Kern Carter's Blog, page 24
October 10, 2022
Dreamscapes: First Time Train Home
Image by Alesha BurtonSometimes when I hear about a place or I’m extremely excited to go somewhere I’ve never been before, I dream of that place. The dream rarely gets the actual place right, but it’s my brain’s interpretation of how things might go or look. I’ve dreamt of field trips, plane rides (despite how much I hate them), and even my early days at university.
The dreams make up the location and the context simply based around what I’ve already experienced alongside what context clues I’ve been given. I once went to a place that was one large Victorian and pre-Victorian era recreation. I imagined it to have large barns, wide rivers and lakes, and some uninterrupted access to animals and foreign trees. It had some similarities, but my dreams were ultimately wrong.
This dream is slightly like that. A dream representation of what I imagine of the largest train station in the entirety of Terris’ Western-most continent, Flyrendt: the Grand Central Station. I call this dream: “First Time Train Home”.
— — —
I am going to Grand Central Station. The station is situated on a separate plot of land from the rest of what looks like an idle downtown Yonindale. It’s extremely large and antique-looking, with faded off-white concrete pillars and reliefs holding up its outer walls. A giant clock motif stands out at the very front of the station.
The main entrance to the station can’t get me to the underground subway quick enough, so I take a side tunnel down across the street from the main building itself. I get directly to the platform I need to be and immediately miss a train. I shrug it off. I am still a bit nervous because I’ve never made this journey before and even though I have an idea of where I’m going, it still gives me shivers.
I look down the platform and notice just how long it is. A generic grey concrete platform with pillars in its centre and no yellow line. There are two other trains also accessible through the platform.
One train is running perpendicular to my train and is all the way at the other side of the platform. I watch as the train arrives, picks up its passengers, and leaves swiftly. The other train wraps itself around our platform, running over and under like a rollercoaster. As it rushes by, the people in the train have their hands in the air. There’s a tunnel that leads to the rollercoaster train’s platform and a food court.
I take my map out to kill time waiting for the train. My map is a deep magenta. I know my route is far northeast of where I am right now, but the map’s colour against the black of the text makes the actual station name illegible in the moment.
I put the map away as I get a strong urge to explore and hop on another train. The urge wants to take me to experience new things and feel the air in a different part of Qikamda. It wants me to look at the tall and small buildings of different cities and watch the streetcars fly around as they travel along the streets.
I push the urge aside and take out my headphones. I try to listen to some music, but it muddles in the sounds of the nearby trains rushing in and out of the platform, so the music is unrecognisable yet enjoyable.
Some of my school friends arrive. My mood is both enlightened and dulled. Part of me wanted to ride the train by myself with only my music to accompany me, but part of me also liked the company to come with me. They begin to play and have fun along the length of the platform from the entrance to the tunnel leading to the food court. I try to stay away from their antics as they bother people.
The train arrives at the station and it initially seems packed. I frown at the heavy crowds. Thankfully for me, the train quickly empties as my friend and I head to the back-most train car. I wait for a human with long wavy blonde hair, a white shirt and a jean jacket carrying a suitcase to come off before I rush in as the doors close.
My friend and I sit beside each other. There is a group of boys I know from school sitting at the very back of the train, along a row of seats lining the back of the car. They’re all sun elves, with their dark skin and hair, talking loudly and playing around. They’re loud enough that I can hear them over my music.
A ticket checker comes around. He’s distinct due to his black suede sweater. As we look down the car, we see the man giving other passengers a hard time about their tickets, even yelling at them. Even with my ticket secure in my pocket, I feel my breath hitching as I see the man walking towards me.
He walks right by my friend and I, turning his attention to the boys at the back. He asks for their tickets and my friend and I turn to one another. They don’t.
The dream ends before I can see what happens to the boys, but I thought of it as an interesting dream. To be honest, it’s one of my three dreams in a short span about the Grand Central Station, despite nothing happening and despite me never having been there. The other two are very similar, with me waiting for a train on a subway platform.
Sometimes that happens; where I keep dreaming of a place that I’ve never been to. Most of the time too, I dream of the dream-interpretation place more than the actual place. I find it a little bit funny.
I suppose that sometimes excitement and imagination rule our brains. They say dreams serve many different purposes. I guess one such purpose is to live out our excitement without needing to express it aloud. Or as an addition to the already expressed excitement.
I like the latter. It’s nice to be loud when you’re excited rather than anxious and quiet.
— Heleza
[image error]Dreamscapes: First Time Train Home was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
October 6, 2022
Call For Submissions — Weather and Writing
The leaves are turning orange and red and shades of purple. Jean jackets are covering sweaters, hoodies over t-shirts; it’s Autumn.
I don’t know about you, but the weather affects my writing. My mood changes when it’s dark at 4:00 pm. The shiver of outside, the tumble of snow, the smell of the cold, it all seeps into my words.
Is it the same for you? Does the weather impact your writing at all?
Same rules as always:You can submit to this or ANY of our past writing prompts. Just scroll through our previous newsletters. They’ll be marked “Call for Submissions.”If you’re already a writer for CRY, go ahead and submit.Be as creative as you want in your submissions. As long as you stick to the topic, we’ll consider it.Just because you submit doesn’t mean we’ll post. If you haven’t heard back from us in three days, consider that a pass.[image error]Call For Submissions — Weather and Writing was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Squandered Connection
My heart pays the price for her dishonesty. Or perhaps it's just her damage.
October 5, 2022
After Many Rejections, My Fiction Finally Has Appeared in a Literary Journal
Finally, I have found a home for my story inspired by the last moment of my parents
October 4, 2022
Adornment
gma’s watches |Photo Credit: Authormy mother has worn a ring or two on each finger and thin, layered necklaces for as long as i can remember. i scoffed at the gaudiness for a long time, but a connection was made this morning, and whether it’s spot-on accurate or not, i don’t care. it makes perfect sense to me.
i’m not big on extravagance. i like quiet, impactful things. statement pieces. complex simplicity. i often say there’s so much chaos inside that i don’t need the noise of it on the outside. and i mean energetically, too. especially energetically. that’s why it’s hard to embrace this newfound rambling that i do. i get that i’m painting vivid pictures with 26 characters in varied configurations, but when you’ve lived most of your life in black and white, saying a lot in very little, it’s a difficult switch using so much color to convey a story. but i digress.
as an 80s baby, i experienced Black culture in technicolor. sitting on our west baltimore stoop watching my older cousins run past me in their door knockers and graffiti nails. in dc doing the hee-haw in the street while my godbrother plays the congos. in the country at gma’s, seeing the lone open-faced gold on her front tooth as she talked, the wide breadth of space taken up by her church hats when she walked. and in the many expressive hairstyles i saw living on and off with my mommie (godmother) in suburban va over the years.
because i was so immersed and insulated in it, protected by it, it was very easy to take for granted.
society denied the existence of Black culture, and my family was so busy surviving that they didn’t take the time to teach us its value — or recognize it themselves, either, i’m learning. it is what it is when it’s just the way it is.
in public, we had better act like we had some sense before we got sense knocked into us. i was taught that because that’s what those before me were taught. it was necessary for survival — take that as you will. but as much as decorum and rigidity and quiet were drilled into us, there was also an expansive depth of freedom and joy and expression taught through action. the same fingers that pinched us on the church pew for making noise pointed us out of gma’s kitchen and toward the vast possibilities awaiting “outdohws,” the only commandments being to stay alive, don’t break anything, and to stop running in and out of the house. today people pay hundreds of dollars for outdoor concert experiences; i grew up dancing under the stars all night long as a dj spun, barefoot in the grass, surrounded by laughter and the people i love in my gma’s yard. piling in plastic barrels with my cousins, rolling down the hill into the woods. climbing up to gma’s roof and then jumping off. family reunions days turned juke joint nights. card parties. massive impromptu sleepovers. but it wasn’t all fun and games — there was also picking greens, peeling potatoes, and shucking corn. scratching scalps. unplugging everything, cracking windows, and sitting silently “while God do His work.”
Photo Credit: Authoryears of misinformation, indoctrination, and a laser focus on institutional education are amongst the causes of many of us missing the forest for the trees. in addition to society’s commitment to anti-Blackness and disregard for alternative forms of being and teaching, the convenience ushered in by technological advancement killed off many of the ways we learned from our elders. the old folks in my family didn’t talk much beyond direction; we worked beside them, watched what they did, and mimicked — if that’s what was expected. do as i say, not as i do was a lesson, too. the process and ritual of actions and ways of being taught much more than they get credited for. as oral history peoples who have been silenced in many ways for many years, other means of expression — while always part of the culture(s) — became even more important and utilized. so the little that was said, what was done, and what one wore were major ways to convey individuality and be heard…but they also denote collectivism and belonging.
my current spiritual and personal development journey has my mind all over the place.
i’m not sure if this is what the elders meant when they referenced being made clean and given a new life, but i swear it’s like seeing everything with new eyes, and frankly, it’s overwhelming. not in a bad way, but like, a concentration-in-noise way. focusing in the midst of chaos, way. cocooning. sitting with thoughts, revelations, and encounters. opening myself spiritually has me going through life with heightened sensory experiences, and sometimes it’s just too much. i now realize that’s what younger me didn’t know how to express as it pertained to my mom’s jewelry. i didn’t have the understanding or language to convey the too-muchness of energy as i experience it in this world, and as such, i sought to shield myself from it all. including loud personal expression.
i was scared of my mom as a kid. in a world that refused to hear her because she was black and female, my mother definitely wasn’t accepting that behavior from her children. she had a look and a yell that you’d try to avoid at all costs. as young as i was, i somehow understood that her bark had less to do with our behavior than her feeling silenced. as a child she went unheard and had little bodily autonomy. as a young woman and mother, her body still wasn’t her own. but she would absolutely be seen. by everyone. from her stature to her personality and presentation, even to this day, you’re gonna know she’s there. so for most of my memory, conjured images of my mother are replete with at least one ring on each finger, two necklaces, and two sets of earrings. now that i think of it, there are many women in my maternal line to whom that applies. and as i looked down at my wrist earlier today i realized that i’m falling right in step. one way or another, i’m going to control this body, even if it’s only how it is presented.
it was easy for my laid-back persona and presentation to get lost amongst the sea of everything-ness in my family, which made me feel unseen in most ways. in trying to build my lil’ self-esteem, i told myself that sometimes paring things back may make them invisible to some but noticed by those who pay attention. most of the women in my family only wear gold. yellow gold, rose gold, faux gold — doesn’t matter as long as it’s gold. at most, they’ll throw a silver piece in amongst just to jazz it up. exactly when i became obsessed with silver bangles, i can’t say, and i don’t recall anyone i know having worn a set consistently. for me, the understated metal is so beautiful. it’s seen but not too much; just my style. as i said above, quiet but impactful. that thought has stuck with me all my life and is the basis of my personal elevator pitch: i’m the color in the shadows.
“the girls that get it, get it, and the girls that don’t, don’t.” — khaenotbae
but for all our differences, i am definitely of the women in my family. the two-tiered anklet. two piercings in each ear. tattoos. a nose ring (plus a closed one on my tongue). and, of course, the growing stack of bracelets on my wrist. occasionally a ring or statement costume necklace, unlike my relatives. but i am them; my adornments tell the tale. before she passed, gma gave me a silver necklace (with an elephant pendant, her favorite) to replace my anklet when it broke. i rarely wear things on my neck, and she didn’t wear anything on her ankle, but now her necklace is on mine. after she passed, i also inherited a silver charm bracelet. as much as i may stand out, i belong to this crowd.
bangles and gma’s charm bracelet |Photo Credit: Authorwatching a Hoodoo Heritage Month tik tok this morning planted a seed. the practitioner’s hand in the forefront of the camera displayed at least one ring and tattoo on each finger. my mom and tribal marks were the first two things that came to mind. i have researched very little about tribal marks. in my current state, i don’t have the mental capacity to do so. because i haven’t done the work and didn’t grow up speaking about such things, i can’t for sure say that there’s a parallel between the two, but i feel there is. descending from people forcibly removed from their home and culture, direct correlations between what i grew up with and elements of traditional African cultures rely heavily upon old scraps of paper, focused cultural anthropology, and observation. if you’re one of the lucky, personal family narratives and mementos provide more connection. the most concrete ties i had to my folks are the moles — excuse me, beauty marks — that pop up on our skin over time. and i’ve been identified as a member of my clan by an elder community member in a gas station on sight.
her: you belong to dem _________s, don’cha?
me: yes ma’am. ________ is my grandma.
her: YUP! I knew it. you got dem _________s cheekbones.
just as those physical identifiers have continued to emerge despite space and time, so has the collective remembrance of other expressions. while we all may not know the specific tribes and customs from which we hail, it seems we remember the essence of expression in both embellishment and movement. the women in my family utilize our storied beauty marks and stacked jewelry to identify us, similar to the ways that scarification and adornments signify tribal distinction. throughout history, we’ve used joy and togetherness to survive. it’s so amazing that the evidence of our collectivity are also statements of individuality today.
https://medium.com/media/c7ae4f2aa2cc7c69f166de2a562fc7a2/hrefas i continue (re)learning about Hoodoo, ATRs (African Traditional Religions), and my own southern Black experience, i see the sparks bringing to life unrecognized connections that have always been present. i’ve never been without the spirit and energy of that which came before me. while things may not look or present in the material in the same ways, my Spirits are all up and through their descendants’ being and creations. despite how much time and space and colonization have lied and tried to squelch the telling, the record and essence of our story remain. energy is not destroyed, and neither was it ever dormant. it just shows up a little differently.
i’m grateful for all of the ways in which our ancestors retained our spirit and Spirits through it all, and for being able to recognize it now. it is an honor to carry forth proof of their lives and being, manifested in the creativity through which we present ourselves.
especially the adornments.
[image error]Adornment was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
October 3, 2022
all source, no filter
Photo Credit: Authorthe unpredictable nature of nature is so beautiful to me, but i’d be lying if i said i handle all natural states well. change — the moment, the idea of different — is fine. i can do that. it’s the transition — the process of getting from change to change — that’s the killer. unfortunately, life has been a series of dumpsterfire fuckshit transitions from the frying pan into the fire as of late. no chance to solve an issue or catch a breath before the next pops up.
i was feeling a bit restless this afternoon, so i decided to sit outside and brought the camera just to see what would happen. taking the time to be amongst things that have existed long before me is a balm. a conversation last night touched on the varied ways in which we communicated with. this is my favorite way to commune with the energies outside.
Photo Credit: Authorhave you ever eavesdropped on bird conversations? closed your eyes and paid attention to the overlapping messages? had your skin wrapped in the wind’s whispers? i found myself wondering if the insect calls and the leaves rustling were understood by one another. if the bumblebee circling me was a bodyguard, a guide, or simply wanting me to move out of the way.
i don’t know what was being communicated today, but i was all in. open, feeling, and willing. the assurance that, despite change and destruction, it’s here. gon’ be here. even when we’re not. even if it has to take us out.
there’s a rumble in the air.
[image error]all source, no filter was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
September 30, 2022
Some Truth Pills About Life That Apply To Business
Photo by Lukas: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-hand-reaching-body-of-water-296282/I want to share with you something inspired by a post I shared on Instagram today. Once again, I was listening to one of Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts’ sermons on YouTube. I guess God was trying to talk some sense into me because I have been struggling with some strong toxic feelings recently. Here are the lessons I shall share with you:
1 You Are Not For Everybody
Not everybody will like you. Not everyone will appreciate your worth. Don’t let the toxic folks get to you. Move on. You will find your chosen tribe.
2 Things Take Time
Personal branding takes a lot of time and effort. You must be willing to put in the damn work in order for people to trust you and flock to you.
3 Consistency Is Key
I struggle with this part, and it is starting to show with the results I am getting. This ties in with the previous points. In order to get results, you have to be consistent. You have to show up even when you get zero likes.
4 Always Pray
God is waiting to bless you. You just have to humble your damn self, get down on that knee and talk to him and at the same time, take some action steps, steps that align with his plans for you. You will be shocked when God blesses you.
5 Block The Noise
It is okay to applaud the success of others but, at the same time, focus on yourself. Focus on your journey. Everyone is on different paths, different journeys. No one can do what it is that you can do. Always remember that.
6 Always Ask For Help Whenever Necessary
Sometimes it is good to ask for help and guidance. Look for someone to mentor you and lead you aright. I forgot to add this point to the Instagram post.
I am starting to sound like a preacher now, which is strange. 😂 I suppose this is how God wanted me to share this message. I hope you all learned something new today. Stay blessed.
[image error]Some Truth Pills About Life That Apply To Business was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Pedis: An Unexpected Love Language
Photo by Joshua Oluwagbemiga on Unsplashlying on the sofa lamenting the current state of my toes made me realize just how much i love pedicures. if i could only allow myself one indulgence, that’s what i’d pick. every time. the past year’s financial hell mandated that i — very grudgingly, i might add — give them up. fortunately, i was treated to one for gma’s funeral; unfortunately, it was extremely subpar. hyperfocus on the next day’s solemn event made it a non-issue, though now i hate that my most recent experience hardly brought any sense of relief. for the longest i assumed that my infatuation stems from the sensations i get, a sort of stimming or anxiety coping mechanism, or maybe the beautification of something i once loathed. introspection turned out a much deeper, more meaningful origin.
to be honest i used to hate my feet. hate. they’ve never been considered small. and in a society that rewards things that take up little space, it was just another category into which i didn’t fit. by the time i was in middle school i was toeing the line of the famed size six in boys that girls on the precipice of women’s sizes tended to stuff their feet into. my mama wrote the book on buying things with ample room to grow into, so that wasn’t flying in my house at all. and it didn’t help my self-esteem. we rarely had money to afford the styles i wanted, let alone the price difference when sizing up from the kid's section. and all my hand-me-downs came from my older brother and even older great aunt. as a girly girl who yearned to express herself through wardrobe, shit was rough. it was just another thing to be picked on about if i ever happened to end up in the bullies’ crosshairs.
the first time my feet were complimented was in high school. despite many of the Black students being family and/or childhood friends, i’d just moved back to that area, so the black sheep feeling was amplified. i have always marched to the beat of my own drum, even when i didn’t understand the rhythm, so deciding to dress up for school for absolutely no reason wasn’t uncommon. on this day, i wore these amazing heels i was allowed to splurge on for easter. thin black leather strings and four-inch heels. a minimalist thing of beauty they were; one strap across the toes and two long ones to lace around the ankles. GORGEOUS. so as i was walking down the hallway between classes that afternoon, no one paying me much attention because they hardly ever did, The New Guy — the one all the cool kids thought was cool — paused as he headed in the opposite direction, looked at me and said, “You got pretty toes,” then kept moving. WHAAAAT. now while that moment didn’t actually make me like my feet, it definitely boosted my confidence enough to begin wearing sandals in college. and so began my regularly scheduled pedicures.
we weren’t allowed to even think about polish or getting our nails done until we were teens. my mom’s sexual abuse-induced trauma made her obsessive about keeping all things deemed “grown” off limits. it was her way of avoiding wayward eyes, though ironically, that may have drawn the very thing she hoped to avoid. but i digress. anyway, prior to junior prom, my first real experience regarding any type of service to hands and feet was us, the kids, “doing” my gma’s feet. when we heard, “Come do ‘mah feet!” it was understood that we had to either apply rubbing alcohol or lotion to gma from the knee down. it rarely had to be said but was always somehow understood that the youngest able-bodied kid in the house was preferred. gma’s long hours on her feet at the meat plant made this a fairly regular occurrence. if i recall correctly, i often got upset when my younger sibling or cousins were present and therefore did the “doing.” ever the diplomat, gma would thank them when they finished and let me do it over.
as one became more experienced, “doing feet” also came to mean soaking and cleaning. anytime we saw gma with — or were told to get — the basin out of the bathroom, we knew what it was. we’d need a towel, hot water, rubbing alcohol, and the tiny red and silver flip knife she kept in her purse. if you’d proven yourself, you were allowed to boil the water and transport it alllllll the way from the kitchen and into the waiting tepid basin bath. trust was multi-layered; between using the gas stove, transferring water from a hot pan to another container, a spill-free transport, a precise pour, and gauging the proper amount of heated liquid…there were a lot of opportunities to mess up.
man, the anticipation of gma easing her tired feet into the water, praying you got a head nod, or even better, a head-back-closed-eye-exhaled-sigh. at worst, you got a jump scare while holding a bowl/pan/pitcher of boiling water when gma yelped and pulled her toes out of the too-hot bath. the self-imposed pressure of the moment paid off if you were fortunate enough to get gma’s indirect approval.
the ultimate honor was actually cleaning them. after an unofficial apprenticeship of unknown length, i.e., watching the older ones, one was trusted with the lil’ red knife and allowed to scrape the dead skin from her heels and “pick” it from her nail beds. sounds disgusting, but we fought over the task.
although young me didn’t have the words to call it such, it was an honor to do gma’s feet. so we thought it was gross, yes; in the way that kids thought gross stuff was cool at first, but as we got older, it was in the if-it-wasn’t-for-gma-i-definitely-wouldn’t-be-doing-this way. nevertheless, we loved it. it was a chance to have focused time with gma, which, given the size of my family, was extremely rare. it also allowed us the opportunity to do something for her. the woman whose hard work and paltry paycheck kept us going, and together. whose home and land built foundations for many individual branches of the family. even without the full understanding of all that gma was to and did for us, we knew that doing her feet was somehow honorable and honoring.
the last time i got to do that for gma was about a month before her transition. she’d complained about her feet being sore so one afternoon i gathered the materials and started to work while she watched her sappy hallmark movies. i’d gotten too aggressive with an ingrown toenail and caused her some pain. though temporary, it’d hurt me so badly to hurt her. it was over quickly, and gma went out of her way to praise me and the pedi, profusely exclaiming how much better and lighter her feet felt. weeks later, after she passed, i’d have the same reaction and concerns about whether i’d hurt her in the end when she couldn’t communicate her needs to me anymore. despite no longer being here, i honestly believe her spirit shut down my fears in the same loving manner before my anxieties and grief could take root.
over the years, i’ve learned that oftentimes what’s understood doesn’t need to be explained. time and time again, that theme has shown up in my relationship with gma — from her knowing what i need without saying to me meeting her needs sans direction. but the times that Spirit does allow things to connect, to come full circle replete with a whole figurative light bulb moment, i love those. there’s a beauty in knowing, in understanding, even when the words and connections don’t make sense to anyone else.
so yea, i love pedicures because they represent love. respite. care. a bunch of other things, too. but coming to realize that the thing i love to do just for me, just because, is rooted in the woman that loved me most fully…well, that’s one of the sweetest, most meaningful, insignificant gifts i’ve ever received.
[image error]Pedis: An Unexpected Love Language was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
