Why Not? @stric - Tumblr Blog

When I was born, my Grampy gave me the nickname “Penny”. Penny is me in my purest, most authentic form. On July 19th 2012, I lost my brother Miyagi to an inoperable brain tumor. He was 26. My brother and I were very close. We were only 2 years apart. I never thought of him as a separate person, but an extension of myself. He was my reflection. In his presence I was confident and always so sure… I was Penny. Since that day I have been incomplete, losing all direction and sense of self. Since that day I have been lost trying to find him… trying to find my way back to my self… back to Penny. I turn to writing as my form of therapy, but it’s never quite enough. I released 2 projects since then, but I wasn’t quite myself. I try to find my brother’s love in other men, but they never can compare. I try to get closer to my brother by doing different drugs, hoping that if I get high enough I can reach him, but they only take me further away. I distract myself with work, which buys me things I wish I could share with him. I distract myself with work, which causes stress I wish he were here to help me with. The presence of my daughter, my siblings, my parents… only make his absence more apparent. And so, I find myself taking trips, trying to escape any person, place or thing that is too familiar. Physical trips by car, by plane… Mental trips with controlled substances… Trips in solitude in hopes that the quiet will bring me and my brother back together. Through out these travels I’ve been keeping a record of my dreams, feelings and experiences in notebooks. I turned these notebooks into a MAP. a Movie (TRIP short film), an Album (TRIP) and a Poetry book (2fish) This map has been helping me navigate through my suffering, uncovering the righteous path that has been carved out before and for me… Helping me identify my pain and my mistakes so that I can move forward and reach my full potential and find the light at the end of the tunnel… My personal “hero’s journey". and although I am not there yet… I know I’m getting closer. This map was made by me, for me… but I feel obligated to share because I know that I am not alone in my suffering. If there’s one thing I’m sure of it’s that every single person on this planet is suffering. Not a single soul in this world is immune to the pain of losing someone they love. The reality of this life is, at some point we will all lose someone we love. In sharing this MAP, I hope to inspire others to be more present in the lives of the people they love. I hope this MAP encourages honesty, empathy and compassion. In sharing this MAP, I hope to inspire others to share their own mistakes, imperfections and fears… because I believe in doing so we can understand each other better and realize we are more alike than different. In sharing this MAP, I hope to inspire others to share their grief and pain because I believe suffering can be alleviated when we understand we are not going through any of it alone. - Jhené Aiko Efuru “Penny” Chilombo

🗺🎒📘

adambirkan

Spent 2 weeks on the road with GQ Style as they hit fashion shows in Florence, Milan, and Paris. go check out gqstyle.com for the full photo reports

©Adam Birkan

needsandwantsstudios

To separate itself from high-end downtown retail, Toronto clothing label NEEDS&WANTS kitted out a shipping container as a showroom and concealed it in a Toronto park. The 160-square-foot store will travel to new locations around the city this summer, before migrating to Miami and Brooklyn in autumn. Photos by Michael Rousseau.

Read the full article on Dwell.

stric

BLOODY BRILLIANT.

Soul’s Birthday

Today’s Mantra.

Love your brother as yourself and your name will be written in the Book of Life.

rhythmchanges

Megaman’s back.

#ghettz #grime #megaman

freekumdress

I like my baby hair, with baby hair and Afros I like my negro nose with Jackson 5 nostrils

made in the manor.

needsandwantsstudios

needsandwants_ss_16_gypsum-01.jpg #needsandwantsstudios #springsummer #madeincanada

madininamada

tingsparis

caribbean finest

noyzhiphop

On Addiction & Mental Health

Addiction has been a constant in my family tree, with some form of it recurring in every successive generation. Speaking from my own perspective as someone with Punjabi roots, our vice of choice is the bottle. Drinking culture is a source of pride in many Punjabi households. We let it flow like water when we celebrate. We sing songs about it. But we rarely hear about the darker side of it, where drinking and merriment morphs into something darker and manifests as alcoholism. I can vividly recall my first experience with death in the mid ‘90s, hearing my uncle weep upon learning his father had died after a long and quiet battle with alcoholism. Quiet only because it wasn’t openly discussed or acknowledged in the family, though everyone knew it was there.

Several years later, alcoholism returned in another family member, this time in a way that hit closer to home. My parents had decided to take in my aunt and her two young sons to create the distance they needed from my alcoholic and abusive uncle in order to live under some semblance of normalcy. My aunt didn’t take time to let her bruises, both mental and physical, heal though. She was working two jobs to provide for her kids, and perceived the help she was getting as a constant reminder of a failed marriage. My cousins struggled in school and were acting up in class. They were diagnosed as having learning disabilities, but really were dealing with trauma and family tensions that the teachers weren’t made aware of. My uncle passed away a few years later after succumbing to complications from severe liver damage.

Still to this day, my family struggles with alcoholism in different yet familiar forms. In one way, it lingers like a vestige of an unspoken past where the abuse that accompanied it lays dormant, though we fear it is capable of emerging again at any moment. In another way, we’re still in the throes of it. Not so much physical as it is mental and emotional, deceptive and manipulative.

From my experience, it has always been vital to help the victims of the abuse. As we should. That space and separation is necessary to ensure they feel safe and get the support they need. However, we don’t always see the one with the addiction as someone who is also suffering. It is easier to give help when we can see the outward results of alcoholism, and who they directly impact. It’s easy to point a finger when the culprit is so easily visible.

When my aunt and cousins lived with us, we wanted to help my uncle, but we didn’t know how to. To be honest, we weren’t sure how to help my aunt either despite our best intentions. I guess what a lot of it comes down to is a need to change our perception of mental health and the stigma surrounding it. Many of these conversations on addiction, abuse, and damaged marriages don’t take place because we’re too afraid to talk about them honestly and choose instead to back the status quo and suffer in silence. It is often that those who need help doubt the effectiveness of the services that are out there. I’ve seen people scoff at the suggestion of therapy and counselling while their family life crumbled around their alcoholism because of what they think seeking therapy says about them. It’s not easy to have these discussions and allow ourselves to be vulnerable, but it is only through this vulnerability we can change the narrative of what mental health actually is and why it’s important, and begin to break the cycle of silence. I know my family is ready for it.

exquisite.

Today I visited The Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site. Located just off the Hudson River in a quaint little town named Hyde Park, the house sits in the midst of trees gently unhanding their leaves for the season.

Here are some pictures I snapped of the decor inside the mansion (which was actually a summer home for the Vanderbilts) and the surrounding grounds.

Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site.

Hyde Park, NY

S.STEELE

Create + Relate

#newyork #hydepark #state #national #park