I have been working on another post, one that has, sadly, taken me over a month to produce thanks to my family's desperate need for all of my attention, but then this. Twice in one week commentary about three public figures, public women and their looks, has made its way to the top stories when the world is going to shit. First, Venus and Serena Williams were called out and humiliated by a full time ass named Shamil Tarpischev, a "Russian Olympic Committee official." who called them "the Williams brothers" and "scary to look at." And then dear Renee Zellweger, and to me she is dear having starred in some movies that dotted the landscape of my coming of age, dear because she is my contemporary, dear because no matter what you think of the role, she puts herself all the way in it, has appeared on a red carpet looking "different," "refreshed," and my personal favorite, "unrecognizable." I recognized her. In fact, I thought this story tried to surface a few months back, at least in the British papers, and the buzz was about her incredibly changed face! Oh my God! What happened? She's unrecognizable!
Oh, yes she is recognizable. I saw who she was immediately because she is just like me. She's really any and all of us women of a certain age, of any background, no matter our status, our sexual preference, our position, or station. Whether we are beauties or average or emphasize our other qualities instead of just our physical selves. Whether we are kind or cruel or sympathetic or selfish. Whether we give a damn or don't. No matter who we are, no matter what we are manifesting (or not), we have or will have to face the question of our unrecognizable selves, how we look to the outside world and how the world feels it is within its rights to judge or comment on how we look.
Being a world-famous movie star does nothing for her privacy. The world feels entitled to her, to some part of her. And while I feel that the conversation that quickly turned petty and ugly and aggressive and rude escalated due to her being a public figure, I fear that the presumption that anyone is owed an explanation regarding the change in her appearance, whatever it is and whatever the reason, is one that women face daily. The relentless and occasionally merciless judgment of one's appearance and the maintenance of that appearance is not only a cottage industry, but has given everyone and anyone license to denigrate, assault, insult, and humiliate.
The expectation and assumption that Ms. Zellweger and really anyone we know or think we know will somehow stay the same, exactly they way we remember, exactly the way we want them to is ludicrous and frankly, childish. To expect that the effects of time don't affect us all is as ridiculous as the belief that there is somehow one ideal, one type that has the claim on true beauty. Ms. Zellweger, perhaps giving in to some pressure to remain a member of that elite group--white, blond, lithe, young--may have had some surgery or may not have. I don't really care and it's none of my business. What I am making my business is that the escalation of the Monday morning quarterbacking about how she looks and what she's done reached a fever pitch that sends a message to the world that considering people, analyzing them, tearing them apart based on their physical attributes is acceptable, even celebrated behavior. Folks got a lot of action on that thread.
My girls are extremely curious and talkative about the way people look. Our youngest is still in the phase where the closer a woman looks to the standard Disney princess, Barbie, beauty pageant contestant, Victoria Secret model the "prettier" she is. She can be "of color" surely, but she has already gotten the message loud and clear just which ones are culturally considered "the best." I, in turn, show them my interpretation of what is beautiful, my ideas about beauty, everywhere I can. They see women of all complexions, sizes, body types, with long hair, short hair, no hair, with smooth skin, wrinkles, blemishes, scars, with tattoos, piercings, make up or none and I will comment on how striking, composed, lovely, or beautiful I find her. And when they ask why I believe someone is beautiful I often start with the energy or spirit that comes from within and then answer the questions about their outside characteristics, reminding them that our feelings about the way someone looks are really our own opinions and frankly, bear no value or importance to that person.
I answer all of these questions and hope that in doing so they see the full range of women's bodies, recognize how we really look, make their own discoveries and realizations about what they think of as beautiful, strong, capable, able and then let them go. How we look cannot be our priority, not when there is so much more we'd like to accomplish and achieve. At the end of the day, I want them to consider how able and capable they can be, to know that while they are gorgeous (and they are) it just cannot be enough to sustain them day to day. That what they look like is truly a function of genetics and timing and luck and that everybody, every body has something to be celebrated.
But in the quiet of my own room, staring into my own mirror, I recall a time when I could not be lead to believe in that all inclusive beauty. I wanted to believe and surely discovered examples that went beyond the all-American look that was popular when I was coming of age but they were few and far between, still considered exotic, other, separate. I was one of a very small group of Black kids at a predominantly white school and one of three black girls at my dance studio. As I progressed as a young dancer, my Russian teacher, who encouraged and promoted me in so many ways, began to obsess about my physique, namely my big thighs, my butt, and my pretty muscular frame. Dancers then were still expected to be petite and slim, strong with rubber band limbs. Of course there was Ailey and the Dance Theatre of Harlem and modern troupes, but the understanding was that, for a ballerina, the tiny physique was meant to mask the power and strength required to move. Mine could not do that. Any bit of exercise or physical activity gave me mass and definition. My body could not meet the accepted standard.
And this is where the age old bullshit about black women's bodies comes at me and threatens to crush. Come on, dear Russian fool, with your inexperience and big ol' mouth and platform. This is nothing new and nothing not said before. Regarding the black female body with contempt for its strength and/or over-sexualizing it for its exotic, "mysterious" qualities is such old school racism that although a fine was laid down, no one wants to touch the subject except for blogs and publications aimed specifically at Black women. It's been said so many times about Venus and Serena that the story about the incredibly racist, sexist, insensitive comments hardly made waves. These two women are strong and powerful elite athletes and their bodies show it. To me, their musculature, their incredible form, definition, and power is pretty amazing. They are beautiful and exceptional both physically and personally.
These three women who have reached the pinnacle of their fields, who are celebrated for their skill, talent, and prowess are still fair game to anyone and everyone who has something to say about how they look. There is even pride in the assault, thrill at the attack. Other than to hurt, to derail, to offend, what could be the reason for the name calling and the shock and awe? Why are we so comfortable dissecting the form, the body with no consideration as to how these women, any woman, any person would feel being broken down like that?
I have felt the shadow of whatever age it is that I can no longer hide the years of life's experiences, joys and sorrows, sleepless nights, burst out giggles, sleeping on my face, drinking or eating too much, hormonal midlife pimples and wrinkles creep up on me. I still stare into the mirror, hearing my former dance teachers discontent at my big ol' booty, breaking it down about the "ruined line" my pumped up rump made. I have giggled at the lyrics of "All About That Bass," though I also find it a little divisive in its exaltation of the fuller form and attack on the thinner, I know how challenging and difficult breaking the habits and lessons taught and reinforced through the culture at large and in our day to day will be. But I want to give my two girls, one straight as a board like her father and the other curvier like me, self-awareness, confidence, and inner strength that will protect them from the paparazzi-like flashing light assaults, comments, and judgments that are used to humiliate, undermine, and divide the sisterhood. It's not all about that bass or that body or that face. We are much more than that and I want them to know it.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: Self portraiture/Selfie revelations
Back to the Suburban Grind: Self portraiture/Selfie revelations: I have been away from the blog for nearly two months. Keeping up with any regularity, any true perspective during the crazy, heady summer m...
Self portraiture/Selfie revelations
I have been away from the blog for nearly two months. Keeping up with any regularity, any true perspective during the crazy, heady summer months proved to be impossible for me. Both of my children are now enrolled in "big girl" school and save the early season calendar crunching, I have time to get back to me. I'd started this post months back when a friend on Facebook tagged me in a photo of a T-shirt that said, "Hold on, I'm taking a selfie." I do take them. Have for years before they were called "selfies" except then I was not using my iPhone or computer to take snaps, I was staring into my face in the mirror and drawing or painting. I did and continue to use self-portraiture as my medium of exploration. Whether in the visual arts, writing, acting/voice work, or dance, I have used myself in the work, sometimes as the work. I am searching, seeking, looking, longing. I don't mean it to be indulgent, snaps and right-back-atcha winks, or reverential. As an artist, I am trying to understand, define, relate, connect with the world.
I had two painting professors that I adored. One I not so secretly crushed on and the other was truly one of the best people in my life, a true, dear friend and mentor. They both guided me to portraits and self-portraiture in Western art, classical and academic as well as modern and post-modern. In both art history and my studio classes, I devoured the canon and sought answers in life painting, focusing on real life, true light, a strong degree of academic emphasis, still life, portraiture, figure drawing and painting, landscape. I admired work that was imaginative, imbued with fantasy, and whimsy but felt safer and more grounded (I am, indeed, a Capricorn) with the familiar. I can still recall the afternoon when the focus shifted and I saw myself as subject, not only as author.
These two wonderful teachers gave me permission, even demanded that I look for something in my own gaze, in the curves of my face, in the soft angles where light hit my skin, creating shadows and depth I'd never considered. I was a little embarrassed really to be staring at myself so long, gazing, demanding, imploring, seeking answers to all the questions, moving paint or charcoal, graphite or pastel to tell a story, maybe about me and maybe about something else, something more. But I did prove to be an always available subject, one whom I felt comfortable tearing to pieces, putting back together, pushing and pulling the paint in ways that were not always beautiful or safe or pleasant. I was less fearful making mistakes when using myself as model or subject, more willing to look past the surface and scratch for something else, something that transcended just that moment in time. When I failed to find what I was looking for, I could try again and again and again, the onion skin always peeling back to show me something else. I am always peeling back and looking for something else.
Other than adolescent punishing sessions of miserable inner dialogue in the bathroom mirror, I didn't like to gaze upon myself. As a teenager my skin was terrible, I wore braces for years, and frankly, any therapist of mine will tell you, it took me years (or until yesterday or the day has not yet come) to find myself appealing. Maybe it was the 80's aesthetic where I was surely not listed in the beauties table of contents or my developing self-deference to make myself smaller and more invisible, but regarding myself left me deflated. Only in dance, where I studied more the lines I was able to make with my body did I emotionally and spiritually connect with my body, my image, myself.
And now I am here. I take pictures of myself and make pictures of myself and reveal, little by little, something of myself in the writing--stories, blog posts, Things My French Husband Says About Me. To me, the portraits, the selfies, the posts, the stories, the scripts, interpretation of dance choreography helps me serve the muse. I am not the first to use the medium to explore, to discover, to share. Western art has a endless number of self-portraits and other portraits that reveal much more beyond the beautifully handled surfaces or even intentionally challenging ones. The cool part is being drawn by the image or the page into something greater than was expected. For both artist and audience there is a dialogue, language, challenge or confrontation, reassurance or connection. When I am looking, when I ask, when I cry, scream, yell, whisper to be seen or heard, it is not because I believe I am the only one to search. It is because I believe we all are. I don't believe, wouldn't dare think that only I have found myself in front of the mirror staring into my eyes, searching for my soul, marveling or mourning some experience in life. That's not my intention at all. I am saying use me. Use me to reassure yourself, to steady yourself, to believe yourself, to react, to assault, to doubt, to question, to challenge. To find solidarity or solitude. To be human in all its torment and glory.
It is humbling, sometimes crippling. It is challenging and sometimes sobering. It is lonely and sometimes isolating. It is uplifting and sometimes otherworldly. Looking at myself, in my study of just a life, mine, I hope I have found a way to connect to humanity and to the divine muse. If you cannot find a way in yourself, use me.
(c) 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I had two painting professors that I adored. One I not so secretly crushed on and the other was truly one of the best people in my life, a true, dear friend and mentor. They both guided me to portraits and self-portraiture in Western art, classical and academic as well as modern and post-modern. In both art history and my studio classes, I devoured the canon and sought answers in life painting, focusing on real life, true light, a strong degree of academic emphasis, still life, portraiture, figure drawing and painting, landscape. I admired work that was imaginative, imbued with fantasy, and whimsy but felt safer and more grounded (I am, indeed, a Capricorn) with the familiar. I can still recall the afternoon when the focus shifted and I saw myself as subject, not only as author.
These two wonderful teachers gave me permission, even demanded that I look for something in my own gaze, in the curves of my face, in the soft angles where light hit my skin, creating shadows and depth I'd never considered. I was a little embarrassed really to be staring at myself so long, gazing, demanding, imploring, seeking answers to all the questions, moving paint or charcoal, graphite or pastel to tell a story, maybe about me and maybe about something else, something more. But I did prove to be an always available subject, one whom I felt comfortable tearing to pieces, putting back together, pushing and pulling the paint in ways that were not always beautiful or safe or pleasant. I was less fearful making mistakes when using myself as model or subject, more willing to look past the surface and scratch for something else, something that transcended just that moment in time. When I failed to find what I was looking for, I could try again and again and again, the onion skin always peeling back to show me something else. I am always peeling back and looking for something else.
Other than adolescent punishing sessions of miserable inner dialogue in the bathroom mirror, I didn't like to gaze upon myself. As a teenager my skin was terrible, I wore braces for years, and frankly, any therapist of mine will tell you, it took me years (or until yesterday or the day has not yet come) to find myself appealing. Maybe it was the 80's aesthetic where I was surely not listed in the beauties table of contents or my developing self-deference to make myself smaller and more invisible, but regarding myself left me deflated. Only in dance, where I studied more the lines I was able to make with my body did I emotionally and spiritually connect with my body, my image, myself.
And now I am here. I take pictures of myself and make pictures of myself and reveal, little by little, something of myself in the writing--stories, blog posts, Things My French Husband Says About Me. To me, the portraits, the selfies, the posts, the stories, the scripts, interpretation of dance choreography helps me serve the muse. I am not the first to use the medium to explore, to discover, to share. Western art has a endless number of self-portraits and other portraits that reveal much more beyond the beautifully handled surfaces or even intentionally challenging ones. The cool part is being drawn by the image or the page into something greater than was expected. For both artist and audience there is a dialogue, language, challenge or confrontation, reassurance or connection. When I am looking, when I ask, when I cry, scream, yell, whisper to be seen or heard, it is not because I believe I am the only one to search. It is because I believe we all are. I don't believe, wouldn't dare think that only I have found myself in front of the mirror staring into my eyes, searching for my soul, marveling or mourning some experience in life. That's not my intention at all. I am saying use me. Use me to reassure yourself, to steady yourself, to believe yourself, to react, to assault, to doubt, to question, to challenge. To find solidarity or solitude. To be human in all its torment and glory.
It is humbling, sometimes crippling. It is challenging and sometimes sobering. It is lonely and sometimes isolating. It is uplifting and sometimes otherworldly. Looking at myself, in my study of just a life, mine, I hope I have found a way to connect to humanity and to the divine muse. If you cannot find a way in yourself, use me.
(c) 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: Married to the moment
Back to the Suburban Grind: Married to the moment: Our vacation was almost ruined before it started by my anxiety, the collapsed ceiling in our hallway that fell hours before our flight, and ...
Married to the moment
Our vacation was almost ruined before it started by my anxiety, the collapsed ceiling in our hallway that fell hours before our flight, and the miserable failure of XL Airlines and the absolute breach of professionalism and trust by this new airline. Were it not for a few Xanax in my pocket, the Minnow would be lost. After a night of sleep stolen on the uncomfortable chairs in JFK Airport's Terminal 4, we got on a new airplane commanded by the incredible Omni Airlines and Virginie promptly vomited into my hand. In the end, she was just tired. At the moment I wondered if we were doomed. We weren't and we made it into the air and to Charles de Gaulle Airport by 7 pm France time, only to get into the car with the French husband's brother and head 5 hours to Bretagne. The brothers chatted in the front seat, the French husband surely delirious from a lack of sleep and tortured resting positions, while the girls and I passed out in the backseat, twisted and contorted but salvaged by animal neck pillows. It was crazy getting here, but we were now in France.
They say when you marry someone, you marry their whole family. Unless they are estranged, this is true. You want to make a good impression on everyone involved and you hope that you find you are also interested in some, if not all, of the family. When I married the French husband, someone from another country, and sometimes, it seems, another planet entirely, I felt that to know and love France would help me to know and love my hoped-to-be-husband.(I mean, the French got it down this love of country and pride of people.) I got the Rosetta Stone, brushed up on my history, listened to him wax on and on about the superiority of his culture to pretty much all others. He meant well. I know this. It wasn't so much arrogance as a cock-suredness that, frankly, was pretty damned sexy to this American broad.
It was the same with the Austrian for whom I tried just long enough to figure out how to conjugate a sentence or two and then was reduced to tears. I drank beer, ate wurst, supported their teams, even recognized the Habsburg jaw. With the Spaniard, I took 4 semesters of post-graduation Spanish and spoke to his parents, my friends' parents, anyone in my broken Spanish. I ate everything, wanted to learn flamenco, loved that Spanish guitar. I have cheered for all of their futbol teams. Sure, this reporting is stylized and reduced to the most obvious cliches of each culture, but trust, I was deep in. I still am.
Thanks to my anxiety, I still want to make a good impression every time, to marry them ALL all over again, to prove to them that marrying this crazy American girl was a good choice. But I was so tired and grumpy and crazy and tired that I nearly tore my poor French husband a new one when he tried to help me get through the security line while I held our sleeping five year old. Though this trip had been planned for months, we still found ourselves jamming things into a duffle bag at the 11th hour and racing out the door, sadly, without the girls' headphones but WITH my dance shoes and our library cards. :-/
We made such good time on the drive we were sure our luck had turned until we arrived at the airport to the gate of some airline called #XLAirways which has discounted fares to France. I'd heard about the airline just once through a new French friend in my dance class and recalled the many times we'd flown overseas without incident on a variety of airlines. Well, at Terminal 4 at JFK, a crappy early 80s design flaw of a place anchored by all the Middle Eastern and Israeli airlines as well as Caribbean Airlines, there was not one representative from XL Airlines, but there was a young woman in an unmarked blazer slowing passing along the bad news that, though none of us had been informed, there would be a delay in our flight time of 6 hours. Thank you very much and please stand on this line against the wall on the other side of anything civilized. Food, bathrooms, and escape were on the other side of the door. We slept on the floor. It was like the Wizard of Oz except not only are the memories of the start of our trip in black and white, but in slow motion.
On the other side, when we opened our eyes, was France. I love being here. I love attempting and trying to convince myself that I actually speak French. I love that my husband and I, who have been struggling with connection as many parents of time/energy/affection-sucking small children do, have time to look at each other. I love that there is discovery and adventure for all four of us and that the places where we roamed as we fell in love the first time in his country are now shared spaces. We showed them the beach where I first sunbathed topless, shy and embarrassed though no one else was with us, and they went topless too (though of course with decidedly different results than a grown woman bearing it all). The girls climbed the rocks leading to the Cote Sauvage where their father played as a young boy. We ate countless croissants, celebrated the iconic monuments of Paris, and drove from West to Central to nearly southern France squealing with delight at castles/chateaux, cows, sunflowers, horses, and vineyards.
And as much as they loved every one of those moments, they were happiest with their family. Their cousins, their uncle and auntie, their Papi, a surly, French, 84-year old fountain of wicked truth telling and a crazy crotchety Gaul. I married them, married them all. Because of my children, I am infinitely tied to this place. It is a part of them that it can never be for me as I am not OF this, no matter all my attempts. When we left Paris and my parents, who visited with us for a few days, I took the last Xanax (save the one for the return flight), closed my eyes, and let it all spin around me. There is too much wine, too much bread, too much cheese, and staying up too late for the under 8 set. But I feel good about it. I even spend a moment or two with the tatas out on the beach. The French husband gives it hard, he can be relentless in his superior posturing, but sitting with my toes in the sand, eating baguette and cheese, flipping through the glamorous pages of French Vogue, with the sun beating down on my naked stuff, I let go.
My trip was nearly ruined by my anxiety, by the stress that I ooze before I finally let go and just be in the place, whatever the place. Right now we have no idea what time it is or what day. We eat baguette and croissants every morning and sit in the garden with lavender all around. We walk to the sea, we eat good food, and we broken Franglais-speak with anyone who will listen to us try to describe this crazy beautiful moment. I say it every time, right before it's all over. We should do this more often. Travel. Be in the world. Be impressed and make impressions on people. I have to remember how I tied myself to that moment when I am home fretting about the hamsters and the bills and the school and the play dates. I have to remember that all those crazy, beautiful, hectic, wicked, scary, freaky, lovely moments are all part of my life. Even when I am not eating a baguette on the beach in Bretagne.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
They say when you marry someone, you marry their whole family. Unless they are estranged, this is true. You want to make a good impression on everyone involved and you hope that you find you are also interested in some, if not all, of the family. When I married the French husband, someone from another country, and sometimes, it seems, another planet entirely, I felt that to know and love France would help me to know and love my hoped-to-be-husband.(I mean, the French got it down this love of country and pride of people.) I got the Rosetta Stone, brushed up on my history, listened to him wax on and on about the superiority of his culture to pretty much all others. He meant well. I know this. It wasn't so much arrogance as a cock-suredness that, frankly, was pretty damned sexy to this American broad.
It was the same with the Austrian for whom I tried just long enough to figure out how to conjugate a sentence or two and then was reduced to tears. I drank beer, ate wurst, supported their teams, even recognized the Habsburg jaw. With the Spaniard, I took 4 semesters of post-graduation Spanish and spoke to his parents, my friends' parents, anyone in my broken Spanish. I ate everything, wanted to learn flamenco, loved that Spanish guitar. I have cheered for all of their futbol teams. Sure, this reporting is stylized and reduced to the most obvious cliches of each culture, but trust, I was deep in. I still am.
Thanks to my anxiety, I still want to make a good impression every time, to marry them ALL all over again, to prove to them that marrying this crazy American girl was a good choice. But I was so tired and grumpy and crazy and tired that I nearly tore my poor French husband a new one when he tried to help me get through the security line while I held our sleeping five year old. Though this trip had been planned for months, we still found ourselves jamming things into a duffle bag at the 11th hour and racing out the door, sadly, without the girls' headphones but WITH my dance shoes and our library cards. :-/
We made such good time on the drive we were sure our luck had turned until we arrived at the airport to the gate of some airline called #XLAirways which has discounted fares to France. I'd heard about the airline just once through a new French friend in my dance class and recalled the many times we'd flown overseas without incident on a variety of airlines. Well, at Terminal 4 at JFK, a crappy early 80s design flaw of a place anchored by all the Middle Eastern and Israeli airlines as well as Caribbean Airlines, there was not one representative from XL Airlines, but there was a young woman in an unmarked blazer slowing passing along the bad news that, though none of us had been informed, there would be a delay in our flight time of 6 hours. Thank you very much and please stand on this line against the wall on the other side of anything civilized. Food, bathrooms, and escape were on the other side of the door. We slept on the floor. It was like the Wizard of Oz except not only are the memories of the start of our trip in black and white, but in slow motion.
On the other side, when we opened our eyes, was France. I love being here. I love attempting and trying to convince myself that I actually speak French. I love that my husband and I, who have been struggling with connection as many parents of time/energy/affection-sucking small children do, have time to look at each other. I love that there is discovery and adventure for all four of us and that the places where we roamed as we fell in love the first time in his country are now shared spaces. We showed them the beach where I first sunbathed topless, shy and embarrassed though no one else was with us, and they went topless too (though of course with decidedly different results than a grown woman bearing it all). The girls climbed the rocks leading to the Cote Sauvage where their father played as a young boy. We ate countless croissants, celebrated the iconic monuments of Paris, and drove from West to Central to nearly southern France squealing with delight at castles/chateaux, cows, sunflowers, horses, and vineyards.
And as much as they loved every one of those moments, they were happiest with their family. Their cousins, their uncle and auntie, their Papi, a surly, French, 84-year old fountain of wicked truth telling and a crazy crotchety Gaul. I married them, married them all. Because of my children, I am infinitely tied to this place. It is a part of them that it can never be for me as I am not OF this, no matter all my attempts. When we left Paris and my parents, who visited with us for a few days, I took the last Xanax (save the one for the return flight), closed my eyes, and let it all spin around me. There is too much wine, too much bread, too much cheese, and staying up too late for the under 8 set. But I feel good about it. I even spend a moment or two with the tatas out on the beach. The French husband gives it hard, he can be relentless in his superior posturing, but sitting with my toes in the sand, eating baguette and cheese, flipping through the glamorous pages of French Vogue, with the sun beating down on my naked stuff, I let go.
My trip was nearly ruined by my anxiety, by the stress that I ooze before I finally let go and just be in the place, whatever the place. Right now we have no idea what time it is or what day. We eat baguette and croissants every morning and sit in the garden with lavender all around. We walk to the sea, we eat good food, and we broken Franglais-speak with anyone who will listen to us try to describe this crazy beautiful moment. I say it every time, right before it's all over. We should do this more often. Travel. Be in the world. Be impressed and make impressions on people. I have to remember how I tied myself to that moment when I am home fretting about the hamsters and the bills and the school and the play dates. I have to remember that all those crazy, beautiful, hectic, wicked, scary, freaky, lovely moments are all part of my life. Even when I am not eating a baguette on the beach in Bretagne.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: Black Magic Woman
Back to the Suburban Grind: Black Magic Woman: A friend of mine shared a post on the Book of a video of Carlos Santana's "Black Magic Woman". As I sat in front of my compute...
Black Magic Woman
A friend of mine shared a post on the Book of a video of Carlos Santana's "Black Magic Woman". As I sat in front of my computer listening, taking myself back to my childhood, I recalled how I loved that song. Loved that song because I believed that he was singing, "black, magic woman." When I listened carefully to the words, I felt stirring inside myself a truth, a truth because I heard it sung, called out, pleaded on the radio. It was the promise, the proof that there was such a thing as a "BLACK, MAGIC WOMAN" and that maybe, as I suspected, I might be magic too.
When I discovered the black, female writers--Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, Jamaica Kincaid, Maya Angelou--to start, I discovered a world that for me had been just a secret. I heard and saw and read things about myself that I'd never heard or seen. I did not grow up in the company of black folks. Yes, we had family and many close friends, but our community, what surrounded was white. I read these books with a longing, a desire, but also a realization of a hidden truth about me. These authors, along with many other artists (of music, visual art, dance, poetry, fiction writing) from all different backgrounds taught me the power of myself and that in the face of my every day loneliness, deep down there was magic.
I was loved by my grandmothers and my aunties, was held in their care. But it was the arts, from the creative spirits, seekers, seers, and black magic women and men that I first heard the call. My ballet teacher gave me the techniques, but when she asked me to feel it, to dance it with passion, I'd close my eyes and trust my magic to lead my body. When Marvin Gaye sang, "What's going on?" I heard something I'd never considered before and heard it like a rush of adrenaline in my veins. I saw Judith Jamison with Alvin Ailey as a girl because she'd to college with my mother and invited us to watch her and meet the dancers. She is a presence to anyone, but to a small girl chasing the muse, she was a giant in every sense of the word. I sat at the knee of any performer on television and closed my eyes listening to orchestration, composition, lyricists who said what my heart believed it was dreaming all on its own.
What I loved as a child was that though I found all of these people beautiful, otherworldly, and "gifted by God" (an expression I heard so often with the church ladies and aunties) they were not all traditionally beautiful; they were more. Their beauty came from another world. They were not charmed as much as possessed. Possessed of spirit, talent, direction, and passion. The light and energy radiated. Navigating the mainstream and the shadow world was done in secret and done every day. I could not articulate the how and the why, I just felt it.
When Maya Angelou passed this week, I was left with a sensation similar to the moments I'd learned of my grandmothers' passings. Maya Angelou I'd come upon quietly. No one handed me a book and told me there were secrets in there. But I'd heard her speak with that deep, knowing drawl resonating and vibrating with the power of a lion's roar but as direct and sharp as a crossbow, as humble and loving as a whisper that tickles the tiny hairs on one's ear, and as sure a voice I'd ever known. I believed her and trusted her. I loved her and everything she brought to me. Everything she promised me just by existing and not surviving, but thriving. She was BLACK. MAGIC. WOMAN. And she told me I was too. I could hardly believe her so she reminded me again and again.
With her passing, the breath was knocked from me and tears fell involuntarily and uncontrollably. I felt strongly that I should absorb her faith in me, in all of the black magic women. Women who need to give themselves permission to do their magic, to try their wares, to release their tethered souls, to soar. By her example and her wisdom and her guidance, there was no way for me to deny the possibilities. I see her dancing to that song, giving in with abandon, being so remarkably human and otherworldly at the same time. Dare I do it too?
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
When I discovered the black, female writers--Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, Jamaica Kincaid, Maya Angelou--to start, I discovered a world that for me had been just a secret. I heard and saw and read things about myself that I'd never heard or seen. I did not grow up in the company of black folks. Yes, we had family and many close friends, but our community, what surrounded was white. I read these books with a longing, a desire, but also a realization of a hidden truth about me. These authors, along with many other artists (of music, visual art, dance, poetry, fiction writing) from all different backgrounds taught me the power of myself and that in the face of my every day loneliness, deep down there was magic.
I was loved by my grandmothers and my aunties, was held in their care. But it was the arts, from the creative spirits, seekers, seers, and black magic women and men that I first heard the call. My ballet teacher gave me the techniques, but when she asked me to feel it, to dance it with passion, I'd close my eyes and trust my magic to lead my body. When Marvin Gaye sang, "What's going on?" I heard something I'd never considered before and heard it like a rush of adrenaline in my veins. I saw Judith Jamison with Alvin Ailey as a girl because she'd to college with my mother and invited us to watch her and meet the dancers. She is a presence to anyone, but to a small girl chasing the muse, she was a giant in every sense of the word. I sat at the knee of any performer on television and closed my eyes listening to orchestration, composition, lyricists who said what my heart believed it was dreaming all on its own.
What I loved as a child was that though I found all of these people beautiful, otherworldly, and "gifted by God" (an expression I heard so often with the church ladies and aunties) they were not all traditionally beautiful; they were more. Their beauty came from another world. They were not charmed as much as possessed. Possessed of spirit, talent, direction, and passion. The light and energy radiated. Navigating the mainstream and the shadow world was done in secret and done every day. I could not articulate the how and the why, I just felt it.
When Maya Angelou passed this week, I was left with a sensation similar to the moments I'd learned of my grandmothers' passings. Maya Angelou I'd come upon quietly. No one handed me a book and told me there were secrets in there. But I'd heard her speak with that deep, knowing drawl resonating and vibrating with the power of a lion's roar but as direct and sharp as a crossbow, as humble and loving as a whisper that tickles the tiny hairs on one's ear, and as sure a voice I'd ever known. I believed her and trusted her. I loved her and everything she brought to me. Everything she promised me just by existing and not surviving, but thriving. She was BLACK. MAGIC. WOMAN. And she told me I was too. I could hardly believe her so she reminded me again and again.
With her passing, the breath was knocked from me and tears fell involuntarily and uncontrollably. I felt strongly that I should absorb her faith in me, in all of the black magic women. Women who need to give themselves permission to do their magic, to try their wares, to release their tethered souls, to soar. By her example and her wisdom and her guidance, there was no way for me to deny the possibilities. I see her dancing to that song, giving in with abandon, being so remarkably human and otherworldly at the same time. Dare I do it too?
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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