The Girl With Eye

Last night I met a teenage girl with big eyes, bittersweet chocolate skin and pursed lips. She greeted us and answered our questions sparingly. Then, as soon as we talked about Senegal and Africa, her eyes lit up and her mouth, as if ignited, started running a mile a minute. 

She spoke more in visuals than words, painting images of a devil chasing her through the streets of Freetown and a Malian medicine man throwing cowrie shells onto a flat woven platter to predict the outcome of her visa interview. 

Our neighbors had witches in their house. Things disappeared, business was bad, lots of negative energy. When the people came to chase the witches out of my neighbors' house, they asked that anyone with eye leave.She paused to take a quick breadth and noticed our confusion. Having eye is like, oh how do I explain it, you know, a connection...a connection with the other worlds. When they asked all who had eye to leave a few people left but they still felt that someone with eye was in the house. They walked around and people moved out of their way until they stopped right in front of me. You, they said, you have eye. They actually felt my energy and I had to leave before they chased the witches out.  

Others around the dinner table were wide-eyed, eyebrows askew - is she for real? 

I sat next to her listening intently, trying to see all that she invoked. I don't know her whole story, but it was clear that she was worlds away from the reality in which she had grown up. 

Fortune telling with cowrie shells ~ Senegal.
Source: InImage

She is very superstitious, said our host, I keep trying to tell her that just because lots of people are superstitious in Africa, doesn't make it all real. The host looked and gestured over at us for support. 

Actually, there are many phenomena around the world that can't be explained. I don't believe everything is real, but I certainly don't dismiss it all as pure superstition, I responded as the host's eyes widened. 

The girl, encouraged by our openness to her tales, continued. She wants to put on an African cultural performance at her school because her fellow African friends and classmates are embarrassed to speak their native languages. She glowed under our praises and continued to chatter about her plans for a fashion show showcasing traditional African styles. 

I know I talk a lot, but I've had this in my heart ever since I arrived here, she explained. 

As we parted ways, with plans to reconnect soon, I felt almost giddy, like I do each time I meet Alice Walker. It is so rare to meet someone in the U.S. who lives comfortably with magic and the otherworldly. Not vampires and wear wolves (which may exist, who knows), but centuries-old beliefs about energy and spirits that still play a part in daily life. Imagine all the ways this child must be pressured and ridiculed by both peers and adults to assimilate to our one-dimensional norm. If only her rich, magical stories were treasured globally the way European legends and even Eastern mysticism are valued. 

I only hope that her sense of self survives this place. 

A New Year's Pause

I can't even count how many journals I have owned in my life. When you wear red-rimmed, perfectly round,  gold-framed glasses at the age of seven because  you read under the covers with a flash light after bedtime and offer poems as Christmas presents to family members, you inevitably receive a lot of journals. In spite of my wealth of  notebooks and diaries and long history of journal writing, it's been a love/hate relationship over the years. Words written to oneself in a diary can be uncovered, read and exposed in the most horrific and traumatic of scenarios (second grade love notes exposed by Dad at the dinner table. True story.). And of course we have the power to contort the truth and deceive future readers (namely ourselves) in hyperbole,  denial, or just pure fantasy.  But the beauty of this intimate space makes up for all of its dangers. 

The holiday and new year season is my favorite time of year for self-reflection and journal writing. I love looking over past journal writings; it's like reaching a high place in a journey and being able to finally see the winding trail you've climbed. There is always going to be more hiking ahead, but I appreciate and praise the pause. Inevitably, the resolutions I set for the past year are a mixed bag of successes and utter failures. Some will be grandfathered into my resolutions for the new year. Some, the repeat failures, may be dropped altogether. But no matter my state of stagnation or progress, I do still write down new year's resolutions in my journal. As with life, some things are written just to get you to the next page. Here, a gift from last year's journal pages.

Resolution for Year 2012

They say the world may end this year

according to Mayan prophecy.

I only hope to live each day

deliberately,

realizing the fine line between

adapting to one's environment

and letting it control you.

This year I will not be controlled.

I will be awake, vibrant, free.

And if the Mayans were right, so let it be.

- by Courtney Keene ©

One trick I've learned about new year's resolutions (or 'intentions' as I prefer to call them), is that much like any policy or self-regulation, increasing transparency increases accountability. In this vein, here are some of my initial intentions for 2013:

• Be well! Attend dance classes, run often and eat well.
• Spend and save consciously! Keep future needs and projects in mind.
• Write! Write anything, but remember what you know to be true is always the most powerful. Flex writing muscles and exercise imagination regularly.
• Disconnect! Enjoy a 'blackout' at least once a month reading, writing, eating, talking, playing by candlelight without the use of lights/power or electronics. 

The last resolution/intention occurred to me after one of several conversations with the hubby, who is from Senegal, about how dependent Americans are on electricity for everything. To those of you readers who were born and raised in the U.S., this may seem like a 'duh' statement, but it is not the norm in many parts of the world. In Senegal frequent black outs are the norm and you quickly adapt to darkness, candle light, and that medieval form of entertainment, conversation. Of course these moments are not to be romanticized; for the most part they are disruptive and harmful to the economic well being of people, businesses and countries. But there is something to be said about the social benefits of disconnecting from our various devices and reconnecting to each other, by candlelight. 

Moments

moments like this are rare

it caught me by surprise

to even be thinking these thoughts

like recognizing a dream within a dream

a moment of clarity

of seeing things from a great distance 

a high place

a lens suddenly twisted

into focus precisely capturing

the vague movements of life

in one clear frame

it feels like my soul 

has come up for air

breaking some unseen surface

between clamor and silence

obligation and freedom

stress and peace

I savor it

finding words to wrap around it

like banana leaves

to marinate and simmer

soaking ink in paper

to archive its passing.

- by Courtney Keene © 

So this being one of the last moments of 2012, some reflection may be in order. What has this year meant to me and what significance do I want to create for the following one? This year has been one full of drastic transitions: settling into married life, finishing grad school, moving, and starting a new job. But the moments I will treasure most are those calm, introspective pauses, scattered like jewels throughout the year. I hope to create more of these moments for myself and inspire them for others more frequently in 2013. 

What are your intentions for the new year? Whatever they may be, I wish you peace, love, and many moments of pause in your undoubtedly busy lives. Happy New Year from WYHWTM!

On Being Happy...

Still on my post-DNC high (thank you Michelle Obama) I spent Saturday morning canvassing in Virginia for the Obama Campaign. The campaign's 'Weekend of Action' was perfectly orchestrated to preserve the energy and emotions roused by the convention. I was grouped with a driver, a lady about my grandmother's age, and two other team members and sent off on our mission with printed driving instructions for where we would meet a Virginia community team leader for training and further instruction. We covered an entire neighborhood in three hours. Most people were extremely friendly, some even offered a glass of water. Conversations, if anyone answered the door, tended to last about two minutes. But the longest and most interesting conversation by far was with a federal employee, who rambled during a break from his lawn mowing, about how his vote would be based on who would cause the least damaging changes to him directly. His view of direct impact was narrowly focused on his job, which he assessed was secure regardless of who ran the country. Following the guidelines we had been given for such conversations, I tried to relate to his points by acknowledging that most votes are ultimately based on self-interest. But he insisted that his logic was different, admitting, 'It might sound bad, but I don't care about what's good for the country, I just care about what's good for me." We continued chatting politely, but his point had been heard.

Later that day my husband and I watched a documentary, aptly titled Happy, exploring the meaning and substance of happiness. When asked what one wants out of life, almost everyone claims 'to be happy' is the goal. But obviously we have very different visions of what this means and plans for how to achieve it. There were a few incredible stories of people and communities who survived extreme trauma or were materially poor and yet were undeniably happy.  The two key ingredients across the array of diverse examples was a realization that life is a gift and that the most precious part of that gift is our connection to other people. Whether they be lovers, friends, family or strangers, our relationship with others is a huge, if not the most significant, element in our own happiness or unhappiness. 

Photo by Pete Souza - White House

This made me think a little bit more than I had before about the link between empathy and happiness. If human connection is at the core of happiness, then empathy, which is simply a distillation of that connection, is its essence. I had mentioned empathy in my earlier conversation with the federal employee in an attempt to broaden his voting decision criteria; he had all but smirked at the word.

The documentary also provided some examples of communities and countries that proactively seek to create an environment that enables happiness. Sadly the U.S. was not on the list. Scandinavian countries like Denmark provide free quality education through college, universal healthcare, and co-housing opportunities to support inter-generational communal living. Bhutan, a small kingdom in South Eastern Asia, remains the only nation in the world to measure Gross National Happiness and value it more than Gross National Product. While Bhutan has not been as serene as it may seem (the government expelled ethnic Nepali Hindus in the 1990s), they do seem to be onto something. 

As Americans, we pride ourselves in the fact that we have an inalienable right to the 'pursuit of happiness' and yet we have far to go to actually exercise this right as a nation. Young people spend more time in front of screens than interacting with others in person (check out the iphone spoof poking fun of this state of 'connectivity'). We grow out of our passion, idealism, and creativity to work most of our lives in isolation from the people and pursuits we love. We grow old and are managed as burdens rather than treasured for the richness of our experiences and knowledge. Surely sprinkling material wealth on a faulty paradigm does not add up to happiness. 

How refreshing would it be to hear someone speak about our happiness index during a campaign? One of the qualities that makes President Obama so appealing is his empathetic ability. He seems to understand how we are all connected and appreciate the significance of that connection. But he can only change so much by himself. The federal employee I spoke with is the product of something much larger: a value system, a lifestyle, an upbringing that lacks empathy at its root. We need a sociocultural shift, one that prioritizes empathy in addition to hard work, ambition, integrity and all those other basic American middle class values. The American Dream should be more than owning a home and being financially comfortable; it should include having a wealth of empathy to support high quality relationships with friends and family, with enough left over to actually care about the well-being of everyone else.

Photo by Pete Souza - White House

West African Dance for the Soul

'Welcome to Black River' Conference 2012, photo by Damel Dieng

With blistered feet and throbbing limbs, we jumped into each movement line by line as if following Mama Kadiatou into battle. Our arms circled, propelled by a mixture of muscular strength, centrifugal force and pure will as we heeded to the beckoning drums ahead. Bodies flew. Necks rolled. I closed my eyes and enjoyed losing myself in the movement. 

In spite of the dozen or so drummers and Mama Kadiatou’s constant reminders, it is actually very hard for me to find these moments of mental suspension. Dance classes and workshops often feature audiences and mirrors, and my mind finds many points to linger on. Is the way Kya moves her hands the right way or the way Linsey does it? Daaang, my back is hurting right now. I hope this doesn’t end too late cause I have to do laundry and I still haven’t finished that assignment….. The list goes on. But in those rare occasions when I plunge into a movement that my body has come to own and the live drumming takes over, my heart soars and my mind empties out and all I can do is breathe and dance. 

Over the years I’ve taken West African dance classes sporadically here and there. There was the college class, the free community classes on 114^th between Frederick Douglass and Adam Clayton Powell in Harlem and of course dancing in front of the TV and at parties in Dakar. I’ve come to appreciate the art form, not just for its aesthetic beauty and high energy or the fact that it will literally whip you into shape, but also for the more subtle lessons on living it bestows on the communities it brings together. 

Mama Kadiatou Conte-Forte, the 58-year-old founder and artistic director of Balafon West African Dance Ensemble, comes off as a stern character upon first encounter. She routinely lectures her pupils, prefers to face-off drummers dancing with a powerful warrior-like expression and can certainly out dance most twenty-somethings. She is fierce. She has been in the U.S. since the early 80’s teaching dances from her home Guinea and neighboring Senegal, cooking and making deliciously spicy ginger juice for her many students or ‘children’ as she calls us, and preaching the values that she lives by, which are a mix of her traditional values about community from home, her womanist insistence on the strength and power of black women, and many nuggets of wisdom about business and health that she has picked up on her own journey. Every class or workshop is an opportunity to share these lessons; the dance is simply a part of the whole package. 

Last week Balafon hosted its first West African dance and drumming conference, ‘Welcome to Black River.’ Mama Kadiatou’s children or former students came to Pittsburgh from as far as Texas to participate in the three days of workshops and the performance. The guest of honor, Papa Assane Konte, a Senegalese dancer and founder of DC-based KanKouran West African Dance Company, also taught workshops and performed. Papa Assane Konte, at age 61, is a truly regal figure. He, like Mama, has a loyal following and at the end of each workshop would sit on a chair and have us gather round on the floor like kindergartners at story time to impart his wisdom. We eagerly obliged, for in these communities there is an implicit understanding that this dance is not just art or exercise, it’s a way of life that both Mama Kadiatou and Papa Assane Konte have mastered.

Their advice ranges from the simple, ‘if your bathroom and kitchen are nasty, you’re gonna get sick,’ to the profound, ‘if you have a grandmother, call her, love her, appreciate her. She reached through your parent to make you.’ Both teach to all age groups and encourage families to come together. Mama insists that parents teach their children how to tie their lapas properly, interact with adults and follow the lessons as part of their socialization process within a larger community. Papa encourages parents to let their children run free within dance community settings where, as in the proverbial African village or ‘back in the day’ in Brooklyn or Harlem, any adult can teach or admonish anyone’s child. Both are strong and healthy, advising us to be conscious consumers and maintain active lifestyles. They epitomize the beauty, power, confidence and strength that sometimes was, sometimes is, and can be an inclusive, safe and loving black community at its best. 

Sometimes things are more than what they seem. It has taken me time to realize what this activity and community mean to me. I know now that I need West African dance and the community that surrounds it to maintain some balance in my hectic life; I need it to consistently remind me of a deeper and slower path in which greetings and family time are necessities and conversations are full and relationships are wealth; and I need it to clear my head and unleash my spirit. It is art and exercise, but also a form of prayer and praise, love of community and love of self.