Creativity in the Time of COVID-19

I've had this one on my mind for some time. I finally sorted out the best way in which to share it with the world, enjoy. Pictures are by Mikael Owunna, I do not claim any rights to his photographs. I simply felt they would illustrate the story well. Please support him.

                                       Photo by Mikael Owunna

Cosmos In Love

“I was Cleopatra?”

He responded, his voice monotone. “A fraction of you found temporary abode in Cleopatra.”

Bridgette considered this as she watched the man that stood in front of her. Man, if he could be called such. The voice was deep and rumbled from the chest with the baritone of a male lion’s roar and the shoulders, broad and well rounded, implied Samsonite strength. Yet there was nothing obvious that identified him as a man. Though he wore nothing, there hung no genitalia between what appeared to be legs. In fact his appearance could only be described as negative space in which she saw an inky blackness dotted by a field of stars, planets, and galaxies of different sizes swirling within his form as if he held the heavens themselves. It was too fantastical to be real, yet here she was.

She continued. “And I was Josephine Baker?”

His monotone response continued. “ A fraction of you – “

“Found a temporary home, yeah I got it,” Bridgette had tirelessly asked the same question trying to piece together everything he’d told her, all somehow familiar but too fantastical to be embraced. “So you’re telling me, a part of me has been all of these people, throughout time, and I’m now my most complete form?”

He nodded seriously and in turn Bridgette broke out with hysterical laughter. From what she’d understood, she’d basically been a part of some of the most influential women in history; from Cleopatra, to Joan of Arc, to Josephine Baker and so on. She, an ex-drug addict barely making a living and preparing to be evicted from her rat infested apartment. If only the revelation that she was a celestial being could pay the rent.

“So you’re telling me I’ve lived all these amazing past lives only to find my ultimate existence in who I am now?”  Bridgette didn’t stop laughing. She didn’t know why but the sheer audacity that she’d been anything great was too amusing. 

“They are not your past, they’re parts of you,” His voice was somber as he spoke. No hint of humor to indicate he was in on her joke. Instead he spoke as though he carried a heavy burden, one he wanted to release. His eyes, well what should be eyes but were in fact blank white spaces, peered into Bridgette hoping that she would understand his persistence and so she sobered.

“Earlier you said you are Omega and I am Alpha, that you’d returned to give me a gift,” She hesitated, overcoming a shiver before continuing. “I want my gift now.”

“Are you open to receiving it?” He asked tentatively as if to a child that did not understand the full ramifications of what they asked for.

She thought about his words, placing two fingers to her face as she peered up to the ceiling, pondering. What could be the worse outcome of this man, who was like no other man, gifting her something? She was curious. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

With that he stepped towards her, the celestial bodies within his own increasing the speed of their orbits as they rotated faster with each step. He reached out hands, that did or did not exist, a light beginning to emanate from his body as he closed the gap. The fingers of his hands reached for either side of her face as Bridgette watched frozen in awe.

His hands met Bridgette’s skin and as they did he transferred millions of thoughts and images to her causing her to relive thousands of lifetimes all at once. Then Bridgette saw. This universal being, they were one, then split into two in the beginning before beginnings. From there they lived on until man was created. Bridgette experienced her own growing fascination with mankind. How she became so concerned with their plight that she tore herself into pieces that she sprinkled into what humans called “time” in order to enlighten each generation. She watched as she ushered in new eras, in different forms, inspiring new thoughts and helped to create a wave of brilliance. Then, just like that, she was back in the room with him, crumpled on the floor as tears of triumph and defeat painted the experience across her face.

“What did you do to me?” She asked with a tremble.

“I gave back to you the one thing you left with me,” He replied looking on with concern. “We vowed to love each other until the never-ending. When you decided to leave you asked me to safeguard one part of you and to give it back when you would need it most.”

She felt compelled, she wanted to know, and so she aked. “What part was that?”

“Your heart,” He replied simply and smiled for the first time since he appeared in her living room. His smile was beautiful like the sun appearing after a thunderstorm had passed.

Suddenly Bridgette felt her body tingle and she knew somehow what it meant.

“I have loved you forever, always, waiting for you return,” He stated and as he spoke Bridgette watched as her body was engulfed by light until she couldn’t see him any longer. The sound of his voice remaining clear. “Though we parted you are still the best part of me and I only wish to give back to you all that you gave to me.”

The light blinding Bridgette dimmed and he came back into focus.

His smile still shone brightly as he spoke. “ I have waited so long, watching you grow.”

The form that was once Bridgette looked down to her own hands and saw that they were now like his as shooting stars became her veins and the inky blackness of space became her skin.

And then when she spoke her voice was new and she understood. “We are alpha and omega, we are balance.”
He nodded, his smile fixed, and with that they embraced and dissipated as they held each other returning once more to the universe.

                                                        Photo by Mikael Owunna

Love Journey

Sometimes the path to love is not straight and narrow. Since writing this the love I hoped for has ended. Despite that, in sharing this I share more of myself and my journey as I always have, through my writing.

Love is forever defined and redefined. We haven’t grasped the full idea of it only glimpses and yet it is one of the most important motivating things in our lives. We develop personal views of what love should be like romanticizing it. Then, we get older and realize it’s so much more. As a result I believe we can have multiple great loves at different stages in our lives. I’m with one of my greatest loves right now. That grown “I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing by now” kind of love. Where they are the key to everything and unlocking so much more. Where I know I want to sacrifice all my time for them but being older, wisdom tells me better. Wisdom tells me to move slow and deliberate and to treat her with care. Show her I love her every day in little ways. This kind of love didn’t come easy though. I fought for it because at first I couldn’t admit who I was to even me. I wouldn’t figure that out until I met Shavonne in high school. I called her Midnight, exchanged longing glances, and wrote love poems the way I imagine Shakespeare did while courting his interests. Meeting her was pivotal in changing my life and who I would love today.

This love journey started in first grade for me, in Virginia Beach. I learned that two plus two was four, that reading was an amazing pastime, and that I was gay. I didn’t fully understand what that meant at the time but I knew what I felt. Boys didn’t exist for me outside the context of friend. Girls were these amazing little fairy creatures that I was too afraid to really interact with. The discovery of these feelings was scary. It was bad enough that I was from the Virgin Islands, spoke with an accent, and had to live in a culture I was unfamiliar with but to be gay on top of that was too much. The United States was strange enough and I was already teased for being different and what I felt for Susie Black didn’t make me feel normal. She was a girl in my neighborhood that caught my eye while her brother, the local older bad boy, was the one every other girl was enthralled with. To me Susie was appealing but I forced my attention to her brother in order to be “normal”. Despite this, over time, I found it difficult to follow the heterosexual narrative my life was saturated in. 

So my life continued with me being attracted to one girl after another. There was Jasmine in middle school.  She was mixed with large dark and lovely curls I wanted to run my fingers through but I never did, avoiding stalker-ish tendencies. I was slightly disappointed when she straightened her hair. In high school there was Laticia. She was this Queen Latifah-esque girl but the nerd version. Full figured, beautiful smooth skin, and totally enthralled with discussion of Gundam. With each of these encounters I understood more and more of myself. For example, I knew I was a romantic because I never saw the world as what it was. Everything was idealized or glamorized in my eyes. Even the girls I had a crush on. It also became evident that it would be difficult to pursue my Romeo heart even if I wanted because I had no confidence in who I was. I was already an outcast in my mind because of the differences I started with then adding to that I had grown up in a Christian household. Years of being told I’d go to hell for the feelings I felt naturally was enough to turn the last of my courage into several pounds of quivering jelly. So I continued to spend years denying my truth and eventually volunteered to wash away my “sin” via baptism.

It’s evident today tht  that didn’t go to plan but at the time I felt lighter. I believed my baptism had saved me from an eternal hell and that I would find love with a boy. This lasted only so long. Eventually new situations arose and required a change of scenery so I moved to Orlando and repeated my freshman year. Upon arriving I, a tenured bookworm, tried my hand at athletics and met Shavonne Johnson. Shavonne was on the volleyball team with me. I practiced with her, played with her, and quickly we became friends. It felt like a great friendship. We spent a lot of time together outside of school doing what friends do like watch movies or have sleepovers with other friends. It would take a whole summer away in Jacksonville, FL, during which we talked often on the phone, before I admitted honestly to myself that it was more than platonic for me. As this revelation developed it wasn’t easy. I cried in anguish, hated my life, and even cursed God, all because I dared to love a girl. I hated myself for having these feelings. I’d believed so strongly in my baptism, so sure I had put this behind me. But the answer wasn’t simply four as elementary had taught me, this was more complicated. I couldn’t just wash away who I was. 

In the end I returned to school in Orlando my sophomore year excited but, I wasn’t ready to conquer my fears. My revelation didn’t suddenly give me the might of Sampson. Instead, I became meeker and a gap developed between Shavonne and I. Eventually she would confront me by secret courier note as high schoolers do when expressing deep emotion.  The folded piece of paper told me of her deepest hurt that we weren’t as close anymore. In reality I’d forced myself to drift away from her because it would reveal too much of my truth if we remained intimate. More truth than even I was ready for. Her note however pulled at my heartstrings. I asked myself if I could find the courage to really tell her. In the end I determined it would be better to speak than to just let our friendship end so I coordinated a time we could talk. When the time came I was still undecided about actually exchanging words. I had to take a portion of the jelly that was my courage and make it solid enough to form a backbone. With that I called her and over the phone and I confessed everything. Told her the reason why I was hesitant to be so close. To my surprise, and to the joy of my romantic heart, she wasn’t disgusted but intrigued. All my fantasies of being chased down the street like a monster were put rest as exaggerations. She spent the entire night up with me excitedly talking about societies views and family acceptance and what this meant for us. We never slept. A high school crush was the best natural high, better than cocaine. We met the next day in school, both smiling from ear to ear. I had done it, I’d told her, and in doing so I started to accept a large part of myself for the first time. Even though we only lasted about two months and she’d eventually lose her virginity to my brother, a story for another time, she helped me open up my true path. She was the first time I admitted to myself who I wanted to love. As a result I continued exploring the lesbian I’d always been so that I could become the woman I am today. That has lead me to the person I love now. By this time I’d been through so many situations, trying to find the right answer for me, that I knew how to handle most things. More importantly I knew that women were the right fit for me and that feeling was magic. With any luck the woman I’m dating now is my last great love and I will be able to fall in love with her over and over again for the rest of my life.  Time will tell but I’ve found a little bit more of my own happiness in knowing I’m a lesbian.