Loving This Body

I’m learning to love this body on a different level this year, man. Honestly, it’s been such a journey. It’s the kind of body that’s been carrying me along for 28 years and has yet to stop. It might wear down sometimes but most of the time this body of mine keeps it together and does a damn good job of it.

This body puts on weight, loses it, puts it on again and is ridiculed for it. Sometimes even I hate it for that. But this year, this year I’m seeing these curves and loving them for what they are. Proof that I am still here. Solid and good and enough as I am…yes, I am still here.

There’s been close calls, you know? Often I don’t get to say this but there has been moments when my mind wanted to take a break and my body kept us standing. Reminded us that we feel pain but we can bear it and for when we couldn’t, this body told us where our threshold was so we knew to stop. Take a break and recover.

Yes, this body is good. It does well for me and I’ve grown to love it.

I walked through the streets of my city today, Melanin by Sauti Sol playing in my ears, hips swinging in time to the music as the scent of rain settled in around me. This body of mine is special and I’m going to live in it well. I’m going to love it.

©Saddi Khali photogrophy

Truth in Another’s Mouth

I seem to be on a trend at the moment! I’ve been thinking about what truth is, what belongs to us and what truth belongs to others and what that all means.

I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to lie to yourself and how much it can shock your mind and body when someone speaks the truth you would rather not hear or do not yet have the courage to face.

It’s an ongoing conversation with myself but here are a few random scribbling from my musings today:

Sometimes Pictures Lie

Unfiltered #throwbackthursday. This photo comes up on my Facebook memories every year and it always takes me back because this day was such a complicated day. I was out with friends and outwardly was having an awesome day but I was so depressed during this time.

And this day internally was one of the lowest days I’d had in a long while. And I was distracted because I was out with people I loved and who loved me but for each year this comes up, I’ve always had such a visceral reaction to this photo because I remember how conflicted I felt on this day and I hated seeing it represented like this.

But it also reminds me that things do change and get better. And God is good. And getting help is great.

When I think about depression, one of the poems that comes to mind is this raw, powerful spoken word poem by Sabrina Benaim titled ‘Explaining My Depression to My Mother”

As a child of immigrant parents, one of the toughest things to bring up has been my struggle with depression and anxiety, both because it’s hard to own anyway and also because saying “I am depressed and need help” in a culture that does not cater to the importance of mental health is one of the hardest things to do.

Have a listen to this poem, I find it so comforting:

Explaining My Depression to My Mother ~ Sabrina Benaim

Speak Truth to Yourself

Speak truth to yourself

In whatever fashion you will

Whether loud, or angry

Or in slow measured tones

Tell yourself the things they no one else dares. Like a shrink to his delusional patient. Be patient and speak truth to yourself.

Speak to the inner man. Speak to the Child and the mother. Speak to the king and the lover. Speak until every lie that lies in the deep ocean of you has no room to maneuver, speak truth to yourself.

Unravel the inner workings of your own heart, hold yourself accountable for the weight of the words upon your own tongue, for the things buried deep in the fractures of your core

Speak truth to yourself

Speak all these things to yourself

Search for yourself like a mother

Like a mother for her missing child

Be every form of truth to yourself

Be love, be hope, be justice, be righteous – be a daily legacy

Be friend, be lover,

Be the man on the streets no one wants to stand beside…

Be okay with that.

Be your favourite book

Your last happy memory

Be chocolate covered doughnuts

Custard creams and apple pie… Be a fruit salad.

Grab a hold of the you that you have always been.

And speak truth to yourself.

Happy Father’s Day, Father

Happy Father’s Day, father,

though you are not here.

The celebration we could have had today

would have made you smile.

The presents — probably a tie and a book–

placed on the dining table next to the

card shouting “Best Dad in the World!”

You are not here to be celebrated

but I’m thinking of you

and loving you and saying

softly to the idea of you:

“Happy Father’s Day, father.”