stop, look, and listen

Mmmmmm music...


Listening to this shit...HELLA GOOD:

The Pharcyde - Runnin' (Philippians RMX)

"can't keep runnin i just gotta keep keen and cunnin"

Can't keep runnin' away.  I feel like I've been running away from myself at times lately.  Looking to false reflections and projections of what I should be.  (Does that make sense?)  Trying to take a step back and look in the mirror, remember and embody.  Hm....YES old work reminding me of my inspirations and rootedness. Writing from real places as transformative, performing in supportive spaces as healing.


Seems like as our resources continue to get attacked, from all sides, we need to continue to organize ourselves to realize what our needs are.  What do we needandwant to be doing everyday, and what kind of support do we need to get there?  I guarantee that the resources that are being cut affect our extended communities in many ways-- this is about the HEALTH of each other, not just physical health, but also of our minds, souls, spirits.  To ensure that we can live the lives we want to live. Realize ourselves so we can (re)create our globalocal communities.


Graduated from school last year, and I'm looking around me as my priorities now reflect more and more who and what I'm trying to be.  My extended home is calling me back, and I'm trying to dismantle the versions of "success" I'm looking up to so I can bring myself to where I need to be.


remember when we were taught to stop, look and listen?  yeaaa, takin a step back and learning how to do that...


One of my favs to perform, I think my name becomes something of a mantra through the piece...titled SHRUTI BALA PURKAYASTHA.

~~

Shruti Bala Purkayastha.
My parents named me a name
that can’t be pronounced.
the
shhh…and the rrruuu of my first name

make American tongues spin with confusion-

like a gay girl tryna fuck straight boys

the positions are unnatural.

Decatur, Illinois taught me right quick.

that

my name had to be Shrudi

Shrudi is my name of the Midwest.

A land where life goes slower and th’s get harder

a country that raised my mind

and shaped my tongue

cuz see

I never knew what to say when I said my name

my Midwestern accent would

punch holes in the fabric of my name

or my

overcompensating Indian accent

would make my name run away

like a tractor in a country road

and I hated my name.

My parents gave it to me

and I hated the shit I

went through every time I had to explain

Shrudi is my name

my real name

and no it’s not Judy

and no it’s not Rudy

and no that’s not short for anything

and yes that is my real fuckin name.

See

I was pissed

because

my parents’ names are Sidd and Sue

Sue and Sidd

so unfair.

victims of assimilation,

they live in an America where

Su-jathas couldn’t be real teachers

and Sidd-harthas only got jobs as “research scientists”

if they were ready to stay right there for 25 years

one PhD one MBA

one lab one desk

one dream of America

rotting in a Petri dish.

Sue and Sidd were friendly

for the mouths of their higher-ups and friends

and my name was mean ugly

I mean for real,

I’m now

used to raising my hand in roll-call

when teachers pause

“Shhhhhhhhherrrrrr….hooooooooh booooooyyyy….”

yup, that’s me,

Shruti Bala Purkayastha

I was

given a name that was nothing but brown.

8 syllables long

20 letters to write

infinite in meaning and history.

my name taught me that I was culture

I was culture and

I was culture in a cultureless land.

my name has been my daily struggle

foreign to my own naturalized tongue

too conscious of where it rolls

my tongue became my enemy

in territory I owned but

have trouble navigating.

Shrudi Shrutti Shruti.

Shruti.

Musical harmony—

element that creates

beauty out of notes

Worlds out of

music and god.

That which is heard.

and the knowledge that we have been

blessed with

from past worlds and future truths.

Bala.

a young girl

but for real

an homage to

my mother’s dance teacher

balasaraswati

the last living devadasi temple dancer

ensuring that my fate 

would be secured in my Feet

Purkayastha

my father’s

father’s

father’s

father’s

my family lineage

that I’ll keep as a woman

a woman who’s got shit

a woman who owns herself

Shrudi Shrutti Shruti

Bala Purkayastha

~~


LOVES

el dia de amor// the day of love

2/15/11

It was Valentines day yesterday.  El dia del amor.  The day of love.

 Valentines I made for my sister and my roommate…a FREE bird and an orange fish. Plus glitter.

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!

remindin myself of some words that i wrote and people that i know...

Turned 22 on 2/2/11...thas some serious number poetics right there.

Listenin to some "Samo" by Gavin (check if you haven't), and reading some amazing blogs and lookin at some of my poetry from the past few years.  

One of my poems is right below, inspired by my bff Al, who's now in Burkina Faso with the peace corps. In the monthslong process of crafting this poem, I am more and more inspired by the WOMYN around me.  For real tho, my circle of homegirlsnbois is powerful. At the end of this post, a GREAT improv video from 1yr ago featuring my girls luna and chante.  

Sparkle

She sparkly

her glittery presence is
shor to make your
head spin and
eyes water
just to take a glimpse at her shine.
Her glow ain’t from no
glitter-glitzy factory shit
No.
her sparkle is pure
natural like rain
reverent and full.
her glow she got from her
sun-mama
who imparted strong
rays of sustenance upon her
warmth and shine for this adopted daughter
light to fight the world that fought her
and brought her and kept her fly and flying close by
cuz the sky her home, see
and she breaks its limits
to be free
she will be is can be is always is
free
now and tomorroh.
don’t pay no mind,
she say
our shine move beyond
the wear of being the one to be being
our sparkle is more than
the need to always know our own existence
our glow push past
another mother with remembrances of trouble
ours is illumination

to spear through darkened whitenesses.
this the mad wisdom her spirit spit.
like even though
money had closed its eyes
to her light
she make large and risky investments in love
only missing the presence of green
when shit was mean
and yet
her light is still seen
further higher brighter
those monetarily material limits
are the ones the earth forced around her

like a lion in the circus
like a star professional baller
dunkin onward to upward mobility

She go through hoops to arrive.
she escapes the gravity of capital
by sayin
‘fuck it
i make my own damn hoops’
with a
rim of pure silver presence
and a
basket of tangible love
and a steady drive to be and be and go on being.
And she know
the sky ain’t no limit.
it’s her home and mother
her barrio and family
her hood and her sisters.
she fly freely through
coming down only if her
dread of wisdom leading
only to bless those who got
weights weighing less pounds than hers
and she lift them
and she hold them
until they
glimmer twinkle shine glow
exist and be
exist and be
exist and be
free
~

Love my queered out large ass family.  

I want to live in a world where there isn’t a hierarchy of relationships, where romantic love isn’t assumed to be more important than other kinds, where folks can center any relationships they want whether it be their relationship to their spiritual practice, kids, lovers, friends, etc. and not have some notion that it’s more or less important because of who or what’s in focus. I want to feel like I can develop intimacy with people whether we are sleeping together or not that I will be cared for whether I am romantically involved with someone or not. I want a community that takes interdependency seriously that doesn’t assume that it’s only a familial or romantic relationship responsibility to be there for each other.

Here for the full article, thanks to the Crunk Feminist Collective. But DAMN, right? That's beautiful. And exactly what I've been thinking about.

I'll leave you with this utter GEM of a video.  This was part of my project last year to reclaim spaces on campus with performance narrative.  Recognizing that the college I went to was structured on the values and needs of upper-class white culture, like many colleges in the U.S. with some exceptions, I feel incredibly grateful to have found such an amazing student and academic community ready to fuck shit up. Day to day acts of resistance to broaden and free our existence. We continue to be the builders of our community, actively choosing each other, and choosing what we foster. 

So this is a video out of a series of 10 interviews capturing the process of narrative sharing.  Reclaiming public spaces.  This particular space is a queer-friendly coffeeshop, it was my second and first home at times in college. Part of me felt completely at home. Part of me just felt brown. Happens a lot, that sort of self split. Pieces of me happy and available, lightened by good words and open spirits. And SIMULTANEOUSLY I shut down, rejected from the space around me. These are real parts of me, at once physical and emotional-- too large, too loud, too dark, too many piercings. I feel my features as extremities, hot lava or icy cold wind. Sweating or shivering. Brown awkwardness in small spaces, loud, my voice booms and carries. Growing up, that's how your voice gets heard. Big hair to match the volume of my voice, undomesticated and unresponsive to the slick saliva efforts to tone that shit down. Too smart (or too dumb) to assimilate to my surroundings, tone down my voice, tie up my hair. 

And it's taken HELLA work to love alla that. Like serious active addictive self-love, aided by some good theory and good practice. And good people.

Praxis. I asked women of color in our college community these questions:

When did I realize that I am a woman of color? 

How do I live as a woman of color? 

What does being a woman of color mean to me? 
This is a clip of some of my favorites, determining our own representation and identities.  Check it out, these ladies are mad intelligent.

Look out for my next entry, this past week has been a trip and i'm still sorting out the words to articulate it.


LOVE

Lemme rub this first one out real quick...

The irony of working in a theater and feeling a complete lack of creative outlet makes me feel like a failure.  Maybe not a failure, I’m probably being dramatic, but at least like my eyes aren’t open wide enough, my shoulders aren’t clenched close enough together in the artistic industry hustle.  I pour myself into the programs I’m trying to establish. I run around non-stop increasing the community accessibility of our theater.  Our amazing fantastic theater.  We need coalitions, and I’m the bridge builder of the moment.

But I have been struggling STRUGGLING artistically.  It’s like every time I try to sit down and write, or dance, or draw, my shit comes out contrived.  If at all.  And it makes me want to fucking SCREAM.

It’s like being sexually frustrated.  Like my body’s tense, I can’t always sit comfortably. I get worked up over little things.  I’ve become reactionary, snappish unless tamed.  I’ve tried to do the writing equivalent of rubbing one out—writing on my BART commute.  But the tension, the build up, takes the scrawl on my page no where.  And then I’m home.

I try to relax, take a breath, take a step back.  Breathing is so important.

If my masturbation analogy holds through and true, it seems that my case of frustration cannot be solved single-handedly.  The creative climax.  Sometimes, you need other people to make you get there. I need a community to find myself again. 

Paolo Freire said that it should be a reciprocal process, individual and community, that we are actualized together, feeding into each other through genuine learning, communication and dialogue.  A reciprocal process means that the individual is only as strong as their community and vice versa.  We should be self-interested in developing each other.  We should be there for each other.

Being there for others.  Being there for myself.  I’m hoping this blog is a reciprocal process.  Because damn, my right hand is getting fucking tired trying to do it alone.