I would like to be as professional, but honest, as I tell you this. I feel that it is important that I serve as a Peace Corps volunteer because I want to learn what life is like for people outside of this capitalistic, imperialistic, materialistic, oppressive, western, image-first, identity-politics based culture that is America. I want to have a different relationship to time, culture, and language within the way that I work with others and myself. I don’t know what Malawi is like but I know it will be different and that is all I can really ask for. Something different. So I would like to serve because I am searching for something different. Something that speaks to me. I am searching for this but I. am. scared. I love my family and I am scared to lose time with them-same for my friends. This fear comes and goes in waves. I am scared of losing opportunities, I am scared of making a commitment and not being able to leave- just like with graduate school. I am scared of wasting my time. I am scared this is not the right path for me. I am scared I won’t get to do what I want to do. I am scared of loneliness and depression. I am scared I won’t get to work with clay and plants. I am scared of regressing. I am scared of leaving what I know. I want you to make me feel better about my decision. I want you to tell me that this is going to be okay. That I will get to work with local ceramic artists, that I will get to work with plants, that my house will be beautiful with electricity and running water in the glorious, mountainous, and cooler region of Malawi close to giraffes. That the dream I had over the summer was what I thought it was. That I am following my heart. That I will have the dream service experience. I want you to tell me that my relationship with my family and friends will strengthen, that I will become more brave and strong. I want you to tell me that after this, I will know what to do next, feel more confident in my decisions. I want you to tell me that I made the right choice. But you can’t tell me that. But I want you to. That is why I am contacting you. For reassurance. Two years is a long time for what ‘if’s’. What will it be like for me? Will I know myself better than I do now? I would like that. Self-awareness and growth, discipline and joy, living in the present, trusting my intuition and just enjoying my life. I want to stop worrying and planning and just enjoy what I do for once. I want to be free of all the bullshit. When I think of a career in horticulture and ceramic arts that is what I think of, a career free of all the bullshit. Where I can make money while doing what I enjoy but still working hard. A career with community but still individualized and maybe some travel mixed in. Something intellectual and hands-on with space and time for reflection and good books. Where I am always growing into my highest truth. A humble, steady beauty. A life I will be proud to say goodbye to at the end of it. That is what I am searching for. Will Peace Corps Malawi bring me closer to that? Please let me know! Thanks in advance.

Warm regards,

Carson

I don’t utilize this blog as much as I  used to. Nor do I write as much as I used to. That’s not true, I write all the time, just not for myself. I want to take back this space. Although, I watched an episode of black mirror with my friend, Imani, and I am a little nervous that a bit of my consciousness can somehow be put through cruel and unusual torture without me being aware. Even if it is part of my consciousness, it is still me, and that’s just not cool. But just like everyone else, I guess I will sign away that possibility mostly because I am already writing and that is just too much to think about right now. Right so, how does this work again? I am supposed to be doing my homework, I am class lead tomorrow (woot) but I have emotions that want to be released. These emotions are about Malawi. I can decide if I leave to go to Malawi June 8th, immediately after graduation. This makes me really scared. I’ve been told to follow the fear because that is where there is growth but it’s not easy. I’ve been suffering more and more from various forms of PTSD and I now realize why some people don’t ever go out of their comfort zone. I never thought I would be like this but life has taught me caution more than anything and while I still have a romance with the wind, it is hard to trust it…especially when the winds of home try to set sail. When do I come home? That’s what they want to know. In daydreams, I am a ceramic artist (I’m starting to get the hang of throwing and I love it). I am working in a plant nursery and making beautiful forms from clay for a living. I live in the Medrean Archipelago comfortably with a car and no loans. The dream. haha.  I’m trying to stay present and the clay is the only thing that can do it, that and adrenaline from public speaking. I can choose not to go to Malawi but I know I won’t choose that. I just want it to feel like a good decision, but all decisions good and bad seem to come with so much fear these days. I know I can’t go wrong but I want it to feel right and I can’t think clearly through all this gunky, chunky, fear. What is in store for me in the direction I don’t take?

somebody/ anybody
sing a black girl’s song
bring her out
to know herself
to know you
but sing her rhythms
carin/ struggle/ hard times
sing her song of life
she’s been dead so long
closed in silence so long
she doesn’t know the sound
of her own voice
her infinite beauty
she’s half-notes scattered
without rhythm/ no tune
sing her sighs
sing the song of her possibilities
sing a righteous gospel
let her be born
let her be born
& handled warmly.

no more love poems #3
lady in blue
we deal wit emotion too much
so why dont we go on ahead & be white then /
& make everythin dry & abstract wit no rhythm & no
reelin for sheer sensual pleasure / yes let’s go on
& be white / we’re right in the middle of it / no use
holdin out / holdin onto ourselves / lets think our
way outta feelin / lets abstract ourselves some families
& maybe maybe tonite / i’ll find a way to make myself
come witout you / no fingers or other objects just thot
which isnt spiritual evolution cuz its empty & godliness
is plenty is ripe & fertile / thinkin wont do me a bit of
good tonite / i need to be loved / & havent the audacity
to say
where are you / & dont know who to say it to…

*excerpted from for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, by ntozake shange

Elephants, gardens, plants like my singing, my couple and the cat, the joys of tea, flat tires, southern winters, ERNIE BARNES!, Durham > Raleigh, travel, therapy, parents, pain, narratives, leaves, nostalgia, bugs, aliens, gardens, soulflakes, a new sketchbook!, pens and ink, a question what needs to die so I can give birth to new life?