Friday, February 20, 2009

oscar

oscar's are this weekend... rumour has it.


like many, i adore the genuine sweetness of audrey hepburn. she once wanted to take acting lessons to improve, you know get better. she was advised by an acting coach i believe, not to try to change. people love her for her sweetness that comes across on the screen. it's best not to tamper with that... risking it for 'better' technique.
enjoy the weekend dear You, and may it be your own kind of glamourous, all dressed up pretty like, out on the town, or at home cosy in fluffy slippers... do enjoy.

Monday, February 16, 2009

safe places...


poetry has been following me around these days. i love it. i’ve yet to make sense of it, maybe the thing is to just enjoy. this photo above is of the poet nikki giovanni.

i once heard maya angelou, another writer and poet speak. she talked about the love and care that her grandmother gave her always and unconditionally. maya angelou talked about the power of love, and if for some reason someone in hearing distance did not have a loving mother or grandmother, she shares the love of her grandmother with everyone. this i remember because it resonated with me.

i’ve shared the heartbreaks and disappointments i have and continue to experience with my mother. she called just the other day with nothing loving or caring to share. i now speak my quiet truth. as a girl i would just try to grin and bear it. it has been many years of inner searching and growth, but i am thankful for finding my way to peace. when she accuses me of a thing that she makes up in her head, i simply say respectfully, ‘that’s not true.’ and i fill in the truth. not only is this healthy and liberating for me as a woman, i take great gratefulness in feeling like i’m protecting the little girl that i was. i didn’t know how to do it back when i was a little girl, but i can sure do it now.

as people for the most part don’t change, i’ve given up on the ‘fantasy’ of having a loving and supportive mother who thinks i’m the ‘cat’s pajamas.’ and as mentioned it frees up a lot of energy for me to go on in my efforts to be/come the woman i hope to be.

but i always remember maya angelou saying that day that i can share in the abundant love that her grandmother showered upon her. and i share in a mother’s love in other ways. each time a friend of mine is excited about seeing or talking to her mother, i draw on that love and care. i am remembering that love is not exclusive. it’s kind of like air, or the scent of a sweet rose, when it’s in the air, all who are near are touched and moved, comforted and inspired.

i began thinking about this because i saw the poet nikki giovanni on the television show bill moyers journal. i love bill moyers, among his interest in culture and politics, he is a fan of poetry as well. nikki spoke of many an interesting thing that she’s experienced in the sixty five years that she has lived so far, from the love her mother and grandmother and grandfather showered upon her, to her days as a revolutionary poet during the civil rights movement, to her having a crush on barack obama and having the gift of recently falling in love all over again at the age of sixty five. she shares that we have to remember that living life is still a good idea.

nikki giovanni’s mother and sister passed not so long ago. she speaks of how much she loved them and still misses them. she says that sometimes she just wants to call her mother and hear her voice. when she has hard days, her mother was the one to talk her down, make sense of it all, and simply comfort her. nikki talks about how love never dies, it simply changes energy. sometimes when she’s sleeping and sometimes when she’s dreaming she feels the feeling that she feels when she is remembering her love of her mother.

i, i close my eyes and i open my heart, and in these moments i know what it is like when a child is lovingly cared for and comforted by her mother. the love that is in the air is for us all and i intend to have my share.

love story made a little longer in my play with poetry and love and the comfort and care of a mother’s love… as i have many of nikki giovanni’s books on poetry. and as she has a new book of poetry out now, i was thinking i have enough poems by nikki. i need not buy another book. but i was mistaken. as she is lovely and brilliant how can one have enough…

kidnap poem by nikki giovanni

ever been kidnapped
by a poet
if i were a poet
i'd kidnap you
put you in my phrases and meter
you to jones beach
or maybe coney island
or maybe just to my house
lyric you in lilacs
dash you in the rain
blend into the beach
to complement my see
play the lyre for you
ode you with my love song
anything to win you
wrap you in the red black green
show you off to mama
yeah if i were a poet i'd kid
nap you

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

how old am i?

have you ever visited the abercrombie and fitch store here in nyc? i went in the 5th avenue store for the first time this past weekend. i have some friends in town visiting and i have been doing the tourist thing. (i've not been around to peep in and see what you're up to, i plan to catch up when my peeps are gone:) when walking up 5th avenue my interest usually is in visiting st. patrick's cathedral. it's really beautiful. but my friends wanted to buy a few things in a&f so we went in. i normally walk right by as they often have half naked men standing at the door, that really do look like the above photo. i always (as i did when i went in) feel embarrased. i feel embarrased to look. it was all a bit much for me and i did not enjoy it at all. in case you don't know the story, the shop sells classic casual clothes, but the thing is all who work there are model-like and half dressed. it's like a disco with clothes all around. the lights are low and the music is pumping. i was thinking 2 things. one, get me out of here. and 2, does your mother know what you are doing...


yesterday while watching david letterman on television he shared the new cover shot of the sports illustrated swim suit edition. again i was embarrassed all over again. and i have to ask myself is this all really too much? and how old am i that i can no longer look at 'attractive models?'

but i think it's about something else. of course it is about s**, but i think i miss a day or two when things were advertised with a bit more creativity as well as beauty. things were so pretty or lovely, they made you blush and want to have them. this stuff shares nothing for the heart, only the groins i guess.

still it's all too much at the risk of sounding and seeming and being prudish.

(if these photos have offended you, i apologise, that wasn't my intention. i only wanted to make a point.)

Thursday, February 5, 2009

poetic days & red lipstick

Zenocrate lovelier than the love of Jove,
brighter than is the silver Rhodope,
fairer than whitest snow on Scythian hills
thy person is more worth to Tamburlaine
than the possession of the Persian crown...
~by tamburlaine the great, part 1

not that fair field
of Enna, where Proserpin gath'ring flow'rs
herself a fairer flow'r by gloomie Dis
was gather'd...
~by milton

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
~by william carlos williams

have you ever had a time in your life where you feel as if you can't think anymore? perhaps i am projecting. that is very much how i feel. for some reason i feel like i don't want to think anymore for a moment. i just want to follow my heart. when i think, i think myself out of, talk myself out of what i really want to do.

these days i am following my heart. some of it is quite simple in a way. yesterday i walked into macy's and bought a pretty red lipstick. who wears red lipstick anymore, do you? and while at it i decided to treat myself to a sweet lip gloss. shouldn't we all be saving money in this economic meltdown? but i felt like red lipstick might make it a little easier to get through:) even if it doesn't make sense?

i've a special alumni gathering at my university tonight. i'll wear a pretty ankle length dress and my red lipstick. it's been a long time since i've gotten all dolled up. i had a little discussion with a gentleman yesterday on feminism. he had his walls up saying women can be too confrontational...

i think wisdom is in knowing when to pick your battles. i had absolutely no interest in 'schooling' him. if you don't know by now the power of a ladies brain, ability and worth... along with her loveliness... your loss.

poetry helps me get out of my head. all those pretty words swirling around, sometimes i'm not sure what it all means. but if i pause a moment to feel the loveliness of the words, then i think i have a clue.

i'm hoping your days, these days are sprinkled with lovely words and ideas... and even pretty lip colors...

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

snow in london




'kindness is like snow, it beautifies everything it covers.' ~author unknown