How you doing??

hey, i know i have to be the world's worst blogger. thought i would log on to speak and let the world know whats going on with me. ive been pretty busy with work, school and trying to make my dream a reality. i currently work at stein mart and was first hired as an associate in the gifts department, i was recently promoted to visual, a job i have come to love. even though i love it, it is a lot of work and responsibility. over all it would look really good on a resume. this year has been really good for me. i have accomplished most of my goals and managed to find a love interest on the way. yes yes i am in a relationship and he really is a great guy. but who knew trying to have a meaningful and productive relationship would be so much work!! he is truly testing me in every way and making me become a better person. he has shown me that in order to be happy i have to make sacrifices and try to make him happy as well. doing so is hard for me because im used to doing alot of things on my own,(besides the help from immediate family). he shows me that having someone besides family to lean on is ok and for that i cant help but smile. modeling, modeling, modeling....my dream. its still very far from me but i ca truly say i am doing everything i can to help make them a reality. sadly i did regain some of the weight i had lost but since then i have joined a 24/7 gym and have seen sufficient progress. i think most of my weight gain problem comes from my eating habits because working out is not a problem. in fact it is a great stress reliever for me. i just imagine im chasing the last person who made me mad while im on the treadmill and its all good. lol. overall im doing good. hope all is well with you guys!! later days....

Greyhound

How do you talk to God when you know death lingers?

Everybody says pray. Put it in God's hands. But what if you pray and you know that eventually, sooner more so than later that the end is coming. What prepares a person for death? Death of anything. Death of a loved one. Death of a pet. Death of a dream. Each death is vital to whoever is experiencing it. Everybody deals with it in a different way. But im at a lost.

I've never experienced the lost of a loved one. Not someone i consider to be close to me anyway but as of late i feel that i need to be preparing for it. It hurts when you see someone you love, a person who you have seen as the epitome of strength for your family have to learn to live again. Just the basic functions of living; swallowing, chewing and even recognizing your family members. Silently i cry. Silently i want to scream. Run away from the person who is laying in that hospital bed because to me she is a stranger. I dont know her and for awhile she didnt know me.

Reality set in. Her body is weakening. It pains me to watch as her sanity is put in jeporady because thats just what happens when you've survived a stroke. brain damage-some brain damage thats what they said. two words- that's what makes her vaguely remember her children, her grandchildren-her family. In and out-In and out her memory comes and goes. A lonely death not because we arent there but simply because she cant remember. that is my greatest fear. that she will forget-that she won't remember how much love exist in our family because of her.

I fell like i need a ticket to heaven or that realm in between.


Later Days....

Hometown Glory

Im from a very small country town, bassfield, mississippi, where the most excitement people get are at local sporting events as is the like in many other small towns across the nation. growing up in such a small town helps and henders a person. i say this lightly because i dont want anyone to feel that i am in no way ashamed of where i come from. when asked i would gladly tell anyone. however there are some thins about my hometown that i could live my entire life without experiencing again.

country life is as many of you assumed slow. we get everything late. when the rest of the world is moving on we are just jumping aboard. at times i enjoy the slow pace. it is relaxing. but for the most pary i find it to be somewhat irritating. the people seem to lack a certain level of intellect. they seem to be content with the simple and melodramitic lives they lead. there seems to be no dreams. all of them seem to die among the ever growing crime and violence rates. i feel that there arent any good examples for the children there to follow.

yesterday i went home(to my parents house). most of the time when i go home nobody sees me except for my family. i was never the one who knew everyone in town or even wanted to. therefore i only keep in touch with about three people from my graduating class. so when someone does see me they dont realize that i grew up in the town, they often think im simply visiting. on this visit home yesterday i was approached by some men who would as my mom would say were trying to be "fresh". I naturally declined both of them becasue their approach was not only disrespectful but the attraction for either of them was just not there. immediately after they saw i didnt want to waste any time on them i was labeled as "stuck up".

Stuck up, conceited, arrogant. ive been called all of these simply because a person judges me before actually talking to me. Why does a person have to be labeled as stuck up because they act differently?

I never want to live in bassfield. nothing has changed and yet everything has changed. i want to live in a more productive place where i can make my dreams come true and hopefully i can come back to this small town and make some well needed changes.

i want to believe there is hope for my hometown.

Anon....

Wow, its been awhile since my last blog and i would like to apologize to those of you who were following me. I just wanted to get on and let you know whats been going on with me. The summer was beneficial for me; it was a time of rest and a time for me to think about the things that really matter to me most in life. I found out what i wanted to do, how i was going to do it and slowly im finding that neither road is going to be easy. I met some wonderful people and began to build what i hope to be lasting relationships with them all. Along with meeting alot of exciting new people there is always the heartbreak of loosing some people who at one time i considered to be important in my life. the last sentence puts me in the mind of a quote by black nationalist and one of the most influencial blacks of all time Malcolm X:
"There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time."

The above quote is true in so many ways because no matter how much we as human loose or how many times our heart is broken we cant by any means give up. There is only room to prosper and grow. In the end we will all be better for going through the trails and test that come in life. I just hope that my journey is in some way and inspiration of some sort to others.

So i ask, what are you doing to make your journey memorable?

later days.....

B00meRanG

For awhile now I have had the concept of Karma on my mind. It has come up in my thoughts on numerous occasions especially those involving pain or disappointment, this concept as well as the problem of evil and the existence of God, a topic discussed in a philosophy course I took awhile back. I felt that i should write about this to see if I could get some feedback from the public. I didnt know where to begin because my thoughts as they most of the time are, were cloudy and for the lack of better wording simply floating around in my head. So like any other person born in this internet induced age I googled Karma to give me a little information about it before addressing and audience because we all know there is nothing worse than someone who misinforms the public.

Karma by definition according to Thanissaro Bhikkhu 'functions ike fate — bad fate, at that: an inexplicable, unchangeable force coming out of our past, for which we are somehow vaguely responsible and powerless to fight.' According to this definition karma is our bad fate which we can't avoid because from prior actions in life we are somehow responsible for whatever wickedness befalls us. If this is true who is responsible for all the good things that happen to us in life? If it is true that God is all knowing and all powerful is Karma his way of punishing us? Even if the last statement is true if God were all PKG(powerful, knowing and good) why would he even allow humans to suffer or experience death, pain, hunger anything....??? Would a God who did these things be considered evil? I ask that you please do not misconstrue my words and for one second believe that I am in anyway doubting the existence of God, I am simply questioning the two concepts mentioned at the opening of this blog.

Let me explain. I have grown up around strong black women my entire life and i have observed every aspect of their lives and the conclusion i have drawn is that for the most part they believe in karma but through God. You would never hear them say "that's karma" however you would hear them exclaim "that's God testing you". Take for example my mother. My mother has been with my father since she was sixteen and all us(my two sisters and I) were born out of wedlock. My mother has been physically abused by my father for as long as I can remember(i will go in further detail on another blog) but she feels the abuse and pain she suffered over the years is her punishment for disobeying her mother when she was young and having sex without being married. To some this may sound obsurb but I have heard her say this more than once so it is obviously something she believes strongly about. My question is, should we base everything that bad that has happened to us on a past decision that went foul? If we were to do this would we ever truly be living? Then again i guess that's why the Bible speaks of humans having a conscience and putting that conscience to use. That little voice inside our head that helps us make decisions or in movies the angel and the devil sitting on either shoulder.

Bhikkhu goes on to say, 'I guess it's just my karma," I've heard people sigh when bad fortune strikes with such force that they see no alternative to resigned acceptance. The fatalism implicit in this statement is one reason why so many of us are repelled by the concept of karma, for it sounds like the kind of callous myth-making that can justify almost any kind of suffering or injustice in the status quo: "If he's poor, it's because of his karma." "If she's been raped, it's because of her karma." From this it seems a short step to saying that he or she deserves to suffer, and so doesn't deserve our help."

The above paragraph helps to further explain the concept of karma that is associated with American society. People tend to want to justify why a person is in a certain condition or why someone is suffering. They want to believe that if someone is robbed that now or in a past life that person may have taken something of grave importance from another. As humans we yearn for answers to things we don't understand and karma seems to fill that void because not knowing or not having anything to blame would drive us insane.

So now I ask who/what is responsible for your actions? Do you take pride in decisions you make no matter how big or small? Do u feel that an all PKG God would allow suffering? Is karma real or is it just a Buddist concept misconstrued by western thinking?

Vivid Darkness....

I wrote this while in a relationship. i knew i should have ended it but familiarity and that fear of starting over kept me there. To not much of a suprise the relationship didnt last long. i had disconnect emotional and thus failed to put forth much effort to make it work. my words may frighten some but you have to look beyond the words and begin to feel. here it is:

ViVid DarKNess

Here I am exposed like a freshly opened wound at your disposal waiting for the antidote, just mangled guts pretending to care, as i lay here disease infected while moths and locus feast on my torn innards, your voice grows fainter and fainter until finally relief comes with deafness, silence entraps me as i slip into a medicine induced coma, your hands like claws with their sharp jagged nails reach out to touch me and they burn, steam rises from my body as newly wounded flesh falls to the ground, i am crippled by your lies and blinded by your deception, slowly falling to my knees i am led off by you into a slow tormented death, ultimate destruction, destined forever to hades.

This poem explains exactly how I felt near the end of the relationship. It starts off by saying i am a freshly opened wound, meaning that I was very vulnerable at this time. By now I had began to care about him and felt that he was the "antidote" I needed that could pull the relationship back together and make it work. But as the poem goes on he becomes the one thing that pulls me down and eventually my entire body breaks down whick ultimately leads to my destruction. You see it wasn't him who was being hurt in the relationship, it was me. I had began to give up who I was and put up with things that I knew were unacceptable.

Ladies, so many times in relationships we put ourselves on the backburner in order to cater to the needs of our mate but I have learned that it is of utmost importance to first love yourself fully before searching for someone else to fill that void of love. I entitled the poem vivid darkness because it was clear to me the entire time what i needed to do in order to regain control of my life but i chose to continue to live in that darkness.

What darkness are you living in that you know you need to emerge from??

It's time for women to love themselves and know their worth. The road to self love will be a long and hard one. You will even find that some people aren't going to like it when you find your happiness but you have to realize those are the people who are keeping you in the dark.

Continue to move forward and ultimately your joy will be your saving grace.

Later Days....

First Impression: Hello World....

This blog has no boundaries and will consist of my thoughts, emotions, opinions on a variety of topics.

I've been told that first impressions are everything and from my experience this old cliche' has proved to be true. First impressions are what people associate you with, its how people remember you. So it's only fair that I wish to make a great impression on you, the audience, with what is my first blog. For weeks I've pondered over what I should write about first or how I should begin to give people a glimpse of me and how I see the world and I came up with one thing. It was so simple, as a person would with meeting someone face to face I figured i should start by saying, Hello.

Hello World, it's me.

Now that the formalites are out of the way I want to begin by explaining why I decided to name my blog "po folk's soup" and in order to do that you must first know a little background information about me. I am Whitney Buckley, southern born and bred. I grew up in the small, desolate town on Bassfield, Mississippi where a red light is non-exsistent and the only restuarant is a Ward's where they serve chili burger's so good you can't help but come back. My childhood was filled with building playhouses in the brush beyond the backdoor of my home and making mud pies after a peaceful rain filled night. For the most part I had a pretty normal childhood. Although there was alot of play time there was also alot of work. In the summers my sister's and I spents days picking peas and corn and in the winters we were in the woods with our father hauling wood for the fire place. This may sould like alot of work for three girls but I don't have any brothers and we had to take up the slack besides my father couldn't do it alone. I never enjoyed being in the field or having to haul wood and I didnt mention the five horses my dad had which my sisters and i also had to feed two times a day, however I learned to appreciate it because it taught me the benefits of hardwork. We sweat moaned and complained in the field but when it was time for dinner and we had fresh food on the table it was all worth it.

No matter how long we were in the field or whatever kind of work we were doing my mother was always there with us and it is from her that I get the name "po folk's soup". For as long as I can remember every winter she made what she called po folk's soup. In my mother's words, "po folk's soup is what you eat when you have a family to feed and no money to go buy anything. it consists of any and everything you have in your refrigerator. meaning you get a pot fill with water put it on the stove and you make a soup from whatever you have. Served with a peanut better and jelly sandwich po folk's soup is some of the best soup a person can get."

If you're wondering how this applies to a blog let me explain. This blog will consist of everything I have to give all mixed together in one "pot". I will be as open and honest as I possibly can. It will be my sense of peace and hopefully I will be able to help a few people with my words.

So, there it is, me. I am open and vulnerable. Do not judge me, for I am only human.



Later Days.....