Next time you fall in love, I beg you to take it slow for... only fools rush in, where angels fear to go.

By 11:12 PM ,
"Go if you want, you know I won't stop you
You know I love you, do what you have to
If ever you should go away, don't take my heart
And leave me hopelessly...
I may not become insane
It takes a lot to be strong after all of this pain"
- Buju Banton

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Man I hate that song, I keep thinkin' they talkin' bout me when it's on...

By 5:10 PM , , , , ,
"Here's the shortlist of things I wouldn't do to myself = you "

***

Time to bounce? It's about that time of year when NY starts to look very, very appealing. I love Grenada, I really do. But I think my inner child suffers from wanderlust. After a certain period of time, my spirit starts to beg for something different, for a little while. I guess being too settled for too long makes me depressed. For me, its akin to something liquid just sitting there on the counter to the point where the mixture starts to visibly settle into layers. A vacation - shaken, not stirred.

***

Ever had a moment whereby a smell took you back to place and time? My mom always talks about this, how scents have strong memory attachments but I never such an experience until recently. When it happened, it caught me off-guard. However, since the experience, I've developed a heightened sense of awareness as to when it happens.

The first time it happened was on my leatherback turtle field trip. I was sitting next to a friend of mine, Freddy, and well... we're on a bus. I was close enough to smell him and in that moment I felt a wave of nostalgia connected directly to my favourite uncle on my mom's side, her baby brother. The scent was of Snuggle softener combined with the faint scent of cigarettes. My uncle was/is a heavy smoker but he never smoked around me. However, I adored him as a kid so I tried my best to be around him as much as possible so I'd always catch him a lil' after he finished smoking, when the smell still lingers in the air but not as strong. How does this relate to Freddy? He's Guyanese and has a strong Guyanese accent and a smoker and his clothes smells like the softener. So the smell coupled with his voice just reminds me so much of my uncle. (I'm Guyanese) I then found myself doing memory association.

Consequently, this would explain why despite my dislike of cigarettes, especially being smoked around me, I still like the faded scent on clothes. Another person, someone I used to know and be around a lot, was a smoker and sometimes you could smell it on his fingers and his tees, and I would like it. Of course I never told him that because I wanted him to quit, you know, it's bad for your health, etc. as I petition to all my smoker friends, but I'd love the smell. It used to feel be oddly comforting, now I know why.

Anyways, have any scents that takes you back in time?

***
Leatherback Turtle field trip

Here commences my uber short, uber late post about the turtles.

We went on a field trip to Levera beach at the north of the island sometime earlier last month, March. It was early in the season and there was the great possibility of us not seeing any turtles at all... However, we were most fortunate to see 3 very early in the evening. Thus, we didn't end up staying until 2-3 am as intended but rather around midnight.

When we arrived, we saw one heading back into the water. We saw one go through the whole process of coming up, digging the nest, laying and returning. The third one was coming up onto the beach as we were heading back to the bus.

It was surprisingly chilly up there. I had walked with thin jacket and a thick hoodie. I ended up having to use both. We were supposed to be quiet so as to not distract the turtles and divided into small groups. Our class is pretty big and honestly... I'm uncertain as to truly how quiet we were and ultimately we ended up moving like a cloud across the beach, rather than single file or mere pairs.

When going on such trips it is not advised to walk with any white lights. If you must, use a red light because (apparently) the turtles can't see red light. This is because the turtles head towards the darkness to lay... and the babies head toward the light when they break out of their shells. The ocean is lighter than the land at night. Flashlights and such may prove to be more disorienting than necessary and result in a turn around by the turtles.

Fun facts about them?
* They could grow to about 2 meters long. They are the largest turtle and amongst the world's largest reptiles.
*Have been around circa 100 million years.
*They can dive about 4,200 feet (deeper than any other turtle) and that's because of how their blood circulates, layer of fat and changes in their swimming.
*They have the widest global distribution of turtles and travel the longest journeys 3,700 miles each way.
*Hatchlings' sex are determined by the temperature. 29.5 degrees celcius produces a gender mix, hotter means more females and cooler means more males.

Why is it important for us here in Grenada? These turtles? Well... Grenada is one of the major nest sites in the world. That means, these sea creatures that traverse the world and come back to nest on the beaches on which they were born... and our beaches, are one of the main sites that they must come back to. And, economically, the value as a tourist attraction multiplies in profits exponentially as the turtles would continue to come back to nest annually and well, people would pay good money to see. However, when you kill them, the survival rate of the babies are very low and the age of reproductive maturity is very high... Thus that means, you're killing them much faster than they can reproduce to a sexually productive population. The species, as most turtles, are already critically endangered and toeing the line of extinction. It's selfish to slaughter them... To sell one turtle isn't even profitable enough to make it a livelihood. Furthermore, what about your children?  (Trinidad's leatherback turtle website)

And even on the grander scale, each animal is important to the ecosystem. You can't just remove one and shrug and think to yourself "Oh well, it's just one animal." Each one plays a role. In the most simplest generalization, no leatherbacks would equate a dramatic increase in jellyfish - that's their favourite diet. And no, we don't want an increase of jellyfish. Point I'm trying to make is... ultimately, the ecosystem is like a spider's web and removing species is like tugging at the strands and praying for the best.

I know its easy to not be cognizant because changes seem to be so gradual that the effects seem to be distant and of little consequence. However, as with all epic natural disasters we seem to be encountering as a result of global warming and such, that keeps catching us unprepared with our draws(underwear) down, the distant future is yesterday, today and tomorrow. It's important that we remember that every yesterday was a tomorrow and as the bible said...'Too late, too late - will be the cry.'

Don't mind how tired we look... it was very late and we had fallen asleep
periodically on the ride up...(and back down) That's Freddy.

Wayne & Ejazz

Wayne

Dean. I absolutely loved this look. Our prof. told us to come prepared for the night on the beach.
However, he came extra prepared. I thought this to be most amusing and adorable at the same time.

One of the three turtles we saw that night, digging the nest.


Starting to lay. That's someone's hand in the lower left part of the picture. The Ocean Spirits group were counting the eggs as they came out.

The Ocean Spirits team

C'est tout.

***

"Strive not with a man without cause, if he hath done ye no harm, let bygones be bygones..."
- 'Close one yesterday' Buju Banton

And I'm out.

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Over and out: And that was the day I promised that I would never sing of love, if it does not exist.

By 5:38 PM , ,
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham
 à¤•à¤­ी ख़ुशी कभी ग़म
"Sometimes happiness, Sometimes sadness"
***
"I was praying last night and I found myself asking God for happiness.
 I had to retract that request and pray for contentment
 instead, happiness is a fool's dream"
-Hevan Leigh

***

"Love?? Love you say! Why... Why would you wish such horrors upon me?!?!"
-Hevan Leigh 

I'm so tired of being tired.

It's been a long, tumultuous couple weeks packed with drama and deadlines. This is probably the first official break I've had to post coherently in a while. One of my fears I guess was not knowing how to express myself as I usually do without overwhelming my writing with emotion. However, I decided to just suck it up and type. Whatever flows over, flows over. It's just been one of those past couple weeks. So... consider this my fair warning. Any posts from now and for the next couple weeks run the risk of being highly inexplicably emotive and candid.

I was pondering making this a life lessons post but I decided against it because I couldn't elaborate sufficiently on any one particular lesson. Instead, it's more like a series of revelations I had about myself.

Firstly, I learned that although I consider myself to be an incredibly impatient person: I always want things now for now. I found myself exercising patience that I never knew I had. Patience and understanding. Of course, patience and understanding rarely ever work out in your favour in the long run...

...Lesson number two, you can know it all and understand it all but it doesn't necessarily change a damn thing. In fact, all that understanding could just lead to bitterness, or further confusion once denial sets in, or the onslaught of questions in efforts to understand better. People don't always have answers. Thus, it can lead to the creation of a very frustrating situation.

...That could release your inner child. I don't mean the happy inner child. I mean the relentless inner child. The one that recognizes his/her naivety and demands to be released from the ignorance that surrounds him/her. I think everyone has that experience at least once in their lives. They feel that they just need to know. What is it that they need to know isn't always quite certain. I think it's more a heightened awareness that something's different and a need to figure out what it is.

...But then, thats where truth comes in. The truth is that everyone lies. Facts never change... But truth is the delivery of fact, and that delivery is oft subject to alteration. Thus, in reality, you may never know all that you've convinced yourself that you need to know.

Therefore, all of that to say, sometimes distance is what we really need, and not closure.

***

There are things that I wish I could change. Situations I would love to replay and do differently. Steps I would love to retrace. People I would have preferred to have never met. Places I wish I had never been.

However, such is life. Each one of these experiences, mind you despite wishes aren't quite regrets, have shaped me into who I am. And while I may not understand everything now... it'll all make sense soon enough. It always does in time.

Besides, everything is always ok in the end... And if it's not ok, then it's not the end.

***
...Why does she live in a world so cold?
...took advantage of the nice, naive and beautiful...

We're all dealt our lumps of coal...
What you do with it can turn beautiful
Well there's a life outside of this madness
And there's a face behind every scar
But there's a love overflowing with gladness
Get out of that place that's restraining your love.
-'Nice, naive & beautiful' Plumb

I'm out.


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To trust, or not to trust.. that is the question.

By 6:51 PM ,
So... I was perusing youtube on my favourite channel 'HotdamnIrock' and stumbled across a vid entitled 'Baby give me one more chance.'

Before I launch into this post I must say... this guy is hilarious!! If you haven't seen his stuff as yet, I encourage you to do so. Everything he posts about is very real and sentient. He touches on almost every topic from gang life to relationships in the most funny composition. Each video is a story and generally are about his personal life or experiences his friends have had that he knows of.

The following is an excerpt from the aforementioned video. The overall message is dealing with the question of whether or not you should take a cheater back. However, the part I selected deals with the connection between trust and loyalty. I've addressed cheating before on a previous post. I think my stance was not much of a stance... it was more along the lines of I don't approve but if I don't ever find out...? Peek it if you like, it's hyperlinked above.

Anyways, hope you like the excerpt.
"The most important thing in a relationship is trust... and if you don't have trust, then you don't have a relationship. Trust is almost automatic when you first meet somebody...it's like, you don't have a reason not to trust this person but you just met them so you don't trust them 100%. Somewhere in the middle, trust is just automatically assumed. But once somebody does something to break that trust it's hard to get that back. Matter of fact, it's almost impossible to ever get back lost trust. Because once you break trust, you question loyalty... And if you can't be loyal to person then...... how can I be with you? How can we establish a relationship if I can't trust the ish that you say out your mouth? You understand what I'm saying?

But when it comes to the subject of cheating... there's a very simple solution to this problem. Just DON'T [bleep] cheat in the first place. What I don't understand is how can people claim that they love somebody, care about a person but then you go and cheat. The moment that you cheat on your boyfriend, girlfriend, wife or whatever you have --- where did all those feelings and all those emotions go when you initiated contact with this other person? What the hell did you do with all that love and ish? "
'Baby give me one more chance' 
Maurice Kain Carter 



The video if you want to see it...

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Hush darling... for after the storm there will be a calm...

By 5:55 PM , ,
"Being sad with the right people is better than being happy with the wrong ones."
-anonymous

***

I've been musing over relationship issues the past couple days. Seems like I know a bunch of people, guys and girls, who are all in similar situations. I could be wrong but this is my hypothesis as to how this whole thing works.

Initially you have the honeymoon phase that everyone knows about - everyone is happy, doing all the couple-like things. Then there's the 'normal couple' phase where you're not quite honeymooning anymore but you're still somewhat riding that crescendo. After this point one of two things seems to happen. Firstly, the pair could normal off into an ebb and flow balanced relationship with occasional bickers and such. Or, secondly, someone starts to take someone for granted. 

And here is where the issue steps in...

I'm inclined to think the first person to be taken for granted is the guy. The girl gets accustomed to the honeymoon treatment and stops seeing it as special and valued. The guy would then try to withdraw and get 'himself back' and the girl will sense the shift, panic and try to get back the attention that was once taken for granted. Eventually, the girl gets tired of trying as the guy will most likely build more resolve with her effort. Once she actually tires herself and stops trying, a shift occurs. The reverse starts to happen.

I guess at this point it determines whether the relationship will sink or swim. From what I've observed, both parties at this point knows what it feels like to be on both sides of the scale - he/she who in taken advantaged of and he/she who takes advantage. It feels the same for either party at this point. However, one thing is particularly different.

The party who is feeling taken advantaged of last seems to harbour a little bit of extra bitterness.

So this then begs the question, can the relationship be saved? From all my interactions with my friends, both male and female, in this situation it seems to be the same sort of responses. There's a bit of flattery that the other party did come around and start to change. But there's also the memory of all the pain that ensued prior to the change. Each action is encounters the question framed something like "Oh? But when I wanted attention you couldn't be bothered.. so I must give that up now because you're ready?" It's always the "But when I wanted ... And now you..." structure.

With this sort of attitude, is any sort of resolve possible? I guess in some weird way the situation is most ideal to fix things. At this point, everyone involved sees everything. Perhaps, not in the most objective manner, but everyone sees nuntheless.

I guess if the relationship is to ever work again, get back to that middle road and proceed into the 'balanced normal couple path' both people have to have at least one exact same sentence on any given present and future page of their books. Each page could be scribbled with their new hobbies and dreams collected from this back and forth time apart but the lines "I want this relationship to work. [and] I want you with me on this journey." must be scribbled somewhere - even if it's in the margin.

If those sentences aren't synchronized wishes of both parties then... I guess it would be time to let it go. What are you fighting for? To hold onto a title that both or one of you no longer want? If you love someone... and you want to be with them... You don't try to torture them into eternity.

If the lesson has been learned, lick your wounds and move on - be it apart or together - but move on.

***

'So here you go again you say
You want your freedom
Well who am I to keep you down?
It's only right that you should play the way that you feel it
But listen carefully to the sound... of your loneliness
As a heartbeat drives you mad in the stillness of remembering
...of what you had... and what you lost"
-"Dreams" Stevie Nicks

Shelli out.

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