blackgirl on mars: notes on a life in copenhagen (or how my alienation brings me closer to people).

the organist's daughter, by lab 2007 Black Girls on Istegade By Lesley-Ann Brown “It’s funny what people assume about you here in Denmark”, my friend Tracy confides as she takes the candy colored curlers out of her hair. It’s 10 at night, and I had just finished my shift at the restaurant. I was exhausted, but I needed a taste of Brooklyn before I went back to my loneliness and empty apartment. The moment Tracy opened her door and I laid eyes on her—with her curlers and bright pink bathrobe, I knew that I had rolled up to a place close to home. Tracy’s home on Istedegade was typical Brooklyn class—plush sofas in which you melted, an oversized television that fulfilled its entertainment purposes and an endless array of Black hair care products in her bathroom. Tracy wasn’t afraid of color, and this courage enraptured all that entered. Her apartment lacked the clinical minimalism that seems to dominate most Danish homes—and for that I was grateful. I sat comfortably in o...

lanzarote, 2012 What does love look like to you? Does it have the gentle Smile on an old face As eyes come alive at the sight of a child? What does love look like to you? Is it shiny and new and Made of plastic Or dull and drastic? Does it include children, the stale smell of soup kitchens or the sight of a youth giving his seat up to someone older? Is it the sight of old ladies with lines of happiness traversing faces, lines That no longer know their resting place that map out, adventures and sorrows? What does life look like to you? Does it look like an old, White headed Black man Who has submitted To the capriciousness of life And thus ensuring victory and Eternity? What does life look like To you? Is it fluorescent lit and can fit into your pocket? What does life smell like to you? The stale smell of yesterday’s Used grease Or the pure escape of Lavender into the air? What does love Fe...

the mothers of memory by brown 2010 My Beautiful Aunt Greta My mother is a bastion of secrets. Her fortitude in the face of my questioning is magnificent. She will not tell that my brother has a father other than mine. She will not tell about her pre-marital pregnancies. And if it were not for pictures, she would not have even told the true color of her hair. But she will, and enjoys, telling of other’s trespasses. One such trespass she particularly relishes, one she constantly refers to behind her mother’s back is that of my great grandmother Frances Lopez. “Shhh.” She would say, alive with a glee that should only be reserved for the adolescent, “Don’t let Mommy Clarisse (her mother) hear us. She does get vex when she feel we bad talking Ma.” It is February and I have traveled to Trinidad. It is the first time I am here with my husband and child—in other words it is the first time I have traveled to Trinidad as a woman. The trip is a lesson in how difficult it is to sle...

Life here is finally getting better. I have now been in Copenhagen for 7 years! I have finally learned the language (I really resisted it, but trust me, it helps!), and I finally got a job that I really like. My grandmother, whom I love to bits, just came to visit me from Trinidad! She turned 82 here, and I threw her a little party. We listened to calypso and she told me she likes me better when I have had a few to drink... The darkness is settling in on Copenhagen. The winters here are bare and dark. The trees disappear and nature looks like a hollowed out corpse. It really does. That's why I think of it as a training ground for the soul. If you can survive a winter here...then you ain't as bad as you thought. Peace, Lesley Ann

Likes to garden and her temper is as hot as her pepper sauce that she makes, from the peppers that grows on her tree. She tends to her garden although her back hurts, picking green, bulbous avocados limey-green oranges under the cruel caribbean heat. My grandmother loves to eat vegetables and warns never to eat meat every day. She prays and never reads. Her nose has surrendered to gravity as well as her breasts. She laughs at herself. She cries for me, sometimes. Silently. I know because she has told me. My grandmother is more beautiful, a million more times more beautiful a zillion to the point where you can't even count, more beautiful than Paris Hilton. She is full of class She takes the motherless in puts her faith in her actions takes care of those who don't have anyone to take care of them. My grandmother smells like limacol dinnermints onions chives fre...

chillin in hawaii w/angela, 2011 Do you wear rollers & slippers to the grocery store do you smoke cigarettes do yoga drink beer or wine? Do you believe in the power of love or eat the fast food of hate that permeates? Do you have the courage to say no to that? Do you shine when others shine or get suicidal when the attention ain't on you? are you beautiful only if others are ugly or can all reside in your heart? Do you fill the hole in your soul through cash register rings or have you committed to a little shopping there and some self-confrontation here? Do you seek the validation of a man's gaze Is it easy for you to help others or do you shrug them off & blame them for thier own predicament, you know, she made her own bed... does womanhood look one way to you or have you accepted the multitude of possibilities inherent in the word? from inventi...