I am becoming popular. I have been accused of this before. I have never liked it, because I think of myself as a loner of sorts. However, sometimes you have to let all kinds of people into your world to see if there are keepers in the bunch.
So, I have been adopted as a Den Mother for a litter of cubs. It’s this little clique at work. We hang out in the parking lot, smoking cigarettes and talking shit. They laugh at the things I say, apparently I’m funny. I’ve been accused of that before too. I enjoy their company, they’re all interesting in odd ways. I enjoy making them laugh. I tell them stuff, share a perspective of the world that they have never contemplated, but I guess they need to hear some of it at leas; to look beyond what they’ve been told to believe, what they understand as the truth. They aren’t completely clueless either, and their open. So it’s been very interesting; the conversations have been very interesting. Of course, all kinds of people come down to the car park, The Voice from upstairs in the radio station(s), the accounts clerks downstairs, you know how it is. It’s not just the youngwings, but that’s who I’ve been liming with for the most part. Most of them are the who I went down to Mayaro with last Saturday. I also lime with the geek squad, but that’s another story.
I guess part of what is interesting is that it’s very clear they all respect me and my opinion, and it’s nice I guess to be able to talk with very young people, all in their late teens and very early twenties. I’m more than ten years older than the youngest, seven years older than the oldest. Except for The Voice, who has grey hair in a few places, and I’m pretty sure he’s a good few years older than me.
They’re all struggling in one way or another and they’re always coming to me individually and asking for advice and guidance. I find myself telling them, I only know a little more than them, but here’s what I know and exhort them to mature choices, grounded in responsibility for ones self and actions. However, I keep much of my opinion on their emotional worlds to myself. I tell them things here and there, when we’re alone and try not to be preachy.
It’s a tricky thing, how to be a friend without being overwhelming; how to guide without judgement, how to be loving and without being too stern. How to dismiss some of their ideas about the world (occasionally a fucked up idea or two pops up), and it’s certainly challenging to try to introduce high thoughts and consciousness, among a semi-bourgeois set, who have never been challenged to think overmuch, without being dismissive of some of their more either laughable or misinformed ideas.
Anyway, I’ve been trying–as subtly as I can–to also pick up some fun. I want to have some fun. I’m riding quickly into my thirties, and the sense that my youth is passing me by, is becoming very real. I think this is why me and the youngwings are attracted to each other at the moment. It’s cool. I’m enjoying it on a socio-anthropological level as well as an emotional one as well.
I want to enjoy what is left of my youth. Certainly, they’re the first secular group that I’ve hung out with for years and years. It’s just much better to move with a group, that try to move with just one person, in any case. Especially to some of these fetes in Trinidad this season. I’ve never done that, limed with a group so that part at least I am looking forward to. I want to go out this Carnival season and dance, and wine and drink some alcohol and wine on some men and lose my sense of myself as I have been.
So this thing with The Voice seems to be heating up. The one with the beautiful voice and the intriguing accent. It’s not like I’m being subtle either; muted is a better word for it.
So I sat on the little ledge demarcating the carpark from the street, my padawan next to me, both of us smoking a cigarette. Another slightly inept, but very sweet young man who worked on the production team, and who is part of this little clique, was there as well. I looked up and there he was. I said “Hey!”
He said, “Hey,” and slipped into the conversation like he was there all along. Nice voice, nice accent, nice shoes, nice jeans, nice shades.
“Hmmmmm….” I went. (On the inside.)
So we went on talking, all of us did.
As with all of these nicotine fueled conversations, it drifted and pulled at the moorings of sense, entered the hilarious, traveled the mystic and such.
I made an off-hand comment about how I always thought me feet were big and my padawan made a comment about being able to tell alot about people by looking at their feet. I asked her what my feet said about me.
“That you walk barefoot a lot.”
“Sheeet…. no West Indian worth their salt doesn’t know how to walk barefoot. I grow up walking barefoot.”
The Voice, says “You have nice toes.”
“Really? Are you into toes?” I asked blithely.
“No,” he laughed. “I’m a nipples man.”
Damn if mine didn’t harden at the thought, but I laughed as well. The Padawan and the Red Boy just looked at each other.
Yesterday we had this whole conversation mostly alone in the car park. He noticed my earrings, and I pointed out my necklace, and he told me he avoids looking anywhere near my breasts.
I told him, I’m well aware that men find my chest fascinating. I told him I knew what my assets were. He laughed, and I wished I could see his eyes, but they’re always behind some smoky shades.
Today, after an ant bit the padawan, I took that as my cue to stand up. I lit another cigarette and stood shoulder to shoulder with The Voice. We kept chatting all of us that were there, and I don’t know what it was, I’ll blame it on the cool afternoon wind, but I felt a little cold, and before I knew it, I was rubbing my shoulder that faced the wind against his like a cat.
“I’m rubbing some good luck on to you.” I said, by way of explanation.
“Now what would you do if I started rubbing up against you?” He asked.
“I wouldn’t be vex with you.” I tossed over my shoulder.
Before he ran off to drink a beer with his friend from upstairs, he asked me again when the birthday party with the padawan was going to happen. He said he’d come for sure… told me to give him directions next week. I’ve also invited the Hottie from last week. Both in my house at the same time! I’m such a bad girl.
My Iya told me last night, “Go out and enjoy yourself. Use your discretion,but flirt and dance and enjoy yourself! You’re young, you’re good looking… just don’t fall in love too fast. That’s your problem… take your time!”
We were talking about what Baba Sango said to me on Tuesday night; what he said about ‘that boyfriend’. She said, “Those were my words you know… I told you not to give him another thought, and this is what Baba Sango came and said to you. He’s trying to tell you not to waste no more time at all even thinking about him.”
Who is the ‘him’.. guess nah?! Of course it’s Sweet Thing! I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but they’re both right. I have thought of him, I have still been in love. I stopped pining (Praise Oludumare! Praise Osun!) but the depth of my feelings, the resonance of my emotions, that was and has been harder to put away.
So on Tuesday night when Baba Sango said, “That boyfriend you have is no good. He goes all about. He is no good at all. Take your time and pick the right one. I will help you, I am watching over you,” this was the remaining encouragement to put it and the last year of heartache behind me.
When Orisa manifests and speaks to you, it’s only the fool that does not listen. That’s the one thing people never accuse me of; being a fool.
So the love that was born on a beach almost a year ago, has died. Died an early unnatural death, but it is dead.
How I know this, is, even up to last month when I was masturbating in my shower, in the intensity of feeling, the spreading warmth and fantasises, it was Sweet Thing’s face, his voice I heard, still encouraging and pressing me, urging me on.
As recent as three, four weeks ago, this was still my condition. I would hate it afterward, in my fantasies try to wipe his face off the person exciting me, but it was his unwelcome face and personage that kept cropping up. He was part of my fantasy and sexual life for months and months and months. So as much as I hated it, it seemed he had ingrained himself onto the very surface of my sexual self. Like I said, the sex was amazing.
After I met the Hottie though, for the first time in a year, it was another man who came to me in my fantasies. Now The Voice is sneaking into that secret space as well. So you see, it would appear as though I and I got mentally purged out, and am still throwing out concepts, ideas and wasted emotions.
(Mojuba Sango! Heepa Baba! Oko Oya! Awo Kabeysi! Awo Kabeysi!)
The Hottie and The Voice are possibilities, but I am really going to make an effort to get out of the house and put myself in the way of life. Not just because I’m looking for a man eh, but I also really just want to get out into it… I’m almost chomping on the bit.
I always tell my friends that the fun I didn’t have in my twenties when I was young–young and foolish–I want to have in my thirties. I want to stop worrying so much and just enjoy things more. It’s just that this Wise Elf-shit is all fine and good, but you know, Divas need more. I am young, sexy and beautiful, I want to see what power really lies in those things. So another great experiment is about to begin. I’ll take my time and give my heart to the one who deserves it, but locked up here in my apartment is not the best way to see and be seen.
I think my kitty can go out and have a play or two, don’t you?
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