Tag: #forgiveness

Never Say Never… Unless

Never forget what others have done for you in the past. Even if you’ve moved on, or they’ve moved on from you, never forget their smile.

Never forget the sweetness in their voice when you saw them with their guards all the way down. Never forget that surprised look in their eyes when they realized something they said hurt you. Never forget that they had never meant to hurt you. Never forget they too are human and flawed and recklessly beautiful.

Never forget that somewhere along the line of your relationship they wanted you to rise, to succeed, to just be happy. Even if only for a moment, a moment can last an eternity. Never forget; if they could feel hate, surely they can feel love.

Never forget when they stood by your side. Whether it was a walk through the park, or a walk to visit you in prison. Never forget that their footsteps can echo just like yours.

Never forget that they were young, reckless, and inexperienced. Never forget that they aren’t getting any younger and one day they will return from where they came. Never forget the last sentiments you exchanged.

Never forget that no matter how much you think they despise you, the right words could make them admire you.

And while you’re at it… you should probably forget that idiotic word: Never.

Xoxox

Lindsay Reva

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Art of a Life

Oh how much I love…
Walking down the street as if no one can see me,
Driving in my car, pretending
That nothing in the world matters
Looking out the window
Wondering when everything will be mine
But in the meantime, I sit back and enjoy the ride
Cause I love this life
Savage
Brilliant
Beautifully
Stained
Art of a Life
To some it’s all a joke, but I have felt too much pain
To let it go to waste
So I sit back and enjoy the ride
Work my hardest
Love till my heart bleeds
Open my arms until my back is cut and bruised from the bastards
But I’ll eventually relax and enjoy the ride
After the work is all done, after I’ve gone past the farthest yard
Work
Play
Repeat
Try not to break
And in-between it all I will sit back and try to relax
Oh how much I love…
The days when I wake up feeling beautiful
When I go to sleep feeling peaceful
And in-between it all, try not to remember
Try not to trip and fall
One step at a time, one pair of lips
Plum bruised chapstick
God, how much I love
My life
Family
Food
Touch
Breath
Freedom, to be anywhere, everywhere, and nowhere
I wonder if they know…
How much I love them
You
Him
Her
Them
I love them all
Every single one of you
But in the meantime, I’ll just sit back and enjoy the ride
One single heartbeat at a time
Oh if only you could feel how much I love.
xoxox
Lindsay Reva
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Highway 395

Sitting in the car with her feet propped up against the backrest of the chair directly in front of her, she stared out the window to the fields and skies that raced by. The trees were magnificent. Electric flashes of orange at their tops, thickly molded and knobbed bottoms.  The mountains were monsters who kissed the clouds. Sienna orange swam past with streams of white, then blue, followed by the warmest brown that only comes with nature sans Mankind. She smiled at the scene remembering when she was younger; how the great expanse of American Land use to make her feel small. Now it just made her feel pure. She wanted more and so she closed her eyes. Her belief did the rest.

As slow as possible her eyelashes bloomed into open eyes and she felt the wind coming at her like a cold storm. Chills clenched her entire body.  A smile lit her face that would have been envied even by the Cherubs in Heaven. She rose. Higher and higher, unbelievably heights until she flew up into the white masses that littered the vast blue. She spun and twirled, laughing as if she were still twelve and unafraid of all consequences. She did not fall or sink. Still, she rose.

Her laugh could be heard all throughout the lands if only people were around. She gave a final burst and felt the energy consume her whole, becoming nothing but light, energy, velocity. If she wanted to she could have taken her momentum and power and balled it up into a magnum fire, throwing it down to raze the lands below. She could have looked to the east or west and cut the mountains in quarters with the point of a finger. Her soft almond eyes could have desecrated and formed craters. But she was not evil. With her energy, she only smiled more and released slowly until she stopped in a field of Mackarel clouds lazily in the sky, stretching; full and complete.

How lucky I am to be alive, she whispered into the thin air.

She sank. Faster and faster. Right before she touched the valley of weeds and grass she pulled her self up and soared into a speed that went passed Mach. Up and down throughout the mountains listening to their pains and flaws. Her fingers lightly brushed against the tips of grains. Her feet ran swiftly over white gushing rivers and fluorescently green tepid streams. She spun in the sunlight like an angel who had no control except to create goodness.

Wild pumped in and out of her heart and when she took one deep breath she could hear the way the world worked and how one thing needed the other and the other needed another. Everything sank into her mind like roots deep in a thousand-year-old soil. Her eyes never closed, and her senses never ignored their true purpose. She inhales, she believed, and she felt.

Up and up like the Queen of the Clouds, she rose one last time and closed her eyes forcefully knowing she was about to do what she regretted every time. I must go back…and be like them.

The song playing on the radio in her mothers’ white van was Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones. She opened her eyes as if she were bored and looked to her right again out the window at the landscape that passed by. Mountains dipped and rose, valleys continued forever, rivers danced, clouds changed, and she sat in her seat remembering how wonderful it felt when you were truly free.

xoxox

Lindsay Reva

 

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Why Did You Start The Heiva San Diego?

So many times people have asked me why? Why do this? Why didn’t you do that? Why!? Why!? Why!? Most of the time I give them the It’s none of your damn business look. But there is one question that without fail hits me like a Deer in the illuminated tunnel of oncoming headlights.

Why did you start the Heiva San Diego? 

When those words leave their lips, memories pour into my brain as if it were yesterday that I stepped barefoot onto the To’ata stage, feet raw from dancing for weeks on concrete, my stomach screaming from nerves, and a thousand electric currents pulsing throughout my hearts’ core. Oh yes, that is a question that makes me not only remember, but makes me feel.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Heiva San Diego, it’s a Tahitian Cultural festival and Dance Competition that takes place every year in August located in Sunny San Diego. This year the dates are August 11 & 12 and it’ll be the 8th year that my family and friends have put together this gathering and event. Every year I hope to bring Tahiti to San Diego. I fail in some aspects, in others I succeed. No matter the outcome, I keep trying.

So why Lindsay? Why did you start the Heiva San Diego?

As a child, I grew up around my mother, aunties, and grandma talking about the Heiva I Tahiti (Check it out!). It was something to gossip about on a tiny island where everyone knew everyone. Almost every single woman in my family had danced in the Heiva. I could imagine them as young women full of life up on stage. Then there was my older cousin Vairani. She was the most beautiful person I had ever seen and when she performed on stage with her hair long and crimped hair,  makeup and red lips, she was transformed further into something untouchable to my young awkward self. Her skin turned to gold. Her hair was spun silk. And even that stank attitude she always gave me because I was her little cousin dissipated. She was no longer the prettiest one in our family to my mind, she elevated into Vairani, Island Goddess.  OMGAWWWDDD I was such a twerp! You better believe that after I saw her up on that stage I would have done anything for her (This probably made her despise me even more!) I followed her around like a pesky mosquito while she tried to smack me out of the way (and she was real smooth not to do it in front of the adults!). But I didn’t care. She was Goddess. Goddess’ can do whatever the hell they want! That was when I was a young chump. Eventually, I grew up to be an older chump.

As I matured my memories of my cousin never faded. I remembered the way she smiled on stage and how infectious her joy was as she swayed and moved in ways I couldn’t. I would never forget how beautiful she was. There’s just no way in hell I could erase the impression of the costumes, colors, and sounds as the drum echoed across the courtyard into the waters that made the island a paradise to most and a prison to others. Every time I saw bright red lips, my inner bitch would shake her head and comment. Sure can’t rock it like Vairani. No one can rock it like my cousin did when I was young, impressionable, and wanted to be just like her older cousin with the perfect everything…Nobody!!!

Then I hit rock bottom. Not really rock bottom…Let me restate that; Teenage Rockbottom. It involved teenage heartbreak to a guy who I was better off without. I stopped eating and I didn’t want to see anyone. 20 lbs lighter and disappeared from my usual group of friends, my soul searched for something else to cling onto and somehow I stumbled upon Healii’s Polynesian Revue (HPR ). They were doing a performance in a parking lot. BAM! Just like a magical abracadabra, my lost teenage soul who felt soooooooo damn ugly after being dumped by her good for nothing boyfriend, saw the red lips, the bright costumes, and heard the drum beats that made her blood hot as if she were standing in the middle of a summer storm. I went through highschool uncommitted to everything and anything(except douchebag boys) but at that moment I tugged on my father’s sleeve and looked him in the eyes with an expression that meant Business. “I am going to dance with them.” He probably liked the ways my eyes lit up with fire..but he might have hated that he was going to pay for my dance lessons. Thanks, daddy! So I dance, and the more I dance, the more I fell out of love with scum bags, and back into love with myself. I felt beautiful on stage. The dances made me part of something that I had never experienced before. I learned about other islands as well as my own and more importantly, I formed bonds with others that made me stronger. My hula sisters.

Slowly and surely I wanted more. MORE! MORE! MORE! More dance…. but especially more of Tahiti. Healii’s was mostly Hawaii. They were wonderful, but my soul searched for something that my younger self had seen; Ori Tahiti. When I turned 18 I found an opportunity impossible for me to pass up; Competing in the Heiva I Tahiti. The competitions of all competitions, which my mother had even participated in when she was my age. I WAS ALL IN, BABY!

For months I trained with a small group of girls in America and it went a little something like this: Watch video’s of a Tahitian dancer and memorize the dances. That sounds so easy. NOT! I lost about 15lbs in the first couple of months. We trained every day like dogs doing moves that normal human beings just don’t do. During training..our hips could NOT lie. Instead, they SANG TRUTH, louder and louder as the days passed.. well you get the point. When it was time to finally go to Tahiti and meet the group that we were joining things only got harder. Dance, dance, and more dance..Oh and BTW when your finished dancing, you better dance in your sleep (which is exactly what my dreams made me do!) It was so damn HARD, but every single second was pure BLISS. Even the blisters on my soles felt worthy. Finally, I had found something in life that I was willing to work hard at. Yet, when it was time to actually perform the dances, I would have never expected what happened…

My hair was amazingly big and puffy. My lips were fire-truck red. The costume I wore fit perfectly. I was ready. We were ready. Vairani, you better watch your back..I’m bringing it! And together the beats took their toll and we stepped on stage as one. At that moment I could feel the heartbeats of everyone standing beside me. Their breathes were rhythically aligned with mine. The crowd looked at us and I did not shrink back. Together we were brilliant with our flaws and all.

That night we didn’t win first place. I can’t even remember if we got second or third.. but that wasn’t the point. There were over 100 dancers who had learned the same routines as me and I could feel every single one of them besides me that night. We were one and the same MANA. Their power was mine, and mine was theirs. Happiness swept through my soul like a dove through the blue sky and I knew that after this night never again would I be the same. I had danced as my mother had danced. I had become what Vairani had once been. I had reached something that seemed untouchable. I competed in Heiva I Tahiti.

So Lindsay, why did you do it? Who do you think you are bringing the Heiva to San Diego? 

I created the Heiva San Diego for one reason. That feeling that swept through my body as I stepped on stage with my new brothers and sisters. I wanted to share that feeling of camaraderie, passion, dedication, and mana with the world. Not everyone can go to Tahiti. Some people don’t even know the difference between Tahiti and Haiti!!! But if I can bring part of Tahiti to America, maybe I can show them my hearts addictions. And if it’s only one person who can believe in what I believe, it’ll still be worth it. Tahiti will always be worth it.

In the beginning, only my mother believed that it was possible. Nowadays, there are some people who talk behind our back and shake their heads. I care not! One day soon, San Diego will see why Tahiti and the islands are utopias, paradise, Eden, and better than  Sweden.

Why did you start the Heiva San Diego? 

Because this is what I was born to do.

xoxox

Lindsay Reva

📸 : Ivan S Harris Photography

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Broken Mamba: Fiction

Despite her hate for him and everything he had done (she could still feel the shards of glass swimming in her soul) when they came face-to-face in the parking lot of a gas station their first reaction was to smile at each other just like old friends, or old lovers.

He looked her up and down as he use to do. Measuring her worth as if he knew he had her. While she on the other hand was able to control her traitorous smile into a flat straight line never taking her eyes off of his pale white face and gruff beard that had almost made him look like a stranger if it hadn’t been for the lie of kind eyes.

He had lost weight and his clothes hung on him with a face paler than she had ever seen complimenting his decay by bags underneath his once bright almond colored eyes darkened like soft plum bruises. Her first thought was that he was sick, maybe a lost battle of cancer or maybe he was on drugs. But his teeth told her otherwise; Straight, white, and clean. They didn’t pretend to not see each other nor did they cause a scene in the street. He walked up to her and she stood in place with her feet firm to the ground, arms comfortable at her sides.

Leon. She said his name softly, and no one around would have been able to tell that she wanted to scream the name until the two syllables reached the skies.

Rose. Poison on white roses whispered in the wind, just like he had always said her name.

She looked into his eyes and remembered. How a gentle touch of his finger to her cheek could feel like the earth had disappeared and they were no longer humans but their own species on a planet far, far away. How giving he had been..Of course that was before she had paid for all the happiness with an equivalent if not more amount of pain. She wondered if it meant she was weak. It would have been easy to pull up all the misery he had ever caused yet her mind made the effort to bring back their bliss and faded magic buried under layers of dust and heaviness of hurt.

No. I am not weak.

Leon. This time she said his name just the way he liked it.

“Leon, what’s wrong?” Finally he looked away and his facade chipped away showing an animal aware of it’s fate when it’s placed at the very center of the wolves table.

“Beautiful.” He use to call her that as if it was her name. And she did look beautiful, especially standing next to him, no longer in suit and tie which he had been accustomed to but  wearing soiled pants and a white shirt that bleach could never bring back.  He looked at his feet as if he could read her thoughts and looked back into her eyes making her remember once again. Almost but not quite an apology he said, ” I lost…Everything. The house, the money, my wife- she wouldn’t show him what that word did to her- They even killed my dog.”

She didn’t know who he was talking about but she wasn’t that surprise when he said the word killed like it was a word commonly tossed around in the streets among old acquaintances who meet in parking lots. Especially after what he had done to her. She did know one thing. Before he even said a word of his problems and jadedness which she knew nothing about, a plan formed in her mind like seismic land shift which when split, shook, and pulsed created a brief destruction and in turn formed a new beginning.

He was cut off by her question. “Where are you going?” For a walk. “Where?!” a little bit of the urgency she felt inside started to spill out and she knew that she would never regret what she was about to do. He looked to the east and pointed to a bridge with an overpass. “Home sweet home.” She had an urge to call him a bum, kick him in the shin, throw him to the ground and jab his back with her black widowed Louboutins. You took everything I ever had, and you even let someone else take it from you. She was unsure of what part about that she hated the most. Calmly her hand extended as if it was the most natural movement that she had ever known gently grabbing his his pinky finger. He was led to her white Lexus IS250 which was as polished and clean as her manicured hands. She didn’t think about the dirt that he would rub against her leathered seats, or the smell that comes from not taking a shower in over two weeks. Instead she opened his door and told him to get in. He obeyed with a smile that might have made her feel disgusting if she hadn’t already been engulfed by flames of pity.

The perfect cinnamon lacquered nails pressed the start switch bringing life to the engine and Stromae’s “Formidable” came like a crushed lullaby through the speakers. He brought his dirt stained finger to the volume and Stromae made his exit leaving them with silence that could be felt like an electric shock in the closeness in her car. Of course he was the first one to break it. “So where are you dragging me off to? I might have to charge you by the minute you know…” She blinked at his words that might have made her laugh when she had half the experience and two fold the ignorance. Do I really want to take him there? Yes.

” Were going to paradise.”

He looked at the road remembering how he had studied her and calculated his every move to get her to crumble. She looked ahead at the road forgetting the destruction and started to plot the new beginning.

Xoxox

Lindsay Reva

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