37.

Today.

The 2 children that love me gave me a stuffed bear this morning that they were saving since January...just for this day. They continue to amaze and dazzle me every day of my life.

The 3 adults that love me all called at about the same time this morning to wish me well.

My life overflows with blessings and i've been reminded of that today...so then why am i melancholy? why am i happy and unhappy at the same time? (i've just realized that it's almost 11am and i haven't eat one single, solitary thing today. and i'm not hungry)

i have no issues with my age. Ageing doesn't concern me much beyond just wanting to always be able to walk upright. Once i'm hunched over, i'm ready to check outta here. I have simple needs.

i'm usually hyper-aware of my own feelings and motivations, but right now, i don't know why i'm sorta blue. or maybe i do know and just don't want to say it outloud, in my own head, or to the ether.

but yeah. Happy Birthday to me.

I want to talk about Zora.

USPS Black Heritage - Zora Neale Hurston, originally uploaded by deedeeq5724.

"Sometimes I feel discrimated against but it doesn't make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company! It is beyond me." - Zora Neale Hurston, 1891 - 1960

When I first saw the syllabus for my Oral Traditions in Literature class and noticed that Their Eyes Were Watching God was on the list, I was surprised. I realized that I already owned the book but just never read it. I don’t even remember when I bought it, but I know why I bought it: a friend of mine had told me it was an important book. She said Zora Neale Hurston’s novel had changed her life. She even told me that if she ever had a daughter, she’d name her Janie. So, of course, I had to buy the book. I tried to read it at first. I think I read a lot of the first chapter and put it down for reasons that escape me. But I always knew that one day I’d get back to it.

I skipped the foreword for now; I didn’t want my interpretation of the book to be clouded by others’ just yet. After reading the first few sentences, it struck me that this would definitely be a book that I would need to read again and again. I love how melodic and poetic it is. Some sentences require multiple reading in order to catch the depth of the metaphors. Sometimes what I think it means at first changes once I’ve read more of the story, then I flip back a few pages and say “ahhh ok.”

The story, which is semi-autobiographical, is about a young girl named Janie who finds herself trapped in two loveless marriages until she finally meets the (much younger than her) man of her dreams, Teacake. But it's not simply a love story. It's one of self-discovery and self-acceptance. It's a Negro spiritual of sorts. it's a history book. It's a Zora-chronicle. It's too many things.

But beyond the book is the larger story of Zora herself. Here is this Black woman all on her own in the 1920s, travelling around southern U.S. collecting Negro folktales on a fellowship paid for by a wealthy white woman. Zora was quite a force to be reckoned with. She was feircely independent, yet dependent on her benefactors. It didn't stop her pen or her mouth. She often found herself in trouble by both. She had a penchant for telling off-color racial jokes in front of white people...embarrassing them. She didn't care. She grew up in a town where everyone was black...where there was no jail or no police. so her perception of the world outside of Eatonville, FL was vastly different than other Blacks. And for that reason, many Blacks at that time did not have a fondness for her.

When Their Eyes Were Watching God was published, the elite Black writers like Langston Hughes and Richard Wright came down hard on Zora. she was not telling Black stories the way they felt was appropriate. Her ample usage of 'slave language' was embarassing to them. But she did not care.

I could go on and on about why this woman is a hero to me. She was fearless. Trailblazing. Indignant. Proud. Beautiful. Free. and all at a time when it was forbidden for a woman, especially a black woman, to be any of those things.

As a writer, i'm well aware of the doors she blasted open for black women writers. No others were being widely published at that time. None. And i can't believe it has taken me this long to find out about her...

Untitled Poem

He hangs out behind my eyelids

like this little genie perched on a magic carpet

smiling.

in each blinking milli-instant of darkness

i see him waving at me.

imagine the shenanigans when i've retired for the night.

Happy Mother's Day

7:30 am Sunday morning. My son Marius taps me on the shoulders to wake me.

"Happy Mother's Day, Mommy. Look!", he whispered in my ear. My eyes followed in the direction that he pointed and I saw the tray on the bed.

Best gift I ever received. He's so amazing.

Crutches Suck.

I've only had to use them for 2 days so far and i already despise them. I despised them after like 1 hour. People stare at you with pity. ok i don't really care about that part but under my arms...it hurts. my palms...they hurt. so then today i had the brilliant idea to just switch to one crutch to support the tender foot...ok but now the 'good foot' is hurting cuz i spent the whole fucking day leaning on it!

*throws crutches across the room*

The Dangers of Intellectual Property

3 people are trapped in a room that is locked from the outside. the only way out is through a hatch that is too high for anyone to reach. Collectively, the 3 of them possess the tools to escape from the room but they've spent the last 5 hours arging over who will get credit for the escape once they are outside.

Gene, who knew how to build a ladder out of the pile of wood and nails in the corner of the room, says, "For the last time people...i get us out of here but i want exclusive rights to all books and films related to our escape. the knowledge i possess is essential and the rest of you would be nothing without me!"

Lisa, who has a hammer concealed in her backpack, chimes in, "You know Gene i'm sick of your pompous attitude. It is I who holds the answer to this entire escape so you should just turn over your "whatever it is" to me so i can finally get us out of here! Besides, i'm the smartest one here anyway..."

Jamal, who is nervously fingering his chisel in the inside pocket of his jacket, thinks to himself, "I should just kill the both of them, take their items, and claim self-defense..."

They're all found dead a week later.

I made up that super-extreme story but imagine what our world would be like if ideas were freely shared amongst all. Yes, i know that is so scientifically socialist of me but it could work. There are so many diseases that some scientist somewhere has a cure for but because this or that pharmeceutical company owns the rights to it, certain people ain't gonna get it. inventions have to wait for patents because thieving is rampant. people sue others over the similarity of ideas instead of just collaborating.

ok yeah maybe idea-sharing is counterintuitive in a cosumerist world, but a girl can dream.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Doesn't Write.

i don't write because i'm afraid to be wrong. well not wrong, but at the very least, incoherent. or unorganized. unstructured. i erroneously perceive my own free writing as something that needs editing. or pre-planning. or fuck it, even paragraphs. and i'm sure that this stifles my creativity...this need to write right. to have every utterance be brilliant and profound. it can't be like that most of the time...i gotta accept that. to creatively censor ourselves is tragic...to self-edit is nihilistic.

i think of myself sometimes as an artist but am i really? what i have done for art lately? is this blog art? i've produced nothing as of late that's worth holding up to ridicule or praise. i'm empty-handed...nothing up my sleeves either. i may try to shake myself later. we'll see.

and yeah i'm supposed to be working on my hiphop presentation for class that's due soon but i'm so unmotivated because i no longer have anyone in my life knowledgeable enough to bounce ideas off of. sucks but i'll live. and throw something together. (wow i just dozed off with my fingers perched on the keyboard midsentence)