Ganges

In a sea

floating on

toxicity
alight despite.



Afloat
on a river of blackness
alive in prive - ate.



Upright
on a lake of sadness
survive to thrive.

In a Name

I was named at least 3 1/2 years before my birth. Awaited with bated breath. And then my brother popped out and he went nameless for two weeks.

Funny story, this compulsion to name a human being with the most perfect of names, heedful of the potential implications of such a decision.

I was relatively luckier than other people. My nickname was refered to at the end of a conversation and they couldn't really turn it bad. I've heard this joke for at least 25 years and new people never cease to enjoy the sound it makes, like a compulsion to rhyme for rhyming's sake.

"See you later, Leita!" And I would look upon them and laugh, and say "I've never heard that before, very good", all the while completely bored by something they found so utterly refreshing. And also cognizant of the fact that they pronounced my name wrong...again. But such are the little joys in life. People need to find some joy and if my name can bring them that, well, I'm happy to help!

I was told I was named after a South-African singer, Leita Mbulu, that my parents had once seen in concert. I never questioned their story, though I did have issue with the name. Most people couldn't get it right and I just felt like I didn't belong. I wanted a normal, everyday name like Christine or Caroline.

I gradually learned to like my name, even love it, appreciating its uniqueness. I also learned not to care when people massacred it. It wasn't always worth correcting them.

When I was in university, a girl I met in class asked me about the background of my name. I told her the story I had told a hundred times before and this time I received a different answer:

"I know that singer. Her name is not Leita, it's Letta."

Below, a song from Letta Mbulu. About 2 weeks ago,I finally decided to look her up and it was a revelation to meet my namesake.

I stood there in disbelief. Could my parents not even get that right? They named me by accident? So I called up my mom and laid it down on her. I could hear the shrug in her voice. Oh well, we got it wrong, no big deal.

Funny how important a name is, to the extent that you hold on to it until you have a girl and then when you're told you misunderstood the name, there is abject disinterest. I guess when they appropriated the name, it was more for the sound of it. Letta Mbulu's name triggered something in them and the name they chose was then an extrapolation on that. Like taking something and improving upon it.

So from then on I had decided to attach my own meaning to my name. Like making my own definition in a baby book. What does your name mean?...it took me a while to find something that I thought would fit.

Eventually I settled for: She Who Travels ...as good as any other definition. It is who I am, what I'm driven by, who I accept to be. She Who Travels.

About 4 months ago, while working in a 4-star hotel with many Samoan women, I found another meaning to my name. As I told them my name, many would look at me with questioning eyes and ask whether I was Samoan. Eventually I was to learn that Le - Ita means Not Angry.

It was an exciting discovery. Finally, I had found meaning to my name in the least obvious of places and with the most obscure of cultures.

A few months later, surfing the internet and looking through Baby Names' databases I found my name again: Leita, Spanish for Strong Woman. It was perfect timing. A culmination of images and thoughts and feelings of 30 years on this earth.

So today I celebrate Leita, with two dots on the "i".

I am a strong woman who travels with no anger. This is me. This is who I embrace. And there is no other.

Closed Fist Open Palm

Closed Fist

Poised for a flowering

Waiting

Potentials ripening

Unhidden

Some day...


Open Palm

Cradling

Caressing

Soothing

Supporting


Face up

Static Strength

Closed fist, but open palm

Toward...

Blossoming in infinitesimal increments

Possibilities

An open space

To be filled

It is time to walk the path

Welcome the journey

Eat the mistakes of my past

Pass them through

Push them out.

A less traveled place

Twigs, leaves, fallen bark

Petrified bone, coagulated blood, hair from the root

Line this way

I will step forward

Let my soles absorb, let them bleed

I'm ready.

It will not always be so.

A Wairua

The touching of souls through time and space

We are connected.

A butterfly effect...a whispered thought

And replies rife with questions, olive branches and/or apathy.

Yes...but replies nonetheless.

We are alone but together...connected.

A Wairua

Cradle

In your arms...in my arms...cradled.

As though a precious breakable thing.

Unseen but felt...a hope the net will hold

Alone?

Yes...but it need not be a draining dragging sadstain on skin

Alone?

Yes...but cradled

Cradled...

...cradled.

Pipe Dreams

There is something to be said about dreams. They are potent. Alive. All encompassing.

They make you believe it can be and is real...a little cloud of "Hope" you sit upon as you build it up, closer and closer to the goal.

And then suddenly you look down upon your once soft cushion and realize the cloud has evaporated under the heat of the sun and you are falling, falling back down to earth.

Awake.