DECISIONS, DECISIONS








.....and so it's not like i'm trying to convince anyone to loc, but right about now, with the infinite possibilities for styling locs knocking at my door, i'm just so happy about this new beginning.

as i was saying to this sister at the health food store today, i'm just not into this whole hair thing that many women are into. another part of my decision to loc comes from the hard core fact that no other group of women on this planet spend as much time and energy talking about and worrying about hair as black women. i mean really, how long does the average woman of color spend in the salon? practically all day, every other or every third week. not only that but correct me if i'm wrong, i don't know of any other ethnic group that applies a toxic chemical to their hair -- a chemical that requires the applicant don gloves, mind you -- all in the name of looking beautiful. now i'm not bashing women who chose to wear relaxers. i was one of them. and had spouse not complained of my hair being on every floor in our house --bathroom, kitchen, livingroom -- and had i not noticed the quarter sized balding spots scattered around various parts of my head, i would probably still be a card carrying member of Revlon. but the truth is no matter how good a relaxed head of hair looks, ie no matter how much it swings in the wind and lays down and obeys, there is no such thing as a healthy head of relaxed hair. relaxed hair is unhealthy by nature of it being relaxed (which to me, is such an interesting term. i can't imagine anything 'relaxing' about hair that is singed with lye).

which brings me also to this whole beauty industry and my rebellious nature. last night i was *so* wanting to pamper myself with a nice hot shower and my sample sized body butter from here. it's been a long time since i've bought anything new so i got to thinking that maybe i should stiffen the lip and go on and order something from either them or from her. i even skipped over to burt's bees and then over to my all time favorite to see if either of them had a good sale going on. honey, did i not close down that computer just too quick or what! maybe i'm getting cheap in my old age but i just can't see getting off of $25 (plus shipping, mind you) for a four ounce container of something i could really make myself. i mean, come on, all of these products are a mix of essentially the same thing: olive oil, coconut oil, jojoba oil, cocoa or shea butters, and some essential oil for fragrance. that's it. all of which can be purchased in the health food store. i'm making better decisions about my money these days and $25 on body butter and unnecessary gizmos and gadgets and wing-dings around the house are just not on my radar screen right now. i have to give it to warm spirit, there products are really good and i truly love the mango butter over at the body shop but let's face it, $20 is $20. that's a ticket and a soda sit and listen to maxine hong kingston or toni morrison this fall at the 92nd Street Y. so didn't a sister jump on over to the health food store today to pick up a little bit of sandalwood and some lavendar essential oils; already have coconut, shea butter and olive oil at home. and didn't i cook up my own version tonight? hmph! oh yes i did. found a good recipe last night online for body butter right over here. all of this to say that nap-turality breeds naturality and clarity and sooner or later one begins to buy out of the whole notion that what is beautiful is fake, expensive, external. one begins to find and connect to that which is easiest on the body, the mind, the spirit and the wallet.

be good,

angel

WHAT'S DONE IS DONE......right?


My husband tells the story that he has always known that he would be married and have two children. It was less a premonition and more of something in the gut, something very cerebral. But his family and friends were never so sure. At the rate he was going, (late twenties, not seriously attached) he was going to be a hundred years old before he found a wife --- too picky his sister assured him. "You need to realize, no-one is perfect!" she admonished. His friends teased him about living alone, "all the way out in the 'burbs." A few women he dated asked if he was gay when he declined quite overt sexual advances. His mother had even begun to wonder if her only son was sterile, if there was a possibility that the Shannon name would end in his brown eyes.

When I think of my decision to lock my hair, or allow it to lock I should say, I think of him. Somehow I've always known at some very gut, very cerebral level, that one day I would lock my hair. The feeling became even more pronounced when I cut the remains of my relaxer and determined -- committed -- to wearing it natural. Though I admired the many natural styles: afro puffs and twists, cornrows and micro-minis, and felt very excited about all the hairstyle possibilities that didn't exist when I was a young girl with natural hair--I still knew that at some point I would journey toward/into/within the loc'ing process. It was just a matter of time.

For some people, the decision to loc is entirely spiritual; some feeling of being closer to God, feeling more grounded, rooted, perhaps a sense of feeling "freer" for those in the creative arts. For some it's, I suppose, a reclaiming of one's "roots," perhaps their way of being closer to an African aesthetic, a political kind of stance. But my decision to loc is manifold with less to do with making any kind of political statement and more of what has to do with me, the reason I feel I am on this planet, the work I have been assigned to do and the lessons I think I'm here to learn.

My mother told me when I was very young that I have no patience; that I bore easily and just when I've settled into one thing--perhaps only partially--I'm ready to start looking to the next thing. She told me, not in these exact words, but in some form that meant the same thing, that learning patience would be my row to hoe in life, my lesson so to speak.

When I think of how my daily life unfolds and how I react to that unfolding, I realize that what my mother said then is true and it amazes me how God equips mother with what I call, a Seers eye. In my day-to-day life I am as inpatient as the word is itself. A look-up in the dictionary will find my picture right next to the boldface word. I'm inpatient with my children--especially my daughter--and the length of time it takes her to get this math in her head. I'm impatient with my son and his potty training blues. I'm especially inpatient in traffic and have been known to hook a U-turn that even a sparrow would envy, driving almost five miles out of the way to simply avoid waiting, waiting, waiting. I even knit with big needles. Why? Because little needles means a million little stitches that take a lifetime to add up to any completed project --- a lifetime to have one pair of socks.

I am inpatient in long lines at the grocery store, unless of course, I have something to read in the suitcase I call a pocketbook, or a tablet on which to scribble more notes for my novel or a poem. For the most part I am simply and painstakingly inpatient.

What is interesting to me is that everything I am drawn to doing is something that takes time to finish; requiring what? Patience. My novel, raising my kids (both of whom I wanted so very much when I was single) and now, this loc'ing. As I journeyed home from the hair salon on Friday, my starter locs looking as pretty as I'd hoped, I wondered if this is just another way that God is saying to me: Patience. Patience and Endurance.

"The race is not to the swift, but to he [her] that endureth."

So here I am: loc'ing. The day before the appointment I got cold feet. Earlier in the week I'd seen a thousand people with ratty, lint filled, sloppy looking locs. I called my elder girlfriend whose locs are mature and beautiful.

Me: "I'm getting scared."

She: "Why? Maybe it's not time?"

Me: "No. It's just I don't want my locs to look nasty and unkempt."

She: "Angel, any hairdo that's not properly maintained is going to look nasty. Haven't you seen some nasty-looking busted up perms?"

Me: "Yea."

She: "Alright then. People with busted up hair either want to look busted up or just don't do proper maintenance. It's not because they have a perm or locs it's because they choose not to maintain their hair. Call me after your appointment tomorrow. And if you get there and you feel it's not right, it's still okay."

The appointment went well. A beautiful sister/loctician from Canada who like me, came here thinking her stay was only going to be brief, but met a man who said he loved her and meant it, and now she's here for as long as long will be. I took pictures with me of locs I want mine to look like: thin, curled on rods, full.

She said that's great. I have a head full of natural hair and I'm starting at a longer length then most people. She warned me of the days ahead when my hair may look like it's been shocked with an electric current and I may be tempted to turn back.

"Be patient. We will work through it together.

And like my writer friends who are well published and much further ahead then me, she also said "and don't trouble yourself with other people's locs and how theirs look. Focus on yours."

Like novels, every loc is different and every wearer of locs is different. Loc'ing, like writing, teaches us to respect our own journey, our own process, our own raison d'etre. Loc'ing reminds us to trust the Spirit within to finish everything that is begun.

Be good. And to every single person who came my way: your energy helped me get through Friday. I really believe that. Thank you so very much for the love and good wishes.


Oh, and lastly, if anyone's within driving distance of D.C., please treat yourself to the Romare Bearden exhibit going on for FREE !! It's been over sixty years since the work of an African American has been on exhibit there and his work is more than worthy. If you have time, treat yourself to the Jazz Brunch going on every Sat and Sun, 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. featuring jazz of the great Harlem Renaissance period.

Okay, now I'm out.

ANGEL

AND THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS....

Five days until I begin loc'ing. Appointment set for 9 a.m. Friday. Yesterday confirmed, I'm definately ready. I was out at the African American Heritage Festival with Spouse and the kids and saw some serious, serious loc'd sisters in all varieties .... straight, curled, braided locs, colored, bobb cuts --- you name it. Saw a sister today with skinny locs that weren't quite curled but loosely waved, pulled on top of her head with one or two dangling down at the sides. Beautiful! I'm ready. I'm really ready.

All afternoon yesterday I kept nudging Spouse in the ribs and saying, Oh my goodness do you see how beautiful his/her locs are? I've been looking at locs for a hundred years but all of a sudden it's like I'm just running into the most beautiful variations -- almost like confirmation to move forward and negation of the idea that I'm stuck once I do it. And the good thing is Spouse keeps saying, "Girl just go on and do it already. It ain' nothing but hair." Not that I'm the type that needs permission to wear my hair a certain way, but going natural in a society that rejects natural beauty is tough business and to have the support of an open minded black man (in these days, right?) is like icing on the cake.

Stay tuned.

Be good.

ANGEL

WHAT I WILL TAKE WITH ME


Just finished reading This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By Radical Women of Color and I've decided to take the following two statements with me, both of which I find tremendously thought-provoking:

The first, an excerpt from Audre Lorde's essay, The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House:


As women, we have been taught to either ignore our differences or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change. Without community, there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression. But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist.

Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are black, who are older, know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and somtimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those other identified as outside the structures, in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master's house as their only source of support.

And though I am not a lesbian, I do find this thought encouraging since many feminists and those who like to think of themselves as feminists actually subscribe to this line of thinking.

Excerpt from: A Black Feminist Statement, Combahee River Collective, Section 2, What We Believe:


As we have already stated, we reject the stance of lesbian separatism because it is not a viable political analysis or strategy for us. It leaves out far too much and far too many people, particularly Black men, women, and children. We have a great deal of criticism and loathing for what men have been socialized to be in this society: what they support, how they act, and how they oppress. But we do not have the misguided notion that it is their maleness, per se -- i.e., their biological maleness -- that makes them what they are. As Black women we find any type of biological determinism a particularly dangerous and reactionary basis upon which to build a politic."

And finally getting around to adding some things to my so-called bio, click right. More to come as time permits. When I grow up I'll have a real website.

Be Good,

ANGEL

BREAK TIME

isabel gone

two trees saved

two kids asleep

spouse snoring

no sugar for green tea

no power for poets tonight

novel, outline, and storyboard spread across table

white-out, pencils, tape and scissors nearby

part one just about completed

i want this to be easier than it is.

----a.

PROGRESS NOTES

Wow. I've been away so long it's hard to know where to start. Thanks to RHD, I'm stepping into the light for a quick minute. (Yea, girl. I'm still on the planet).


All I can say is: Life is Real.


The past few weeks have held heavy duty detail of school, annual physicals, first PTA meetings, notes back and forth to the second grade teacher, keeping up on lunch supplies, surprise 60th birthday party planning for my mom, running all around town examining menus and dining rooms, finding a portrait studio to do our family photo, hosting over 20 people at my house, keeping the secret from my die-hard New Yorker mother who never, ever, ever ventures out of New York unless it is an emergency of the truest kind, writing and trying my best to get the manuscript for this chapbook done, meeting with yet another graphic artist because the first one is too damn sorry to call me back after I've called him twice asking for the comps he promised. Not to mention remembering to comb my hair, trim my toenails, and get some sleep.

Here's the status report:


SCHOOL


Kid 1 is in Serious Second Grade .... responsible for much more than she was last year. We've got a whole new English/Reading curriculum which so far I am absolutely loving. The publisher is Houghton Mifflin and the thrust is toward what educators have been complaining about for years: children not knowing how to write a decent essay by the time they're ready to apply for college. This curriculum is super duper, heavily phonics based which I'm pleased with. Learning the parts of a sentence, making inferences from the stories, learning parts of a story and learning how to write correct sentences. Friends of mine have their children in all kinds of schools that purport to have "new methods" for teaching children, including this so-called A-Beka program, which is hot and heavy in Christian schools. Phooey. You read by learning how letters sound individually and collectively. There is no magic. There are no tricks. There is nothing new about learning to read and write.


Kid 1 also has memory work to do just about every night that she has to recite in front of the teacher the next day. Good for her but work for me. Oftentimes we do our drills in the car and I pester the heck out of her all the way to the front door of the school to remember to say her memory work so she can get checked off on it. But she's hanging and so am I. Math is still an issue but I'm thinking positively about it. Much more patience with my girl since I'm no longer working full time. One of the Dad's at PTA told me not to worry, that she'll get it. But my thing is that statistics show most girls have a love or hate by third grade and I don't want her to do badly in math for the rest of her life. Where is the balance between teaching and pushing?? I'm still thinking about Kumon but I'm just not sure. I'm still thinking I can teach her without shuffling off to yet another after school activity (not to mention the costs).


Kid 2 has made a smooth transition to 3 year old class. No more screaming and crying and pulling at my leg. Just a big wet kiss and "I love you Mommy, bye!" He knows several colors and counts to 20. Cool. Still not sitting on the potty to do #2 .... I'm trying to hang, trying to hang.


WRITING


Found another graphic artist to do the cover of my chapbook. Had to ditch the guy I met back in the summer. After several calls and several promises on his part to get back to me with comps and no delivery, it's so long Charley. My rule? Two strikes you're out. My time is just as valuable as the next person's and if you don't value my business, I won't value yours. So the sister I've found now is very professional and what do you know? she designed the cover for Walter Mosley's latest book, What Next? which is published by Black Classic Press. She's here in my town and is charging me $300 for the entire layout and cover art. In other words, I hand my manuscript to her and she makes it completely ready to go to print. That's a serious bargain. Sitting with her on Monday just felt right and we agreed to move forward together.


Speaking of the chapbook, the manuscript that I thought was done is not done. Why? Because three additional poems came to me last week that demand to be included. In the midst of all this outside activity I've been in a serious "emotional and spiritual place" reading a lot of Sonia Sanchez (Wounded in the House of A Friend), Lucille Clifton, and a bit of e.e. cummings. I've also got This Bridge Called My Back and something very amazing is happening in my work and in my soul. The poems demand to be included and so I've spent these past few weeks grabbing moments of silence to perfect them and be sure that what my soul intends to convey is what is on the page. I do hope I can cut the manuscript after this. I am really ready to go but I realize that this is my debut. It's got to be good. It's got to be about the work being ready, not me being ready. Also, I totally re-vamped one of the stories in the collection too, chosing to do so because it really was a bit too predictable towards the mid-section. The more I read it the more I saw that I really did have the potential to make it better. I like it much better now and I think I've really nailed home the theme of change. So once I get these poems together, fork over the 50% deposit, and write my intro statement I'll be ready.


At the same time, the novel yells "Don't forget about me." I've finished my study on Plot and now I'm going line for line through this outline in a serious "Cut-Paste-Move-This-Scene-Over-Here Mode. It's amazing to me how much is written and how much gets cut. No despair, though. I realize that one often has to write a ton, to get a pound of usable material.

I met Zadie Smith two summers ago when she was here promoting her book, White Teeth. She told those of us in the audience that White Teeth novel was 700 pages on the first and second draft. 700 pages!! But the job of the writer is not to write but to skillfully revise. Anyone can write, but not everyone can revise. I thought I was going to use my protagonist's wife in first person pov alternating with my narrative. What I've discovered is that my protag's wife is too shallow to tell the truth about her life. She lives behind a mask and she'll never tell the kinds of things I need to convey. So I'm using her therapist instead, in a first person pov, alternating. Wow. I wrote a chapter in the therapist's voice and I'm amazed at how much is revealed about his wife using this therapist.
I'm shooting for the end of the month to be finished with the outline. Hopefully, with things settling down I can do it. Though it may sound like a waste of time to some, I realize and respect how my mind works. My mind is okay with sloppy first and ragged second drafts but at this point my mind is like, Hey I need some structure here. I need a clear path.


HAIR


I've decided to loc my hair. Am I ready? About 99%. The other one percent is nervous about the in between stage when the hair looks tacky. I've concerned myself with the financial outlay required at this early stage ($50 every three weeks or so) and the possibility that I'll want my "regular hair" back in a few years and will have to cut all the way back to a TWA. But something in my heart tells me that it won't happen. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a minimalist. Time spent worrying and doing hair is time I don't have. I'm not one of those women who hangs in a salon, who has every hair in place, who runs to the nail shop the minute a corner of polish chips. I simply don't care. The other thing is, my hair is the type that wants to be left alone. In my perm glory days I could spend almost a hundred dollars on a perm, cut and style and two days later look like I never even went to the salon. My hair is very resistant to manipulation. It has always, always had a mind of its own. I've been twisting and twisting out for about a year and a half now and I'm simply just tired of doing my hair. When I do my hair it is literally a two day event because it is so very thick. Folks tell me I have perfect locking hair. We'll see. I just know that I want to be in a space that is as natural as natural can be.

BODY

I'm strongly feeling a pull toward becoming vegan. Am I ready 100%? No. I love the taste of barbecue chicken and I get to wanting a good burger something fierce from time to time. But I do know that as I age I'm going to have to start making some modifications. I have a low level of trust for our government and am not thrilled with the hormones and chemicals that go into processing meats. So I picked up two vegan cookbooks and The Vegan Sourcebook, figuring I can at least start preparing a few dishes here and there with the knowledge that one day I'll be able to make the move all the way without driving my family beserk (especially Spouse). I did start back with my yoga the other night, which felt good, but an acute awareness washed over me that it's been too long and I do need to make more of a commitment to exercising regularly.

Lastly, my poetry series starts this Friday (Isabel permitting). I am officially a poetry night host. The name of my group is called the Poetry and Prose Literary Arts Collective.
We've got about six or seven poets ready to go; I'll be reading both poetry and prose. My plan, as time permits, is to allow an hour before sign up for workshopping pieces that folks need feedback on. That's a future goal. Right now, we're going to be just reading.
Martha, the owner, is psyched. So if you're my way, hit me on the email for directions to the Cafe Jolie (avshann@attglobal.net).

That's as brief as I can be. Hopefully I'll get back to blogging regularly now that things are semi-sorta slowing down ..... yea, right. Kids out of school for two days b/c of Isabel.

Ah, me.

This thing called REAL LIFE.

Be Good,
ANGEL