My Daughter is...

a victim. of my impulse to tell stories.

My mother had never told me stories. My mother has zero memory of everything that has ever happened to her, it seems. Memory loss? I will never know.

I heard many stories while growing up in the Caribbean, everything from anansi stories to bible stories. They were largely narrated by my friends or their family, usually the mother or grandmother. Occasionally, my sisters would tell me family stories which i always enjoyed; there is nothing more entertaining or sorrowful than digging-up family memory. One aunt is a walking archive; another tells different versions of the same story.

There were other things my mother didn't do,
like, taking a lot of pictures while i was growing up. It explains my obsessive compulsion to take pictures of my daughter. I may have over 500pics of my daughter already and she's barely 2 years old.

My mother's stories are what i miss the most. I missed the experience of cuddling-up to her, inhaling her mother-scent, listening to her words as they roll off her tongue in waves, travelling in milliseconds to get to my tongue...

So i have my own daughter, for political reasons. I need someone to pass things on to. To love enough to care what she hears; to love enough to care that she hears my voice like a march in the dimly lit room, hugging her consciousness.

My daughter is also a victim of my ambition. My mother had not showed me the ways of the world. The blows i received were shocking, sometimes nerve rocking. I refuse to blame her. Perhaps her mother was also silent. I guess i'll never know.

Talking, yes, that's another thing i'm good at. I speak a lot. As if speaking against the painful silence i grew up in. My daughter is also a definite victim of my love for speech. I speechify to her. She doesn't seem to mind. Having her makes me realize just how much i want to be her. I want to become my daughter. Breathing. She breathes life into me. I cannot become my mother. I miss her stories...

Psst

I'm here.
hanging on to hope and other shit.
Been burdened with things to do; some won't be done. Period.
Guess, i'll just have to learn "how to be fine" with minimal support and full-time everything else.
I have been working on research papers and trying to stay asleep when asleep.
Since i'm not having "it" i decided to entitle one of my papers, "Contesting Black Womanhood: (Dis)locating Sex, Gender and Desire in..." we'll see how it goes.
I can smell a long vacation in the air.

Who the hell doesn't need to go out.
I don't understand what all the fuss is about. F#$k poverty.
I need a drink. Oops, can't drink. Try counting sheep. F$#k sheep.
I need a drink. Oops, can't drink. Can't sleep.
I wish i could put my finger on it. Take a dive in it. Ride it like the train.
People confess that it's great. I don't know if i believe them. I thought i'd been there. I haven't.
I'm a bit dizzy, though not from spinning. From playing games. Bad for you.
I'm in love!

Life's weird. So is this blog. I'm simply telling. You. As it is.
So far, too many "I"s, not enough repetition, repetition. Period.
Pattern, not important. Just let it out. tell it, as it is. Without the frills, tucks and trimmings.
Period.
Period, i like the sound of that. Like a final command, PERIOD!
I got some feedback on my poetry, lately. F#$k poetry.
Peace. of. me.
No, i'm not pissed.

Todobby and Womanhood

"JJ, stop spitting!"

"What did i tell you about spitting?!"

"Stop it, JJ, please!"

Yea, you guessed it, JJ has taken up spitting; another of her phase, i guess. So, now, that makes me the spitting supervisor. For her, it's a hobby: "look, mommy, i'm spitting!"

In one of my earlier posts, i had said that JJ says just about everything except when she wants to poo-poo. Well, believe it or not, the very next day she started telling when she poo-poo; not before she wants to go, but after she has done the deed. Gee, i wonder if she reads my blogs; Nah, now, that's just silly! But, gotta tell yah, it surprised me big-time. She has even been saying: "mommy, i want to pee-pee!" to which i respond, "pee in your diaper, sweetheart!" Isn't that funny? Hah, careful what you wish for...

So, i'm presently juggling motherhood, wifehood, studenthood and the flu. Yea, i know, who doesn't, right? Well, most men don't which makes us, women, one heck of a human species. Today, i take time to reflect on what life would be like without all this mothering, wifing and studenting. State capitalism would flap, that's for sure; there would be no "structure" and all societies would collapse. It's that simple. Woman-identified people, take a minute, imagine the chaos there could be. Now, smile...we are powerful, more powerful than we think we are. Now, imagine a world in which there is no sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, ageism, ableism, in other words, no hate. Are you still on earth? See, on a mass scale, we are one ucked-up lot; all of us. But, individually, inside each of us, that's where humanity is. We/you/each of us can make a difference. I'm not preaching utopia, here; hope ia, maybe. I suspect many of us have already made that choice to be different, stand up and out, and say: "By golly, i won' t stand for any of this shit, stop the hate, now!"

Now, how did i get from the begging-my-toddler-to-stop-spitting scene, to talking about female strength, to discussing love? Is it mere stream-of-consciousness? What is it, really?