay with it.

It is that kind of commitment I have to have.  I have to value what I am doing above all others in the time that I give it. That is the lesson God has been guiding me to see. I am the priority... not in Me-Me-Me kind of way, but in how-I-cultivate-and-share-my-talents kind of way.  If I am a writer, I must make time to write and the time I make to write has to be respected. If I am an artist, I must create and respect the time to create art. If I am a spiritual director, I must make time for prayer and spiritual direction. Whatever I say I want I have to make time to have it.  This is what minding my business means.

This means truly leaving the poppy fields (code for all the things that keep me from my calling)

This is clear to me... I can build my business with a sense of yes, I can. And hold this in respect and reverence. I know this to be divine work. And I no longer can treat it as something other than my true calling.
I work for someone. I want to work for myself. I want to do the work I am called to do.  I want financial freedom created out of my own hands.

HAPPY BLOGVERSARY!

7 years ago I sat at this computer just before 5:00am and launched my maiden voyage into the blogsphere.

For the past 7 years I have been pouring my heart out.... sharing my life in raw and unedited ways. I blogged about my pain, my joys, my losses, my gains, my children, my ending marriage, my new relationship, my ending of the new relationship, my bankruptcy, my foreclosure, my federal prison time, my unemployment, my employment, my spiritual growth. I blog everything. It has been healing and extraordinary.

I have blogged my life.  962 posts. 88,458 visits from people around the world from the US, Russia, Germany, France, Brazil, Ukraine, Australia, UK, Sweden, Poland. I've made friends all over the world without ever stepping foot in those countries. I've gotten to know folks who blog with such authority and grace that I remain in awe of their wise words and cautionary tales and utter joy in their lives.

My blog is small and personal, there is no marketing of it, there are no sponsors, there is no money made here ( I am not against making money!). I simply needed a home for my voice. I needed a place that I could readily and easily purge and share.

Thanks to all the folks who have sent me encouraging words that have saved my life time and time again. Thank you to all the folks who read, lurk and cheer me on! Thank you to the blogging friends, you all are some of the best people on the planet.

I don't know how this all will end.  I have no immediate plans to do anything more or less with this.  I can say that I will continue to blog here...share and purge.  This is personal and I do it for personal reasons. Since this blog I have gone off and cultivated other blogs... but this one is my baby. This is all about me and my journey through this amazing life.

So this month, I will share this blogs history and evolution, past posts that I thought were meaningful and illuminating.

Happy Blogversary!

When Great Trees Fall By Maya Angelou

When Great Trees Fall

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

Maya Angelou 1928 - 2014

Closing Some Doors

I am walking through some doors and I am not looking back and when they swing shut, they will remain shut.

There is no sense in hovering in the doorway waiting for a good enough reason to come in and stay.  There is no sense in hovering in the doorway looking for any reason to flee. I am tired of doorways... I want to come in and be warm and welcomed.

I am making my moves based on what I need for the road ahead today... right now. I do not have to convince myself to do anything except be brave and honor my heart and mind and soul.  With as much clarity as dreams can hold and be, I am discovering more of what I want.

The push back from the world and my audience of naysayers (well-meaning, but not meaning well) can cloud my vision if I let them. I used to let them. I am seeing past all that mess, looking to the horizon.

Oh Babz, Gurl where you wanna be, what you wanna do? Ugh. I swear I feel all gived out. I want to be more selfish. I want to rescue me more. I want to tend to my creative spirit a bit more. It always seems the day catches me short and my little wishes and pleasures get shelved for another day. Yes, that is the mother's reality for awhile until they grow up and on.  Maybe I am feeling the shift of my children growing up and on... and I can see little pieces of time freeing up and the more I see the more I want until I can hardly bear the confines of routine and responsibility and commitment. Oh another door is closing...slowly for sure, but closing all the same.

I am embracing all kinds of uncertainty... last year I was terrified of more loss and more hardship. That door has closed too. The fears are at bay and I no longer feel urgent...rushed..panicked or totally scared. Eh.

Off to enjoy the rest of this glorious day. Opening the door to rest and relaxation.