Musings w/Musings

Musings w/Mookie - reflections on life

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I’m a poet and the author of four books, exploring thoughts through both poetry and prose. Musings with Mookie is a solo podcast where I share reflections, writing practices, and observations on life - some direct, some layered, much like my poetry. mookiemadeit.substack.com

4d ago

Ep37 Musings w/Mookie

Isolation: the complete or near-complete separation of an individual from society, a social group, or outside contact As I write…well type this, I don’t remember what the audio is about and I’ll check after I am done typing this up. That is how isolation begins. It begins with an innocent I’ll get to it later then grows into a projected lack of care. Projected onto friends, family, coworkers, associates… etcetera. Isolation isn’t always intentional or at least doesn’t start out that way. I found myself isolated after getting married and again after getting a divorce. Neither isolation was the same; I still struggle with thoughts from that time of why? Why did I need to be isolated? This should have been a time of people coming together or gaining a new sense of community but it wasn’t. In one sense I was expected and assumed that I would not go out again and while the spouse could. Believe me I attempted on a couple of occasions and both were different in a sense. Almost as if I was attempting an experiment to see which was worse. After my divorce I was left out of gatherings by my married friend intentionally. She didn’t feel I would fit in with her friends that were married. I was soon put on a schedule. I didn’t have other friends in the area and it was difficult making adult friends when you have kids, emotional baggage, and being drained - at least it was for me. Without wanting to repeat myself as to why I don’t have friends, I stayed in the house or ventured out solo in another city collecting interim friendships in strangers. It worked out but it wasn’t what I wanted. I was accustomed to visiting friends home or them coming to my place or maybe a outing. Everything changed so fast for me that it was hard to adjust. And having to readjust so much left me feeling that sitting alone was better. It was less emotionally and physically consuming. There are no strange looks wondering was there something wrong with me because I suddenly became tearful from grief. I don’t know. In way being more communal would help deter most of this. Just requires us to be more nosey but in a helpful way. Take care. - Mookie💜 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookiemadeit.substack.com

14 min
6d ago

Ep36 Musings w/Mookie

I recorded this musing before I published my latest poetry collection. The journey is half the battle is the saying. The journey is usually the hardest part you don’t remember. It’s the long hours of worrying before you even start. It’s the planning and one line of information that you are unsure about. Consider the creation of an application program or app for short. There are thousands of apps. Gaming apps, wellness apps, organization apps, even the function of making a phone call is an app. Like it should be an easy thing to create, but have you ever intentionally looked at the windows as you used an app? How is this little program doing so much work? I remember the days of swapping a floppy in the computer to continue playing the Oregon Trail.. Today you could have the same game on your phone, with sound, full color graphics, and you don’t need additional storage! The narrative, this is easy. It isn’t. This journey is hard you just keep going because its worth it. - Mookie💜 **I have 4 more of these to write This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookiemadeit.substack.com

14 min
May 3

Ep35 Musings w/Mookie

She is no longer my step daughter legally but it was never of her fault… Recently there has been a discussion about jealousy and whether it is a valid feeling. My stance is that it is a valid feeling. Going through life I never considered myself a jealous person. I didn’t feel I had a reason to be. I wasn’t rich and for the window I was viewed through, grew up in poverty. My mother received assistance, a father was not present, I am the oldest of a large family-a secondary parent, and a latchkey kid. Though jealousy was not an option. If I wanted something as a child, I saved for it, I asked for it if allowed - like my mother showed the means to provide it and I asked well in advance. I would ask could she save for me to have it. I asked strategically. I didn’t covet the most expensive sneakers or the most expensive clothes because I understood I couldn’t. I looked in magazines and planned for the future - my future. I watched TV and imagined what could be had for me. I didn’t want someone else’s friends but I wanted friends. My life didn’t allow for me to have friends as often or hang out with groups. I learned to live in solitude. I wasn’t popular but people knew me and I knew people. I don’t remember boys having a crush on me. I remember a few here and there that showed interest towards me in my high school years, but didn’t go to my high school, with nothing coming of it. I carried this lack of jealousy with me through college and through my different places of employment. Did I have wants? Yes, I wasn’t a person seeking this stripped enlightenment, just a normal day to day person with goals and dreams. I was just oblivious to anyone else except what I wanted. Fast forward and I found myself married and an instant stepmother(it wasn’t a major issue). It is what festered within the relationship. I wasn’t in competition with a child though I would find myself asking a question that set off an alarm in myself that felt like jealousy. “Why can’t you have the same patience with us as you do with her?” This question came at the tail end of what seemed like the seventh argument that precluded the end of our marriage. I was speaking of me and our boys. The ones he had little patience or understanding for. It had been almost seven long years and now that question came up as one of the hard ones. Almost on the same rhythm of the question leaving my mouth, the realization that I was jealous of a 12 year old. I had whispered it under my breath and I was shocked by the revelation. My memory was instantly flooded of times when I asked to hold her hand to walk into this building but felt a block. It was how I was excited to buy things for her but couldn’t feel anything at the time of presenting the items. There was a block that both of us felt and while I had expressed my disdain with her father’s actions on some instances, I didn’t realize how deep this unknown feeling had seeped inside. It seemed like I was only needed to cook for her and do her hair. I didn’t recognize this feeling that was growing slowly and surely. It wasn’t something I could address because I only saw this as temporary; as she was only here for the summers. I wanted so much to bond but it was hard and I felt at that moment why it was. Where that and another question sealed the fate of our marriage (I won’t go into detail). I will say… Jealousy isn’t unnatural it just doesn’t show up how you think it would. Mookie💜 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookiemadeit.substack.com

19 min
Apr 23

Ep 34 Musings w/Mookie

When you listen to the audio, please understand I didn’t kill anyone… I find myself censoring myself often. Censor myself for friends, family, colleagues, strangers because all the world’s a stage or the coercion of making my first impression my best impression. It seems like I am constantly having to sell myself but with edits. I don’t want to have censor myself because my initial voice is not pleasant or palatable. It’s too dry and no one knows that I am pleasant. That I am not necessarily having a bad day. Ultimately it is self-sabotage. How can one not censor themselves in groups where you are expected to censor. I’m not speaking of profane language, but what is seen as using softer language. All the cotton clusters, butterflies, and floral arrangements a sentence can have. Just writing that last sentence has me grimace - I am not a puff pastry. I am straightforward but diplomatic and I am able to pivot or change a standard if needed. I am almost chameleon like but why? Why is every scene a scene? What does it take to fully relax through? My therapist says I am very logical, that I must lead with more emotion. My friendships are approached differently from my business relationships. Well that is going to change. We all are going to change, We are going to move from the shadows and do what we want because it is needed to stabilize the future. We have to bring back the real. I have to be okay again with with being open and elusive. I tried the rigidity of a “normal” life. I am ready to be free. Join me. Mookie💜✨️ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookiemadeit.substack.com

12 min
Apr 15

Ep 33 Musings w/Mookie

What does it mean to be young? Why is there a sliding scale on being young? To save characters - we are jumping right into the “adult year.'“ One gets to 18 and and you are young. Get to age 21 and still young. Age 25 and your insurances is supposed drop but you are still young. Reach 30 and you guessed it - YOUNG! Is this sliding scale handicapping those reaching for the rung of adulthood on the ladder of life. I dont know. While i want to be enthusiastic or see the brighter side of being told I look young - I cannot. I just want to live without pain or the constant suffering I see or hear about. I want to feel joy and freedom of expression without the responsibility l. I can't because I am not young without responsibilities. I don’t have on blinders of attempting to establish myself and help others. Some days I want to be young again, but I would be returned to the world I left and I'm not sure how much or if I would do anything different. Mookie💜 Would you wish to be younger? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookiemadeit.substack.com

11 min
Apr 11

Ep 32 Musings w/Mookie

Who are my listeners, and/or readers? Who are you that have found yourself a part of my small, soon to be large audience? Are you part of the collective that has grown weary of mundane repetition when you expect growth of a certain evolutionary maturity-no, expansion- of the mind that we are not a layperson of destruction? ~we are animals though not to be a continuous warring species~ What needs to happen is that we move as a collective that has become tired of all this at the same time and not in waves? That we all collectively stop…. ~are we stuck in a mental survival mode~ What I imagine happening is like a scene from a movie. No warning - just a switch that is turned on and can’t be stopped. For instance in ‘Left Behind’ people vanish. No warning to the masses. The person in front of you just walks and in a domino effect, the person in line is next, and then the next, so on and so on… Just everywhere there is a mass disappearance from all walks of life. That is the type of movement I am expecting from a large number, well, all of us. That we stay home. We help our fellow man with whatever. Maybe not as dramatic that movie scene, but I didn’t want to use one where we turned into zombies. I want to show the impact of our indeterminate departure from everyday life. ~That we all stop participating. ~ Not as one-time thing. Not as a bargaining chip for the next week, next day, and next hour... An extended stay for this last bit of evolution. Then when they think it is going well, we do it again. We have to be tired of being used as fodder for low prices, that are not low. Fodder for special interest that don’t directly affect us. Fodder for the profit margin. Fodder for ideas built on a foundation of lies. Who are we? Oh let them write us as Pompei Who stood in awe of the fire, Watched those that writhe in pain, At just the valley below. For it was a sight they've never scene Still staring in a wondernment of dismay Mookie💜 p.s. : If you are wondering if these are my words, they are This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookiemadeit.substack.com

12 min
Apr 9

Ep 31 Musings w/Mookie

You start off with an idea of what you want to do and through the inevitable end up doing something else. There are others that have a plan and stick to that plan all the way through. Meaning they have a goal, know the steps to get there, and then follow through. It’s not easy – it is determination. In middle school you may decide to become a lawyer because its family legacy or some other substantial reason. Graduate middle school, head into high school and learn about college requirements. Throughout high school you do the testing, research colleges, maintain grades, and apply. You get accepted, completed the required schooling to proceed to law school. Everything works out and you become a lawyer. Now suppose along any of those steps something doesn’t go to plan. That by your sophomore year of high school your grades begin to dip because life has become stressful. By graduation you haven’t recovered well enough to have the top grades for scholarship rewards. You still go to college even if your grades are lower than expected. You still move forward but with a change of plans – the change of how to get there but the goal is still the goal. Every decision you make sometimes requires you in a subtle manner to adjust your plans. Sometimes as minor as taking a prerequisite course you hadn’t planned, to having to take some time off to handle personal matters. Whatever the interruption may be, remember to be patient with yourself. Trust the process, even if it’s the process of the universe or your god. My musing and random writings are nothing but thoughts that have needs to be released. Not all coherent and not all concises. Mookie💜✨️ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookiemadeit.substack.com

12 min
Apr 3

Ep 30 Musings w/Mookie

The title is not a play on anything from the past. It is simply a fact for many of us in this world. Most people live on solid land, and humans cease being aquatic creatures shortly after birth. No matter how much we may love the water, we do not live in it. We are not fish. Though some argue that we evolved from fish, we do not have gills. We have lungs—lungs made to breathe, bodies better suited for land. At times, I wish I had gills, or at least loved the water enough to set aside the time and money to learn how to swim. But something always seems to stand in the way, as if to say that it is not yet my time. Even though I have not set that time aside for myself, I have done so for my children. For those who cannot yet plan for themselves, for those who have not yet come into the awareness of how important a skill swimming is, someone must step up and take on that responsibility. For now, my children have me. Not a perfect being, but someone who keeps their best interests at the forefront. Mookie 💜 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookiemadeit.substack.com

11 min

I’m a poet and the author of four books, exploring thoughts through both poetry and prose. Musings with Mookie is a solo podcast where I share reflections, writing practices, and observations on life - some direct, some layered, much like my poetry. mookiemadeit.substack.com

Creator

Musings w/Mookie - reflections on life
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

38
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© Mookie Toujour
Show Website

Musings w/Musings