The WordPress.com helper monkeys prepared an annual report for Under the Radar and here’s what they discovered:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 14,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
I don’t know about this. So I read this article about the history of “African” fabrics and am still thinking (insert Scooby Doo voice here), Huh? Dutch you say? The same Dutch that colonized South Africa?
Critics of the side-eye I’m giving to “the “true original” Vlisco will likely argue that the Dutch’s main stomping grounds were largely in the southern, rather than western, part of the continent.
But history shows that they at the very least began their colonizing of the continent in the west. That was around 1600 when they had so much influence there that it was called the “Dutch Gold Coast.”
So when I read that “since 1846″ this wax printing company has been “inspired” by the artwork of a people they subjugated, I have a hard time accepting “inspired” as the right term for the company’s motivation.
When you subjugate a people, practicing and commodifying their art is not inspired–it’s self-serving. As self-serving as planting your flag there in the first place.
I make lists. It’s what I do.
I also take unsmiling pictures of myself. Shoot me.
I write a lot more journal-y stuff than poetry. But trust me: I’m a poet.
I have the binders. A degree. The tortured soul to prove it.
But back to this thing about lists.
I often think of young women; the lessons I think we fail to teach them and how we might better serve them and our world if we did. By we, I mean women who have been there and made it (somewhat anyway) through.
What ” to do” list could we give them to get them through that decade–what could I have told told me that would’ve encouraged me beyond my doubts? Probably nothing that I would’ve believed, but here’s a list I would’ve given my 20something self anyway:
1. Chill.
I was serious most of the time. But the truth is: it ain’t that serious. And I’m sure I had heard that by 20, but I still didn’t understand just how serious it wasn’t.
2. Believe some things, like:
3. He’s not all that.
As cool—almost cold—as I could be with the boys I dated (and didn’t date but wanted to) I thought about them incessantly, painting horribly gilded pictures of them in my head and journals and lamenting like a bad love song lyrics when things didn’t work out. They clearly weren’t worth all that and even though publicly I said and pretended I knew that, I couldn’t convince myself that they weren’t.
4. You’re not as smart as you think you are.
You know everything at 20—all that you can know at 20. If you live longer you will know more. Too bad I didn’t know about that last part.
5. You’re not as dumb as you think you are.
I could not write a critical analysis effectively to save my soul. And I was an English major! I decided scholarship and research would never be my thing before I even gave myself an opportunity to get the hang of it. Telling myself that mediocre work was the extent of my capability made me produce a lot more of it than I probably had to.
6. Bagels are not diet food.
And why would you be on a diet anyway Miss Missy?! Treat your body kindly and it will return the favor. That is all.
7. MARTA is not the Road to Oz; paved with goblins and misfortune. It’s just transit.
I would not get on the city bus or train alone so I missed out on a lot of a great city by waiting too late to get the confidence to explore it. Alone. Which is probably the best way to explore anyway. Or that assessment may just be my Hermit showing again.
8. Read all the way through. Then read again.
That mediocre thing in number 5. Yeah.
9. Wear it anyway.
Your confidence is the one accessory that pulls everything together.
10. Back away from the Bible.
Anything can be a weapon—it just depends on how you aim it. I used the Bible like a gun, shooting and shutting down e’rything indiscriminately.
11. Dance like nobody’s watching.
The best dancers are not the most technically astute but those that give in to epoulement. I danced in a liturgical company and in a class, but I never really danced. Give in: you’ll like the way you look.
12. You’re beautiful.
And not just because your mama said so.
13. Every boy is a man on the verge of happening.
So just let him be a boy. You’re still a girl yourself after all.
14. Quality is better than quantity.
15. Read then write. But first, read some more.
The best writers are readers first. Period.
16. Black beans are good.
But when I saw them for the first time in the vegetarian line at our school cafeteria I unequivocally discredited them. Black beans after all? Now I love them. Lesson: An assessment based upon a single, initial impression is often wrong.
17. Speak up.
You have a story that no one can tell but you. And only you can tell it like you. If you don’t tell it, it won’t get told—not right anyway.
18. Make out. Make up. Make do.
19. Go away.
I wanted to study abroad. I didn’t. I regret it to this day. It’s usually what you don’t do that you regret—not what you do. Explore the world—it’s not the big scary Beyond you think it is.
20. Lighten up on the accelerator.
I had two speeds: fast and faster. And a guardian angel apparently.
21. The ob-gyn is not a perv nor is s/he Cruella.
S/he’s just doing the job that s/he signed on to do. So do yours: take care of yourself. Go.
I read this today.
A couple of weeks ago this traveled with me on a few morning runs.
And I thought about how I was feeling not many weeks ago about this.
Bad thoughts ran through my head all three times for which I felt guilty–are you *bleeping* serious?! I can think of no curse word to really balance against my guilt–one that can handle its weight. I fear the balance of the Universe right now; and am tipping right along what I perceived to be, but now sadly doubt is, its tipping point.
I feel guilty this morning; outed for my doubts, fears; want to say it ain’t so but I worry that my blood memory is too tainted to preserve me–that it will be my undoing because I am feeling quite undone today.
(I already know this means paint, paste, and words; I already ran. And I have to finish the day before any of that). Unraveling…
Sometimes, like today, I have a hard time seeing beyond privilege–my own, as well as where I lack it and others don’t.
The privilege I’m speaking of is that invisible protective sheath serving to shield you–by no virtue of your own really; almost a natural circumstance–from the ills of the world. But the sheath of privilege is also rather dangerous because in protecting you, it can also can shield you from the exposure that helps a body naturally develop the kind of immunities that make survival possible.
Oh, and the manufactured ones? While they do work, they have side effects that can be equally or more uncomfortable than the ills themselves.
So whether you recognize yourself as privileged or as one without privilege (I recognize my roles in both categories), you will likely find yourself in some discomfort at some point. Today is one of the points for me.
Guilt about it (privilege I mean) is a discomfort we all have the potential to face when we’re at that point. Guilt wonders: has privilege afforded me the cushion to be hyper-sensitive? It questions: has my place in the underprivileged made me unduly untrustworthy of those I see as otherwise–especially if privilege is indeed a circumstance less determined by one’s own actions than of his genetics/ancestry?
I am dwelling in this discomfort today knuckle-white. Each time I’m here, I’m not convinced of the benefit at the end; that I’ll even make it to the end to know. Which, I guess, is where people get off calling guilt a “useless” emotion. I doubt it is.
THE LAST SUPPER, 21 SEPTEMBER 2011
I.
Some days I’m wishing for a date to come and some days
I’m not wishing for a date…So now that it’s here, I’m willing
to accept it, you know.
His meal: two chicken fried steaks,
smothered in gravy with onions;
a triple bacon cheeseburger; cheese omelet
with hamburger meat, tomatoes, onions and jalapeños;
fried okra with ketchup; a pound of BBQ
with half a loaf of white bread; fajitas and Blue Bell Homemade Ice Cream.
Lawrence Brewer does not eat any of it.
We’re fixing to execute the guy and maybe
it makes them feel good about what they’re
fixing to do. Kind of hypocritical,
you reckon?
The court having sentenced defendant
Lawrence Russell Brewer on the twenty fourth day
of September 1999, to be executed.
He looks to his family with a cracked smile before a tear
narrowly escapes his right eye. His lip trembles. A little old sleeping
medicine begins to affect him, leaving him coughing, then snoring.
6:21 p.m.: Lawrence Russell Brewer is dead.
Texas, 22 September:
Effective immediately, no special
accommodations will be made. They will
receive the same meal served
to other offenders on the unit.
II.
He does not select nor eat the final meal
offered to him—grilled cheeseburgers, oven browned potatoes,
baked beans, coleslaw, cookies, and grape beverage.
This will not be my last meal.
Georgia, 10:30 p.m.: You ready?
The court having sentenced defendant
Troy Anthony Davis on the third day
of September, 1991, to be executed.
I’d like to address the MacPhail family, let you know, despite the situation
you are in, I’m not the one who personally killed your son, your father, your brother. I am innocent. The incident that happened that night is not my fault, I did not have a gun. All I can ask … is that you look deeper into this case
so that you really can finally see the truth. I ask my family and friends
to continue to fight this fight. For those about to take my life,
God have mercy on your souls.
He blinks his eyes rapidly. He squeezes them tight. They flutter
as his veins receive pentobarbital. He loses consciousness.
11:08 p.m.: Troy Anthony Davis is dead.
MacPhail’s son smiles.
Daddy, I love you, but dude, Kojak? Turned up to deaf?
Ahh those were the days. Unemployed and back with the folks after 18 years, I was not the happiest camper at camp. So I chased a few highs (and a few job leads). First Oreos, then some retail therapy, and 
then something I’d discovered a few years before: physical activity.
I joined a small local gym and scheduled my days around my morning (and when the ‘rents weren’t looking, evening) workouts. The endorphin high didn’t sustain the many hours in a day I had to kill between once-a-month dead-end job interviews and RLTV episodes of Kojak.
I added running to the mix when the ledge got painfully close to the tips of my toes—that danged Kojak soundtrack ringing in my ears like a death knoll.
One day, a couple of months into my new hobby, I found myself unable to make it home from my morning jaunt. Dizzy, stomach cramping, I sipped a Propel fitness water that a little old lady gave me while she called my sister to retrieve me. I wasn’t a whole block away from the track—the farthest I could make it before I practically collapsed on the curb, trying not to look as obviously in distress as I was. When my dad came in from work later that afternoon I was a mass of hot then cold on my bedroom floor; in and out of a nap interrupted by agonizing contractions.
The afternoon was a much more comfortable denouement of saltines, ginger ale, and church lady peppermints. Me and Mommy watched Dr. Oz, the No-News as my grandmother called our local newscast, and chatted before Daddy called us to dinner: fried fish, fried potatoes, corn on the cob.
Eat some of this.
Mommy and I looked at the spread in horror.
Daddy, Please don’t—you can’t—make me!
We explained to him that my stomach was in a fragile state; that the delicious smelling spread was on the verge of turning me back into the mass he’d found on the bedroom floor when he got home from work. He retreated. But not before the lovingly declared pronouncement:
You’re gonna have to stop all this running and exercising; it’s just too much. And I want you to start eating some meat.
I prefer to run things.........like boardwalks.
Translation: Me and your mother are worried about you; we know you’re not doing all this to stay in shape.
My ears heard, but my heart understood. In many ways, Kojak had made me deaf to what was happening to me. My weight was dropping; I meticulously maintained records of my job search, potential employers that “wronged” me; and I showed up to my spin and kickboxing classes like I was getting paid to be there—passing all of it off as evidence of being in control.
Control is a funny thing. I thought I had control of this post—was planning to write about writing as I began it—how we writers become technically adept and risk losing the soul in our work. How I’ve discovered that similarly in running I get too bogged down in the technical proficiencies—pr’s, miles, form—that I forget to enjoy it the way I did when I first started. When I wasn’t exactly in control not so much because I didn’t want to be, actually, but because with my limited experience I didn’t know how to be.
And look what happened.
“I think inspiration is given too much credit. It can only do so much—never any of the heavy lifting that’s required when crafting a poem. Inspiration is a lazy architect who gives you a blueprint with only the front door drawn, then snoozes on a hammock while you build the entire house.” (David Hernandez)
Aww damn.
Slouching out to the courtyard with composition book and pencil.
Can’t I just do some hill repeats?
“Hell no,” say my punk legs like they really finished their workout this morning.
Hey wusses–y’all didn’t even make it through set 3. But I guess it ain’t your fault. This being a punctual employee thing is really screwing up the workouts.
Hey, hey HEY! Stop stalling and and get to writing; lunch breaks don’t last always.
Alright already. Sheesh.
(or, I Wish She Would Shut the Hell Up)
Heard
and understood are not the same things.
She bangs at her keyboard until my ears bleed
her litanies; afternoon cat stretches audible; her yawns
long and invitational:
Please pay attention to me.
Stack papers one more time for good measure;
the break between the walls of contrived sounds in
this mostly song, sometimes dance, of her hunger.
I wish rain for her.
I have never wanted for spotlights; don’t know,
really, how to need in any other
ways except punishingly
determined not to admit
and without
any kind of gum to smack back
at whatever perceived harms I
endure.
I endure still.
And probably no worse, or better
for it.
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl Woman – Age 35
Portrait of the Artist at 35
If you’ve ever checked out my Monthly Meter on here, you will see my stops and starts–lurching then full speed to a putt-putt and altogether stop. 35 was one of those times. I point you to a post I wrote almost exactly a year to the day ago:
(It’s probably best that I shut up more than I spoke up then).
10 May 2010
I found an old disk today–from, like, 2002 to 2005. Apparently, this was my modus operandi at the time which would explain some of the other treats I found on the disk. Maybe I’ll write an updated version. (But today won’t be that day because I’m all kinds of pissed, frustrated, fugged up, and downright negative. Something I did in a former life has caught up with me and if you thought payback was a bitch, guess what, I’m hear to tell you it is not. I wish it were so kind).
So anyway, here are, as the file was titled, “Some Rules:”
Be good. Or be good at it. Work hard. Play harder. Feel your way. And if it’s sticky or gritty, head to the nearest sink and scrub up to your elbows. Know when to play dumb. And if he can’t tell that you’re playing dumb, back away slowly. Brush your teeth after kissing frogs. If you kiss enough frogs, Prince Charming will appear. Be beautiful. Because you said so. Never let them see you sweat. Never let them smell you sweat. Boys will be boys. At least until they’re 50. Girls gossip. Women have discussions. Insanity is what everybody does when no one is watching. Sanity is a word boring people made up to feel better about being boring. Living fully means you have something to blush about. Living dangerously means you’re not afraid to die. Always boil the seasonings before you add the beans. Balance. If it fits you must buy it. If he hollers let him go.
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl Woman – Age 34
When I headed to St. Louis for a 2 week writing workshop, I had not written anything new in, probably, a year. Acclimating to Baltimore, my new job were useful excuses for my “silence.”
I was headed to Africa to teach when I had to reject my acceptance to the workshop; I was out of my “new” job and not headed to Africa by the time the workshop allowed me to rescind my initial rejection. I had no idea where or how I would live when I returned from the workshop and I wasn’t optimistic about the possibilities I imagined.
Naming the trip “my last hurrah,” I delved in happily as soon as my first workshop leader assigned our project: select a historical event on which to develop a series of poems.
Like an old school Super 8 slide projector scenes from my childhood: the Atlanta Child Murders, the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster, Bernard Goetz the subway vigilante staccato’ed through my mind. I mostly knew the events through the barrage of images in the media and my preteen interpretation of those images which is perhaps why they were/are so poignant.
The mind’s eye, in the intuitive sense, is probably more accurate than 20/20 vision. Because it codes experience from multiple perspectives–pragmatic, emotional, physical.
The situation in which I found myself at the beginning of the project made fertile something that was ready. Ready, luckily, is not something we get to determine. Like the perspectives from which we code imagery, we can’t select, divide one from the others, partition or ignore any of them. That’s my theory. My reality is that I was only 3 years old when the residents of Jonestown Guyana were plastered on the covers of Time, Jet, and Newsweek. The images stayed in my head so solidly I could’ve sworn that I had been older.
The manuscript Marrow came in starts and stops during those two weeks–mostly stops. Then, for the next two years, un/der-employed I wrote, read, slept, worked out, tempering my frustration with my situation with each. My “last hurrah” will hopefully give birth to my first book. (I’m speaking it to confirm it).
