Teddy, Tre, Tommi, Teddy...

Teddy, Tre, Tommi, Teddy...waaaaayyyyy too much cuteness for one photo...

WORD OF THE YEAR: MAMIHLAPINATAPAI

Mamihlapinatapai - a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other would initiate something they both desire but which neither wants to begin.

Used in a sentence:

"Don't let your mamihlapinatapai keep you from acting on your intuition and potentially meeting the love of your life...go for it, gurl!"

Bi-Racial Hair-Care Part Deux....Speak on it Wanda Sykes!

“You ever seen those bi-racial kids and the white mother just has no idea what to do with their hair…so their hair’s just all matted up, never been combed, there’s lint and car keys and Q-Tips all in they shit…” 

THANK YOU! LOVE YOU! BLESS YOU!

I don't have I.T. support...its just li'l ole me.  So - if you wouldn't mind leaving, please try leaving me a comment on your favorite post so i can sort out whether or not this function is working.

This here blog is a community effort - please participate!

xo
mo

 ...seems i have been a perv for some time now....the more things change, the more they stay the same...

An open letter to White Parents raising black/bi-racial children and neglecting their hair care:

Allowing your children to walk through this world with effed up hair is effed up.  Period.  I know this has been said many times on many-a-blog, but never on this blog, so its my turn now.

I don't claim to know what your "angle" is by neglecting to brush or comb your child's hair, but I will tell you this: you are NOT making any sort of statement about how "progressive" you are or how you are allowing your child to choose how they want to care for their hair.  Children are not mature enough at this age to make a conscious choice about deciding not to groom themselves - at this age, it's your job as the parent to make sure that they are groomed and cared for properly.  Furthermore, it is highly likely that if your child is not already being teased at school for his long, matted, unkempt hair, that eventually, he will.  Kids are cruel, so lets as parents not give them reasons. 

Perhaps your negligence is just ignorance and you just don't know HOW to care for their hair.  Listen, I hear you.  I grew up with a mother who knew nothing about black hair care.  But she AT LEAST knew enough to grab me the old-fashioned cake cutter from grandma's house (see pic below) and off I went. 

I realize that our hair is not easy to care for; however, I feel inclined to remind you that THIS is what you signed up for when you either adopted and/or birthed this lovely child into the world.  Like it or not, you have a responsibility to teach your child how to groom themselves.  There are many resources out there for you, start with the Google.

respectfully submitted,
maureen

So I guess it's a good thing that my Sun knows the proper terminology for "things of this nature..."

...and perhaps his comment today makes sense, given the fact that he is taking his first school-based "Puberty Education" classes this week.

We are riding to school this morning and I am jamming out to Rush's song "Working Man" - full air guitar and everything -  except my left hand is occupied on the steering wheel, so only my right hand is free and i confuse where the "strumming" happens vs. where the "picking notes" happens, and Tre looks at me and says:

"Mom you look like you're masturbating except you can't find your vagina."

Um. OK. Wow.

And - did you know that they are teaching the word "arousal" as "that sexy, tingly feeling?"  I don't know how to feel about that.

So I asked the Sun to cut my hair yesterday....

...i mean, the last time i got my hair cut, I paid $47, had to go back for a re-cut, then re-cut it myself  on four separate occasions.  Certainly Tre can do better than that!

I sat in the chair and asked for 1/2 inch "all over."  First cut Tre takes off the back...1 1/2 inches.  I show Tre how much 1/2 inch actually is, and he continues to cut.  6 cuts later and he says "OK i'm done with the back."  So, right.  Perhaps cutting hair is just a wee bit above Tre's pay grade.



I finish the job myself...photo is on the top.  My most recent bad haircut is on the bottom...not too shabby, Maureen...not too shabby.

oh, and i havent turned hindi, yet.  my bindi is covering a massive pustule that decided to pay me a visit last week.

xo
m

The Haircut

"Sure ma'am" i said, "just give me a trim"
I sat in the chair and she gave it a spin.
A little snip here, a little snip there
And all of a sudden, I hadn't any hair!

"$50 bucks" the hairdresser said it would be
as i slapped her fiercely and dislocated her knee
"Just remember that next time you're giving a trim
You'd better be careful or you might lose a limb."

- Maureen Bookstrom & Crystal Walker
   1982 - Grade 8

My week off from "exceptionalism." well, this should be interesting...and dont ask me fer sh*t!

So.  My horrorscope for the week instructs me to take a week off from being the exceptional human being that i am.  Specifically, i am NOT to:

1. carry out any great feats.

2. lead my people to the promised land

3. be the exceptional upholder of principal (though Astrobarry insists that I will probably do this anyway. wow astrobarry, thanks for the vote of confidence.)

4. be a role model


....and that i should:

1. add my humble face to the chorus

2. demand no special attention

3. be a supportive pal/peer/castmember

4. lower self-expectations

well. THIS should be an interesting week. you can see your own horrorscope from Astrobarry here:

http://astrobarry.com/horoscopes.php

THE MAN IN THE ARENA

I have shared the concept of "the arena" with many of you during some recent conversations.  Discovered initially in Brene Brown's book, "Daring Greatly..." the quote is credited to our 26th president of the United States, leader of the Republican party and founder of the progressive party, Theodore Roosevelt. Happy President's Day.

"Daring greatly" on Tre's tricycle - 2009

THE MAN IN THE ARENA

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. 

Maureen has one of her "Special Moments"

Gawd i'm a dork.  and its great to have friends around to capture such lovely moments. 

You.

"You are not your shame, your fears, your addictions, your games, your guilt. You are not your resistance to your true path. You are not your self-doubt. You are not your self-distraction patterns. You are not your escape hatches. You are not your pessimism about a life of meaning and purpose. You are not here merely to survive and endure. You are sacred purpose. Don’t stop until you find it."

- Jeff Brown

My First Brazilian...in my own words.

YEEEEEOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!

HOLYMOTHEROFJESUSTHISSHITHURTSLIKEHELL!

Now i know why hair grows in those parts...chaffing.

TMI?

xo
m

"Grace"

Mommy gracefully allows Sun his shutterbug moment BC (before coffee)

"Grace is all around is, if we only have the eyes to see it. The good moments are grace, the difficult moments are grace, the confusing moments are grace. When we can begin to open enough to realize that there is grace in every situation, in each person we meet, no matter how easy or difficult we perceive them to be, our hearts will flower and we'll be able to express the peace and the love that each of us has within us.

We let go into this grace. It's something we fall into, like when we fall into the arms of another, or we put our head on the pillow to go to sleep. It's a willingness to relax, even in the midst of tension. It's a willingness to stop for just a moment, to breathe, to notice that there's something else going on other than the story our mind is telling us. In this moment of grace, we see that whatever might be there in our experience, from the most difficult emotional challenges to the most causeless joy, occurs within a vast space of peace, of stillness, of ultimate well-being.

If we can let go for just a moment, if we can relax, if we can fall into the center of now, we can encounter directly the freedom that we've all been seeking. It is right here, right now. It doesn't lie in the future. It's not going to come when life changes, when the circumstances of our day-to-day reality become different. Freedom is something that's right in the midst of this moment. When we begin to surrender our demand that life change, that life alter itself to suit our ideas, then everything opens. We begin to awaken from this dream of separateness and struggle, and we realize that the grace we were always seeking is actually right there at the center of our own existence. This is the heart of spiritual awakening: to realize that what we have always yearned for is the very thing, in our deepest source, that we have always been. Freedom is always available to us. In those very moments when we know we don't know, when we take the backward step, heart wide open, we fall into grace."

~aydashanti

valentine's day card from the birthfather...

..we dont talk much anymore - had a falling out a couple of years ago about "race" but I think this card is spot-on, don't u?!

Happy Valentines Day!!!

xo
m

The children...

...they know things.  My child created this sculpture at the tender age of three...

In the beginning...

Hello and welcome to my blog!  I am thrilled that you are here and hope to make you laugh, cry, think and waste loads of time for years and years to come.  

I am not a writer, I am not a comedian, but over the past few years, I have come to realize that I have some things to say, dammit!  And I want to say them in a public forum because, well, because I think that lots of what I have to say is worth sharing.  And so is what you have to say, so please feel free to leave a comment, criticism, complaint, or commendation.  All are appreciated, though don't expect a response.  I reseve the right to ignore you, especially if you are being particularly snarky, or just downright mean.  There is no need for that here.

Among other things, I am a tan kracka.  Meaning, I am a person of (tannish) color who was raised by white folks.  This is important.  My lifelong struggle with identity has shaped who I am and how I relate to this racist world.   And it has shaped how others related to me as well.   

Have you heard the phrase “race is a social construct?”  If not, here is my simplistic interpretation: biologically, race doesn’t exist and is merely a by-product of our need to classify and separate (out) groups of people who are NOT LIKE US.  There is not a black race, a white race, an Asian race…it’s all bullshit.  The interesting thing about bi-racial, transracially adopted folks is that we are not easily classified!  We kind of bust the entire system wide open and challenge the idea that who you are is based on the color of your skin and various facial/body features.  And I think that scares people just a little bit.  It scares me too, because, based on the way that I look, people make all sorts of assumptions about how I aught to be in this world.  And I never fail to disappoint.  But that is OK, I am still figuring it out.  I am figuring out how to find and be ME, the I who exists in eternity, beyond the ideas of time and space.  The I that, for some god-forsaken reason, decided it was a fabulous idea to manifest itself in this particular body this time around.  Gawd, whut the hell was I thinking?

And, not to worry, I am not going to muse about race and my identity crisis all over these pages.  I just wanted to give some context to the title of my blog.  Are we clear now people?!?  Good.  Carry on…