and so it is

Yet again, the whole visa thing is so head shaking. A few years ago my mother got a gift of a salmon colored salt lamp. They were all the rage. At one point I did not know anyone who did not have one. This lamp was placed where my fathers ashes now stand. Its a little nook that is quite attractive. There is a small drawer and we put our passports there.Well, at that time, who would think that the salt lamp would melt slowly and seep into the drawer and my passport would be collateral damage. I travelled with my salty passport, but now that I need a new US visa,my passport is considered unfit for use. I had no idea that that was the case when I had my interview at the embassy. But a few days later I get an email telling me that very thing. I then check online to see the wait time to getting a new passport. I have to make an appointment to do so. I get all sorts of challenge again to make this appointment only to finally see that the next open time to apply for my passport is in November 2025!YES! NOVEMBER! What the hell! No way! I am supposed to travel to New York in late September. When things like this happen, what can I do but surrender. I have been trying to get my US visa since the 28th of March! Every possible online quagmire that could happen has happened.

No Independence Day Parade in an SOE

The island is very disappointed.

the event horizon

So much is going on, so much. The first thing is that my daughter got her eight o'levels. She is so releaved and I am so happy for her. Particularly as she went through so much. What a hectic year and a half she has dealt with and we have gone through together.I am very proud of her perseverence through all things. I am also moving in new directions, and I am doing so with the gusto of excitment that comes with it. Of course in moving in a certain way, there is sometimes a bit of lament about what was. However,I think that that is to be expected.

Post Emancipation

Frustration abounds with getting my US Visa. But to write about it here shall do no good.I prefer to write about other things instead. Now that Emancipation, now called Black Emancipation Day, I realise that criticising the way that the celebration is handled is pointless. I have an opportunity to do some work on it. All of this goes back to my deciding so many years ago about using our cultural calendar as an opportunity to jog ideas and concepts. This keeps going around in circles. Whenever that happens, it is pretty clear that I am on that pathway.

some lovely thoughts

I was blessed this morning with my projects all coming to the fore and working out. I took the opportunity to feel myself holding the objects and my wanting to travel along like I was floating above myself, to see more. I think that this has to do with gifting my daughter with the newest Minecraft for her DS. I have been enjoying watching her play and I am recently flirting with what media can do today.

the slate

There is always the feeling that if only you could have a moment to think things out, to see the world without the hustle, bustle, societal pressures and financial needs...you might be able to manage and make sense of it all. But somehow in your life, you always have a heavy feeling of not being able to stop. Yet, if you give yourself the stop. You just STOP. you STOP and you take that moment, the clarity comes upon you. You can stop and do absolutely nothing. Onserve your space or lack of space that you take up in the world. Your contribution to the pollution on all fronts...your sense of urgency no longer being about speed ...you want meaning.

having a think

I am having a birthday milestone in a few days.I haven't felt so excited about one in decades...lol. I cannot explain why, other than to state that gratitude comes to mind. I look back and miss so many people I thought would still be here. I consider paths I have walked and not walked.I think that at my age now, many aspects of what I focused on has changed. It has been subtle. The shifts are sometimes so small, you dont recognise it. Motion capture imagery comes to mind. I also nestle into the notion of the way in which one thinks of ones life as it passes before your eyes. I feel the experiences, the combination of emotions that went through me in those moments and before you know it, you are recalling recent moments and bypassing them into future moments desired and the thing that stays with me is that in ones sense of planning, there is a feeling of agelessness. If you reach for what emotions come from this, I consider the desire to be confident, hopeful and happy. I thonk that that is a wonderful barometre for stepping forward and going into the unknown.