Comb

This morning, after showering, my husband could not find his comb.  He walked into the living room, wrapped in a towel.  "What should I use to comb my hair?"

"Use a fork," I suggested.

"Use a fork that has food on it," my older son suggested.

My husband ended up using the ribcage from my older son's model human body, which was lying around disassembled on the counter.

"I don't care, you can use it," my older son said. "That's OK by me."

"It's a Mexican thing, to comb your hair with skeletons," said my husband.

The Sling Diaries: Inspiration, Part II, the images

This is the second of two postings on the Sling Diaries theme of inspiration.  The first posting immediately precedes this one. 

For more information on the history of the locations pictured, please see my Instagram feed: goodtraveller.

Sling Diary: Inspiration, Part I, the words

Note: If you are not sure what a "Sling Diary" is, please go here first.

Hettie Jones was the first mother who inspired me.  I read her memoir, How I Became Hettie Jones, when I was a senior in high school.  I read it, then re-read it once immediately, and then maybe a few times more that year, and then at least once or twice every year since, for the past seventeen years.

Hettie Jones is a writer (obviously) and the ex-wife of the poet LeRoi Jones, now known as Amiri Baraka.  They were married in 1958, had two children in the early 60s, and then divorced in 1965.  How I Became Hettie Jones tells the story of their marriage, which was, of course, truly remarkable for the time, occurring a decade before anti-miscegenation laws were deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.  The book also describes artistic Greenwich Village of the 1950s and 1960s: the lives and work of Hettie and LeRoi, as well as of the writers, painters, and musicians surrounding them, including some of the most famous names of the Beat Generation.

As a teenage girl living in the suburbs and craving sophistication, the subject matter of the book interested me greatly.  I was of course a fan of the Beat writers, and I loved New York City in general and the Village in particular.  Once I started reading, though, I found myself most captivated by the explicit femininity of the material.  This was the first time that I had read a serious female writer who was interested in taking her femaleness seriously. Up to that point, I had not considered wifehood or motherhood or the female experience in general to be matters of serious interest to serious people.  I'm not sure if this is because of old-school feminist attitudes that I had absorbed from my mother and the other Baby Boomer women who were the mothers and teachers of my childhood, or because of outright sexism built into my somewhat conventional education.  Whatever the case may be, I had a firmly-held but largely subconscious belief that women were most interesting and valuable and smart when they were, in essence, "acting like men" - working, earning, achieving, etc.

Hettie Jones, back then

LeRoi Jones, back then

Hettie Jones, in her one slim volume, entirely upended that belief for me.  All honesty and no rancor, she exposes the attitudes, held in even the most "revolutionary" and "avant-garde" circles, that discounted the work, thoughts, feelings, and rights of women who dared to become girlfriends, wives, or mothers.  And despite the brutal pervasiveness of these attitudes, she holds fast to her own  understanding that womanhood as it is -  rather than womanhood wrapped in a cloak of masculinity - can be a matter of interest, a subject of art.  She shows, in short, that womanhood, the explicitly female experience, is worthy of attention.  It matters.

As important as the ideas - integral to them, really - is the voice in which they are expressed.  It is a voice the likes of which 17-year-old me had never encountered before, an unmistakably female voice, a voice that does not imitate or even really respond to any settled, male-dominated traditions.  The voice is confident and clear, pliant and exploratory, loving and joyful.  After many, many, many readings, the rhythms of Hettie Jones's voice have worked their way into mine: I am not sure if I can write a sentence, or even think a thought, that is uninfluenced by her.  Hettie Jones was the first mother who inspired me, and she inspires me still.

For this month's Sling Diaries photos, on the theme of Inspiration, I could think of no better place to turn than Hettie Jones.  My kids and I, together with photographer and Metro Minis founder Bianca Fehn, hit the streets of Greenwich Village, where most of How I Became Hettie Jones takes place.

There is, incidentally, another way in which the streets of Greenwich Village represent inspiration for me.  My father, Ralph Lee Smith, lived in the Village throughout the 1960s, playing folk music and writing.  Here's some incriminating evidence:

That's my dad on the right.

That's him on the right again.  If you find this record, buy it.

On our visits to New York when I was a child and then a teenager, my father would take me through the streets of the Village and tell me stories of the life he used to live there.  He is the first artist I ever knew, and the first New Yorker.  He's also the one who gave me How I Became Hettie Jones.

Accordingly, this Sling Diary is dedicated to my father, Ralph Lee Smith, and to Hettie Jones, two people who have inspired me as woman, mother, writer, artist, and New Yorker.

This is the first of two postings on the Sling Diaries theme of inspiration.  The second posting immediately follows this one.

Sling Diaries Volume III, Love & Adventure: What is a Sling Diary?

Ok, so I need to tell you that I am doing this thing called The Sling Diaries.  What are The Sling Diaries?  Well, it is kind of complicated to explain.  Let's see.  I think I should first tell you that there is a company called Sakura Bloom.  They make baby carriers.  The kind of baby carrier they make is called a ring sling.  Here I am, wearing a Sakura Bloom ring sling.  That's an Essential Silk, by the way.  That colorway, Ginger-Champagne is extinct now, sorry.  Try Sandstone-Pebble.

December 2011.  That baby is nearly TWO now.

Every six-ish months or so, Sakura Bloom chooses a certain number of moms (I guess dads can do it too theoretically, but I don't know if a dad ever has, and I'm too lazy to check), and those moms are "Sling Diarists." Approximately once a month for six months, each Sling Diarist has to produce a "Diary Entry."  Each Diary Entry consists of at least five photographs of the Diarist with her baby in a Sakura Bloom sling, as well as some accompanying verbiage.  The photos and the verbiage are to reflect that month's theme.

For this round of the Sling Diaries, the overall theme is Love & Adventure, and the six subthemes are Inspiration, Memory, Joy, Voice, Kinship, and Wisdom.*  This time, there are fourteen - you heard it right, FOURTEEN - Diarists.  This is like a thundering herd of Diarists, dear god.  But there's reason behind the madness here, and the reason is that the group is split in two.  To wit, half of the Diarists are Instagram Diarists, and half are Blog Diarists.  (That explanatory link is for my father, who is an avid reader of me and who I am fairly sure does not know what Instagram is.  Hi, Daddy!)  I am an Instagram Diarist.  This is like really unfortunate for anyone who follows me on Instagram, because holy mother, am I ever gonna clog up your feed.  Sorry.  Please don't unfollow me.  I love you, I'm just doing my job.  If you don't already follow me on Instagram and you want to, please do so.  My name is goodtraveller.  (I have no idea how Instagram works online as opposed to as a mobile app, so I have no idea if that link will actually do anything.  Good luck.)**

The thing is, I'm kind of a wordy person, and I always have a ton of Big Ideas, and Instagram is not necessarily a great format for wordiness and Big Ideas.  So in addition to posting my photos on Instagram with brief explanatory captions as assigned, I will also be creating blog posts for each Diary Entry.  This is called Going Above and Beyond in Your Work, which is something that I never really did as a student.  Like, I never did the extra-credit claymation videos, you know?  Not my style.  But now, as an adult, it suddenly kind of is my style, I guess because it doesn't involve claymation and because I actually really care about it.  I'm now a Going Above and Beyond in My Work kinda girl, and you will witness said Aboveness approximately once a month here in this blog.

So.  That explains the Sling Diaries.  OK?  OK.  Over and out.

*If you are thinking that illustrating each of these themes with five photographs of me with my baby in a sling might be a little difficult, then we are thinking the same thing.  I am kind of peeing my pants in terror over here.  But fear not, dear audience, it will get done, because it must.

**If you're interested in the Sling Diaries in general, as opposed to just MY sling diaries, you can follow on Instagram (@lovesakurabloom), Pinterest (Sakura Bloom), and/or Facebook (The Sling Diaries). 

Tuesday, April 16

I'm not entirely sure why I am so upset about Boston.  It's a tragedy, of course, a horrible tragedy, but there are many tragedies, all the time.  I'm an emotional girl, I'm sentimental, but I usually don't make such a big deal about news.  I did not cry like this about Sandy Hook.

Maybe it's because this reminds me of September 11.  The city was silent then, and everything was closed, and military planes circled and circled overhead, and it stayed that way for days, and none of us really knew how to look at each other or what to say.  I read certain sections of Gravity and Grace over and over again.  About a week after, when my husband (then my boyfriend) and I walked past a vigil at St. John the Divine, I broke down.  I sat on the floor of the elevator in his building, and I sobbed and sobbed.

Maybe it's because Boston is like that.  Maybe it's because I am a silly inconsistent woman.  I don't really know.

*******

*******

When I first found out yesterday evening, I was in the office of the childbirth education studio. I was supposed to start teaching in 5 minutes.  It was the last class of a 6-week cycle, meant to be an uplifting, warm, and emotionally powerful class.  I did not think I could do it.  My eyes kept filling with tears, and I was frightened.  "We should all be at home," I kept saying to myself, "We should all be at home."  Why were stores open?  Why were the subways working?  Shouldn't we all be at home?  Would there be circling planes?

The expecting couples entered the studio, chatting happily.  No one said anything about Boston.  Had they not heard?  I said nothing about it.  I taught the class, hugged them all goodbye, wished them luck on their journeys.  I went home.  I was feeling so much better that I ate two helpings of dinner and two helpings of dessert, and then caught up on Project Runway before going to bed.

*******

Someone texts me, a number I don't know.  

I hope she doesn't have children.  I hope she hasn't yet heard about Boston.  I hope she is not afraid.  I want to keep talking to her, but that would be crazy.  I put the phone down.

*******

I woke up this morning crying and babbling about evil.  My husband lifted his head and looked at me blearily.  "I'll get up in 2 minutes," he said, "I just want to sleep a little more."  "One of them was a baby," I told him.  "8 years old," he answered, and went back to sleep.  Once he was properly awake, he was lovely and sympathetic.  He hugged me and agreed with everything I said. "We're targets," I said,  "Here in New York.  We're targets all the time."  He did not tell me I was being melodramatic.  He told me that he would drive downtown to work today instead of taking the train.

*******

I'm sad.  I'm so sad that my bones are sad.  I want to send text messages to all of my friends and acquaintances to tell them that I'm sad, but I know that that would be strange and silly, so I won't do it.  I keep checking Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, hoping to find that more people have liked my posts, because I want to feel connected.  I've seen lots of people so far today, but I haven't told anyone aside from my husband about my sad sad bones.

*******

Things are falling out of my brain, random pieces of whateverness.  My mind is open, wide open, not at the top such that things come in, but rather at the bottom such that everything is just sliding out, sliding down my spine, a slimy puddle of my thoughts on the floor.  If my dog were here, I don't think he would eat it.

This is one of the things that has fallen out of my brain, an interaction from days (weeks?) ago:

"Well I dislike that."

*******

Of course, I had to be ill-natured with my children, impatient to leave them with the babysitter.  Of course, I could not decide what to wear.  It seemed very important.

*******

Babeland

Planning

My dearest D,

Over the course of our acquaintance, which I think is approximately 2 months old if one counts the text messages you began sending me before we met face to face, you have more than once teased me, or called me to task, or somethinged me, in regards to what you apparently see as my penchant for advance planning.  

Truly, this has taken me aback.  I don't consider myself to be much of a planner at all.  Quite the opposite, really.  Most of the time, I just feel like a barely-contained mess of impulses, a something-or-other of symptoms, like that person says about Zizek in that Zizek documentary, do you remember that quote, because I can't find it right now?  I certainly do not generally feel as though the ability and/or inclination to plan things are distinguishing features of my personality except in the sense that being both a stay-at-home AND working parent of two young children forces me to be rather uncommonly thoughtful as to the apportionment of my time.

I have been accused, at various times in my life, of being careless, disorganized, flippant, and inattentive, and also uptight, anal retentive, humorless, and overly punctilious.  There seems to be no real pattern to these accusations, apart from the fact that the characteristic in question is usually the opposite of a characteristic possessed and/or valued by the accuser.  So: I am a Rorschach me, endlessly pliable to fit whatever sort of displeasure my interlocutor would like to experience.  Perhaps this is true of everyone to a certain extent, but I tend to believe it is rather more true of me than of most other people.  Because when I used to be a waitress at French Roast - (remember, you asked to hear stories of my "waitressing days"?  well, here's one) - one of the other waiters was very skilled at drawing caricatures. And one night, he drew caricatures of every waiter at French Roast.  This was back when you were approximately 9 years old, by the way.  He had each person dressed in a characteristic outfit, making a characteristic gesture, saying a characteristic thing, and they were all very good likenesses and very well-observed.  Except for mine.  Mine was a decent enough likeness in the face, but really not as like as the others, and he had my outfit delineated in vague lines ("This is a long skirt - you like long skirts, right?"), and worst of all, the speech balloon coming out of my mouth just said "?????."  He explained: "I couldn't really think of anything you say."  And this was a guy with whom I got along really well!  We were both half-Japanese, for gods sake!  I was mortified.  Was I really that much of a cipher?   I wanted so much to be KNOWN.  

Of course, this was partly because I was so young, and kind of hesitant and mixed up (in addition to being enormously impetuous and stubborn).  If someone were to draw a caricature of me now, things would be clearer: the artist would most likely put me in a scoop-neck top with skinny pants and clog boots or possibly my silly muppet-butt feathered skirt, and they'd have me saying "Indeed," or "Lovely," or "Newborns have weird skin," or "In Persuasion, Jane Austen wrote," or "I was at American Apparel yesterday," etc.  But while this incident may point partly to the vagueness of youth, I also think that it illustrates a core truth about me.  To wit: there is a fundamental obscurity and complexity to my personhood such that I am uncommonly unknowable to others, and such that even I get rather muddled sometimes and find myself engaging in certain behaviors only because they match descriptions or ideas that I have heard from others about myself.  Like, for instance, that I enjoy planning ahead.

Anyway, I know that this issue does not matter in particular in the sense that it is not occupying any mental space for you: because seriously who cares if I am a planner or not, and as far as I can ascertain, you are happy to enjoy our friendship in any case.  But it has made me think some interesting things about myself, and I thought I might as well tell you about them.

I hope you are well; I am truly glad that your new roommate has been so lovely; I am not certain that I will have the chance to see you again before the month is up (planning!).  You will most likely see my husband, though, and he will bring you my greetings.

Much love, 

lks