A Revolution On A Late Afternoon In September

My First Encounter with Occupation Wall Street was on the 24^th day of The Occupation. It’s now day 55, if my calendar is correct.

It was a warm early fall day when I arrived. Lingering in the air was the faint warmth of August past.

I had taken the subway from Brooklyn and emerged from the Underground at corner of Fulton and Broadway in lower Manhattan. The first thing I heard were the faint rumbles of war. I detected that the sound was coming from the south. I crossed Broadway to get to the other side of the street and headed in that direction. “All Day Every Day Occupy Wall Street” grew louder.

I advertently run right into the march of protestors. Before I knew it, I was marching along with them. I noticed the signs they carried. Some were made out of torn pieces of cardboard. Others were professional looking and graphically designed on art board. One read, “Art by Del La Vega”. On others were inspiring quotes that were made by Albert Einstein , Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther king, Jr.

In stride, I thought about the March on Washington, the protest against the War in Viet Nam, the Women’s Lib Movement, the Black Power Revolution, the Gay Rights Movement, the millions of us who witnessed the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama, the First African American President of the United States of America and the millions that drew.

Finally, I detangled myself from the march. I stood in front St. Paul’s Chapel, were in 1766 General George Washington had once kneeled and prayed before going into battle.

From there, I zeroed in on a sign carried by one of the protesters that read: “I am hungry. I have no job. No place to live.” I was provoked to rush over to this young man. I shoved what was left of a bag of organic trail mix doused with Omega 3, I just happened to have in my bag. The expression on his face was priceless. Gratitude mixed in with shock.

Finally, I arrived to The Occupation of Wall Street site, in Liberty Plaza.  To my utter surprise the Protestors had settled in lock, stock and barrel. Some were laid out and dead to the world, napping under a canopy of sun-dappled leafy trees.

I noticed the proliferation of mattresses, blue large tarps laid out on the grass, cardboard boxes filled with blankets and quilts, leaning against tree trunks. Mounds   of donated used clothes piled up on the bare ground and gallons of water. A fully supplied pantry where volunteers were pouring dripping ladles filled with thick soup into the waiting cups of the Protesters. I saw a dirty hand plucking an original New York Bagels from a plastic bag. New-Age Hippies holding meditation circles under a tree.

This is America circa 2011.

Moi, Mahmoudah

DO WE SAY HAPPY 9/11?

9/11/11

im listening to npr (national public radio's) special broadcast for this day.
lovely. beautiful music. folks are calling in to share
their thoughts, memories of 9/11

i heard someone say recently that americans don't have rituals.
well they might be wrong. i am so moved by
the music playing in the back ground:
now its an adaggio -- not sure of the title who the composer is
earlier a vocal titiled "hallalujah".

there is hope for this world.
at least today we can be one in our memories
of what happened ten years ago.....

of course there is so much more beyond
this day, this moment, this country.
and the truth of 9/11 remains for many
a conspirator theory, but beyond this,
suffering continues. human made.

im looking forward to a better world.
one day at a time
we're alive and have so much to be thankful for ==
family, friends, strangers we encounter,
we give them a smile, a dime.

like nora the homeless woman who was panhandling
outside the supermarket in my hood.
it was around midnight i stopped to talk to her,
to hear her story, how did she land up on the street?
i put a few dollars in her palm and moved on. she
was so grateful, "you a bad sister", her voice fell behind
me, as i walked home through the soft warm
late summer night.

and then there was the young muslim woman who i
met early one morning ,a few weeks back.
she was picking in the garbage can in the
front of the building next to where i live,
rifling through the glass to retrieve empty bottles.
i said, "asalamu alaikum". she smiled. i said
wait i'll be right back. i want to give you some money.
i crawled up the stairs to my fourth apartment. on my hands and knees
like my friend's two year old boy jj does when he comes
to visit me, i was so overwrought
with pain, sympathy, compassion for this woman.

as i handed her the money, she threw her harm around
my neck. thank you she whispered in my ear.

right now, today, "knock, knock knocking on heaven's door is playing on
the radio. its performed by nirvana.

open up, open up... the music fades

do we say happy 9/11.

hum, i don't think so...


whew!

love.
moi

9/11 A running Commentary: The Frozen Zone

September 26, 2001


"Kim Darling,


Thanks for indulging me in reading all my  emails, hoaxes, forwarding of forwards, and things of a spiritual nature you've received from me since September 11..."


September 9, 2011

A new page of American history began that day when I wrote this email to my friend who was living in Milan Italy. In New York ,we kept  telling  ourselves that things are not what they used to . We'd  say, "When things get back to normal." We've even tagged the enormous and insurmountable tragedy that occurred  9/11. A simple phrase that encompassed the enormity of our grief and incomprehension of  what happened on that bright beautiful blue sky morning in New York City that immediae turned to hell and all its unimaginable darkness in less than five minutes, I think it was.

Three weeks later, I am down at the  Frozen Zone on Greenwich Street in Tri-Beca. Two of my daughters are with me. We immediately became  part of large crowd standing behind a police barricade and staring down six blocks to get a glimmer of the remains of the first tower of the WTC. In the waning light of the day, as the sun began to drop quickly out the sky,  I managed to see a black smoking 'something', sticking up out the ground. It appeared to be not of this world., smouldering way down the street.   It was an  ominous sight. A foreboding one at that, resembling, what I imagined   a meteor (or is it meteorite?)   might look like had it crashed to Earth.

It was a scene out of Hell,  or  a Hollywood movie:  "Blade Runner", came to my mind that evening. All the while no one spoke. We stood there in the fading day light,  stunned. in  silence being in the moment and the next one and the next.

Time, had given us  permission to be witnesses to History.

Moi,
Mahmoudah

9/11: A Running Commentary

9/18: Timing

The days drag on. The warmth of Septmeber contradicts a city that has suddenly turned cold.

In the blur of unreasonable times, grief is the  counter point of the rah, rah, rah of patriotism. Red white and blue is the new black  -- the color scheme of tragedy.  Candles set up in makeship altars burn in every doorway.  Melted wax  covers the sidewalks. Pushcart vendors sell liberty in every form and fashion: tee shirts, baseball caps, umbrellas, scarves, pictures of the former World Trade Center. Enamal replicas of Old glory are worn proudly on  the lapels of  men in suits.Their gaits are more lumbering then strutting as they disppear into office towers, now amped up with more security guards, asking for thier  identification cards, and their mother's maiden name at the gate. Everyone is suspect now.

Flowers shamelessly wilt on the street corners like tired whores.  Photographs of missing persons, letters and notes, are posted on every conceivable surface:  Buidlings, fences, trees, lampposts and meeting my eyes, every step of the way as I walk through the mournful surrealism of the New York. 

At home, white candles sitting on my mantle offer a  flicker of hope.  I study the globe and imagine where my family and I might go to live. The Caribbean? My neighbor  suggests New Zealand as such a place. This is surreal. My minds spins back to WTC which I've seen more of in recent months since Adger and I have become an item. His studio in Tri-beca is  not far from there.  Like many, I  have never admired the architectural design of those buildings. Recently  I walked by them and  said to myself,  "God they should tear those things down!" The power of words.

Where are ubiquitous disembodied "They' we speak of  who we think  can solve our problems, when we are actually the ones we are looking for (say the Hopi Elders).


It was about six months ago. I was at the WTC to attended a black and white tie event  at Windows On The World. I wore a black dress. Bag. Shoes.  The affair was in honor of  famous people who were born in the Bronx. Malik couldn't  make it due to  having to film "New York Undercover." I went to represent him. I was seated between two sons of the  borough: Regis and Bronx Borough President Freddy Ferrer, whose a mayoral contender now. Regis chidded  me for being too young to have a son so old. Funny guy. Ferrer was politically polite.

On Tuesday 9/11 at 9 AM , Malik and  were scheduled to be at the WTC. The women we were to meet  with was busy, and rescheduled our meeting for the next day.

Timing.

Running Commentary

The People

Friday

Four days ago the world was what it was. Its changed. How did it come to this?

Demarcation lines in Manhattan have been drawn further uptown. Can't drive south pass 42 Street. Tunnels and most bridges are closed. People can't go home. I can't go into the city to shop in SoHo. I hate the fashions this season. Can't find a thing to wear. Searching for  simple pair of shoes I like, is as challenging as climbing Mt. Everest.

I need something for climbing and running and hiding and thinking and wondering and worrying.

We we are the huddled masses coming to our own shores of redemption and forgiveness. We pray, we chant. Missives of encouragement from friends near and far, fly over the Internet. All circuits are busy. Phone calls to family and friends when you are lucky to get through are priceless.

We are at war. Whose the enemy? Will we win?

We have depended on the Government Men to take care of us for so long, now they have abandoned us like sometime fathers do.  

We are, all of us, The People now.

9/11 A Running Commentary

Day Four: At War

It was a night of  thunder, lighting tossing, turning and pulling on more blankets to stay warm.

The rain is still falling. Hard. Relentless. Crying.

My first thought: We are at war. The world is not the same. I am not the same.

"We should have a plan of action. We just can't sit here and wait to see what will happen next." I told my daughter yesterday.

I tare at my brain, attempting to come up with a solution to the situation. We have three cars among us. There is a house up in Vermont we can go to and stay for a while -- just until this "thing" blows over. We can take a laptop,  money and food. Leave here for a while.. "Buy more water" she said.

We have more water than we need. The work at Ground Zero will be difficult . Dust  turned to sod -- a watery grave of twisted steel, bodies burnt beyond recognition, rendered in hundreds and thousands tons of sorrow and grief.

I want to wake up from this nightmare. 

Four days have gone by. I count and loose count of the hours. Who knows the actual count of the missing and dead? Who will ever know? Where will they take the remains after they have been sifted and sorted and investigated?  Questions? Too many that can't be answered.

I watch the news. Thought I'd see my boy friend Adger with his camera in the crowd taking pictures.   He lives near the towers. He called after the first tower was hit.  He'd  ridden his bike all the way uptown. Stayed over at a friends. Was leaving there to go back home. Why?" I asked. Had to brush his teeth he said.

We spoke again on Thursday. He had managed to slip behind the police barricades and got into his studio. He said that it really smelled bad downtown. That he had to tape his windows shut. The smell -- that's what we can't see on television.

Today, we the people -- the terrorist and the terrified, hold this self-evident truth that is so looming and frightening. My thoughts plummet my mind/heart like the rain that won't stop.

They said it would last for hours -- the rain. We are at war, I keep telling myself. My memories trample over each other and pour out onto the terrain of the day. I remember when I was very young,   my mother would tell me things that had  happened before I was a thought, as she'd say,  or too young to recall. She often spoke about World War Two. The sound of her voice comes forward from the deepest recesses of my mind, "You were a War Baby, you know."  In my innocence, I thought this made me special.

9/11 A Running Commentary: Here in Brooklyn September 12, 2001

Utter Fear:  9/12/01

Today we must do something -- pray, give blood.

We are scared and scarred. Even those of us who are safe and have not lost loved ones in the tradegy are in mourning.  Phone service is iffy. Its impossible to get through to anyone beyond the city. Email has been the best way to stay in touch. We are/I am safe for now. The day will continue to roll out new findings. We will take them as they come.

The commerical airplanes that usually crisscross the sky on their way to LaGuardia and JFK airposts are part of the humdrum of life here in Brooklyn. You get use to the sound after awhile. The roar overhead today is the sound of fighter planes -- a clear reminder of what occured yesterday.  On the ground, we atempt to go about our lives normally, but these are not normal times.  As much as we would like for things to remain the same, they hvae been inalterably changed.

I attempt to push away the visions that threaten to relilinquish me to utter fear: Army tanks from a foriegn country rolling down my streeet, soilders crashing into my apartment. Food scarcity. Water poisoned. Darkness everywhere. This is real/imagined/possible.

Two weeks ago, I was feeling teary. I had attributed this to the change of the season -- my  downhill tumble to Fall.  We are in a seaon of no return. My tears come and go over the simplist things now.

9/11:A Running Commentary

September 11,  2001  Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

Past Present Future

Taking heed from the moment by moment breaking news about what has occured in lower Manhattan this morning; that's still unraveling and  unclear as to who and what done it, I walk over to Myrtle Avenue, the shopping strip in my neighborhood. There I will  buy candles, water, canned tuna, sardines and other canned  goods that can be eaten out the can at the Korean Bodega and to withdrew money from the bank. These precautions are  in case everything goes down. In the meantime, my neighbor downstairs has rushed over to another part of Brooklyn where her son and my grandson go to school to bring them home.

I was born in the mid 1940s and grew up in 1950s. It was a time of Senator Joe McCarthy a right-wing Republican's  witch hunt for Communists  hiding under the bed, the A-Bomb Scare and watching black and white World War Two movies, starring Audey Murphy Yellow and black signs indicating bomb shelters are "Here",  I am well informed about what to do when you're under attack.

Given the circumstances of the day that continues roll out in undulating shock waves of horror and stagnatingly awesome  truth, I  suggest to my landlord that he unlock the door to the basement in our building.  "We might have to go down there for shelter,"  I reason  He chuckles. 

While shopping for supplies to hold us over until this 'thing' blows over,  in a sudden burst of inspiration, like birds set free from a cage,  out of my mouth flies,  "Did you know that the end of Manhattan Island has bad vibes? I can feel it when I am there?. I am  directing my opening line and eyes to a woman -- a virtual stranger whose the only other person in the store besides me. She's  standing near the dairy section,   The owner, is in the front of the store, gaurding his cash register.

I continue. " It was once a place of terror. It was African Slaves  whose white owners had them build a wall to  keep the Indians out, so they couldn't attack them and  steal their money ? That's where the name Wall Street comes from." 

My unsolicited history lesson rings out in the store like a shot in the dark, and begins to fall  like mist spraying over the bunches of collard greens, kale,  spinach  and mound of red cabbage.  The woman now gives me an indicipharal nod, a juandice eye and twist of her mouth, as if to say,"What are you talking about lady? She moves on and begins  picking over tomatoes on the vine.

Between her quizzicle look , and the owner's happy smile, which supplants for his limited knowledge of the English language, I wedge in, "They shouldn't put office buildings there anymore. A park for peace to redeem the area's dark past, would be a better idea, I believe."


.

9.11.01 a running commentary

Live With The Ease of Your Heart

to all the people in the world,

did you ever think about the fact that love can't be measured in amounts --  too much or not enough because its more about a person's capacity to give herself/himself/themselves to the other(s), wholly and unselfishly. but first there is self love, which is not to be confused with self-importance. 

anyway, do you realize that every person on this planet are souls, hauling around our bodies (the spacesuits we need to live/survive here?). further no matter how dire one’s life is, humans for the most part, will fight to the bitter end not to die. and more so, that no matter what the circumstances: war, famine, drought, genocide, sickness we are fiercely addicted to living, even though we harm ourselves in so many ways.  

my other thought is that i equate all grown  up people to children. that no matter how old we are, in some ways we never grow up. say we might bump into each other. we get an attitude over this, or something that’s so unimportant and we begin to make  a mountain our of a mole hill. one shouts out,   “you did this. i hate you." i am gonna kill you." how often have you heard yourself say this? hummm. or :i don wanna play this game with you anymore!” and then  other one shouts back even louder. so we fight to make a point. if we’re in a relationship we might separate, or get divorce. o r if we’re a country our government  simply drops bombs on the other country to make it clear about how much we don’t like the other one.  in the process no one wins. we all get rubbed out and robbed of something.

as no two thoughts can occupy the same space, there can never be two winners of anything unless both players are seeking the same end game. say its a war for peace (a totally oxymoron). and besides,  your peace might not be my peace. it’s a loosing battle.

anyway,  veering  way off the subject, if in fact there was one to begin with,   this morning, very early when the sun was not up yet,  i woke up. it was around 4am. i stumbled to the back of my huge mansion heading toward veranda, when suddendly i paused in mid-stumble to  listen to a mediation cd. actually i didn't make this decision it was more that it was made for me.  i picked up the disk.  I said  lets' do this! (to myself.)

i listened and followed the voices of the people who were recorded on the disk.  each one was  smooth, warm inviting and loving. i sat in a chair as i was instructed. opened my eyes to no more than a slit and stared  through  my eyelashes (which are mine).   i breathed in and out.  i was asked to sit up on my sits bones. not to lean my back against the chair so that i could feel myself in a different way --  and to just allowed myself to be.

one minute then two minutes and then more and more time passed by in silence,  except there was the sound of me breathing -- conscious breathing that is.   then i stood up and began walking ten,  fifteen steps through my home: back and forth,  leading up to the finale of the meditation. and then i sat down in the chair again.  while doing this i was instructed to say repeatedly, “ i am safe. i am healthy. i am happy. i live with the ease of heart. " 

lastly,  i was to tell all the people in the world to be safe, healthy, happy and live with the ease of your heart. 

stay lovely

moi,
mahmoudah

my thoughts written in lower case

dear friend,

thank you for sending me the email regarding the gardener you’ve asked me to pass along and were you stated: "i hate doing this, but…”.

i find it interesting, how often we do things we hate doing. case in point is how you and all of us at some point when we’re faced with the task of not breaking the chain of these well-intended blessings, prayers, jokes, money angels, psalms, buddha wisdom and now the flowers, which my friend had sent to me against her better judgment recently.

though in our heart of hearts we really don’t believe our lives will change by doing this frivolous and simple act (which we hate doing),  our fear causes us to dither back and forth on the chalk line. invariably we succumb to the task.  conversely, should we decide not to play this game which causes us to do so in ten secs flash, where we scurry around in our memory banks to hustle up the names of our dearest and best ten fav friends, to whom we must send this sort of email on to, in order to assure ourselves that the circumnavigation chain of these valuable missives will not be broken.  in turn, the recipients will do the same. most will begin by saying, “I hate to send these kinds of….” eventually the blessings or money might come might back and bite us all in the ass. so far, i have not won any money from this type of lottery!

on the subject of fear,  is our growing old. we know we can't do a damn thing about it.  to this, the other day i was listening to the leonard lopet show on national public radio. or perhaps i was watching tee vee. as you can tell, my confusion as to which form of media i was engaged -- listening to/or watching, has completely left the room!!!. with certainty my lapses of memory is a clear sign of me lacking daily large doses of gingko.

anyway, as i move further into life, which  i prefer to say rather than using the "o" or "a" words --  that somehow by me not uttering these three letter words is my way of veiling the truth about getting older. further, by me not mouthing the truth, might somehow miraculously stall  life's progression. and then i think to myself, "well honey what about old money and old cars (as in vintage ) or wine and the old country? none of these seem to bother me. so how is it that when i speak about time’s passing, do my thongs get all twisted in a bunch! um i am not referring to my havaianas flip flops here! 

are you laughing yet?  

anyway, the other day there was a wise woman on lopet’s show, as i began to say a few paragraphs ago. she spoke about  the tick-tocking of our personal clocks that will undoubtedly stop one day.  she asked the listening audience, "why are we so afraid of growing old? adding, can't we get it that aging is a gift, rather than something we must fear and fight to the teeth. the teeth by the way, which we habitually and ferociously whiten to look younger.  btw have you ever watched old movies on turner movie classics, say one starring charlton heston, playing god or one of those old dudes from biblical times, who’s teeth are as yellow as lemons!  just wondering.

further, how is it that we use hair dyes to cover ‘the grey” and diet pills to get back to the clothes size we wore when we  were ten years old, and potions of anti-aging creams, which we smear on our faces and bodies in such a frenzy that one would think our minds were slightly bent toward the left? (or right). this is not political thinking on my part, but something that runs straight down the middle of the aisle of life and  death.

eternally yours,

 moi mahmoudah

ps: omg!!! its suddenly , lightening and thundering outside!!!!! i wonder if is this a sign from god,  aka charlton heston, that i will be damned for the rest of my years, because i broke the chain by not sending the flowers from the gardener my friend had sent me even though she hated to do so, on to someone, which I utterly hate to do and therefore have refused to play the hold my breath and wait game any longer!

oh well.

in our own time

of  late, i've been spending time with four of my 11 grand children, ages 15 - 19, who are working with me on a project that began before summer arrived.

it’s been a gas, as we used to say back in the day. and intense. but,seeing them interact with one another in a group effort, which has required them to  problem solve and systems think is an amazing experience for me and them as well.

i hear the music  they listen to as they work. sometimes a lyric jumps out at me affronts my senses, or the stinging verbiage of profanity might do this as well, causing me to completely lose my cool. particularly when i hear a reference to a female's  body part that totally misses the mark of her actual anatomy. this level of ignorance  causes me to think about the miseducation of young people in america, to the point i to want to puke, as my rebuttal to the wholesale dumb leading thee blind syndrome is pandemic in our society.

i am a bonified elder 'cause i've been around the block more times then i can remember and i do cuss at times. at the same time, i don't think i 'm a poster child for the older person, chomping down on a wad of tobacco and rolling it around in my toothless mouth with my tongue and waiting for the next day to come and go.  actually i consider myself to be quite youthful and liberal and hip and open minded and inspired about life for someone my age. and so with my grand kids, we talk about everything from sex to economics to politics and the wars. we cover the gamut of  rap music and revolutions. we also dither over our questions about strife and storms occurring all over in the world these days, and then moving onward to religion and upward to god or billions of people's idea of 'a god' and the quandary this still imposes on human beings leading to bloodshed and annihilation in the name of god.


my grandchildren are all smart and wise and good looking and talented and creative. i love learning from them. for example the symbolism of the Buddha’s' long ears that often appears in statues of him, or how political polls are created from samples of imaginary groups of people and not actual people who we are led to believe just happen to be standing on the corner of main street or wall street when a pollster appears from out of nowhere and starts counting. i worry about some of the stuff they take into their senses and pores from society on a daily basis , such as genetically reorganized food, petroleum in tooth paste, corn syrup that the human body has no idea how to digest; the terror of cell phones and the damage they are doing to their brains. or  the games they play incessantly  on the internet and their pads;  or the disembodied social networking  that has done away with true human connections (as i am guilty of doing right now).

further, i am concerned about the more far-reaching dangers that lurk about in the dark minds of men who run/ruin the world, all of which has given me an opportunity to chime in with the kids some story or political view point i might share with them or an historical reference that somehow is stored in my brain, as if i were a lending library and suddenly a hidden memory or piece of information i learned ages ago, presents itself as a thesis for our conversations. whew, was that a long run on sentence or what?


any way, recently, i heard about the danger of listening to music through ear phones. i shutter at the thought that the next generation will be hard to hear folks, which will include my grandchildren. Humm 

also in our talks, while we work, my grandkids and i  might cruise along the road about safe sex, or the recently passed gay marriage law, and then suddenly jump over the divide and talk about visual art, or skate boarding as a sport or theater and then we  might  switch over to the opposite lane going against traffic, where i tell them stories about my childhood and the simple games i once played growing up in harlem, and how my friends and i would  get so excited when one person in the neighborhood got a television set or when the watermelon man, who drove a  horse drawn-wagon, laden with ice and melons that used to have seeds! and that people who had telephones used a party line (to mean that your neighbors could listen to the person on the other line gossiping about them), and most people didn't have phones because they were a luxury item back in the day.

or i might tell them a story about the night i spent in the great pyramid in egypt in more recent years,  which  inspires them to want to travel,  or i might retell them a story my mother told to me when i was a girl, that has stayed with me all my life.

so the kids know stuff about racial segregation and martin luther king, jr's d march on washington and about  slavery ,which they are taught in school. to them this information is somewhat of an abstraction, which causes me to understand that they live in the world now, and to speak about these things of the past , might make me  seemed dated to them! but i know when they are older they,  like me,  will look back to this moment in their lives and might recall what we shared this summer.

to this, it was two summers ago that one of my younger granddaughters, whose bi-racial, came to visit me at my home in brooklyn precisely to learn about my side of the family. oh, before i go further, the kids are color blind when it comes to 'others'.

anyway, my granddaughter took notes as i told my stories to her!  she also shared with me what her great grandmother, whose  of spanish and caribbean indian decent on her mother's side, had told her about her past. that my granddaughter. then age 11, had the mind to inquire about her history on her own volition amazed me!. I was esthetic to be able to share with her what my mother had passed down to me about the our family.

at times  i think back to my youth and when my mother would say to me, "jazz what's that noise? you call that music?" well i try not to asked this question of my grandchildren in the same way or tone in which my mother spoke to me. but if rock music is being played on my bose, as it was the other day while they were here working, i offered, "you see kids the difference between the artists of today and back in the day, musicians and singers knew how to read music, and play a real instrument. and they sang not yelled; and did you know that rock used to be called rock and roll and that white people stole this music  from us?....blah, blah, blah. sharing this really put me in my place as an elder. i think.

i also feel though that my grandkids and I , meet somewhere in the middle. we are standing on a common ground of intergenerational diversity, and as i offer them stories about the past,  they school  me about the present. together we are all moving  toward the future in our own time and rhythm. with our own reasons for being here at this time in the human story we all share.



 moi,
 Mahmoudah

Just(ice) for Fathers

Father’s Day is celebrated in countries around the world at different times of the year. Here in America the first Fathers Day was celebrated on July 15, 1906. It was organized by Grace Golden Clayton, in response to a deadly mining accident in Monogah, West Virginia that claimed the lives of 210 men including her father.

However, it was over a sixty year period beginning, in 1906 that Clayton and two other women, Sonora Dobbs and Margret Chase Smith who in this span of time, fought to make Father’s Day a legal holiday in this country. Collectively these women’s efforts had required the involvement of four U.S. Presidents (Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Bain Johnson). Finally in 1966 Johnson signed a bill that made Father’s Day an official holiday that falls on the third Sunday in June.

While Iam on the subject of Father, I thought you might find it interesting that non-human males who have offspring, for example the Waterfowls (geese, swans, gulls and loons) are very protective in raising their off spring and that Empress Penguins incubate their eggs (not the moms). If you saw the movie, “Happy Feet” you already know this. Beavers fiercely protect their off spring (along with the females during the first few hours of their children’s lives.  It’s not long after they are born, that the father begins to teach them how to search for materials needed to build and repair their own dams, this of course is a lesson in survival. Wolves are known to help feed and protect and play with their off spring as do Dolphins. Then there are the Silverback Gorillas, who’s  role  it is to protect their families from harm as well.

On the opposite side the father protection coin, male bears leave the female bears shortly after mating with them and they are known to kill and eat their cubs.  Geeze.   Obviously this fact totally kills the image of the friendly Papa Bear (as in warm and cuddly children’s story “The Three Bears”) or the Northern Toilet Paper television commercials!

Moving on.  Domestic dogs couldn’t care less about their pups. Unlike Wolves they are more likely to abandon the mother’s of their children right after mating with her. Hmm.

Male Lions, barely tolerate their cubs. Some are even mean and cruel to their young. But the cuddly Rabbit have more tolerance for their kits, though they tend to be a bit rough when playing with them, especially with their sons. Horse Stallions are in complete denial about their roles as fathers.  With some  species both the father of mother couldn’t care less about for their off spring, leaving them to their own devices to survive in the wild.

And lastly, I thought you might be interested to know that International Men’s Day (celebrated around the globe) falls on November 19^th each year!  

To all you dads out there, please enjoy your special day!

Moi,

Mahmoudah

From Darkness to Enlightment

The Buddha once said, "Even a theif loves his family."

What remains in the wake of Osama bin Ladens's uncelebrated and unattended burial by water, is the suffering and grief of his widows and children, which allows me to think that somewhere

within this tourtured soul, there must have been at least a molcule of love.

I am in no way, condoning his actions. Rather I am wanting to think that Osama bin Ladin reflected something dark in our world, in order for humanity to wake up to our light. That's a tall and and impossible concept for many people to injest. I know. 

Buddism also teaches about the karma of a people and the country where they are born and live. And that what goes around comes around as we Westerns say to explain the implacable Eastern Religous concept of the deeds of one's past life circling around and showing up again in other incarnations somewhere in the Universe.

About compassion, which is the basis of Buddhism, I offer my condolences to the wives and children who have lost a husband and father. For to put Osama bin Laden outside the context of the human family  as this relates to his private life,  is as if to suggest we ourselves don't exist.

Regarding bin Laden as the orchesrator of the Holocust that consumed the lives of nearly three thousand people at the World Trade Center in New York city,  this year the Memorial to the descesed will rise like Pheonix with cinged wings out of the flames of the past during the unveiling of the Memorial on 9/11/11.

When I look at the archtectual renderings  of the memorial I am uttery astounished by the immesity of this project and the awewome beauty that has come from such pain and grief.

This past week our President Obama gave orders for the take down of Mr. Bin Ladin. The next day his body was intered in the sea. Two days later, our President was in New York City laying a wreath at the foot prints of the WTC memorial site.

It is through our pain and suffering that one achieves enlightment, the Buddha also teaches us. 

                               "Imagine"- John Lennon

To Birther or Not to Birther

Hmm my spell check won’t accept the word Birther.

Here’s the thing, if birther were an actual word, it would refer to a female (human or lower animal) who has given birth; not the one who is or was born. You see my point?

Now I am wondering what the new term will be as The Trump begins his new investigation to mount the public’s consensus against the legitimacy of the standing President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, higher education?

Honestly what I would give this individual whose sense of hair do is as crazy as his mind, and the hole in face is standing in for a  ‘mouth’  that utters much to do about nothing,  are the old diapers The Barack once wore when he was born in the United States of America, and had shat in!

Yes folks, s-h-a-t, is a word. It’s the past tense of the noun, shit!  Meaning 'one who …' well I think you get my point.

Moi, Mahmoudah

Eman Al-Obeidy: The Whore Of Libya

This blog you will read below, I had written on the last day in March in recognition of Women’s History Month. The news report from which I  drew my inspiration,  didn't have much information about the woman in Lybia. Many people hadn't heard of this young woman, Eman Al-Obeidy who is a lawyer. Her story is tragic and at the same time triumphant. On Anderson 360 last night, we heard what is thought to be Ms. Al Obeidy's testimony translated to English where she reported that she was  sodomized with guns,repeatedly beaten, and raped by her captors. I paraphrase what she said:  My life  it is beyond this; it is meaningless, I don't care if I die; I just want people to know what is happening to me and other women in this country.
Eman, I saw you on television last night. You were outraged, and disheveled.  I saw your beauty, and felt your anger and pain. I understood your fury. I applauded your noble stance you have taken in the throes of your country’s upheaval.  You have inserted your own pain and made the world aware of what’s happening to women as the men go about fighting for their liberty. Your mere presence has sparked such terror in the souls of an entire country it seems.

It was reported that it was an army of men, who purposefully perpetrate a war against you; that you have been raped by 15 soldiers. Now you are imprisoned for their sins -- disappeared to an unknown location. I shutter, at the thought of what might be happening to you since you were last seen.

Fifteen men you say, who have misused the instruments of love as a weapon against your holy body and mind?  

I too fear for these men, who cannot see their mother in you, or their sisters or daughters. How blind they are, to not be able to see themselves in your eyes when they raped you.  For surly you must have thought about your son, brothers or father who sit with you at the same dinner table and who sleep beside you at night. Did you wonder if they were like these men?

Oh you Whore of Libya, I am also given to understand from the news report I watched on CNN last night that you’re insane. Well of course you are, as the image of your madness was clearly evident and repeatedly televised, to prove that you are out of your mind.  I watched you scream and shout and witnessed you being dragged away from the camera and shoved into the back seat of a car. I saw someone throw a black coat or something, over your head as if this would make you null and void in my mind.

Could it be possible, that you the Whore of Libya, who allegedly  took on these fifteen men like a champ, are part of a long line of women in your country who are silenced? And that you have broken this code by choosing to speak out about the age old atrocities, visited on women not only in Libya, but all over the world”

And if what you say is true, I am wondering if you will be seen as one of the heroes in your country’s war for liberation?   I am wondering if the women in your country are allowed to be heroes. Because clearly sister, you are well qualified to be Libya’s Whore.

I Want

I want to walk along the edge of time.

I want to meet a perfect stranger.

I want to romp and sing in the rain.

I want to dance when someone is looking.

I want to crawl among the stars.

I want to kiss the man in the moon.

I want to feel like a kid again.

I want to fall in love with love.

I want to cry unitil I laugh.

I want to hear the sound of peace.

I want to be a perfect stranger.

relatively synchronistic

the night of the earthquake in japan, leading to the tsunami, water ran from my kitchen sink and downstairs to my neighbor’s apartment.

the synchronicity of the two floods obviously can’t be compared by any stretch of my imagination, but the relatively lesser tragedy, of my neighbor's ceiling collapsing was as horrific to her, as the homes in japan being swept away.

this incident has caused me to take note that i must take more time, rather than rush through my days, as if my hair is on fire or that I have a plane to catch, as i so often do. further, i must not forget to turn off my stove and oven when not in use. more so, i might want to contemplate my navel more frequently, pay attention to my breath
and listen to my heart on a regular basis.

that i must focus more, give more thought to one thing at a time, rather than to think or worry about what i have to do tomorrow or the next second; that multi-tasking is an accident waiting to happen, as was so sorely evident on the night of the flood.

Josephine Baker A Universal Treasure On The Paris Noir Trail

Paris Noir, (Black Paris) is less than a place and more so a memory lane to where many African American’s make their pilgrimages every year. Their journey is as sacred to them as one going to Mecca, Benares or the Vatican. Along this trail one of the most universally recognized treasures is Josephine Baker (b. 1903).

At 18 years old, Baker a native of St. Louis, Missouri, was a dancer. She, had come to Paris to perform at the popular café, Bricktop’s (66 Rue Pigalle. The club’s owner was what was then termed, a Negro woman named Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Smith from West Virginia. Smith was in her business the equivalent to an Empress who held all of Europe’s royals, American dignitaries, celebrities and writers who had haunted her place till many early morning dawns in Paris, in the palm of her hands. It would be for nearly a half century that Bricktops was the place to be and to slum with America’s writer Ernest Hemingway and music composer Cole Porter and Europe’s Duke and Duchess of Windsor, to name a few blue bloods and luminaries.

After World War Two had ended, Baker stayed on in Paris and would eventually adopt France as her country. She is still loved and remembered by the French people who claimed her as their own, had anointed her “La Baker”, connoting her stature and unique qualities, as an entertainer, a screen actor a humanitarian and citizen of France.

During her life, Baker’s image was the face (and body) on products from theatrical stage bills to automobile engine lubricant and everything in between the two. Today, her iconic image is highly valued by interior designers and collectors of objects baring her recognizable banana skirt and bare breasts found on curios, posters, caricatures, lithographs picture postcards and book covers, such as “Negrophilia, Avant-Garde Paris and Black Culture in the 1920s” where Baker is posing with her famous pet cheetah.  It is also very important to remember that Baker, though having left her native country, America she had returned there to join Dr. Martin Luther King in his march for Civil Rights and racial equality, in the country where she was born, but one that never fully embraced her.

While visiting Paris, visitors and natives alike can take a dive in the Josephine Baker Swimming Pool, located on the banks of the Seine. (Paris’s famed river), known for its nine bridges that connect the Right and Left banks of the city, including the oldest one of all Pont Neuf.

During Baker’s lifetime, she held the prominence of being the most fabulously dressed, and most famous and wealthiest female entertainer in the world. And as a patriot of her adopted country, Baker was awarded the highest medal of honor in France for her bravery (working as a spy) in General Charles De Gaulle’s war against the Germans who invaded Paris in 1939. Tragically, she died a poor woman.

Baker’s last home, a Château located in the French Countryside is now a museum and though off the beaten track is included on the Paris Noir Trail.

It is there where Baker had lived almost to the end of her life, and where she raised her 13 adopted children, born in different countries,  who she called her Rainbow Tribe.

In New York City, on West 42^nd Street, is located Chez Josephine. The restaurant’s owner is Baker’s son, Jean Claude Baker (#13) of the tribe. It is a charming place, evoking France and a befitting tribute to his mother’s style and class and most significantly, Josephine Baker’s contribution to World Peace, World Culture Fashion and History.

Thanks again for coming to Moi, Mahmoudah. This blog is written in celebration and acknowledgment of Women’s History Month 2011.

Collague Mahmoudah Young

To Live in Hell, When the Devil is the Leader of Your Country

About Libya:  I take a moment  to peer at the evidence of what has taken place there in the last weeks.  To this,  I happened to turn to CNN the other night.  I stayed glued to Anderson Cooper's 360. He was speaking to a woman who was stuck in her apartment in Tripoli, the capitol of the country. Her voice was weak and thin; the tone scantily shrill, as she held on to the conversation with Cooper for dear life, conveying her situation to the world via her cell phone.

We will never know her face.  She will remain nameless forever. However  that night, hers was the lone voice that gave the world a thumbnail sketch, taken from the larger picture of violence taking place in her country. Her words were  caught  in her throat and snagged on her confusion and fear, as she delicately described the shootings and killings of innocent people  that was takin gplace right outside her door. She didn't know if someone could hear her voice. That it might be someone standing on the other side of her door ready to kick it in. Her uncertainly was potent.   I could touch it; feel it scraping the insides of my mind.

"Help us please" she repeated many times.  "Please tell your President Obama, please." she repeated this again and again.  Finally her ragged  refrain had lost its  grip, and the conversation between she and Cooper ended.

During that conversation, I asked myself,  how was she and the other people with her feeling? How would I feel if it were me?  What would I do? I wondered if they had food or water to drink? could they bathe? Could they sleep? How their normal life was suddenly on hold  as they waited their turns to be saved or killed. I wondered how many there were -- if they were young, old, sick -- men, women, children?

Their situation reminded me of the six women in Rwanda, during the genocide that took place there.  How these women had pressed their bodies together in a very narrow shower stall inside an empty house for days.  Maybe it was weeks.  While right outside, there were soldiers with machetes, roving around in the garden searching  for the next arm or leg to hack off.

Another more far reaching time in our human stories, is when people in Europe during the 1930's where faced  with the a mad man in power, named Adolf Hitler. There was once a fourteen  year old Jewish old girl who not being able to go outside and hang out with her sister and friends, for four years had kept track of her daily boring life while she and her family and a couple who argued all the time, hid under the eaves of a house (as I  recall). They were eventually found and disappeared from the world.

This  young girl's experiences are contained in the book titled,  "The  Diary  By Anne Frank". Frank's daily entries, would eventually inform future generations of what it is was like to live in hell when the devil is the leader of your country.   I read this book when I  was in fifth grade.    I was 11 years old.

Moi, Mahmoudah

The Sky Is Falling

I sit in the quiet and  stillness of my apartment.  I glance out the window. I write.

It’s a sentimental and cold morning. On the other side of the window,  on my  deck are the dregs of the recent snow storms that had continued to pile and pile on top of one another over the course of several  weeks, until the banks were so high, I could have been buried up to my neck. The pollution of New York City has turned what is left of the snow disgusting and black. 

I notice that the sky is blue and pink and cloudy.  A squirrel has just dashed by my window.  The wind is hallowing. It's echoing sound is like that of an old man in pain. The wind chimes ring in response to this force of Nature. The music is lovely.

I glance out the window again. The sky is low, causing  me to wonder if its falling?

I'm wondering now if people have heard that the Earth has moved to another place in the universe causing North and South poles to have moved to other locations as well? Or if anyone out there is aware there are now thirteen houses in the Zodiac rather than twelve? Now I am a Virgo -- the humanitarian, rather then a Libra always needing to keep things in balance.  No wonder I've been feeling off balanced lately. 

Often I wonder if what's  happened to Planet Earth --the repositioning of its axis, etc.  has something to do with  the  natural disasters that are occurring and people's uprising all over the world?  That every day is a replay of yesterday's news, and My Yemen is Your Ohio.

As an aside, am I the only one who has noticed  that time has collapsed -- as it seems that last Wednesday was only yesterday and in a blink of the eye its Monday morning again?

I think  perhaps that what's going on right now might be a  precursor to 2012, the year the world is predicted to end.  I question this theory though, that in December of next year, the world will just stop spinning and we can all get off? Are  we all going to just slide off the edge and die of something? And then of course should this prediction come to pass  only a chosen few will ascend to heaven, and the rest of us will go to hell. Well just wait a minute here, lLet's take a moment and  a good look at the hell that's right here on earth right now will ya? And is there any possibility that you or I might have something to do with the mess we often watchon television from the comfort of our homes? Hm mm

As Marvin Gaye once sang, what's going on?, I watch  the news on tee vee and  The other night after I was blue in the face from Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper's reports, I  clicked over to the Current TV Channel, which Al Gore help found in the 90's. I saw a documentary about grade school children in India. They wore uniforms -- the boys had on neck ties and dark blue blazers, which made them look like little men. They all spoke very well -- in Indian accented English  of course, since at one time in World History the British owned most countries in the world including India and its people, and therefore.... 

So one of the students talked to the camera. I leaned from her about the Green Revolution she and her peers have organized to save the planet.  She is 11 or 12 years old. Ancient in her way of being. An old soul as we say.  I learned that these kids had a protest march with signs and placards, and chants and their own version of “We Shall Overcome”. Their agenda is for once and for all to rid our planet of the toxic waste and the  dangerous fumes caused by plastic that has become the air we all breathe (in case you haven't noticed). Their argument was that the adults are slackers and are lagging too far behind in the effort to do something before its too late. They had the technical language of the chemical reactions of plastic and the effect this has on oceans and marine life down pat. I  sat back and listened, learned and applauded them for their vision, wisdom intelligence and t determination and courage to invest in their own future and ours.   

I am now remembering another documentary I recently viewed.   It was about the tribes  who live on top of the world in the Himalaya Mountains, at the highest point -- The Roof of the World as its called.  These people  teach their babies how to ride horses before they learn to walk. Their way of life is wholly connected and reliant on the land. They grow their own food. They drink clean water; they  use their animals for transportation, milk and fur and fat and bones. All of their life is held in the balance of Nature. I learned that if I sneeze they catch a cold.  If I don't decrease my carbon footprint this tribe will become extinct.

To be continued...

Moi, Mahmoudah - Brooklyn, NY

The World Famous Apollo Theater’s New Music Café

In New York City, last Friday night, “Joi’s Futuristic Throwbacks – The Apollo Session with Devon Lee’ opened the flood gates of the World Famous Apollo Theater's Music Café. The venue  billed as Harlem’s newest night spot, offers“…a unique experience for its audience, featuring diverse performers across a myriad of music genres…R&B, Hip Hop, Soul Jazz, Pop, Funk and Rock—transformed by cutting-edge artists in a stylize lounge space…” and runs through June, 2011.

On the night I  was there, as ticket holders arrived in the lobby they were immediately cast as silhouettes by the light boxes sitting on the floor in the open space. The  surrealism added to the exhibit of the abstract work by Harlem based artist, Dionis Ortiz that were hung on the surrounding walls.

At 9 PM, an hour before the show was to begin, it was a full house. I sat on a bar stool, my elbows kneading into the top of a high boy table, at the back of room; playing the role “The Silent Observer". I  had been hired to design and stage the space that now seemed to have magically turned  the Apollo Theater’s Sound Stage into a cafe, filled in brushed steel café tables, classic Thornet bentwood café chairs, bar stools and tall tables to accommodate the audience.


Near the entrance of the Music Cafe stood a white bar lit from inside, (similar to the light boxes in the lobby mentioned before), compliments of Heineken, the Music Café’s sponsor.

It was two days before that the spaces was still under renovation and filled with the sounds of buzzing saws, hammering, the shouts of the carpenters, stage hands. The electrician were setting the lights  with gels that cast the ceiling to floor velvet drapes  in magenta lighting. The velvet  adding a touch of glamour in the room, is reminiscent of  the bygone era of Harlem’s legendary night clubs – the Baby Grand and Cotton Club; where a long time ago, African American entertainers were made to enter those clubs through the back door and leave the same way they came, when the gig was over. 

As the lights went  down, my eyes narrowed toward the stage as the  Atlanta-based Joi adjusted her mic. Joi is tall, lean and has a tight body. Clearly she works out at the gym. Her lustrous skin is the color of lightly roasted cashews. Her brown hair, grown into Afro, crowns her natural beauty.

Then there was the  black Lycra dress that fit her  body like a second skin. It had a slit on one side that ran all the way up one  thigh, ending just before the point of no return. Another one of Joi’s talents is her outrageously daring fashion, though subtle, the dress she wore that night was no executaion to the rule.   


Joi's voice embodies that of America’s greatest Queens of The Blues from Bessie Smith to Dinah Washington. Her unabashed sensuality,style and superb singing talent -- the Futuristic Throwback as it were, revealed her incredible vocal range and riveting stage presence. In particular was her rendition of the Torch Song, “You Don’t’ Know What Love Is.” I’m certain that I detected Shirley Bessey’s virtuosity and Billie Holiday’s signature phrasing, as Joi flawlessly delivered the lyric’s lament and refrains slowly and authentically.

Backed by her five member band, and her partner, guitarist Lee Devon, throughout  her performance Joi moved sinuously across the stage like a cat and then at other times, stopping on a dime, to  grab the plastic bottle of water sitting on the floor upstage. After taking a long swallow Joi's seductive  moves integrated  seamlessly into her act. She began to stride  downstage toward the female drummer of her band; her hips swaying all the way there. And then with her back turned to the audience, Joi bent over and gave the audience a wide angle view of her derrièr  rounding it in verrrry sloooow rotations. I couldn't take my eyes off her, I didn't want to miss one moment of her performance.

She returns to the mic, and with her legs astride as to suggest that she meant business (and she did), she stoically stood at the edge of the stage reached out to the audience, captured us with her hypnotic gaze,and began gesturing to us with Hindu-like Mudras.  Her agile fingers appeared to be sending out a mysterious sign language or messages to Genesh, Shiva or Lady Durga,  the Indian Gods and Goddess; or perhaps she was  giving the audience her blessings. In any case, for me,  Joi turned my wonderment of watching her perform on its head, when she suddenly let out her giddy laughter and she then said to the audience, “This is all fun ya’ll”, spoken in her indigenous Southern drawl, entangled somewhere in there was the hint of  Joi’s Portugused and African ancestors channelled through her, I was certain.


Throughout the night, Joi unabashedly broadcasts her politics and sensuality. She gave us her deliberate bump and grind, suggestive of a strip tease dancer in the old fashion sense of its meaning; where her tell, but not show it ALL, could put a pole dancer to shame. 

And then in the next moment, the seriousness of a song’s lyrics was  juxtaposed to Joi’s tongue and cheek playfulness, the levity of which elicited from me laughter and my great pleasure of being her audience. At the finale, there was rousing ovations to The Queen and pioneer of Neo Soul,  and the "…hot and heavy and smoking guitarist Devon Lee who provided the dark dripping with sensuality grooves..."

Moi,

Mahmoudah Brooklyn, NY

Photo: Mahmoudah Young