the one woman apollo!

michael, peace will come, no matter what: a reflection (no. 1)

Posted on December 18, 2011 by jamilah

i get it. i finally get it. i… FINALLY. GET. IT.

i’ve never even SEEN peter pan. but i get it.

it began the day i met beth, and i mentioned my love and respect for you. beth tried to stump me by telling me about this interview with you at havenhurst in 1983, describing it bit by bit. i said, ‘i know EXACTLY which interview you speak of! i have a tape of it at home.’ and i began quoting pieces from it. every time i’d see beth, i’d sing the ‘peter pan’ song, motioning my arms and hands similar to how you did it:

dancing on a cloud
soaring up so high
watch me now
watch me… now
i’m peter pan
i can do anything
i soar so high
i am forever

when i sang it, beth said i almost sounded like you… this is how much i’d practise your intonations, your cadences. all i know is, as sweetly as you sang it, there was such a sadness to your voice… a sadness to, of course, those eyes. every time you’d get nervous, you’d break out in song. this has been consistent with you. more recently with martin bashir.

you: there’s things that make me very sad… very, very sad. it can affect me for months. and it hurts. and that’s when i get really depressed. REALLY depressed.

bashir: are you happy in yourself?

you (staring off into space): yes… yes. yes i am, because i love blue skies, whiskers on kittens (smile), brown paper packages tied up with strings… these are a few of my favourite things.

bashir: you’re just performing, aren’t you?

you: i told you, i’m on stage!

bashir: you just live in an imaginary world.

you: yeah. i love that.

when you begin thinking of a song, your eyes go off into another world, and light up. it’s quite similar to selma, bjork’s character in ‘dancer in the dark’. in a world in which she feels isolation, danger, gradual loss of eyesight and impending death, selma’s world is transformed in seconds through the sounds in her head. soundscapes are created by just one judge’s gavel, or by vibrations of machines. selma closes her eyes and envisions an elaborate stage show.

when the dog bites
when the bee stings
when I’m feeling sad
i simply remember my favorite things
and then I don’t feel so bad

interestingly, selma also, in her darkest hour, calls out the lyrics to ‘my favourite things’. and with that, it makes her feel not so bad.

i mean, i’ve never even seen ‘the sound of music’… but i get it.

i really get it now.

it’s sort of like when john coltrane’s version of the rogers’-penned tune calms me. did i ever tell you that john coltrane was the first person who ever got me to love music? i mean, TRULY love music… yeah, i was 19 years old, and even though i grew up with music since i came into this world, it wasn’t until i heard ‘giant steps’ and herbie hancock’s ‘maiden voyage’, when i absolutely fell in love with music…. where i finally saw music as conveying energy and light.

but again, i have a habit of digressing.

it wasn’t until today, where i realized the true power of ‘peter pan’… the power of ‘my favourite things’. the power of song to not only effect energy, but to transform worlds.

the look on your face as you enter the world of peter pan is, for all intents and purposes, disassociation from whatever abuse has happened to you. we’ve discussed this numerous times. in looking at you (and the character of selma) though; the power in your delivery is MUCH more effective than watching peter pan itself.

i just watched a few scenes from ‘peter pan’ (the play, not the animated version), and i have to say, it didn’t give me the same sense of endearment as watching you do it. i suppose it’s the dissociative aspect which makes me a bit more empathetic to your rendition to the whole ‘neverland’ story. just knowing that there are so many parts of myself which are utterly naive to the ‘outside world’, i don’t identify with peter pan in any of the ways you do… but i finally understand why you do.

…growing up means it would be
beneath my dignity to climb a tree

…neverland will always be
the home of youth and joy and liberty!

i see these lyrics and i actually become sad… not only because it’s most likely that the huge oak tree you climbed and got inspiration from runs the risk of being neglected- but also because that home of ‘youth and joy and liberty’ became adulterated with search warrants and lawsuits.

it takes a certain type of person to understand children. one can be a great parent, but it does not mean they understand children. it’s sort of difficult to know how to put this. in order to understand children, you have to have at least a little bit of the child remaining within you, to gain a perspective. this is evident in observing how adults speak with children. those who understand will not speak with them in a condescending manner. those who understand will look a child in the eye, and even bend down to do so once in a while.

i get contradictory responses from adults, in my relations with children. i hear from parents all the time that i would be a wonderful mother, as i am wonderful with their children. i ALSO hear that i shouldn’t talk, as i have no expertise in parenting. if you want to hurt me, that is something you say. would parents who abuse their children have more expertise in ‘child-rearing’ than one who spends time with children, yet gives them lots of care?

it gives me great joy to say hello to the little ones, and they give me hugs. i love to draw for them; to engage with them, mirroring their gestures (that makes them smile a whole lot). again, i don’t think your relationships with children were dangerous by any means; as i told you though, i do think it was a bit unfair of you to use them as a form of therapy without receiving proper treatment for your trauma. children are too vulnerable to be able to determine your mental state.

still, it warms my heart whenever i see your eyes light up when you speak of the child… whenever you held the hand of a tiny one with such gentleness. to see you, as tired as you may have been, conjure up as much energy as you could to have the time and space for children in your life… and all this happened before you even approached the role of fatherhood.

i know i said i don’t like talking about your children, but i want to get back to them for a moment- very rarely do you see a public display of love from a child to a parent as i have seen with them towards you. again, i think it’s a testament to your skills as a parent, how you devoted so much of your life to them, instead of flaunting your ‘celebrity status’. you instilled in them the value of finding worth in their own sense of ‘the child’, and seeing to it that other children around the world have worth.

i have a place where dreams are born
and time is never planned
it’s not on any chart
you must find it with your heart
never never land.
it might be miles beyond the moon
or right there where you stand
just keep an open mind,
and then suddenly you’ll find
never never land

so…

beth has returned into the picture, and i again, sing this ‘peter pan’ song… i sang it at work yesterday, as well as on my way home from work. it gave me so much power… i really did feel as if i was floating.

i’m flying…
look at me
way up high
suddenly
here am i
i’m flying.

“it’s magic… it’s hard to explain…. i can just jump up! i swear… and take off. i better not think too hard about it. i might do it.”

i just kept singing and singing… and singing. and i sang until i came home, and i sang to lumbia.

“you can feel the energy, everything around you. you can just feel it. energy from the moon, the plants. everything around you. it’s wonderful. i think nature, animals and all those things, are very inspirational to my work. i play off of those things. and children. to stimulate ideas, it just creates all kinda things, i just can’t tell ya. i think the majority of my success is from these sources.”

yes… yes.

just singing this song, this song about peter pan was for me, simply about vibrational energy. i really DID feel i could just take off. it took me to another place i never expected peter pan to take me, especially with me not being familiar with peter pan.

yes, i finally understood the ‘safe space’ you created, with allowing peter pan in your heart. indeed, it makes me sad to see the pause and deep inhalation you took when singing “i’m peter pan”, but finding that ‘safe space’ was recognizable to me. i saw it when i was singing it.

we all have to find it from somewhere. that place where we know we won’t be harmed, by the ‘outside world’. that place where we can feel at home. that place where abuse never exists. where it’s not even a word in the vocabulary. the place we can just soar and learn from our mistakes, without being told we are bound to make them… that place where we can finally find love and acceptance within ourselves.

dancing on a cloud
soaring up so high
watch me now
watch me… now
i’m peter pan
i can do anything
i soar so high
i am forever

love, jamilah

Posted in cats, childhood, children, dreams, freedom, life, michael jackson, parenting, transcendence, trauma, universal law | Tagged few of my favourite things, havenhurst, kittens | Leave a comment

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 107)

Posted on December 17, 2011 by jamilah

okay… there are two different things going on. i feel like the title of these blog entries just don’t make sense anymore, because as long as certain people close to you are still here on this earth you will never be at peace.

people always speak of ghosts living in houses, and how they can be seen. i don’t know about YOUR ghost, but i have a feeling, since how you left this earth was NOT peaceful, whoever lives in the house you were last in is going to have some interesting experiences. in terms of the house you GREW UP in… i don’t know if there will ever be peace there, since the people who reside there most likely are not.

i was at work yesterday, and someone approached me, saying she saw an interview with your daughter. the expression and look on her face read that she felt the children were being exploited. even though i agree, i thought nothing of it since i don’t generally follow what happens to your kids, which is what i told the woman who approached me. if i WERE to follow them i’d spend the rest of my life mad at the world, and in particular your relatives for contributing to the exploitation.

however, as my teacher i feel that i’d like to see if your children are in any way continuing the teachings, so i acknowledge my curiosity of their whereabouts takes hold occasionally. when the woman told me of the interview with paris, i assumed she was speaking about a generic interview, as the kids are being pulled all over the place. but no- she was LITERALLY interviewed YESTERDAY MORNING by ellen degeneres.

i still have yet to see the circus of the winfrey interview, done with your parents and children. considering how exploitative winfrey is, it’s amazing your mother did not take the time out to do research on her interviewing style. then again, she didn’t take the time to do research on gene simmons, when she stated you would be proud to have his band (kiss) to be part of some grand memorial concert for you. simmons has been quite public in his negative view of your relationship with children. i’m actually more perturbed by your mother’s ignorance of simmons’ (again very public) views, than by simmons. for your mother to also consent to an interview by winfrey (who opted to exploit your personal life as well as the child abuse allegations in many ways) with your children i feel is a sign of disrespect.

but i digress…

i’m not sure who thought it was a wise idea for this child to be interviewed by ms. degeneres. i’ve seen people say that you’d be proud of how she carried herself. i have no doubts about that; however, would you be proud of the fact that she conducted such a major interview? clearly, i, nor anyone else, will have the answer to that. from my perspective though, as you spent so much of your life trying to protect your children from major exploitation, i find it disturbing that, since the ‘memorial/concert’ promoted by AEG last year, these children have been overexposed. i fear the same cycle which happened to you and your brothers will happen to them- you know, that cycle of children who essentially become ‘cash cows’.

i did watch the interview. even though she carried herself with a lot of confidence, i also saw paris become clearly uncomfortable throughout the interview. degeneres’ tone was sort of condescending, as if she was speaking to a 5-year old child. the camera cut to a shot of her brothers. my hunch appears to be correct in that, even though you can tell they are still grieving, both prince and paris seemed to have adjusted to life without their father fairly well. it’s blanket i am truly concerned about. when the camera cut to an audience shot of prince and blanket, you saw prince trying to get blanket to respond in some way. blanket sat in his chair, looking so heartbroken. he pulled forced smiles and applause. i see heavy signs of trauma on his face, and i wonder if he is able to express his grief to his siblings, or anyone else. i see not one person is speaking about this. all i see and hear is ‘their father, i know he is so proud of them.’

i don’t know what blanket is like in private (THANKFULLY); in public though, all i see is a little boy who is not ready to be pushed into the spotlight in the way he is being pushed. his eyes look so vacant. it’s as if people are conditioned to believe that a grieving period lasts for a brief amount of time, then you just ‘move on’. it’s as if we forget that three CHILDREN LOST A FATHER. and one of those children is still very small. to see pictures of them plastered everywhere- coming from school, prince with a girlfriend, paris at a chris brown concert writing on twitter- WHY EXACTLY DO WE CARE??!! is there a point where people can live their lives free of cameras? it’s bad enough we live under a system of surveillance… how hypocritical is it of us to object to being watched by ‘big brother’, then advocate the images by the paparazzi of our ‘favourite celebrities’ (and their children)?

do we forget the possibility that, had you still been here on this earth, NONE of what we see would be happening? could there be a possibility that prince would not have a girlfriend, or that paris would not yet star in movies- because you were protecting them? COULD there be a possibility that all three kids would STILL be home schooled (yes!!!)? is there a possibility that you would have arranged some special meeting in order for paris to not be mobbed by cameras when she went to see chris brown? people may protest that the kids are growing older, and they need their individuality. i acknowledge/understand this. however, those kids are NEVER going to be seen as individuals by the masses or by media. they are going to be judged/observed by the virtue of being the kids of ‘michael jackson ™’. perhaps it’s idealistic to think that the less they were exposed as children; by the time they were old enough to go out in the world as mature young people/adults, no one would have known what they looked like so they could move around, free of media’s prying eyes. they would also be able to move around in the world, not living in your shadow.

now, this will never be a possibility.

the most telling aspect of the interview with ms. degeneres was when paris mentioned that neither she nor her brothers were aware of the level of fame you’d achieved. she said that she knew you had “a few songs out” and that she “figured everyone did that.” i took this statement initially to be a generational one, as paris is of the age where everyone produces a song on youtube, facebook, soundcloud, myspace, etc. in order to be heard. technologically, it’s so much easier to present your art to the world, as opposed to people of our generation, where you sat through long auditions, or produced demos at a studio.

i then thought about it, and realized her statement was a true testament to your parenting skills. sometimes, yes, you did take your kids with you while you worked, or at an interview (most notably, the interviews you did with martin bashir); for the most part though, it appears as if you separated your role as a parent from your role as a celebrity. from paris’ statement, it was as if you protected that part of yourself (and everything that came with it) from your children. i commend you greatly for that, and it’s something i wish the rest of your siblings (and your parents, and many others in your profession) could learn from.

i actually love that, in so many cases, you just sat around with your kids in pajamas… that you ate cake with them. that you let yourself get dirty. that you asserted your role as a parent and didn’t let them run you (THANK YOU!) but you also allowed them to have a voice, and made sure they were heard.

with that, i saw no point in ms. degeneres continuously asking paris about you. if she was there to promote a film she starred in (something i’m not too happy about; all i can say is that i wish her the best, and that i hope she continues to have a head on her shoulders), let her promote the film as opposed to dozens of questions about her father.

i don’t like talking about your kids at all, but the fact that this interview happened set me off. while i was watching it, it almost brought tears to my eyes. it made me wonder, if these kids were raised by anyone in the family BUT you, would they have a sense of empathy for others? would they try to live off the jackson name, without trying to work?

the interview made me think as well- this is the first time we see the kids actually significantly separated in any way. is this something they are worried about? are they afraid that ‘fame’ is going to cause rifts between each other? this is different- it’s not like when you ultimately decided to separate yourself from your brothers due to different value systems/work ethics- the final straw being the victory tour. when you separated from your brothers, we saw it happening over the years; due to media speculation, or just by seeing your level of performance versus your brothers’… but the actual ‘official announcement’ was not until a split would be seen as inevitable, through a tour rife with controversy.

we see the same cycle happening with you, through paris- she’s tagged as the one with ‘the talent’… the one who is most like you. to me, this whole experience is different, as we (or at leasy i) haven’t even seen any sort of moderate development of her talents even. she’s just been propped up through paparazzi. this is how we capture glimpses of her life. i have no doubt that she is a talented young lady- my fear though, is that the overexposure will have her slipping away from the values you taught her.

…which leads me to another thing she said to ms. degeneres: she asked paris about something you said to her, and her brothers. “if i die tomorrow, remember what i told you.” so many things entered my mind when she said this. i observed this from a cultural/survivalist angle… when you come from a lineage of slaves, for better or for worse, you instill values in the future generations, in order to cope with/survive societal aspects which may clash with your indigenous values. many of these values have been beaten out of us; there are still facets we remember, subconsciously.

being that you lived in an environment which is essentially counterintuitive to ANY indigenous culture, survival mode kicked in. you saw it in performance, in interviews… i think that most people who pay attention recognize how you spoke and acted, depending on the (cultural) situation. i think there are aspects of this you instilled in your children. i don’t know specifically what you told your children, but i have a feeling you were preparing them for what is NOW happening. and again, paris and prince seem better able to adjust to this new world than blanket.

just from looking at paris though, it seems to me you instilled in them the values you didn’t learn when you were their age: how to deal with people OUTSIDE of their environment. i mean, you did the chitlin’ circuit, did tv shows, were on motown… the only people you seemed to deal with outside of your profession were fans. and let’s face it, that’s not outside of the confines of your profession. they all know they are more than just ‘michael jackson’s ™’ kids, and they have more to give to the world than just living in the shadow of your name.

even though i KNOW this, i just wish they would be left alone and allowed to be KIDS.

hmmmmmm… it sounds too much like a repeat of their father’s life. this is what saddens me. i TRULY hope this is not the case.

love, jamilah

Posted in africa, childhood, children, life, michael jackson, parenting, transcendence, trauma, universal law | Leave a comment

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 106)

Posted on December 7, 2011 by jamilah

“Being able to say that one is a survivor is an accomplishment. For many, the power is in the name itself. And yet comes a time in the individuation process when the threat or trauma is significantly past. Then is the time to go to the next stage after survivorship, to healing and thriving. … One can take so much pride in being a survivor that it becomes a hazard to further creative development. … Once the threat is past, there is a potential trap in calling ourselves by names taken on during the most terrible time of our lives. It creates a mind-set that is potentially limiting. It is not good to base the soul identity solely on the feats and losses and victories of the bad times.”- (clarissa pinkola estés)

now that i’ve had a few days to regroup and think, here we are again… it’s something i needed, inevitably.

looking at photos of you when you were younger tends to be a way for me to regroup. it’s quite humbling. this may sound odd, but as we grew up with similar childhoods, i look at you and think to myself, ‘what if i had access to as much money?’ admittedly internalizing much of what my mother said and did to me as a child- saying i was stupid, worthless, and that my features were undesirable (even to the point that bleaching cream was put on my sister and i)- i do wonder if i personally would have regretted dramatically altering my looks in any way. the truth is, had i been financially successful, i would have found a way to alter my FULL physical self- not just specific features. if i could have done anything to disappear, i would have done it. i’ve already discussed this before, how too many people observe the notion of race in simplistic ways when it comes to trauma. if indeed, people look at you as ‘wanting to be white’ because you chose to alter your features in order to ‘please your father’; wouldn’t that mean there are issues of so-called ‘self-hatred’ in your father- the man who religiously opined that your features were undesirable? wouldn’t the ‘self-hatred’ of you reflect upon the ‘self-hatred’ of both your parents and a majority of your siblings, who ALSO altered their features and hair?

and wouldn’t this mean that as a culture, we refuse to acknowledge that abuse/trauma exists, when we narrow it down to something as conditioned as race?

i digress…

i still struggle with the internalization, but i’m glad i am able to live through it, without having to change who i am in any way.

“i was the one that would fight back when i was little. he’d try to beat me and stuff like that, because i sang the wrong- i didn’t do something right, or i did the wrong dance… the wrong move. and i would argue back and i would fight back. and i’d run like HELL, and he couldn’t catch me, you know?

my brothers used to say i was crazy. and i was little. and i would always fight joseph back, and i would always get my ass beat. and then i used to run, and i threw a shoe at him… and he knocked me down on the floor one time, because we were rehearsing in our living room. i did something wrong. he knocked the mess outta me. and we were supposed to perform somewhere the next day. and he knocked me down so hard, i lost my wind… i was just little! so i got up, i was so furious. they talk about me being conceited, you know? i got up, and i was crying and stuff. and i said, ‘joseph, if you hit me again, I’M NOT PERFORMING!’ he’s like ‘what the F*** did you say?’ …i wasn’t even nine years old… i was probably just about seven. i said, ‘joseph, if you hit me again’- and i was crying my eyes out- i said, ‘if you hit me again, i am NOT performing…’ he left me alone. i said ‘i’m not doin’ the show!’ he said, ‘don’t you know i will kick your m.f. ass’ and all this and that; i got up- the wind was knocked outta me. i said ‘you hit me again and i won’t perform.’ and he knew i was the star performer. and he didn’t hit me.”

i listen to you saying this and it reminds me of the things my mother would say about her childhood- that fighting back from her familial abuser(s). the cadence you spoke in- that dazed, almost monotone gesture- reminds me of one of my aunts. whenever i’d call her she’d say “who’s your favourite aunt?” really… listening to you was like speaking with my aunt. it’s as if there is a common set of tones amongst people who’ve grown up with childhood trauma, when speaking about the trauma.

i absolutely respect and admire your courage to fight back as a child. i am a proponent of children respecting their parents and not unnecessarily mouthing off; but really, there is a point where children SHOULD have an inherent right to fight off their abusers, even if they are parents. beating a kid because they take a wrong dance step (amongst other things) is senseless. using your talent as leverage to prevent one type of abuse was indeed helpful for you, but ultimately after he stopped beating you the effects of emotional abuse became prominent.

you virtually being alone in fighting your father back (as the brothers looked on in fear) makes sense of you being alone in a lot of ways as an adult. clearly i don’t know everything you’ve been through- in basing everything i’ve heard you say and looking at your art in relation to my own experiences, it IS easy to see though, how people COULD consider you to be conceited when they do not recognize or want to acknowledge the affects of abuse within you; as well as the defense mechanisms you’ve created for yourself, for better or worse.

“Do not cringe and make yourself small if you are called the black sheep, the maverick, the lone wolf. Those with slow seeing say a nonconformist is a blight on society. But it has been proven over the centuries, that being different means standing at the edge, means one is practically guaranteed to make an original contribution, a useful and stunning contribution to her culture.”- (clarissa pinkola estés)

there’s only a certain point where you want to keep fighting. if you continue to live in a toxic environment, you begin to resign yourself to it.

When a creature is exposed to violence, it will tend to adapt to that disturbance, so that when the violence ceases or the creature is allowed its freedom, the healthy instinct to flee is hugely diminished, and the creature stays put instead. -(clarissa pinkola estés)

as a person who has lived through trauma, i am certainly glad to not be working in the industry you worked in, where it is essentially impossible to do any true work of healing.

i look closely at photos of you, at those sad eyes, and i’ll say it again- it upsets me to no end how ANYONE uses the lowering of self-esteem as a means of control. people talk about the ‘bullying’ phenomenon when it comes to younger people, and choose to remain silent on the issue when it comes to parenting, opting to focus on physical/sexual abuse. ALL forms of abuse are interconnected. how could ANYONE look at someone as beautiful as you- with those sweet eyes, those beautiful coils of strength flowering from your scalp, that shy smile, that nose which was a symbol of the motherland and her travels, that caring demeanor, that confidence… and not see beauty? i still marvel at how ANYONE, ESPECIALLY your own FATHER- the man whose genes you share- could try to control his own SON by making him feel so low. in some of the photos there is such a hollowness in your eyes, i could only imagine the events leading up to the time the photo was taken.

“i’ve seen my brothers… when we were traveling and stuff and doing the circuit and all that. joseph would be in another room messing with a girl and it was obvious they were having sex… i didn’t wanna tell mother; marlon and i didn’t wanna tell, but… all my brothers kind of just… did the same thing.

i remember… marlon and i had to share a room with jermaine… i felt so guilty when we used to come home from the circuit… i felt so guilty and i just cried, and joseph choked me, almost broke my arm one day. but he was proud of it. it’s like, ‘oh, this is what you should do, boy.’ i mean, he wouldn’t say that, but he was screwin’ women in the other room and stuff.”

and after your features were altered, besides your times with children, the hollowness never faded… it only increased. your father was replaced with record executives, lawyers and court dates… until the point where the only time you looked truly at peace was in your autopsy photo.

i keep all of this in mind and am truly thankful, even though i struggle with internalization, that i looked into enough of myself to remove myself from some detrimental situations, be it familial or otherwise. with you, i recognized that the light you had never dimmed, but you chose to remain in such toxic environments it was a lot less easy to recognize the light if you were not already familiar with it.

your ethnicity and status were intertwined in so many ways, it ultimately entrapped you in those toxic environments. people focused so much on the success of ‘thriller’, of you being a member of ‘black royalty’; of all of your supposed quirks… yet there was no attempt of an understanding of you as a person, and why you MAY have wanted to not associate yourself with your blood relatives at any given point.

“…my father called and asked me for half a million dollars… on father’s day. joseph called me with some sob story, and he said ‘i’ve been trying to get a hold of you for three weeks.’ i’m like, ‘yeah, well what do you want?’ and he’s like, ‘your number’s changed.’ i said, ‘yeah, anyway, what do you want?’ …he had to go through four different people to get a hold of me. i said okay fine, put his call through. he wanted to borrow half a million dollars. i’m like, ‘…what did you do now? why are you in debt this time, joseph?’ you know, he laid this crap on me about ‘oh well, you know, you my son, you know… i’ll pay it back and you know, we can come up with a contract.’

…when he had joe jackson productions… he was real good in the beginning, you know, with us; when we were little, but… he’s not a very good businessman… he wanted to borrow money before and then he had to go through mother to get it… they want me to give joseph money and stuff like that. so i say okay, well, i’m not gonna give it to joseph- i’ll give it to mother, so he doesn’t just throw all the money away and stuff like that.

‘you know, if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be where you are today.’ he’d always tell us that, when we were little. ‘well you know, if it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t be where you are. if it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t be michael jackson’ and stuff…

and i told him before, ‘cos we got into a big fight. i said, ‘that’s halfway true.’ i said, ‘but you know what? i grew up in this business and i learned a lot. you had a lot to do with it in the beginning and i thank you for that, but i can’t pay you back for the rest of my life… i know the business better than you do.’ and i said, ‘you can’t keep throwing that in my face… because it took you to get me started.’ i said, ‘but then after that, i was my own business man.'”

the contradicting responses/actions are enough to cause depression. is one supposed to love a parent simply because they are a parent, even if the parent is not willing to contribute anything positive to a relationship? it’s one thing to love your family; but to always be expected to answer to everything in positive ways (particularly when your experiences have not been positive) is unrealistic, and it should not happen to anyone simply because of the connections between class and race in this nation. no family or person is perfect. in other words, just because you are the jackson family, you should not have to pretend the facade of togetherness. instead of pretending, there should be discussions within the family on how to pro-actively deal with each other.

in 2003, when louis theroux asked your father about the ‘regurgitations’ whenever you’d see him, his response was that you “can regurgitate all the way to the bank.” a charge of childhood trauma is serious, and for mr. jackson to make such a callous remark clearly disregards your need to feel heard. he also mentioned a few moments later that he did not care about the illness you felt when he was around you.

“you know, it’s like, the jackson family, they’re so wholesome and we all took pictures together back in the jackson 5 days with motown and stuff like that. we were all so close and joseph was, you know, papa joe. and then toya told the truth. they portray everything, you know, because of publicity. ‘the jackson family. they lived in a ghetto in gary, indiana and they made it and they’re so tight knit.’ tight knit my ass.”

as we can see, there are still rifts within the family structure, just with the recent so-called ‘tribute concert’ in wales. when a structure is driven by the illusion of money (or the illusions of status or power, as opposed to light or love energy) you are always going to have these rifts.

as your sister la toya once said, “you can’t live your life with this in your system.”

i am still learning this too (in relation to the relationship with my own mother and my internalization)- it’s imperative we learn from the past, in order to be informed about what to do in the future. from my vantage point, you were definitely learning from the past- it fueled your work ethic into the future… in a lot of ways though, you were hindered by it, because it drove how you lived your life. so much of what you did was driven by how your father (in particular) treated you. the music you made, your performance, even some of the speeches you gave, were driven by the broken relationship with your father.

was it indeed therapeutic to you, or did it simply fuel your art? on another end, it’s pretty clear that children fueled your art as well. i consider both your father and children to be on different ends of the same spectrum, as they are interrelated to your trauma. your art was so contradictory (from playful and idealistic to violent) i can’t help but think this is the case.

as unintentional as it may appear, throughout all of this i’ve unearthed another major teaching. quoting you here in relation to your family runs the risk of being exploitative; however, it’s important to acknowledge the lessons in our imperfections, in order to strive towards healing. with that, the question i have is, is an exposed relationship between father and son any more exploitative than any other relationship we see and hear about- or, is it our perception of how YOUR family is supposed to be?

when we watch ‘the masters at work’, i don’t believe for one second it’s limited to how they are presented by media. the true lessons are beyond the illusions, the facade… the true work is in finding the interconnectedness of all things.

here are some words you said- to me, it is a lesson regarding not only reaching your goals, but in rising above your traumas. sometimes- well, A LOT of times i feel discouraged, and i return to this teaching:

“no matter what, the most powerful thing in the world is the human mind. and prayer. and belief in yourself. and confidence. and perseverance. no matter how many times you do it, you do it again, until it’s right. and always believe in yourself, and no matter who’s around you that’s being negative or thrusting negative energy at you, totally block it off. ‘cos whatever you believe, you become.”

regardless of whatever difficulties you’ve had within yourself, your family and others; i really do think you took this lesson to heart in many ways. you would not have been in the position you were had you not taken it to heart.

the mind is so powerful that sometimes it is frightening.

i mean, what if we all internalized love for ourselves, but with humility? to me, the key to this is looking at the interconnectedness of all things; to recognize that great teaching of you, with all parts (good and not so good) being ‘another part of me’.

“well you see, the people have a voice inside of them, that talk to them, you know? that is the voice that these people must listen to. because in everything you go and do, there is a wrong way, and a right way. and if you listen good you will know the right way. you know? because there is a voice inside, talking to everyone. seen? seen.”- (robert nesta marley)

seen.

love, jamilah

Posted in africa, childhood, children, freedom, life, michael jackson, parenting, transcendence, trauma | Leave a comment

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 105)

Posted on December 1, 2011 by jamilah

i’m sure you know by now. murray got sentenced to four years.

i really don’t know what to say, that i haven’t already said.

frankly, i’m tired of re-living 25 june 2009. or i should say, i’m tired of people trying to make me re-live it in a certain way. i have yet to see a mass focus on the teachings. this is what makes me feel the worst about everything. if people want to focus on how they consider you a drug addict, and that everything which happened to you was not conrad murray’s fault; why not put in work to make sure people don’t make the same mistakes? why not put in work to make sure people have proper alternatives to all of the pharmaceuticals?

why not make sure children as a whole are protected from harmful chemicals? why not KNOW THE INGREDIENTS of these vaccines and medications before you allow them to be put in these children’s bodies? why not take the time to know what YOU are consuming, before you make judgments about other people overdosing?

again, i don’t find you immune from responsibility (as you made the ultimate decision to allow these synthetic drugs into your body), but the focus on how you did all of this to yourself is a distraction which is getting out of hand. if you injected yourself (which has been proven to not be the case- the defense attorneys eventually found they could not continue with that argument, because it did not carry any weight), then something is entirely wrong with that scenario. if, (according to some people) murray should not be responsible, how did you get access to propofol? that makes no sense. it’s imperative to have done research in order to have an informed view.

to me, the focus on whether or not you were an addict ultimately is not about whether or not you were an addict- it’s an unnecessary focus on celebrity culture. how many people are addicted to sugar/high fructose corn syrup? how many people are addicted to having a cellular phone to their ear? how many people put chemicals in their hair every two to three weeks in order to straighten it? how many people are addicted to looking at the internet? all of these things affect your body in ways that alter your cellular/energy state. how many of these addictions are not examined in full by the medical industries? how many lobbyists support these addictions? how many of them are even considered addictions?

what makes one addiction worse than another? what makes something an addiction as opposed to a dependency? what makes some ‘deaths’ more valuable than others?

even if you were addicted to certain drugs, does that give a doctor a right to neglect his patient? why is your name or status a factor in this situation? does that give you more or less rights to sufficient medical care than patients who are poor? i mean COME ON. murray did NOT know how to properly do CPR. okay… say you WERE alone, and you decided to inject yourself, but it went wrong. and murray happened to be living next door and saw you in the window or something. and he went to help you and AS A DOCTOR did not know CPR. right away the man needs his license revoked.

i’m not sure why people continue to focus on who you are, and don’t stop and act logically. how does a doctor NOT know CPR? how does a doctor, whilst claiming innocence, wait to phone 911 for 20 minutes? how does a doctor ask someone to hide the evidence?

and how is a doctor, who, back and forth in e mails to AEG wanting to get paid, not even do his job properly? he didn’t even have to do much but watch a patient… and he, as a cardiologist, purchasing tons and tons of propofol- then leaving a patient with the stuff running intravenously through his veins whilst going to talk on the phone to his girlfriend- actually incriminated him.

STILL… even though i think the charges should have been raised to voluntary manslaughter (at LEAST) i did NOT think he would actually be sentenced to four years. i admit my surprise.

am i upset? yes, but not for reasons having anything to do with him, or you. justice has NOT been served, counter to the fact that many think it has. even if murray gets all of his licenses revoked and cannot practise after he gets out, how many people like murray are still practising in the medical profession?

i wish the focus on celebrities and pills would cease. the pharmaceutical industry and their lobbyists are selling people (of all class levels) artificial pills for things they don’t need pills for. i mean, what did people do to heal themselves before this industry gained influence? they sell all this horrible food in these institutions- then people get high blood pressure, diabetes and other ailments; then they go to the doctor and have to take all of these medicines which do not deal with the ailments wholistically or nutritionally.

in some cases, people have seen the effects of diabetes reverse or lessen with a raw food diet:

http://www.tudiabetes.org/group/rawfooddiabetics

http://www.alternativesmagazine.com/18/boutenko.html

these things may not work for everyone, but there is no harm in trying it, as opposed to simply depending on doctors and high medical rates every second of your life. for me, cutting out sweets and wheat (and soy) has helped me tremendously, with what i was going through. i’m not in any way saying DON’T see a doctor; what i AM saying is, before one rushes to the doctor/hospital for a non-emergency, one should examine what’s in the diet first.

it’s that ‘looking in the mirror’ before outside forces make the decision with what is going on with you. frankly, what happened to you did not have to happen to you. nutritionally, you did not take care of yourself. i don’t care what anybody says. you did not. yes, you ate organic foods, etc. but you also ate a mass amount of KFC, consumed a lot of caffeine, had insomnia, had lupus, vitiligo, arthritis and who knows what else. you SHOULD have taken a look at yourself and reassessed your life- this means you should have STOPPED working so much for a while. stop trying to please people/your fans so much, and just spent MORE time with your kids. if you sat and created a 5-year plan to get all your debts in order without having had exerted energy you didn’t feel you had- or i should say, that you didn’t need to have a ‘live in doctor’ to make sure you were resting up for a strenuous set of shows for… then you may still be here to be a father for your children. you could have, say, finished out the two albums you owed to sony, then received the masters to your music back once you’ve fulfilled your end of the contract, and most likely gotten high fees for licensing your music out for specific events by these media organizations. you could have made sony pay YOU for use of thriller. that album will always be the pinnacle of sony/CBS’s success, and you could have milked that and threw it in their faces.

and now the fans you’ve defended as driving the direction of the industry no longer count to these industry people. the corporation now drives what the fans consume. with that, i don’t think most of the fans would have been upset if you didn’t record any music specific to an album for 5 years, so you could take time to primarily be a father. if you just stopped and NOT performed for 20 years i don’t think the world would stop.

and now we have what we have now. and people are STILL saying ‘it’s too bad he died, now i’ll never see him perform again.’

i’ve said this before and i’ll say it again, knowing people are going to dis-agree with me; i’d rather have a kid who was not abused and had a happy life grow up and work at a supermarket or whatever and be well-adjusted, then have someone who was abused and never had a chance to interact with people on positive levels and lived in front of cameras and mobs of fans for at least 41 years of his life…

i’d rather have no thriller… no jackson 5 at all, if that meant you would have adjusted to life in pro-active ways without any of it. celebrity culture is antithetical to anything pro-active. i recognize that you tried to use this culture in a way for you to focus on the health of children around the world; there was a price to pay for that though. you can’t do that in a world/culture that doesn’t care about children in the way you did.

and i’m sure you can see (wherever you are) the fact that, even under the influence of a lot of drugs, you wanted to use the money made from this tour that never happened to form a children’s hospital, has been lost on many people in order to focus on you being drugged.

okay, you were on drugs. that is obvious. but can we NOW focus on the teachings? can we focus on questioning the industries which produce these drugs? can we question the ingredients used? can we question why nutrition is not considered the most important factor in maintaining health?

the answer is clear; but i still ask these questions.

so no, i’m not angry at murray at all; he was just doing his job, siding himself with the value of money as opposed to a patient’s health. and of course, murray never recieved payment for his ‘services’ since neither you/thome nor AEG signed the contract in which he was to be paid. either this is karma, or a setup from AEG so they would not be implicated in your murder. i cannot say.

i’m actually more upset that it took you leaving this earth for people to openly acknowledge the corruption of this industry. i just want to ask you why you didn’t take further steps to care for yourself, nutritionally or otherwise? you certainly did NOT have to go down the road of painkillers, escalating to the point where you were receiving propofol to get some rest, and trusting a cardiologist to do the job an anesthesiologist is supposed to do. that is just too much.

and now all i can do is imagine the hours ticking down on that fateful day, as people continue to ask me about it, and ask me about you. it feels unreal thinking about it, and it’s been almost 2 1/2 years. it’s still not clear what happened, but i know this much: that a man who had faults just like any of us, left this earth alone.

it’s not something i wish for anyone.

love, jamilah

Posted in childhood, children, economy, justice, life, michael jackson, parenting, politics, trauma | Leave a comment

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 104)

Posted on December 1, 2011 by jamilah

i keep thinking about how the events which happened to us will prepare us for the future, if we are willing to let them.

in response to the abuse which happened to you, you looked to animals and children for inspiration. in the process you got to carry a lot of babies- and even bubbles, a chimpanzee. by the time you became a father yourself, you were well prepared on how to hold a small being.

the small things count. people made fun of you for your interests; in a funny way though, it could be seen as a form of therapy, to experience pain so much that you are sensitive to the pain of those who are small and vulnerable.

you don’t hear about a lot of men willing to step up and take on the role as (essentially) a single father. it obviously happens, but it’s not something which gets light. for a man to step up in his responsibilities as a father should not be an anomaly. i’m not going to commend you for that, since stepping up is something you are SUPPOSED to do. i WILL say though, that i’m sure the time with bubbles and all the babies in the hospitals was a teaching model for you.

i also keep thinking about the ‘biological clock’… even as a man (who biologically cannot give birth) you still felt it. in the cry for wanting to know what a ‘real relationship’ felt like came also the cry for the fear of not having someone to raise children with. because of technology and life expectancy not being as short as it used to be, we have reduced our connections/desire to extend our families. with little to no expectation of passing on a legacy due to agriculture or other types of labor, people have decided to hold off on raising children, or not having children at all.

but i know you wanted to have 10 children though. i’m not sure how you would have gotten there, but you wanted them. had lisa marie decided to have kids with you, would it have been that way? would you have had more kids with debbie? would you end up adopting a bunch of kids later in life?

how long would it be, if you never married, before you’d make a decision to begin raising children (on your own)? would you have even made that decision?

“There is no miracle in life that compares with watching your son come into the world.”

i want so badly to be able to experience that. i cry about it all the time, especially when i am at work, since there are so many babies. i mean, ones who came into the world just days and weeks ago!!! sometimes the kids become familiar with me- kids like abe- and we form a sort of relationship. the kids talk all about you to me sometimes.

Those are moments when fate is unsealed
Nothing is impossible and we are healed
We can soar, we can fly
Walk on fire, navigate the sky
In the light of a glittering star
There’s no distance, nothing is far
Those are moments of innocent guile
In the glow
We are suspended awhile
Those are moments when babies smile

when they cry, i love to draw them pictures, or give them potato people. just little things to make them smile. this makes them smile, or they get curious. i love to run to them and welcome them to the world. when they leave, i get so sad. as much as i love babies, it pains me so much to be around them because i want so badly to be a mother. to hold their tiny hands, hear their giggles… even all the ‘bad stuff’- the colic, the late nights crying, the spit-ups… i want this. i want to see them grow into their ‘terrible twos’, right on down to their teenage years, where they assert their independence and analyze everything… right on down to their adulthood, and hopefully i could look on and say, ‘i’ve done a great job as a mother’.

but i don’t think it’s something i will ever see. people tell me to just ‘give birth’ but it’s not something i ever plan to, or intend/have any desire to do. and if i were to give birth, i can’t conceive a baby alone. i would need to be with someone who is as focused on raising and loving a child as i.

with that, yes… i want to be a mother to a child who is already here on earth, and i want to raise the child with someone who has no desire to want to mate with me. to have a companionship, yes; but mating, no. i doubt if i will ever find someone who wants the same things i do.

i realize my preferences put me in a difficult situation, which is why i don’t think i will ever know what it’s like to be a mother, to raise a child. you, even if you didn’t get married to debbie and have kids, you still had the ability to adopt, due to your financial privilege. i don’t have $20,000 for fees and such. I JUST WANT A BABY. hanging out with kids and watching them grow and raising them are two different things; i’m sure you know that.

before too long i will be 40 years old, and it’s looking as if i’ll have no one to help me raise a kid, and end up being childless. i don’t think i’m going to jump off a bridge due to this, but this whole thing is a huge source of depression for me. i don’t want to give birth, but my womb is still… well, there’s still a huge void. i don’t even know how to explain that.

i know i keep writing about all this to you, but it just keeps coming back, in its many forms. sometimes the desire to have children is heightened more than other times, and right now it’s very heightened, and extremely triggering.

i look at what you said about your oldest son, and it mirrors something you said about yourself as a child, when asked what you wanted to do with your life:

“I want him to grow up surrounded by love and family, to receive the best education I can provide him with, to discover and develop his talents, and to use his resources to make life better for those less fortunate than he.”

i remember you saying something like this around the age of 5, when you said you wanted to be famous and live in a big mansion and you wanted to help people… something to that effect. despite our life’s experiences, there are some traits which remain with us into adulthood.

the values you instilled in your children in the the developing years i think will always be with them, even if they are going through a ‘difficult’ period now. my heart is with them.

love, jamilah

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michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 103)

Posted on November 28, 2011 by jamilah

the other day, little abe (the one who gave me the framed poster of the ‘bad’ cover) asked me, with his wide eyes, if i knew you were dead. how he asked me was between curiosity and assurance. as he saw the little michael, he wanted to be sure i knew you were no longer here on this earth. i don’t think that’s the first time he’s asked me, but every time he’s asked, it’s been different.

it’s always difficult to reenact in your head the day a loved one leaves this earth… despite knowing everyone has to go, watching the process happen before your eyes does not make it any easier. taking a look at videos of people spending time with their friends before they left this earth, brings me back to the day i watched my friend holly leave.

she was 8 years old, and had a form of cancer- pulmonary carcinoma. lung cancer, basically. she was a beautiful little tortoiseshell cat. she looked like this:

when we met, her name was ‘advocat’. not ‘advoCATE’, but advoCAT. with that, i did a little test to see if she was happy with that name. she ended up choosing holly.

we spent 7 years of companionship together- she even traveled on the plane with me when i moved from the east coast to the west. she sat not in cargo, but underneath the seat in front of me. she was so scared she kept crying… she was so happy to be out of the bag… she was a bit skittish and moody, but very friendly when she got to know you. and she would let you know if she liked you. she didn’t talk a lot but was very expressive. she didn’t like to sit on laps necessarily, but STAND on them. she had these beautiful, really large eyes. i called her ‘big eyes’. she had beautiful, large eyes, like yours.

she was always a sickly cat. i met her because a friend at the time knew i wanted to live with a cat. some friends of hers were not able to take care of her. they were feeding her more commercial food, and i chose not to. i gave her the best food i could find. she got ringworm, tapeworms, got sick sometimes… but i loved her just the same.

i was at work one day when i got a call from my house-mate, saying that holly was throwing up a lot. i mentioned that it was fine, since she threw up hairballs and such. my house-mate said this was different, and that she was vomiting more than usual. we took her to the emergency room, and they could not figure out what was wrong. i tried feeding her raw food, but she wasn’t eating it. her illness progressed quicker than i could ever imagine. one day she was eating, and the next day she wasn’t.

i took her to a veterinarian, where he discovered her cancer. at the same time this was going on, i got in that bicycle accident i had mentioned to you last time. i won some money from that case, and this helped me to actually move, as well as pay my and holly’s bills.

holly was rapidly losing weight because it hurt her so much to eat. the doctor said that if she were to have an operation there may be little chance of her survival, since the cancer was so far gone. whenever i picked her up, i could feel the tumor. it was hard, and as big as a softball. all this was happening as i was in the process of moving again. i felt like she was trying to tell me she didn’t want to move anymore, and that i should just let her go. letting her go was one of the hardest decisions i ever had to deal with. i didn’t want her to suffer though.

on the last day of her life, she had pretty much lost half of her body weight. she was about five pounds. she didn’t like to be held too much really, but i held her so much in the last few weeks of her life. it broke my heart to take her to the vet for the very last time. a man i knew from the community drove me there. he was very supportive.

i remember the day like it was yesterday. they let me have my last few minutes with her. we took pictures, and i told her i loved her. i don’t know if she heard that, because she was suffering so much. as they injected the needles into her, it felt like a stab to my heart. i wanted to leave, but i wanted to be there with her. they walked me through the process as it was going on. they spoke about her heart slowing down from the first needle. the second needle would cease her breathing. when i watched her take her last breath, it truly hurt. her eyes remained open after her last breath. i lost my dear friend. they let me have another few moments with her. i touched her and she immediately felt cold.

i broke down.

i could not go to bed in my room the night it happened. holly rested there with me. i miss her so much. i have her ashes. i am not sure how there are people who don’t recognize the bond between non-humans and humans. they have feelings too. it hurts so much to see our friends go, just as it hurts to see our parents, siblings, aunts, cousins, friends and other human loved ones go. to watch a loved one in the PROCESS of leaving is one thing- a VERY LARGE thing. but to see them actually GO, it is something you never forget.

holly left this earth on 17 july 2004.

being that i am one who cannot live my life without a cat companion, i knew that this would eventually happen; i just wasn’t sure when.

lumbia and i met on the 19th of march in 2005… she was a bit skittish at first, then she warmed up pretty quick. she is extremely talkative, loving and friendly. in terms of her name, i did the same thing with her that i did with holly. her name was ‘roxy’, and i called out that name, just as i called out ‘lumbia’. she was more responsive to… you guessed it.

lumbia is a burmese cat. here is what someone who looks like lumbia would look like:

cats have been wonderful people in my life; sometimes better than humans. i love and appreciate their independence, their honesty… for years, i have aimed to be one of those ‘old crazy cat ladies’- i want to live in a house with 10 cats.

you wanted 10 kids, i want 10 cats.

i tend to waver back and forth between whether or not i want to live with just the cats, or spend my life with a human companion (with the cats, of course). i want to be one of those old ladies, when the kids are older and have moved out of the house, to always have cats around. i mean, it would be nice to talk with someone who speaks the same language as me sometimes. on a deeper level though, do i need to spend the rest of my live with someone to do that? ALL living beings (mammals, anyway) desire some sort of companionship . i don’t think most people my age seek the same or similar type of companionship i seek.

many people my age are seeking a mate, if they do not yet have one. people my age are having children or focused on maintaining some sort of ‘career’. i’m more of a wanderer. i don’t seek a mate; i don’t seek to procreate, and i don’t seek to have a prestigious career and make $50 thousand a year. i love children very much and want very badly to be a mother; but how many women my age (who don’t hate children but want children) have no desire to give birth? i’d probably focus so much on the children and/or cats that having a mate would have the potential of being secondary.

i keep talking about this, but it seems to circulate itself in my brain. i am the same age you were around the time you were either doing or had finished/canceled the dangerous tour. so yeah, i am clearly giving my age away. i am at the age where someone like me SHOULD be having children before it’s too late, right? i am essentially coming up at the end of my supposed ‘fertility window’ before the possibility of complications arrive.

according to this study, i am already at the end of it:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1246375/Why-biological-clock-ticking-women-aged-30.html

The speed at which female fertility declines has been highlighted by the first study to track a woman’s supply of eggs from conception to the menopause. The average 30-year-old will have just 12 per cent – barely an eighth – of her eggs left, the research shows.

“Women often do not realise how seriously ovarian reserve declines after the age of 35. Every year that goes by you are losing a big proportion of your ovarian reserve.”

so we return to the concept of ‘death’: my eggs continue to die by the second, every time i make it less of a possibility for them to be fertilized.

i keep thinking about what you said, about wanting to know what it was ike to have a ‘real relationship’ before you left this earth:

“i want to be with someone- i want to know what a relationship is all about before i die… i’ve never had a real relationship. my brothers have all been married, my brothers have had girlfriends; i haven’t really had that.

what am i gonna do? i don’t want to die without knowing about having a real relationship with a woman or being involved.”

listening to the frustration in your voice just breaks my heart. it was like a man whose time was running out- whose ‘biological clock’ was ticking. a man who, despite all the people around him, has never known true love.

i have a question though… what actually comprises of a ‘real relationship’? clearly, you were speaking about having an intimate physical (sexual) relationship with someone. is that all there is to it though?

i’ll tell you this- and this is at risk of people publicly reading this- i have felt the same way as you, for many years. i cried many nights, thinking i would never find a ‘real relationship’ in my life. that no one would ever want to be with me, that i would be alone for the rest of my life. truthfully, i still DO think i will live out the rest of my days without human companionship. i admit that sometimes it stings. the difference is, i don’t worry about it so much as i used to. i’ve learned to be okay with it.

again, what i want out of a companionship i’m not sure if others want that. so i have learned to see that there is an inevitability in me ‘being alone’.

i admit, as old as i am, i’m still extremely naive in the way of these types of relationships. i don’t know anything about mating rituals, how people really get together… how people approach each other. i was much older- it wasn’t too long ago when i entered my first ‘real relationship’. he actually was not the first person i was ‘fully intimate’ with- in my first experience i was also older than most people i knew… in this situation i was also taken advantage of, but not abused or violated… i reciprocated because i was scared. both of what might happen and of never knowing what it would feel like. i’ve always had it in my mind that i’d live out the rest of my days alone- the old cat lady. i can pretty much count on half of a hand my full-on ‘sexual experiences’. i told you, i am very naive. to this day, i still wouldn’t know what to do.

my first incident with a male though, i was 8 years old and it was a sexual assault by another kid. this essentially lodged in my mind for many years an image that males were violent and disgusting.

with the ‘real relationship’ he was much older than me. MUCH older. he taught me a lot (and i thank him for that), but i think he also sensed my weakness/naiveté, and took advantage of that. he became extremely possessive and abusive. he was mostly emotionally/mentally abusive, but there was a point where it almost became physical, and i had to leave. towards the end of the relationship i began to just eat and eat and eat. i remember him making a comment about it, but i never even put an equation together that my eating was trying to cope with just living.

at this point, even though i empathize with your plea, over the years i’ve empathized with it less and less, because again, i don’t think i will ever be in a ‘real relationship’ that will be based on love or equality. i think it will be too based on trying to primarily formulate a sexual relationship, when that’s not what i want at all. and even in the course of ‘liking and falling in love’ with people, i wonder ultimately if i actually liked them, or if they brought a sense of security in me that i otherwise did not feel i’d get anywhere else. i’d feel incredibly insecure because the feelings were never reciprocated. well, all that’s done now. i don’t really have feelings for people right now. it’s better that way. the pain of all those feelings are too much (and triggered a lot of the ‘self-harm’ over the years), so i’m glad i don’t have feelings for anyone.

i acknowledge the defeatist attitude in this, but it’s not something i see in my life. i see so many people i know in their relationships, and i don’t even really get sad anymore. i quite like it with just me and lumbia.

i’m getting angry actually… i’m getting triggered again, and i don’t want to be. the scars from last time haven’t even cleared up yet. i’ll try to promise i won’t do anything- but don’t hold me to it.

………

um… well. i went ahead and did it. i told you not to hold me to it. and even though it was relieving, it did not feel as ‘good’ as it usually does, because i felt you were judging me. it was as if everyone was judging me. it made me feel horrible, actually. it feels good to see the scars there… to see my flesh in the process of changing as i’m doing it; but at this moment i feel like i am being judged.

and i thought i was feeling better…

i am a very private person and don’t really speak about this aspect of my life really, to anyone. the sex, the ‘self-harm’, or any of it. somehow, i feel that writing this and putting it out there in the atmosphere may help someone. i don’t know why… maybe it’s just helping me. who knows?

well, back to you.

it’s also difficult for someone who does lead a life of chastity before marriage (such as yourself) to work in a profession where promiscuity is encouraged. i’m sure that was VERY hard on you, especially with people casting aspersions and assuming your sexual history and preferences. i have been there- i empathize, as people make similar assumptions about me. however, i am not under the microscope of media and a fan base.

there were the two sides to you, in terms of ‘performance’ – the ‘peter pan’ and the ‘sensual/sexual’ state, which may have either been rooted in some sort of teenage ‘arrested development’ of first exploring the opposite sex… or! it may have been a reaction to how your fathers and brothers treated women. that’s not up for me, but for you to say. these two ‘performance’ or public selves were so extremely mutually exclusive, people felt they had no choice but to create conclusions based on their perceptions. AGAIN, EVERYONE experiences this up to a point, but your persona was so hard to define… (and it shouldn’t be, right? i mean, you were a pop star, and EVERYONE had to know every amount of information about you!) characteristics had to be conjured up in order to achieve a level of social comfort.

so here’s my little contribution to that: the ‘peter pan’ mode was a form of disassociation in relation to the abuse you endured, and the ‘sexual/sensual’ persona was your trying to work through all the social mores of ‘normal’ society.

even with that i don’t think i’m totally correct. the plea for you to know what a relationship was like before you left this earth sort of proves me wrong. still, i can’t help but see your plea and your public ‘sexual’ persona as being mutually exclusive. the public persona had tinges of scorn for women- it was as if you were channeling the males in your family in some way, whereas the plea was pure desperation to know what love from another person feels like.

i think it would be incredibly difficult to be with someone like you- i am just being honest. not only because of your status/fame- but because it’s difficult to deal with anyone who has been through any sort of deep abuse. it’s difficult to deal with someone who is focused on business on one end, but has the mentality of an adolescent boy (most likely due to that abuse) on the other end. really, how many people would put up with that after a certain point? some, but not many.

i know for me, i’d be a very hard person to be with, because of my interests and personality, and my connection to abuse. i acknowledge being a better friend than partner. i don’t see myself as being ‘wife material’. it would be nice to have that tiny little cottage somewhere far away from the city, where we just have the little fruit and vegetable market down the way… with the 10 cats. you know, like:

I do dream of distant places
Where? I don’t know now, but it’s destiny…

If it’s the rich life
I don’t want it
Happiness ain’t always material things

Give me the simple life
I’m getting away from here
Let me be me
C’mon let me feel free

And what the city offers me ain’t naturally
I look to greet the stars but there are no stars to see
I’m gonna search this world until I find my destiny

i’m still wondering if that’s there for me… and yeah, it WOULD be nice to share that with someone, with the cats… even with all its problems, where i live now is better than where i USED to live… as much as i love new york (as it USED to be) it’s no longer that way. and i love the personalities as opposed to just being there in the city. i love the community aspect of it.

and where i live now, even though i gripe over the human relations issues, in terms of living, it’s much cleaner and ‘healthier’. and less crowded. and simpler, i suppose.

living here though, it can be as lonely as ever. again, i have learned to just be by myself and be okay with that, because everyone else has got their companionships, their families, their groups near to them. i don’t necessarily fit anywhere. yes, i do have friends, but sometimes i feel like i don’t fit. and again, those friends have their own lives- their relationships, etc.

with that, i no longer plea with anyone about this whole deal.

and i do hope, either if it was with lisa marie, or someone else (or even wherever you are now) that you have found someone you feel you can be close to, and feel at home.

and you were fortunate to have had three wonderful children in your life. i’d say that was your ‘realest’ relationship of them all.

love, jamilah

Posted in cats, childhood, children, life, michael jackson, parenting, transcendence, trauma | Leave a comment

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 102)

Posted on November 18, 2011 by jamilah

the ‘visitor’ has returned, slightly… i don’t know WHY she has returned, exactly, or what triggered her to return. i’m not particularly depressed about any specific thing… no, she’s not close enough for me to DO anything, but she’s there.

i don’t know what it is i saw, but it had me looking at my arms… knowing that hardly anyone knows really, what i’ve done, or where i did it. i’m a really fast healer (i can attest to the accident i got in a number of years ago, where my neck was cut. you can’t even see the scars). i’m the only one who can see what i’ve done, and where i went over the last time. even tracing my finger on my wrist brings a return to the comforting sensations.

so i must admit something to you- i had to stop in the middle of writing this, and do it. i am not gonna deny how good it felt to do it. anyone who does not ‘self-harm’ will never understand the sensations, the endorphins released. it, in SO MANY WAYS, to me, feels so much better than sex. when you do it, these pleasure centers are magnified.

i remember that moment EXACTLY when i saw you get burned… it DID NOT feel good to me. i think i may have even had nightmares. i know that around that time, i had nightmares when it came to you anyways, because of the ‘thriller’ film and such. but the ‘pepsi burn’ incident was so vivid. and years later, seeing the footage of the burn cleaning your hair right off, giving you this huge bald spot… i felt your pain.

however! even though i was shaped by that incident forever regarding my feelings about fire… i remember the first time I ever got burned. it would be a number of years before the pepsi incident; i was about 3 years old. my mother’s friend she worked with had a cigarette in her hand. i walked past her, and her cigarette burned me- it was VERY close to my eye. the pain was unforgettable. i still have the mark to remember the event by. my ‘addiction’ to burning though, was not until i was in high school. my best friend at the time had a cigarette, and she burnt me- i think i may have asked her to burn me for some reason, but i can’t remember the exact context in which she burned me. i remember it feeling quite satisfying though. i didn’t smoke, but i wanted to continue to find ways of ‘getting burnt’. i used candles, perhaps lighters… i remember asking my mother (who smoked) to burn me, and she actually did… she used to tell me i was was crazy (and on drugs); nevertheless, she did it.

around this time i also was cutting my wrists (which no one knew). i was trying to commit suicide, but i guess that didn’t work, eh? needless to say, i cut the wrong way. over the years, if i was feeling excessively depressed, i’d do things like walk or ride my bicycle in front of oncoming traffic. for the most part in this depressive period, i’d do a combination of cutting and burning. on a ‘normal’ cycle, if i get the urge i just do burning. i notice that (interestingly) fire actually doesn’t do the job i want it to do, so i take extremely hot items (mostly candles or matches) and do it.

why am i even talking about this? well, i’ve done a lot of acknowledgement and analysis of my lack of boundaries over the years relating to people (and my working to heal from that); but i haven’t necessarily spoken about or analyzed my issues with ‘self-harm’, until recently. i guess i also wasn’t aware of how common it is, until researching it within the past few days. i became sort of obsessed with seeing if i, as a black woman (in my age group particularly) were alone in this.

apparently not.

“Despite the increased risk of self-harm in young Black females, we found that fewer receive psychiatric care. One explanation is that they are seen as being at ‘low risk’ clinically of self-harming again – because they are less likely to live alone, less likely to have used alcohol during the self-harm attempt, and less likely to have a previous history of self-harm. They may also not communicate their distress to clinical staff as much, and be less likely to admit to depression. It has also been suggested that Black and minority ethnic groups may find themselves disillusioned with the services they receive, and so be reluctant to return to hospital if they self-harm again.”

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/press/pressreleases2010/youngblackwomenandselfharm.aspx

and… i have also begun to really come to terms with the fact that i also deal with an ‘eating dis-order’. no, i’ve never had anorexia or bulimia (even though there have been days throughout my life where i chose not to eat). i did go through a brief period where i felt i had to ‘exercise, exercise, exercise’… i have been much better about that; however, i also made the decision to exercise regularly, not only to counter depression, but to also do work to prevent what i guess is called ‘binge eating disorder’:

http://helpguide.org/mental/binge_eating_disorder.htm

everything in this article is speaking to me… i would just eat and eat to hide, then cover it up. recently giving up wheat due to my sensitivity to it has really helped me deal with the binge eating. being vegan has also helped me, because if i wasn’t, i’d be in trouble. i’d feel my health get progressively worse every time i would binge; but the eating was comforting, and i couldn’t stop.

not too long ago i was cleaning my room and looked around. so much of what i collected were packages of food- cookies, chips… it made me very sad. i’d eat dinner then go to my room and eat some more. all i would think about was going to my room and eating.

i have been having severe body image issues lately, and looking at it, i think that is what’s triggered the self-harm thing again. i’m trying not to ‘hide’ anymore, but i keep reverting to it. and i don’t want this to happen.

i also keep thinking about you… about childhood trauma. and i constantly wonder if you’ve ever self-harmed as well. as you grew up in an age of privacy in media- straight up to an era where people announce their private lives (such as divorce and abuse) on social media and networking sites to complete strangers; i am quite sure there were some things you took with you to the grave. you spoke about the abuse you endured… but recognizing the hesitation (and defense of your abusers) in the interviews you gave, i could tell you were holding back.

a part of me wants to say that speaking in depth about your abuse could have helped many others suffering from the same or similar types of abuse. at the same time, there are things i (NOT a celebrity) have not revealed to the world. so i definitely empathize with you.

but because you only said so much about what happened to you, there’s been a lot of speculation as to how you coped:

“He’d bang his head against the wall, hit his fists and arms against furniture, anything to cause a cut or bruise. He wanted to convince his doctors that he’d had an accident and was in a lot of pain – a legitimate reason to ask for painkillers… “He made a huge deal about his injuries after rehearsals. He complained of back pain, pain in his joints, aching legs.

“Staff had their suspicions that he sometimes invented pain or hurt himself to get attention. Michael self-harmed mainly as an attention-seeking mechanism or to gain sympathy. He enjoyed being cared for. It was a huge cry for help.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/michael-jackson/6053217/Michael-Jackson-self-harmed-to-get-drugs.html

or:

“Michael was bulimic. It hit me when Magic Johnson was talking about Michael sitting on the floor with him eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. Everyone thought that was a great thing at the memorial service, and it was. Only thing, what Magic – and everyone else – didn’t realise was that Michael then would have gone and thrown up all of that.

“He would down unbelievable amounts of things like KFC extra-crispy chicken – like a whole family-size bucket by himself – or a couple of large Domino’s pizzas or two or three whole Marie Callender’s pies – and then go throw them up.”

http://www.contactmusic.com/news/michael-jackson-bulimic-claims_1109957

http://www.eatingdisorder-institute.com/?p=407

http://www.examiner.com/extreme-weight-loss-in-national/did-michael-jackson-die-of-an-eating-disorder

despite there being no clear evidence of these speculations (as far as i can see); looking at and listening to things you’ve said- also given the role media played in and hounded your life- the speculations are not in the least bit surprising.

i mean, you speaking about plastic surgery or the nose jobs in relation to the relationship with your father i’m sure was a major step for you… but! because you most likely were never diagnosed with body dismorphic disorder… those who administered plastic surgery or the nose jobs most likely were not moved to ask if you’ve gotten help regarding any abuse you’ve encountered, and if the relationship to your nose had to do with that.

and food, i do wonder about that. it’s no secret that you used to regurgitate food whenever you’d see your father. the question i have though, is, did that fear end up as a habit to you? did throwing up food end up as a means where you felt you had control? around the time you left this earth, how much were you actually consuming, in terms of food?

“joseph used to beat us all the time and… he would, he would just… and i bought into that. he was like, ‘oh, you put on a few pounds.’ the only thing i could control in my life, with motown… you know, they dictate to you, everything. what you wear, what you sing. the only control i had over my life was eating. i had no control. we had no control…. i wasn’t like my brothers. people… they’re angry, and they take it out on others. i was angry, but it took it out on myself… if i danced wrong, if i sang the wrong note, i’d get the hell beat out of me, i’d get thrown in the basement. so instead of taking that out on other people, i withdrew and i took it out on myself. there was nothing i could control in my life but my eating. and joseph told me, ‘oh, you’re so black, or you have such a big nose… you look so black, you don’t look like my child. your nose is so big…. they used to call me ‘big nose’ and stuff. and instead of retaliating on them, i just did it with myself.“

i’m not sure how i’m supposed to take that… i don’t care how many times i hear this or see it written down, it still hurts. your voice drags on- interestingly, not unlike listening to you painfully speaking about the ‘children’s hospital’ before you left this earth. not only because this has been my OWN life’s experience (almost VERBATIM), but because you didn’t feel as if were able to publicly come out with the extent to which you were actually abused. if that had to do with race/culture and gender for you, i don’t know. it still hurts to see a reflection of myself in the comments you made about yourself. i can only imagine how many others were triggered by what you’ve said.

food or eating controlling your life? what is that supposed to mean? are the speculations accurate? when you took all of this anger out on yourself, were you referring to just food, or to other aspects of self-harm as well? did you slice your wrists? did you put your head in a stove? these are things i have done (and at least one of them i continue to do)… but did you do them? the bruising and cuts seen by the people doing the autopsy report, was all that a result of self-harm?

it troubles me that you suffered through all this depression, and it was VERY clear you did not get help. it UPSETS me. it upsets me that i have, for years tried to get help and have seen people; and i haven’t found someone that could truly help me, but YOU had all of these resources and did not seek help. you can’t sit on trauma like that. you can’t expect that it’s going to just disappear on it’s own. i know you didn’t expect that.

SO WHY DID YOU NOT GET HELP??!!

people will NEVER know what it’s like to want to disappear, if they haven’t experienced it… to disassociate- to want to be someone else. to want to LOOK like someone, or something else. anything- so the past would be unrecognizable. if you live in an un-supportive family environment, you would do anything to disappear from that environment. that could mean anything from relocation, to eating dis-orders to yes, suicide.

and of course as i am writing this i am getting heavily triggered, and the burns i gave myself earlier have worn off, and the marks slightly evident. i am getting tired, but i really felt i needed to say this to you. i want to go to bed before i do anything else, but the urge is strong to do it.

how can you explain this to someone who doesn’t know what it’s like? how could you explain anything that’s happened to you, in a world which constantly had you under a microscope? how could you speak about pain or depression without being discredited or ridiculed?

it’s hard for me… i can only imagine how hard it was for you.

but still… for all of the children who were experiencing what you did, i wish there was a way you found something within you to seek some help, in order to inspire them to get help. it’s not just the children who have fatal dis-eases who need help; but the children who suffer from abuse in ALL forms… you acknowledged that.

and in the cycle of all of these things, i saw THIS:

http://www.contactmusic.com/news/conrad-murray-is-suicidal_1261532

“Murray has been in the medical ward at Los Angeles County Jail for the majority of his incarceration so far but has no physical ailments… it was reported he had been placed on suicide watch and deemed a “keep away inmate”, meaning jail officials will take special precautions to keep him safe, including giving him a single cell for his own protection.”

again, i cannot validate the level of truth in this; however, it i found it curious to encounter this as i was writing about depression, self-harm and suicide to you… and if indeed this reporting IS true, i wonder if murray has had a history of depression; or are the verdict, plus his main mode of employment being taken away fueling the depression?

was this a way you connected with murray?

i am curious about what you would say to someone, now that you are no longer on this earth, who has gone through childhood trauma… i wonder how different your perspective would be.

love, jamilah

Posted in childhood, children, dreams, economy, life, michael jackson, parenting, transcendence, trauma | Leave a comment

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 101)

Posted on November 8, 2011 by jamilah

i’m just gonna make this quick and say, this is just too much…

no, not even as in, ‘this is too much, i can’t take this’… what i mean is, this is too much. i am just shaking my head at the absurdity of it all. so many people are excited at a guilty verdict for conrad murray- your mother even stated that ‘justice was served’- however, it’s imperative to examine the situation in full.

FIRST. judge michael pastor stated the day of your transcendence as ‘ALLEGED’. SECOND: that ‘alleged’ date was incorrect until a juror corrected it. THIRD: you were named as the ‘ALLEGED’ victim.

i heard the results of the trial almost two hours after the verdict was read, without having heard the full reading. before i wrote this to you, i watched/listened to the results. i can’t exactly describe the shock which went through me upon the initial news: frankly, i did not expect a guilty verdict. however, i said to anyone who asked, that if murray were to be convicted, at most he would get two years. either way, i continued, nothing good would come out of this case… no actual justice would occur, as long as the medical system/industry murray is a part of (and where you obtained the drugs over periods in your life) maintains any sort of influence or power.

and of course, even though a verdict was read, there is going to be ANOTHER decision made on the 29th to see how much time murray is going to ACTUALLY serve… it is possible, the time he spends ‘in limbo’ (without bail) is going to be the ONLY time he serves. this is only 21 days.

i don’t think it is just me who notices the inconsistencies in this verdict. i have never heard of any other case where after the verdict was read, the dates or the victim were deemed ‘alleged’.

as i keep saying, i don’t take any of the responsibility off of you. you made the decision to request some of these drugs, and ultimately made the decision to put them in your body. if you were on your hands and knees begging for drugs to help you rest, someone could have made the decision to work with you towards a more natural mode of getting you there. that is another day of discussion though. granted, i understand why the defense would present any information about whatever dependencies you had; but frankly, the initial statement that you injected yourself was contradicted by the autopsy report. i don’t think that really has to do with the case at hand.

the fact that a doctor neglected to care for his patient is what the case, to me, is about. that neglect includes not knowing CPR, not having proper equipment, not calling 911 immediately, going to talk to his girlfriends as you were laying there dying… requesting all the evidence essentially be hidden. all the personal sympathy stories (on both the defense and prosecution) do not belong in the case. you can look at it as medical malpractice, at least. at most, because it was deemed a homicide; it could have also been an option to convict him with second degree murder- or even voluntary manslaughter.

all i know is that something is not right about ANY of this.

the teachings (and your legacy) would be best served if those who say they love you would see to it that the commercial/corporatist/non-traditional medical industry loses power and influence. if we are to truly see the interconnectedness of things, we need to return to more natural/wholistic ways of caring for ourselves, and each other. what happened to you should be a lesson to all of us.

and i actually DID see the photo of you on the gurney yet again, unexpectedly… it was a closer look than previous times… i’m still not completely clear on everything since i didn’t take the time to examine it, but i saw it close enough to say i saw it. i’d love to write about it, but this whole thing is still too painful for me to think about. the photo was painful. to have to look at the details, i can’t say i’m ready for that. i don’t think i am able to be objective enough to comment at this point. somehow the photo keeps creeping up on me.

it’s actually quite hard to even see photos of you that i post here…

love, jamilah

Posted in justice, life, michael jackson, politics, trauma | Leave a comment

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 100)

Posted on November 5, 2011 by jamilah

it has actually been a trying day, dealing with so many people… and here i am in my 100th conversation with you. anyone else reading this may look at this as a one-sided conversation; i suppose it can be seen as some sort of ‘confessional’; all it is to me though, is a conversation between a student and a teacher.

could my time be better spent speaking with someone who is physically here on earth? i suppose so. i don’t mind speaking with you in this way though. i have a lot to work out in my brain, and it’s also a way for me to discuss the teachings in a way others will hopefully grasp.

again, how do i navigate this, without isolating myself or sounding arrogant? i have to keep asking this, because i continually get frustrated and lonely. today, for the first time in a long time, i thought to myself ‘i am going to live the rest of my life alone’. how i process life, and how i process you is so different from how so many others process everything.

despite acknowledging the impermanence of life, i became so spoiled knowing barry would always be there supporting me, even when he left town, or the country. i just KNEW he would always be there, to just listen to me and bring me back to earth when i needed it. when he left this earth, i realized just how fortunate i was… even though i have wonderful people in my life, all of these people are either too tired/busy/committed to a relationship/etc. to give me the attention i desire. as busy as barry was, he was such a devoted friend. he made time for everyone and made them feel as if they were the only person in the world.

this is not an easy skill to have; and it’s not easy to find people in your life who have this quality. with that, some people may find this to be the reason i am speaking (in writing) to some guy i will never physically see. if one is a spirit, they have plenty of time to dedicate to committing themselves to a person, right?

the thing is, this is not the reason i come to you at all as a student. i sincerely have questions, and do trust that as a teacher, you can guide me in some way. all i can do is examine the teachings you brought to us when you were here; and if you feel i as a student am disrespecting the teachings, i trust there will be some signs of dissatisfaction. spirits are powerful beings and they do not get credit for their power. spirits can see so much around them, and unless we are truly in tune with our environment, we are going to ignore the power of our ancestors, our loved ones, our friends… our teachers.

all i can do as a student is be guided by the energy. i can feel whichever direction it flows. i am highly sensitive to energy, and i was DEFINITELY feeling it earlier, at work. i don’t know what you were feeling (or, what or how much in the spirit world you feel)… i am sure though, there was such a shift in energy in my world, due to the focus on you, directed at me. it seriously affected my mood for a period of time… it affected me so much that hearing your voice- your singing voice as a child- made me so sad.

all day… i have never had so many people, so many strangers come up to me and speak about you… not since that fateful day in 2009. there were so many people asking me what i thought of the trial, my thoughts on murray… there were more than a few people who saw the shirt, the button, the little michael, and asked me what the ‘theme’ was about… there was a person who asked if it was the anniversary of your transcendence.

it was all a little too much to take.

i wish there was a way people would understand that THIS IS MY LIFE… this is not fandom, this is not something i play with. this is not me playing ‘dress-up’. i wish there was a way we could change the culture to be more critical of popular culture, so that we could have a more serious study of peoples’ lives and works, so that we wouldn’t just assume people are celebrating ‘themes’.

when i tell people about this whole thing being my life, i don’t feel as if people take me seriously. no, i don’t define myself by my being a student; however, being a student comes with responsibilities, thereby making it about the teachings, and not the person. we ALL have the ability to be teachers, and popular culture perpetuates the idea of the power dynamic of student (who knows less) and teacher (who knows everything).

i am at a loss as to how to deal with the ‘outside world’ regarding me being a student. i have committed myself to them, and i feel that others who have committed themselves to the teachings as well are, again, too busy/tired/committed elsewhere (or to other people).

i read where you wrote little notes to your fans… i have seen them- they are full of sincerity and gladness that you are appreciated for what you do. in those notes though, i sense a grave sadness; a desire to have any sort of companionship, and a real conversation besides the trivial, or about your music or role as a celebrity… words like this make me sad:

everything about it is so sad… feeling energy through the walls? despite any sort of connection made, there still has to be a barrier between yourself and the fans. and others. i get it; it doesn’t make it any less depressing.

this is what i feel when i have these ‘small talks’. that people don’t want to talk to me about you as a person; you are just a caricature to them… just a dude who does ‘thriller’, and sings and dances all day. no one speaks with me about you as a person with feelings, a heart. a family, friends.

what exactly is a friend to you? i’ve seen you write that your fans are your friends… people you’ve worked with on an album. even mannequins. i am clear that you have cherished friendship where you could find it. but what did that mean to you? did you really feel you didn’t have friends in your life? and you were kind to your fans, but how exactly did they view you? how did you see them as viewing you? do you think they were really trying to share a friendship with you, or were they fulfilling some sort of fantasy, based on how they imagine you are?

“i am living for you… for the children.”

it just makes me sad to see that.

i see these notes juxtaposing with this:

i realize that ultimately, the basis of everything i am saying right now is most likely me still grieving for you and barry. that may be all there is to it. i just need to make sense of all of that in my head. none of it makes sense. i go through these periods when i grieve that i feel very lonely.

now is one of those times.

and as i, like many people, await a verdict in the trial of conrad murray; as i said before, even if he got 20 years (a. that is not going to bring you back and (b. the industry will still be in existence… it’s very draining to have to talk about it all the time, especially when people don’t necessarily want to get into a detailed (or deep) conversation about it. most of the people talking to me about it most likely were doing it because you are in the news… when the trial is over and a verdict made, you’ll most likely not be in the minds of these folks anymore.

i just get so frustrated.

i write again in a moment of frustration and tiredness. again, i’ve come to terms with the possibility of me being alone, but yeah… it hurts when you just continuously get triggered. being by yourself in an environment where people are aware and understand is VERY different from being in a world where people want to make small talk without commitment to the dialog about something or someone you feel passionate about.

what is a pro-active way of co-existing amonst all that without going crazy??!!

love, jamilah

Posted in children, life, transcendence, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 99)

Posted on November 3, 2011 by jamilah

in the midst of all these people who say they love you, i feel like an outsider. just so we are once again clear; i’m not willing to fight over the semantics of the names bestowed on you by media; i’m not prepared to say that everyone in the world hates you except those who deem you immune from imperfection; i’m not going to cease my critique of your actions when i feel they warrant critique. i’m not going to quote you without careful examination of the quote. i’m not going to assume everything you say is truth. i am not going to assume i ‘know’ you simply by how you publicly present yourself. and i am certainly not going to treat you as an icon.

to be a student is mutually exclusive from hero worship. despite my views and experiences, in no way do i think, or AM i better than anyone else walking around on this earth. what i AM saying is that it’s been a frustrating road to explain what being a student of yours represents for me. how do you navigate it without sounding arrogant or alienating?

i ask myself this question all the time, and don’t know if i’ll ever find the answer to it.

i say all this to continue what i said to you yesterday… i know i’ve been told that grief is something that unexpectedly returns for an indefinite amount of time; but of course, being told something is quite different from actually experiencing it. again, the reason i chose not to follow this conrad murray trial is because i knew it would bring up a lot of issues, regarding you, and regarding myself.

i also didn’t want to follow the trial and encounter mass waves of infighting, theories (conspiracy or otherwise) and blame games. i wanted to be able to see things laid out as they were, via transcript. i wanted to be able to make my own decisions based on testimony, without influence from journalists, commentators, or the fan base.

in my search for other news events, it’s inevitable your name would come up in the mix. i actually did a pretty good job of avoiding most reportage on it in the past month and a half; somehow, after work yesterday, something compelled me to read up on the events. i became livid after again reviewing the details of the AEG contract; however, what i read after work presented a range of experiences i don’t think i was ready for.

in the course of reading it i felt water well up in my eyes- but the tears did not fall. it wasn’t until i spoke with a friend of mine some minutes later that i began crying in front of him. as i was speaking about what i read it hit me again that you were gone. all i could think was ‘THEY KILLED MY TEACHER.’

they KILLED you, michael. i don’t know why, but reading this synopsis of the trial, it hit me more than it’s ever hit me, aside from the day of your transcendence. i literally felt a blow to my insides. i just kept thinking of how much you were literally dying. how you left this earth, alone. i can’t even imagine how horrifying those final minutes were.

he asked me what i thought the outcome was going to be. i told him i didn’t think it was going to be good, and at the most, murray would get two years. he opined he didn’t think he would be convicted at all. my subconscious says he WON’T be convicted; and the logical side of me says that the evidence presented should convict him with at least negligence.

my feelings about all of this go way beyond whether or not i think he will be convicted though. the closing testimonies are being presented as i am writing all of this to you, and the jury will then deliberate.

frankly, i’m not nervous about it at all. i’m not even concerned about whether or not he gets convicted. for me, the justice is not in whether or not murray is convicted, because the situation is bigger than him. his being convicted is not going to bring you back. the only way i see justice being served is if THE WHOLE MEDICAL INDUSTRY AS WE KNOW IT TODAY IS DISMANTLED; that there lay a more wholistic approach to health care. as we can see with you and so many others, this industry does not value life.

in reading what i read, in essentially reliving whatever pain you were experiencing, truly hurt my spirit. to read testimonies from people on both the prosecution and defense’s side, one thing was very clear- you needed help. i cannot see how anyone could be in denial about that. i am trying to wrap my head around people who blame only conrad murray for what happened to you. granted, i put an even larger blame on the industry which values money above life… still, as an individual you have, over the years, acknowledged a dependency on certain drugs. as we can see with many of these commercial pharmaceuticals, they cause damaging side effects, at times prompting a person to take other pharmaceuticals to counter the damages from the other drug.

this is what appears to have happened with you.

Relax
This won’t hurt you
Before I put it in
Close your eyes and count to ten
Don’t cry
I won’t convert you
There’s no need to dismay
Close your eyes and drift away

dependency v. addiction: this is a debate i’ve struggled with in my brain for many years. this debate stems from one thing though- childhood trauma.

in thinking about dependence i thought of my own: because i never received as much love as i craved as a child, i intended to seek it out wherever i could find it. i became dependent on others to meet my needs for love and affection, eventually becoming oblivious to crossing boundaries- that is, until a friend pretty much yelled at me.

this may not physically compare to, say, a dependency on benzodiazepines; at the same time, it’s not all that far off. relationships with people, like life, are impermanent, as should be the use of benzos. in many cases we use both because we want to never see the pain. our bodies and spirits withdraw if indeed we’ve had them in our lives for so long, since they present an artificial resistance to whatever pain we’ve been experiencing.

frankly, you were on so many benzos, i’m not sure how you even made it as long as you did. your body seemed so dependent on substances that really weren’t set up to give you the rest you really wanted, that more and more were added, causing even more resistance. and of course, no one appeared to be working with you pro-actively to find solutions. and because there really weren’t any on hand, more benzos, more propofol got added.

many people will continue to say you were addicted- even people who share dependencies on drugs- but reading the transcript synopsis, i sensed more of a dependency than anything. i saw an anxious man just trying to get some rest, and not trying to get high. how you WENT about getting that rest eventually gave you the eternal rest you most likely saw coming before any of us did.

i keep thinking of how lisa marie stated you told her you were going to leave this earth at a fairly young age… i return to your embarrassment when struggling to put on your glasses in public for one of the first times. i return to your desiring eternal childhood in trade for not being able to live it at the age you were supposed to…. and you left this earth, rife with symbols of mortality and age.

the comparisons to gustav von aschenbach’s transcendence in luchino visconti’s ‘death in venice’ should never be surprising. as von aschenbach also left this earth essentially alone, in the process of attaining his perception of youth as beauty. in working to attain this youth, he was entrapped by it. as he reaches out to grab his ideal in the sunlight (before both ideal and sunlight descend); he tragically collapses from cholera, heavy makeup and hair dye streaming down his face.

there is something very humbling and poetic about your transcendence, really… how alone you really were, despite being one of the most admired (and polarizing) figures in the world…. how much, in the end, the removal of any facades of ‘youth and beauty’ made you MORE beautiful.

that no matter how ‘carefree’ you appeared to the public, all you really wanted was to be settled, raising your children.

to see how your life has been playing out in media has also been incredibly poetic; despite protests from fans for, in their view, callously displaying your ailments and picking you apart; as a person reared in the age where celebrities maintained some sort of private life separate from ‘the rest of us’, your life ended full circle in a society in which people demand to know every single facet of life of celebrities. the reportage of all the so-called ‘ugly details’ of your physical self- your enlarged prostate, arthritis, skin problems, graying hair, identifying marks and blemishes- has been so unsympathetic that it ultimately does represent the teaching of interconnectedness- that no matter how much you lived in a world seemingly separate from ‘normalcy’, you share the same ailments as so many of us who have less access to health care.

it’s interesting, because i am told by many that my face looks young. in fact, earlier at work someone assumed i was either 21 or 22. there are also many assumptions (when i do radio or am walking around) that i am just starting or are in the process of college. being that i haven’t seen 21 in a whole lot of years, i feel those years accumulating in my body. all the aches and pains i feel in my joints; the slowing down of my metabolism, and the way i have to make plans to keep the energy up definitely contrast with my youthful face.

i thought about the pains i feel and how i choose to treat them, and all the pains YOU’VE felt over the years, heightened by your profession, and possibly not feeling there was much you could do about it.

this may embarrass you a bit, but because i read it in my reviewing of this conrad murray case, i’m going to say it. having read the autopsy report i remember a bunch of what they mentioned, but not every detail. one prominent detail in review of the case was that you had an enlarged prostate (as well as bad vision)… as an enlarged prostate is not the worst thing in the world that could happen to a man, it does affect the amount of urination which happens. (and i’ll equally ’embarrass’ myself here- if i eat a high-gluten diet i also end up having frequent urination. not the same as the prostate thing, but still)…

i mention the prostate because medically it’s impossible to have an enlarged prostate if one is castrated. the rumors of you being castrated at a young age in order to maintain a high voice should CEASE, if those who make those claims were to read the autopsy report, as well as review the testimony in the murray case. if people were to actually do a serious study of both the case and the autopsy, there’d ideally be less perceptions about who you were- when really, no one knows but you.

it was also sad to again read about an enlarged prostate, because i could only imagine the sadness you faced with the inevitability of aging. i mean, i remember how apologetic you were having to pull out your glasses at the bambi awards in 2002.

i enjoy how much more distinguished you look with glasses. i appreciate them as a sign of maturity and aging for you. but yes, i definitely recognize your perspective, given your profession.

even WITH any pain i’ve gained with age, i welcome aging. for me, every day above ground is a good day. every time i see a new gray hair, i smile. i know it was not like that for you. your profession depended on you maintaining youth of some sort. so again, hearing that audio of you all drugged up just sealed a terrible reality of your fear of growing older.

“don’t have enough hope. no more hope. that’s the next generation…”

i think calling you a ‘drug addict’ or even ‘drug dependent’ is too simplistic. it’s not even because those are necessarily mean things to say. to me, there are larger issues at stake- the desire to no longer be in pain, to be able to REST WELL for once in your life… the desire to be at your best in order to make others happy.

was the drive to rest stemmed from the drive to make others happy, or was it stemmed from just the need to REST?

cherilyn lee testified, just as she had mentioned in interviews, that the vitamin cocktails she gave you were not working for you (at the same time consuming heavily caffeinated drinks- WHICH MAY HAVE ALSO WORSENED THE CONDITION OF YOUR ENLARGED PROSTATE), so you urged her to find a doctor who would give you some propofol. when she refused, you essentially let her go.

okay. okay. THIS is one of the many times where i feel like an outcast amongst your supporters, because i refuse to not hold you accountable for your actions. a huge factor in not pro-actively dealing with childhood trauma is pushing people away who actually are looking out for your best interests. because you grew up with someone abusing you- mentally and physically- everyone who does not cater to your needs in the way you want it is seemingly viewed as having that ‘parental’ role.

is it the case that anyone who didn’t want to get you pills or mentioned to you that certain people in your life were no good for you, were seen as adversarial?

it is possible i am casting aspersions due to my own experiences… i see a pattern though, in people speaking of their experiences with you. there were people who have had genuine concern for you get rejected because they did not cater to your every need. this is destructive. and it led to you getting involved with people like thome, people who ended up stealing your money and having you sign contracts you could not even negotiate.

that you had to use PROPOFOL in order to get some decent rest is interesting, since it’s already been established TIME AND TIME AGAIN that it is an anesthetic. looking at the ingredients of the stuff, i’m not sure why ANYBODY would want that in their body:

“Propofol is slightly soluble in water and, thus, is formulated in a white, oil-in-water emulsion. The pKa is 11. The octanol/water partition coefficient for propofol is 6761:1 at a pH of 6-8.5. In addition to the active component, propofol, the formulation also contains soybean oil (100 mg/mL), glycerol (22.5 mg/mL), egg lecithin (12 mg/mL); and disodium edetate (0.005%); with sodium hydroxide to adjust pH. The DIPRIVAN (propofol) Injectable Emulsion is isotonic and has a pH of 7-8.5.”

http://www.rxlist.com/diprivan-drug.htm

getting back to the dependency v. addiction issue, i found a pretty simple explanation as to why i don’t think you were an addict:

The pain patient who is effectively treated with opioids finds life restored-even if he is dependent on them. With the pain muted by stable and steady controlled use of long-acting opioids, a patient can reclaim his life, go back to work, return to family life, and pursue favorite pastimes. Dependence is a physical state that occurs when the lack of a drug causes the body to have a reaction. Physical dependence is solely a physical state indicating that the body has grown so adapted to having the drug present that sudden removal of it will lead to negative consequences such as a withdrawal reaction. This can occur with almost any kind of drug… The difference between a patient with opioid addiction and a patient who is dependent on opioids for chronic pain is simple. The opioid-dependent patient with chronic pain has improved function with his use of the drugs and the patient with opioid addiction does not.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/pain/medication/addiction-v-dependence-on-pain-medications.htm

from reading transcripts, autopsy reports, etc. this is what i sense coming from you.

and BECAUSE you’ve used so many of these pharmaceuticals to try to get some decent rest, it would make sense that something as simple as, say, MELATONIN would not work as quickly as you would want it to work.

the lives we all lead in the ‘modern world’ do not help either. we no longer follow the natural patterns of the sun, and we use a lot of nutrient-depleting technology. looking into the reports again, with the life you led, it was as if you tried everything, and continued to go down a road which seemed easier, but it was harder to navigate out of.

i get it. i’m not mad at you. still, i have no qualms in saying you had to take some of the responsibility for, not your transcendence, but the people you allowed in your life. had you had people in your life who were not as accommodating and showed more love, you may still be here today. clearly, those who were more accommodating were more sinister, either due to their attraction to money, and/or your status.

those eyes though… they just break my heart. looking at them, i just see there was so much missing in your life… love. and you gave so much attention to everything else in the world, but i can’t help but think that you LIKED yourself, but didn’t LOVE yourself. if that is not the case i apologize in advance. it’s just not what i see in your eyes.

your sensitive/vulnerable nature, in combination with (what i see as) your not dealing with your trauma, did not enable you to make a distinction between those who wanted to take advantage of you, and those who genuinely were concerned about you. it was as if you did figure out who was taking advantage of you towards the end of your life; but your trust in people was so minimal that no one may ever know if you tried to heed their advice or warnings.

reading the synopsis of the testimonies was quite humbling. it gave me flashbacks to my own life. it was yet another lesson for me to work at healing myself and to work towards healing with others…. to stop and say, ‘is this person sincere, or trying to harm me?’

“I really feel that nature is trying so hard to compensate for man’s mismanagement of the planet.”

even if i did not see ‘this is it’ i am aware of some of the lessons you gave in the film. that was one of them. i am here asking you, as a student; in my belief that we are all a part of nature, with all of the use of pharmaceuticals and artificial foods and other substances we put in our bodies… was a cardiac arrest for you, nature’s way of letting you know there was only so much to take? were you working yourself so hard, trying to work ‘for the people’- for children- that you never took the time to check yourself out?

If you call out loud
Will it get inside?
Through the heart of your surrender
To your alibis

And you can
Say the words
Like you understand
But the power’s in believing
So give yourself a chance

And when you think of trust
Does it lead you home?
To a place that you only dream of
When you’re all alone

Better stand up and act like you wanna do it right
Don’t play the fool for the rest of your life
Work on it brother and you’ll make it someday
Go for what you want and don’t forget the faith

Look at yourself and what your doin right now
Stand back a minute just to check yourself out
Straighten up your life and how your livin each day
Get yourself together cuz you gotta keep the faith

what do we see when we see ourselves? is it a reflection of someone else, or have we looked within ourselves enough to see our own abilities? do we remain focused on trying to maintain justice for ONE person, or are we working towards actually CHANGING the system which treated not just that one person, but ALL of us unjustly?

our focus needs to change, and interestingly yet unsurprisingly, how your transcendence is being covered in media is a huge lesson in perspective and self-reflection.

thank you again, for bringing the lessons to us, even in spirit.

love, jamilah

Posted in childhood, children, economy, freedom, life, michael jackson, parenting, politics, transcendence, trauma | Leave a comment

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