Attitude is Self Gratitude

Gerry Anthony

"They say that it's not about what you do but how you do it and not about what you say but about how you say it. It sometimes seems also like a matter of not what is said, but who is saying it. I can tell you that it is sometimes very hard to see that truth manifest itself in the way that I would sometimes, I guess, 'try' to explain certain concepts to persons against much objections and disapproval on their part. Then at some point later I would see the same persons lauding similar or the same concepts, except then it is expressed in more "sophisticated" language by some presumably more qualified or recognized individual. Maybe it is not so much about the concept and idea but refinement of expression."


{well. you could have stopped at who is saying it. I came to that insight and conclusion yesterday after the last of a few persons telling me about "my attitude" but when i study the thing I had to ask myself, what is an attitude, what is the attitude they speak of, and when I see instances, they are all the same: me refusing to let other people treat and address and construct me according to their will and interest, me standing up for myself, me being a woman and having the gall to do that against men who step out first step trying to belittle or best me (as it relates to my vehicle), it also means going head to head with folk who would beat and gain an upper hand to control or manipulate you. apart and separate from all of that is an unspoken dynamic too...what is normal for men is unacceptable for women, so like i am supposed to have an attitude of gratitude and 'take what ever you can get', my back not supposed to be too straight, nor my nose...anyway, what i am saying ...is that "who" is very much predominate. but i understand all of what you say otherwise, just giving another spin and perspective on the same story. i guess in my refinement it is to be sugar and honey and smile and charm my way away from the bullshit people try to shovel but in my case, my face straight as a pin and convo short short.}

i am posting this cause so much is on my mind and a good part of it relates to this:: who you are and who and how people will allow or not, you to be.

twelve days left and still revelations of this place reveal themselves. that ever lined onion.

so yesterday i learned that someone i considered a cool associate had been talking to me for weeks and i have known her for over a year, but last week on a lime is telling someone else not to have her sit next to me on a lime. this woman just turned fifty last tuesday. is the mother of three children. and all the weeks prior to last was asking me repeatedly if i was coming to her birthday party. i now wonder as i write, is she, might she not be one of those people who i tell you have mental illness for sport, schizophrenic, bipolar or something else additionally, it so makes no sense.

then i wonder what kind of trini obeah woman i am when a crapaud appears at my door and I neither am afraid, nor does it ever occurred to me that it could be a bad omen or someone sent anything for me, nor do i consider throwing salt on it. instead, i come inside cool and calm, leave it at the landing. and research the meaning for bullfrogs, crapauds, and the numerology...see it is all good and blessings and a flood of good tidings to come, and recognize its number play whed the six pm call the evening prior and its number opposite and total played that day at the afternoon and evening. i tried to get friends to play cause I dont, and well, no one did/ only for weeks later for trinis to tell me that is a bad sign/ and i wonder if that is the power of a true blue unversal obeah woman her tools and kriptonite are not of this world and certainly not of the natural creatures and measures that emanate from her hand. kind of sending bush poison for Osein, it aint possible. he growing, planting and tending the very same. but i find that intriguing

but it made me pray this morning and pump up my hedge and flyback tools and capacities.

and for the first time I thought i need a spirit guide to process and interpret the movie that plays in my brain when i close my eyes. or the constant depiction of faces, endless. or the scenes of images, or like today, the morphing of animals, behind my eyes. effortlessly. I dont know what that is. I want to know what that is. I want to know someone else that happens to/ the first and recent explanation I came up with was actually given to me when chase said i am walking with all the beings i have ever incarnated to.. it was after one of his channelings after we bathed in the river. it seemed sensible and resonated with us both. but now. i have a heightened need to explain it further, especially as the scenes are evolving. and this is what appears in my art and paintings, when they are abstract.. endless faces. that i did not put there.

but i digressed before i finished a point. i think i wake up realizing how untrustworthy everybody is , even when they dont mean to be. like my closest girlfriend telling me 'she dont think i am leaving to go anywhere' and i just looked at her and listened and wondered what could be appearing to her for her to say that? even as i have ticket in hand. but it shows you how people can be undermining when they dont mean to be, but that plenty people are and are in fact malicious

like yesterday, another friend, brought a mechanic whom she has know for months to see my car two weekends ago. yesterday she approaches me and tells me about my attitude. that the man was offering to fix my car and then sell it and give me some change. and I was looking at her stunned. she is a drunk, so i was taking it in stride, but i was shocked. and wondered and asked her how we could have such a divergent view of an interaction. and then i asked her if i was mistaken why did she not tell me what he was offering. but the man offered no such thing. never. and why would someone do that a month before I am to leave. you really think a mechanic is going to stop all other work, make my car priority and dispense with it? you see a scam when you hear one. that was for him to take my car, i have to flyout and they keep my car, and use it and make money off of it as will. but folk will get mad as hell when you foil their schemes. Now i wracking my brain wondering how she could see things as she had, and is only when things dont add up you realize folk had plans for you. she supposed to be a friend. I wonder what she was getting out of it? But then turns around to tell me how she had to beg the mechanic to come and take her daughter's car. I said why you had to beg? She said cause neither she nor the daughter has money. And that is when I look at her and asked her so why you feel this man would have fixed my car for free? She had no answer. jumped up in a fit and say talk done. I know why he would do it, cause I done pass through a paul wau han or what ever he name is...it was a scheme to get your car and make money and I learned from the first smart man, that is a mechanic's tool of trade. i have no idea why i am so cool to let that vehicle sit down right there. did not want it to end up like that, but it served me well and beautifully and at the greatest of envy of other people which surprised me cause the car old as hell and as pedestrian of a quality you can get, but lord, people's eyes were green

so for all these things to be revealed to me in these final days here, smh

just stuns. then i have another friend, a male, and not just him, my cousin too...that story i hear people in trini talk about of males willing to take women around and women using men for transportation. i have written about it once before. I have never had that privilege, luxury or service. and even when I ask folk who are supposed to be tight with me, it is never possible. and I am like. turning to look at myself and ask, you have friends here? you could have survived any more time here?

god bless the child who has got her own, and i always had my own

and these last eighteen months where I had less and less and no vehicle, i just adjusted and kept my narrow but growing ass in my neighborhood.

Resilient and Adjustable as much as folk like to tell me I am not a person who adjusts or have attitude. It is precisely because I survive so elegantly adjust immediately and know how to protect myself even in sheer ignorance that they call that attitude and i earn their intentional hatred

it just feels like there really is no barriers from madness to self well being. not a one.