About Mer.

Myel Man

How do you say “honey” in Creole?

Myèl.

I don’t remember who I asked for the translation of “honey,” but I have loved the way it sounds ever since. Myèl (mel) sounds like it would be a sweet nickname for a friend you adore. One who is open and kind and loved by most, but short for Mellanie or Melisma.

It even drips from your cupid’s bow so sweetly, myèl. Sometimes Haitian Creole can sound so boisterous, but the sound of myèl is so soft. It reminds me of crushes and slow burns.

I like to pace or walk and get lost; it was roaming the aisles of shoes I didn’t need that I smelled something familiar. The scent that sits in my cabinet, which stuck to my spoon this morning when I was making tea.

You were very handsome in a non-traditional way for our local. Hair too dark, a face too blemished, and a nose too wide, but still, you reeked of honey.

You told me your name, and it was simple, but on wash day, you still stuck to my roots even after clarifying. And when I sat down to do some work, I wondered if you were the type to respect a woman’s grit or independence. Or if the books that lined your shelves were a fly trap for women to distract them from your secret animosity, pollinated by an old heartbreak.

But when we sat on splintered park benches to chat, I noticed, alongside your perfume, your eyes swirled with a honeysuckle brown color that I wish I could indulge in. I recall thinking how nervous you seemed and how I found it sweet and wondered why someone so amber mostly wore black.

I was so distracted by your manuka nature that I bypassed the crystalline parts of you. How I wished you could be more patient or open, but by that time, you had already fully turned to myèl.

When I get sick, I take a tablespoon of myèl and think of you, though now, after so long, you remind me of honey.

Happiest Saturday, thank you for reading!

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About Mer.

Dark Cellars of Hope.

On hope, desire, and dream catching.

In high school, I wrote a short story inspired by the book “Living Dead Girl” by Elizabeth Scott.

It was a pretty dark read, but I felt a deep longing to experience the freedom the main character felt towards the end of her story. I envied the brightness of her reaching the reality of hope imagined and finally escaping her captor; the warmth that illuminated those chapters produced a deep ache in me. She was able to leave her prison, allowed to make her own decision on her life, no matter how brief.

A brightness I tried to replicate through my own story about gypsy girls and the turmoil of traveling so often with their mom. It was then that I realized my own talent as a writer, though my English teacher’s feedback brought me back to earth with a simple “that was very creepy”.

I think what really stuck with me was her hope. It may have been tied to the author trying to illustrate her stunted development, but the desire to “keep hope alive” in difficult circumstances was impactful.

However, I was younger when I felt that way, and in becoming a woman, I see it a bit differently.

Realistically, her hope was from a place of delusion or primal need, somewhat parallel to the idea of the “strong black woman”. That is why hope can feel so sadistic sometimes. After experiencing things not working out consistently time and again, even after honest trying, are you really being hopeful or just naive?

Something that can be even truer if you have felt “robbed” of certain milestones. If you were sheltered or “parentified” young, does it make sense to explore passions after becoming an adult by age, even if you performed maturity since adolescence?

I have become so unsure about many things; childhood feels distant, and hope feels very stupid, but it burns beneath my skin. The desire for my own agency, my own right to fuck up my life or make something of it as I see fit.

I love and hate hope; it is very foolish to have, but it has the potential to push you toward your deep passions. I just struggle to know if they are fervors fit for an adult or if it is the younger me acting out like a child.

Optimism has been my lifeblood; it has been a friend since I was very young. I’d dance in my room and hope the future me was happier, but I’m slowly learning that hope can only be a gift if you allow yourself to imagine past its potential to bring joy. It has to be more measured, in the daily trying to unravel what you desire for yourself, instead of when you are a different, more competent version of who you hope to be.

I really hope that you get to be the version of yourself you always wished to be, even if it feels frivolous to pursue. I just hope that our dreams, like children, get to explore and someday mature into a version that may be unexpected, but alive, nonetheless.

Have the loveliest weekend.

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About Mer.

a young foodie

Since scraping my knees and making mud pies at recess, I have loved the beauty that is food.

When I was younger, I got the best “ear itch” from the sound of my mom’s spoon scratching the bottom of rice pots and the smell of legume that some people hate.

I loved the end of my stomach grumbling that signaled the end of our long church services, a hunger satiated by the bite of a pâté. The layers of grease that painted our lips as we bit into the softness of spiced meat and crusted shells. It was heaven.

We used to hear so many compliments on my mom’s cooking; I beamed with pride when I heard the grating of fish scales against butcher knives in the kitchen. I miss the times when my siblings and I ran around the house, salivating at the smell of food filling our home.

Sitting at our dinner tables, we were just kids eating what our mom made.

When life changed, and mom couldn’t be around, we stopped eating food on kitchen tables, and likewise I stopped feeling so much like a child.

After working, school, cleaning, and forgetting to be young, I sometimes hated the idea of making a meal for that would be later critiqued for taking too long. After my parents’ divorce there was a time were my mom absence, cooking and food felt ugly. Kitchen tables turned to couches, sweets used to numb outer pain, and food aroma turned burnt from the amateur nature of a teenage cook.

When I say I love food, I sometimes get a look. A look of — obviously you do— it does make me chuckle sometimes because I often mean the nostalgia, the unity, the sense of pride that comes with a good meal.

Time seemingly heals all wounds, and I have started to love the smell of hot grease, tears from onions, and the beauty of food.

I hope you get to enjoy a warm meal with the people you love, happy Sunday.

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About Mer.

Another Level Up

On leveling up and womanhood.

If you’ve played Mario Kart, you may have used Princess Peach as your player. Perhaps something within you connects to her pink ball gown, inelastic blonde bob, or fighting a man three times her size. A mess, truly.

Peach, however, was still successful and, through many iterations of the Mario universe, has leveled up to her very own solo game. She has inspired me to write on the topic of “leveling up” as a woman.

One of the unconventional aspects of my personality is my tendency to be confused by embarrassment. Mostly, because things are largely trivial; why should you feel shame for honest missteps or the ignorance that comes with growing pains?

From genuine friends, a sugar lashing can grow you. However, I notice the desire to optimize your being, not to be male-centered but still alluring, successful but effortlessly so, enviable but not in a pompous way, can sometimes lead to a life wrapped in cellophane.

The pressure for perfection hit me the hardest after a tough season of life. At the time, I developed a self-improvement kink that now still lingers. The catalyst of this said kink was a myriad of opinions on my personality, decisions, and being. So much so that I forgot that I didn’t within myself feel much shame on these honest missteps.

I think the complexity of self-improvement can be its potential to better people but also sterilize.

When I speak to some of the closer women in my life, they ooze beauty. The same women who have goals yet to be fulfilled or fulfilled in a messy way.

A single mother but still a devoting and excited one, a part time student soon to graduate, or a single woman who is an amazing community member. I don’t want to degrade these to underdog wins; I just believe “leveling up” is a personal journey. Especially in womanhood, where we are often lambasted for our mistakes more harshly.

To be better than yesterday is an admirable goal, but please let it be for the sake of your true reflection and not a portrait painted by well-meaning projections.

I hope you do level up, but I admit I no longer know what that looks like. There is no true marker for success or failure. Though, as you grow, I hope that is authentic to you. Slowly or quickly is of no consequence, just as long as you persist.

I’ve been trying out Substack so check it out: On Leveling Up – Princess Posts

Happiest Sunday

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From the heart, The Writers Block

My Daddy’s Vest

My daddy was born with a vest.

I’m not sure if it was in a warm bath or a hospital room where he first uncurled his toes. Or if he took his first breath in the hands of his doctor or his mere at home, all that I know is when they cut his umbilical cord, they forgot to take off his vest.

Maybe when he was young, as his sisters would dress him for kindergarten and walk him over with his hand held tight, they wouldn’t remove the vest since it was so big it never really made a difference to take it off.

I imagine as his legs lengthened and his afro shot outwards, as he answered math questions with a certain quickness that those who knew him would often comment on, that vest would shine with many colors. Like the technicolor coat we used to hear about in the old Abrahamic story of Joseph.

I wonder if he heard the same story when he used to go to the bible study, or what if he thought it was just a ridiculous tall tale. My dad is a practical man, but also a vault; you rarely know what he is thinking.

I imagine his seven sisters saw his vest and found it beautiful; perhaps they were even jealous, but ignorant to the fact that upon close observation, there were layers of cross-linked chains that lined his vibrant garb.

Maybe when escaping death at the beach, traveling from the warmth of Port-au-Prince to the frigid air of Jersey, or getting a divorce, the chains would increase in weight.

My father wore his vest with pride, I think, but I hated it.

Vibrancy can be deceptive, its beauty coveted but misunderstood. Everyone seemingly desires beauty but forgets the way it can objectify its host.

The beauty of his outer garments shone when someone needed him, or money, or advice, but the indents in his shoulders were ugly.

I longed for the day he would take it off, though in small moments he did when he was so happy at his surprise birthday parties or our family trips. I long for his retirement, for grandchildren, for old age, and worsened eyesight.

My daddy no longer wears his vest, but not by his own choice. I wear his vest to remember how amazing he is, but the chain-linked crosses inside, I will burn.

For J.R.B, my one and only princess, I love you.

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The Writers Block

Young & Un/Sheltered

I was chatting with someone earlier this week, and they asked me if I always wanted to be a scientist, and it gave me pause. Today I was considering writing about being young and “making it,” but I think the current title better reflects what I’d like to focus on: being unsheltered but somehow sheltered in a way that can make you a late bloomer.

.

The first crush I can remember was a boy called BP. We were in middle school in sweltering summer heat; he was a sort of shade. He was so cute, with icy deep blue eyes (not the scary pale type), and he loved to play football, always yapped about it. I used to secretly hope he’d let me escape with him.

For whatever reason, he always stopped to talk to me. It confused me at the time because I didn’t dress in a fly way, just what we could afford, plus the clothes or out-of-style sneakers I would borrow from my cousins, who were kind enough not to complain.

During that kind hectic time in life, I always appreciated his sweetness and how he was not the “brightest” intellectually, but he made up for it in warmth. After school, when I waited for my aunt to pick me up, his face would light up, displaying his crooked but white teeth (all thirty-two), and he’d run to hug me. It always made me feel something. That something wasn’t love, but it was just something, as opposed to the buzz of sugar-coated nothingness that revolved around living with our mom.

It’s only as I get older and less certain of the future that I realize how sheltered we were. At times the past is fuzzy, other times it’s jarringly sharp, but a general theme I recall is the feeling of instability that came with seasons of being unsheltered. Unsheltered in a sense that sometimes we didn’t know where we would stay, but more so emotionally, fending for ourselves and trying our best to consider how much harder someone else had it. Being a sheltered child meant hope, believing that instability could be resolved by just doing the right things, but often in a narrow mindset of success, weddings, children, and humble endings.

In general, my sheltered upbringing taught me to see the world in black and white: you work hard, you don’t complain, you are grateful. This mindset is slowly eroding. I now feel a lot of guilt caring for myself, finding a million reasons to prioritize others’ emotions above my own. I sometimes struggle to set up my own space because my body recalls the fear that it won’t be mine for long, and I struggle to give in a healthy way when I’m deeply interested in someone, though I don’t think I’ve felt mature love yet, just puppy love and the kind that comes with friendship.

I just wanted to share that you can slowly unpack the parts of you that developed while you were sheltered. I will say it has made me very empathetic and creative at making cold places feel like home, and that is one aspect I desire to keep. However, I am slowly learning that I can be “selfish” sometimes and think about what I want in a way that’s balanced and not rooted in greed or being parallel with the Joneses.

I enjoy science. It is fun, hard, and stable, a few of the things I used to yearn for as a child. But I think when you grow up a certain way, you learn to dream for just enough, and it’s hard to see beyond that. I like the ability to see beauty in simple things, but I’m getting more comfortable not being so sure about everything. So, on my off days, I dream outside the box and write.

Happiest Sunday + end of a ramble.

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The Writers Block

A Young Amateur Writer

I woke up this morning with the worst realization that I am kind of lost and fearfully hopeful. Being organized (ish) has blessed me with a lot, and it has helped me immensely in surviving and making sure I “made it.” As I am aging, I’m surprised by how unsure I feel about what “making it” means or what survival versus “living” feels like, and if there can be a difference in an ambitious but often transitional society. Anyway, that’s something I want to get into next week.

This week I want to break down some of my perfectionism and write something imaginative. If it’s crap, at least I wrote something. If it’s amazing, it’s because I intended for it to be.

I was mulling over a possible character name during my T ride, but today, let’s say “Drapo” for our main character, since I write this looking over at the Haitian flag pinned to the wall above my desk.

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DRAPO, a fictional story

I.

I have always loved reading; it was my first sweet escape. Books have a particular smell to them, almost like aged clothes but with a hint of something I can’t describe that reeks of nostalgia. The worlds that can be painted through a series of words, paragraphs, and novels have always amazed me. On my worst days, the smell of books and library buildings’ gentle hums bring me comfort.

There’s a hum that buildings make when the AC is running, an artificial wind that makes a beautiful white noise. That’s probably the reason I always fall asleep; it’s like a lullaby. A sweet son—

“Are you homeless?”

A sweet song… interrupted by a stocky, pale librarian, with silverish wired glasses, locked on her target in mild disgust.

“I’m sorry? Oh no, I just, I just fell asleep.”

There is a pause before she answers, her wrinkled frown coming into focus as I am jolted awake by the increasing look of annoyance on her face and the reality of an empty library, left cold by more sensible patrons who left before the fluorescent signal of day’s end from the outer streetlights.

“Well, I see you sleeping here often and I’d like to talk to your parent when they come to pick you up.”

“Should you really be paying that much attention to a stranger?”

“Ma’am.”

“Fine, I’ll get him for you, but his English isn’t very good.

________________________________________________________

That’s all I have so far, I’ll keep thinking about the character drapo, I hope you have a wonderful week.

-V

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The Writers Block

Mousey & Young

My favorite picture of me and my sister is of us sitting close, faces together, in our matchy-matchy Christmas dresses by the beautifully decorated tree, credit to my mother’s impeccable eye for gaudy yet girly design.

I love my sister’s gap and the milky brown tone of her face. I chuckle when I see that picture; she looks so much like the older sibling, and I so mousy, a bright smile, but quiet just the same.

I have a complex view of quietness. I enjoy it, but sometimes it’s pulled from me by well-meaning strangers. It’s often viewed as weak or slow, but it’s my favorite sound after a long day.

Quiet. Often used as a slur for a person unsettlingly at peace with their own company or just socially awkward. Or…?

Quiet,

floods over me more recently. I used to think it was when I plugged in my earbuds and floated into my own world. But it muted my mind, just my loud escape.

Quiet,

and well-behaved, often celebrated by some elders for being so well-trained, respectful, unproblematic, crushed into a figure so small and barely noticeable. Like fine cutlery, only to be fully admired when its owner deems it fitting.

Quiet,

to some people who’ve yet to defrost, I appear to be nothing more than my quiet nature. But how loud and boisterous I am with the ones who melt me. Though, global warming is inescapable, and I find myself less cold but still cautious.

Quiet, be quiet.

I usually am, but today I’m really in pain. Can you listen this time? I know I’m often silent—

silenced, by my own discomfort with overwhelming you. It might just be a one-off thing, a bad day?

Quiet, be a good girl, be nice. Behave. A woman shouldn’t be so angry. Forgive and get back in your trap.

Quiet, don’t act like you don’t have your own issues.

Quiet, ashamed of my mistakes.

Nuanced as it is, I will say the quiet part aloud too.

I see my flaws, but I won’t bury them with yours,
silently suffocating under the weight of the rug I was swept under.

Quiet and gracious, not to ignore the trampling of the elephant in the room,
but because I won’t carry on like a martyr from the ring of mockery.

I don’t often speak unless I’m really in pain. Please don’t make me…
Hushhh. How do you expect to be married if you don’t allow some mistreatment?

I do not want to be fine cutlery, only allowed to speak when given permission. You praise me for being so good at listening, but when I ask for the same, you stay… quiet.

Silence is a beautiful thing, it allows for moments of reflection, but sometimes it’s forced, when voices are trampled over in pride.

Still, there’s this pressure, a pressure to appease others’ discomfort with a nature that is not inherently wrong, not inherently sinful. Shrinking yourself to fit their expectations, to be more palatable, seems less like an act of grace and more like a painful death. Sure, there are conditions, complexities, and nuances, but ultimately it kills slowly.

So, though I love my ability to be silent, I will no longer be

mousy
but quiet, yes.

Epilogue

There’s beauty in not needing a reason, a trauma story, a diagnosis.

But sometimes, there is. And there is beauty in knowing that too.

More than conquers, but Jesus wept.

It’s not black and white, or gray—maybe much worse than that, a muddled brown.

Not everything needs to be pathologized (as some point out), but it’s okay to get the help you need to understand yourself.

I hope you get to enjoy some quiet today.

I wrote quiet as an ode to the complexities of quietness, sometimes as it is seen in women. I share it with you with no subtext; it is not related to one instance but reflecting over a lifetime from my adolescence up to today.

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The Writers Block

On the purpose of UB

Hello, and welcome to “The Unblended.” This is a space where I share my thoughts and reflections on life, personal growth, and the journey of authenticity.

My aim here is to explore a range of topics with honesty and vulnerability. But hopefully not overshare in this living journal and graduate to becoming a better writer and even author.

“The Unblended” represents my desire to share my genuine thoughts and experiences, acknowledging that growth is a process. I’ll be reflecting on various aspects of life, and sometimes those reflections will touch on faith, love, life, happiness or sadness but I hope my words can resonate in some ways.

Thank you for stopping by!

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From the heart

Young Yet Older

The change in weather signals that the start of spring is soon to come, and it’s evidence, alongside the sound of groans as I get up from bed, that time waits for none.

I’m reminded of my father, a living time machine. When I visit home, I love to rub my fingers over the grey spikes that now litter his scalp. I feel the weight of nostalgia when I embrace him, remembering moments from my childhood: dancing on his toes, the look of disappointment on his face when I was distracted by everything but what mattered, the one time I saw him cry, and now, the strange WhatsApp messages we share. He’s always been an old man who yells too much, but now he’s fragile and forgetful, so much older than I remember.

I set out to write something poetic on youth and aging, but lately, something else has been weighing on me. I’ll write, assuming that if it’s meant to, the right people will read and understand to whom I’m speaking.

I think of dim sum, craft nights, and the sting of betrayal.

It’s hard to ignore the contrast between the people who once filled my days with joy and those who have become the source of my pain. There’s a heaviness in seeing people I once looked up to turn away from me, distorting the truth or using my flaws as weapons. Some probably didn’t intend to hurt me, but others seemed to take pleasure in pointing out every fault. It’s a bitter realization that those who were once so close can now feel like strangers.

Despite all this, I remind myself that guilt, though painful, is not our enemy, it’s an invitation to grow. I’ve learned that our mistakes, no matter how big or small, can’t erase us, but they reveal parts of us we often try to hide. Our insecurities, fears, and weaknesses come to light when we face the truth of our human nature.

I know that many of you are good-hearted, though like all of us, flawed and in need of growth. Still, I hold onto the hope that we can all do better. I want to offer grace, and in return, I ask for the same. I’ll do my best not to harbor bitterness or remember the passive-aggressive comments, and I ask that we try to meet each other with kindness, even when it’s hard.

In all of this, I will always cherish the good memories:

Talks about babies growing from a pear to a watermelon, weekend trips to the beach, nights watching Single’s Inferno, YA game nights with confusing prompts, prayer circles, stories of stealing boats with friends.

They are etched into my heart, and I will carry them with me. But I also recognize that some relationships might not evolve in the same way they once did. You’re always in my prayers. I am just not sure if we should make any more memories together. Maybe we will, or someday awkwardly greet each other and talk about how time flies.

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