TENDING MY MOTHERS' GARDENS IN A ROOM OF MY OWN: Spoiled Rotten!

I designed this inspiration board of French women and expats because I've been pretty uninspired to study for my French exam lately. I've let go of the bitterness left by my University's French department failing me because I couldn't get my Mum's death certificate in time to prove I wasn't skipping out on French class; but, I digress. French is one of the two languages required for my PhD and Yoruba is the other. A little visual inspiration should be just what I need to get in gear...

Left to right, top to bottom:
film still from Noir De, Bessie Coleman, Lois Mailou Jones, Josephine Baker, French Vogue, Nina Simone

But as I cut and pasted women into my montage their amazing stories made me feel so small and petty. Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman's level of determination made me hang my head in shame.

Bessie Coleman, the first African-American female pilot was born in 1892, the tenth of 13 children. Coleman got the idea of becoming a pilot while reading newspaper articles about World War I pilots. No flight school in the United States would train her, but Coleman didn’t let that stop her. She took a French language course in Chicago, then, using her savings and the help of some influential friends, she traveled to France. She learned to fly and got her license in 1921 from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale. When Coleman returned to the United States, now a celebrity, she performed in airshows and raised money to open her own flight school. She died in 1926 in an aircraft accident, apparently while flight testing a Curtiss JN-4 (from Bessie Coleman: A Life Less Ordinary, AOPA Pilot Blog, January 26, 2009 by Jill W. Tallman, Associate Editor ).

Nothing kept Bessie Coleman from her dream: not racial barriers, financial barriers, gender barriers, and MOST CERTAINLY NOT A FRENCH LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT. 

The Problem with "Non-Trads," Part II

It’s been a month since I lost my mother due to the complications of a cerebral aneurysm.  I actually wrote my last blog post from a neurosciences center in New Jersey, as I prayed and waited for mountains to move. They did move but not in the direction that I thought they would.  Being the conscientious and consummate scholar that I am, I brought my French study materials with me to the hospital waiting room.  But there was no way that I could focus…

Needless to say, I failed my class. Since I could not produce proof of my Mother’s illness and death in time I could not get an incomplete grade (gotta love academia). None of it mattered and I told the department so.  This small setback will not keep me from my ultimate goal. 

But I will miss my Mommy cheering me on as I cross the stage to become Dr. Elizabeth Carmel Hamilton, Ph.D...

She believed in me, even as I marched in my high school graduation six months pregnant…

I kept an impromptu log of my feelings on Facebook during this ordeal:

7.31- dancing through this storm, to the dopest rhythms of thunder & lightening that only the Most High could compose

8.9- swaying to the sweetest refrain: "peace for despair..." in a melody that's so soothing & so healing -- it's a balm for my vexed soul courtesy of my Creator

8.13- still dancing through this storm to the dopest rhythms courtesy of the Most High--"The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing" (Zephaniah 3:17)

8.18- experiencing a debilitating pain so deep that it rocks my soul; but when I close my eyes I realize that I'm being cradled in the arms of my Creator. I still hear that celestial refrain & soothing rhythm: "beauty for ashes"

8.19- not going outside in the rain to hide my tears. I'm going to join in with the heavens to mourn the loss of her celestial presence. The raindrops fall to the rhythm of a continual refrain: "peace for despair."