aqumada

As the wind blows, the tree knows how old wood goes . . . .

No, this is not a Viagra ad (by the way happy birthday Wogeshaà is it true that being a surgeon adds 3" to your flaccid penis). It is another epiphany . . . . I am getting old.

How old? My back hair is growing back hair?

How old? I now have gray hairs in my nose, chest, and I just found a gray pube!

How old? Those 40 year old women who used to look scary are now within striking distance.

Need I go on? What happened? Is it the water. . . . I mean coffee I drink daily? Is it being in a professional environment and my standards are influenced accordingly? Is it the younger ones remind me of all the headaches I went through earlier in life? Is it living in a material world, and I am a material girl?

My requirements for women were several but less stringent than most:

• Most of her own teeth
• Good hygiene and grooming habits
• Disease free . . . no, that's not true
• Either funny or not
• Nice face
• Weigh less than me.
• The best looking woman ever seen as judged by a panel of my peers

I was choosy as they say. But was I? I ended up with different looking and acting people, and I had some fun (gursha I say!) But something funny happened . . . I reunited with an ex. I mean she was my first love, and the first time I saw her naked I almost stabbed myself I was so excited. She had body parts that were NASA certified-they defied gravity. Interestingly, we never worked out; go figure, because I thought she was the one even though we always fought and she was always with someone else when we'd link up. Well, fast forward 7 years later, and we linked up again. Same beautiful smile, a lil more curvy, and she was just as frisky. But something happened: the body lost its NASA certification. It was now a part of a mission to drill into the earth's core. I also noticed my disagreeing with her-something I could have never done before. I used to come complete with whup-him directions. Me, the one chasing her, I tried to get her to see other people. Instead of playing her jealousy games, I refused. Suddenly, she wasn't so unattainable to me, and she knew it. I realized after 15 years, I had absolutely nothing in common with her.

So what does this have to do with these mature ladies I find more attractive now? The difference is that I see their flaws and yet I am still interested. Instead of directly comparing each woman to each other, I still have a threshold for acceptability, but now I can actually hear what women are saying; I can judge who I get along with vs. whom do I like. I do not know if I am ready for the 55 year old in a thong yet, but I know that my relationship vision is a little better now.

By Choma

Dabo, dabo, dabo, dabo . . . . . .

During my first visit to an Asmari-bete 10 years ago, I was lost by all the slang, but I kept hearing the word for bread. I asked my company at the table why dabo was being repeated so often? When I was informed of its meaning, I started to smile and the Asmari looked at me and said: "Tewedale, tewedale . . ." True.

More than having my vocabulary expanded (which was pretty awesome), I was impressed. This asmari was rhyming sensically on the spot. Growing up in NYC, I thought freestyle rapping straight off the top of the head was impressive. But when I saw these asmaris rhyme and play an instrument at the same time, I was floored. I figured I could at least write poetry.

Since then, I have written about 40 poems that I documented and just as many that I threw out. Interviewing at Residency Programs now, I get asked about my poetry all the time. I used to clown the spoken word chumps in NY that are overly dramatic and uninspired. Their redundancies and feigned feelings were a source of amusement. I stopped going to these spots because I always felt these dudes seemed to have a self-serving agenda-not to relay important thoughts but to be seen as important.

I have written about AIDS, racism, medicine, poverty, motivation, death . . . but I wrote about most frequently about love and the ladies. Without ulterior motives, my pen has served another long object of mine well. . . . . Who am I kidding-I wrote poetry for booty too. I thought I was pretty good too. People even framed some of my works. But I am done writing for now. You may ask why:

• Is it because someone criticized my work? No, people have lied quite politely to my face.
• Is it because I have run out of topics? No, every day has at least a hundred interesting revealing stories that never get told. Society suffers from ignorance of these lessons.
• So what is it?

Well, I was in Chicago last week, and a friend of mine was playing all kinds of records. Smoking hukah, taking in the vibe before interviews, I was chilling. Then she played Mahmoud Ahmed. I have some of his old stuff, and I love his voice. In fact it used to be my "theme music" whenever I had a lot of work to do. But I never understood what he was saying. At best, I had some literal translations of his songs. But at her place, my friend was going on about how poetic Mahmoud was. I passively agreed more eager to take a toke of the lemon-flavored tobacco. Then she messed me up: she started translating his songs but with their intended meaning. His imagery was surreal . . . . of pains suffered from a lost love, of organs that should be cut-off because their was no need anymore without his love. The despair, the passion, the conflict. Wow! And those powerful words could only have been credible to me because they were accompanied by his stirring voice. It's different listening to deep words when you know the artist doesn't believe what he is saying. I felt Mahmoud's words, and I felt sorry for him, for myself dealing with such difficult women. I was inspired and depressed at the same time. My ego attempted to placate me by stating that I should have his work as my standard. My conscience filled with regret that the base poems of mine were so shallow in comparison. I was affected not by fancy words, rhymes or syntax but immediate sensations of powerlessness, idealism, love. His words go beyond communicating an idea. They made me understand his thoughts and instantly relate mine to them. He is an artist that I can only begin to appreciate.

So I write this blog as a goodbye to Choma, the naive and blasé poet born 10 years ago. I am reborn: now more familiar about what the art of communication should look like and accomplish. Amateurs like me should stop to stop stealing attention from deserving geniuses whose work merits our studying and appreciating them.