Believe in yourself.

Love yourself.

Be yourself.

Now own it, honey.

Xoxox

Lindsay Reva

My grandmother whispered in my ear,

“ Reach for the stars, girl”

I believed in her calm voice and soft palm on my shoulder, so I did.

The stars looked far at first but over time the stretch seemed to be less impossible.

Much more possible.

The voice in my head made my fingers reach farther and farther.

Reach Girl, Reach.

Until I looked around my room and saw the stars that I had been collecting over the years.

How much they shone in my little glass room. In each star there were millions of diamonds and in each diamond rest a billion sparkles of light.

Each drop of light held a glimpse of my happiness, dancing like something shimmering beneath the waters of paradise.

My little glass room had no chance of darkness.

Then one day a miracle happened and those stars that I had climbed and dug for, reached high and low for, turned into something magical.

I looked at the face of my daughter and whispered into her ear,

“ Honey, you reach for the stars, you hear me?”

Reach, baby.

xoxox

Lindsay Reva.

Someone asked me how I felt.

I wanted to cry because it had been so long since I thought about my hardest days, the days that should never be forgotten because those were the days which made me stronger.

I wanted to laugh because I knew he probably didn’t care, he’d be gone in the morning.

I wanted to ball my fist up because I knew all it took was the stroke of his finger on my cheek and I would want him to stay forever.

I wanted to smile because at​ this moment, even in its simplicity, was one of my finest. The night wasn’t over.

I wanted to dance​ because I was young and my body was electric.

I wanted to sing because I could never have imagined how much happiness my heart would be filled with after I accomplished what no one expected of me.

I wanted to take a deep breath. Even though I had come this far, I still had centuries to walk through. My path only gets steeper.

I wanted to say a prayer, not because I was scared​. I was blessed and if I had the audacity to pray in my pains, I must pray after my pleasures.

I wanted to cry again. Why did I deserve so much goodness?

I wanted to blow it all away. Everything around me was a​ ​ restriction and needed some form of effort, but I was free, honey.

I wanted to look him in the eyes until I was sure he felt shook. Revenge for what his voice did to me.

I wanted to sleep. The memories couldn’t touch me in my dreams.

I wanted to leave him, he had too much of a hold on me.

I wanted to tell him everything from start to finis​h, until he ran away. My story only got worse.

I wanted to love. That’s the only thing I’ve been good at.

But instead​,​ I replied,

I feel everything.

xoxox

Lindsay

Today my eyes opened and even behind the gloom of regret from staying up far too late, I was so damn happy.

The shades on my window opened only a crack but the light falling in hit me on my body and to feel warmth after universal​ dark, reminded me of everything good to come.

It felt as if my heart was beating louder and faster than the fan that spun slower above my head and every single speck of dust floating in the air was a fairy waiting for me expectantly. To make my moves.

But that’s just how good I felt this morning to be free and alive, to know that the only next step is to strive.

To all the DRIVEN’s in the world.
Our happiness is our making.
So make moves, my lovelies.

xoxox

Lindsay Reva.

Life is good when you have support. It’s even better when those people supporting you truly love you and want you to succeed. And no, that’s not always the case. You could support someone and not give a damn about them. They do it all the time in Prisons, schools, and even hospitals. In order for our society to move forward people need support in some form or the other. That doesn’t mean there’s a speck of love in their efforts. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It just is. But when you’re free and healthy with nothing holding you back to succeed in making the right choices, how much more strength can you have when you have a support system holding you up above water when doubt tries to pull you down like concrete bricks in the ocean.

I hit a rough patch for some time.

When that rough patch lasted for days which turned into weeks, which lasted for years I just accepted it as LIFE. I’m bad and I ain’t never going back, my soul sang. Then one day that rough patch dissipated like a morning fog in sunshine and after walking a thousand years into a solitude of desert and breaths of ash-filled hurt, I opened my eyes and found myself siting in a garden with rainbows in the shadows, songs sung so lovely only angels could hear, faces so beautiful, that I knew I was dreaming.

But I was woke.

That day I saw an unbelievable amount of support surrounding me on all sides, every corner, and under every pretty little rock. Who were these Angels who at one time felt so far away? My mother, my father, my brother, my family, strangers, lovers, haters, pleasers, people who I had never know felt like my bestfriends, people who I expected to hate me, adored me, the ones I disliked, made me love HARD, the ones who had made me cry, filled my heart until I couldn’t control the happiness that trickles down from my brown eyes when I think no one is watching.

They marched into my life, and I hadn’t heard a single footstep.

How could I have ever been alone when now I sit in a court of Justice, my family and best friends my Judges. As they smile down at me I do not feel as if today if my last day, nor do I feel afraid. They look me straight in the eyes and their smiles hold enough kindness that I think, surely the Towers still stand, surely the term genocide is fictitious. Surely Mista Martin never needed a Dream.

But he did dream, just as I did.

My dreams were filled with prayers. I prayed for the goodness in me and the Godliness in others. I prayed that the walls that trapped me from happiness would be brought down by an army of saints. I prayed for everything and anything that could have been God-sent.

And today when I look around at my family and friends who had held it down for me, I know that all my dreams and desires have been answered.

I have an unbelievable amount of support.

I write this because I’m thankful, and you dearest, if you have the ability to help someone, support someone, do it with an abundance of love.

No, I’m not the Hippie type.

But I am a dreamer, mine have come true and that might be because of you.

Xoxox

Lindsay Reva

July 13. I’ll be there and hope you will be too. For more info visit http://www.revaevent.com or call (858)863-7008.

Xoxox

Lindsay Reva

She sat in the backyard on the hottest day of the year. Everyone was under shade, in the​ waters at the beach, or hidden behind their fortress of airconditioned comfort​. Not her.

The girl sat in the brilliant sunlight like a fading statue while the ​wisp of black hair escaped from her two pigtails​ and matted to her fine damp​ neck. She used the back of her palm to wipe the sweat from her freckled forehead​. Madness, they said. She was absolute madness. It had nothing to do with the thermometer reaching 118 degrees outside or that the rays were burning her pale, almost translucent skin. It had everything to do with her mind.

But it was only because it was untouchable and it all started with a question.

“How could you like this song?” It was asked​ by a Japanese foreign exchange​​ student that added to her mother’s​ long collection of foreign students who swept through the house, semester after semester. They came, conquered, and left back to their motherlands life heroes​. She stayed.

The song was rap. It talked of women bent over with a baby on her back. The men ragged of hustle, hustle, and then, of course,​ DOUGH. So damn original and sincere. Very appropriate​ for all ages as it blasts​ on the radios in every car, stereo​, and home (all day everyday, baby). So on a regular day when the ordinary American girl with unordinary features sat in the kitchen looking out the​ window with music in the background, Kengo came up to her and looked her in the eyes. She had no idea what he felt. His expressions were like​ looking for color on a blank piece of paper.

“How could you like this song?” It had been the first time in a month that he had come downstairs to make an effort of conversation. Kengo took the tiny rusted radio in his hands and threw it on the floor, instantly shattering the ancient artifact​. Before she had a chance to answer or move, he was gone back to his fortress of solitude and books. She looked at the broken radio but only saw the words of the question floating in the air above the only evidence of his emotions.

That night she lay in bed and thought about his question. Maybe it was the radio crashing into the linoleum​ floor or the lack of music which had once filled her mind but she could think of nothing else but the WHY? She didn’t​ know why​; she just did. She couldn’t relate to the words. What the hell did she know about twerking it hard? Her hustle consisted of waking up in the morning and scheming for pocket money from her parents. When she tried to play the song back in her head, there was nothing. Why…

After that day when she woke up in the morning she met every moment with that very same WHY and if it didn’t hold her interest for more than 11 seconds, it was left in a pile of dust covered forgottenness. And so the rest of the world thought she was crazy. She didn’t talk about the things everyone else talked about. She didn’t complain about the heat because she thought it felt so much nicer than cold. She walked the streets looking up into the clouds because she no longer had the ​patience for people around her who loved what they loved because they were cornered into loving it. They weren’t shown the different gardens in the world. They were only given daisies and weeds.

Thank you Kengo, she would sometimes whisper to herself (which certainly didn’t​ help her standing in society), You helped me see the orchids, ​lilies​s, the blossoms, the plumerias. All in the form of a broken radio and floating question.

Think for yourself lovely.
xoxox

Lindsay Reva

His eyes made me feel.

Under his gaze,​ I felt everything and yet couldn’t connect anything. Excitement​ wanted to know why I felt scared. Hurt wanted to know how I could have felt loved. Madness​ wanted to know why I felt so lovely. They made me feel, but that was just what happened when I looked into his eyes.

Like a rose in Harlem, grown from the concrete. Like looking up on the clearest night and seeing 14,000 constellations at once. When I look into his eyes I can see his dreams, dreams which meant so much more than me. When I look deeper I see his fears, his lies, and his pains for telling so many lies. When I look in his eyes and see myself in the reflection, I see forgiveness. In his eyes, I can see his trust but I also see a paper thin veil​ that makes him hold back.

When he looks at me I only see his eyes. When he stares too long I can feel vibrations under my feet as if the earth is trying to send me signals. Sometimes they feel so strong I look to the plants to see if I heard correctly. The vibrations started small until I feel warm. The warmth barely​ last. Like a small flick of a match turned to walls licked by flames. When his eyes left me, I felt like a fleck of ash floating in the breeze hoping I’ll drift away to the sea.

Away. His eyes were beautiful because they took me so far away. To a world where nothing matters​ except the way his glance hit me. A tornado in the ocean, ripples turn to tidal waves. His eyes would take me further until the path was no more styles and manicured, but curved into a wilderness of his reality and ego. The deepest I’ve​ gone in his gaze, the more savaged and uncut the garden.

His eyes are beautiful. When I look into them, I see the most glorious blossoms. Tiares that smell of heaven. Orange and purple Hibiscus, Birds of Paradise taller than trees, roses taller than buildings. I see something that I thought I would never see.

When he closes his eyes, I want nothing more than to kiss each eyelash​.
But I don’t.

Instead, I blink away my fantasies and wonder what he sees when he looks into my eyes.

xoxox,

Lindsay Reva. ​