TheAyeshaSite

Hello everyone my name is Ayesha and I am interested in Branding. Internet Ayesha. Quaker oatmeal at midnight branding apples and cinnamon flavor. Chocolate ice cream is my flavor. ABC Another Bad Creation the Ayesha song Jon (B). I have been trying to become someone I am. Someone I don’t need to try to love-myself. This self love is genuine all I need is lipstick or lip paint or lip stain and I’m beautiful as I am. I am a beautiful African American woman. I’m Black Beauty. I know I am beautiful. I’m Miss America and no one can tell me otherwise. I’m a Queen like Cleopatra but my name is Ayesha Karim. I am special and I love Kars Dealership and I am going to buy a new car someday but for now I’ll drive my mother’s old car then when it’s got 200,000 miles on it I’m donating it to Kars for Kids my favorite charity. CVS pharmacy asks me if my name begins with the letters Kar whenever I call to refill my medication.

I was thinking about all of my Mentees at my job at Mercer as Mentor for the DREAM program and I thought about last week when we all watched a video about campaigning for disability rights and inclusion. I have an invisible disability so nobody can see it but it is no less difficult. Schizophrenia is the most difficult illness. I used to think I would never get better. Everywhere I go I feel like someone evil is following me. I wouldn’t be able to do anything if I didn’t have supportive loving parents. Like a lot of my friends with invisible disabilities. I feel a man touching me and it is driving me crazy. I hated the way people treated me when I was a little girl. I love how good it feels to be me Ayesha Karim the memoirist now! I am writing Ayesha’s Story The Schizophrenia Memoirs.

Lord I believe in you like the song (Crystal Lewis version) and you created me to love and accept myself and to love and help others. You are God and I will bless you as the good and faithful One even if my complete healing doesn’t come. I have my sense of self intact and I have insight into my illness. If my mother and my father forsake me you will take me up and become my Father and my Mother. God I know it was always your will for me to smile when I put my lipstick on and to say I love myself in my motorcycle hat and Tiana B dress and my other outfits at work. I am Ayesha and I may have SZ but I thank you Lord that Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorder doesn’t have me. I praise you Jesus and I bless your name. Amen!

Trials come to make you strong to teach you. Global Warming Climate Change hoax or true. I just got my Melanin Queen coffee cup. Coffee is strong. For the rest of my days I’ll keep going if I have a difficult time I’ll deal with my feelings or I’ll try to. Trying to deal with my feelings still counts it’s just like a huge turkey sausage egg and cheese English muffins for breakfast at Dunkin Dounts and French Cruellers donuts that I count it all Joy even the beauty in my tears Father I thank you. I am so happy I have supportive amazing parents. I’ve come a long way from Brooklyn Friends School to English major at NJCU. I love Quakers. I even love Quaker breakfast flats and my new friend on Facebook Dr. Hirsch.

I am a Mentor for the DREAM program at Mercer. I would love to teach English at Mercer or even tutor English in my ideal job scenario in my head. I am having the time of my life mentoring the amazing young men and women who are college students at Mercer and are a part of that program. I like them all a lot. Some of them talk to me some don’t but most do and I feel very excited whenever I think “going to work at 11am leaving work at 3pm”. Mercer is a special place. I went to Mercer after high school. I got my Associate’s degree there and this year is Mercer’s 50th commencement. I will be walking in the procession representing the class of 2007. The professors for the most part all seem to genuinely care about the students there. I can remember my first semester working as a Mentor at Mercer and taking notes and going to class with my Mentees Kiara, Christian and Chris. I will be staying at Mercer for at least another two or three semesters. I love my job. I am giving back to my alma mater. The informational interview that my Mentees are doing made me think if this was an assignment for me I’d interview a Black Opera singer like Leontyne Price and ask all the questions I could think of for someone that was born in 1927 and she is still alive today. I want to interview Leontyne Price and ask her 10-15 questions. See you tomorrow in class Mentees. I love to sing and I have a pretty telephone voice. I just called this man that had a flyer on the bulletin board in the library and he said he gives piano lessons and voice lessons to all ages even adults. I am going to get voice lessons this summer if it’s affordable. I have to budget for voice lessons but no work and no school after May 11.

the poet, memoirist, blogger and aspiring children’s book author. I was in my parent’s beautiful spacious master bedroom and I saw my mom lying across the bed with a copy of a novel by Black woman writer Octavia Butler. Octavia Butler as far as I know writes Science Fiction. She may write in other genres. I thought there’s my Hunter College CUNY educated mother who took a Writing course at NYU my dream school. She is holding a book by an actual Black woman writer Octavia Butler author of Kindred. I thought of my memoir teacher Edvige Giunta and how she told me she thought Jamaica Kincaid would be a good model author for me. Jamaica Kincaid writes beautiful prose and it is her own writing. I love it! I am a poet, a memoir writer, a blogger and an aspiring children’s author.

When my memoir professor Edvige Giunta the Sicilian American woman and lover of literature who taught me how to write memoir read my memoir when it was in its early stages of being written Edi read my memoir piece and she said “Ayesha you nailed voice” “very good”. The secret to writing memoir is just that nailing voice. Mary Karr NY Times Best selling poet and memoirist says in The Art of Memoir that the secret to writing a good memoir is “voice”. This means you have to nail voice and no one should question who is telling this story. They should trust the narrator, the reader should trust the narrator “I” telling the story the 1st person narrator! Memoirs are first person narratives.

Nathalie Handal in two words is absolutely incredible. I took Poetry Workshop with Handal and I believe that she is the woman poet of women poets in this time period of let’s say 2000-beyond. Never have I come across a woman poet that has so many identities yet she is so complicated that putting her into a box just would never be possible.  I know that she teaches at NJCU and probably has a teaching career at other colleges but I’m not sure. I love how she speaks French, Spanish and Arabic among other languages. I heard her say she knows every syllable of her name in Arabic. I think of Ayesha myself and I know Ayesha was the child bride of the Prophet Muhammad and she was also his favorite wife so just the fact that Handal is such an amazing woman poet and she is a biracial or multiracial woman is nice to know. I don’t think she is an Arab. I assumed that but I don’t think that is true anymore. Handal is my favorite woman poet!

I have a way with my words you could say. I took a chance last year. I entered three poems in this wordsmith competition for writers with disabilities. I thought Americans with Disabilities stand up! I have a mental illness so I was talking about myself and all of the other amazing participants in the 22nd Annual NJ Wordsmith competition. I love to win poetry prizes but this was my first major poetry honor. I am so glad I had pictures taken by the sweet East Indian guy I dated for over a year who supported me in every way. He is sweet but he’s a real gentleman too. I went up to receive my certificate of appreciation and he snapped a few pictures of me reaching to take my certificate. He also encouraged me to put my poetry honor on LinkedIn. Sweet memories of 2016!

I’ve never been a popular person. All of my life I have never had more than a few supportive friends since I was a little girl. Somehow despite this being true about being me, being Ayesha Karim, being who I am this doesn’t bother me at all. You would think that would make me feel less good than other people but I feel good about myself and hold on to self love, self expression and self awareness. I don’t feel better than anyone else and I don’t feel worse like some people do. I have a positive outlook on life and I believe in being kind to others. I can remember how difficult my adolescent years were despite the fact that I had parents that really cared about me and support me even now at age 36. My parents don’t have perfect lives but my mom is a nurse and a midwife. She’ has had an amazing career and my step dad worked for the government since he married my mom when I was ten years old. They started dating when I was like eight or nine years old. Neil is trying to see if he can get me benefits from his 25 years working for SSA. I thought that was such a nice gesture Neil made and if they accept the application he filled out that I electronically signed yesterday I will receive more money. I’ll probably have $200 plus more dollars in my SSDI check I get on the 3rd of every month. Now I have to start managing my money. Thank you Neil!