books books books - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKVcQnyEIT8&feature=share

first stew of winter...

at 4am, i woke to the sound of winter arm wrestling with spring and its lingering warmth. the clouds rushed past a crisp wolf moon...this morning, so cold in hampton. wind blessed every piece of skin as i ran to meeting...later my husband and i ran errands and on the way into the house he says, "this is the weather for a good stew." i nod. i measure the contents of our fridge in my head.

i come inside and pull everything out, fill silver pot with water, seasoning salt, dried red pepper, dried rosemary, sage, tumeric, onion...as i cut i find myself thanking the potatoes and the cabbage for its white heart, i take a bit of the turnip and sweet orange of carrot, dropping them in the already seasoned and boiling water...a half of green bell pepper? never added that to my winter stews, but why not. and a can of creamed corn. can of peas. a dash of cumin. lastly, as the smells rise and their faces turn and leap in the now soup, i add a can of tomato paste...stir with wooden spoon i've had for twenty years, as long as i've had my daughter...this is what i have time for in my life. writing. cooking. praying to things and people who give back to me a goodness i couldn't have withing knowing them...this is what i have time for, a peaceful friday afternoon, sun on my fingers jealous of chilly kiss of the day, and my house smelling like i imagine my grandmother's would if she cooked a special stew for her husband without taking measure of things, but with the health of the world in mind.

Do we really change? In ourselves or the blood?

I've been thinking all week about my "list of things I like to do," posted last Sunday. I wrote this list when I was 15, which minus 43...what's that? (getting calculator...) 28 years ago. Wow. I didn't know that one of the entries, "Discovering more about my Indian heritage" would be a life-long journey, leading me from Kalamazoo, Michigan to the mountains of Californian (where I started on the serious path of ceremony, self-discovery and healing,) and back to Hampton, Virginia where I unearthed all the bones of the family, and all the Indian and Free Persons of Color heritage. At 15, no one in my family talked about the past, and definitely not being Indian in public. It was a nostalgic private knowing, spoken of at family reunions and while washing dishes. This knowing was something that connected us smart-mouth kids to the old timey homesteaders. Those old people were country as the day was long, long Os and sharp "Ain'ts." I clearly remember asking "what's our tribe?" and my sassy mother quipping, "you've got some black, some Indian, some white, French, maybe German and a little bit of black." My ears burned that day b/c I was raised black, but culturally I knew our swampland blood came from somewhere else. That murky door of the past seemed to mock me.
 
Years later, and my eyes are bad now from the painstaking research, hovering over Census books, historical accounts and computer screens, I discovered the trail we took: My great-grandmother was the daughter of Willis Roberts, Jr. (who is buried in our family cemetery in Almena, MI). Willis, Jr. decided to leave his father and uncles in Indiana, where several mixed blood communities from Greenville, NC and Northhampton County, and Virginia, settled. They were escaping the changing times in the south. Both my grandparents' people were born in North Carolina and are listed as Indian, Colored, Free Persons of Color and Black, on tax records and the Census, over a 2-300 year span. Since the first Census in 1790. Okay, I didn't mean for this entry to be a history lesson (and I am on my way to a poetry reading at 2pm), but this is the story of my family. This is in my memoir. Reclaiming that Indian/Person of Color story. I started writing about this b/c I wanted to know, do we every really change, from who we are in the beginning, as a person? I didn't. I still, after years of silliness, having a beautiful daughter, and making too many mistake in my life, am hungry for my legacy. And then, I lay this same lens upon my roots and heritage, did we ever really change, in the blood, from being Indian, just because the titles and labels and some loyalties changed? I don't think so. Isn't this why those who can trace their lineage back to Kings and Queens, even by marriage, are proud? I am proud to be all of it, everything I have found and everything I still don't know. Indian, black, white, the French and German my mother said we are; I am proud to be a curious little tri-racial girl having lived up to some of the things I put forth for myself. No matter how many (generations, wars, marriages, laughter, walking) years later. What I found of our tribes is Cherokee, Coharie/Neusiok, Choctaw (father's side), and some others. But just because I am not fully sure of our tribes' names, who from what tribe married into another, I know who I am. Do you?  http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/neusiokhist.htm

New thoughts for a New Year...

For the last few weeks, as we all have probably done, I've been thinking about what I should focus on for the new year. I found myself returning to things from the past, wondering about childhood things, what I was like, what I thought and why…how I got this way, curious, a writer, teacher, poet. What made me first write and what was I writing when I first put pen to paper to understand, explain and explore what I saw in the world around me, in Kalamazoo, on Southworth Terrace, on the East Side. On Grandpa Stafford’s farm in Michigan.

So, I pulled the heavy black chest from the hallway and struggled it to the floor. The smell rushed up when I flipped it open, cardboard and old paper. Old ink, faded pencil. My journals. I found an entire set from 1985. I was fifteen and the silliest of girls. I hoped I’d find something profound, but no such luck, instead I found this:

“Things I Like to Do”  5-16-85

1. Singing, 2. Baking, 3. Reading 4. Writing (mostly poems) 5. Laughing, 6. Clothes, 7. People watching, 8. Sleeping, 9. Swimming, 10. Basketball, 11. Tennis, 12. Kissing (the right person), 13. Arguing (the right person), 14. Being alone, 15. Filing, painting my nails, 16. Taking showers (for hours), 17. Thinking, 18. Flirting, 19. Learning history, 20. Mysteries, 21. Travel, 22. Hugging my nephew! 23. Magazines, 24. Sitting Indian style, 25. Getting dressed up for something special, 26. Dressing comfortable (bummy), 27. Hearing gossip (not spreading it), 28, Talking with my sister, Rochelle, 29.  Talking with my best friend, Jayda, 30. Irritating my mother, 31. Putting on make-up, 32. Taking make-up off, 33. Doing good things for my body (when I do), 34. Dancing (creative, ballet, jazz, soul), 35. French (language, country, people, kissing), 36. Learning about another country, 37. Getting rid of a dude trying to rap (if I don’t like him), 38. Watching little kids fight, (what fun!) 39. Listening to sounds like water (streams), 40. Listening to storms (my favorite sound in the whole world), 41. Watching storms, 42. Watching animals in their every day life, 43. Making people feel special, wanted and needed, 44. Learning about my Indian heritage, 45. Sitting and observing everything, 46. Getting Bs and Cs, at least, 47. Exploring the unknown (that’s just about everything), 48. Biographies and autobiographies, 49. Acting shy!, 50. The smell of freshly baked bread, 51. The smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls, 52. The smell of hay, 53. The smell of old libraries and books, 54. Just added today, being with someone special.  

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I just turned 43 in December. Looking back, I can't help but cringe, thinking "Are these the ingredients of a writer?" Apparently. Go figure. I spent several hours going through a few years of journals with my daughter and laughing at myself, my weirdness and honesty. My daughter, a college grad in May, laughed especially hard.  

So, if I can keep this New Year’s Resolution, every Sunday, or every other Sunday, I will try to blog about beginnings. Maybe it will, no, it will change and become about everything, because that's the fluidity of language. You start someplace, like in a poem, and end up where you actually are supposed to be--not where you thought you should be.

I want to focus on how that 15-year old girl became this adult. And how we become our adult selves. Is it pressure? Solitude? Friends? What really causes one person to be a stock broker and another a kindergarten teacher? So, if I’m brave enough, maybe I will post the best of it, editing my spelling. Hopefully, you’ll laugh too and think about your own beginnings. Share them with your child, young or older, who will be figuring things out for themselves soon enough. Happy New Year!