Hi! I am Danyealah Green-Lemons. I started writing this blog When Life Gives You Lemons in the summer of 2013. My sole purpose for beginning a blog was to write because I had something to say and to bring truth … Continue reading
Hello, my reader! In reference to an earlier post I wrote titled, “Summer-time Sadness With a Little Less Lana Del Rey,” I’d like to share a bit of how my summer is going.
As you may know, healing can be a slow process – emotional healing doubly so. In my summer “manifesto” I mentioned that this summer would be a time of emotional healing for me – a chance to mend the scars that resulted from my emotionally taxing junior year of college. I stated in my last post that I wasn’t exactly sure what my emotional healing process would look like, whether it would involve me spending time with close friends and family or going to the beach weekly to ease my mind. Proudly, I can say that I’ve discovered something as precious as gold when it comes to allowing myself to heal. And, I must admit that I was closer to defining my emotional healing process than I initially thought. Giving myself the time, the energy and the space to heal (to essentially fulfill the summer “manifesto” described in my last post), involves doing the things I love. As plain and simple as that!
“Do the things you love, Danyealah…”
A sentence that has been running through the course of my thoughts as if it were a tape recorder on loop, “Do the things you love…” One of the things I love is music and, “doing” music has helped me a lot this summer. Because music is something close to my heart, I am gifted with the ability to sing and I grew up playing the flute, I gravitated naturally to the thing I knew would help me cope with my issues. Not only does music have the ability to soothe, it’s therapeutic qualities for me are much deeper. Music gives me a sense of identity, helping me fight on in the journey to not only heal emotionally, but help me figure out who I am as a young adult.
The truth is that music creates community – for the listener and the listened to. When I troll the web, or solicit recommendations from friends, or seek out NPR’s All Songs Considered for new music, I know that I am not the only one searching for a good tune to listen to. “Doing music” involves not only endlessly searching for underground artists or new alternative bands, it involves becoming engaged with the music community. And for me, engaging the music community includes everything from singing in my shower to a Yellowcard album I loved in high-school, to finding the perfect song to match every mood I’ve ever had.
Essentially, rediscovering my love for good music has given me a snippet of my identity back. It is almost as if my inner-self walked up to me and said, “Hi, Danyealah. I am the part of you that loves music. Embrace your identity as a music-junkie.” Now here I am, half-way into the middle of summer accepting that part of myself, allowing myself to heal.
In closing, I’d like to leave you with a song that has soothed me many times this summer. The melody carries me to a place where I can sit in peace and my own thoughts are not my enemy. I hope you enjoy it just as much as I do. 🙂
Summer Heart – I Wanted You to Stay on the Other Side <- Click me
Bedtime Stories Sometimes I am a kid again – Wonderfully innocent, A fresh soul on the earth. With eyes closed, my mind drifts back to popsicle days… Sometimes there is joy behind my smile and I am 10 6 or … Continue reading
Poetry on the awkward jitters of excitement that come with packing for a home away from home. Enjoy!
Shoebox
Memories in a shoebox fall out
one by one –
A button of laughter,
A thread of tears.
Graceful is the spillage,
Funny is the downfall:
One by one,
Out of the box,
Spill all my years.
Two Homes
Stuffing, folding, packing.
Shelves on top of
Shelves, undone.
Creasing memories into perfect folds,
Pressing laughter and jubilation into angular sections –
One by one
A sock, a hair-tie…
Summer nights fit into a box,
Tears curl into a pocket.
Days on top of
Days, packed:
Memories in a box.
Poetry on love and anger – Enjoy, folks.
Summer Solstice
Last night,
I dreamed of unrequited love:
Soft, glowing, shimmering and present –
Presently
I feel you no more;
It is as if you have disappeared, vanished and faded.
Faded
Were the days I dreamed of loving you –
Lost in my imagination you were
Mine.
Captured,
Caught,
Smitten.
Mine to hold, to curse, to admire –
You were mine
to dream.
Burned
I have felt every ounce of anger
oozing from my pores like melted honey.
Weeping the tears, warm and slow, of disappointment, chagrin.
I have swallowed the poisonous pill of guilt,
ingesting that internal suicide.
You are the mime-game I play:
The death of silent remorse.
Hot, searing honey,
as if melted by frying pan,
Cooks,
Boils,
Peaks.
I am spilling over, vomiting the pain of familiarity.
Raging in my soul like warm honey,
beating in my chest like wicked rhythm,
clamoring in my toes like disease,
I feel my rage through and through.
When Life Gives You Lemons... 