I am a proud June Baby

So the sun is shining brightly today, but today is not just any ordinary day. Not at all! It is the first day of June, my birth month. As I draw closer to the start of a 'new year' and new chapter in my life I cannot help but to be grateful for all my blessings from the almighty. I am grateful for the love and support I have recieved from my family and friends. All the opportunities I have been awarded. I am grateful that I am still alive and healthy. Counting all my blessings can take forever so I will end here with a big Thank you to the Lord. Blessings be upon all of you as we begin a new month

Happiness!

Correen and I are such happy people LOL

Like tentacles wrapping themselves around my neck gripping tighter and tighter until they threaten to dissipate my entirety, my urge to write suffocates me until finally I succumb to it. No, this is not out of my sheer love for writing. This is something else. This is out of the constant fear gnawing at my conscience- the fear of never being able to write again. Fear of being permanently expelled from the land of these words which I call my sweethearts. Almost as if sensing my fear, a dear friend moves in for the kill and with a nonchalant ‘write me a piece’ I know my answer is going to be far from the NO it should be. I offer my excuses and plead with him to tell me he is joking, telling him I am a terrible writer. Then something inside me says to go for it, what is there to lose?

After begrudgingly telling him yes, it dawns on me- what the hell will I write about? I cannot stop myself from offering a slight grunt of dissatisfaction. Me and my big thumb!

Oh yes I did! I have adapted the phrase “me and my big mouth” to suit me. I do after all spend more than half of my day on my blackberry and my thumbs have become my most potent weapon when it comes to communication. Who knew that developing opposing thumbs could turn out to be so useful? I mean who needs a mouth when you can have a thumb!

In this age of technology, communication has become incredibly easy. With the invention of ‘smart phones’, the old message in a bottle or conventional letter writing seems silly and time consuming. The world is now at our fingertips- Literally. With ever increasing social networking sites, we have made hundreds, excuse me, thousands of friends all without having to walk out of the front door; how convenient!

I too have joined the army of billions around the world who spend on average close to 40 hours a week on social networks. That is the average working week and we aren’t even getting paid for it!

 However it has not dawned on any of us that this ‘harmless social networking’ has increasingly become an addiction. Although we hate to admit it, many of us are hooked and every message, picture, comment gives us our daily fix. What else could it be called if you wake up to check your notifications on Facebook and unread BBM’s before even thinking about the day ahead? Would it not be an addiction which could cause you to spend every waking minute holding your cellular phone?  

Is it being ignored because it is not cocaine or Mandrax? Perhaps it is not taken as an addiction as it is not as ‘serious’.

If so, then the next one is a shocker. Teens that spend hours on social networks have shown to have been performing at a decreasing rate in school mainly because of the distraction from their cell phones which ultimately lead to lack of concentration. As if that was not bad, psychological studies have shown that teenagers who spend increasing amounts of time on social networks usually became shy or could not hold sustainable conversations in ‘real life’.

Are all you parents getting worried? Well fear not because that ‘Jesse’ that your child is speaking to might be a 47 year old pedophile from Kazakhstan (no offence to those of u from Kazakhstan) but that really should be the last on your list of worries. At least your children are not smoking weed or taking drugs right? So let’s put this matter on the ‘to do’ list after ‘laundry’ then when the laundry is done we can deal with it. After all it is not as ‘serious’ right?

WRONG!

This is not in any way meant to scare or unsettle anyone. Social networks are great they have made communication so much easier but they do come with their fair share of responsibilities. Like beer, they have to be enjoyed responsibly. Like everything else in life.

So here I’ve come to the end of my piece. First I began with no sense of direction but with the burning desire to once again write a piece. Armed with only passion and perhaps a little annoyance, I made the painstaking journey into the unknown. Some 800 words later I will say I fared quite well, an important lesson for both life and social networks. Sometimes journeying into the unknown can become scary and intimidating, but with courage, determination and perhaps a little annoyance it can end up becoming fun (in some cases informative as depicted above)

But what does this have to do with social networks? Well it’s simple really, social networks are the unknown to us, although some might role their eyes and think I’m a dumbass who has been living under a rock to make such a statement. The truth is they are an unknown as they are a relatively new concept. Like life we should approach them with caution and we will find that soon we will enjoy them and feel comfortable using them and slowly  they will become an integral part of society without imposing as much of a danger as they do now.

So why did I choose this specific topic? Well the answer is not that complex. Had it not been for the creation of these social networks which allow me to speak to a person in Durban without having to wait days for the response, I would not be here writing this article. Although, I could slap myself because of my inability to utter a simple NO – excuse me, my inability to type a simple NO. I will adamantly confess that I almost enjoyed writing this, ALMOST. I do still curse Donda Khumalo for making me write this piece without any direction. Who knows maybe I too like EE Cummings am establishing a legacy? Mine 1 of directionless pieces? Whatever the case may be, my work here is done.

Busi Ree

hahaha i just came across something i wrote in grade 9 and i thought i should share it with you.

African Woman – You are beautiful

Your brilliant smile is like the stars

That light up the dark night skies

Your soft hands are comfort

Always there when life is hardest

Your luscious lips speak the magic of peace

Your eyes radiate hope

Your glorious body

With its curves and striking features

Cannot begin to express the depth that lies

within

Each feature

Your:

Lips

Hands

Shoulders

Only some understand your smile

Saying thousands of words and speaking comfort

With a single embrace

You give hope and the belief that this too shall pass

African woman- you are beautiful

Yet

Men abuse you

They silence you

And the lips that once spoke of peace

Utter words of suffering and abuse

The tears that used to wash away sorrow

Are now of pain

Your glorious body bears scars

Of suffering

African woman

Seize your power

Take back your strength

The days of walking in fear of violence

Are

Over

Embrace your strength

Touch it with your soft hands

Speak of it with your luscious lips

Show it in your beautiful eyes

Express it through your beauty

Don’t you ever forget

African woman you are beautiful

And because you are beautiful

African woman you are strong!

dunno what to call this one

The dizzying sway of her hips, enchanting

the left and right of her strut, enticing,

Even those that swore not to look in her direction, succumbing to temptation

Only a few minutes with her will give their lust emancipation,

Till then they stare

Like demons possessed

Word to the nigger that can tap that ass

Hard to reach although she has no class

She

Bends over pretending to be picking up something,

Maybe her dignity which she left on the street while drugging?

This is the hood and a girl gotta live

“it’s better than what you receives,

Flippin burgers as macDeez”

She spits back coldly

This is her job and she states it boldly

Not even flinching

From that mention

So is this the reason our fore fathers got lynching?

Aboard slave ships they died

Marching on the streets of Soweto they took their bullets with pride

But I’m convinced they had a different idea in mind

Maybe an educated generation

To inspire Bantu restoration

Instead we offer them prostitution

We are free in law

But mentally we await emancipation

From the shackles of weed, alcohol, sex and

Verbal pollution

Years they fought but they could not live to bask in their freedom

They trusted us to appreciate and use it to our advantage

Instead we found another way to cage,

Ourselves as young people

In visions broken, dreams shattered, lies told and values destroyed

At least they had a vision

They marched to fulfill their mission

But all they got in return was prostitution, an ignorant population without  a vision

All that she sought

The gaping hole in her heart sucked in her sanity

Consumed in the search for love, all she found was profanity

Word after word

Lie after lie

Man after man

She began to lose her dignity

Her body the only thing she could control

She used to find purpose

And as she spread her legs wide

Man after man

She hoped she could find something to restore her pride

Instead all she got was sorrow

And each for a night, her body they borrowed

The little happiness she had, from her it was pardoned

See all she wanted was acknowledgement

Maybe someone who’d see past her arraignment

But with cold looks they’d pass her judgment

Day in and out

She could never speak out

With no one in her defense stand

She could not make them understand

 So she communicated the only way she knew how

Drugs sex and alcohol gave her a sense of power

Always in life’s play assuming an intoxicated role

Her body the only thing she could almost control

But what’s a body without a sound mind?

That’s why today she lies in cemetery nine

Driven over the edge by life’s hounds

She couldn’t help but jump off the building

 face first into the ground

All she was seeking was love

Maybe a little tenderness from above

All she was seeking was peace

Maybe she found that as she lay on that bloody concrete

Today she lies in cemetery nine

Driven over the edge by life’s hounds

She couldn’t help but jump off the building

 Face first into the ground

All she was seeking was peace

Maybe she found that as she lay on that bloody concrete