The Rest is HIStory

Another week ends on a Saturday the moment before the clock strikes midnight. (For us who do calculus, this means that there exists an positive epsilon such that [t-epsilon, t+epsilon]<0...lol..and for those who don't do calculus, it ends at midnight). As we all know, the weather in Barbados is pretty interesting. It's either wet or dry. This week it was wet. It rained Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

I found out a really interesting thing about my life; my mood is directly proportional to the weather. I was pretty much under the weather that entire week. On Monday morning, I woke up bright and early ready to tackle the week. Boy did I get sidelined. The final group presented on "Green Marketing". To cut a long and traumatizing story short, the teacher exploded. Then she asked if anyone had any questions. When I finally got my heart in my chest and beating at a reasonable rate, I asked a question. "Reasonable question, reasonable answer." After class, my friend and I stood outside of class shocked, just staring at each other. "Well that was a bit scary." I wished my trouble had ended there. As I was eating lunch that day I saw my teacher. Like a deer who has sensed its predator in the bushes I tried to remain calm. Unfortunately, the lioness spotted me. "C'mon Marcus, you don't have to look like I'm going to attack you," she said quite lovingly. I thought, "I wonder why you would think that." but I said, "If you were going to attack me I'd have to die here because I can't move [from the sharp, stabbing pain in my leg]." She smiled and we continued talking. Please, don't think that my teacher is crazy, she just cares a lot and expects her students to use their God-given brains.

Wednesday!...Drumming...In the words of Wangstas "It was off da heezy!" Basically we learnt phrases. We went from the simple crash crash crash to more complex stuff like 32nd's...bim! If I've told you that I loved the sound of drums, that was only half true. I love the sound of cymbals crashing. Yeah, after a while I was just making noise but that's not the point. So I went home and I've been practising ever since. I've been taking my friend's advice but it's still a bit easy to slip back into old habits. Somewhere in the noise I was just letting Petra play because I was afraid that it would sound bad. She told me, "If it sounds bad I'll tell you." (As if that's going to make it any easier. Anyways I just played; and she said it was nice! So I played and played, then ended up making noise again. It's as a guy I met once said, we shouldn't be afraid of letting people see our mistakes. Making mistakes hurts but it's through our transparency that we get better.

On Thursday it rained.

It's always good to have an avenue to express yourself when thoughts are too heavy for the trucks to carry. On Friday UCCF (University/Colleges Christian Fellowship) had a talent showcase and I was asked to perform one of my poems. I chose one called "Two Worlds Collide" because it was the first performance piece I wrote and most importantly, it was the first poem I wrote since I lost my book over the summer. I sat in the chair for two hours, waiting for my name to be called. Waiting...waiting...just...waiting. As the hour drew near to the end I slouched back into my chair. I knew I wasn't going to be heard - for the second time. *sigh*...So what does one do? I carried my hurt and disappointment around with me all that night, thinking "What's the use? Why do I even write? If this is a talent night, maybe I have no talent." I got to church that night and as I was about to prepare for the session I decided to drum. And I drummed...and drummed....and drummed. Amazingly, I felt this calm come over me. Everything was going right! All the fills and phrases that licked me up over the past two days were just falling. It was so pure!

Life can stress us out, if we allow it to. As a quote that I read read, "Hard work, when the mind is at rest can be very fruitful." So be at rest oh my soul for God has been good to you. No, seriously, God has been good to you.