2/15/11
It was Valentines day yesterday. El dia del
I like it. I mean,
sure, it can get a lil pink and fluffy and commercial sometimes, but for the most part I
appreciate the day to celebrate the relationships and love in my life. And I LOVE crafts.
I’ve dedicated my vday to relationships. Here’s to all of them. To living outside of and challenging hierarchies
of love and the ways we show it/live it.
To knowing that romance is only one expression of love, and that its
rewards are among so many we can receive. Valuing the love-expressions that
find us day to day from all directions.
Valuing love and love’s activities.
To seeinghearingsmellingtastingtouching support, and to communicating in
equal parts honesty and caring. To
change as a constant in how love breathes in us and walks around us. Embracing
changing relationships, loving transition.
My sister and I were remembering our days of Hindu Mythology
class. It was where we and our fellow
desi Hindus would go when our non-Hindu counterparts attended church services
and Sunday school. Our teacher was an
older Indian woman who wore saris every day even after living in the states
with her European husband since the 60s.
She had long hair reaching down to her hips, and told us Hindu stories,
not as gospel, but as mythology that illustrated ancient philosophies. She
taught us that our multiple deities are united in Brahman, in everything that
we see, hear, know, experience. And God
has many different roles, just like us as daughtersisterfriendteacherstudents.
The world is complicated and so is God and so are we. Deep stuff for my young
10 year old self and my grownish 22 year old self. It’s amazing how the lessons I learned as a
child take on new meaning and relevance as I grow up. In my own practice, love
and god become increasingly the same.
I’ve been working on some crafty things this week. I’ve been OVERFLOWING with creative
energy. I’m talking crafting some serious
multimedia valentines, making a creative wall, dancing to and from anywhere in
the apartment building/anywhere/anywhere at all, redecorating our apartment,
and of course, tryin to put some writing damage on this blog.
My creative wall thus far:
The goal is to protect the wall (& our security deposit),
and provide some space begging to be used for creative interactive purposes. I
started with a cut bed sheet thumbtacked to the wall. I bought some EXCITING
spray on adhesive, Elmers (it’s the best).
I’ve been spraying the glue on to the sheet and pasting on plastic bags
to provide a water proof plastic layer.
I prepared a paper bag layer (heyyyy reuse and recycling…) and I’m still
working out the best way to add it to my wall.
But so soon, done! And hopefully all the recycling energy will
compensate for the glue toxins I’m sprayin...(I do the best I can, mama earth).
Also, nice
to have an interactive alternative to T.V./Computer medialand.
Leave you with one of my older poems about (a)
relationship(s).
Hip hop was born of the
people
and mos def’d be tippin over
his truth
to see that his own
were separating our hip hop
from our people
our hip hop grew, yours and
mine
when my steady pulse freed
your voice
and your rhymes sent my
rhythms to god herself
renting us the stage and mics
that we needed to become
legendary—
beyond anything I could have
dared to need
we were freed
and a rich garden of roots
grew out of our seed
a community of branches
I hung and swung on the trees
we made until
I got lost in the leaves and
splinters.
I fell
into your open arms
not expecting them to be open
so wide
that I’d splay flat on your
feet
I thought you’d grab me.
raise me up and help me back
into our sororal forest
but I tripped so fast and so
far
that your ass-whoopin
only felt like a reluctant
hug.
but now I see
the bruises and dents on my
back,
the scars on my thighs,
and your trippity shit of
living a foot away from my shoes
and a planet away from my
world.
Enough to make this child
think that
your grown-up game of silence
made you into
the individual—
the lone branch with no trunk
you always wanted to be
the strong one
the loved one
the eternally happy one
but girl
I’m your people
and the verses you spit just
keep turnin to shit
and what you’ve created ain’t
hip hop no more than
a pair of aviators to hide
the sun spots in your eyes
blinding you from your own
deep rhythms and true flow
and I’m left staring at your
sunshine
eclipsed and
unprotected in our affair
leavin me pregnant with
bastard passive rejection
an abandoned child
I cling to it with my love
from the past
and hope for the future
beyond
to blossom past resentment to
somewhere
where
we can be sisters again.
HAPPY LOVIN!
2 comments:
i loved your valentines day post, my bengali valentine :)
love you shruts!!! i'd much rather attend your hindu mythology class than sunday school <3
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