Let A Bitch Talk!

I saw Django last night and enjoyed it....the use of the N-word was not, in my opinion, overused. I'm pretty sure in 1858 the N-word was used on the regular. I enjoyed the movie, the comedy, the visual presentation, and the fact that the BlackMan was the regular old CowboySavetheDayHero and the LoveHero!

My only issue is that the beautiful, talented Kerry Washington wasn't able to 'talk.' Django ‘saw’ her plenty of times throughout the movie in flashbacks and ‘saw’ is the key word. At one point she said something in a voice-over like: My name is Broomhilda – WTF? I felt like I was watching a video of a fashion shoot whenever Django had a vision/memory of Broomhilda who was always walking along the road smiling and waving at him. All the apparitions were visually beautiful and maybe a tool to show us how Django saw his woman – beautiful, clean, and pure juxtaposed to the reality of a slave life that was cruel, dirty and unforgiving. I get it but if I saw one more pretty vision of her in that film I felt like I was going to scream. Thank God Kerry, the actress, is talented and is able to convey a lot with her facial expressions. But her non-verbal skills did not prevent me from saying more than once (in my head): "Let A Bitch Talk!"

This morning when I woke one of my first thoughts was, "Let A Bitch Talk!" I couldn’t believe that Kerry’s Broomhilda, wife of Django, barely talked in the movie. I would like to see the movie again so I can actually count the number of words but I’m going to go with the number my film companion supplied when I asked, “Did Kerry say twenty words in that movie?” and he replied, “No more than thirty tops.” So thirty is the magic number. No more than thirty words were uttered by the object of Django’s love and motivation for his journey from slave to hero. Okay…..

Don’t get me wrong I am so happy to finally see a BlackMan Hero who can fire a gun and love his woman with no shame but dayum Let A Bitch Talk. Django and Broomhilda’s love would have been so much better if we heard them talk about how they loved without any guarantees that they would be able to grow old together since all slaves were at the mercy of the slave-owner and whichever way the wind was blowing any particular day.

I know it was Django’s story – guns blazing, his manhood being unveiled throughout the film, blah, blah I get all that but this BlackMan was on a mission because of his love for his woman, a love that drove him to ride into dangerous situations to get her back and get back to her and we never hear a full length conversation in her voice – oops I’m sorry she did have a conversation with Django’s bounty hunter partner, Dr. Schultz played by Christoph Waltz, but they spoke in German…yes German. The lengthiest conversation Broomhilda had was with a white man in a foreign language. Okay….

Hilde is supposed to be a determined and smart Woman who has run away from her slave masters on two occasions and we are supposed to believe she doesn’t have words. Quentin couldn’t have written one scene where Hilde’s smarts were on display? If a love-talk or love-sex scene couldn’t have been written between Hilde & Django, then a toe-to-toe scene between Hilde and Samuel Jackson’s character Stephen, the treacherous-crab-in-a-barrel valet/slave, would have been something to see and more importantly ‘hear.’ Instead we get the lovely Broomhilda reacting in a terrified voice to treacherous Stephen instead of interacting with him. If only she had verbally fought back we would have been able to see Hilde’s essence in action.

Now I do realize that there may have been scenes like the ones I described and they ended on up the cutting-room floor but something tells me those scenes were probably never written nor filmed but I could be wrong. Quentin wrote and directed a really good film but ‘he’ wrote and directed it. To get the black female perspective/voice/essence I do believe black women need to be writing more stories. I’m not saying that men can’t write women’s roles because they can but to get authentic black, female characters with depth maybe we let some real black, female writers, write those characters. And maybe we don’t call films with women in the lead roles ‘chick flicks’ since we don’t call films with male leads ‘dick flicks.’

And instead of waiting for Hollywood to properly depict black women more people who have the means need to put up money so films with strong black, female leads can be made and then shown at film festivals, on cable and network television. Just a thought, after all thinking outside the box could make a difference and Let A Bitch Talk!

Until next time I hope this post has been Tasty & Informative like Cupcakes & Travel Magazines~

Mental Illness Manifested

What happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT on Friday, December 14, 2012 is beyond horrific. We can reach for words, look in the dictionary and check the thesaurus but in my opinion no current words exist that fully describe what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School. How could there be?

Yes, I understand that this type of horror, the murder of young children occur every day all over the world but not here in America, not like what happened at Sandy Hook. Yes, we have had school shootings, movie theater shootings, shootings at dining establishments like the Luby’s massacre in Killeen, TX in 1991 but not like Sandy Hook on Friday, December 14th in Newtown, CT where a broken mentally disturbed creature, murdered twenty first graders and the six teachers and administrators who tried to protect them, in their school classrooms in their bucolic, Peyton Place-like town in Northern Connecticut. Something about Sandy Hook is earth shattering. And I hope this shattering of our perceived idea of safety and right and wrong makes a difference this time.

We as a society are in agreement on the level of dreadfulness that happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School, but I fear that if nothing is done, if no changes are made legislatively we will still agree on the horror at Sandy Hook but, we will slide back into our regular lives and thoughts until the next awful event. And rest assured there will be something worse the next time if nothing is done.

And let’s not forget the part that mental illness played in this latest tragedy and all the previous shootings. Let us as a society stop acting like mental illness happens to someone else. Let us stop ignoring those who are peculiar, bizarre, odd, painfully shy, weird, eccentric, and any other adjective we use to cloak what we are afraid to say out-loud: mentally ill. I think there is a general belief that once someone is mentally ill they are damaged forever and can never to be salvaged, and in believing some people are irreparably damaged, we ignore, disregard and ostracize them, which only leads to tragedy for the mentally ill individual specifically and society at large.

We used to treat cancer patients the same way. Not so long ago people used to whisper that so and so had the big C and then isolate those people. Luckily our government declared a war on cancer which helped in eliminating the stigma of the disease. So let’s declare a war on mental illness! Let’s eliminate the stigma of being mentally ill. Let’s take care of the mentally broken and ill.

Let’s live up to the Preamble to the US Constitution: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Let’s do what we do: mobilize and act! There should be no debate over the need to do something; the only debate should be over the methodology.

Let us do what those teachers and administrators at Sandy Hook did some more successfully than others, let us protect the children, our citizens and ourselves!

Let us as a nation DO SOMETHING!

‎"If you have one hundred people who live together and if each one cares for the rest, there is One Mind." ~Crow Saying

12/16/12

Bring On the Fairy Dust!

Wouldn’t it be great if we could open a bottle of Fairy Dust and dab, sprinkle, douse, drench, soak, and smother ourselves with a smooth, soul-soothing powder or oil (for those of us who love massages) that would make us and our lives perfect? Yes, yes it would be great! Extra selling points: The dust or oil would glitter and the cap would not be child-proofed! I don’t know about anyone else but I’m all up in it!

All joking aside I know actual Fairy Dust doesn’t exist but I can formulate my own metaphorical Fairy Dust by measuring, mixing, adding, and subtracting elements, ingredients and activities that add to my spirit. My special recipe is composed of reading, writing, vision-boarding, spa-ing, and traveling. The precise combination of the right components can work as a pretty potent Fairy Dust for us all.

And potent is what I need now. Ever since the nurse pronounced Daryl ‘gone’ I wished for all kinds of superpowers to bring her back, make what the nurse said a lie, erase everything bad that happened to my baby sister. But just like there is no magic fairy dust there are no superpowers that can change the things we don’t like. If superpowers did indeed exist believe me I would have found them and reawakened Daryl and gave her back to my Mother, my Sister, my Step-Dad, all of our family and all of her friends. And most importantly I would have given her back to me.

My life will never be the same and it’s made me afraid because I am heading to a place I don’t know. And I have no idea how long it will take me to get there. So for right now I am faith and hope walking. I know I have to keep moving or I will die. Keep moving I tell myself. I have mistakenly confused moving with being busy and I’ve had to put a stop to being a busy bee. Too much ‘busy’ has led to me being tired, confused, agitated and pissed off. So lucky for me I realized I was using busy and busy wasn’t working for me.

The other day I had what I like to call a matrix moment, you know that moment when your truth explodes through your brain causing you to see things crystal clear in a flash. And usually that moment of clarity sneaks up on me like most soul shattering things in life. You know how that goes, you’re going along minding your business and then BAM whatever you need to see/understand/realize is all up in your face!

Our brains protect us until that moment and then it is on whether we are ready or not because really if left up to us, we would not move without that proverbial push, shove or kick!

My most recent matrix moment came about as a result of seeing a Michael J. Fox quote that touched me deeply:

“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance... Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it.” ―Michael J. Fox

Since Daryl’s transition I’ve heard the word ‘acceptance’ so much I want to scream! I don’t want to accept the loss of her. Why should I? My life has been diminished by her absence. She was/is my best friend. We shared the same sense of humor, of course Daryl’s could be gross sometimes but overall we laughed at the same things, which included plenty of stuff most people didn’t find funny. We believed in a lot of the same things and we disagreed on other matters, which some will find unimaginable, we always laughed when people assumed that we never fought or disagreed – we did, trust me, she was Daryl and I am Valerie – alike in many ways and very different in other ways.

The magnitude of Daryl no longer walking on this earth has at times overwhelmed me and lead me to believe: I will never be happy again. That thought would then throw me deeper down into a place I didn’t want to go, so I would just ignore it. But eventually I have to see the situation for what it is: A world without Daryl in it; a world without my friend, my sister, my SisterFriend. I am slowly getting used to that new world, slowly but surely. At least now I don’t involuntarily shake my head ‘No’ at the thought and reality of acknowledging it.

The quote from Michael J. Fox was a Godsend, a Daryl-send to help move me along the path of healing and towards a place of peace. I thank God – I thank Daryl; both my Girls taking care of me. Holla! I know that ‘acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.’

I don’t know the way through it but I do know ‘there’s got to be a way through it.’ I’m going with the flow – staying open at the top (one of Daryl’s favorite sayings) and trusting that I will get to that place where peace exists and I will find the perfect peace-for-me. And I will be happy again. It will be a different happy - a new happy. And yes I am scared because I don’t what that happy looks like, smells like, sounds like, or feels like. I do know this: I just gotta keep moving.

So until I get there I will be working my specially-formulated-just-for-me-chocolate scented-Fairy-Dust because I don’t know what else to do until the undisputed acceptance of Daryl no longer being in this world and the weight of that truth finally seeps into the deepest crevices of my spirit. I will keep working the fairy dust, I will keep moving because it is what it is.

Until the next time I hope this has been tasty and informative like Cupcakes and Travel Magazines….Valerie

12/9/12

Welcome Back to Me!

It’s been 15 months since I last posted here. I started this blog to write about the things I love, cupcakes, traveling and all the good stuff in life with some of the not so good stuff thrown in. Since I last posted my beloved Sister, Daryl returned to the Light on December 31, 2011. In 23 days it will be a year since my life changed forever. So many lives have been changed by Daryl’s absence including family, friends who became like family to Daryl, old friends and acquaintances. Anyone who loved Daryl has been changed forever. Her spirit and essence lingers and washes over those she loves and cares about.

Today’s post is not going to be about the grief, the pain, the lost-ness (yes I make up words) of Daryl returning to the Light. There will be time for that. I will be writing about life in general, my life specifically, my thoughts, my feelings, my desires, my dreams, my observations, things that pique my interest, things that irritate the shit out of me and I will be posting words & images filled with Hope, Love and Inspiration. So buckle up because it’s going be a bumpy ride like life. I hope you enjoy it.

Today I want to write about MORE, MORE, MORE!

This year has been filled with more free time than I knew what to do with. Prior to Daryl’s transition I was out on long-term disability healing from my own cancer relapse that included a hip replacement. I won’t even get started on that situation except to say Daryl was instrumental in motivating me (insert kicking my butt) to get walking again without a walker or cane.

Every time I take a step I am thankful to her for all she did to help me heal. Some days that gratitude turns to anger because I wonder why she can’t be here to witness my healing and more importantly I wish she were here so we could celebrate our healings together but I do realize the situation is what it is and I’ll be posting about that another day.

I am a strong proponent of filling your life and spirit with all that makes you happy. Being responsible for filling yourself up so you are not thirsty or hungry guarantees that you will not depend on someone else to do it for you and it adds to your personal power. Making someone else responsible for your happiness is not only unrealistic but selfish. If someone is occupied with filling you up what’s left for them? Nothing! And if you care for someone, you want them to be joy-filled and satisfied.

All relationships whether they be romantic love, platonic love, sibling love, and/or soul-mate love, should be about enhancement not the expectation of completeness from another.

So I say we all need MORE, MORE, MORE of what makes us happy, fulfilled and joy-filled. Whatever your MOREs are do them, revel in them, fill yourself up with them and don’t change them for anyone.

Some of my MOREs can be seen below - okay maybe not the long walks as I’m still working out the kinks of this new hip, but you get the point…Hell-o! I do keep it real…..

What are your MOREs?

If you handle your MOREs you will never need anyone to handle them for you.

When you handle your MOREs you strengthen yourself.

Be Brave enough to handle your MOREs.

I hope this post has been tasty and informative like Cupcakes and Travel Magazines….until the next time….Valerie

Not Feeling It Today But This Too Shall Pass~

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Tomorrow I have chemo treatment and today I am not feeling it. By” it” I mean tomorrow’s treatment and this whole thing called cancer treatment. Rest assured I am having a moment and it will pass. But right now I am not feeling this whole episode. It is like that sometimes when you are going through treatment. And I’m sure this feeling is not exclusive to cancer treatment, but my situation is treatment for cancer.

Wonders of wonders I can truthfully say that since I have started typing this entry and played a few games of Word Drop on Facebook my crankiness is making moves to move on down the road. And I can hear the original cast from the Broadway show The Wiz singing Move on Down the Road:

Oh, there may be times
When you wish you wasn't born
And you wake one morning
Just to find your courage gone

But just know that feelin'
Only lasts a little while
You just stick with us
And we'll show you how to smile!

Ease on down, ease on down the road
Come on ease on down, ease on down the road
Ease on down, ease on down the road
Don't you carry nothing
That might be a load

Come on ease on down, ease on down the road
Ease on down, ease on down the road*

See I told you it was just a moment.

I hope this post has been Tasty & Informative like Cupcakes & Travel Magazines.

Love & Light to you all - Valerie

*Charlie Smalls – Composer and & Songwriter

I LOVED The Help!

Thursday, August 25, 2011

I ENJOYED the movie, The Help. I read the book and enjoyed that as well. The movie was rather close to the book so if someone doesn’t read the book they can still enjoy the movie. I am stating my love of both the book and the movie because there has been so much written about why black folks shouldn’t like The Help. Well if you know me then you know I don’t cotton to anyone telling me what to like or dislike especially if their justification revolves around “because you are black, you shouldn’t like such and such.”

HOLD ON! WAIT A MINUTE – you have to be kidding me. Right?! Well know that I think that kind of reasoning is just plain CRAZY TALK! Black folks, red folks, brown folks, white folks, and yellow folks do not have to agree with their “tribe,” at all times. I mean there are some issues that are central to a group for instance The Civil Rights Movement. I don’t think there were too many black folks saying: I don’t agree with this thing called civil rights; therefore, we shouldn’t get involved. Most disagreements regarding the CRM were around the methods not the overall validity of the movement itself.

I am a writer so I always appreciate a good book and The Help by Kathryn Stockett is a very good book. Her characters ring true and are clearly delineated from one another. I don’t want to hear how Kathryn cannot write a black female character because she can and she did. If a writer doesn’t like The Help then they should write their own version of it. Keep in mind Kathryn wrote her version based on her observations as a child who was cared for and raised by the help. She gave her black female characters depth, soul, spirit and DIGNITY. Her homage to her personal, Aibileen is filled with love, understanding and compassion.

Some people have written that the movie is a feel good movie for white folks. Stop the madness people. The book and movie is about African American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s a very different time from 2011 and 1868 for that matter. Sometimes I think black folks want to act like certain things did not happen. As if we are here now, wherever that is and we don’t have to dredge up those old times.

What is so wrong with highlighting the dignity of women who had to leave their children every day to raise someone else’s children, women who suffered daily indignities but suffered in silence displaying an inner strength that some people like to say “better them than me.” If we lived in those times we would have got along to get along too. Because of those women, black women today have so many other options. Those women from The Help put many a child through college and graduate school. There should be no shame attached to those women. Highlighting the Aibileens and Minnies of the world is not dredging up old times rather it is paying respect to women who came before us and raised others children to insure that we would not have to do the same.

Two days ago I responded to a post on Facebook that basically said don’t tell me how to feel. See below for my FB post:

As a Black Native American woman I am so tired of films that feature black characters having the added burden of correcting old racial problems. Why? Why? Why? Why can't The Help be a story with great characters that tells a story that entertains some and enlightens others? Why the extra burden of fixing an old problem especially one as sticky as racial segregation in MS in the 60s? It's a book people - it's a movie -why do we expect either one to fix a thorny issue like how maids were treated by their bosses during the Civil Rights Movement? Stop the madness people.....it is just a MOVIE made from a BOOK.

I don't expect The Help to rectify old problems. And while I am a Democrat it has always bothered me that some over the top Democrats aka raging Liberals think it's okay to tell me, a woman of color how to respond to a situation or representation of a situation when they never have to deal with any situation that I have found myself in and will surely find myself in again and again. How dare anyone who has the cloak and comfort of melanin-challenged skin dictate to me how I should ever feel about being, seeing or reading anything that has to do with the "black experience" in America? I don't need that type of help. It is offensive and just plain crazy talk people! Now I will put my soapbox away until the next hot button issue presents itself. Love & Light to you all.

Other issues involving The Help: My other issue is when films get made with Black women as major characters there is always some major controversy making it easier for Hollywood to say "It's just not worth it." Thank God The Help is making money because Hollywood always likes the ring of the register. New point: It says something about our society that we think a movie/book should solve century old problems - a little too simplistic.

And finally, as a writer I am in awe of Kathryn Stockett’s persistence in sending out her novel as she continued to receive rejection after rejection, sixty in total. But as we writers say, “Only one has to say yes.” So I too shall continue to send out my work, be it my novel or screenplay, for publication and purchase.

I guess that says it all people…..

I hope this post has been Tasty & Informative like Cupcakes & Travel Magazines.

Love & Light to you all.
Valerie

49 is Feeling Fine!

July 14, 2011

Today I am 49 years and 2 days old. And I’m feeling good, which is good considering the last 8 challenged-filled months. What with a hip replacement due to a cancer relapse, and having to utilize a walker, which I have ditched. YEAH for me!!!!!! My cane and I are best friends, at least outside the house. When I’m inside I don’t use it and am hoping to give it up by the end of August.

Adding to my issues my sister, Daryl, had a cancer relapse too. She’d been feeling pain in her groin area and thought it was a groin pull, well if it were only that simple. Then a knot showed up on her head, in the front of her head. She thought something had bitten her. Turns out it was a tiny tumor, which she has named Matilda, and the groin pull was actually a cracked pelvis, luckily just two small hairline fractures. So add my relapse + her relapse and you have some idea of what has been going on. But believe it or not, it is all good.

Life if unfolding as it should. Some days I have a hard time remembering that but in the end I always come back to the knowledge that what is for my highest good and Daryl’s is manifesting.

I know I sound like Pollyanna, the main character in the best-selling novel Pollyanna. The main character has an optimistic outlook on life that revolves around The Glad Game, which consists of finding something to be glad about in every situation, a fine coping skill for anyone, in my opinion. But being a Pollyanna is generally not viewed as a positive; instead it is usually a putdown and a way to belittle positivity. I do employ The Glad Game as a coping mechanism but not because I love Pollyanna, am naïve or trying to smile my problems away.

I do it because my Mother, Barbara Lee, taught me to find the silver lining in every situation. Sure there will be some circumstances that make you want to scream, pull your hair out, stomp your feet and cry. So when confronted with such a situation, scream, pull your hair out, unless of course the chemo takes care of that for you, stomp your feet and cry. Then do your hair, if there is any left or put a wig on and get on with living. At least that works for me. I have to find a silver lining in order to make it through to the other side.

Anger, denial and pessimism will do nothing but make whatever is happening worse. Don’t get me wrong I have my moments, I am human. But I have come to realize that finding a silver lining will lighten the burden and make the journey less taxing. So given the opportunity to choose between optimism and pessimism I am always going to go with positivity but that’s just me: Valerie “Pollyanna” Lee.

Live, Love & Laugh!

Until I post again make sure you get your fair share of Cupcakes & Travel Magazines!

Valerie