New Real (or Virtual) Estate

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to let you know I have moved my blog. I've made my own website: keleneblake.com complete with blog. I've enjoyed having you here at "The Scent of Dying Roses" and invite you to join me at my new space Blackademically Inclined where I post weekly on topics of health, social justice, race, and my experiences as an international Black PhD student in a predominantly white institution. I've been consistently posting weekly since summer so there's a lot for you to read. I can also be followed on Twitter @BlackTygress and on my artist page on Facebook.

Thank you and see you soon!

Kelene :-)

Fixing Women Who Are Not Broken to Appease Men Who Are

I don't really pay attention to Steve Harvey's relationship guru direction, or anything on TV in general, but I found this particularly disturbing and I can't help but wonder why it is acceptable of anyone. In the above clip a husband has extreme negative reactions to his wife's natural hair when she takes a break from wearing weaves. Harvey playfully admonishes the husband for not supporting his wife then brings in a "professional", Nikki Walton to speak with them about natural hair. The "professional" treats it as if it is all about the woman and her confidence and the whole fix is to teach her new hairstyles. This is not okay.

It was disappointing and frankly upsetting how this situation was handled. I don't generally care for conversations that treat natural hair like an anomaly. This sort of conversation stems out of white supremacy, an obvious legacy from this world's history, the consequences of which are still, to this day, damaging and real. The concept that "straight silky" hair is the norm and that other people with other textures of hair are abnormal and ugly is an example. This is why grown white people will ask me how I get my hair the way it is, because surely having hair of my texture and shape is not natural and I must be doing something drastic to make it all stand up like this. I always find it surprising that people can grow to adulthood without the basic understanding that people have all sorts of natural differences and not everyone's hair lies flat or is similar to theirs. Unfortunately the "normalcy" of whiteness is so deeply ingrained in so much of society that, even among the African diaspora, natural African hair is treated with scorn - especially the shorter and more tightly curled its texture. The natural hair of people of African descent comes in various textures and lengths and is extremely versatile. Healthy hair is beautiful, no matter what the texture, color or ethnicity of the person whose head it crowns. It really should be that simple. Instead what we have is a devaluing of hair that seems more "African" or "nappy" or "kinky", and even in natural hair circles, people are encouraged to disguise the texture of such hair to make it more wavy or to "tame" it.

I care passionately about a woman's right to own her natural body, to love herself and be loved as she is without having to change her natural features to suit a shallow and misguided society; which brings me back to the above clip and why I consider it more damaging than helpful. The husband in this story needs to be called out on his shallowness, his mental slavery and overall horrible selfish, childish inconsiderate behavior. If he can't let his lovely wife be herself at every stage of the "growing process" he doesn't deserve her.  Her hair is beautiful AS IS, at the length and texture it is. All the styles offered as solutions are about either hiding her hair or changing the appearance of it. It is not her fault her husband is inconsiderate and ridiculous, though she literally states she feels guilty, and she shouldn't have to "fix" her hair for the situation to improve. This solution reinforces patriarchal ideas that the husband is not responsible for his own behavior toward his wife, but rather she caused him to behave that way towards her. 

We are looking at a grown man here. He ought to have the maturity to accept that he does not own his wife's hair, that she is taking actions for her own true natural health and beauty, and that he needs to move beyond shallow "white-is-right" ideologies to accept his wife for who she is and not just how she looks. When he met her he knew she was a woman of African descent and he had an idea of what her natural hair texture is like because he has the same hair. The fact that he is repulsed by his wife's similar hair texture to his own seems to demonstrate some self-hate. As a grown man he needs to recognize and work on that. His wife also needs to work on her own discomfort with her natural hair. Both need to journey to a place emotionally where they can see each other and themselves in their natural state without the lens of white supremacy, patriarchy or any other ingrained misconceptions and judgments that teach them they are anything less than beautiful and good. Anything else is simply not enough. Harvey and Walton are putting band-aids over bullet holes and I refuse to condone such carelessness.

I have nothing against twist-outs, iron-outs or pin-ups. Hairstyle is not the point (and if you think that is you've definitely missed it). I do have something against people of influence reinforcing damaging concepts or trying to fix women who are not broken to appease men who are. If you know better, do better. If you don't know better, you better learn fast or give voice to those who do know better. Band aids over bullet holes will not produce the type of healing we need. Let's do the surgery necessary, dig deep and find healing for ourselves and by extension our larger society.

The November Experiment: Health and Poverty

If "Health is Wealth" what does that mean for the poor?

November 2013 I embarked on an experiment looking at healthy eating on a tight budget. I promised to spend $20 per week on food and still eat healthily. The first 2 weeks went smoothly and then I reached a budgeting roadblock in the third week. I wanted to celebrate a special birthday with a friend so I used my $20 allotment for that and skipped the grocery that week. I was fine for week 3 and 4 with what I had already in my pantry and making use of leftovers – another important skill on a budget. I used the remainder saved from the previous weeks to splurge for Thanksgiving ($25) and by the end of November I averaged $19.80 for each weekend that I would have gone to the grocery.

Now in doing this experiment I was not going far off the road I am used to. I have been putting myself through school and money has always been tight. Oftentimes I’ve had less to work with and sometimes more. The purpose here was to get concrete information about shopping with a set limit for healthy eating. As an educator I hope to use this information to prepare health and wellness workshops for people in financial hardship. During this time though, there were other things I learned  too.

For one I learned there are some psychological roadblocks that can be associated with or exacerbated by poverty which a recipe list and mere shopping advice cannot solve. Anxiety and depression can be triggered or exacerbated by the very real struggles of poverty. This was well expressed here in a blog post by a woman living in poverty entitled “Why I Make TerribleDecisions, or, poverty thoughts.” 

So in addition to caring for the physical health of those with low socioeconomic status, we need resources caring for their mental health. Taking care of oneself and one’s family is a commitment that can truly be derailed when issues of depression and anxiety overwhelm. Everything starts with the mind, health included. 

The tangible limitations of the cost of food can be worked around with the right MIND set and SKILL set. Knowledge and application of what your body needs, what foods are healthy, how to cook, how to shop for  or grow them; these are all important in overcoming the challenges of being healthy when funds are scarce.

So it comes down to education: not necessarily the institutional classroom and grades type, but the education generations before us were receiving in the home, in the kitchen, the market and the yard. In many U.S. families, for about 3 generations (both boys and girls) have not been leaning how to cook for themselves and their families (here is Jamie Oliver’s TED talk about this). That leads to a deficit contributing to poor health among lower socioeconomic classes. If you are poor and do not know how to cook for yourself, you do not have the money to pay someone else to prepare wholesome meals for you and your family. You end up paying cheap fast food restaurants to cook for you instead. You are stuck with low quality nutrition form the cheapest prepared food sources: fast food and cheap processed bulk foods.

In order for us to truly address the health of the socioeconomically disadvantaged we need to make available resources for their mental health as well as help them develop the necessary skill sets through education.

Truth is socioeconomic imbalance should not even exist and is a symptom of the many things wrong with this world and how it is governed and controlled. The argument that a poor person is responsible for his or her circumstances because of laziness or poor character is the highest level of bullshit. The deck is stacked. Those of us who have knowledge and resources to do something need to look out for those who do not – that is how we build and grow together. The November Experiment helped me gain new insight into what I need to include in developing my strategy to help. I hope it also helps you get a wider perspective of the issues of health and poverty.

The November Experiment a.k.a. Project “Don’t Starve. Thrive.”

Week 1 Groceries. Photo by Kelene Blake

This month I am starting an experiment. Each week I will go to the grocery store with only a $20 bill and attempt to buy healthy food to last a week. People say that eating healthy is expensive and to some extent that is certainly true. Buying organic tends to cost more. Healthier frozen meals cost more. Yet I don’t believe that all healthy eating has to be expensive, so I have given myself the challenge for November to eat healthily 5-6 times a day (3 meals, 2-3 snacks) on $20 per week. I’m doing this for 4 reasons:

1. Because I told an acquaintance of mine that I would prepare a health workshop for low-income housing communities on eating healthy even with a low budget;
2. Because this study (link) by Dr. Katz et al concluded that healthy food does not necessarily cost more and I want to see if it holds true for people with the tightest budget;
3. Because many people’s food stamp benefits are being cut due to the U.S. government budget deadlock and people still need to eat, and eat healthily, but now have less money to work with;
4. Because it’s just that kind of month (the kind where the less money I spend, the better). The struggle is real. But hopefully I can learn from it and benefit others too.

This isn’t a highly controlled research experiment. I am starting off with some food already in my pantry – mostly rice and peas/beans, seasonings, baking ingredients. This experiment is only for food and any non-food items are not included in that $20 grocery list. What I am doing is a real-world experiment. In the real world we don’t go to the grocery each week with a blank slate. However the reality is some people do go to the grocery store with very limited funds and they do their best with those funds to not go hungry. They are forced by their financial restrictions to buy cheap bulk foods just so they and their families have something to eat and avoid hunger pains, even if that something has little nutritional value. Instead of foods rich in vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, fiber and other good things that help our bodies function well, the cheapest foods in most grocery stores have mostly empty calories, are nutrient poor and not particularly wholesome – made with white flour, sugar, chemicals, preservatives and unhealthy fats. It is a backward system where it is cheaper and easier to be unhealthy than healthy.

My hypothesis is that with $20 each week I can use the skill set I have to prepare for myself healthy, tasty meals that are nutrient-dense, full of vitamins, minerals, fiber, phytochemicals. It will be a mostly plant-based diet but will still provide enough protein and healthy fats. It will require more food preparation time than typical convenience foods, but with careful planning and efficient use of time I will be able to fit it into my schedule. I am hoping it will reveal what skills are most useful under these circumstances so I, as a health professional, can better educate the wider community. I also want to help those who have not experienced it understand some of the basic health challenges of poverty.

I already have my first week of groceries as shown in the photo. It came up to $18.91. I’ve already learned a bit in the process. I experienced quite a bit of anxiety on the way to the grocery store; worrying about whether I can actually do this, worrying what people would think of me, worrying about the embarrassment of going over budget and having to ask to remove some items at the cash register. That first worry I defied by actually doing it. The last one I combated by plugging each item price into my calculator to check the total to make sure I didn’t go over, and took note of which items were on sale to make sure they weren’t rung up at full price. And the one worrying about what people think… I came to the following conclusion: 

When you tie your self-worth to how others think of you or treat you, then you tie yourself to a burden that will inevitably drag you down. Your worth as a human being, a creative, intelligent, magnificent creature of this earth is intrinsic and unchangeable. No one can give you your worth. No one can take it away. All that remains is for you to see and accept your own immeasurable worth, wear it fearlessly and live your greatness.

The most difficult thing I learned so far is that in addition to the tangible hardships of life, these anxieties are a constant part of daily existence for many people in poverty. $20 U.S. a week, roughly $2.86 a day, on food alone for a single person is still more than millions of families around the world have to supply all their needs.  It is not fair. If this project can help people caught in this unfair system to lead healthier lives even with financial restrictions, then that is far more important than a little anxiety. I will keep you updated on this blog on how this experiment is progressing. In the meantime I have some food prep to do. Bless.

The Insanity of Health Disparities

I knew from childhood I am susceptible to diabetes and have valued and studied health to give myself the best chance of avoiding that life sentence. I took for granted what turned out to be an important part of health – the certainty I had some control over my own wellbeing. I understood my choices and actions could affect how I feel and my health outcomes as I aged. Years of studying the human body, how it functions and how it functions best, led me to the conclusion that health is more than a personal issue, it is a social justice one. I took a closer look at health from this perspective. Here is what I found.

In the U.S., a person’s health is too often contingent on factors such as socioeconomic status, race, gender and education. The more money one has, and the more education, then the more likely you are to be healthy and the longer you live. Generally women live longer than men but when it comes to healthcare, women face unequal access and institutionalized sexism in the healthcare industry. The most dramatic health disparities are the racial disparities. In the U.S., African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asian Americans all have disproportionally higher rates of chronic diseases, higher mortality and poorer health outcomes than European Americans. Furthermore these minority groups have less access to healthcare and receive inferior care than European Americans.

The image shows graphs and information about life expectancy from the CDC’s “Health, United States, 2011” report. It suggests that the life expectancy for a black male in the U.S. is 8 years less than that of a white male and 6 years less than a Hispanic male. Life expectancy for a black female is six years less than for a white female and four years less than a Hispanic female. This is by no means a full picture because Asian Americans, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders and people of mixed race are left out; but it does show the seriousness of health disparities in the U.S.

What does all that mean? Well it means that if you are a rich white woman with at least bachelor’s degree in the U.S. of A. you’ve won the health and lifespan lottery. If you are a poor black man who didn’t make it through high school you’re at the bottom of the health and lifespan barrel as a result of institutionalized classism and racism. Even then; despite the lifespan advantage a female naturally has due to gender, her access to healthcare is even lower than that of any male due to institutionalized sexism.

Health in the U.S. paints a messy picture and right now I am a can of paint about to be splashed all over the canvas. I am embarking on a career as a Health Coach and Educator and determined to make it more than “just a job.” I don’t know if I can impact enough lives to make a tangible difference in this situation, but I’m going to try. Five of the ten leading causes of death in the United States are preventable “lifestyle” diseases (heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease, diabetes, kidney disease) and a further four can be influenced by healthy lifestyles (cancer, Alzheimer’s, influenza/pneumonia, septicemia) this means 9 out of the 10 leading causes of death can be reduced dramatically if people learn to lead healthier lives. I can help with that! (The remaining one is unintentional accidents.)

Institutionalized problems like racism, classism and sexism are big issues and the journey toward change will continue to be long and arduous. While that journey is taking place we can work from the ground up in changing our own mindset and culture when it comes to health; that way we’re not dying off from preventable diseases while we wait for the insanity of these inequalities to be fixed. I will not place the onus of oppression on the oppressed. Institutionalized racism, classism, and sexism all must be fought and done away with. Yet, I will use the one advantage I do have, my education, to wage battle on this problem from where I stand. That’s something we can all do isn’t it? We can use the gifts we have to make a difference where we are – improve our own lives, the lives of our loved ones and extend to our community. Hopefully if enough of us care enough to make a difference, the whole world can be different (better).

Sources:

CDC’s “Health, United States, 2011” report

Chapter 24. Health and Medicine. Introduction to Sociology. Cragun R., Cragun D., Konieczny P. (Open source)

Chapter 19. Health and Medicine. Introduction to Sociology. Openstax College. Rice University (Open source)

Overcoming "Normal"

“Normal is an illusion. What is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly.” ~Morticia Addams

It’s normal for a men to be given more money and resources than women. It’s normal for African-Americans to have lower incomes, health and education. It’s normal for a woman to put her husband and family above her personal needs, goals and dreams. It’s normal for a man to put his own sexual desires ahead of respect for a woman. It’s normal for certain people to be born into privilege, have more economic and political power, and for certain other people to be born into poverty and live the “hard life.” It’s abnormal to love or marry outside the bounds set by religion, law, caste, class or race. It’s abnormal for a woman to not be interested in pursuing marriage or to not want children. It’s abnormal for a young black man to be more interested in writing poetry than playing sports; abnormal for to walk down the street in an “English-speaking” country and hear residents speaking languages other than English. It’s abnormal for someone “different” to not want to assimilate, give up their culture and beliefs to be more like the dominant class.

Injustices, inequalities, discrepancies and double standards are passed off as normal – just the way it is – and people’s freedoms and rights are infringed on the basis of them not falling within the dominant class’s category of normalcy. Sometimes people are so afraid of change that they fail to realize that the “norm” is not the ideal but is actually oppressive to many groups. But when the current system gives you an advantage or stability, it is difficult to see its flaws. Even those on the wrong side of those flaws may resist change because, as the saying goes, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”

Yet the “natural order” of things is not so “natural.” Humans have created these norms through patterns of domination and strategy, decisions and actions over the course of history. If we so haphazardly and very carefully created this world of haves and have-nots, then we can create a better one. People with power and privilege are not likely to want to change a system that gave them power and privilege, so we really need to stop waiting for those people to “do something.” Such people will appease the masses by giving an inch as they continue to take yards and yards.

One of the first things we need to do is change the way we think. If more people examine themselves, their biases, stereotypes, conditioning and apathy we can stop thinking what we’re taught to think and start thinking critically about the world around us. Critical thinking allows us to question the norms, recognize their flaws, change our behaviors and find solutions. It is crucial to transition from thinking to action. 

Changes in our every-day behaviors, choices, how we spend our money, how we treat others, all baby steps in creating a better world around ourselves. Actions that extend beyond, teaming up with others in finding solutions that can have positive impact on a larger scale, is also a big part of re-writing the norms. It’s important to focus on things you can do rather than get frustrated by what you cannot do (right now). The process is slow and uncomfortable – quite opposite to the convenient instant gratification that consumer society is trying to make into the “norm” at the expense of many around the world.

This world is not static and norms are not absolute. If no one believes things can be changed for the better then no one will ever change anything. But things can change for the better when people are determined to make these changes happen. Question “normal” and acknowledge the chaos it causes to those trapped in its web. Let us each commit to doing our part to make the world better than “normal.”

Doing More With Less

Things are tight and many of us are learning to do more with less. There are things we all want to do one day. Dreams. Goals. When trying to accomplish something you need to be prepared to do so “in spite of.” The time will never be perfectly right. You will never be perfectly ready. What we often fail to realize is that achieving our goals isn’t a one-off effort: it is the culmination of many, many little efforts over a long time. 

There are always little things we can do every day that lead up to those goals. Some of these practical things can be tangible – like registering a business name or writing a blog post. Others are less tangible like reading a book, working out a timeline or putting aside money each month.

Money is the first thing many people cite as the reason they cannot chase after their dreams or achieve certain goals. Saving and making good decisions about money is important. Too many people have a mindset of getting debt and taking loans. This culture has turned debt and credit into a “good” thing that “responsible” people are expected to have. Horse-shit! I’m not a financial advisor but I am practical about money which is one of the reasons I’ve survived this long. The first and foremost thing I’ve learned is to avoid debt like the plague – save up for what you need or want. Below is some saving advice that can help you accomplish a lot with a little over time. It assumes you have an income – however small, large or indifferent.

·         Before anything else: subtract 10% of your paycheck every month for savings. This first 10% is savings. It may be savings for a specific purpose (like a car etc) or in case of emergency (like unemployment). Do not touch it for any other reason! Put it aside then figure out how to live the rest of the month without it. If you have to eat nothing but rice and beans for a while then so be it.

·         If you can do a second 10% then put that aside as investment/givings. This is multi-purpose and a bit more flexible, but still not for bills and typical life expenses. Put it into your children’s or nieces and nephews mutual fund or college savings; put it aside to invest in your future business plans; or give it to whatever cause or charity you feel like contributing to. Heck! Split it up and do all three of these things if that 10% chunk is big enough. Point is use it to invest for the future, your community, and to make a positive difference.

·         Next: pay your rent and bills. Include in here payment for credit card and loans. Do not pay only the minimum on debt. Pay as much as you can spare to get rid of debt. Debt is a blight you need to get rid of as soon as humanly possible.

·         Buy groceries. If you plan meals, buy groceries and budget for food monthly, you’re less likely to end up eating out (spending extra/wasting money).

·         If there’s any remaining, the rest is your disposable income. Dispose of it as you wish and try to have some fun. Sometimes you won’t have this and your entertainment might have to be staying in and reading a library book. That works too.

I know it doesn’t sound exciting; being smart and cautious never does. But savings and investment are truly important and key in helping you make things happen. You are in control of your money. It isn’t some willful thing that comes and goes into your life like an on-again off-again relationship. It is something you work with logically, not emotionally, and you make it work for you.

Starting & Finishing

The two most difficult parts of any endeavor are starting and finishing. Starting because it’s so filled with uncertainty, you don’t know what to expect, there’s a lot to make you anxious and afraid, sometimes enough to leave you paralyzed and unable to actually begin. There are the times you just have to jump in. You can submerge yourself like you’re trying to acclimatize to cold water at the beach. Or you can ease in, step by step, phase by phase until you are fully covered. Once you’ve made that first step despite the fear, uncertainty and challenges you have conquered a major part of the struggle.

Ending is also frightening because things can become overwhelming. I noticed a pattern at the end of both my undergrad and masters degrees. It was as if I suddenly developed some sort of attention deficit disorder and became unable to concentrate. It had a lot to do with anxiety for me. I have to force myself to do what I need to do to finish. I constantly have to tell myself “One last push, you can do this. Don’t stop now.” That last hill we climb can be a doozie.

The two hardest things are starting and finishing – yet they are the two most important things. Good intentions and ideas are nothing until you take action. Then when you start you need to follow through and finish. Giving up is not necessary and simply cannot be an option if something is important to you. Procrastinating, or not finishing leave you with a burden at the back of your mind. You drag this burden along and can get stuck. It can hamper forward movement and growth if you leave things unresolved. The psychological freedom of having resolved something gives you space to move forward and continue positive growth rather than staying stuck.

The thing with ending is that when one thing ends, something else begins. For me, when masters ended I officially became unemployed and my job search began. That in itself is scary and technically I haven’t properly started yet: still updating my resume and that sort of stuff. But again, I’m at that scary starting point. Uncertainty seems to be life’s only certainty – because everything has a start and an end, both of which are covered in the stuff.

So I guess the best thing to do is realize this is how it will always be – there will always be fear and uncertainty at the beginning, ending, and all up in the middle of everything you do in the construction and creation of your life. The thing is to not let that fear and uncertainty paralyze you – keeping you from starting and ending. We can take a note from the book of artist Georgia O’Keefe who said “I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.”

So go on. Get started. Get finished. Fear ain’t shit compared to what you have to offer the world.

Kneading Dreams Part 2

Last week I posted the first of this two part list of lessons learned from making bread. (I know, that’s a bit random, but my mind wanders.) Here’s lessons 6 to 10 of that list:

6. Bonds will break. New bonds will form.

For the ingredients to become dough a chemical process takes place. Bonds are broken and formed with the mechanical energy provided by your kneading. Before you get where you need to be bonds need to be broken; new bonds need to be formed. Some of these bonds to be broken can be daily vices; your love for television or junk food, your hours spent gaming or social networking. Time-sucks, health sabotages, toxic behaviors and thoughts need to be cleaved off or at least minimized and controlled. Some of these bonds can be toxic people who are negative, who don’t like what you’re trying to do and make that a burden for you, who encourage you to do the toxic things you want to stop doing. Sometimes you may have to end the relationship. Sometimes it’s just a matter of minimizing contact: stop hanging around them, avoid talking or listening to them, become too busy to spend as much time in the toxic environment they bring. Form new bonds. Find like-minded aspirers. Find people who have achieved what you want to achieve. Find people who encourage and support you. Take up new habits. Break and form the bonds, habits, attitudes and behaviors that will take you where you want to go.

7. Give it time to grow.

You probably figured out from #6 that making bread takes time, it’s no cake-walk (though making cake has its challenges too). Reaching big goals takes time. The bigger the goal the more time. Bread can take one or two hours. Forming healthy habits can take months. Other goals – years. But the time was going to pass anyway, with you living the way you live now, accomplishing nothing new, so you might as well do something with that hour, those months or years that will result in accomplished dreams (or food for the week). But when you start toward your goals and dreams be in it for the long haul. Know that things do not happen instantly: you need to put your time in before you get something good out.

8. Be prepared to face the heat.

There’s always one last challenge. In order for the dough to become bread you have to apply heat. To make a diamond it takes high temperature and high pressure. To become more than the sum of your parts you need to face the hardships and obstacles – I prefer to call them challenges – that come your way right up to the end. There is often going to be a point when you’ve done everything, you’re almost there, destination in sight, and something will challenge you. This is when people often quit. You don’t. You never know which hurdle is the last but keep jumping them or ploughing through them until you get to that finish line. Your destination is real, keep moving towards it.

9. Pace yourself. Don’t get burned.

In addition to killing the yeast my first time I also burned the bread. Well actually the recipe I had told me to wait a length of time during which the bread burned. Needless to say I tweaked that part of the recipe as well. But it just goes to show, someone else’s timing may not be the right pace for you. Some people can make it on 4 hours sleep a night for years while others need that 7 or 8 hours to function. Work with your own needs, your own pace. Sleep, eat, take breaks, relieve stress as needed. It’s not a failure or a weakness to have to pause and catch your breath. In fact if you’re pacing yourself correctly you won’t have to stop to catch your breath because you’re working at a pace that fits your level of endurance. Indulgence, laziness, procrastination get you nowhere. But pacing yourself gets you where you need to be intact. You’re going to do a lot of growing and changing in the heat. You need to make sure the process doesn’t destroy you.

10. Enjoy the smell

There is nothing quite like the smell of freshly baked bread. It is the smell of comfort and warmth. For me it’s the smell of achievement. I will eat well this week. Enjoy the journey and the destination. The process is difficult. It’s rough. It’s stressful and tiring. But often time there’s nothing else you’d rather be doing because you’re doing the work of building your dreams. But in the heat, when you get those initial whiffs of success, you know you’ve done it, you’re doing it, and it’s worth it.

Photo by Kelene Blake: Yes it looks plain on the outside but it's filled with yummy spinach-y, tomato-y, mackerel-y goodness on the inside!

Kneading Dreams

Last Sunday, my baking day, I made my first batch of bread for 2013. When you’re making bread by hand – kneading the dough until it is ready to be put aside so it can rise – you have a lot of time to think. I’ve learned a lot from baking, and from last year when life sent me in the strange directions that led to me baking my own bread among so many other things. Here are a few life lessons I came up with while kneading dough:

1. Figure out what you need before you begin.
In making bread and plans I’ve learned to be strategic. In both cases I learn from my mother and my friends. You can learn a lot from others’ experiences. Sometimes gathering the right resources can take time. Sometimes you have to find alternatives. But it is important to understand what raw materials you need – whether it is the right groceries, the technique, the equipment, the knowledge, the mindset – and get it if you are going to start right. Without the ingredients there will be no bread.

2. Begin
Jump in. I had been saying I want to bake my own bread for an embarrassingly long time before I actually got around to it. Procrastination is a tempting beast. If it is not pressing, required for basic survival, routine or crucial for maintenance of our precarious position in life, we will likely put it off. The only way to beat procrastination is to just start. Catch it by surprise. “Do it while you’re thinking about it” as my former professor M.K. Asante used to say. It’s like when you first step into a swimming pool or the water at the beach. It feels cold on your feet, so the best thing to do is just override you hesitation and submerge yourself. Whether your intent is to start a new career, start exercising, change your diet, pluck your eyebrows… whatever it is you’re putting off, start it now. Right now. You can come back and finish read this post after you’ve started.

3. Shit will happen. Learn from it.
I scalded the yeast to death with boiling hot water the first time I tried to make bread. The dough didn’t rise and the end result was barely edible rock bread. Since then, I’ve made sure to not do that again. I made a mistake. The world didn’t end (Take that Mayan calendar folks!). It made me better at what I was doing. We are programmed to fear failure. We’re bombarded with images of success, stories about the best, pressure to learn quickly and make the grade at the appointed time. We forget one of the most basic methods of learning is through trial and error. There is nothing wrong with not getting it easily the first few times. Each mistake is shedding the skin of inexperience. Be okay with it. Be patient with yourself. You’re learning.

4. Follow the recipe the first time, then tweak it.
I combined my Mom’s and my best friend’s recipe to make my bread. Then I further tweaked it to include honey and to enhance the fatty acid profile. Eventually I developed my own style of sandwich bun which I love. Other’s paths are not necessarily your path. You can learn from them, get the lessons, but there is no need follow fashion. Infuse yourself into everything you do. You already have your own knowledge, your own wisdom, and your own preferences. If you’re doing something for yourself, find out how it’s done, then do it your way. If you live your life always following other people’s instructions you will eventually question yourself and think you cannot do anything without instructions. Who wants to be that person?

5. Give it time to come together.
At first when you start kneading things are messy. The ingredients don’t automatically turn to dough. The first couple minutes you wonder if you did something wrong, why things are not coming together like they’re supposed to. Maybe you did make a mistake. This would be the time to figure out what’s missing and put it into the mix. But if you have the right ingredients in there, all you need to do is keep pushing and eventually things will come together and make sense. In any major overhaul in life you have to make a mess before you clean up. That’s why change is so frustrating. The first few times you exercise your muscles hurt. If you continue you’ll find they got stronger and they don’t hurt any more. But you only get that if you continue. If you give up at the first sign of pain, the first sight of a mess, the first hurdle, there is no way you are going to make it to your goal. Plough through until you get to the other side.

To be continued. Check back next week for 6 to 10!

Photo by Kelene Blake: One of my early attempts at making bread.

Simply Speaking

Living simply can seem pretty complicated. It’s quite the oxymoron. How we live seems set up to discourage a simple life and encourage a highly consumeristic lifestyle in which we are constantly thinking of the next thing… the next thing we want to buy, the next thing we want to try, the next thing we need to do to become the person we’re trying to become: usually modeled off of someone we see on t.v.  (Just think about how many people want a family like the Obamas.)

We’re so used to living lives of convenience, conformity and consumerism that the things which would make life simpler like shutting off cable, cooking from scratch, eating healthier, walking or riding a bicycle instead of driving, buying less, reusing more, seem far more difficult than they actually are. Our minds seem primed to reject things that attest to our own self sufficiency. We are so indoctrinated in capitalist thinking that if it is a product or service that can be bought, why do it ourselves?

As a student making my own way through grad school without a college fund, I’ve been forced in many ways to simplify my lifestyle. What I’ve found however is much of the “downgrading” I’ve had to do were really upgrades. My need to eat for less encourages me to cook for myself, find ways to curb food wastage and to appreciate the finer tastes of simpler things. I eat healthier, plan my meals, make better decisions and try new things. I’m certain my fitness is improved because I either have to walk, ride or travel everywhere I go. I am less distracted and more creative without television, and when I do take time to watch something, it will always be something I really want to see that either educates me or enriches my experience. I can’t afford (in more ways than financially) to watch junk.

The amazing thing is I am never bored. All those hours spent on consumeristic behavior, watching television, eating out, shopping for unnecessaries, are being spent learning new things, making definitive steps in pursuing my dreams, making and creating, writing, experiencing other people’s art and thoughts, and sharing mine. I wonder how different my life would have been if I had the luxury and habit of living that consumer lifestyle. How much would I be missing if I spent hours a day in front of a television, or buying unnecessaries or saving time with fast food?

I can’t afford everything I’d like such as plane tickets to visit family and friends, or funding creative or social projects that can make an impact in the world. But I can afford to live simply, fully and enjoy rich experiences. Money is a useful resource and I hope to increase my access to that and other resources as I grow in my career. But learning to live simply has taught me many valuable lessons, such that when I do have access to opportunities and resources, I’m better equipped to use them in ways that truly matter. If you can live and love your life when you have little, perhaps you can invest more in making a positive difference in the world when you have a lot.

Storytime: How I Met Poetry

You never know where you will find life-changing inspiration. This is why it is good to be open to even the most simple, trivial things and follow the crumbs of inspiration wherever they lead. These days my life is all about poetry. In 2012 I’ve written and performed more poetry than in any other period of my life. I’m searching for a publisher for my book and working on to making a life doing what I love. And you wouldn’t believe that what really set me on this path was Saturday morning cartoons.

Yes. That’s right. As a child I met Poetry while watching a particularly riveting episode of Batman in which Catwoman was transformed into a real cat-like creature with fur and whiskers and everything… but I digress. At the end of that episode I heard a line of poetry that would open my world to a life of artistic expression. Here’s the clip:

I was so fascinated by this line of poetry that I stayed around to read the credits and found out it was “The Tyger” by William Blake. The fact that the writer’s name was “Blake” made me even more interested (I was still young so I thought everybody with my last name was family). I kept the information filed away in my mind with the hope of one day searching for the full poem.

It was quite a long time before I was able to find it. The internet was not at my fingertips back then. But I eventually got a hold of the words, and never let them go since.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

This beautiful poem, written in 1794 turned me on to a form of expression that has since saved my life and sanity many a time. You can still see the influence in my handle, JadeTygress. Who would have thought it? I had childlike wonder on my side which allowed me to wonder at the crumbs and follow them to inspiration. No one says you have to let go of this childlike wonder as you grow up. Capture inspiration in the every day. You’ll never know where it will lead unless you follow.

Walls

Been playing around with some footage from my poetry feature in January of this year. Here's a clip of me performing my poem "Walls".

The hardest part

Beautiful ruins: Photo by Kelene Blake

by Kelene Blake


The hardest part
is wearing the scars

as stripes of honor

not a shield

engraved into skin/ mind/ heart

evidence of what you’ve overcome

memoirs of the times you’ve bled

reminders you are strong enough

to heal

The hardest part

is leaving the hurt behind

taking the lessons forward

escaping oppression

not as victim

as a graduate

your commencement

rebirth into a brighter you

emerging from confined cocoon

The hardest part

is the uncertainty

embracing it wholeheartedly

not knowing where your feet will take you

after they’ve taken you through hell

there is no unlearning what you’ve seen

there is no un-being who you’ve been

there is only creating

who you will become

The hardest part

is letting go

letting grow

letting feel

letting heal

letting blood

letting love

letting yourself

live