There have been a lot more oils in my skin, hair and general daily routine lately. I’ve been researching essential oils and their different benefits because I have specific hair and skin goals. But they also help to improve my life in other therapeutic ways.
Sesame seed oil for my skin after I shower
Pumpkin seed oil for my scalp
Peppermint oil, which I add to a spritz to moisturize my hair
Coconut oil, which I use to remove my make-up every night as well as in my hair spritz
Rosehips oil, which I massage into my face lightly after applying Vitamin C serum
Castor oil, which I also use in my hair spritz and sometimes apply directly to my edges at night.
Vanilla bean perfume oil by Kuumba made because I just love smelling yummy and warm and sweet. I’m very sensitive to aromatherapy and oils work on my mentally in a different way than alcohol based perfumes.
Every time I hear a news reporter say President, I still think Barack Obama. I can’t help it. Drumpf is not a President. He is a tyrant. I would say he was like a cartoon tyrant except that the damage he has caused the country in just a few short days of taking of office has been anything but cartoonish. He has climbed right out of the fears and fantasies of racist White men and women across the nation and made manifest all the stupidity, ignorance, thuggishness, brutality and immaturity of the worst grade school bully.
He is the worst of America embodied, and he is also the truth about the roots on which America was built. He makes me sick. And anyone who supports him is not anyone I wish to engage or reason with, particularly those who though it was remotely possible that he would do anything less than wage a war of hatred, violence and divisiveness.A vote for Trump was a vote inspired by fear, hatred, and ignorance. Fact.
After his latest firing of the Attorney General for not supporting his immigrant ban, I’m more convinced than ever Drumpf doesn’t give a shit about the Constitution. And since I doubt he knows how to write anything but reactionary tweets, I would say, that he’s taking notes on recreating his own version of America from “Birth of a Nation” DW Griffith style.
Now is the time for unity, creative resourcefulness and a vigilance to inform and stay informed. Last night I watched a clip of Spicer reasoning pathetically in front of the press that the immigrants who were detained, were held to protect millions of Americans and then went on to mention the Holocaust in what context I still am not certain because no network I’ve seen has played the full clip again. It’s like he gets out there in front of the press with no plan whatsoever, red faced and trembling and with no ethics or morals to speak of.
Well…
Tomorrow is the first day of Black History Month and personally I can think of no better time to celebrate and acknowledge a people (though I do this all year) whose history in America has been in many ways defined by resistance to the tyranny and injustice of an America that we have never really been able to claim as ours, no matter how much, how steadily and how proudly we have tried and despite the fact that our ancestors built it. Oh what a troubled thing is America. People of the Diaspora who were born to it, those who have immigrated here to make a better life for themselves and their families, those who risk their lives to come here, fleeing persecution and so much more can never really escape it. We can only face the truth. And that one thing, for better or worse, is what dictator Drumpf is winning at.
I went because my husband told me, his mother, was going with a group of friends and I love my mother in law. Last month as we made our way across Times Square with to see Jitney with my mother in law and a group of friends, she stopped to dance to a live performance of Whip Nene. I’m fascinated by the youthful and serendipitous nature of both my my mothers, though I don’t always agree with all their opinions.
I also went in the capacity of someone who feels responsible to record historic moments and as you well know by now, this was one.
So here’s how it went for us. It was my husband’s birthday and his sister made brunch for all of us that morning. I convinced him that we should join his mom at the March for no more than an hour and then depart to continue celebratory birthday activities elsewhere. Around 48th and Madison, we met up with my mother in laws friends, people I hang out with at least once a year. They were the only group of Black people I saw that day. But like I said, we were only there for about an hour so for all I know, the Black Panthers might have joined it somewhere near 5th ave.
…but I doubt it.
The first people I saw as we emerged from the subway were angry white women holding signs with uteri that had fists and fuck you fingers, Gloria Steinham quotes, Princess Leia with a big gun which I heard a woman behind exclaim favorably about. Hmm…big phallic guns are okay in the hands of fictitious white female film icons. Check.
I saw a few men, lots of kids. And I saw a lot of signs with Black fists….which confused me because when I see Black fists, I think Black power, but no one that I saw holding these signs with Black fists were Black.
Around the time I saw my 50th ugly pink crochet hat of an undefinable nature I can only describe as pointy pink boobs I started to feel the nausea setting in. These women had come out in thick organized masses to protest Trump and all that made me think of was the thousands who did not turn out for Hilary. All I could think of were the thousands who would not show there faces at the Blackest of Marches supporting the protection of Black men against this administration.
My husband and I were both ready to go. I had taken enough pictures, seen enough and heard enough. We headed to Met Breur so he could see the James Kerry Marshall exhibit before it ends in about a week. We marveled at the large scale paintings of the Blackest Black people in every single depiction of Black life in Marshall’s upbringing pre and post Civil Rights. We lingered in front of the portrait of Nat Turner in front of his masters bed, machete in hand, his master’s decapitated head, pale and bloody. I still wonder at the curator of the show who I’m certain is white and I wonder if Marshall had to fight to get that piece in the collection or not. I never look at that painting thinking of Turner as a monster. I only think of the monstrous deeds of his oppressors.
That seemed to balance out our day a bit before took a car home where we could see on the news and social media platforms, how huge the turn out was for Women’s Marches in other parts of America.
Large groups of people galvanized towards change have always energized and inspired me. There’s no way around that feeling of being surrounded by people who are single-minded in a fight against someone like Drumpf (I have a Drumpfinator app and I’m sticking with it.) That being said, I could not all good conscience stand in alignment for more than an hour with many of the ideas expressed at the Women’s March which are not inclusive of my interests and the interests of Black men whom I love. After awhile, nausea turns to resentment and resentment turns to anger and I didn’t feel like being angry. It was my boos birthday and it was also the day right after the inauguration. I need to let the realities seep in at a pace I’m comfortable with, as much as I am privileged to allow.
But I am starting to feel like the Drunpf Presidency may be one of the best things that has ever happened to America. Clearly, Obama was too diplomatic to make America behave in the way it has always imagined itself to be. Drumpf has already shown us what it really is. And it’s only just begun.
In 2008 when Obama won the presidential election, my husband and I were living in Harlem and there was dancing in the streets. Dancing, singing, people blowing horns and beating drums. It was a magical moment, a beautiful feeling, surreal almost. It was a wonderful place to be at such a historically significant occasion. He won. We won.
In an album in my flickr account which I titled, “A New Day” are photos from the day my BFF, family friends and I and drove to DC for Obama’s inauguration. It was bitterly cold and we stood for hours but it was all worth it to witness this moment in time. When Aretha Franklin sang, my shoulders shook. The ushering in of more than I could comprehend, the hopes and dreams of slaves and ancestors swept up in the oath of America’s first Black President.
Listening to Obama’s farewell speech last night, there were things he said that made me proud, things I disagreed with, things I’m frankly tired of hearing but more than anything else, I didn’t want it to be the last time I heard him speak as our president. Like the shouting masses in the Chicago crowd, words like last made my heart sink and they echoed my sentiments when they screamed out to him pleading and jeering at the idea that this was goodbye.
When I think of what we have in store with that…person, it’s like a nightmare on the horizon that I cannot comprehend. I have been tuning into all my feel good go-tos in the past week or so. Just listening to music that makes me feel ecstatic and joyous and filled with hope and watching things that make me feel light and childlike. Because in the next four years, feel goods will be a requisite to survival for all people of color. But then again, it always has been for us. That’s how this country was made.
It’s not lost on me that ever since 2014, when warm orange became one of my top favorite colors, I began to notice it everywhere. It doesn’t matter where I see it, nature, clothing, culture corporations, fashion, logos, it always makes me feel good. And food of course is no exception.
One of my favorite things to do is get a good sized Butternut squash from the supermarket, peel it’s pale skin and cut it into thick cubes by hand. I enjoy this process because I love to see the deep orange color inside reveal itself. I feel similarly about cutting into avocados, since green was my first favorite color as a young person and I can spot a shade of avocado green anywhere. I’ve been on a Butternut squash craze since the beginning of last year. It’s just such a good winter food, so versatile and filling and comforting. And it’s been scientifically proven that the color of foods affects our well being as well as your cells. So when I cut into butternut squash, I’m aware that the color starts to affect my senses before my taste buds.
Outside of baking and roasting, I haven’t been super creative with butternut squash but this winter I plan on pushing myself into more challenging recipes. Last night I roasted cubes of butternut squash to go along with a Bulgar wheat salad I made from the grain that had soaked overnight. The last time my mom visited us, she left a large bag of Bulgar in the cabinet. She used to prepare this a lot for us a lot for us and it’s also very easy to make. I achieved a taste practically identical to the recipe my mom used and I was really pleased about that. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to try it myself. It’s so simple to make and right now, in terms of improving my intake of real food, simple is what I’m going for.
The other great thing about Butternut squash is how long it keeps. We’re unfortunately notorious for letting vegetables we forgot we had rot in the fridge, particular the green leafy ones (Sad face). But a container of cubed butternut squash will last for days in the fridge. I’ve had squash sit for weeks on the living room table and it’s always perfectly preserved when I decided to cut into it. Winter squash has to be tough on the outside to protect it’s softer center for weeks at a time. Squash is kind of like winter itself. Although it feels and appears barren and unyielding from the outside, all the good stuff is still around, it’s just turned inward, being protected, energizing and preparing…
I hope you’re feeding own inner and outer warmth during these cold days. We’re all going to need it.
I’m a photographer all of the time and on occasion, I actually have a scheduled photo shoot. This past weekend I took save the date photos for a couple at a local NYC park. The soon to be bride is a close friend of my sister on law. I don’t know if wedding related photography is my thing necessarily, but here’s what I do know. While it certainly does take some skill as a photographer to capture good images of a couple in love, what also makes the photos great is the energy of the couple themselves. When they feel comfortable expressing how they feel for each other in front of the camera, there’s no way that doesn’t transfer to the image. Taking photos of people is always a collaborative and co-creative effort. Depending on the nature of the project, both parties have to be somewhat committed, because the product is always a direct reflection of that.
When I get home and start looking at all the photos I’ve taken on any shoot with clients, I can tell right away if it’s been a success, not just in terms of technique, lighting, or exposure but in the spirit of the entire endeavor. Did the vision in mind translate to the truth of this particular person or people? It’s always good to have a plan and this couple had a clear one. It’s like the plan is a canvas in which to explore the painting, we don’t really have any idea what the painting will end up looking like. We just have some idea of what we’re going for, and often that’s a feeling right? We’re filling up a raw space with our creativity, using something that’s already been done as a guide, as inspiration. It’s very exciting to me.
I’ve done nuptial related photo shoots only a small handful of times and even though I’m always a bit nervous, the nerves never override the feeling of excitement. Lastly, I have to say that no amount of editing, photo-shopping, airbrushing or cosmetics can take the place of the core energy of people in a photo. All these things can help the vision along but if the spirit isn’t there, there’s no there there. In my experience so far, if the energy and the vision is there, than for me, as the photographer, almost half the work is already done.
In the spirit of things that have given me life since this latest of tragic American blunders I offer this my personal Top 5 Post Election Healing Kit list.
1.Tribe called Quest “We got it from here, thank you for your service.
I don’t know how a rap group just comes back together after 18 years and drop fire like no time has passed but the timing could not be better. My immediate faves so far are
The Space Program
Dis Generation
Black Spasmodic
Enough
Conrad Tokyo
2. Crush of the month: Mahershala Ali (I think I spelled that right) *Luke Cage Spoiler Alert
Soooo… the only reason I even entertained watching “House of Cards” was because Ali was in it. The moment he came on screen as the charismatic villain, Cottonmouth in “Luke Cage” I was transfixed. When he was killed, I tried to keep watching the show but it just wasn’t holding my attention anymore. So I just following Ali to the next series, “House of Cards,” which is a diabolically fabulous show in it’s own right. But when Ali walks on as Remy Danton, my God.
And he’s not just a dark chocolate, statuesque, stone carved looking, beautiful face and eyes. He’s an amazing actor. I’ve seen him now on “Luke Cage,” “House of Cards,” “The 4400,” and “Moonlight” which I saw this passed weekend. He really inhabits his characters. He’s a hundred percent present in a way that makes it hard to believe that he’s actually acting. He fully commits. He also has the rare talent of being able to communicate as much through his facial expression, his eyes and silence as through dialogue. There is something disarmingly familiar and every man about him.
3. Kerry James Marshall: Mastry at the MET Breuer NYC
I’ve seen Marshall’s work before, somewhere on line but I didn’t know who he was until a friend of a friend raved about an exhibition of his that she saw in Chicago. Now, just because I like art, doesn’t mean I have the language to critique it. I like Marshall’s paintings of Black people for the very specific reason that they are all Black. Like midnight Black, Black like a silhouette. I just love that. His technique is also evocative of Romare Bearden whom I can tell was one his major influences and I love Romare Bearden because I love collage art. The retrospective of Marshall’s work at the MET Breuer is huge. I mean, it’s a lot. It’s two floors and it’s a lot of work, spanning many years. I like to take art in quietly, piece by piece so I was there for nearly an hour or more and still hadn’t seen everything. I took lots of photos and had many favorites. His portrait of Nat Turner and the head of his slave master in his bed just behind Nat after he has decapitated him, is just so unapologetically Black gangsta and timely. Looking at it while surrounded by white people was indescribably satisfying.
And the other one I love is this large format painting of two escaped slaves, a man and a woman running passed a field of tall grass. The man with a large Afro, has a medallion of the continent flying in the air on his neck. Butterflies which are a symbol of freedom flutter around the woman with thick woolly locks as if ushering her in her chosen direction. Among the bird flying around them, I recognize the cardinal, a yellow bird, a geese and two other birds I’m certain they all special significance as well. I love the transitory moment of this painting so much. In my eyes, it’s a moment of pure possibility, a return to Eden.
My partner in crime at soulsistah4real told me about Elastiquedesigns on etsy. I mean these Afrocentric postcards are like something straight out of our many collective musings, conversations and imaginations! They are brilliant, snarky, witty, and politically challenging commentary on the struggles of being a Black woman in America. Definitely on my list of must have items come next pay day.
5. Pat McGrath: Metalmorphosis
Yes, Pat McGrath is a Black female make-up artist.
Yes, my heart stopped when I saw this.
Yes, I am transported to an afrofuturistic reality whenever I watch it.
Yes, I am an alien.
I literally only learned about this woman a yesterday. I saw a make-promo on IG. My jaw is still on the ground. Her line hits Sephora on November 22nd. My entire face is beside itself.
Oh, and one more thing. You aren’t not going like what comes after America.
-Leonard Cohen
It’s 11:31am
This is my first time getting out of bed. I still haven’t eaten or watched the news. My husband went to work.
I called out Black today.
No, I didn’t actually say that when I called out. I called out sick. I had no intention coming in. And I am sick. I am sick, and sickened, shocked and saddened, angry and traumatized. I am all kinds of things I cannot describe.
It was too silent this morning. The rain gently falling was too fitting. I didn’t want to know. But I knew. I don’t want this to be happening but it’s happened. And I can’t find my humor right now. I can’t find my hope. I can’t even leave my apt. I have to and I don’t know how I’m going to.
My mind won’t stop racing.
I feel so unsafe.
I feel so unprotected (not as if I was before)
But the layers of illusion have been stripped
Ripped away now
And the truth is….
A racist, rapist, sexist, hate mongering crook has been elected to the highest office in the land.
“And for me that look is deeply personal. It isn’t about what is in fashion or what the rules are supposed to be. It’s about what I like. What makes me want to smile when I look in the mirror. What makes me feel slightly better on a dull day. What makes me comfortable.”
-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
No shade at all to Alicia Keys’ choice to be bare faced and those women who have chosen to follow in her footsteps, but for me, it is so refreshing and inspiring to read that as the new face of a British Make Up brand called No7, Chimamanda stands firm in that her Feminism is not defined by stripping herself of that which makes makes her feel proud to be a woman; namely make-up.
As face paint does in many indigenous cultures for men and women from birth to adulthood, so the role of make-up has evolved in various stages of my life as I’m know it has in the lives of many women.
I loved make-up from a young age almost mmediately. I learned make-up from watching my mom whose signature brow pencil is still Maybeline and who still will never use anything but pure Khol liner on her eyes. I learned it from the fashion magazines she brought into the house and from my Jamaican Godmother who did a short stint as a model when she was in her 20s. I used to rifle through her dresser drawers when she had parties in her home in Brooklyn. I will never forget the way she looked at me when I emerged on her roof one night where guests milled around, wearing a a deep shiny (Remember when lipsticks weren’t all matte?) almost Cranberry red lipstick I chose from her dresser drawer. I had defiantly smeared the color on my lips in her bedroom where I spent time lazily soaking up the intoxicating femininity of her surroundings. Even in the dark I could see her shock and disapproval as she told me to turn around and take the lipstick off immediately before my mother saw me. So I was immediately hooked.
I was hooked by the impact that make-up had on the way in which adults saw me and later by the way in which it impacted the way my peers saw me. I was not yet consciously aware of it but I realize now knew make-up was enhancing and bringing forth some part of the powerful woman in me that made people stop and stare. It was an un-evolved, defiant and irresponsible embracing of that power but I enjoyed every bit of it at the time. In High School, black eyeliner was my staple and a loud sparkly pink Brucci lipstick with Strawberry scented roll on gloss were my make-up staples. I put them on in the restroom each morning and wiped everything off before I went home.
In my early 20s I started wearing foundation and power, plucked out most of my eyebrows and drew them in severely. Nuance in the way I applied make wouldn’t really emerge until my early 30s when I discovered that wearing make-up didn’t have to mean looking like you were wearing it all the time. I discovered that busy eyes needed a simple limp and a bold lip looked great with a simple eye. During a few years spent working at Barnes & Noble I poured through Kevyn Aucoin books and began to understand that make-up was no different than face paint, a face dressing, drag, war paint, tribal paint. And I fell in love with it even more.
Lately, I’ve come fully into my own with the way that make-up and colors on my face make me feel and influence that way I show up in the world and the energy I give off in my every day interactions and also how truly ancient and spiritual the role of face paint and masks have always played in our lives as human beings. We have learned from animals and nature how to evokes certain looks to represent status, how we feel, what we desire and more. It’s important for me to be able to look at myself in the mirror and be happy with what I see, to smile at myself before I start the day, as much when I feel like crap as when I feel willing and ready. It’s also important for me that I take of the canvas on which I express myself daily. And It feels good to know that Chimimanda Adichie, a woman whose work and spirit I so deeply admire and respect, gets it!
While make-up should not be an equation of what it means to be beautiful the way it has been in a society dominated by Patriarchal and Western standards, it has been a part of what many women since ancient time have understand as a rite of passage to womanhood as well as an enhancement of the power and beauty of the woman you are or are becoming.
My husband watches quite a lot of wildlife and nature programs. Because of him I have learned to love “The Dog Whisperer,” a show would never have watched otherwise. What Cesar Milan really does is teach people about themselves and the ways in which much of their dogs’ behavior really reflects the owner. My husband loves dogs but I would also say that he has a deep appreciation and love of all animals and has since he was a child. He learns a lot from them, things I am always surprised and impressed by.
Last night I walked into the living room while he was watching a program where two large male bears were locked into a palpably intense physical battle. I stopped and stared at the screen. It was hard not to be drawn into the such a dramatic and urgent looking struggle
“That looks intense.” I said
“It is.” Says my husband. “It’s a battle for the right to fornicate.”
So naturally I’m hooked right?
“A battle to the death.”
The camera cuts to the one lone female they’re both fighting to mate with chewing grass. After one of the males walks off frustrated, the other one who is now the victor guards the female for several weeks because she’s not yet “in season.”
“See,” says my husband. “Even in the wild they don’t just run up and grab the pussy.”
I’m dead.
Dead.
How could we live without men, without males, without the male species?
I’m a photographer all of the time and on occasion, I actually have a scheduled photo shoot. This past weekend I took save the date photos for a couple at a local NYC park. The soon to be bride is a close friend of my sister on law. I don’t know if wedding related photography is my thing necessarily, but here’s what I do know. While it certainly does take some skill as a photographer to capture good images of a couple in love, what also makes the photos great is the energy of the couple themselves. When they feel comfortable expressing how they feel for each other in front of the camera, there’s no way that doesn’t transfer to the image. Taking photos of people is always a collaborative and co-creative effort. Depending on the nature of the project, both parties have to be somewhat committed, because the product is always a direct reflection of that.
Urban Eve 