I missed last month’s blog post. I apologize...
My hopes were that I would be able to post 15 short video’s I took with my new, (and now newly cracked) ipod. But technology is not on my side in what everyone calls this third world country.
So here are some things I have been doing:
I went on a trip to Kerala, we visited Silent Valley National Park, saw the Kathakali Dance and chained up elephants and took a trek to the top of a mountain where new houses were being built for the Indigenous People there...
I was the featured poet at Urban Solace on international Women’s day and read this poem:
I’m Saree, Addressed to a dress
This is my apology letter to the Saree
I’m sorry that I can’t wear you
Like you deserve
I’m sorry that my body is not equipped
I don’t have the hips
I have no resilience for your shape
I am used to the Barbies body
All butt and boobs
While your covering up your chest and legs but exposing that intimate curve of the hip
I’ve got mid drift
I am that clumsy American girl who sometimes can’t button her flannels right and has ripped shorts that show scarred knees
I have got burgers for eyes and fries for thighs
Where dressing ourselves up in the West is as complex as a zipper and button
Or shortcutting becomes something with elastic
It’s not as fantastic
As the woman I saw today
Tailored to fit
Each piece dancing with its partner, perfect knit
Strong duty and pride hang in the badge that drapes the shoulder
Visual carriers of culture
Your royalty, your queen
But this is not how women are seen
When I do wear the dress of the Indian woman
I put it on my face too
I feel like I am in the costume of a prisoner to a tradition, culture, and for me lack of freedom
Why should I conform to a concept of what a woman should dress like
Its not that I dislike
I just don’t want to be enslaved by an image that’s been pillaged
I will wear sorry on my face because I disgrace India
There’s grace that can be found in each fold of the saree
But my ankles get tangled
You couldn’t even run away because the saree doesn’t stretch in that way
My cleavage might look sleazy but that dress just makes me feel so uneasy
I feel more comfortable in tight blue jeans
Then a lose saree
You’ve got biological genes
And I ‘ve got starry
Eyes
I can make leaps to transcend and cross borders
Trying everyday to make that cultural gap disappear
But I’m sorry
Lo siento in Spanish
En Deutsch es tut mir lied
māf kījiye̐ in Hindi,
Shamisi,
Kodi,
Because I can’t even compromise that much of myself
For your beautiful silks
The textile not influenced by corporate logos
Where’s the artistry in mass production
Handmade block prints is your seduction
I deduct there’s no solution only resolution of the self
You stand behind your husband while the community whispers behind their doors
And I choose
To stand-alone
Nakedly not negotiating any part of me
I don’t want to be that oppressed in my dress
Maybe its because I’m afraid it will make me more like you
We all have complexes about our complexion
I’m not trying to bleach my face
Or burn it in the sun
But embracing its place
Sitting on my shoulders looking out as I humbly apologize to the saree
I visited the oldest newspaper in India and appeared in other newspapers for my poetry reading. http://www.hindu.com/mp/2011/03/11/stories/2011031152041500.htm
I made a gluten free banana cake and took a picture on photobooth of it while in the process burning through the chord of our stove followed by a small electrical explosion and a nice reminder of it on my finger...
I took some other photos on photobooth
I am sitting in the mountains, head cleared, waiting while life passes me by. My sister is here, she is the feeling of arms of love and family around me. How come I still feel a little lonely and lost in this country, on this planet? It may be the impending end of this India journey and the switch to another realty, back to that bubble that is America. Or, is it the thoughts on my impending 20th birthday?
