allow me to reintroduce myself

[rachelkari]

- Steven Covey 

[rachelkari]

Briefly, on social media:

Its funny maybe ironic these platforms offer us a chance to express ourselves on a national and even global level, they give us the right to speak out unapologetically but in the same breath take away our right to our OWN opinions. Dare you utter a word that someone disagrees with, you're finished. 

Healthy discussion is not welcomed and agreeing to disagree is out of the question because everyone must have the same opinions, right? of course! 

You adopt this audience when you confirm sign up, that effectively snatch your beliefs apart and disapprove of your viewpoints and then you receive notifications reiterating how much they disagree with your thoughts, daily, for months. 

It defeats the purpose of socialising online and the propriety of speaking freely, doesn't it? 

What do you think?

Note: I am referring to allowing a person to have an opinion without having a cyber drop kick from people that disagree,  I am not supporting people that insult or bash looks or make discriminatory/derogatory comments and pass it off as 'just being honest' - although the line is a thin one.

[rachelkari]

Christ would rather die for you, than live without you.

[rachelkari]

To reiterate..

As kids we were encouraged to construct things and get creative with dried pasta and paints. We established this side so early and freely it almost wasn't learnt behaviour but something innate. We explored imaginary, fictitious worlds and believed ours was edgeless. We wrote stories and role played, teachers and students anyone, no? We made mud pies in the garden and swore we owned a restaurant - only me? I don't know where that all stopped. Probably, somewhere between the freeness of midday naps, GCSE anthopology and dealing with your boss - somewhere in there.

Science informs us how vital this all really is: "By encouraging creativity and imagination, we are promoting children’s ability to explore and comprehend their world.." - Dr Bernadette Duffy, (2006), Ox Uni Press. Now I submit, an adult that stimulates their imagination and uses their resources to create, is one that is part of discovering a new world altogether. Who in the 18th century would have thought we'd have touch sensitive anything a few centuries later? Well someone imagined it and got to work.

Take a moment to go back and revisit that childlike liberty. Dare to imagine/create and be as unapologetic as a 4 year old playing with Hot Wheels, completely convinced that he is Michael Schumacher.

[rachelkari]

The day I realised I don’t know it all

Was the same day I realised:

1. Everything is not everything. Sorry Lauryn, but things are almost never as they seem and it isn’t always, what it is. There are layers to life, relationships and people. It takes time and patience to decode these things and even when you think you’ve cracked it: CURVE BALL!!! I still love the song and her of course.

2. The ones you hold on pedestals as perfection are just as human and flawed as you are, they are not discounted because of it. Only God is perfection, we just try.

2. People [He/She] won’t “just know”. Things must be said. Wise Uncle Phil (that’s Dr Phil, no confusion!), used the term “teaching people how to treat you”. Ask anyone I know, I live by it and advise them to do the same. I’ve learnt how important this is when giving people the chance to know you and truly see you.

Theres more, I'll update as I go :)

Ciao! x

[rachelkari]

I think having someone that just doesn’t know how to be with you, may actually be worse than not having them.

[rachelkari]

New Year new me?

Is it too late to write about starting a New year, have I missed that window already? I guess it is practically June, right? 

Anyway, like most of you, I was forced to think about 2014 and as usual, I set out resisting the new years resolution epidemic. This year was a bit different, here is some of my reasoning: 

For my sanity, for the purpose of truly living and in ode to my years of learning, I cannot allow myself to regress. I owe myself the curtesy of putting down (/out) what I want this year, so those nurtured years won’t be in vain. In respect to everyday I am living and in reverence for the path I have been put on, I am making some daily choices that will trigger conviction and force me to move according to the ideal end goal. This will mean something to me not because its a new year and a “new” start but because its another year I am not worthy of but want to account for. Ergo, I am and always will be anti-New years resolutions, but pro-choice (in this regard). 

I was once guilty of letting days pass by unnoticed. I would knowingly slip into a vacuum and disengage myself from moments/opportunities/people but remain unmoved and unaffected - anyone relate? I'd describe it as a transient amnesia because there is definitely a portion of that year that isn't in my memory store. Granted, that was a chapter in my life we could title “Numb”. At that time, there was a complete detachment from a life I should have been so grateful for, but wasn't experiencing.

With clarity I now choose to be present and fully walk with intention, existing in the now, every day of this year and so on. I want to do life.

I have learnt life keeps on playing till we catch its tune. Its not fond of the new-year-new-me types. You know the types that eject and insert a new CD, only to press mute and by December eject and insert ready for January again. Its not even for the pausers who like me may have slumped into intermission. My 21 years have taught me that life is for those who press play. The ones who feel it out and timely adjust the volume to preference, then hit restart to do it all over the following year. Like a good album it gets better and means more to you each time you listen. You learn it and become attune to its intricacies the more it plays.

Maybe everyone has moved on from the "planning" portion of the year and onto the "doing" already, either way, these are just some thoughts I thought I'd share.

xo

[rachelkari]

Two frames from Medicine for Melancholy.

I guess I should put out this disclaimer before starting: I am a lover of all romance genres, drama/comedy/Sci-fi/Adventure/faith based the whole bit. It can even be foreign without subtitles. Of course this is typical,  the girl that loves romance, where haven’t we heard that before? But I gladly join my troop. No matter what package it comes in, if its tied with a bow of romance, I'm sold! Theres just something about the fantasy of it all that I adorn. The whimsical per happen chance and random meetings that flourish into passionate, painful, complicated, zany, unpredictable, teased love. I mean what hooker wouldn't want to meet a billionaire and be treated to his lavish lifestyle (with pay) and who doesn’t want the smart chocolate dude from the hood to teach them hiphop dance moves and serenade them to ‘True Colours’. As exaggerated and doomed as they may be, that hope for companionship and belief in love gets me every time, and so do the cheesy one liners. They’re priceless. I think this may be my replacement, instead of watching a good cartoon or Disney movie as a 20-something year old.

Okay this has become an ode to the movie genre romance, which isn’t the aim. *thinks: maybe I’ll write an ode to her and the lessons she’s taught me thus far, for all of us that share the same appreciation.*

Anyway, romance themed movies like M4M, top my list not only because of the quaint interactions between characters, the pursuit and heart of a willing man and the likely but unlikely 24hours of events, but mostly because of the truly melancholy ending. Although escapism is the mother of a good film, realism is its drunk brother that gives you practicality and truth. I respect a realistic ending, even in romance. And when I get it, I am  promptly meandered back to the real world, just as these characters  were. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always present a well written happily ever after. C’est la vie.

It amazes me how good writers make you fall in love with the wrong character and cosign immoral acts, with a twisted belief that despite their crooked actions, it all can be justified and made right. Shonda does it to us all the time. These two characters are so wrong and cross boundaries that should be marked in bright red paint, yet I couldn’t help but watch through parted fingers. 

I don't know whether I'd recommend or rather who I’d recommend this to. I'd rather not feed ammo to a critic that doesn't get it and have to rush to its defense; admittedly it may not be everyones taste. Although I must say, several film festival wins and nominations is enough self defence.  M4M is a sensuous art piece and a nod to real life in its subtlety, which is refreshing. Once more, it blows most of the mainstream videography I’ve seen, out of the water! But, I’m biased. 

[rachelkari]

Thank you God for giving me another chance to do a day

[rachelkari]

An expressionist painting I did a while ago, my first paint to paper in 4 years. It was like catching up with an old best friend that time took away. 

Being back in front of a canvas after struggling to "get inspired" for so long, I was reminded of a piece I read a while ago on inspiration by Alexander Chee.

"Over time I’ve decided the idea of inspiration is a terrible burden, to many. Maybe there is inspiration. Maybe there are just ideas. Maybe it is just the world. Maybe there really is a jolly fat man in a red suit and a beard [Santa Claus] with a gift just for you. Maybe just go make whatever it is you are waiting for that man to give you."

I have reread this piece many times and it never returns void.

Have a read!

[rachelkari]

the dawn of me

And it was in that moment, while listening to Dawn Richard '86 and feeling a pensive gloom, that I reminded myself "you need to create." It wasn't the first time we, myself and I, had had this conversation, it came up before. For example I love to paint, I'm supposed to be the artist but there are art pieces that have missed their conception, through me. I'm supposed to write, I have notepads and iPhone notes full of my ideas/thoughts/memos to self and lessons for others, that begged to be shared but weren't. So as I said, the conversation about creating was a recurring one and now the urge and the willingness to share what I created peaked, it almost irked.

I needed to create not because it would have remedied my state at the time but because it is what I was put here to do. I wholly believe its a virtue that we've all been given. The desire and tools to create are innate, they are divinely etched into our subconscious, even as kids. I heard vulnerability in Dawns music, it was as if she wrote for me. You know those moments where you’re singing lyrics that are the lines of your story? I had a defining aha moment - it didn't matter that others created just as she did and her voice was not made inaudible by her competition. No doubt, she didn't have me in mind when she wrote but what she sang transcended its birthing place and arrived at a young women searching for solace.

Now, I realised how creating wasn't only about being my truest self and doing what I love (out-loud) but it was about connecting with someone that needed to hear my words, see my work or simply see me as a person. It was about my tangible contribution to the world and at the risk of sounding morbid, it was about wanting my casket to only hold my body and not the many dreams, aspirations and ideas I possess. Those things I don’t wish to take to the grave but empty out here, on earth.

Besides all that, theres something unsettling and somewhat weakening when you sit passively knowing you have more to give. I got a memo from God and he said “..have the AUDACITY to live outwardly. Do what comes naturally to you, stop hiding, quit controlling, just do..” He said “stop seeking authorisation from others to do the things I have already given you permission to do.” Words to live by if you ask me.

So on that heavy but freeing note, I am here to share: what I do, what I create, what I learn. A person learning to drop the residual pieces of the shell she broke out of years ago and live a little bit louder. I've been told that the world needs to hear what I have to say as much as the next (wo)man, so here goes. Allow me to reintroduce myself...

I’m Rachel by the way xox