Open letter to the woman I will marry I haven’t met yet.

Open letter to the woman I will marry  but I haven’t met yet.

People say that for a relationship to work any kind of relationship friend’s lover’s even between a child and a parent communications is the most important element... I beg to differ. I think the hardest and most important thing I need to earn from you and maybe even give you first completely is trust, that’s my own personal belief, no relationship can work without trust, I believe the level of trust dictates the level of intimacy we can possibly have, I don’t mean to be deep but if I am to be your promise to be a promise of what other men failed to be in your life the most important thing I will have to do is earn  your complete trust having said that I am not perfect, if we have any chance at all of a “us”, I would have to be someone you can trust with your pain, your dreams , your hope, you have to lol well you don’t have to anything, trust me to stay during hard times when we both don’t know the outcome, trust me with body the most intimate parts of you, not to hurt it or bring diseases to you, to nurture you when you’re sick and to understand it as we age wobbly  bits and all, to trust me with the promise of fidelity, trust me to be finical mature it’s not about rich or poor simply spending wisely and unselfishly and not digging a ditch for us to crawl out of, trust me to be a man and lead but not dictate your life and embrace your free spirit, to be sensitive to your needs emotionally, physically affectionately, trusting me to keep my word to love you and you alone until death do us part in sickness and in health, I don’t fully know who I am, I am stumbling into me and I assume you’re going through the same process so I have to earn your trust that we can walk through the process together, to trust me to be a good father when the times comes and to not make you feel less loved or of a woman if we can’t have a child, you have to trust that you can open up and give me all of who you are and that I would reply the same way and not keep you outside my struggles even if they feel embarrassing, you have to trust  that I am not the biggest waste of time on earth whom you have poured you energy soul love life and years into only to be left shattered and disappointed, you have to trust me to be able to say these words “I was wrong and I am sorry” and mean it enough to change, as a man I am going to make mistakes and hurt you unintentionally that’s just being human, but those words are like healing balm that’s what I like to think I am just being me. I guess you also need to trust that I trust you, life has a strange way of going about its self and sometimes you will need to lead and I will have to follow, trust is the only thing I know that overrides a man’s pride. You might want to trust me not to take you for granted over the years, not to let the romance fade away, random “I love you”, kisses and ass slaps, to be your diary and when need be a human tissue for your tears, to trust me that 20 years from now there will be a special moment when I look at you as if we met for the first time and remember why I want you and why made it this far and smile at that next 20. You have to trust me that the only time I will leave you longer than I want to is when god calls me back home but it’s okay I will be waiting at the gate when he calls you to.

I could write a novel on this subject “trust” and what it means to a woman who wants real love because trust will be the root that keeps us grounded through the years, I just want to let you know I have not arrived yet I have a lot work to do, but trust me I am put it in the hard work plus overtime because your worth it your precious, we both have a trust issues from our past I can’t undo history, but we can enjoy the present and both of us can build a brighter future moment by moment brick by brick, I want to let you know I trust you and I am going to drop my guard simply because your worth it and I trust god that we are a gift to each other. I don’t expect you to feel the same way but I am man enough to go first.

You’re sincerely

Gerald aka cloud walker

i am Human first views on racism

I have being off my game  for the last few days of late and a bit of its got to do with media and social media consistently focusing on race and racism. I don’t condone it in any form and to anyone racism or reverse racism some of my best friends are different races, some of my new relatives by marriage are different and lord know I have being on the dark side of racism. Please value me first as a human being because that’s how I see you. The price has already being paid by history for us to live in change and unity, so why are we repeating history like we don’t have a brain to think and a mouth to open and say no I am not going to be part of that again, I don’t like being treated like that so I won’t do it, we act like don’t have a heart that craves to feel love and acceptance and in the same breathe turn around and hate and label someone as ugly as less than human, if you like and want a label that’s between you and you it’s part of some cultures that are not going anywhere… for a second and I know it’s hard but think … something as vile as racism can only come from a ugly heart from a place of fear and hate and at the risk of being ridiculed unpopular and being called soft I like to think I am not perfect but I have love in my heart I am not the most handsome but my mind and heart are beautiful I dictate that not you.

 My daughter is bi racial god rest her soul, was I to teach her to hate half of herself and explain to her she is a love child, was to tell well half of you is human and the half well?  Please don’t get me wrong I am not trying to be politically correct, we all have moments and we associate to each other differently in our own circles. When you speak do you think about what coming out of your mouth when you look at some body and react a certain way do you know how you make them feel?  “But Gerald they do it to us so why not do it to them” as my mother would “say if they were jumping off a cliff would you”. As somebody who is flawed and one day hopes to arrive at this thing called being a Christian, I need to call out anybody  else who is one or claims the name if god is love and racism hate what’s in your  heart.  It’s not about pointing fingers I am not asking you to solve the problem of racism I am just asking you take a look at your own heart and ask what’s inside and are you comfortable with it. Can you be a higher human being by simply saying no I am not going to be part of that and act on it, and the truth is it might take time, and if you’re comfortable with that hatred in your heart and mind then cool as I said it not about pointing fingers, I can’t change you only ask you to think? I am take a moment and pray for you, because hate is a time stealer and all it does is fester and it’s ugly it kills relationship. Love dictates I that I pray for my enemy and forgive them and hardest part which even I struggle with is love you. It’s not about how I feel  but it comes from the part of me high best possible me I am becoming every day. Remember there is nothing as perverse as silence … think

Where did the story Scarecrow and the Rose come from and how did it develop?

Where did the story Scarecrow and the Rose come from and how did it develop?

Well the original Scarecrow and the Rose story/concept that evolved into this book 20 years latter was the first story I ever told/wrote to a girl I thought I in was in love with, as a child I was only 12 years old and it was innocent and kind of purish. She was my first ever official girlfriend but we had to keep it hidden not because we were ashamed or didn’t like each other that much, but it was the times we lived in especially because of how we became a “us” very suddenly and under very extraordinary circumstances the type of stuff real fairy tales are made of and the difference in our race didn’t help at the time I was black she was white. Its post-colonial Zimbabwe 1993-4 realistically it didn’t matter how we felt about each especially at 12 years old, inter racial relationships were not exactly forbidden but they were not accepted fully,  either way it an extraordinary amount of pressure for 2 kids coming from two different worlds to deal with. (Laughing) That young love is hard to hide but what surprised me in retrospect is that we practiced the patience of adults better than adults did what we shared was very unselfish, we couldn’t just you know be in public and be a couple but for 1 year and a half we got away with being together living secret life of us, we did it so well that when I was 13 my mom started to suspected I was gay it was some serious shit. 12 years old I don’t have a job money or my own place, I was surprisingly an old soul at that time but what I did have was my words and a love for poetry and reading they were my escape from the craziness going on in my life at the time. As for my girlfriend (whose name I will never mention but if you were highlands most probably met) unfortunately when she was younger she had being molested and she had some serious self-worth issues and like most families who go through it, it was dealt with quietly and then people went on with life and acted like it never happened but she was still dealing with it, honestly growing up I seen and heard a lot of stories similar to hers, it was sad but it was nothing new. So the law of attraction, our pain was the connection that drew us together she was looking for someone male to protect her understand her but not hurt her and affirm her, of course at the time I had no idea what I was doing but I had being thrust ahead of my time to be the head of my house at least in my head so I was a protector and she needed protecting, so it was very simple, she liked me I liked her we were both misunderstood but we were a safe place for each other’s and we had this connection that we liked to call love. So I decided I would do for her what I did for myself which was to build me up using words, so I would write her poetry and silly songs that made her laugh it’s not like we are going out to lunch or dinner when we both had free time we would take longs walks, talk I would read to her and we would share dreams of a brighter future and how we would come out about us, and  who’s family would act crazier, we would get married and have so many kids (at that age I didn’t have commitment issues because I didn’t know what commitment really was) so this was our thing cuddling and talking each other up, again a twist of fate occurred, she used to keep the love poems that I wrote for her  under her bed and her father found them one day and because of what happened in her childhood there was a taboo about her becoming promiscuous young and so he burnt all my beautiful poetry and she got a pretty bad hiding for playing with this boy, and they really wanted to know who I was but she refused to give up name so the beating was bad. So I wanted to do something special for her like I said the young love is dangerous and it thinks it’s for ever and goes out it way. So I wrote the first Scarecrow and the Rose it was only 2 pages long but intense written by a young old soul, I didn’t have anything to give her accept my words my heart chocolate my mom gave me but I saved for her and my presence and I could capture them all on paper, and the first version was a love story of a beautiful future we would share together and all the love romance I could dream up in my head  if we stayed strong and walked through the storm, but again because of the risk of the story being found by her father. I was code named Scarecrow because I used to have long silences and just watch life even at that age, she was code named Rose because she liked them and I would borrow them (laughing) from peoples gardens to give to her (yes it was me I did it), I would put them in big book and let it dry then give it to her that way it lasted longer and that’s was the first Scarecrow and the Rose. You see because of her childhood she had difficulty seeing her own beauty and realising her own self-worth and I was trying to explain to her she was precious, and in the crazy setting and situation we were in, for whatever reason god thrust us into each other’s life and my words as young as they were become her mirror to show her, her beauty and worth, and as best as two children could know how we tried to love each other and create something special in secret. From a young age I was an anomaly, as a black male we are taught to be hard early to survive you can’t show those emotions especially being African because we have so many passages of right, the truth is men/boys have these intense emotions the deceptions is at early age they are not taught how to express them in healthy way that’s my theory anyway, luckily I had music and poetry to emotionally detox and this weird secret love thing.

 The 2014 version of Scarecrow and Rose is more or less a culmination of the best parts of the women I have had the pleasure of dating and loving over the last two decades, each piece of them impressed in me is like a petal to the “Rose” embodying woman. Over the years to grow as a loving man I have had to honestly look at my role in any relationship where I played the hero and where I was the Villain and then you get a modern day fairy tale where we are pushing the limits of reality and the magic and affection of the dream world.

My blue print was very simple I started dating when I had nothing so I learnt early to give a woman me and not stuff, it was about how I could make her feel and making her laugh so even when we got older. Guys were flashing cash and yes they would get girls to date them but I know she coming back to me. So that’s how the book developed, every time I fell in love and I hurt I would bring out the book Scarecrow and the Rose and use it as emotional healing balm and preserve the goodness of that relationship in word. through this process I started to understand my seasons and my own evolution and it prevented me from becoming the love cynic (as in love doesn’t exist) because I understood there was something pure in love that has nothing to do with sex, I also learnt from the school master life that if you open yourself up to love you are going to hurt and there is no way around it, and it’s that vulnerability that women go through and men hate. what I mean by that is I realised early that no relationship is the same and that what I need emotionally from a woman and she needs from me changes with each year, because every year its new season and has its own challenges and because it wasn’t isn’t  modeled by our parents openly we assume  it’s a natural process but it’s not, and because men don’t talk  and internalize there is serious communication gap which often leads to the cheating and divorce, and in the last few years a friend so mine wrote a song called the plight of the modern woman. It was a powerful song that was based on economic shift of income in context of the withdrawal of affection by men, and how women where now seen more than ever as objects rather human beings.