Operation Sanity: Fall 2012

REMEMBER:

1. Mommy is still rooting for you!
2. Go the library if the house becomes too distracting
3. When utilizing your home office, begin your day with a clear, direct, and regimented schedule of tasks that you planned the night before. Turn off the internet connection and get to work!
4. It’s OK to continue sewing, so-called “pleasure reading,” and indulging in an occasional(KEYWORD!!!!) guilty pleasure that is a total waste of time. Mine is watching Basketball Wives {hangs head in shame} or reading Yoga Journal and Lucky. Grad students who act like they are so academically devout aren’t better than me. In fact, they’re probably miserable or lying.
5. As Mini-Me says, “You’re my Mommy not a machine.” Take care of yourself! Lean on your sisters, friends, and mentors. Ask for help! Remember that you ALWAYS  feel BETTER after you run and do yoga and LOUSY after you eat M&Ms. As I take care of myself, I promise to be mindful of burnout. Before I reach that point, I will set any offenders on fire and refuel myself with the energy of the blaze.

Although I started reluctantly, I know this is going to be a great semester!

In a Room of My Own Tending My Mothers' Gardens: The Only Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart...

Broken hearts, burnout, and weary spirits are inevitable. Internal conflict changes us. External conflict may even rearrange our countenace for good or bad (the choice is our own). However, Alice Walker's autobiography says it all in the title The Only Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart.

The only forward motion I could make in the past year was in a circle as I dealt with so much uncertainty, self-doubt, indecision.

It's time to move forward broken heart and all.

Fashion Imitates Art: Jackson Pollock's Action Painting

My very own digital action painting that I creating at http://jacksonpollock.org/

Tights & Top: Target | Cardigan & Skirt: Gap | Cape: BX | Gloves: Vintage | Shoes: Aerosoles

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. 

AN ART NERD'S NIGHT IN

Tonight I'll be home watching my DVD set of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency with the illustrious Jill Scott as Precious Ramotswe.

PLOT: Precious leaves the past and the countryside of Botswana behind to start a detective agency in Gaborone after her father's death. She uses the monetary gifts and priceless lessons that her father has given her to become the best detective in the region.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency has always been one of my favorite shows but I identified with the Precious character more after my Mum passed away. In one episode she says, "When an esteemed loved one dies, she becomes an ancestor. Those she left behind can depend on her wisdom and guidance if they honor her by leading a successful, productive being, living to one's full, god-given potential." Of course I feverishly began to strategically plan my goals, thinking about the lessons that my mother and grandmothers taught me...

Another reason that I identify with Precious is because of her penchant for unconscious munching as she sits in contemplation. It became a nasty habit of mine in graduate school. One of her clients calls her "the fattest tart in Gaborone," and in another case she is taunted by the women that she is investigating at a pageant...my inner critic has gotten to me--just a smoothie for me tonight.

I hope that your night out or in is a great one!

A TRUE FASHION ICON: Happy Birthday Representative Mrs. Shirley Anita (St. Hill) Chisholm (D-NY)

“I want history to remember me not just as the first black woman to be elected to Congress, not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of the United States, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and dared to be herself. I want to be remembered as a catalyst for change in America.” - Shirley Chisholm

Kadir Nelson, Oil on canvas, (2008)
Collection of U.S. House of Representatives

While conducting research at the US Capitol, I got lost looking for Dr. Barbara Wolanin’s office (the Capitol Curator) and ran into Representative James E. Clyburn (D - SC), but I wasn’t half as stunned as I was by Kadir Nelson’s portrait of Shirley Chisholm. He captured her essence with the bold, lively colors and active composition that definitely set her apart from the rest of the Capitol’s stoic and monotone art collection, and justly so.

New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm was a history maker who stunned the political establishment when she ran for the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination in 1972. My reaction was to stop dead in my tracks and take a moment to contemplate just how much Chisholm’s bold actions shattered the glass ceiling to shards for Hillary Clinton (She really should have acknowledged Mrs. Chisholm--just saying) and for me as I meandered through the halls to Dr. Wolanin’s office to conduct my thesis research. I walked down the same Capitol corridors as Shirley Chisholm!

Portrait Unveiling, March 3, 2009

Ebony Magazine, February 1969, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives."  

On a much (much) more superficial note, Mrs. Chisholm is one of my greatest fashion influences. Just look at her wardrobe: her mixture of, color texture, pattern, accessories… Need I say more? She, my Great Granny, and my Aunt Edith have triple-handedly chosen my collection of spectacles. I didn’t feel so bad when I realized that I probably wouldn’t ever be able to wear contacts again. The more that I examine the fashion of African American women and history the more I realize that my admiration may not be so superficial. There is definitely something to be said|researched|written about fashion and its connection to black women’s intellectual traditions.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

As a scholar I call everything that Abraham Lincoln has done into question. However, I am thankful for Emancipation and Thanksgiving (no matter how seedy his motives were).  So I will take off my scholar's hat, put on my chef's hat, and enjoy my gorgeous family. I hope you all do the same. Cheers!

TENDING MY MOTHERS' GARDENS IN A ROOM OF MY OWN



This lamp sold out quickly at Anthopologie but
 there are quite a few sites that offer
 DIY advice to create this
 lamp inexpensively.
As a memento, I may try my hand at this soon .

I had the blessing of having an overtly creative mother and grandmother.  Their talents were so influential to who I am now: how I dress, decorate, cook, and so on. My mother was a gifted interior stylist who had a keen eye for antiques.  As I mentioned in a previous post, she was most interested in the Victorian era and all of its flourishes, florals, lace, and rich wood accents.  One of my five siblings can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm having a very difficult time remembering her ever drinking out of a mug.  She always took her tea in a delicate, sliver- rimmed cup and saucer with two sugars and a spot of cream. When I was little my older sister and I had a tea set as well (and it was not plastic). We often mimicked our mother's graceful morning ritual with our own tea parties.
Somewhere between the age of eight and now, I lost that treasured ease of preparing and properly enjoying tea.  One morning in one of my clumsy moments of haste, I reached for my reusable(ecochic) Starbuck's ceramic cup and cringed as it crashed into shards onto the floor. 
It was the end of an era. Somehow, I feel like I got some of my sanity back-- the sanity I lost during those treks down I-75 gulping enough Starbuck's coffee to keep me up for weeks on end.  I know there will still be some all nighters in my future as a PhD candidate after this hiatus, but I will no longer make it a lifestyle.

I have gardens to tend...    

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."

The Problem with "Non-Trads"

When I started my blog I didn't intend to be a slacker or a one post wonder. 

But life happened....

Like all non-traditional students, I balance a very scary tightrope of marriage, motherhood, research, and working.  Prioritizing is essential.  As such my blogging has come to a halt.  My family is facing a tremendous obstacle, and I must put all my energies into moving a mountain...

I know that anything is possible.  Mountains can & will move...   

The Mid-PhD Burnout

I'm actually more than halfway there, and I feel like a hit a brick wall that is six feet thick.

I never anticipated the amount of politicking that this process would involve.  I went into my program knowing what my responsibilities and expectations were.  However, I had NO idea what my department or adviser's expectations were to me. 

I read Getting What You Came For and Becoming a Master Student before I started my first semester.  I was naive enough to believe that if I did my work excellently and stuck to my plan that I would have smooth travels.  My state of mind was like taking a hike through the Rockies in flip flops with a cup of Starbucks. 

The only thing that has kept me hanging in there is my passion for research in art history and black cultural studies.  I am a quintessential nerd whose heart races as I open my new textbooks and skim through them to anticipate my path through the material.  I get excited in the stationary aisle, because I never want to run out of ink or lead.  Yes -- I was a front row center kind of  girl. 

That was before my plan began to furiously unravel...