Me-ness
In the darkened theatre, my breath melded into the breathing of hundreds, all waiting for something magnificent, waiting to be moved. It is a collective inhalation of expectation while the curtain rises. They stand in their many poses, muscles tight in anticipation. Waiting to move…waiting to move the audience. This was my first Alvin Ailey […]
The bombing of the khan el khalili a few days ago quite likely went unnoticed by most people here in the US. Maybe everywhere that isn’t there. Everywhere that doesn’t share a border or a history with Egypt…doesn’t share a future. But it shook me. Reminded me how small the world is. How small I […]
the thing is…i waste time. not so much because i’m doing anything important, mostly because i’m thinking about how to do something well. at the very least better than what first comes to mind. it happens with essays, and article ideas…most recently it happened with the island reef job in australia. i talked about it […]
i can’t dance. not really. not the way people expect a black woman to be able to dance. i spend a lot of time in my head. is this moving right? is that? my legs are fine as long as they are acting alone, but throw in my arms, my hips, anything else and all […]
the thing about life is that in some ways everyone is judging. everything is a courtroom appearance and you will either be vindicated or sent away. and it isn’t always as serious as all of that. sometimes it is just the look of contempt instead of being held in contempt. but consider…job interviews- or board. […]
i’ve been to the gym once in the past three months. once. the one time was last week when i woke up from a nightmare at some unholy hour and couldn’t manage to find mare-less sleep again. so i rose and found myself cursing the treadmill. today i thought i’d try something a little different. […]
free oscar grant was scrawled in black spray paint across the whitewashed wall of the bart underpass. i shook my head as i passed. irritated because this is new graffiti on the recently painted wall…irritated more that someone missed the reality that you cannot free that which has been killed. oscar grant isn’t being held, […]
massages can be intimate. naked skin with a stranger. dimmed lighting and rubbing. i didn’t think anything could be more intimate between strangers than a swedish or deep tissue massage like i’ve had a few times in my life. and today’s trip into san francisco for a thai massage seemed an implausible choice for something […]
this morning, while the rain bathed a parched oakland in moisture, and before the sun was even attempting to show herself, i woke from a nightmare. sometimes i’m able to ignore them. change the channel in my head so that i dream of something else without actually waking up. but not this morning. i don’t […]
titles
Friendship, honesty…these can be tricky things. Definitions taken for granted. But I find that sometimes using the same vocabulary does not mandate the same meaning Facebook’s use of the word friend illustrates my point. I have over 200 “friends” on facebook…most of which I would withhold that title without the clarifying facebook friend. Because […]
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