annakmair's Xanga

Coal

Thu, 15 May 2008 16:42:29 GMT

A glowing or charred piece of solid fuel

Excerpts from Becoming Myself: Reflections On Growing Up Female:

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When I look in the mirror, I see a beautiful woman...

My brown eyes look deep into the mirror and see more than a reflection of myself...

I see a long line of women standing behind me reflecting the past that I've inherited. They move backward in time until they become sheer femaleness, that primal energy that is present in all things, in animals, in plants, in the earth herself...

When I look in the mirror, I see thousands of beautiful women.

--By Luisah Teish

---

I was raised in a European household, so it was very puritanical, with lots of sentences with huge periods at the end of them. When I was seven, my father called me into the living room, so I knew it was a special occasion. The furniture was covered with sheets so it wouldn't fade. I really never did find out what color that furniture was. He said to me, "Your mother doesn't drink and your mother doesn't smoke, and neither will you."

So I never did.

He also told me that only my two brothers would go to college and that I had to be married by my seventeenth birthday--my mother and I never figured out why seventeen, and not eighteen or nineteen. He then said, "If you are not married by then, the only respectable profession is teaching school." How I was supposed to do this without a college education was simply not discussed. I then told him I wanted to be a famous opera star. My father said, "Nice girls do not go on the stage. Only hussies go on the stage." I asked him what a hussy was. He said, "It's somebody who wears low-cut dresses, changes the color of her hair, and wears too much makeup."

I was hooked.

--By Beverly Sills (Opera Singer)

---

At night I read by flashlight, squandered my sight. Blue motes of dust sneezed from broken pages, cracked bindings. This much was clear: Being a woman was a mysterious thing. I was thirteen, desperate for knowledge, avidly turning the yellowed pages of books I bought for dimes and nickles at used book fairs. I adventured with Stevenson, Hitchens, and Sterne across deserts and through the human heart; their women were cameos of beauty, more powerful as ideals than characters. I waded through French and Russian novels, only to discover that Swann preferred the smell of a madeleine to that of a woman, musketeers and knights did very well without females, and adulterous wives threw themselves beneath trains.

I tried to ignore my aunt's raucous laugh as she informed me, "Women smell! Down there! You must wash and scrub every day. Twice a day! Wash and scrub, and don't stop until you're clean!" I blocked my ears to the class bully, Barbara Jones, who mocked the girls who hadn't gotten their periods yet (including me): "Just wait, suckers! You're gonna bleed down there and drip on everything and stink like pigs, and then guys are gonna poke you with their things, and you'll have babies and bleed till you die. Every girl in the world!"

No way. I wasn't going to leap onto train tracks or bleed for the rest of my life. I was born in Morocco--surely this curse hadn't crossed the seas. My mother would have warned me, wouldn't she? She had whispered that women were unclean in the eyes of rabbis. But what did old rabbis know? They weren't in the bathroom with me when I washed. When I got out of the shower, I sniffed deeply. I was clean, radiantly clean.

When Miss Miller, the seventh-grade English teacher, gave the assignment to write a creative story, my imagination soared. It was the first time in my life I'd been asked to write something creative. However, I had to remind myself: This was Miss Miller of the dreaded squat body, tadpole eyes, and lipless mouth, the schools self-appointed "guardian of morality." Despite fringes swaying from every part of her--wispy gray bangs, suede cowboy jacket, roped tassels dangling from the hem of her rough carpet skirt, Indian moccasins--she still appeared immovable, ancient, and rooted as a petrified tree. Worst of all were her huge red paws banging a long wooden ruler as she enforced the laws of her kingdom. "Kill the passive voice!" she shrieked. "Kill the passive parasites! Murder them stillborn! Before they infect other words!"

Miss Miller wanted something creative?

I'd be a fool to trust her--wouldn't I? Yet I needed to trust. If I didn't, I'd burst. My own beast skin--Donkeyskin's ash-strewn face--would drop to the ground, revealing the secret me in all her fierce power.

I wrote feverishly, borrowing heavily from the French author Colette, and called the story "The Smell of Love." The opening image: a large bed under an open window. The gold satin cover ripples and shimmers like a swirling sea. In the bed a man and woman scream at each other. He accuses her of cheating on him. She gets out of bed and throws a vase at him. He storms out, slamming the door behind him. She kicks the door and the wall, then climbs onto the bed to lout out the window. He walks away without looking back. She sinks back into the bed as she realizes that he is truly gone. She sniffs his pillow, the sheets, breathes in the scent of their love. She gets up and sees his jacket hanging on the chair. Crying, she wraps it tightly around herself. After a while, she goes back to bed, kneels, and looks out the window. The sun is high in the sky. She holds out her arms in pleading. In the distance, a dark figure emerges into focus. As he moves closer, she recognizes him and cries out in joy. He looks up and smiles. The End.

I handed in my masterpiece, painstakingly typed on lined yellow paper, and dreamed of the glory that would be mine. Miss Miller would be stunned by the power and beauty of my story: "Why, Ruth, I never imagined you were so talented. I am proud to have you in my class."

A week later, she handed back the stories. All the others received theirs, grumbled and snickered as they checked their grades. Everyone but me.

"One person wrote an obscene story that played wild and fast with morality," said Miss Miller, voice quavering with emotion. "Filth about body odors and immoral intercourse. This person must learn the rules of life. This person will receive an F. This person's parents will be notified. I will show you what we do with filthy stories. We destroy them stillborn!"

Her thick red fingers shredded, sliced, diced the yellow sheets and threw the tiny scraps into the garbage can. The only copy! A hard black wind blew through the room, cut at my flesh. I couldn't turn my head, couldn't shut my eyes. I was filthy and lewd, dust motes exploding from my spine. I'd never be able to lift myself from this seat, never walk out of this classroom, never move beyond this moment.

I look back at that girl--huddled and panting in her beast coat, fighting the howl that was rising, even then, from deep within--and wish I could tell her that yes, her story was ripped to pieces, but long after she left and Miss Miller locked the door, the smell of women seeped inside and filled the dingy classroom. Spicy, smoldering, sultry. The smell of love. Unclean, unfathomable, unextinguished, unfinished.

Open the door, girl: The story isn't over yet.

By Ruth Knafo Setton

The Body

Wed, 14 May 2008 19:15:01 GMT

This book cover inspired a middle-of-the-night self-portrait session.

I've spent the last 15 years--either feeling like a giant, or feeling invisible.

People point and say, "Look how tall she is!"

So I wear cameras around my neck. Become the machine.

I find bodies (or body parts) very strange. Gross, even.

The back cover of Becoming Myself: Reflections On Growing Up Female asks:

What does it mean to grow up female?

What does it mean to become a woman?

I don't know.

---

Aria has been wanting to put makeup on me lately. And perfume. Earrings.

---

About a month ago, I tried to go bra shopping.

Nothing fit.

I gave up.

---

Angular.

Lanky.

Strong.

---

It started with the haircut. The stylist opened the magazine and showed me pages of women.

Who do you want to be?

Eenie-meenie...

How about that one? She's beautiful.

Yes.

And wow, I look different. Feel different.

It has been years since I felt attractive. Harkened on to the fact that I have a body (thought I lost it when Aria was born).

Now...what to do with this sudden, excess energy?

When I was a kid, my mom used to say, "Go run around the block."

---

Swim?

Yoga?

Belly-dance?

---

From Suzanne Malveaux's story:

"I don't know what possessed us as little girls to challenge the status quo. My mother had no idea where it came from. But what I do know is that my relationship with my sister is what gave me the confidence to be myself. We thought we could do anything.

Twenty years later, I found myself challenging that notion in the cold waters of Wisconsin's Lake Pewaukee in my first triathlon. When that whistle blew, hundreds of us with matching swim caps and wetsuits plunged into the water. All of my focus was on getting to the shore on the other side. But soon thick seaweed began wrapping around my legs, pulling me down. I started to swallow water, sink, and panic. Once I struggled free, the challenge of following the swimmers out front comforted me. As I neared the shore, however, I was startled by a man with a bullhorn in a rescue boat calling out to me to ask if I was OK. I did not understand his concern until I looked back and realized there was no one behind me. I was dead last! When I hit the shore and jumped on my bike, I was determined to catch up, but much of the rest of the race I spent alone. By the time I started the run portion, the organizers were picking up the traffic cones, and many participants who had finished were drinking beers and packing up their cars to go home. But when I approached the finish line, the crowd began to cheer, and I could feel that the victory was in the trying, not the winning. I would have never imagined being so happy to come in in last place..."

---

The unendurable is the beginning of the curve to joy. -Djuna Barnes

I dwell in possibilities. -Emily Dickinson

Expose

Tue, 13 May 2008 16:14:51 GMT

This girl spent most of the photo session building an intricate "coral reef."

She has a quiet, serious nature. A thinker. Artist. Engineer.

Very self-contained.

The family won the "lucky draw" at my I: Woman: Flower exhibition in February. (Free photo shoot.)

I like doing an occasional freebie. Reminds me that I'm not just an artist "for the money."

Did you see the zebra?

Look again.

(My youngest sister, Naomi The_Imagination, recently asked me for some more photography lessons. She has some lovely pictures on her site, including portraits of my brother and other sisters, if you're curious. I was fifteen when she was born, and I remember thinking... "When she's 15, I'll be 30!" Nearly there.)

I was going to run another 6-week photography course, May/June.

15 people on my sign-up list... (That money would be nice.)

But I've been procrastinating (I will try to contact you tomorrow).

Tired of my notes (written a year ago).

Tired of people hoping I will zap them, give them some magic . . .

and

poof! They'll be wonderful photographers (without taking any pictures themselves?!)

Excuses I've heard:

I don't have time.

I need a better camera.

There's nothing to take pictures of here...

No, I don't feel like teaching right now.

I'll keep my list.

Maybe in November.

---

I've been going through a minor "Photographer-Crisis," and don't feel like a good example.

Same old "Who am I?" question.

Beach... Kids... No problem.

But weddings rattle me. (Harm me?)

I've gotten over my fear of doing weddings. My pictures are good.

---

Evolution of a wedding photographer

Phase/Wedding #1:

Gut wrenches for months prior. Break into sweat & chills. One week before--puke, diarrhoea. Think, "What nightmare have I gotten myself into?"

Phase/Wedding #2:

Only nervous for 2 days this time. Run to the toilet a lot.

Phase/Wedding #3:

Matter-of-fact. Got all my gear? Let's get this show on the road...

Phase/Wedding #4, 5, 6, 7 don't-know-how-many-I've-done-the-past-three-months:

Bride asks me, "So, are you bored doing all these weddings?"

Um...

Mixed-feelings.

On the one hand, I've had some mountain-top experiences. Seen extraordinary beauty.

On the other hand--the veils, and white dresses, and bosoms--candles, flowers, henna, music, cake, rings...

The fabrication of it all--really gets to me.

I know, it's supposed to be "the most important event in a woman's life." Her turn to be a princess.

(Let me go gag... Okay, I am cracking myself up here. Clapping my hands and yarking with laughter. What the...?!)

I am not the ideal wedding-photographer, who believes in the romantic fairy-tale.

Ouch.

Word which comes to mind is "voyeur."

One who views or inspects.

An obsessive observer of sordid or sensational subjects.

At many weddings, women (guests) do not want to be photographed. They look at me as if I have a machine gun in my hand. Even when the camera is hanging around my neck (not touching it, no hand on the button), they turn away. Afraid. That I will take something from them. Expose them.

I'm sorry.

---

Got a call from an ad agency in Dubai a few weeks ago.

"We love your work! It's so...genuine... Will you do a commercial campaign for us?"

(My reaction? See 1st girl picture above.)

So...you want to take my "genuine" style, and use it to create something fake?

Set. Models. Selling products.

"You should do it! The money is good..."

Nope.

Herschel and other HCT teachers are doing the jobs.

---

Fart-bucket.

I'm already taking bookings for November/December.

---

Did you find the zebra?

I keep at photography--for the unexpected.

Because it shows me myself.

My favorite photos are the weird ones.

Family is perfectly posed. "Smile for granny!" Then a Jeep drives into the frame. Aria walks by-- naked. Or we have an audience--gaggle of Indian housemaids staring--or an Omani guy taking pictures of us on his cell phone.

Love that.

---

Follow your intuition.

Take pictures only if you need to.

Know your subject.

---

You will not find me in a camera shop.

Herschel spends hours on the net, researching equipment (lens, body, flash, battery-pack).

"You need this!"

No. Maybe you do.

You will find me at the book store.

On my knees, stacking treasures. "Aria, please don't climb the shelves."

Hunting for wisdom.

Reading the night.

Bandying words.

So happy.

I'll tell you a secret. I'm a

Writer.

Author.

Poet.

And yes, the photographs & the weddings are for the book.

Not to expose you, dear clients. Your secrets are safe with me.

To expose myself--my darkness and light, strength and weakness.

---

No one remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself. -Thomas Mann

A thought may touch the edge of our life with light. -John Trowbridge

People think you have to be going some place, when, in fact, the ride is plenty. -Ann Patchett

A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within. -Eudora Welty

Real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them, as from a root. -G. K. Chesterton

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way. -Doris Lessing

Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.

-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen. -Paul Coelho

The best we can do for one another is to exchange our thoughts freely; and that, after all, is about all. -James A. Foude

The real thing creates its own poetry. -Anzia Yezierska

One knows what one has lost, but not what one may find. -George Sand

. . . be glad you had the moment. -Steve Shagan