The Park pt. 2 cuz Ray rightfully wanted details.

I can't believe I am putting this in writing. I can't believe how real these memories still are. I just want to grab my former self, my "crazy" self and love her, show her calm and surety and peace. Read below for details about me and Prospect Park and Paranoia/Psychosis.

I imagined I was running from random people in the park. There was a walking bridge through a woodsy area full of leaves on trees and the ground. I loved walking ON it, but more interesting was to walk the path that went BELOW it. And just stay under it and listen. Especially when oblivious people walked near. It coulda been a WWI (or two?) shelter - the randomly-shaped square stones, the tunnels of light on either end, the loneliness of that spot. It was so me. Or how I imagined myself: tragic, subtly and unwittingly gorgeous, worn, torn, overlooked, fatigued, solitary.

I read near the pond - Things Fall Apart. The mood of that book was my mood. Inevitably depressed. Like the main character, I was gradually less able to control my rage and violence. I had a sharp heat in my chest at all times. The pond waters cooled that a little, though. The air was fresher there and persuaded my heart like city smog could not. I could cry alone and sometimes loudly.

I though people were chasing me sometimes. In the park I could take paths that would throw them off, camouflage me, wind me back to solace. I had a whole scheme in my head of why I was being chased and watched. The FBI wanted to study me, the child of a former civil rights lawyer living in the city of the upcoming huge KKK rally. Really it was just a whirlwind feeling that told me I was picking up clues about being under surveillance. I would imagine my roommate having secret phone talks about where I went when I left the house. I thought it interesting in my dementia that I went to the park. In retrospect, that would have been the least interesting place for the feds to follow me. Just grass and trees and joggers. I laugh in awe of how my mind jumped its wires and still convinced itself of its sanity. Also amazing is the impact these thoughts had on my breathing, my heartbeat, my emotions, my physical reality. I wish I could comfort that fear-consumed young woman in my memories. I wish she could have remembered peace and joy and known that THAT is truth, that it is unnatural to live in hard, hateful paralysis. That suspicion of everyone and everything does not make you a smarter person. Even now I come out of milder panic states and marvel at the contrast between my "sane" mind (relative peace, joy, love) and my horrid delusions (sheer and utter fear).


So does that paint a better picture, Ray? I'll keep working on it. It gets hard to go back there and to put these sensations and false knowings into words.

Love,

Kali

The Park - for my show on mental health & spirituality

The Park

When nothing else made good sense, Prospect Park was safe. Green, sienna, gold too, in that season. I hid there and wandered; treks and pseudo-adventures helped me escape and explore my twisted mind.

The space was large enough for a girl to lose herself comfortably. But it was contrived enough not to scare me when I did just that. September-October-Northern-Fall felt panicked to me, everywhere insane except on park grounds. I would've lived there if I had thought I could.

My mixed states - paranoia, anxiety, disapproving self-image - always expanded and exposed my vulnerabilities. I was powerless to nature's warmth. That was good. I was over-influenced by people and their "energy". That was usually distorted and frightening. Refuge became the browning trees, the autumn color palate, the pond, the old cement building that hovered over it. I was anonymous and cherished in the same moment. My chest stilled a little there, even my most frantic consciousness.

My childhood friend even walked with me there once. She wasn't selfish then, or vain, or in denial like usual. Her demeanor softened. She nobly attempted to accept and make sense of my antics. She was secretly challenged just to maintain her own life, despite being nearly miserable herself. At least that's how I see her as I look back on that era. Maybe I've distorted the past - maybe she wasn't holding in the hurt I would have known had I lived her life. Only she knows for sure.

I tend to forget that everyone isn't as sensitive as I, or necessarily as reflective. Therefore, all people may not feel the agony of their wounds or the heights of bliss that I do. Perhaps they're capable of it, but it seems we need an unexpected emotional jolt to re-open that kind of feeling in this day, time, place. More folks are trained to be modern, with-it, so to speak. But coolness carries the burden of closing off to our inner-tender, those raw responses to life we supposedly came to the planet with as babies.

I really have little sense of what's what when it comes to this. I just know my own perception is highly attuned to EVERYTHING, imagined or not.

to be continued...

From my squidoo lens (aka web page), my new toy

I am reading a book that caught my eye when I was last at the bookstore. It's called Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us by Seth Godin, and it led me to his fascinating website/application/social media tool, squidoo. Just another way to communicate but with much better tricks than myspace or facebook.

Below is a Plexo YouTube thingy that lets me and you post videos and then vote things up toward the top or demote them. Hope it works. If not go to http://squidoo.com/blackworldcultures to see my whole page. It's about the African Diaspora. Whatsayyou??

Creatively,

Kali

Not in the mood - Entry #3 toward my show on being bipolar, black, woman, artist, etc.

If you are on Facebook, click View Original Post to see the whole blog.

Ok I am not in the mood to write anything. I have been re-adjusting my meds. I had to come off of lithium, which I used to curse. Looks like it is becoming threatening to the health of my kidneys, and they are more important than I really can fathom. So my ultra-cautious psychiatrist of 17 years (who I also have cursed repeatedly) asked me to try Depakote. I started on one pill a day, but after I got blood taken, it seems that it is not enough. So now I am taking two pills a day, but I don't feel much better. Matter of fact, the last time I was feeling on the upside of ok was probably just the bipolar disorder cycling in a mild way. So now I am thinking I might have liked lithium better than I knew. I went for several years with very few problems on lithium. What if Depakote doesn't work? There is no certainty to any of this, which is why I cursed my psychiatrist and his whole field for so long. What to do....

Interesting video about one man with bipolar:



That's the confusing thing about all this. I don't know what I can attribute my good moods to - a low, manageable mania or my own ability to see the beauty in life. I have never really had a REALLY high mania, only mixed states where I am scared of everyone and everything and can't sleep. But maybe I get what they call hypomania, where I am just in a state of joy because of how amazing the world is. I know some days it is hard to recognize even the most obvious blessings. I have done so much reading on how to train my mind toward gratitude. But living with a mental illness can wipe all of the self-help authors' words right down the drain and it frustrates me. I get scared that what has happened in so many studies will happen to me - that my depression and paranoia and anxiety and delusions will become harder to quell as I get older, as I have to change meds for reasons beyond my control.



Come to think of it, this whole thing, and life itself feels out of my control. I have to find a creative way to put this in the show. For now I will just get out the basic feelings for shaping later. I don't want the beginning of this journey to feel constrained by my critical mind. So there it is. The downside of being "different". Which in some way we all are I suppose.

To anyone reading this entry: thanks for reading and understand that there is nothing to worry about. You may have never seen this side of me, but then again, that's what the show is for. I think we all have "dark" areas, fears, places where we sit in self-pity. My job as a teaching artist is to bring it out in the open so it can get some oxygen and heal.


here's a journal entry from 11/30/00, just before a minor episode:

sometimes I well up with tears
endlessly discussing, relating, not facing
my fears
of being lost forever
of finding hard times
or maybe even that i will reach a goal
just to realize it was the wrong one
i walk alone surrounded by uncertainty...
i need to get my creativity and energy back...
I feel so drained I hate this feeling of embarrassment
life is so lonely even surrounded by people.
it becomes so blurry
but I said I would not feel sorry for myself.

I posted the above just to share what it feels like when depression has called and announced that she is coming to pay a visit. But she hasn't come to knock on your door just yet. As I continue to write I will share some of the other excerpts from my journals. Sometimes it is still uncomfortable to read them. Not to mention I gotta change/take out some names for identity protection!

I have officially completed my assignment, which was to write something, anything, so I can keep this baby rolling. Not that rolling babies is my thing. Stay tuned...

Creatively,

Kali

Hawk omens & Names for the baby

Alright, so I am further on my way to November 2010, the debut of my show about being a black woman with bipolar disorder.

I told my mama I had committed myself to writing this show. As always, she listened, encouraged, and then.....GASPED. Turns out as I was talking a large hawk landed on her deck, so close she felt she could reach out and let it peck her arm to death. Seriously, though, she decided it was a good omen. She generously loaned the silent bird-of-prey's energy to my project and my new lease on life. I looked up hawks in a book on animal totems that I have. Sure enough it backed up my mother's insights. Hawks, in many indigenous cultures, represent vision, guidance, and soaring to new heights. The hawk sat for our whole conversation. The stamp has been pressed, at least in our book.

So I have been brainstorming a lot. I know the task will be to sit my tail down and get all of these ideas out, then cut the mess out of them so I don't have a 10 hr. monologue to give y'all at the end of all this.


I brainstormed titles - some were horrible, others have promise. Let me know what you think:

• Certified Crazy

• Insane Inside
  
• So Damned Blessed
  
• Danger to Self and Others (boo!)
  
• Delusions
  
• Medicated
  
• Fire and Blues
  
• Drowning in Red
  
• Chaos' Funeral/Abyss/Grave/Torture
  
• Fury Don't Rest
  
• Storm (also the name of a song I wrote which will likely be in the show)
  
• Unwelcome Gifts (I kinda like this one - sounds like a memoir)
  
• Peace to Panic
  
• Constant Unrest
  
• Pills for Life

• Life's Pill/Life Pills
  
• (Living?) Inside Fear
  
• Color Me Crazy (too hokey?)

• Never Would Have Guessed/ You'll Never Guess

• World of Distortion(s)/Distorted World
  

Of course, the final title will be chosen after I actually WRITE THE SHOW. But that is happening, too, I can't believe it but I am writing scenes on notecards to be shuffled and put in order later. So excited to share, thanks for reading!

Feedback is appreciated.

Have a creative day,

Kali

http://www.kaliferguson.com/
kali@kaliferguson.com

No, seriously, I am birthing myself again....

Where to begin (don't you hate it when people say that - we know where tostart!)? I am all but done with a fellowship at Arts for Life North Carolina, http://www.aflnc.org/, teaching creative writing to children with cancer and other chronic and sometimes terminal illnesses. It was a short but enriching experience. They trusted me to record a CD project for them that was the ultimate fun!

I got to work with the extremely creative and professional John Cloer of Velvet Rope Productions and The Cloers. He produced and recorded the cd's as well as going beyond what we asked and doing the vivid graphics and sound effects. Visit The Cloers' blog for a sound clip and more information on their work at http://www.thecloers.com/.

CD1:

I learned how to have faith in the kid's ability to handle what they were given. I saw a quiet bravery and a hunger to express in the "patients" as I stumbled for words and held back tears watching them bear what seems to be a crazy fate. Don't get me wrong, many of them are survivors and will go on to lead full, long lives. But they never know. So I hope we helped make their lives full for whatever time they have.

CD2:

Speaking of bearing burdens, during the fellowship I had many personal life adjustments to make due to my bouts with severe bipolar disorder. I had to fight off sharp anxiety and blunt depression while remaining supportive of the children at the hospital and pulling off my other work commitments - school gigs, community programs, private shows, commissioned projects, etc. I am not complaining. We all have challenges and mine are minute compared to so many that never get to express their pain.

Nevertheless, bipolar disorder is what some call a "hidden disability" and although I was originally diagnosed with it 17 years ago, it flares up with stress and lack of personal care. That's what happened this spring. It had been about 4 years since I had gotten this close to feeling the terror that comes with feeling safe in no place, not even in my own home or with my closest friends and family members. I have vowed to myself to live a life not hindered by that, and that meant I had to chill. At least for a hot minute. But I'm back (the minute was scorching, couldn't sit for long)!

The fellowship ended for me May 31, 2009. I am now still doing all those other things that make up my business, CommuniCulture. But because of a stirring in my gut that has been building up since I began to get control over this challenge, I have committed, TONIGHT, to produce a work recapturing my adventures in the land of manic depression. I hope you will come along. Projected production date: Fall 2010. Let me know if you have time or energy that will help make this happen. I'll be posting updates here frequently.

See you then (but hopefully sooner),
Kalicious

Soundclip from Alabama

Here's a rough soundclip of one of my favorite stories, told to a group of Montessori students.

http://www.imeem.com/people/iMBY0kZ/music/AiapYOun/kali-ferguson-alabama-trip-recording-1-sack-of-truthmp3/

The kids get a little loud at times, but you'll get the gist.

25 minute sample of my program on Spain (Birmingham, AL)

http://www.imeem.com/people/iMBY0kZ/music/91boj74u/dr000042mp3/

This is an unedited, hot off the presses sound clip of the program I did in Alabama to celebrate Spain in elementary schools.

I better explain the first part. I used a song called Runali by Ojos de Brujo (a fierce collective from Spain with flamenco roots and all-world wings) to teach basic flamenco hands. Then comes the story, The Sack of Truth. So you may need to forward to around minute 4 or 5.

Edited versions of sound recordings coming soon...

Don't leave me now, I'm just getting started.

Creatively,

Kali

Short video of AL school visit (thanks, Larry!)

More Alabama memories:

Here's a short video of me teaching basic flamenco hands to kids in a school which includes many many children with special needs.

Alabama Slamma! Whatever that means...

I went to AL last week to visit 6 schools and a YWCA program with an hour program on Spain (the country of focus for the Birmingham International Center who hired me). We learned Spanish words through traditional stories from Spain and beginners' flamenco dance. The kids were wonderful and despite some financial and minor health difficulties, I enjoyed the experience immensely.

The highlight for me was to get away with wearing clothes with ruffles and flinging them around like the Spaniard I have always secretly seen in myself. The kids bought it, even though I admitted to them I'm a Carolina gal by birth. Worldwide, baby, worldwide!

I will attempt to post a sound and/or video clip of one of my visits asap.

Stick with me....

I am amazed at the stories, just stories so far, I heard today at training for my fellowship at Hemby Children's Hospital. So many times I ask God why I have to deal with my experiences with bipolar disorder or my hereditary dis-ease or the insecurities I harbor. But knowing that these children, who at such a young age go through chemo-therapy and have tubes stuck all up in them all the time and for weeks or months don't see the light of day or run around a yard - knowing that they still smile and joke and laugh and RECOVER humbles me. It lets me know that the human spirit is resilient and not confined by physical health or luck and that each breath is a miracle for each one of us, whether we recognize that or not.

I ask that I be a vessel for their healing and mine through creative writing and storytelling. I am grateful for this opportunity to learn.

symphony intro draft & a random essay question

First, my silly musing about a store I pass on the way to everywhere:

Essay Question:
If you were a plus-sized woman, would you buy your clothes at a tiny strip-mall store named JUST BIG? Why or why not?

(I thought that was the most raw-dog name of a store I have seen b/c when someone says you are JUST BIG, it is usually followed with the phrase "for no damn reason at all." That means people can't even believe your size much less approve of it.) My brother says it must be a men's store 'cause men don't care. I hope so, otherwise, they gone run their customers away! I mean, BIG BONED would even be a step up. I know, I know, it's random but I had to muse. *makes pseudo-apologetic face*

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok now for the more serious part of the blog. See below for a draft of the intro I will speak for the MLK Day program I am doing for the symphony on protest music. Imagine these words (or others, after some rewrites) voiced atop a beautifully haunting melancholy song played by a string quartet....

across centuries
through millennia
over oceans and mountains
in cities and townships and ghettos
in all places holding human life

from the hearts of those of us born
into a skin or gender or religion or way
devalued, despised, misunderstood, exploited
by moral tyrants
blinded by their own inadequacies
controlled by a small-hearted greed
for false and forceful power
tyrants who cut off their own hands
with the violence they choose to throw
upon us, upon those who spark their envy
by virtue of our soulful existence

there rises up and out of us a crythe age-old question
why and how did this oppression become our destiny?
who will save us and give us our due?

and always, the clenched fists
and grinding jaws we hide,
the exasperations and burdens we carry,
our frustrated tears and sobs turn into
our own answers to ourselves

in the form of a song
song - intersection of heart, soul, spirit, and justice.
we break down walls with our hopeful voices, our insistent rhythms,
our melodies of wisdom, our music

our music - strong enough to shake & silence the cruelest offender
our music - light enough to lift the lowest spirit

with our music, with our music
we have learned to sing up freedom
we have learned to sing up freedom
with our song

If you like what you read, come to the actual show on Sunday, January 18, 2009 at 3pm at the Levine Museum of the New South. We'll be singing, you'll be singing, it'll be a good time! This is part of the Bridging Musical Worlds series honoring Martin Luther King's birthday. And yup, it's free! For the full schedule, click below:

http://www.charlottesymphony.org/Specials.asp#Bridging

Have a creative day y'all,
Kalicious

Love and Jheri Curls (sp?)

I may well miss the days of jheri curls and serenades - what say you? Do you hold any memories of the '80's as dear as I do? You don't have to write an essay about it. The answer is obvious. Of course you miss the '80's, or parts of it. VH1 wouldn't have made it this far without tapping into our nostalgia!

Is it discrimination that the lead singer of the MD's (what does that stand for anyway - are they doctors of love?) is the only group member with no hair (it appears, though, that one member has graduated to a quasi-S curl, or do my eyes deceive me?)? Curl-wearers, rise up!

Ironically I was in the bank today and smelled the old familiar smell of the drip drip. I tried to find the owner of the classic curl but saw only perms and white people. But I know a curl when I smell one, and I have heard there are still survivers rocking the 'do. I hate not, I just comment.

Nevertheless, love is tender. I can say that for sure nowadays. Feels good!

What a year, what a day! Poem drafts too...

Ay de mi, this day is one that has God's name stamped and splattered all over it. I am grateful to look back on 08 with gratitude for all the ups, downs, emotions, economic crises, and lessons it gifted me/us. But honey, it is TIME for the GET DOWN. 09 promises more than perhaps any year to date, both collectively and personally. Can't wait!

Happy New Year, y'all! Please accept my offering of some poem drafts I am working on. Kirsten and Derrick, thanks in advance for your companionship on this writing road.

Sewing 101
I am pure love
all bundled up
in a crazy wad
of rags -
soft, bright, mixed,
and torn
wishing
a loving hand
would stitch them all
together
create
a comfort-quilt
to cover
lonely hearts
broken dreams
angry minds
lull them all
into slumber
switch their nightmares
for a dream of wholeness
complete surrender
to the Great Seamstress
who connects every soul
with the waking peace
that hides behind
our every breath.

Essay question: Is it un-Christian/Muslim/Jewish to celebrate God as both Him and Her? Why or why not?
--------------------------------
Bounce-Back
It doesn't hurt so much when
I cut out my heart
to offer up
every time I fall (in love?).
Why?
Because I trust that
I will grow a stronger, wiser one
as the starfish regenerates limbs
after severing.
---------------------------------
Untitled - not necessarily a poem but a thought
Sometimes I can't believe
how ironically beautiful and powerful
we are and don't know it
can't see it
refuse to give our glory
a chance.
This goes for almost
everyone I've ever met
(at various points in life at least).
Deep down we don't
dare love ourselves exactly as we are.

Essay Question: What is the fear of success? How does it manifest? Give tangible examples.
----------------------------------
P.S. The Essay Questions are just my personal musings put in that sickening 9th grade writing prompt form I used to hate. In essence, they are a bitter homage to over-structured education.
Thank goodness those days are behind me!

Love you - all of you,
Kali
Oh, and have a creative YEAR!