My mother is white and my father was black. I am not alone in this. I grew up in the Bronx, New York City. Born in 1967. A relatively safe time and place for a brown girl of ambiguous ethnicity. As the mother of two little brown girls, I like to believe that race doesn't matter much. But the election of Barack Obama woke me up. Ignorance is everywhere. Race labels ring in my ears. They stick and they stain. Even when they fade. This is my rant, from “post-racial America”. Hoping to shed some light.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

September, You Were Cruel

It's been five weeks since my last post.
Am I becoming one of those twenty-million bloggers who start off strong, posting a couple of times a week, making huge sacrifices of time and social connectivity so they can hole up and get some writing done, as if their life depends on it.... only to lose interest six months in?

I am guilty of losing interest in projects. But not the writing.
I love writing. I love playing with words. I am not the writer who stares at the page, or the screen, or the wall, or the sky, wondering where the inspiration will come from and when. My problem is time. I am scrambling. Whenever I'm asked, "Can I help?" I answer: "Sure, can you add five hours to every day? Waking hours would be ideal, but sleeping hours would be fine too." I swear, I haven't lost interest. It's been a time issue.

September kicked my ass.
Because we are two years into a nine-month house renovation. Seriously. In fairness, it's a house restoration, which is a ball of wax I really shouldn't go into here. Suffice it to say, it's been a major front-burner distraction for a long time. And we thought - well, I tried to insist - that we would be all done and moved in before the start of the school year. So I made a lot of real commitments, all commencing in early September, because I planned to have our lives back. STUPID GIRL!

September was the month that I posted nothing.
I did make some nice lists of writing topics. The New York Times has reliably offered numerous topics for dissection, including 1. the band Fishbone; 2. the legacy (and new memoir) of Anita Hill; and 3. the new book by Toure', Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means To Be Black Now.  Even our contractor on the house project has offered great fodder for this blog. It's all on my to-do list.

Here we are, in October.
If you're reading this, I guess you haven't given up on me. Thank you! I am not lost. This blog is not forgotten. I have my list of topics and I'm gonna use it. I mean, Anita Hill!? A browngirl could fill volumes with that rant alone.

Here's to getting it done.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Give up on y'uns? Never! September was just one big month full of hurricane rains and earthquake jitters. I was ready to raise my fist at the great outdoors, while pulling on my first turtleneck before October. Out of principle, I generally will not don one til after the start of November (this could lend itself to new ceremonial costume acts at Fall Back!) Then, miraculously the 3rd day of October morphed into a beautiful sunny September day - blue sky, slightly breezy, and towards late afternoon, a soft peachy slanted light - wow! And it has been continuing to crank September all week long! I don't care if it's confusing the weather woman on Channel 6, I love it (and sort of feel like we deserve it). I hope you've been having a return visit of September, this October, up there in Nyack! xo Doria

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