Pain of Loss

It's been almost half a year since I last wrote an entry here- but I think that works out. Not everything I have to say is thought-provoking or deeply personal or anything like that.

The death of my lovebird Ensui prompted this particular entry. It's the first time in quite a while that I've had to deal with the prospect of death in this capacity. I've had old family friends die, and familiar faces in my life die, but nothing provided the same heart-wrenching reaction of pure, unspoiled grief as watching my pride and joy of the last 3.5 years die so suddenly, so vividly, and so undeservingly before my very eyes. I couldn't even react fast enough to have her pass away in my hands, and the entire house was filled with my screams of despair and sorrow. It's a wonder no one else was around and called the cops based on my hysterics.

It's been a full day now, and I feel like a shell of my usually energetic self. Ensui's death feels like a freshly made hole torn straight out of my heart- filled now with only the echoing silence of the rest of the world. Everyone's condolences and calls have been sweet and appreciated, but the feeling doesn't last long. Not even Forest and Tweet- the two other lovebirds in my bedroom- fill the void left by Ensui. What was grief-stricken and tearful at the drop of a hat has graduated to this hollow person going through the motions of everyday life: trying to reclaim her activities of finding a new institution to study art, working on her portfolio, even talking to loved ones and laughing at a joke. Nothing feels genuine. Nothing feels right. Even the task of eating is a struggle that I'm fighting to win.

As much as I try not to remember those harrowing five seconds that have completely destroyed me, everything else about it has left me questioning and wondering. Mom advised me to pray to God for guidance and strength to help me heal and eventually move on, but being agnostic, I can't just do that. But still, the questions remain- about life and its never-changing uncertainty, about death and its finality, and what happens once we meet our end. I often wonder where Ensui's spirit. I dreamt of her twice. The first was about her flying in Heaven and landing on people's heads and sounding off in their ears, or landing on the desk of a Saint and proceeding to destroy their paperwork to build herself a nest. The second was of her taking the form of this beautiful spirit- complete with wings and the colors of her plumage- walking along the seawater that inspired her name. I wonder if my lack of a belief in a God will prevent me from ever 'seeing' her again. I wonder if I'm just being silly and that the only end I'll meet will be the same that she has met- just an end. I wonder if my fear of not exisiting is justified, and the knowledge that Ensui will never exisist the way I knew her again is supposed to be this frightening.

The only reality I'm facing now is that she's gone. My baby is gone. The world continues to spin, but for me, it's like my entire world has imploded.


The family has agreed to have a custom stone planter made in her honour, with her name attached to it. We're going to bury her body in it and transfer some of the plants from the balcony into it so that it'll serve its purpose. We [and this 'we' involves me and my brother] have also decided that we would not replace Ensui with another bird, or any other pet for that matter. Other pets may come into the frame for the family, and maybe for me as I get older and continue my life elsewhere, but there will be no replacing what Ensui became for us- especially for me as her owner.


This pain is something I wouldn't even wish on my worst enemy. i know losing something precious to you would be hard... but I didn't know that it could destroy me so thoroughly. And I don't know how I'll take the loss of an individual.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Pros and Cons of Holding Your Ground

Those who know me on a more personal level know that I can be incredibly forthcoming, stubborn and resilient at times. Those who know me even more than that know that I'm taht way for a reason.

Everyone always feels as if they are attacked for something that is inherently 'them' for any reason, at any particular time. Usually this is because the attacker is blissfully ignorant of what she/he has done, or in general is just a bitch who cares naught for decency and/or tact.

Of course, you also have the handful of persons who are in a unique position of seniority and therefore use that leverage to push you into whatever they think is best or right for you. These are also the same people who then call you disrespectful when you stand firm to yourself [cuz no one else will, let's be honest] and refuse to bend- mainly because you feel like they aren't compromising anymore than you are after taking their side into consideration. [if you've figured out that i am referring to parents by now, congrats]

When I was in Dallas, I learned this quote "It doesn't matter if you're dead right, or dead wrong- either way, you're still DEAD." And I liked it a lot- it spoke volumes to my more aggressive side and basically told me to be careful of which battles to pick. I will be honest and admit that I have not done the best job of living to that mantra. But on the flipside, I've been raised in an environment that constantly had me putting up my guard and lashing out against what I felt was inherently wrong. That's not to say that my household is abusive- far from it. When we're good, we're REALLY good. But when we have our differences, it REALLY shows.

With all of that being said, it brings me to my main point- when is it ok to fight to protect your sense of self? When are the consequences worth it?

I'll give two examples to demonstrate.

1) I finished up my final class in COB with a teacher who I have a lot of respect for due to her technical prowess and amazing skill. Where me and her clash, however, is her method of critiquing. There's a way to critique and not come across as a bitch, IMO, and I don't think she really gives a rat's ass about me or my progress. She never has before- I can count on one hand the times that she has actually helped me and not just take pot-shots at my work.

But at least when there are faults in my work and I know that, I don't protest her remarks. I do the same with all of my teachers- I explain my process and what I did, in the hopes that they can tell me exactly where I went astray, and how I can improve. Whenever I do that with her, she reads it as me giving an excuse for shoddy work.

So naturally, when I stand up for myself after she aims at my personal character [dubbing me unable to take suggestions and criticism, when this has been refuted time and time again] during the final critique, she hits me in the one place she can- in my GPA. By giving me a C, she has effectively destroyed a semester and a half's worth of work that I did to climb my way back to a 3.03 GPA.

My mom says that I sunk myself with my mouth. Honestly? Stacking my work up with everyone elses', I was borderline shit. My stuff was terrible in comparison, and I'll be the first to tell you that. So how much of a personal swipe was the grade?

So did I do the wrong thing?
Either way, I wasn't going to let her have the satisfaction of spreading slander and having me submit to her. So I'll take the hits.

2) My mum has not hidden her attempts to pull me away from pursuing a degree in art. She made that perfectly clear as early as Grade 11 when I wanted to go to SCAD. When I got my acceptance letter from COB that said I was in AA Art, and not something like Education or English, I had to fight with her to convince her to keep me in the program.

As I now prepare to graduate, the talks have started up again. Mum wants me to have a more rounded education- which I can appreciate. But does that mean I HAVE to put my passions on the back burner? Why does it have to be something I can take up as a side job or hobby?

A part of me knows it's mainly because of finances. Valid enough point, it's far more costly to study art than most other subjects which can be taught at traditional institutions. Another part of me knows it's because of her own educational background- her being denied the chance to finish college due to the upheaval in her home country. All of this is once again stuff I can appreciate.

But if I've looked at the many other options seriously, and have decided that it would be a waste of time and money sending me somewhere where I'm miserable and studying something that I NEVER had the same type of passion for, why is this matter still being pushed?


I may be good with kids, but I don't want to teach.

I may enjoy reading about politics, but I'm not going into law or political science.

Yes I participated in GYLC in 05 and I have an interst in world affairs, but that doesn't mean International Relations is where I need to be.

I like to write and I'm fairly decent at it- why does that mean that I should major in English? Or Journalism? Or anything of that nature?


My passion is ART. I enjoy creating with my pencil and my paper. I weave stories in my head and plan them down, I daydream about scences in my head, and I have the desire and the newly-found drive to learn how to make my visions reality. This has been my goal since I was three years old, and nothing else has stayed so steadfast in my life than this once crucial part of me. Is that so wrong to fight for? To find ways for me to study this without breaking your bank accounts and be happy doing what I love?

Is that so wrong to want and protect?

Thursday, April 30, 2009

The Day of Absence: Why It's So Important

[the note I wrote on FB in support for the Day of Absence on Feb 11th, 2009- check out my blog To The Flame to see what was done in honour of the day]

[the following is taken from Nicolette Bethel's blog, and the "Day of Absence" event on Facebook]

After the Lil Wayne incident Nicolette Bethel approached me about a DAY OF ABSENCE...

Thirty-five years after independence and forty-one years after majority rule, creative workers in our country are
unable to find work in the areas in which God has gifted them. There are virtually no avenues in The Bahamas to
enable creative people to develop and hone their talents, or to enable them to make use of them when they are developed.
Our greatest brain drain is arguably in the area of the arts; like Sidney Poitier over sixty years ago, Bahamians who want to exercise their talents in the cultural industries are faced with the choice of pursuing their callings as hobbies at home, or of leaving home to make a living by their gifts elsewhere. And we are all the poorer for it.

Newsflash. No country can be great, or even good, without its artists. When all has passed away, when all has crumbled and gone, it's not the speeches of the politicians, the enforcement of the country's laws, the profit and the loss, or the tourist arrivals that are left behind to tell the story of the people who once walked this earth.

Until we invest and believe in our art, and until we respect our artists, our country will never even be.
And so we're calling for a Day of Absence in honour of all cultural workers in The Bahamas and around the world.

It's to be a day like Green Day or World Hunger Day -- a movement, an idea that can catch fire, a spark that can spread without specific action, but just as people see the idea and become ignited by it.

---------

How true, how true.

As an art enthusiast, I have faced my parents and told them flat out that I was not going to bend to their wishes and study what doesn't please me. Instead, I was going to study art. This was the showdown as I prepared to enter the College of the Bahamas. As I prepare to leave its doors this year with a degree in tow, I'm about to face that same showdown again. If one's own family cannot fully understand and fully support their child's dreams of being fully immersed in the arts, then who's to say the outside world, our own country, will be any kinder??

To my fellow art students, how many jobs have you held to finance your career here at COB, and how many of them were for what your passion is in? Almost every one of them I know has had to settle with the service industry-jobs, and having held one of those positions myself, it's not all it's cracked up to be. As Dr Bethel said in her blog, there is virtually NO avenue for artists to work for the benefit of their country. Even those forming their own little graphic design companies are not immune- while in the entertainment industries you are safe with your constant stream of parties to advertise, you wouldn't be able to qualify for the few graphic design companies that occasionally put an ad in the paper. They look for degrees and years of doing more than party flyers. And the only way we can get that far, is if we travel abroad to study.

And even that is a challenge! Banks don't lend to us because we aren't aspiring doctors or lawyers, the government holds up its nose if you run to them for help, and as far as I've seen there's only ONE art-themed scholarship available to us. And since the schools abroad are limited to what they can give us international students, we ultimately depend on the charity of our parents- and if your parents are anything like mine, they aren't willing to shell out that much for an art school, no matter how cheap it may be.

Does ANYONE else see what's wrong with this?? If we were in the states, we would be encouraged. If we were in Europe, we would be accepted and respected. Hell, if we were ANYWHERE ELSE where art is truly thriving, we wouldn't have these types of problems that we have now- we wouldn't be looked at sympathetically as if we were mentally unstable for choosing the arts as our passion. We wouldn't be disregarded by society on the whole. We wouldn't have to fight with members of our own family that try to change us into something we aren't.

And that's why I support the Day of Absence- as an art student, and a Student Representative for anyone who enrolls in the College and chooses my school- Communication and Creative Arts. No one enrolls in my school to pursue their major as a HOBBY, a PAST TIME [sorry to disappoint, mother dearest]- we pursue these majors because they are our life's passions, what we see doing to affect our country. Anyone who has enrolled in this school is part of the creative process- we are the creative and artistic backbone of this college, and even on campus, we face adversities. Take a look at any other college abroad and take a look at their artistic community- they are thriving with the unified support of their College and their society. Why do we, as students of this school in particular, feel so stagnant? Why do we feel this isolation from everyone? And how about we dish it back out ten-fold?

And how about my other creative brothers and sisters in COB? The poets, the writers of the English School? The DJs, the up and coming music artists regardless of the genre? The graphic designers, the Junkanoo artists who slave away on costumes so grand that they're only in use for a few hours, only to be trashed the next day? Even my casual music-listeners- this affects you too!

I'm not asking for outlandish displays of support, I'm only asking you to stop and think. If this way of life is really that important to you, if you are as passionate about the arts and your life in the arts as I am, then you'll join me in declaring our silence to the Bahamas, so that they can start to notice how many of us are out there, and demand the same kind of respect as our peers in the other fields.

As the Senator for SCCA, I was chosen to represent you and your interests, your goals and your aspirations. On February 11th, join me in this Day of Absence.

Wear something white if you're a visual artist- we rule color, and without us there would be nothing.

Take a vow of silence if you're a poet, a writer, a singer, even if just for a minute- your voice is akin to our paint and brushes, without your voices the speeches, the music, the poetry we enjoy would be nothing.

Do whatever it takes- even ditch a class if you must- to drive home this point. Tell all your FB friends to lend their support. Read the blogs, especially Dr Bethel's amazingly written blog entry. Call in to radio shows. Write a note of your own, or express your attendance on the Facebook Event "Day of Absence". Even if you just stay home, spare a thought, a moment of your time in silence as we fight for the national appreciation of this precious way of life.

For those of you who will be on campus on the 11th- I'll be there too, declaring my support for the Day of Silence. You'll recognize me when you see me, trust me ;) If you are interested in joining with me to make a statement on campus, let me know. It's my job to stand with you on things that really matter- and if this matters to you like I hope it does, then I'm with you all the way.

Will you join me?

Thursday, February 12, 2009