DREAMING OF DALI... by SEX...CIGARETTES...& SEWING MACHINES

With the name “Sojourner,” I have realized that I will never remain in one place for too long. My fate is sealed with the soul of a drifter... -DREAMING OF DALI...

To My Fellow Dali Dreamers: When I was first assigned to write about a place, my first thought was to write about the entrance of the “C” Building at F.I.T. When the day came to sit and observe, I was bored with the events of that day. There was no foot traffic and I was simply bored with the day’s events. There were no model wanna-be’s tripping over their 6-inch stilettos or fiercely dressed men up-staging their female peer counterparts. So I moved on. When it came down to the wire, I realized that the place that really meant something to me was my new bedroom. It may be something that others take for granted, but it is where I dream and fantasize about life; thinking about what life holds for me. After living the life of a “Sojourner,” I was compelled to speak about the experience that not many know the feeling of. A Mental Homelessness where your thoughts are the only comfort there is. Throughout the revision process I realized that I really have a strong connection to inanimate objects. In my metaphorical descriptions I place invisible strings on the objects I describe, giving them a character in my life’s story. My overall writing process was meditative. I got a chance to really release my thoughts and experiment with my descriptions and wordplay. I always think of each of my pieces as songs, I remember when I was younger, around 5th grade, I wrote songs all the time with my best friend at the time Beverly Vasquez; we used to have a little singing group that went left. I have recently been admiring the lyrical ability in some of my favorite artists and I thought why haven’t their been writers who release their works like music mix-tapes online; I wonder if there is an underground writing society with people like me. It’s definitely something to look into… Until Next Time Dali Dreamers. Sojourner Edmonson-Sealy

DREAMING OF DALI... WRITTEN BY SOJOURNER EDMONSON-SEALY

With the name “Sojourner,” I have realized that I will never remain in one place for too long. My fate is sealed with the soul of a drifter; kind of like Lana Del Rey in her “Ride” video when she makes it clear that “There is no use in talking to people who have a home…they have no idea what it’s like to seek safety in other people…for home to be wherever you lie your head.” I was born in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. I then went to kindergarten in Sacramento, California, while living with my grandparents on my mother’s side. I was the only Black Girl in my school, and my best friend was Kimberly, a White Girl that lived next door to my grandparents. I remember I thought she and her family were so perfect. She had a permanent room all to her self, with beanie babies lining the window seal and Goosebumps books lining the bookshelves. From there, I grew up in Hempstead, New York, where I phased through 1st to 12th grade losing weight and gaining an education in what life really holds. In 11th grade I lived with my sister because I ran away from my mother’s house; all because I couldn’t bare living in Alabama to finish up High School. I thought the grass was greener on the other side. But little did I know that the grass on the other side was still struggling to grow. While I stayed at my sister’s house I shared a room and a bunk bed with

my oldest niece, Naya. That was the room where I witnessed what would ultimately change the way I allowed myself to love any man. One night Naya and I were asleep, when we heard arguing outside our bedroom door. When I opened the door, I found my sister cowering on the floor next to the wall while her boyfriend spewed abusive nothings at her. His entire presence was demonic; from his sarcastic jokes to the way he would brainwash my sister against our mother. As he continued to threaten my sister’s space, I wanted to yell and scream at him to leave her alone, but I was terrified. In the background I could hear Naya crying for him to leave her mother alone. I didn’t understand why my courageous and foultongued sister now looked as if she was scared of her own shadow; and I still don’t understand. When I couldn’t take the special abusive occasions anymore, my mother came back to New York to carry me through my last year of High School; which took place in Baldwin, Long Island. My mother and I both stayed in my sister’s cousin’s basement apartment, and slept on a lonely mattress on the floor for my entire senior year. My mother is a “Ride or Die” chick, but at the time I was blinded by my unrealistic wants and had no care for anyone else’s; which led to me and my mother physically fighting one morning over my

choice to never go back to Alabama. I sent her to the hospital with a bruised eye, which is something I still regret to this day. My Godmother was actually a witness to this altercation. It wasn’t my mother’s fault I was lost in my ideals of life. I never meant it to go that far…I swear. After this incident, I went off to college in Atlanta, Georgia for two years where I met a boy that broke my heart and left trails of it all over America. His name was Ben, a simple name for such a complex being. He was the biggest Asshole I’ve ever met in my life, the Kurt Cobain to my Courtney Love; our relationship was the mirror image of Rihanna’s music video “We Found Love,” and it lasted a good month or two, until I ended it. He was the taller and darker version of Usher, as well as the first guy I ever fell in love with. At that time in my life I was hoping for a man that would love me for who I was, even though I didn’t know who I was. Till’ this day I still get Goosebumps when I think of the amazing adventures that we experienced together; even though my mind reminds me everyday of the lack of trust and insecurity issues I suffered while with him. After I left Atlanta, I came back to New York City where I found my heart in Marc George, my best friend. I will forever be grateful for his presence in my life. He made my soul glow with individuality. No one understood me…until there was him. We have been through some amazing times, where all we needed was each other to have a good time; and we’ve been through horrible times when

we would walk right past each other in the street and wouldn’t even acknowledge each other. I would then sink into a depression, trying to convince myself that I didn’t need him or his friendship, for one stupid reason or another. He may be my only “husband” in life, not in a romantic way, but in a way I can’t really put into words. I just recently came back to New York after living for 4 months in Shanghai, China; where I was able to live the life the King inside of me is meant to live. I am still adjusting back into the life I left behind here in New York. My tears betray me as I write this because China was an experience that gave me life, love, and an overall peace of mind. I was free. A few months ago I had a dream about China, it was the end of the world and I was boarding this silver, futuristic train that was trying, in ill effort, to escape earth’s destruction. As I boarded, I was now the Train Conductor in a very small and tight “Conductor Cockpit.” I ran the train off the sky-high train tracks and as the train fell to an explosion, everything moved in slow motion. As the train fell, I felt at peace with myself, with a deep understanding of what the end of this life felt like; treasuring every sight, smell, and taste. But all in all, I still feel a connection to China and I thank the Lord that I always have four walls, a bed, and a dresser to call my own, even if it is always temporary. During the past 24 years of my life, I have always cherished the place that I lay my head, and the ability to not

have to abandon the possessions that trail along behind me wherever I go, thanks to my mother. My bedroom has always symbolized my emotional sanctuary and cemetery; it’s always a place where my soul can shed and be reborn. Those four walls are the only ones there to witness what the world will never know, and keep the secrets that I’m too ashamed to admit to. When night falls, my dreams and nightmares are tossed into the air with no intentions as my midnight thoughts prance and dance on the inside of my eyelids. At this point modesty and judgment are irrelevant. ------------------------- My current living situation is with my sometimes scatterbrained and messy God Mother, who is a Fine Artist and fellow Gemini. I have moved into her small studio apartment, which is on the 2nd Floor of an apartment building in the Bronx, off the 2 Train at Gun Hill Road. I’ve been living here for about three months now and I live in the room that was once hers. She now stays in the living room on an inflatable mattress, which is blocked by her large chest drawer with five tall stacks of old Jazz and Motown Records. Next to this chest drawer is my stained white wooden bedroom door, which has a strange indentation at the top of it; now that I think about it, my God Brother used to stay in my room…maybe he punched the door during a heated argument with my God Mother? I don’t know, but it’s definitely something to think about. Every-time I enter my bedroom,

I always seem to get an overwhelming feeling of walking through the foggy dream-clouds and stumbling upon one of Salvador Dali’s dreams. A perfect cube of a space; painted with saturated shades of light and dark blues in the form of rough waves in the middle of a chaotic storm at sea; the paint masking the light-switch near the bed, in the not so far right corner of the room. My full-sized mattress serves as my metaphorical raft in the sea of Dali’s Dreams with a winter comforter adorned with large scale, navy and white, paisley prints of floating whimsical shapes; which was borrowed from my mother’s house in Alabama. Accenting the comforter is an off-white ruffle bed skirt, which adds another surreal addition to my room, in that it gives the appearance that my bed is floating on the unpolished dark brown wooden floor tiles that dance in a chaotic rhythm from wall to wall; complimenting the sloppily painted wall edges that are decaying around the perimeter of the room. My bed is floating on a steel frame and plastic wheels, next to my firmly sitting apple green, wooden, knee-high clothing dresser; with four perfectly placed innocent black plastic knobs. Atop this dresser is a gradation of feminine toiletries, a pack of Marlboro Reds, Versace Cologne, and my pink and white Betsey Johnson Make-up Kit, my mother bought me for my 19th birthday, is filled with My Feminine Armor. Opened mail is scattered underneath next month’s Nylon Magazine, and My House Keys; which holds my pistol keychain that I bought in Philly from a Spy Exhibit that doubles as a beer opener.

Two pink smoking bowls, with cancer black insides, sit next to the Graffiti printed BIC Lighter I bought two days ago. A dimesized baggie of Palm-Tree colored candy waits for my next session of creative activity. Two pairs of black sunglasses sit behind my stack of business cards. One pair says, “Cross My Heart… Hope to Die…Stick a Needle…In My Eye,” around the lens-frame; these were given to me by a Russian female fashion-photographer that shot me on my last day in China. My sunglasses are sitting in front of my turquoise flask that I decorated with sparkly pink sticker letters that spell out “Pink Cocaine.” Closest to my bed sits the silver, stainless lamp with the swivel head; when turned on it projects a seductively white blanket of possibility onto my bed and floors; it also serves as a place for my forgotten rewards cards to pharmacies and my scanable Manhattan Mini-Storage card. The walls are accentuated with random postcards of lesbians mid-foreplay, Alicia Silverstone in a collaged photograph portraying her own version of the infamous Marilyn Monroe skirt blowing in the air scene, and an illustrated one from the Schiaparelli exhibition that Marc bought for me, with a touching letter he wrote on the back. Scattered along the walls are also posters and pictures of Rihanna, with her Kool-Aid red locks using a rose as a blunt, and Nicki Minaj as the Harajuku Barbie, circa Pink Friday. A large acrylic painting of a nude female model sitting among random production props, sits on the wave-in-

duced wall, adjacent to the door. There is an apparent 10% of wall space in the room that was abandoned because someone either ran out of paint, or simply left the room unfinished due to laziness. This unfinished wall section of white paint and light brown wall space, behind the door, sits in embarrassment; covered in small paintings and art postcards, as to make up for the lack of paint. A chocolate brown reclining chair, burdened with strewn clothes from this morning, sits in front of the ashamed wall, hiding my dirty laundry…no pun intended. Though the walls are so haphazard, the exposed 4-light bulb sockets that stick to the center of the simplistic white ceiling—as well as the single window, adorned with femininely draped, white sheer curtains—creates a continuous calm throughout the storm that continuously plays on the sound-stage of my mind. Because my mind is always at play, my bedroom is the container to the most deliciously morbid and whimsical thoughts that are manufactured in my head. At the end of the day, my bedroom is overwhelmed with seduction, rebellion, and surrealism. In a weird sort of way, it’s calmly content with its chaotic nature.