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

Yesterday morning,as I sat having my coffee at the kitchen table, I couldn't help but notice my little wooden bracelet on the counter. I chuckled a little, and shook my head, I mean--you find things in the oddest places here. When you open a cutlery drawer, there's a pen, and please don't open that closet(literally and metaphorically) cause I can't protect you from you might find! But in the end, it is all fitting, all in line, all consistent with that running theme I, and many others have experienced and that is of being, or feeling, out of place. When I lived in Brooklyn, I was yankee girl in my house, and the Trinidadian girl amongst my friends, when I lived in Trinidad I was, well, Yankee girl again and in college, the Black/Trinidadian girl and in Copenhagen I'm well--you get the picture. I've never felt uncomfortable in this role, and I guess I've learned to thrive in it especially since one of the things I feel fortunate about is having had the op...

New York Region On a New Jersey Block, a Second Bright Student Is Mourned By FERNANDA SANTOS and NATE SCHWEBER Published: April 22, 2008 A woman who offered her condolences to a neighbor whose daughter was shot nine months ago is now mourning her son, who was gunned down Sunday. Read More... The New York Times

Here's my friend Rayner's latest segment on NBC, which aired last night. Cool beans dude. lab

As soon as I entered Nørrebro, who do I see but Muhammed and his new family. I continue my journey to Stinne's store, love living on Guldbergsgade 22. Stinne started her store a few years ago because as she said, "I couldn't help it! If someone had told me I would be a shop owner I would have never believed them. But then I realized that I could have a store that actually reflects who I am." The result? An eclectic and warm collection of everything from Ayurvedic beauty products (The Antiseptic cream is amazing!)to designer, vintage dresses. Walking into love living is like getting access to your stylish Great-Aunt's closet--her store is full of edgy, fun vintage finds and features Danish designers with a eye towards the East. You could get everything from zone therapy, massages, facials, ayurvedic counseling, shoes, bracelets, hats, incense, soap, earrings, dresses, jackets and not least of all, a great chat with sassy Stinne herself. In short, the store...

My Sister #1 My sister makes dolls. She makes Black dolls. It was once illegal For Blacks to have Black dolls she says. There was once the Topsy- turvy doll White dolls with long skirts. .. long skirts which hid black dolls… the child played with her black doll, her doll that looked like her, that was brown like her that mirrored her… But when a white person came ‘round, the child turned the doll around. Hiding the black doll, but showing the White doll. And that’s how we survive… by Turning duplicity On its head…

Sometimes our victories don't look the way we want them to look, or the way we think we want them to look and I just loved the way all my recent frustrations subsided by hanging out with my son. We went over to Amy's for brunch today. Amy's husband, Lars Henrik Olsen is a children's book writer and is, coincidentally, Kai's favorite writer. Kai helped Lars Henrik make Danish style pancakes and later, read a soon-to-be published story. Kai was the very first person to read this manuscript and it was cool to sit by and watch the two of them discuss what Kai thought about the story. It was even cooler seeing him sitting quietly, pen in hand, making little notes on the manuscript. Spring is here--we played a bit of football in preparation for Kai's big football game this Tuesday and basically chilled. That's what weekends are for, afterall... Farvel, the lab

When I went to Irving, I used to tell every one who would listen that I was going to win the Pulitzer...well, although I haven't won it (yet) I feel as though I did. Congratulations Junot Diaz. If there is anyone out there who knows what it's like to work 10 years on a novel, it's yours truly. Black Women in Europe has recently initiated a blog highlighting all the Black women bloggers here in Europe and I'm the first one featured! Click here: Black Women in Europe to read more. Cool stuff, the lab

Yesterday my mother called me, "Lesley, that you?" Who else would be answering my phone? "How you doing?" She continued, "remember that thing with my eye?" A few weeks ago my mother had told me that she had tunnel vision. "Well, guess what? It's glaucoma." My mother sounded her usual cheerful self, I swear, the sky could fall on her head and her response would always be, "It could always be worse." "Girl, you better not have that baby here!" My mother lovingly admonishes one of her co-workers. Although it is Sunday, she is at work at the very same bank she started working in over 36 years ago. Well, it's not the very same place, but it is the same company. My mother has always worked in "receiving" which meant where they input all the data to clear checks. You could kind of guess what has happened to that position with the dawning of debit cards and computers...but I always loved to go by my mother's job...

Trinidad is beckoning me and I must go home. I didn't want to wake up this morning, because I dreamt I was in the company of my grandmother, Mummy Hildred. I found myself inside the house where I spent a substantial amount of my youth. Even Grandaddy was there--although he has been dead for quite some time--and we regarded each other with the love that we always held back from each other. I visited Aunty Jackie--the woman who lives across the street and she showed me her garden, full of colorful flowers whose names I had already forgotten by the time I awoke. Aunty Jackie is a coffee-colored African woman who, according to my Grandmother, always asks for me. It was she who helped me get into Diamond Vale Primary School and always referred to me as "her girl". Aunty Jackie never had children of her own but she tended her garden the same way she tended her classes at the school--with an unyeilding disciplinarian hand through which expressions of love and tenderness sometime...

"Your mother’s truth becomes a part of yours, so generational truths have a way of sifting down because it forms you, and you have to deal with some of the issues that form you in order to clear your mind, even of pressures that you don’t know are there.”-- Rosa Guy “How many of us who are writers have mothers, grandmothers, of limited education; awkward, not at home, with the written word, however eloquent they may be with the spoken one? Born a generation or two before, we might have been them.” Silences -- Tillie Olsen

Recently, I've been receiving much support from http://guanaguanaresingsat.blogspot.com I want to express my appreciation for this. I was approached by this wonderful blogger to be included in an amazing community of Trinidadian and Tobagonian bloggers & decided that I should celebrate this by sharing the following with you: A Note From The Gull Just recently, I came across the blog of Lesley-Ann Brown, "Black Girl on Mars: Notes on a life in Copenhagen" There is so much to capture the reader's interest on this blog, not the least of which is the author's active intellectual and personal engagement in a stimulating life and her ability to engage the reader while sharing her experiences and insights. One of the pieces which I found myself revisiting is her Youtube video called "Heroes". In it the author has put her poem to music with the aid of the musician, Woody. In this poem, she acknowledges the heroic everyday contributions of ordinary people, ...