Tamarika

Geocoding the Blogosphere

This looks like something I was talking about when I had nothing to say.

Bala Asana (updated)

Spiraling down into an abyss. Allowing it to happen without fear.

Climbing into a hot bath. Hot tea. Dark.

Bala-Asana. Waiting. Holding still. Breathing. Watching the feelings. Hello baby. Warm water now. This too shall pass. Will it?

Yes, yes. Of course it will. Drying off with a towel, motions becoming brisk, arms swing back and forth. Throwing on a galabiya, and as she wanders into the living room, is that a spring in her step? The light streams through the window as she starts to water plants. She turns and catches herself smiling in the mirror.

Ada, in the spirit of Dancing on Fly Ash

She sits quietly outside the kitchen, upright and watchful. I see my childhood self in her eyes. I was quiet, obedient, guarded once. Everyone larger, more powerful and all knowing. I observed and learned how to clown sadness and fear. I smile wide, giggle and joke when I ache within. Mother said, "I never know how you feel." I was satisfied. It worked. Biggest wide smile ever.

She sits quietly, chirps and clicks at the birds flying by and then jumps onto the chair near where I sit, staying close, keeping our secret safe as she curls up to sleep.

From one head to another

A story unfolds starting here, going to

here, here,

here, and here.

Labels, stereotypes and bias. We learn it from a very young age at our mother's breast and knee, from our father's silence, and media all around. The Patriarchal system dominates our fears, guilt and beliefs. It sets us up for non-acceptance of "the other," who is all of us, because we can never fit into the rational, unfeeling, straight, violent, competitive, independent, lonely mold designed for us.

Who would want to?

Unlearn, unlearn, unlearn.

As Nappy Forty says:

"Tragic. I haven't seen my natural hair in 30 years. To see it growing out and in such contrast to the permed part is interesting, to say the least. It's amazing and freeing."

What's that all about

Chance, luck, fate or just plain coincidence? It happens for a reason, it was meant to be, or part of the bigger picture - a bigger plan (that we are unable to see). These are sayings that I hear and often find myself using. I have the impression that I hear them more than I used to. Sometimes they irritate me.

Was it chance that back in 1987 I agreed to host Dr. Spodek versus staying home and going to the beach, leading to my emigration to the U.S.?

Was it luck that my editor happened into my presentation at a conference with hundreds of other presentations to choose from, and then approached me to write a book?

Was it fate that drew me to choose any one blog from the split second TypePad updates, and then subsequently met a whole bunch of mostly like-minded, wandering souls?

What makes us choose the links from where and to which we bounce all over the blogosphere? Is it a game? Or are our choices guided by something/one else?

My grandmother used to say, "She's been here before," meaning that she could tell that person was reincarnated in some way. Have you seen those kind of people, children, animals? They have wise old eyes that look as though they have seen a lifetime or more. Like Ada. She sits on my desk next to the computer and stares into my eyes. If I do not glance her way, she gently places her paw on my hand and continues to hold my eyes with hers. She seems so wise. Has she been somewhere before?

This bigger plan that someone/thing has for me: Why would they care? But that is hardly the point, is it? The point is that there are all sorts of unexplained mysteries about life that we simply do not know. Being unable to hold still in the discomfort of not-knowing we develop theories. It is not that I rule anything out. I just do not know. It is not that I think only that seeing is believing because if that was the case scientists would not have discovered things like electricity, energy or cures to illness. Feeling and intuition guided many a rational scientist in their work.

I am more inclined to think that we are psychologically motivated to choose the situations we are in. Our old childhood, emotional, memory patterns guide our choices or behaviors. We have a responsibility to get to know ourselves so that we can make kinder choices for ourselves and others. As Martha Graham says: "You have to be open and aware of urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open."

The rest is mystery. I live day by day, moment by moment and have kindness and compassion as my credo. When or if I find out if there had been a plan for me, or if I get to choose another lifetime, so be it. And if not, not. Right now - here and now - I do the best I can to work towards self-alteration and choose self-responsibility.

Gilad once said, "you do what you do and the rest is magic."

A song of love

Since Valentine's Day and this, I have been thinking about how challenging and mysterious relationships can be. Yesterday on the treadmill I heard Sheryl Crow's Strong Enough. Tom and I sing it too - he plays the guitar and I sing. Sometimes Gilad brings his bass and we all sing it together. It is a song of love - true love. I dedicate it to all you lovers out there.

(italics mine as I think it applies to both genders)

God, I feel like hell tonight
Tears of rage I cannot fight
I'd be the last to help you understand
Are you strong enough to be my man? (woman)
Nothing's true and nothing's right
So let me be alone tonight
Cause you can't change the way I am
Are you strong enough to be my man? (woman)
Lie to me
I promise I'll believe
Lie to me
But please don't leave
I have a face I cannot show
I make the rules up as I go
Just try and love me if you can
Are you strong enough to be my man? (woman)
When I've shown you that I just don't care
When I'm throwing punches in the air
When I'm broken down and I can't stand
Will you be man enough to be my man? (woman)
Lie to me
I promise I'll believe
Lie to me
But please don't leave

Nappy tales

Check out at Nappy Forty about this.

Nothing to say

Today I have nothing to say.

I thought about writing about the politics of hair. I had been reading Nappy Forty and started thinking about how I always tried to straighten my curly, frizzy, fuzzy, nappy hair when I was young. It took hours and was as uncomfortable as could be. First I washed my hair and then wrapped it around my head keeping it firmly in place with long steel barrettes as it squeezed my brain for all the hours it took to dry. When my hair was dry it would fall sleek, shiny and straight for a few minutes, perhaps even an hour. I remember standing in front of the mirror thrilled with the idea of belonging to some kind of special club that would now, finally, have me. And then, wham! Humidity or a rain storm and the hair would kink itself up again.

Somehow acquiring the PhD or entering into age forties and fifties I decided that's that. No more trying to be tall with blond, straight hair. "I yam what I yam." Some days I even like my hair. Lately it is gray as well as being long and curly, frizzy, fuzzy and nappy.

I think about cutting it into some really cute Annette Benning style but as Michael, the hairdresser in Buffalo said as he exploded with laughter at me, "Tamar, Annette's hair is straight!"

I think about dying it. Michael laughed out loud at that idea too. "Darling," he shrieked in excitement, and everyone turned around to look at me bedraggled with wet hair all over my face as he snipped and snapped with those long quick fingers at the end of the scissors. "You are such low maintenance. You come in here every 18 months for a trim. If you dye your hair you have to keep it up every six weeks. That's so not you!"

One day another Michael, a four year old boy at the child care center, beckoned me to him with his finger. I had come out into the playground to see how everyone was doing. I walked over to him and bent my knees low so that we were face to face. He whispered, "You have very big hair." I was delighted!

My friend Evelyn once sent me a copy of Nappy Hair, a children's book by Carolivia Herron. Evelyn is a critical thinker with ideas that some educators in our field might consider radical. She inscribed in the book:

Dear Tamar, This is the book that almost set off a "race riot" in Brooklyn during Dec. (1998) I believe it has enormous potential to "stir things up" in your Bias workshops. Haven't we had fun during the years? Love Evie.

One of the African American parents at the child care center read the book at my bidding and wrote her response to me:

Generally I could appreciate the intent behind the story which is to focus on the strength of the African American culture by using the hair as a metaphor for that struggle. However, I do have mixed feelings. I am not sure they were successful in drawing a clear connection between the struggle and the metaphor of hair. I saw a lot of images that could be misconstrued by a less informed audience. I think I would have to see more positive images of beauty. I can, however, appreciate the presentation of the story in the typical rhythmic call and response that has been a tradition within the black culture. I guess I really had a lot of feelings about this book that are not so cut and dry.

Later in a "bias" workshop I conducted for Head Start, a group of African American supervisors and education coordinators read the book as a chorus with the traditional call and response rhythm.  It was so exciting and emotional that I wept. The culture of nappy hair, it seems, causes pain to many African American people.

Anyway, I decided that I really did not want to write about the politics of hair today. Nappy Forty was right when she said a person could write a dissertation on that topic. Although perhaps one of these days I will write about it.

Then I thought that perhaps I would write about the habits of bloggers. I mean how do bloggers go about their day. Do they think about their topic all day long and then sit down and write it out? Do they read other people first to get ideas? I am sure the politicos must read "stuff" - a lot of "stuff" - before they can write their opinion-ated pieces. Do they drink a cup of coffee and eat a sandwich while they write? Or slurp up a whole bowl of chicken soup? Do the titles come first or at the end? Do they become excited as the words flow out onto the screen or get a "rush," a "high" after they read the whole work in print? Blogging, bloggers, the blogosphere has begun to intrigue me. Perhaps I should study it in some communication/media/journal department at some university. I could research about it qualitatively. I wonder how a person does an ethnography of bloggers. How would participant observation work? How would I conduct in-depth interviews? What work has already been done? I wonder.

Today I have nothing to say. Perhaps I will think of something tomorrow - or later this evening.

A small review

Please read Ireland. I do. Again and again. Confronting our discomfort again and again. So important.

Not to trivialize it but if you want to get happy, you will want to read this.

Passing through

Aren't we all? Just passing through?

Yesterday as we walked under the thousands of saffron gates I thought about how we are all passing through. We journey aways with our families, join adult friends and lovers, journey through different professions and careers and onwards, passing through cities, countries, cultures and, even, this earth. Some people even think they know where we will go after here or how to get there. I think I might have been a nun in a former life - if there was a former life. And what would I be in the next? Perhaps a cat - proud and courageous, wandering free in the wilds, clicking and chirping at every bird I prowl.

Not that I believe in any of that.

We passed through the gates and as they billowed in the wind, Tom was reminded of sails. In the evening light they looked like long lines of Buddhist monks walking silently, like a whisper, through Central Park. I thought of them as Buddhist Sails as we joined hundreds (thousands?) of people wandering, walking, sauntering, running, skipping, jumping, cycling through Central Park.

Saffron gates decorated the park from every angle, even as we looked out from Summit Rock or across the meadow. As the billowing "Buddhist Sails" interacted with the environment so did all the people interact with them. A father carried his small girl on his shoulders so that she could reach up and grab the fabric in her hands. As if to give the adults permission, other men and women seeing her immediately started to reach up, some jumping in the air, to feel the texture above them. There were people sitting quietly watching us walking by. Conversations sprang up all around us as some thought of "why" or "how" the exhibit, and others marveled. For hours, many, many people walked through the Park with us. We heard French, German, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, Asian, Baltic and Arabic languages and just when I was thinking my outfit might be uncoordinated we saw a woman with a brightly colored frilly dress above long beige boots enclosed with a fur coat and bright pink wool hat and gloves. New York! Central Park! On Gates Day!

It felt like such a festive day brightening up the February cold with sun shining through the nylon saffron.

As we set out from Philadelphia to New York City I remarked that the directions resembled those I had printed out when I drove to "Africa" in January. Of course, that was a slip of the tongue as I had driven to Buffalo, New York, not Bulawayo, Rhodesia. And yet, that is what slipped out.

Passing through.

We laughed out loud and from then on Buffalo became Africa. On the phone this morning, Jan said, "Ah, you had become deeply rooted there, Tam."

Passing through Africa as a very young woman; Israel as a growing young adult; Buffalo as a maturing woman. Each time observing a new culture and learning the ropes. Wondering how to behave and what to say and never, really, getting it right. What is right when one is passing through?

I think I have turned a corner. When we drove back into Chestnut Hill last night I sighed happily, stretched my arms upwards and yawned. "Hm mm. Home," I said. Tom looked at me and smiled. "Chestnut Hill is home?" he said. "Yes," I replied.