some things are beautiful…i thought i’d share… yfla.wrap(“This multimedia content requires Flash version 9 and above.”, “Upgrade Now.”, “http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/shockwave\/download\/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash”, “”);To view this multimedia content, please enable Javascript.
i’ve never been much of an entertainer. i love the idea in theory but i am easily spooked by the idea of committing to some future time to be in a particular kind of mood. i think i’ve been learning in recent years that to some degree i can make my mood fit my circumstances. in that spirit i had my inaugural game night.
it was an interesting evening…fun…random. folks showed up that i didn’t expect at all. an old peace corps friend, my girl who arrived from europe that same day (she fell asleep in my big chair), folks from work, a friend of my cousin (who i now consider my friend), and family.
the first guest wandered in around 7:30 and the last one yawned and wandered home just shy of 4am.
there weren’t a lot of games played. we managed a group game of taboo before dissolving into random conversation. of course there was food…and a discussion of what games for next time. it was fun…i look forward to next month.
dim sum and cherries.
cherries more than dim sum.
the bay area has figured out the perfect recipe for summer wonder. a bunch of crunchy granola types huddled around a parking lot full of tents with tables brimming over with everything fresh and delicious imaginable (as long as its in season).
this week was the first i’d seen corn – but then i haven’t eaten corn since i left des moines. i figure why look for sand away from the beach. but peaches – not bad, blackberries -a little temperamental, and cherries…oh the cherries…i didn’t even know i liked cherries let alone the deep and meaningful relationship i’ve recently forged with them.
there is only one booth at my farmer’s market (there are a plethora of them here) that i dare buy cherries from. some days are better than others but this week…this week i wish i had bought a few pounds because they are so sweet, so dark red and firm that i just want to keep eating them. but even as i eat them i want to stop because once they’re gone i’ll have to wait until sunday to replenish my stores.
but then these are certain summer wonders i’ve come to expect here, like this weekend. two festivals in one weekend. one local – walking distance from my house where people old and young alike dancing to covers of old school motown tunes. and then sunday up north to santa rosa where i was part of the harmony festival. a friend and i sat in the beautifully perfect california weather and listened to arrested development and then angelique kidjo.
it was a lovely time…a real cherry summer.
i wasn’t sure she’d do it.
wasn’t sure she could do it. hyperegotosis is a serious condition that appears to run in the clinton family (except maybe chelsea who i really like for some reason).
but she did. and for the first time in a really long time, she looked human. she looked like she was feeling the loss not in a theatrical way but in a sincere way.
my dad thinks i can’t see hillary for who she is and what she represents. i told him this morning, before she spoke, that if she is the role model i’m to take and celebrate than he should have nixon (though in retrospect i think he should get marion barry).
no matter…i don’t think it is my bias. i think it is what she has shown me. and now i hope, for the sake of little girls everywhere as much as for herself, that she is on her way back to being what i once saw her as…a strong woman, a strong woman, so strong a woman.
Tags: soapbox, socialcommentary
the thing is…i’m a womanist. i ascribe to alice walker’s definition of that vs. feminist but i’ll tackle that later. the point is, my womanness is an important part of my identity. like being black or american…and there are things that unsettle me as a result.
things like how we are depicted…how we depict ourselves.
today i went out with friends and sex in the city was the agreed upon destination. by and large i enjoy the show…it is always good for a few laughs and about 30 minutes of escape.
maybe it was the length – two hours instead of half of one – but i was irritated halfway through. disgusted at the reduction of women to our archetypal place. damsel with prince come rescue me waiting in the wings. and if prince leaves well…it not only means you did something wrong it also means you are less than whole.
i can’t get on board with that. i can’t encourage that for anyone coming up behind me who happens to mirror my reproductive organs. life and love are hard enough without believing the hype…believing that all is not lost as long as there is a diamond ring falling from your silver lining.
and so it is that i have such venom for hillary clinton. the uber woman. the champion for the american woman – once. before succumbing to an “emotional moment” in new hamshire. going into the damsel artillery, the very thing people use as rationale for not wanting a woman president…”look how emotional we are”. (‘but at least she stood by her man…”)
and the list of her ills is long and varied but her original sin, for me, was compromising who she is…who she has consistently shown herself to be. a hard ass. a smart, aggressive, confident hard ass.
and people argue that she was contorted into that shape and the tender moment was her true self coming through…its all the same to me, a false front.
maybe my deeper anger at hillary is that i was counting on her to balance the scales from all the fluffy pink incarnations of woman i see everywhere. and even though i don’t think i’m the hard ass she was i’m not pink either, and her being her and those others being them made it a little easier for me to be me. a little easier to not have to explain why i don’t wear makeup, why in a relationship i don’t believe the man is the default head of the house, why my voice is not more important but as important as my male counterparts.
i’m not sure where this rant is going…i guess i’ve changed my mind. if my choices are are limited to sex in the city or hillary clinton i think I’ll have to save my vote for a better candidate. i guess i”ll have to run my own campaign.
Tags: me-ness, movies, soapbox, socialcommentary, tv
lizzie asked me who i was and what i had done with her friend. i called her, at a rather unreasonable hour given where she lives, to inform her that i had endorphins.
it is silly to anyone who works out regularly…anyone who likes to work out…but for me it was a revelation slow in coming. despite my athletic youth (track and volleyball) i never did get that runner’s high. i never understood why people liked it. i did it as a means. my track coach wouldn’t let me do triple jump without it and my volleyball coach used it as training. while i liked to play i didn’t like what i saw as the work of it.
so after college – when i no longer had free access to a gym – i left working out far behind me.
in south africa it reemerged out of necessity. one of my schools was 12 kilometers away – the only sure way to get there (when i couldn’t get a hitch) was to walk. i remember when my family came to visit me they asked me if things were walking distance – to which my usual response was yet. finally they inquired if it was an american walking distance or a south african one.
alas – returning to the US and my car replaced my feet for most things. i joined a gym (vanity is a great weakness) but i never really saw myself there – vested in changing my lifestyle.
and so now here it is years later. the running joke with my friends is that i only run when chased…by things substantially larger than myself (like hippos…boy they saw me run that day, first person up the tree!). but last week i visited the YMCA. i realized that i need to move more and that because i’m lazy i need to be shamed by the thought of other people judging me if i quit mid-class. that i need to be pushed to best myself because ego is a great motivator.
and so this afternoon i took my free one day pass and took part in a cardio kick boxing class that kicked my…well…you know. but the instructor was encouraging. and while i sucked air like a three pack a day smoker, i tried to power through were i could. and after, i walked briskly on the treadmill for 20 minutes…it didn’t get me very far but i did it. and i was buzzed when i finished.
i can feel the soreness creeping in already…in the legs. the morning will bring the abs i’m sure. but that is the good hurt…the third day of two-a-days hurt. it’s been a while…but i’m trying to make this the start of something new…something better.
i wish i had something more profound to say. it feels like a moment when my former poet skills would be useful…to remember…to showcase…to chronicle this moment in history.
we have a black man as one of two contenders for the presidency.
we have a black man as one of two contenders for the presidency.
oh my goodness…
it isn’t like i haven’t assumed this was coming. crazy lady aside, i claimed audacity and hoped for this. even so i found myself launched from giddiness to tears as i heard obama proclaim it for the first time.
we have made history.
Tags: future, socialcommentary
in previous iterations of myself i was a poet. if not poet – no less than a writer. the older i get the farther away it seems. just barely beyond my grasp.
as far away as it feels to me it is the picture of me that some people carry. not a hairstyle, not a particular outfit, but rather an abstraction of me. an inked me. scrap paper in hand and a collection of words spilling out of me at irregular but frequent intervals.
until yesterday, the last poem i’d written for more than very personal reasons was in late 2003. in some ways that doesn’t seem so long ago but in reality five years is eons. children go to school, students complete college…
cavalier as i’ve tried to be about the loss of my muse..i miss her. the ability to pull out the raw parts of my world and place them “away”. i have to admit i took it for granted, the gift of putting my reality into a context that was easily manageable and strangely tangible as it was leaded into paper and the tops of to go containers. i remember Korey watching me in confusion as i scrawled out something in the margins of a newspaper as we sat in a car waiting for our movie. it was just something i did.
and i did it until i didn’t do it anymore.
and then i felt the absence of my pencils, my pens, my voice. i never realized how closely my poetry tied me into what i was feeling…trying to forget…wanting desperately to remember. recently i threw away a lot of it. feeling removed from that part of myself, needing to consolidated the space i was borrowing from my folks, assuming i had moved on and rid the world of one more mediocre poet’s musings…only they weren’t just mediocre poems…they were mine. first kisses and utter loss and heartache, anger, betrayal, humor. those words were a chronicle of my life, the pulse of where i’ve been.
as i try to resume my life as a poet – undercover or on stage – i’m finding it most difficult to take the words that i say from my mouth and reassemble them into something able to stand on their own – without my inflection, the look in my eyes. i feared i’d killed my muse, starved her from disuse and neglect…but yesterday i managed a few lines that didn’t make me want to shred the page they rest on. and in writing them i feel a little more connected to that piece of myself. the wordsmith (if only in my own world). the mother of metaphor. the chronicler of feelings and not just facts.
so maybe now i can stop for a moment. take a breath. touch what i’m feeling and commemorate that feeling with something less fleeting than a passing blog.
Tags: arts, me-ness, transition
it was one of those days…loosely planned and righteously executed.
a friend and i decided carnaval might be a good excuse to hang out again. two turned to five and the expected gray weather turned blue instead, sun warming our layers forcing removal of fleece and long sleeves. steeling glimpses of the parade, scantily clad women gyrating to pulsating music, our minds turned to food.
following the crowd as it trickled to a throng…two distinct lines for security, males to the left females the right. once inside our senses were assaulted with food…papousas,mangoes, kebabs. the choices seemed endless but mostly ended with us sitting on the curb talking current events and past experiences while sharing flavors.
from there we watched more dancing and walked out of the fair and into the city, meandering through shops and eating ice cream.
from there R and i went on a RSD (random scenic drive) out to marin county and beyond. it was my first time to an actual beach since i’ve been in the bay. we drove into the hills gazing down at waves crashing in the filtered light and shortly after listened to the sand smooth itself against blue water as the sun settled quickly into the horizon.
from there we wound back the way we had come and ended the day with italian food and talking about favorite memories from our youth back in tallahassee it was unexpected and unplanned but it was definitely a good day.
open letter to obama
Dear Senator Obama,
The thing is, you can’t be change if you do what’s always been done.
I understand that circumstances change. I understand that winning is pretty much the point of running for president – or anything else. What I am having trouble understanding is why it is so difficult for you to just cop to what you said.
We all know you were for public finance for most of your campaign until this oint. There is no shortage of footage showing you adamantly pushing that point. All I ask of you now, is to admit you have changed your mind, not for any highbrow reason but because you know that America doesn’t know you in the same way it is acquainted with john mccain. That you need every cent you can get to introduce yourself and your thoughts on how America should be run.
I am not a fan because I believe fans are detrimental to politics. I am a supporter of you. I’ve debated with Clinton and mccain advocates. I’ve spoken earnestly about experience and the different ways you have it. I’ve challenged people to consider hope as a viable option.
And now I sit back and watch. And I need you to be the candidate you presented yorusef as. I need you to be about change. That means when you say one thing and do another – as I know will happen – speak truth to power by sharing your true motives for doing so, not the spin your inner circle will urge you to embrace. That means, searching deep into your Palestinian sympathies from years ago and bring that as balance to the middle east debate.
I urge you to be true to the man you have presented yourself and to be careful about bending to fit into someone’s niche…merging of church and state, pro gun, flag waving for flag waving’s sake. Your faith is yours, you shouldn’t have to prove how you pray or who you pray to (and I do believe faith should not be a basis for firing or hiring), america has a gun problem – a violence problem – and we are going to have to figure something out, and general clark is right – don’t let truth be mangled by media.
I support you for president and have since before super Tuesday, before many people thought it was possible. I am putting my hope in your hands…hope that you will be what you say you are and do what you said you’d do. But hope is as fragile as it is audacious, so be mindful and tread truthfully or not at all.
Tags: politics, socialcommentary