Poem from the Still Small Voice

Under the Covers
By Nordette N. Adams

Under cover of scars crissrossing the torso,
purple-blue etchings mesh into one nest
stubborn spirits of slurs escaped
from inept exorcisms, hiding
an impostor's beat. This metronome
times the rise of withering supplications.

Alone, she skates figure eights,
the eternal curve. If only
she could swerve off the deepening groove
to sail a new arc high through air,
she could retire her blades, rend the mask,
reveal the straight lip, the damp eye,
the brow wrinkled as a mother's
when children fail and fail again.

She's prayed this pain projecting from her
back, through the shrink of cleansing organs,
means wings budding, that God is
closing windows to open the door wide
for her soft, feathered, coverless journey.


© 2010 Nordette N. Adams
July 18

Blog Break. Blogcation. Hiding Out.

I'm taking a blog break. I may pass through with three-sentence post and links just to remind the Google and Bing people that the blog is still alive or maybe I'll post a poem or two, but my brain needs a vacation. I am on break until further notice.

Thank you all for your support.

Nordette

Bloggers Unite for the Gulf of Mexico: There's More to Be Done than Watch and Pray, but Send Prayers Too

What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded
has happened to me. ~~ Book of Job, 3:25

As I see Alex turn into the first hurricane of the season while oil still kills fish and wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico, I think of Job, and hope we aren't tried as he was.



As we on the Gulf Coast brace for potential hurricanes this summer, which means we're praying major storm systems go away from the Gulf Coast completely while we load up on water, food, and batteries, we still watch the oil spill crisis with all its players and pitfalls. Right now we're keeping an eye on Hurricane Alex, which may or may not be out to get us. I wish all the storms vanished because not only do I think about us here but also the people of Haiti.

In the video you'll see that Alex is already causing trouble for clean-up workers. One of the challenges of this hurricane season will be how to evacuate people from the Gulf who are busy with remediation if a bad storm enters.

We hope that people who want to volunteer to clean oil off of beaches, save the wetlands, and protect our brown pelicans don't have to also see New Orleans and surrounding areas sitting in an oily lake between now and late November. With those concerns in mind, I am participating in the Bloggers Unite initiative today, June 30, that asks bloggers to post information about how to help the Gulf of Mexico. Organizers recommend the concerned sign this petition asking Congress to shift its focus from old energy models to renewable energy and to steer the nation away from dependence on fossil fuels.

I urge you to sign it, but I also caution you to read it before you sign it. Remember Van Jones, the former Green Czar who was hounded out of his White House position in part based on a petition he signed that he did not read carefully. This petition, however, is nothing like the one he did not read.

Furthermore, if you don't intend to run for office or anticipate you'll be appointed to the White House, then you have no need to worry about signing a petition that tells Congress "enough is enough." Buck up for the Gulf and for your children. Remember fossil fuels won't last forever. It's common sense to find an alternative. Oil may run out in your children's lifetime or the lifetimes of your nieces and nephews. If you're young, maybe in yours.

As for my post on how to help, I've been doing my part by writing consistently about this disaster, but there's more to be done than to offer words. Still, the right words help too, which is why I like this other project from Deb on the Rocks.

She launched the Love the Gulf blogging meme back in May. If all you can do is write a post about any good memories you associate with the Gulf of Mexico and coastal culture, then that love would be appreciated.

What I can add to that list of Love the Gulf posts is memories of growing up and visiting Waveland, Miss., a standard vacation with my family at one point in my life. I grew up in New Orleans, aware of both nearby coastal beauty and summer concern for storms swirling in the warm sea.

But you can't ignore coastal beauty. Even today, when I want to escape, I sometimes hop in my car and drive down Highway 90 to Bay St. Louis and Gulfport, Miss. just to remind myself that I am that close to the Gulf of Mexico, and prior to the spill, I wanted to visit Grand Isle, La., for a day trip. I may still do that, but I don't want to drive down only to be told turn back by BP security or state police.

In addition, I spent many days of my youth sitting on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, a large body of water that could be contaminated by oil from the Gulf if it spreads more inland. I've always preferred living near water.

More tangible ways to help

At BlogHer.com, a CE tells about the Hands Across the Sand event. Is it possible you could organize a similar event?

You may volunteer or donate to the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. You may also take a look at this Sierra Club website which gives a list of ways to get involved, one of which is to host a Clean It Up local event for your community.

Our local paper has a post with this kind of information. Visit its list here, which includes a link to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice with Nicholas Cage and Jay Baruchel, not Mickey Mouse

Here is Disney's trailer for The Sorcerer's Apprentice trailer, which ends with the teen apprentice shouting at the sorcerer, "Are You Insane?" Now imagine Mickey Mouse saying that. :-)



A Twitter acquaintance, @faydra_deon, shared the trailer of the upcoming film, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and when I commented that it was based on a cartoon, she said she'd never seen it. I suspect she has but she hasn't made the connection between Mickey Mouse with enchanted brooms and the movie that hits theaters July 14.

The new movie is expanded and re-imagined for this age of Harry Potter from Mickey Mouse's brief animated version in the classic Fantasia.

From MTV:

Whether or not you've seen Walt Disney's 1940 animated classic "Fantasia," it's virtually impossible to not have some awareness of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," a vignette from the film that combined Mickey Mouse, dancing brooms and magic both real and imagined. If the tender, gorgeous, emotionally nuanced clip had a complete opposite, it would likely be the modern-day action movie — so what is a new "Sorcerer's Apprentice" doing coming to theaters with (Nicholas) Cage and car chases galore?

MTV has a video interview with Cage talking about how Disney influenced him when he was young. He says he was "respectful of doing the movie in the grand tradition of Walt Disney and what he means."

Me too, Nic. I grew up on Disney. I told Faydra, "Yes, I'm that old." I've seen Mickey's version many times.

And my adult children are also Disney movie fans. See ya' at the movies. I'll go because I like Disney and silver screen spectacles. I sat through Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.

In addition to Cage as the sorcerer (Balthazar Blake), this new film features Jay Baruchel as apprentice, Dave Stutler, who is naturally what all teens hope they are, "special."

And yes, in some ways I'm still a child at heart. I will see Toy Story 3 as well.

Here's Mickey.

Hooray for Kung Fu Bear: I Needed This

After obsessing about the oil spill in the Gulf that will give us ugliness through August and beyond; writing about North and South Korea talking war; waking up to this morning's news that Israel had attacked a Gaza aid flotilla and 10 people died; contemplating Memorial Day and the number of dead in Afghanistan so far; hearing this evening of the tropical storms in in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador killing 115 people and leaving this gigantic sink hole that swallowed a house and a three-story building, I needed something light like this video of a bear in Japan at a zoo in Hiroshima folks are calling Kung Fu Bear because he can twirl a stick like a baton.

How Am I Like that Writer I Admire, Octavia Butler?

As quoted in Anthropology off the shelf: anthropologists on writing by Alisse Waterston, Maria D. Vesperi, the late Octavia Butler wrote in 2001:

"I am a 53-year-old writer who can remember being a 10-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an 80-year-old writer. I'm also comfortably asocial — a hermit in the middle of Seattle — a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.

I am concerned of late that I identify too much with Butler, a gifted writer of speculative fiction who slipped on the ice outside her home and died in 2006. While I'd like to say it's the giftedness with which I identify, it's the darker aspects of her personality that she acknowledges in the quote that remind me of me, including the "oil-and-water combinations" she mentions.

Currently, I am 50 and find increasingly that I have to force myself to participate in social activities. I am content writing, or researching information, or reading. Nevertheless, I struggle with duality of desire.

If I could split myself successfully in two, one of me would be busy running a social action group with people 50 and over, a think tank I would call The Village Elders. Its members would write letters to their children's children and post them online. The letters would cover the struggles through which these elders had lived and share the wisdom they believe future generations will need so that our communities are less burdened by crime; so that fewer of our young people murder each other, and fewer drift toward unpromising futures because they don't sense a purpose in living well.

I keep thinking that perhaps those of us who are older, who have already raised children, could unite and teach young parents, speak to them in person and via the Internet in ways that don't condemn them but edify them, build a rapport and bridge. In a way it's the knowledge management principle that was once that businesses used to promote: workers found ways to pass on information so the corporation would not lose valuable knowledge as employees retired, quit, or died. Are the older generations of African-Americans passing on to younger generations lessons learned or are we so embroiled with our daily life drama that we pass on nothing but our angst?

The Village Elders group also could take political action to not only influence government but neighborhoods and families. It could be seen as similar to the older people in less-sedentary days who sat on porches, kept an eye on the community, and advised younger parents when they saw a child going astray. But would younger parents listen or tell us what they do with their children is none of our business?

You know what I mean, the mother who's so rapped up in her childhood insecurities that when she's given advice, she turn on the person offering help and says, "Don't you be telling me about my child! I'm the mother."

While I've led people before, the thought of doing anything like this vision intimidates me today. Plus, I know there are others more suited to such work than I am, trained social workers, lettered psychologists, and professional non-profit administrators.

If I could split in two, then my other self would stay home, out of the world's way, would read, write, never watch the news and learn to garden--keep herself to herself. Which life is more dangerous, the hermit's or the extrovert's?

Splitting or no splitting, this fall I begin graduate school. Perhaps I'll rediscover there the parts of me that can do something more beneficial for others with my remaining years.

Unlike Octavia Butler, I don't see myself at age 80. I'll be lucky if I make it to 60. She was not the pessimist she thought she was to assume she'd live so long. Sadly, she did not.

Eric Clapton - Pilgrim (Video) and My Sour Marriage

This is my mood this morning, Eric Clapton's "Pilgrim." I used to play this song a lot during the end of my marriage, thinking it was about me and not feeling loved. Lately, I've been thinking this song is more about my ex. At least he would see it that way, that he was a sorrowful pilgrim for my love who was cast aside. That's how he plays his story for others. Does he believe that?

He once told me that the Doobie Brothers song, "What a Fool Believes" made him think of me. What is that to tell your wife? And he used to go around the house singing "If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty women your wife."

I'm not sure he ever really loved me, but looking at some song lyrics he's written but I won't link to, I think he thinks he loved me. However, I think what he thought was signs of his love from him were his projections onto me of his desire to be elsewhere in later years. If he were saying "I love you," I was only hearing, "Where you been? Who is that you're talking to?"

My mother and a friend of mine used to say, "If he's checking up on you that much, you need to start checking up on him." But I didn't. I figured if he's gone, he's gone. I refused to be the woman hanging around the man's leg, letting him drag her along as he walked out the door.

A new study bears out what my mother and friend were suggesting, that men are more harsh on their wives about minor infractions that could signal she's straying when they are thinking about straying themselves.

Other McGill studies confirmed differences in how men and women react to such threats. In one, attractive actors or actresses were brought in to flirt with study participants in a waiting room. Later, the participants were asked questions about their relationships, particularly how they would respond to a partner’s bad behavior, like being late and forgetting to call.

Men who had just been flirting were less forgiving of the hypothetical bad behavior, suggesting that the attractive actress had momentarily chipped away at their commitment. (Science of a Happy Marriage)

They don't mean the man suggested consciously that the attractive woman he was looking at or talking to was chipping away at his marriage, but that because he felt attracted to another woman, the chipping had begun, and he was more likely to assume his wife or partner was cheating or should at least be closely watched.

That's projection. I want to steal so I think you're stealing.

I don't know about Clapton. These lyrics may have nothing to do with his actual life, but if I were speaking to the person these lyrics make me think of today, I would say, "Well, if you were in love that deeply, if you were to the point where you felt you were on a pilgrim like a man seeking a goddess, then why didn't you find a way to say so?"

He'd probably say he did in many love letters, but for me, his love letters that were written while we were dating turned into statements like "You didn't do my laundry" over the years. (Sad coming from a man who could afford to pay someone to do his laundry but instead wanted to make his marriage about laundry.) And a man writing after the fact how much he loved you when you know damn well he was seeing another woman instead of working on his marriage is not worth the time it took him to think of the words for his sorrowful lyrics.

Nevertheless, in more vulnerable moments I am tempted at times to write the ex and say, "I'm sorry that we couldn't work out our marriage," but as I wrote in my poem "I See It Now," which is also posted on this blog, that would be a mistake. I wish we could have worked it out is not the same as saying I wish we were still married, but I don't think he would get that difference. And whatever peace I might get from saying it would be washed away by the craziness he'd act out afterward. So, I must forgive him from a distance.

Another friend of mine who's been divorced for longer than I have tells me that my analyzing my marriage five years after the divorce is probably a sign that I'm healing. She's convinced that's why I never have seriously entertained a relationship with another man, no matter what it looked like. I've got deep wounds.

If she read this post right now, however, she'd say, "Don't let him do that Jedi mind trick on you. Any sad lyrics that m*th*rf*ck*r's written are more about his need to control."

Revisiting Self Mythology

I'm not writing anything new on this today because I'm working on my novel, which in many ways relates to this paragraph from my old post, "Self-mythology: What Myths Do You Tell About You?"

... while I've adopted Job as part of my mythology, I am drawn back to the Metis myth, the story of a goddess, Zeus's first wife, whom he swallowed because he believed a prophecy that said Metis's children would surpass him in greatness. I see in the Metis myth the desire of the controlling male to prevent the female he fears may be his superior from reaching her full potential. If you know this myth, then you know that after Zeus swallowed Metis, he developed a tormenting headache, and later the goddess of wisdom, Athena, sprang fully-grown from his head dressed in full armor.

Given some very personal experiences that I will not share here, I think there's a lesson my subconscious is trying to teach me through the Metis myth. (Read full post)

I wrote the post in June of 2009, but reread today after someone left a comment on it, and I decided the post still speaks to something people want to understand and need to learn. Kicking off 2010, I wrote at BlogHer.com, "Should You Change Your Self-Mythology in 2010." It seemed people connected to this topic then as well.

The artwork in this post is by Thalia Took. It's a drawing of the Yoruban goddess Oshun.

Midnight Meanderings: Will Smith, Patrice Rushen, & Prince

Will Smith, as most folks know, sampled Patrice Rushen's "Forget Me Nots" for the "Men in Black" theme. I'm posting both here, the MIB video, which has one of my favorite dance scenes, and the Dance Mix of Rushen's song. I wore that record out when it came out. Gah! This is what happens when I stay up too late. I start going down memory lane and posting YouTube music.



Uh, I'm convinced that the thingy that Will flashes at you at the end of the video and that he and Tommy Lee Jones flashed at humans to make them forget is a phallic symbol. Think about that. What were the men who made this movie really saying with that?

I told you. It's late at night. Bear with me. For the record, the flower pictured here is a Forget-Me-Not, "a Myosotis (pronounced /ˌmaɪ.əˈsoʊtɪs/;[1] from the Greek: "mouse's ear", after the leaf)," species sylvatica.

Moving onto Patrice Rushen, I remember reading that Prince had a crush on her back in the day. Somebody over at Prince.org, however, says he never had a crush on Rushen. He only admired her music. Uh, Dude! Read the liner notes sometimes.

One of the songs Prince wrote in 1979 was actually inspired by, and intended a demo for, Patrice Rushen. Despite a serious crush on the singer/keyboardist he didn't get the song on her album. But he did gain a friend and his first gold record. While I WANNA BE YOUR LOVER was atop the R&B; charts and threatening the pop Top Ten, Warner Bros. shipped PRINCE. Sometimes criticized for being too slick, or even derivative, in retrospect there is something decent that can be said for all of the nine songs on Prince's sophomore album. For the purpose of this collection we will limit our focus to its other R&B; hit, WHY YOU WANNA TREAT ME SO BAD? and another detoured Rushen demo, I FEEL FOR YOU. The latter is significant in suggesting how commercially Prince could disciple himself to write when the song was aimed at an artist other than himself. Ironically, it was still another female vocalist, diva Chaka Khan, who finally place the song on the charts in 1984. (From Hits, the B Sides.)

Speaking of liner notes, that's something that we hardly see anymore since the music world is going digital.



And now I feel it's only fitting to post Chaka Khan singing "I Feel for You," one of the Prince songs Rushen turned down. It was a smash hit for Chaka in 1984, and one of the coolest things on the song was rapper Mellee Mel saying her name twice at the beginning of the record, but I read tonight that that was a production error and not intentional. You can see him performing it live here at the 27th Grammys. By that time the repeating of her name stayed.



Years later Prince, who recorded and released the song first, performed it live on BET with Chaka and Stevie Wonder. Great clip, but who dressed Chaka that night?

Chaka Khan & Prince ,Stevie Wonder. I Feel For You [Live] - kewego
*CAPTAINFUNK ON THE RADIO!.

Driving into the Lake: Fear of Falling into Lake Ponchartrain is Real

There's something about riding for more than a few minutes over a wide body of water that can scare you if you let it. While I'm not one of the people terrified to ride over water, I can attest that if you focus on how easy it would be to have an accident and fall in, you could unhinge yourself. People who live in the New Orleans Metropolitan area and have good reasons to go back and forth across Lake Pontchartrain may know what I mean.

Image of Causeway Bridge from WWL TV

North of the New Orleans-Metarie area are two growing areas, Mandeville-Covington and Slidell, La. If you're headed from New Orleans to Mandeville, most likely you'll go from Metarie over the Causeway Bridge, one of the longest bridges in the world. If you're headed to Slidell, it's more likely you'll go through New Orleans east and take the Twin Span Bridge. Both these bridges take you over our great Lake Pontchartrain, which is relatively shallow with the exception of a few holes estimated to be 80ft deep. Crossing the Causeway takes about 22 to 25 minutes, while crossing the Twin Span takes maybe five.

Everytime I hear of car accidents that send drivers into the lake (in the last week there have been two), I think of different relatives who dread the drive over Lake Pontchartrain. There's a story in my family about my grandmother waking up in a car that was crossing the lake and nearly losing her mind. The family was returning to the city from a vacation and apparently took a different route back than they had going while she was asleep in the backseat. She awakened, looked out the window and became terrified, cussing and yelling at the driver, "You had no right to put in the middle of all this water!"

I imagine my grandmother never liked the waters nearly encircling New Orleans. She grew up in Notasulga, Ala., not surrounded by water, and moved to the city after she married my grandfather, a Louisiana native. I don't think she had any kind of general fear of water, just fear of being in the middle of a large body of it. I do have a cousin, however, who used to wig out even driving across a canal.

The Amtrak train, the Crescent, which travels from New Orleans to New York City, takes passengers over the lake. When I was younger, I took the Crescent relatively often, going to visit friends. After I was married, I took the train from Virginia with my daughter, who was a toddler, and for the first time, perhaps because I was mother, I considered the terror of the train going off the tracks and plunging into the lake.

I shared this fear with my father, a World War II veteran and good swimmer, when he picked us up from the station. He was probably in his early sixties then, and was not rarely showed fear. He also used to travel on trains a lot when he was a young man working for the United States Post Office.

He laughed when I told him about the train possibly going off the track over Lake Pontchartrain. He said, "Well, if that happened, all you'd have to do is stand on top of the train car. The lake's probably only 12 feet deep around there."

Another drive that rattles some people is travel across the Bonnie Carrie Spillway. If you live down here, you'd be wise to learn to swim and swim well.

Motherhood Is Not a Woman's Sole Purpose: More Thoughts On Octomom's Oprah Revelations and Self-Mythology

The following is an excerpt from my post at BlogHer.com on Nadya Suleman's Oprah appearance. While I never felt a desire to have more children to fill a void in my life, I did once realize I was overly-invested in a child's life and using that child's experiences to compensate for something else.

To me ... it's possible for a woman to be overly-invested in raising children.

I left college to get married and didn't finish my degree until 16 years later, and while I have children whom I love and for whom I would do almost anything, I recall a period in my life when it occurred to me I was too enmeshed in my daughter's academic achievement. I was living vicariously through her school life.

When my daughter was in the fourth grade, she had an awful teacher who did not challenge students' skill levels. I still say, "Yes, an awful teacher." While I kept my anger in check in public, I developed a seething rage toward this teacher and questioned that emotion. I realized something must be missing in my personal life separate from whatever fulfillment I found in being a wife and mother, and I needed to address that hole. I decided the root of my rage was regret that I had not completed college. So, I went back to school, finishing my degree at age 36.

Yes, we should be good mothers, but motherhood does not annihilate self. Mother is a role with heavy responsibility and duties that should be executed with love. It's not a sole purpose for a woman's living, however, in my opinion. I know there are plenty of women who disagree, but I can't say motherhood is a woman's sole purpose for living because that would mean I was saying women who aren't mothers have no purpose. That would be a lie.

File this under more on self-mythology as well. Read full post at BlogHer.com.

The Weight Watchers Diet in the 1970s: No Exercise Required

I was talking in an email thread about the recent study about weight loss and exercise that says women, especially older women, should exercise 60 minutes per day, seven days per week, to maintain their weight without dieting. Depressing. And I said I remembered the 2008 study that said obese women had to exercise 55 minutes per day at least 5 times per week and restrict calories to lose weight.

In 1972 or 1973, my mother, who was 45/46 back then lost 70 pounds on the old Weight Watchers Diet. One of the selling points of the diet is that you could lose weight without exercise.

Yes, I think we should exercise. Exercise is good for you, but I couldn't help but think that this notion that you can't lose weight unless you exercise is faulty. My mother was in her mid 40s and 70 pounds overweight. She was obese, but she lost weight without exercise. And she was not the only middle-aged, obese woman losing lots of weight on the old Weight Watcher's Diet in the 70s. So, either humans have changed or something else in the world has changed.

I suggested in the email thread that maybe humans are changing. Thread participants reminded me that it's more likely that the problem is the food we consume today has changed, not humans.

Yes, I'd considered this as well having watched Food Inc. and also the Oprah show featuring Michael Pollan and Food 101.

Naturally, our increasing consumption of high fructose corn syrup came up in the email discussion, and someone sent this link, "Dishing on High Fructose Corn Syrup."

Yes, we've been hearing about the evils of HCFS for years now, and have you noticed that the Corn Refiners Association is fighting back on all the bad publicity? See SweetSurprise.com, and no, I don't believe the industry's rebuttal. Furthermore, I hate the commercial its produced with the dueling moms.

Later, weight-loss blogger Deb Roby sent a note saying she thinks our weight problem today has more to do with what we eat than it does exercise. Therefore, I shared what I recalled of the old Weight Watcher's Diet.

Yeah. I still remember the old Weight Watchers diet, more or less.

3 pieces of fruit per day (teens and men could have more)
No more than 2 servings of starch (teens and men could have more)
16 oz. of skim milk (24 oz for teens)
4 oz. of meat, fish or poultry at lunch
6 oz. of meat, fish or poultry a dinner (that part may have been teens, can't remember if adult women ate 4 oz again or 5 oz or 6 oz.)
No more than 4 eggs per week, which had to be calculated into a meal as part of your protein
No more than 4 ounces of cheese per week, which had to be calculated into a meal as part of your protein
No more than 3 tsp. of fat per day
At least 2 cups of raw veggies
About 1 cup cooked veggies
No sugar, period.
Protein had to include Fish 5 times per week and lean beef 4 X per week
No frying of anything: Grill, bake, broil or poach
unlimited coffee, tea, or diet soda (My mom drank a lot of diet soda and still lost weight. So did I.)

While you could eat out sometimes on the plan, the crux was either you or someone at your house preparing and measuring your food for you.

I know they changed this diet later, which I've been told was actually the old New York State weight loss diet.

I included the note that my mother and I drank a lot of diet soda because I know some recent studies indicate that diet soda may contribute to weight gain, and I lost weight on the old WW diet as well. I was 13 then and had always been the fat kid. That was the first time and possibly the only time I lost a substantial amount of weight due to effort and not illness.

So, I decided to look up the old diet online and found that someone had posted the full 1972 Weight Watcher's Diet that I remember under "The Way It Was... (1972 Weight Watchers Program)." Actually, I think it may have been Dottie from Dottie's Weight Loss Zone who posted it. She lost 95.5 pounds on the Weight Watchers point system which came later.

Since it's copyrighted by Weight Watchers, I decided not to post the actual text here, and just give the link instead.

Tracy Porter's Interception, Super Bowl 44

Thank God for the Internet! I had Super Bowl 44 on my DVR and sometimes, when I needed a pick me up, I'd go back and watch scenes, especially Tracy Porter's interception. But my DVR box broke and had to be replaced. So, I lost my Saints Parade and the game itself until I can buy them I guess. In the meantime, this YouTube video works wonders.

Time Travel at Newark International Airport (poem)

I've been toying with writing a piece on Women's History Month and finding your place as woman through self-history. This poem fits that theme in some ways. It's a little reflection from 2006 on how knowing history and heritage impacts us.

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Read poem's text at this link: "Time Travel at Newark International Airport" by Nordette Adams, Music by Rahkyt © 2006

This piece is cross-posted at The Urban Mothers Book of Prayers.

Women as Friends and Me as Woman

I'm working on a blog post for BlogHer.com about female friendships. It's kind of a hard write for me because my mind is very noisy on the topic and because I don't tend to keep lots of friends. My personal experience on the subject matter is rather limited because I don't think that I've ever had a BFF (Best Friend Forever), not even as a younger woman.

Oh, I have friends that I knew when I was in high school that I can still connect with when we choose, but one of those friendships with the kind of bond that causes a buddy shows up to nurse you back from cancer or a group of friends that keeps in touch with each other regularly and all their children know each other? Uh, no, don't have that, and at this late date am likely to ever have that, which is probably why the book The Hot Flash Club fascinates me. What's the likelihood of finding that kind of friendship between random women springing up after age 50? However, it would be nice.

When I started working on this post, I had a working title, "Are We Liberators or are We Crabs? Females as Friends, Mentors, Champions" because this question of women as the lifters of women, as balm and guide for other women, women as friends has been on my mind juxtaposed to critical statements about women as friends that I see too frequently in the news or fiction. I'll probably give examples of what I mean in the BlogHer.com piece. But I've concluded that to think about how as a woman you relate to other women is to look in the mirror for the kind of woman you reflect.

When my marriage ended, I was left alone with a woman I did not know as well as I thought I knew. Me. As I look back at some of my writing from those days, blog posts and poetry, I see that I struggled not only with who I am but what is woman and her role on the planet, hence my mulling over the concept of goddess.

Consequently, I wrote poems such as "Light and Only Light" aka "I am Goddess"--sort of me telling me to think more of me or nobody else would, certainly not a man--, or "I Can Only Speak of Me, that reflects a search for self and the dark places it takes you, and "Evoulution" that reflects what it might meant for me to be a straight woman without a man. I wondered how much more dependent I might be on female networks than I'd ever before considered as I quickly discovered males didn't want to be real friends unless that included sharing a bed sometimes. I couldn't accommodate them because casual sex is not really my style.

I emphasize "straight" with the word "woman" because I recall the men who dropped by my poetry sometimes to suggest I was a lesbian because I had no clear interest in knowing them instead of myself at the moment and because I wrote about womanly matters.

Unlike my former spouse, I had no desire to leap immediately into a new marriage. And as I pushed away a few men who clearly had marriage in mind, I contemplated what it means to nurture the bonds of platonic affection. The kindest word a man dubbed me, as far as my work went, was "womanist."

Lately, perhaps because I look at the world with five decades beneath my belt, I ponder how this world has changed its view of female friendships. It seems women's relationships with women, especially well-known women, get pinned beneath microscopes. While men have been encouraged to have male bonding sessions, the female bond is being scrutinized and open acts of affection labeled "gay."

You know what I'm talking about, the Oprah and Gayle rumors that Rosie O'Donnell, for instance, would rather fan than discuss intelligently under the possibility that there is such a thing as platonic attachment. I'm not sure what that's about, Rosie fantasizing or the world's growing dysfunction revealing a belief that the only real affection is sexual or romantic affection.

I call it dysfunction because I know that if a shrink ask you, "So, do you think that the only way to show affection is sexual?" You'd better answer "No" and list some other ways or you'll be paying for a lot more sessions. And yet women today have less liberty to be openly affectionate as though the whole world is made up of confused middle-schoolers.

I remember when teen girls and young women could walk down the street holding hands, whispering in each others ears about what else but boys or older women could drape an arm around a female friend's shoulder just because she loved her like a sister and nobody questioned that. No one. It was understood that women had friendships with women to whom they felt deep connection and that was the extent of it, a deep sense of kinship, unquestioned loyalty.

I wanted one of those; however, as I suggested earlier, I'm not sure that I was ever another woman's best friend. I mean I was not the woman called up to be the maid of honor at the wedding or the one people called when they wanted go shopping. Maybe that was one of the drawbacks of being the "fat" friend. I don't know.

But I've been the friend people call when things fall apart with the boyfriend because they want advice, when they want help with their resume or to give an opinion on an office situation. I was even asked once to go to a party, talk to a specific man, and then report my impressions of him back to a friend, sort of like a psychic being asked to give a reading. But I've never been the friend that everybody else knows is the BFF, the one you know that if you look for one, there is the other. I think I've been the BFP, best friend in a pinch.

And yet, I've never developed all these odd ideas of female relationships. The ones I see that judge and label female pairs and cliques as "frenemies" or "repressed lesbians" or "bitches in ditches," "queen bee and hive" or "bucket o' crabs." Maybe I'm not that observant.

The most I've done is observe women in groups and like Heidi Klum on Project Runway determine who was either in or out, meaning I tended to notice the females who were like me and those who weren't. The ones like me were there in the group but not really. They were good at faking being in the group and sometimes fell over themselves worried about fitting in while at other times didn't think fitting in mattered at all. The ones unlike me were consistently popular, usually excelled in social graces--the art of flattery, lying, knowing when to keep mum.

I can only write this because to my knowledge, none of my brick and mortar friends read this blog, and so I won't have people writing me to say, "But what about me? I'm your friend." To which I would say, "Yes. Yes you are." That's what you say when you care enough not to hurt anyone feelings, knowing that person won't be there when you need them at all because you wouldn't feel comfortable telling them you needed anything. A friend is someone you feel won't judge you if they see you at your worst.

However, I do have friends who I know will come if called. I'm just not the calling type. I'm the do as much as you can alone type, and that's either a character flaw or common sense. I still don't know which it is.

My Zulu Ball Adventure

Friday night, where was I? First, I was getting ready for the Zulu Ball at home. Had a near disaster because my daughter made a bad decision about where tho take the ball gowns to be steamed. Then I was leaving the house with my son and daughter an hour late.

We had to go pick up my son's girlfriend. At her house, my Toyota got stuck in the mud. In tuxes and evening gowns, who was going to push it out? No one. We found another means of transportation.

At the ball we saw these people in the older video below, Casa Samba, perform. I didn't know I would see half-naked dancers, and my daughter commented on the weird juxtaposition of virginal debutantes being introduced to society against drums and gyrating, thong-wearing, booty-exposed females. Hey, that's entertainment, New Orleans style!



However, before we made it into the ball room, we parked the car and walked two blocks in unusually cold weather for New Orleans. My feet hurt and I was freezing.

When we went to the ladies room before we went to our tables, I discovered that the dry cleaner had attempted to remove the rhinestone broach from my purple gown just to steam it (why I don't know), hadn't sewn it back securely, and so the broach had fallen of half way, ruining the drape of the bodice. I'm glad I wasn't there to be cute.

We enjoyed the pageantry of the evening. Pretty funny that Queen Zulu couldn't sit down without help under all that queen-wear. The second lines of people still high on the Saints Super Bowl win were fun.

Eric Benet performed, looking as fine and and sounding as beautiful as ever. He sang some old favorites but also a not-so-old song of which he's very proud because it was produced by David Foster. It was quite good and is called "The Last Time."



En Vogue was snowed in someplace, at least three of them, and so they couldn't perform.

We got home after 4:00 a.m. I got up today around 3:45 p.m. and sat in a stupor on my living room sofa watching television. After 7:00 or so, in the dark, my son and daughter went with me to retrieve car that was stuck in mud the night before. We pushed it out, and then hit the Waffle House. Fun, fun! Sorry, I did not take my video camera.

I'm 50, and the Angels Still Sing

Today, my son, 19, returned home from classes at the University of New Orleans, bounded into my bedroom where I was working and said, "So, tomorrow, you'll be over the hill."

I said, "What do you mean? I'm already over the hill." And I laughed.

He said, "Mom, haven't you heard that 50 is the new 40? Everybody knows that the half-way point makes you over the hill."

I grinned, contemplating that ... Read more at BlogHer.com.

Late Night Poetry for the Sleepless

Insomniac in the House
By Nordette N. Adams

I hang late like the living dead
like Béla from the grave
dressed to the teeth
attending a Romero feast.

I stalk Fate like the living dead
itchy-eyed and dazed.

Mama dubbed me a sleep fighting champ,
ever busting Morpheus's lip
or making him chase me deep with longing
into the cavernous night.

And still like a child I fear
what I may miss
should I close my eyes
should I retreat, recline.

I fear I'll miss what should be mine
craftily hidden by spiteful beasts
that keep secrets,
that keep time.

© 2010 Nordette N. Adams

Aquarius from Hair via Fifth Dimension: I'm Dating Myself

I'll be turning 50 in less than 10 days. I was born under the sign of Aquarius. But that's not why I love the song Aquarius from the musical Hair, which has been revived on Broadway. I love it because it's so mystical, blooming hope.

Also, it reminds me of happier moments of my youth. My mother took me to the original Hair after the road tours started and I recall the big deal it was back then because at the end the actors get naked on stage.

After blipping the song, I thought how much I love it and tweeted that it's time to get the MP3. The video above is the Fifth Dimensions version, the one that stayed on the radio for a long time when I was a child.

Outside Thunder, Inside Rain (a poem)

Outside Thunder, Inside Rain
By Nordette N. Adams

I keep thinking --
if I am to be who I am meant to be,
must I truss up my spirit,
make it smooth in a settled way,
fasten its flavors so when grazers taste
me I burst a rainbow on the tongue?

I watch other women of color be smooth,
black with kink to the hair
long, twisted, and dreading exposure,
called to give speeches,
poems, sing songs with warrior words
mixed with the Trail of Tears
or the names of Middle Passage,
telling how old blues came from one place low,
deep in the throat or up in the nose
or out from toes after kissing loins
and these women seem trussed up
for a table, decorated for
presentational feasts.

If I am to be like these colored goddesses,
plucked of wings, laid out for consumption,
paper ruffles where once were feet,
find me a quiet room, find me
a calming brew to silence my mind,
make my heart open
but close my windows
to the howlings of this world
so I may only dream danger,
stab monsters in nightmares,
but wake to cushions
of money in the bank.

Until then
my spirit is loose,
my feathers ruffle
at lustful tongues.

© 2009 Nordette N. Adams