Hi I'm Tiffany Vakilian and this is Transformative Language Arts in Practice. I am enthralled by TLA and the way it affects my life.
I write, I sing, I praise, I create, etc. I am an artist and a womanist, well read and a little nutty because of it. I support artists on their journey to and celebration of wholeness-- be it mental, physical, social, financial or - most importantly - spiritual. These are my findings as I search for truth and freedom via word.
I wanna write
Again
Feel sickly slick slippery
With prose
I want to learn the rules of the craft
and with all that is in me
Wordsmith like the artisans of old
- but I'm at work
I wanna sing
Again
Loud like I did in Andrew's room
When the music and I
Made love so loud
My Mom & brothers banged on the doors
As my throat cried freedom and fearlessness
- but I'm quieter now
I am heading back
Back to my own power
Not here
Not there
Someplace
Only God & I know
The salty taste of things done in the dark cry out to be held forever, as if a tidal wave could protect a pearl. It is a sin to lock yourself in a dark past when you hold such a light within you as your real self. Your free self.
Dedicated to Denise B. with love, a Saturday post!
We call them waves It is difficult to find the ground sometimes Normal is chaos And chaos is lost in sorrow This is a new mine field Sprung up in the flowery pastures of the old Such joy to remember Such stark contrast to The 'surreality' of absence His absence And his absence too Each person A point A sting Acute Worn and irritating While still brand new like unbroken in shoes Heights of hilarious memory And joy so thick A malted milkshake of laughing And then Sharply inhaled Immediately The laughter becomes dehydrated and crystalline Going to the store becomes Walking through a cave Sitting alone becomes Dangerous While strangely the only solace Up Down In the Word we ground ourselves So we will not be carried out Undertow Rip tides The tether feels weaker than it really is So we lift our chins Swimming Floating Drowning And we smile "SURF'S UP"
Number 7 by the lake at the Eternal Hills Cemetery and Mortuary in Oceanside, CA is his final address. Andrew is in our hearts, but feel free to share time and space at the point of contact.
With a heart celebrating in its sorrow because of great love, I give you my Saturday Post-
The amount of stories and
passing memories flow in and out of my waking mind as I look back over my
concept of Andrew. SOOOO many buzzwords, faith, family, obedience, Godfather...
He
served God, and did so with all that was in him. In serving God he served man,
and the world was affected by him. He fell a few times, scuffed up his knees
and elbows, but he always got back up and continued to run the race. He did not
stop fighting the fight of faith, and when he went home, he was in the midst of
doing the work of God.
Andrew lived for his family, no
matter how you define that word. From a ninja loving adolescent in Wire
Mountain 2, he stepped up to be a father and husband/provider for our immediate
family. It was not easy for him, and it took the hand of God to help him shift
from the mentality ofaww man
I have to... towhoa man I
get to... and neither choice came without affliction and mistakes. And
he is my big brother. And he did for me what all big brothers were supposed to
do for their little sisters, but he did the Andrew way.
I'll
never forget the time he and I went to the Arlington Cemetery and Iwo Jima
Memorial. I'll never forget singing in the LCC choir with him (and getting in
trouble because we were "Bearding out"). I'll never forget when I
drove out from Kingman, Arizona to Las Vegas to see him when he was with Pastor
Johnson. I will never forget when he took me to Panera and over chipotle
chicken panini, he apologized for having "salt sprinkled with grace"
instead of "grace sprinkled with salt". Or the #1 cook apron I made
for both he and Eric the same Christmas. Or the photos on the steps that we
took every Thanksgiving. Or the way he told stories. Or the times he gave me
verses to meditate on when I was going through trials. His made-up words that
have become part of my lexicon. Cutting up at Myc's wedding, trying not to
laugh when they poured the unity sand. Giving him the boutonniere at my
own wedding, and his look of "what am I supposed to do with
this?" His RANDOM voicemails. His not-so-random voicemails.
He
was the one I called when the doctors found the lump in my breast. He was the
one I called when the lumps were gone. We prayed together. We praised together.
My big brother man of God. There are so many words, and I’ll never say this
right. But I love my big brother, and I know that he loved me, I know he loved
God, and I KNOW that God loves him. He and my Moses are up in heaven right now,
praising God together – both races run beautifully.
Number 7 by the lake at the Eternal Hills Cemetery and Mortuary in Oceanside, CA is his final address. Andrew is in our hearts, but feel free to share time and space at the point of contact.
Traffic is like a matrix of frustration and beauty. I drove on the 5 near Encinitas, and the light from the Pacific cried my name in the "go home traffic". It wasn't welcome home it was, "I'd hug you but I don't have arms." I am home. I am in my physical artistic space that makes me feel like I can reflect like a prism. Long winding roads, avocados, rolled tacos from a restaurant ending in 'ertos, and oh yes, the marine layer (it's like even the coast is a late sleeper). 5,78, 63, 79, 8, 10 are the numbers of my life sometimes. Just wanted to speak my love of SD. I love the whole of USA, but just wanted to give it up to SoCal for a second.
I got time. It's 5:00 o'clock on a weekday and I'm driving Northbound ( at least it was when I considered this post).
Last night
My friend Joy said something
About the power of a woman who feels
Beautiful
I can't remember what it was exactly
But the shoes I wore to last year's Christmas Party came to mind
And PING
I think I am getting a taste of what she means
The sum of the parts that make me
The sum of the parts that make me feel
The power of the sum
PING
Thanks for that remindering lady
Had a cool dream... but it has some weirdness in it too.
I was in "Baltimore" on the street where I grew up, but it was (in that strange way of dreams) only a couple blocks away from the bay. I was on my way from the corner store where some random guy bought me my choice of candy. I saw, in the Atlantic, a tidal wave coming, and there were many tankers and ships in the bay. I woke up before the tidal wave arrived, but I was right in front of the fleet of tankers as they were coming, full of scared people. This too was weird, because the water seemed to be right behind the tankers, despite the fact that I saw the housing being filled up with people annoyed at sharing space... I knew they were going to overrun the housing... but the wall of water was right there, and it was coming in. In my dream, this happened at high Noon with not a cloud in the sky.
A week or so later I had another dream of a dangerous wall of water flood coming. This time I was in the valley of "Oceanside" and the wall of water came over Mission Avenue, down the hill.
I felt the tidal wave arrive, but I don't remember seeing it, which was weird because I was driving towards the hill to warn someone I knew. My car was turned around and carried away in the murky, churning water towards a bright light in the East. This time the water was full of mud and such. I was alone in my car, and I felt that the warning I carried was heavy.
In my second dream, this happened at night.
I know these dreams are related, and I know my dreams speak volumes when they ping me like this...
I ain't gonna lie... I edited a TINY bit... call it, artistic license... (originally posted 7.18.11) -
I sold the bookcase I wrote about in a lost archive. It served its purpose. I am starting the mental processing that is required to leave the East Coast.
I am starting to look forward to spending time with my family, and get reacquainted with the physical location that was both my hometown and the first platform “from which to jump beyond myself”.
More than that, I am starting to look forward to the drive across country. I have never taken on such an endeavor before. Would you like to come with me? Let’s get in the car and go. We can take turns driving and be tourists in the great state of “wherever we find ourselves”.
From the road in my old Mazda 3 (2007-2013 R.I.P.)
This is not to say that I won’t make the drive without you. I've been dreaming about this drive. I am just starting the start to’s… start to pack, start to downsize, start to take stock of what will stay and what will go. I am starting to look forward to the destination, but I am also starting to look forward to the journey too.
