Light-skinned-ed Girl

Ideas of Blackness--The seeds

A thoughtful and important post by cloudscome has me thinking about how it is that we become "raced" growing up.  For me, it happened quite dramatically when my parents split up and we moved to a majority black neighborhood at age 11.  Before that we had lived mostly overseas near or on American military bases.  Our difference had been that we were "Americans" living abroad.  When we arrived in Portland, my brothers and I were very suddenly black.  And we were supposed to choose sides.  Was I going to have white friends?  Was I going to continue to "talk white"?  Until then, I didn't have an idea of blackness or whiteness.  I had no idea about the ideas other people had of race.  I learned quickly--unfortunately--and it was all negative.  I have been thinking that these negative ideas about race, about blackness, about difference were somehow dissipating.  But maybe not.  Where do the seeds of these ideas come from?  There is a very powerful short (7-minute) documentary film by a high school student that I highly recommend.  She doesn't have any answers about how the poisonous seeds of ideas of blackness get planted either, but the film convinces me it's important to ask the question until we find the answers.

solitude

i just learned that i was accepted for another residency at Jentel, an incredible artists' colony in wyoming.  it was there that light-skinned-ed girl, the novel, really came together for me--though it took another year for me to complete the final draft.  i am very much looking forward to that time away.  for me, the artist colony experience is about getting on my own time zone. and most importantly getting some distance from the busy-ness of the world.

i'm re-reading James Baldwin's collection of essays, The Price of the Ticket.  in his essay, "the creative process," he writes: "perhaps the primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone . . . the state of being alone is not meant to bring to mind merely a rustic musing beside some silver lake.  the aloneness of which i speak is much more like the aloneness of birth or death.  it is like the fearful aloneness that one sees in the eyes of someone suffering, whom we cannot help."

the passage made me panic!  yes, he's right.  i crave the alone-time, but i fear it too.  it is in the alone-time that i suddenly really pay attention to myself, and my feelings, and then . . . well, then i write about it.  but it's a painful process.

of course, i won't be alone alone.  i'll be one of six resident artists--all possibly experiencing the same kind of panic.  it will be great.

Light-skinned-ed Girl's China Photos

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a little bit more of china--highlights

• the tourist-trap acrobatic performance: still it was incredible
• steamed pork buns for breakfast
• the terra cotta warriors
• the summer palace in beijing on a beautiful fall day
• asian pears in season
• watermelon after every meal
• camel soup (though i didn't have it i love that it was on the menu)

Light-skinned-ed Girl in China

Coming off the plane kept looking for the thing that makes this look like China.  Like something different.  But there wasn't a big difference.  People spoke English.  The hotel is like any big hotel.  And the city is filled with high-rises and lots of cars and construction.  It is a big, busy city.  It wasn't until walking down one of the hutongs (residential alleys mixed with commercial storefronts) that the China I guess I had in my mind came into a view: the picture is only in my mind since it seemed so obtrusive to take photos.  But the picture was this: a boy, age 7 or 8, crouched on the ground by his home, a ramshackle shed like thing, behind a tree ostensibly for privacy.  He held a mug of water in one hand and was brushing his teeth with the other.  Steps away was the main street--high-rises, and commerce.  And behind the gate was this kid.

The other China I've been looking for: Communist China it took a while to find.  There is a robust market here.  A lot of selling.  A lot of capitalism.  A lot of Starbucks coffee shops, and KFC, and McDonald's.  But as I was watching CNN this morning, the video suddenly shut off when a video of an incident between Chinese soldiers and Tibetan pilgrims at the border.  I can't tell you more than that because the screen went blank for a two minutes until the Chinese minister spoke and said whatever It was was alleged.  The announcer was going back to the video and the screen went blank again until the next story about Korea came on.  That was wild.  It shook me up a little bit. 

I continue to find China --the real thing as much as I can experience of it . . . hopefully photos up soon.

Writer's Block

Try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.

                                      -John Cage

Biracial Hair: A Mixed Chick's Hair Story Told Straight and Curly

Afrindiemum, a favorite blog, got me started on this today with her posts on biracial hair.  My hair is an obsession because 1) I often don't know what to do with my hair; and 2) it's still political.  I have naturally curly hair.  As a child, I hated it.  I couldn't smoothly part my hair with my fingers like the Bionic Woman.  My Dorothy Hamill haircut looked suspiciously like a flat 'fro.  My hair looked like a jheri curl when wet (which was good) - but then dried into a a frizzy nest-like thing.  I had "good hair" according to my African-American grandmother--keep it long!  I had wonderful curls according to my mom--what I wouldn't give for those curls!  But I hated it.

Still, it is a struggle daily--not just the doing of it, but the statement I make with it--and it is a statement.  It really comes down to who will I be today?  Will I be my regular, curly-haired, a little bit more assertive, smart self?  Will I be my more conservative, groomed and sadity self and blow-dry my hair straight?  Why is hair still so political?  What is going on here?

And then there is the issue of self-love.  My frizzy, un-like everyone else's hair was just another reason for me to dislike myself.  And this dis-ease with my hair is reflected in the way that I deal with the world too.  Alice Walker writes in this wonderful essay, "Oppressed Hair Puts a Ceiling on the Brain," that "it occurred to me that in my physical self there remained one ast barrier to my sprititual liberation, at least in the present phase: my hair."

She continues: "Not my friend hair itself, for I quickly understood that it was innocent.  It was the way I related to it that was the problem.  I was always thinking about it.  So much so that if my spirit had been a balloon eager to soar away and merge with the infinite, my hair would be the rock that anchored it to Earth.  I realized that there was no hope of continuing my spiritual development, no hope of future growth of my soul, no hope of really being able to stare at the Universe and forget myself entirely in the staring (one of the purest joys!) if I still remained chained to thoughts about my hair.  I suddenly understood why nuns and monks shaved their heads!"

My hair and I are still in the struggle.  So too are my thoughts.  I'm looking forward to my 50th birthday -- really not too far away--I've vowed to myself that is the day I shave off all my hair and test what it feels like to live without thoughts about my hair and the self-judgments and judgments of others.

A necessary postscript to any discussion of hair: I am happily trying to be curly these days after a visit to Devachan Salon in New York on Crosby with Julie.  It's a wonderful salon where curls are celebrated--I left with my hair curly and it looked great (it was dry too!).  I've been using those products for a few months now.  Also, I'm a big fan of Mixed Chicks leave-in conditioner and Miss Jessie's Curly Pudding.  I hate to really mention it, but if you want to blow-dry your hair straight use the Kerastase Oleo-Relax shampoo, conditioner and the leave-in shine thing.  It's incredible expensive, but it works!

I created a Slide Show! Check it out!

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confessions of a geek wannabe

i don't think there's anyone who actually remembers the fact that i started college as an electrical engineer.  in middle school and high school i was a math genius.  no, i'm not kidding.  i took calculus as a sophomore in high school and, well . . . i was technologically advanced.  as a college freshman, i was elected SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE CHICANO ENGINEERING SOCIETY.  (that is also not a joke--in fact, it touches on deep identity confusion on many fronts!)

my stint as an ee major came to an abrupt because: 1. i was taking the slow series calculus (i ran out of high school calculus knowledge on day 3 in college) and 2.  i dropped out of my cs (that's computer science for the non-geeks) class right before the final.  i became an english major the next quarter.

still, there is a geek lurking within me.  i have spent the past few weeks happily struggling to teach myself html, xtml, and css as i re-design my website.  it's amazingly fun.  and it's a better distraction from stalled writing than shopping for dresses on ebay, or for books on abebooks, or googling myself and my friends all day.  i hope to re-launch my website in the next week or so.  i'm excited.

even this blog has been a great exercise in geekdom.  i am experimenting with adding the typepad widgets.  any recommendations?  and can anyone help me figure out how to tag things on blog posts?

my friend at tismoi hips me to new tek stuff--(thanks for introducing me to blogher).  but if there is anyone else out there who has recommendations for tek blogs, (simplified) tek books on web design, mind-mapping software and other geeky computer stuff.  please let me know.

what do we do with disappointment

i heard harold kushner speak last week at the 92nd street y.  i have never read his enormously successful book when bad things happen to good people, but my friend--who was a congregational rabbi--spoke highly of him.  his theology and writing was incredibly important to her during her studies as a scholar and young rabbi.  kushner has written a new book called on disappointment.  he studied the life of moses and has distilled three or four or five (or whatever that magic book-selling number is) lessons on how to deal with disappointment.

i was ready to be illuminated.  i was ready to love what he had to say.  what i got instead of helpful words of wisdom were platitudes that were dressed in terribly anachronistic and sometimes non-sequitur examples.  the lecture (and probably the whole book) was just a mess, a waste of time--dare, i say: a disappointment.

i have been dealing with a lot of disappointment as of late.  my great american novel/great american creole novel/great novel/good novel/not-as-bad-as-the-other-stuff-that gets-published novel STILL is not published.  i admit, i had an idea at some point that i had to write a novel by 30 then 35.  now i'm pushing 40 and hoping that it happens before then, but . . . who knows. 

there are days like the last few days when the feelings of disappointment have been overwhelming (i couldn't even bring myself to blog when really i've found so much joy in this Instant Publishing Business!) -- yes, i try to keep myself in the game: writing grant applications for my next project, reading books on novel revision, writing notes and working on new stories.  but still there has been a crushing feeling of disappointment that i have not been able to overcome with kushner's handy-dandy ideas.

FINALLY, yesterday, the disappointment lifted just a little bit: just enough to make me feel excited about the writing again.  i went to the bookstore to buy myself some kind of business or computer book --it's the only kind of reading i find i can do on airplanes.  i noticed that the best american short stories edited by ann patchett had just arrived.  now, i trolled the website around the time i thought maybe maybe my story published in alaska quarterly review would make the cut .(by the way: this would have been a very long shot.  i have a friend whose first published short story won him an o'henry but it just doesn't happen --plus his story is brilliant!)  of course, i knew from the publisher's website that i hadn't made it in the book so i picked it up in my grumpy, disappointed way.  who were the jokers who got in and not me?  (as you can tell the disappointment is also mixed with delusions of grandeur -- i think that's part of the reason i get so disappointed --the standards are very high.)  the "jokers" are writers like alice munro (love her), tobias wolff, mary gaitskill and robert coover.  okay, so they aren't jokers.  and then for some reason, i paged to the back of the book and saw that there was a list titled "100 other distinguished stories of 2005"--an alphabetical list where i found my name and the name of my story Light-skinned-ed Girl!  hooray.  hooray!  (you can download it at my website if you're interested.) that's how my disappointment is cured.  that and not attending another kushner lecture (but maybe i will pick up his first book).