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For Whom Santa Proved Real

27/9/2014

Fairy God parents played by Dr. Keith Gilyard & Dr. Joanne Gabbin

Wish granted: introduce Ishmael Reed for his lifetime achievement award from the Furious Flowers Poetry conference held at James Madison University

At the ball: I danced with Ishmael Reed and take several selfies with other poetic royals

After the ball: nothing turned to pumpkins. Now, like a child for whom all good mythical prived true, I will sleep in a lovely (if temporary) world.

Me & Rita Dove. Me & Frank X. Walker. Me & Toi Derricotte

Me with Marilyn Nelson, Quincy Troupe, and Dr. Brenda Green, Ismael Reed, Tennessee Reed

Smiling with Dr. Keith Gilyard and Dr. Adam Banks; and dr. Joanne Gabbin; Tony Medina

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Beware: Do Not Listen to this Lifetime Achievement Award Introduction for Ishmael Reed

"tonite, thriller is"
How to tell a lifetime in 3 minutes, which I cannot do and so I choose to do it in 180 seconds, which feels more Reed to me
& of which only 160 remain

I sought for advice Tennessee, two people on the street, a PhD, and, in a dream, my mother

The best I got:
It doesn't matter what you say, it's Ishmael you will likely be wrong.

Beware
the lifetime in this introduction is "legendary”
in 0.24 seconds it returns about 191,000 google search hits

in hip hop Macy Grey records its lyrics and it knows Alicia Keys is on fire

“back off” from the lifetime in this introduction
"it is greedy"

only because there is more laundry to air than 180 seconds can hang

especially since only 116 remain

“Back off” the lifetime in this introduction

Showed you, "Writin’ is fightin'"

Told you, "Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination."

I see you didn't listen

now the lifetime in this introduction has

you, as my mother used to say, from the roota to the toota

"nobody can hear you"

I’d tell you to “back off” but it’s too late

The lifetime in this introduction told you

"Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs."

The lifetime in this introduction "used to be a discipline problem which caused [it] embarrassment until [it] realized that being a discipline problem in a racist society is sometimes an honor."

The lifetime in this introduction told you

"We learn about one another’s culture the same way we learn about sex: in the Streets."

You see, the lifetime in this introduction "aint got no manners"

but it do got "a generous degree of linguistic intelligence...yoked to considerable personal intelligence" – that’s genius-like stuff

statistic: the US bureau of lifetimes reports that in 1938 was born a person whose lifetime, try as he might, would not fit within a lifetime.

So “Back off”
if Ishmael Reed's lifetime won't even fit within his lifetime, what did you expect me to do in 3 minutes?

Notes: this piece generously uses Reed's poem Beware: Do Not Read This Poem , quotes, and paraphrases Howard Gardner's book Leading Minds

Never imagined a dance with Ishmael Reed - so cool!

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Tao of Chai: Why I do not miss my children

1/9/2014

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Two days ago, my husband and I moved our daughters into their college dorms. One is a junior and the one is a freshman. The topic of adult conversation around this moment in our lives has been about our readiness for an empty nest. When I respond that I am eager for the change, I am met with doubt and comments about how much I am going to miss the girls.

I reasserted that I would not miss them as much as I looked forward to seeing them again and experiencing how they are changing as humans. I would not miss them as much as I looked forward to seeing how they were figuring out how to be in relationships with each other as maturing adult sisters and maturing adults with parents like us.

I spent the night with a college friend the night after we moved the girls into their college dorms. The next morning, she made breakfast and offered me a cup of tea, which I initially declined. We have known each other for quite some time and she responded to my rejection of tea by saying “I’m making you tea anyway.” The only reason I declined was because I prefer real tea – no bags, no Lipton (unless I’m making gallons of iced-tea). On the morn of depositing my offspring onto a college campus, real tea was in order!

Kate “the great” – as she affectionately referred to herself in college, made me a cup of Chai from scratch – no bags or powders, and we joked about how Lipton was for iced-tea and those who knew no better. I drank a cup with breakfast then poured the rest into my Teavana insulated container, hugged her two sons, and said my good-byes, as Kate promised to buy our Michael Franks concert tickets that very day. I left her house with a hot mug-o-Chai and containers with ingredients to make more of it when I got home.

Wil and I got home about 11pm. I brought my overnight bag and mug-o-Chai into the house. I opened the Teavana container to pour the Chai out and noticed it had thickened and become a bit curdled. Its consistency was different from processed Chai I was used to getting on the go from quick stop coffee places and restaurants. This Chai was not processed. Its recipe was fresh. It was meant to be appreciated, savored, and enjoyed not kept in a container all day.

This morn, I took the ingredients I got from Kate the great and brewed a giant cup of Chai. I took that giant cup-o-Chai (along with two peanut-butter-Nutella covered croissants) to my deck, where I appreciated, savored, and enjoyed it because I knew it was not made to last all day.

In those Chai moments, I understood why I did not miss my children, who are now doing something on their college campus. In my heart, I am happy to feel parenting was (and continues to be) a cup of freshly brewed Chai - meant to be an appreciated, savored, and enjoyed experience.

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For Whom Santa Proved Real

Beware...

Tao of Chai: Why I do not miss my children

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