This moment: RIP, Prince

I stand outside myself when I remember the moment.  I see myself, just out of the shower, hair wet, towel draped loosely around me, when my phone pings the "illuminate" ringtone which tells me my sister needs me or wants to make me laugh.  I don't rush to it, know it will be there until I check it, and put on some underwear first.  The rest of my clothes are on the bed but I don't grab them just yet, instead I pick up the phone to read the message.

Prince is dead. Devastated. Mess.

And I am naked except for the underwear I just put on and need more clothes because I feel so naked but also need to call her.  I want to be dressed.  Because I will remember this moment and want to be dressed.  I don't want to be crying in my room, which I am now doing near hysterically, as I fumble for the TV remote and the phone.  I reach my sister and the news channel at the same time and she is saying yes but I don't see it on TV so maybe it is not true.  Because why would it be true.  Because it can't be.  And I keep putting on my clothes but also a blanket over my still wet head to wait for the news on TV.

It's there.  A still of Prince from Purple Rain and that 1958-2016 at the end.  The marker of time.  I think, "I'll die in your arms under the cherry moon."  I think, "Until the end of time, I'll be there for you.  You own my heart and mind, I truly adore you."  I think, "Baby, baby, baby...what's it gonna be tonight...."  The first songs that coming from my subconscious to my head.  He's gone.

The moments, hours, days, and now weeks that follow I move in a slow jam of molasses.  I am going through life's motions but the pull at my throat and the corner of my eyes and my solar plexus and my chest don't let me forget that I feel profound loss for someone I don't know but who helped me discover myself.  The journey he led me on at various stages of my life by sharing his cannot be overstated.  I've heard it said that when one is, say, tripping on psychedelic mushrooms or acid, a good guide, someone who has already experienced the effects and visuals, can help navigate the emotional roller coaster, the drama of the alternate universes, and the mind-blowing imagery of that sojourn.  My life with Prince's music has been such a trip.

Some nights I react to his passing in the lower chakras.   I actually drop to my knees with ache and longing.  I feel untethered and disconnected, empty and ungrounded.  Prince gave me license to be in possession of myself and to connect to the energies, physical and psychic around me.  I felt the hair stand up on my arm, my heart beat faster, my head spin, my legs go weak in the landscape he created.  I dared not be ashamed of my otherness, my sexuality, the magnetic pull and attraction between souls.  

"They feel the heat, the heat between me and you."  

There are no words for what the 15 year old me felt when she first heard those lyrics.  I felt like I'd been told a secret, that something lurking inside would be impossible to hide when I discovered my soul's mate.  I don't think I'd ever stood face to face with a boy at that time, let alone felt his heat, but I knew something wicked and delicious and terrifying would happen when I did. Songs of love and longing had not been so visceral for me until that moment.  So much of Prince's music took me through the full range of emotions, love, sex, heartbreak, pleasure and pain.  The sacred and the profane.  The spiritual longing, the seeking, and the command he took on stage, in the studio, on the screen made him both pilgrim and guide.  

I loved that Prince did not apologize for his blood, sugar, sex, magic (to quote the Red Hot Chili Peppers).  He was all those wicked things and a vulnerable man cub. He was music's Mowgli walking through the jungle of the human psyche in all its dank, dark, delicious earthiness.  He was sexy and naked and sweating and sweet and looked at us all with those wet eyes and everyone fell.  He was so real as to be surreal.  So truly enigmatic that no matter how often he was asked to define himself, he believed in not doing so, he was.  That he is gone in a blink takes away a pocket of that magic.

I'm haunted by his passing as much because I loved him and his music at a time when I was flowering into my own being as that I, and so many others, had no idea how he was suffering.  I am haunted by the man alone, by the tunnels I imagine him passing through to get from studio to studio, the corridors and chambers of his secret spaces.  I feel stunned by all the work amassed, the work never heard, the work, the work, the art, the music that he kept making even when his fans still connected to the tried and true, the music that we knew.  I imagine him alone, in the quiet, with his god and his muse, creating and hurting, and being distinctly human on a quest for the divine.  I consider my own pain, my own loneliness, my own torment and compare it though I know I shouldn't.  I think of an artist in physical pain and addiction and imagine the sorrow.  And then the lyrics flood me and everyone in my life really for infinity because we have to listen to his music until I say stop and I have not yet.

And in this moment in my life, waiting at a stop light, mindlessly folding laundry, sending a message, reading, or dreaming, the songs come back, pop into my head like mile markers.  You've come by here before, they say.  Remember when you ached, longed for that boy, fought your own demons, wanted, needed.  Do you remember when you were alone?  When it was another time?  Another place?  And it was quiet and you were naked and out of the shower and had no idea which way the day would go?

I feel guilty for taking so long to let go.  My mood is revealed by what's playing.  One is warned whether or not to ask the question, show me the Beanie Boo, or ask for another something by my dancing or my silence.  After the call, I slowly, silently finished getting dressed.  I'd turned off the TV at some point probably to hear my sister better as we talked.  The house was still.  

If I gave you diamonds and pearls
Would you be a happy boy or a girl
If I could I would give you the world
But all I can do is just offer you my love*

(Prince and the New Power Generation, Diamonds and Pearls)

It hadn't been one of my favorites but there it was.  And I sang it out loud to break the silence.  And as I'd felt so many times before listening to his music, I wanted someone to offer their love.  

RIP, Prince Rogers Nelson

(c)  Copyright 2016.  Repatriated Mama:  Back to the Suburban Grind.

Back to the Suburban Grind: Misty-eyed

Back to the Suburban Grind: Misty-eyed: I'm up early, before my alarm, with tears still wet on my face.  My eyes are fogged with sleep and the tears left over from the most hid...

Misty-eyed

I'm up early, before my alarm, with tears still wet on my face.  My eyes are fogged with sleep and the tears left over from the most hideous cry I had last night.  I stayed up to watch Misty Copeland on Independent Lens.  I know her story and have devoured so much about her as she's made her historic rise to principle dancer with the American Ballet Theater (ABT).  Like so many women, black women, with daughters and a love of dance and the arts, I have gravitated toward this tiny, elegant force, found myself spinning around her like a mama moon.  I am up early, before my alarm, because I am moved in the most spiritual of ways by an artist and her work and a moment that was a long time coming.

To say that Misty Copeland is inspiring is to discover that the word has been overused and that there are hardly words to describe this woman, her talent, and her trajectory.  This is the story of a prodigy, of an artist come to life, of a consgilieri and a coven (written in the best way so don't go in) of "firsts" and strong, able, successful black women who brought a baby light into the fold.  I was as moved by this group as I am by Misty's absolute command of her craft, her body, and her art.  That these women were called to be her guides by the incredible Susan Fales-Hill, a writer/producer/patron of the arts and education, that they met the call to protect and nurture this artist who was sure to take her place in the pantheon they'd begun creating with their life achievements, filled me with a love and pride that is indescribable.

I have loved dance since I was a small girl dreaming of all the major roles in classical ballets and  watching Michael Jackson and Solid Gold.  Much of the latter part of my childhood was spent in the studio and I trained many days a week.  My dance teacher, a ball-breaking Russian dancer, hurt by her turn as dance teacher to the suburban kids of New Jersey in her basement studio, still found a way to push and pull me and try to make me into something. She told me there were very few black dancers out there and that those were not players in the mainstream dance companies.  She did not say this with callousness but matter of factly.  I did not know about the Dance Theatre of Harlem and though I had enjoyed Ailey, I wanted to wear pointe shoes and perform the classical pieces I'd been spoon fed.  I can't say that I even let myself dream of a chance at a career or a life in dance as I believed that there was no place for me in the arts and that though the arts were enriching, there were better things for one to do with one's future.  

I was no Misty Copeland, she's an incredible talent, a force, but I was good.  Good enough to dream about it and phantom dance through every song, sound, and watched performance.  Good enough to hear the muse calling to me, but not quite sure what to answer back or how.  This is the struggle of a young artist or performer.  Feeling full of the spirit but needing commitment and guidance from a master.  I gave up before even trying to find such a mentor, convinced that to dance was a pipe dream for me, that there were more "serious, important, pressing things" in my future.  I have regretted this for all my life.  Not because I thought I should or could be a dancer, but because I stopped speaking a mother tongue, a language I loved and understood to babble on in one I could only mimic.  

I am absolutely mesmerized by the delicate balance of power and grace in this young woman.  I have loved other ballerinas, followed their lines, studied their hands and their feet, seen the longing heaving in their tiny ribcages, watched their sternums expand and contract with each gesture.  I have moved with them, hypnotized as they moved across the stage in a seemingly effortless dance that masked the years of training and hours and hours of work to prepare.  But to share with my daughters a dancer that looks like them, that is shy and sensitive as they are, who, despite her fears and loneliness persevered is a precious gift.  To be the first, the one and only, forging a path of one's own are themes that I have sought to share with the girls in literature, movies, stories, music, and art.  Girl power and black girl magic has to come from me.  I cannot wait for them to find it on their own or worse, never discover it or not believe it.  

As a small girl, I had the great fortune to meet and even dance for Judith Jamison and the Alvin Ailey company backstage.  My mother had gone to college with "Jam" and we'd gone to see them perform.  I remember the sound and the fury of backstage life, seeing the dancers in street clothes but full stage make up, smoking cigarettes, laughing, flirting, smiling.  I remember their beautiful bodies, their taut, black and brown bodies, and the feeling of the stage behind me and the seats of the empty theatre in front of me.  For years after this wonderful moment, I carried that rarefied air in my lungs, all that hope and desire, that longing, until it slowly faded.  When I watch Misty Copeland, I feel like that girl again and I am soaring behind her, carried along in her wake and pushing her forward with my hope and love for her.  I have been taken in by this historic moment and feel such pride.

 I don't know if my daughters will keep dancing, don't know if this is what calls to their spirits, but I am grateful that they have seen a dancer achieve what seemed impossible and hope that whatever they might believe is impossible now seems a little less so.



(c) Copyright 2016.  Repatriated Mama:  Back to the Suburban Grind.

Patterns and uniforms

I sent this picture to a friend this afternoon to show her the new curtain we'd put on the girls' closet.  Her response was, "Nice.  Too bad you can't' get a print in there."  I joked back in response, "Not a single one.  Beige City."

We bantered for a bit when I pointed out that my whole house actually was full of pattern.  Animal prints and florals, stripes, color, polka dots, prints of all kinds.  To my mind, it all comes together, linked by traces of color, texture, size, and dimension.  I like this crazy world at home and am comforted by its controlled chaos.  It's not haphazard or random.  This madness is perfectly curated.  Nothing gets in here by accident.  There is a level of whimsy and sophistication and lots of energy and fun, with lots of room to lounge, move, create, eat, and live.  It suits us.

When I go out into the world my spacesuit is usually grey, black, or navy, or some combination of these three.  But when I am home, I want to see tiny explosions, mismatched pattern, contrasting colors, light and dark, hard lines and snuggly pillows and blankets.  Our space is full of the creative life force that each of us brings.  There is art made by all four of us hung and displayed.  There are favorite motifs--crowns, cats, hearts, mandalas, mothers and children, flowers and trees, abstract paintings, woven tapestries, and my favorite, black and white something-or-others everywhere.

I have read articles about the "daily uniforms" that many professional women have adopted so that they can focus on the work in front of them.  A white button down and black pants.  A black tank and grey yoga leggings.  Black blazer.  I lean more towards a sporty comfort, dance clothes with scarves and oversized everything.  Long ago, before the elegant French husband and the children who have to be picked up at school and not humiliated by their mother's eccentric tastes, I would have worn my love of color and pattern and texture all over my body.  No Beige City for me.  There were faux fur leaning towards teddy bear coats, big shoes, colorful eye shadows, fringe, jewelry, monocles, canes, and glasses of all sorts.  Bare bellies, naked shoulders, tiny skirts in plastic or leather or mesh.  

I took off my earrings once the first baby arrived because it was her life goal, it seemed, to slice my earlobe with her pulling.  When we returned to the States from Barbados, I cut my hair ever shorter and felt too art-teachery, Eileen Fisher in earrings.  I started the lean towards a more androgynous, exaggerated proportion after a super-sexy period in Barbados where our house was not our own and the decor most definitely was not.  As my uniform went back to black, our space exploded with color and personality, expression shared in our private sanctuary and not out in the world.  Like our purest feelings, our life force was tucked away into the safety of our home.

When we come in and kick off our shoes, steal away to a favorite corner or spot, the place pulsates and radiates our energy.  It's for us.  Our space.  We peel off our masks and space suits and settle into its patterned, dynamic peace.  It's warm, welcoming, comfortable, and safe.  And it's just as much fun as I used to be on the outside, I told my kids.

And their reply, "You are still the most fun, mommy."




(c)  2016. Repatriated Mama:  Back to the Suburban Grind.

Back to the Suburban Grind: Hair raising

Back to the Suburban Grind: Hair raising: I cut my hair down to the quick because it was getting on my nerves.  This week.  A few weeks ago I cut it down to the skull because some ne...

Hair raising

I cut my hair down to the quick because it was getting on my nerves.  This week.  A few weeks ago I cut it down to the skull because some new product that promised to strengthen the short hair I did have on my head not only did not strengthen it but caused it to become brittle and dry.  I sheared it off to start over.  I'd been threatening this all summer, a massive cut, because I just could not find myself in the style that my slow-growing coif was presenting, and I wanted edgy, androgynous, strong and felt more like Dorothy Hamill mushroom or short-haired newscaster safety helmet.

I've given up on long hair. For me.  When we lived in Barbados, my hair grew like a wacky weed due to the climate, moisture, water, and raging hormones I produced due to the recent arrival of my second babe.  I wore it long and loose, top-knotted, with braids, shells, twists and left in the sand, conditioner, salt water (rinsing only the chlorine), and let the sun bleach it out.  This was a me I never imaged.  Super feminine, sexy, and girly.  Only now can I admit that I was gorgeous--sun-kissed, toned, long-haired.  I had headbands and rubber bands, barrettes and buns.  I put flowers behind my ears and looked so demure and precious that I felt like a character.  It was fun, truly.  But when we got back to the States, all that hair threatened my time management and the style (mostly a bun or a ponytail) made me feel undefined and misdirected. 

Since I was in seventh grade and a beauty school fuck-up destroyed my hair, my confidence, and my life in one afternoon's attempt at the ill-thought but insanely popular Jheri Curl, my hair has been short.  I want to say that I took to it effortlessly, but that would be a flat out lie.  I cried my face off for months as my pimply, awkward, pre-teen chubby face was forced to take center stage at just the moment that I wanted to wait in the wings.  I wore a headband for years, afraid to let the hair just be, hopeful that it would grow long and full and I'd be able to poof it to heaven like all the other 80's vixens (black and white).  It never dawned on me to wear a weave or a wig, they'd never have suited me, but I endured my wide open face on display with a tortured, simmering hurt.

My girls have hair down to their shoulders.  The oldest has the most beautiful mane of auburn, blond, and chestnut hair that coils and twists and extends from her skull out into the world.  When she wears it down, which is not often, she stuns.  She has no idea of the power that head holds, and not just because of the hair.  She struggles with the kinks and the knots and the fullness, but I have promised her that she will come to love it.  She's a Leo and I've told her that she will walk the world like a lion one day and will love her unruly curls.  For now, she wears it pulled back in a ponytail or bun.  My youngest has dark brown hair with auburn highlights.  Hers is wavier, thinner, and she loves it in side ponytails and topknots.  Her cascading locks makes her look older than her six years.  She's glamorous and girly and sweet.  She often wonders aloud if I want longer hair, if I want to wear ponytails, or if I "like" my hair short "like a boy."

I do.  Like it short like a boy.  This is my familiar style.  But it gives me no protection.  There is nowhere to hide and nothing to make me beautiful on days that I am not.  When my hair is short, super short like it is now, I have doubts and cannot slink under my bangs or wipe my hair back behind my ears.  When it is short like this I have to hope that a wriggle of my nose or a twitching of the corners of my mouth or a flutter of my eyelashes doesn't give me away.  With my hair short like this, anything and everything can be betrayed.  It was once just my feelings but now it's my wrinkles, my changing hormones, my sprinkling of greys which seem to show up better when my hair is worn close to the skull.

As soon as my hair is cut, I begin the process of starting to grow it back.  More as an exercise in its ability to still do that, grow, than in hoping I get locks flowing to my shoulders.  The truth is that it just doesn't grow like that.  There are people whose hair grows like weeds, a little water and light and the garden flourishes.  Not mine.  This is a black girl's story, and one that I will not tell with any fresher perspective than it has been previously told.  My hair, because of the way it grows, because it is coarse and kinky, does not grown like silken threads, returning in months to pre-cut lengths.  Mine can take years and breaks with frequency.  The growing out sometimes leaves me frustrated and I run to the scissors.  I can't wait.  I have no judgment or loathing of myself because of this truth; I have resigned myself to it.  The struggle is real.

The girls' hair, both some combination of my kinky, scrappy, nappy curls and my husband's fine, sweeping curls (of yesterday as he is now suffering from some level of hair loss that only occasionally strikes him as a horror) grows just fine.  Mine has always needed coaxing.  Oils and creams and potions.  Wraps, conditioners, and special combs or brushes.  It takes its time.  And I wait.  Until I can't.

Little girls with short pixie or asymmetricals, tight Afros or blunted bobs make me smile.  The gender specific styles really influence the littles and anything that runs counter to that makes me beam.  A friend has a daughter who brings her short cut, gold earrings, Star Wars, long shorts game every day and I call her my avatar.  To bring it like that, as a baby boo, is so epic.  The amount of judgment and projection that goes onto the shorn head of a woman or girl is pretty massive.  Sometimes even I can't bear the weight.  Yet she's all the way in and wondering what's wrong the folks who don't get her vibe, her style, not the other way around.

My crowning glory has to be my aura and not my hair.  My halo is in the ether and not on my head.  And though I sometimes have to shore myself up for each morning, each moment I pass the mirror, each time I reach to push my hair out of my face, and while I like my hair short, and have grown to love it over the past 30 years, I have never felt so seen and so naked.  I imagine that people can see through my skin into my heart, can read behind my eyes, can see my thoughts, so I run my hand over my head...but it's still gone.  I know it's not the hair.  The hair doesn't really supply the power.  It doesn't really protect or shield and it doesn't really make me more beautiful or more feminine.  I don't even really look like a boy.  But I have wanted to hide, to disappear, to go away, be invisible and unseen.  I've seen my youth and my wide-eyed wonder recede under that skull cap of a style.  I've seen my face loom larger, my eyes keener, my lines and wrinkles lightly tracing where I laughed and smiled and cried and picked.  I've seen my face lurch forward with something I'd not realized was there before.  Experience and wisdom.

I know things and I will not hide it.  I can't.  Because my hair is cut short to the quick and the truth is written all over my face.


(c) Copyright 2015.  Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.


Addendum:  This is my journey with my hair.  There is no judgment-stated or implied-for how others choose to wear their hair.  It has been a lifelong process for me, dealing with this hair, and what the styles say to society at large, but I am at peace with it.  Except for when I'm not.

Back to the Suburban Grind: A Case of the 23's

Back to the Suburban Grind: A Case of the 23's: Our main babysitter is 23 years old.  A gorgeous redhead with long legs and a nervous giggle, she's smart and kind and good and funny an...