i ain’t smiling and that makes me smile from the inside out.
there are tasks i want to {BE} and do and there are tasks i do not want to {BE} and do.
leaning into those take that bring me joy is what i {Be} and do today and the next day. and the next.
that’s all a bear can ask for. that’s all i want. and {Be} and do.
i ain’t smiling. but i’m wide arse, teeth shining, smiling for me – on the inside.
Aged garlic, deep coloured. Dark brown to black cloves. An ancient East Asian practice of placing garlic in a warm, moist environment to allow the cloves to turn black over time. Something new that crossed my path while visiting a garlic farm on the Isle of Wight last week. Something I got the opportunity to taste within a black garlic, chocolate and cherry cake. Yummy.
Visiting the garlic farm has fostered a new appreciation for garlic and all its properties, culinary and medicinal. It’s a remarkable herb which has been showing up in most of what I’ve been eating since.
The next step is to attempt to grow garlic as I start to create a winter salad garden as part of my applied permaculture design portfolio.
Still doing it even if it’s a slow process and I haven’t updated my permaculture blog in a while. But I’m getting back on it as I complete another Permaculture Design Certificate course with Liz Postlethwaite again called The Gathering. And as I start to complete the permaculture teacher training course as well this autumn so I can become qualified to design and teach my own permaculture design certificate course.
A fellow creative called out for submissions for a collaborative, community zine while she took compassionate leave after a death in her family.
Sarah Shott @ The Compost Heap made the call and I answered with a poem. The theme was hope.
You can read the full version over on Sarah’s website.
My contribution is above along with artwork from Nicole Madonna (Pennsylvania, USA)
Enjoy.
It’s time. Time to be looking down at the ground and seeing the trees’ bounty around my toes.
I love this view.
liminality
in-between spaces
lingering in the midst flight
fugitivity
nowhere at all
the potential of edges
black captives trapped at sea
zones of non-being
“Wherever blackness dwells—slave ship, spaceship, graveyard, garden, elsewhere, everywhere—those captives accessed what Spillers calls a “richness of possibility.” Hortense Spillers quoted in La Marr Jurelle Bruce, How To Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity.
This is what I love.
My camera is my eye. It helps me see what I see better.
My camera helps me to appreciate what I love. Nature.
My photography is an archive and a mediation. It slows me down.
Going out and taking pictures brings me joy.
I’m intrigued my Mother Nature’s expressions. And my camera helps me to take the time with her.
I do not create for an algorithm. I do not create for likes and approval.
I create for me. I create for joy.
Me sharing my creations is like a ‘show and tell’. Look this is what I love.
retro disco. good tunes. way back to our youth. we’re dancing. enjoying the tuuuunnnnneeees.
i kick off my shoes. barefoot in the grass. the cold september grass.
i look around. blond woman staring. pointing at me. talking to her man. me and my bare feet. laughing. i know she’s not saying anything good about me.
i stare back. she sees i see her. she tries to cover her tracks. too late. bitch. i see you.
before. i’d smile. make it appear as all is well. while i bleed from another wound inside.
before. i’d smile. make her feel better. while i die another death inside.
tonight. i ain’t smiling. i give her cut eye. i stare her down. she looks away first.
i continue to dance barefoot. smiling inside.
i’m protecting my peace so i have the energy for me, to {BE} in service for we, the we that looks/{BE} like me
this is all becoming clearer now
i’m not expending or wasting any more time, energy, attention on those (white) people who do not see me. or when they do see me, they do not see me as human
as Akwugo Emejulu says, the black woman can never be a human being
for decades i’ve spent time, energy, attention, through my practice and day to day life, trying to convince others ( white people) of my humanity. i would bend over backwards trying to get accepted, recognised, cherished as a fellow human being
look, please, i’m human. look, please, i feel, i hurt, i bleed. i breathe
no more. i am no longer prepared to play that role. dance this stupid dance. as i will never be accepted, recognised, loved as a human being. the system won’t allow it. (white) people won’t allow it
i’m no longer wasting my energy on proving jackshit
i’m refusing what has already been refused of me ( fugitivity)
i knowing who i be. i am smart, i am kind, i am important ( The Help). and i don’t need/want/entertain any (white) person to tell/grant/recognise me as such
and i’m no longer apologising/ playing it down or safe/ tempering for how i feel/act/ {BE} about this situation
as that just expends/takes/sucks out of me a whole heap and of other energy
i ain’t smiling.
Living Wild Studios 