Dusty Runway

"To create an expression is close to innocence. Childhood is stolen from you with every judgment made, innocence stolen with it. You go into a room alone and try to collect the pieces of your life and meet your monster. Everyone has a monster that hunts them—monsters inside and outside. I have fought monsters. And have turned into a complete monster in the midst of the fight." Kanye West

W e spend much time defining ourselves by the things we dislike instead of the things we love, things that nourish our souls and give life to authentic smiles. I had never thought of it like that before one of my bosses pointed it out in conversation. I had an 'AHA-moment', then I thought about all the times I openly shared what I loathed about certain TV shows, musicians and other subjects that I would rather be dead than caught watching, listening or interacting with. This kind of loathing is ego-driven. It says I am better than you and you have poor taste instead of, "These are the things that make me and this is what I enjoy".  It got me thinking of the negativity we unconsciously put into the world. We are quick to disassociate with certain things but never quite share what we want to be associated with. We go around dismissing and snubbing certain things and people because we are "above it or them" far superior to being leagued with 'th...

Dear Life, why do some things have to be so ambiguous? Really, why? I do not understand, it is much more easier to deal with black or white, grey areas can be quite lead like for my precious soul to handle, and more so because grey areas are the human emotions or a reflection of their black or their white.  A glass half full versus half empty. Depending on convenience or how complex we make the situation to be in our own brain. We either add a dash of black to our white and work ourselves up unnecessarily or white to our black to cushion life’s blows.  Not everything is ever that simple, there are layers upon layers to some situations but there are instances where we end up in grey areas because we over complicate or at times attempt to over simplify things. Nothing is wrong with grey areas it is a good middle ground, really sucks though if one gets hung up in the grey area so much that one ends up stuck in a rut.  Sometimes all it takes is removing one's se...

L earning is a lifelong commitment and I have learned to find a lesson in every situation that I go through, whether good or bad, there's always a lesson if not an assurance of a lesson already learnt. Lessons are not always, "let's all sing along and dance, nursery style" sometimes they are the kind that just makes you want to throw in the towel and move on to the next thing and some make you question "Why me... why do things happen the way they do..." and you find yourself wanting to leave class before getting to the answers. Others just take way too long, leaving you to ask "how much longer  do I have to go through this... how long till..when is my time coming" whatever the question the lesson is sometimes done, and all that is left to do is to open your eyes and ears and admit and accept certain things either about yourself, someone else or a situation. Let's face it, at times you find yourself in classes you did not sign up for, l...

You should date an illiterate girl -Charles Warnke Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in a film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her. Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale or the ev...

T hat kind of love the one that makes you wonder if it is humanly possible to love another beyond words can express so high up the heavens seem to close, so wide the world is not enough to contain it. The kind that overflows, the simple kind, the 'I don't care who says what kind of love' the kind that you just have to look in the eyes of the other to feel, the kind that lives in a simple touch. It is a different kind of love not based on any conditions or expectations just that the other person is there everyday all they have to do is wake up and that is enough. The kind of love a parent has for his or her child, the kind a shared by young lovers who've just found each other, the kind shared by a matured couple who have come to understand, appreciate each other and come to love more as the years go by, the kind shared by siblings and the kind shared between friends. It is the 'catch you smiling by yourself' when you think of the other person kind. The...

Umembeso: a zulu tradition that celebrates the union of marriage between two people but most importantly the union of the two families coming together because of those two people. Its an exchanging of gifts where the grooms family shows appreciation to the brides family by giving them gifts not only the immediate family this also includes the aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, even those that have passed on are included, it also signifies respect because these gifts are requested a list is sent a couple months prior to the main event of what everyone would like.  In the past, it was mainly blankets, reed mats, doeks ( Haawraps) and clay pots and these days people go all out from branded shoes, apparel to gadgets to even furniture, I think now it has become a platform to floss or it could just be that the times are changing and that's good because for me culture is not a static thing but goes through evolution so that the practices and the activities that are guided by culture ar...