1958-2018, A Reflection

June 20

This has been a year of surprise and wonder. After my Daddy died at 59, I looked forward to this threshold with trepidation. Would I make it and if I made it, what then? My mother has crossed this threshold, however, it was Daddy's inability to make it two months before his 60th birthday . . . such a short step he was not able to meet, that had me thinking, worrying, wondering yet again . . .  what was on the other side and why Daddy didn't want to go there or maybe he did and just was too sick to make it through another day.

People talk about 40 as if such age is an elixir from heaven anointing subjects as they move between 39 and 40.   All of a sudden, nothing is what it seemed. The dolls are shelved and the oxford shoes are traded for pumps. Will the heels stay on when I run, girl-women ask themselves at 40. Not elders, but grown women now, the next twenty years kind of take on a rhythm in keeping with the stride one has learned to walk at 40.

And then 55 rolls around, 59, then 60. Hum. AARP has sent you a guest membership and the gray hair has old men standing when you board BART.  I milk it and get discounts at theatres and Goodwill, Ross and anywhere else the gray-hair discount counts, like senior and student rush at theatres.

Ratna Ling June 2018

I stopped coloring my thinning hair and it began to grow thicker at 60. Stopped wearing head wraps and started wearing satin scarves too. All of a sudden I can walk in heels and feel more comfortable up than in flats. Skinny jeans fit my slimmer body and the lightness makes moving in space a fluid dance, like a breeze finding room to move without touch. I vibrate along higher frequencies now and if you blink, you might miss me, so pay attention.

I do not have as much patience as I once had for grown people who choose to remain childlike.
Adults do not make pleasant children.

My Auntie Henrietta and Bill Jones (who died this July).
We are at NASA in Mississippi a few years ago.

I am enjoying the lessons I can now better articulate. Al-Anon is a 2018 gift--

Ratna Ling

Sometimes we have to squeeze through some tight spaces. . .

I started attending meetings just in time.

. . . we manage to get through it nonetheless.

I sit around talking to my ancestors too. My ancestry has shifted geographically. I thought I was Yoruba from Northern Nigeria and recently I find that my people are from Cameroon, Congo and Benin. Yoruba is now 1 percent. Mali is still there, so is Senegal and Angola and Madagascar. It's the Bantu lineage.

Something is stirring.

However, traveling in Nigeria and Benin City this Spring was so wonderful. I loved the country and its people.  Travel was so easy, especially in the airports.  Five years later, Ethiopia still ranks among the worst, especially traveling back to America.

KLM ranks a close second; staff were rude and bigoted. Once I got to Amsterdam, the trouble began. Well, really once Africans at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos State ceased to be in charge, and the white folks took over, that's where the trouble began. Colonialism at its worse. I wonder why African nations have to put up with economic paternalism. No Africans worked for KLM. I saw not one African in Amsterdam when I arrived, not one African was on board in any capacity.

Bagdary is the place where Chief Williams Abass Seriki returned
home from being captured.

Oṣun Osogbo Sacred Grove, Oṣun State, Nigeria

Oṣun Osogbo Sacred Grove, Oṣun State, Nigeria

Oṣun Priestess explains the sculpted wall

Oṣun Osogbo Sacred Grove, Oṣun State, Nigeria

Oṣun Osogbo Sacred Grove, Oṣun State, Nigeria

Oṣun Priestess

Oṣun River in Osogbo, Oṣun State, Nigeria

Entrance to Oṣun River in Osogbo, Nigeria

Priestess reads kola nuts at Oṣun River

Oṣun River in Osogbo, Oṣun State, Nigeria

Priestess at Oṣun River in Osogbo, Oṣun State, Nigeria

Oṣun Osogbo Sacred Grove, Oṣun State, Nigeria

Ife

Oṣun Osogbo Sacred Grove 

Africans are much more civilized and respectful of elders. A movie star in Ghana helped me with my luggage. She was really lovely.

The year started off in America. I remember the Auset Movement starting off on Martin King's birthday serving a meal on Wood Street. This year was calm. No fights, no deaths, no serious injuries. While Wo'se was supplying toiletry bags and clothes we had extra to share with our unsheltered communities.

Oṣun River in Osogbo, Oṣun State, Nigeria

It was a terrible year at College of Alameda: Fall 2017-Spring 2018. I was so happy to leave for Ghana. Africa is a great place to travel when America is too much. Africa, it doesn't matter what country (so far) has lifted my spirits instantly --

I would have liked to attend the College of Alameda graduation, but I missed it. When one travels with a group, she is not in control of her movement. The West African to West Oakland poetry exchange was a great experience. I enjoyed writing poetry with my West African poet pen pals. However, I was not in control of my movement, which meant I did not get to return to those places and those people whom I met in 2016.

Lodging in Ghana was great and so were the trips we made. I'd wanted to visit the Stilt Village and Assin Manso last time and the car I hired said the Assin Manso no longer existed. This was a European tour company with an African driver. It was nice having a bus this time. In a lot of ways, being on a tour is less expensive than traveling alone. Karla is super organized too, and she calculated everything well . . . we even got money back.

Abeokuta, writer, Amos Tutuola's village on a rock

When I got to Lagos, Baba Fakunle helped me figure out how to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish with his brother's help, Baba Ifasola. It was great. he bought me food to cook and set up my itinerary. We couldn't control the rain or the traffic, so we couldn't do everything planned, but we got a lot done.  I didn't get to Northern Nigeria there were a lot of places I wanted to see there; I would like to go on a tour for Northern Nigeria or have someone arrange a tour for me.

When I got back from Nigeria, I had a graduation to attend -- my older daughter, Bilaliyah got her Masters in Education.  I also celebrated my birthday and my Auntie Henrietta's in Slidell. TaSin took me to a Tibetan Buddhist Retreat Center, Ratna Ling near Guernville, Bodaga Bay, Sonoma Coast State Park. We saw Elephant Seal pups on the drive back.

The cabin was lovely. It was quiet and peaceful, a great start to a new phase in my life. I asked friends who were 60+ to tell me a story about the
journey. I got three stories-- 60
divided by 3 is 20. I was born on the 20th so it works out mathematically.

Iya Tomye, Halifu and Judy

60 is about making plans and being practical. 60 is the time to think about happiness and doing what makes me happy. 60 is the age where one starts thinking about life after a 9-5, especially if the 9-5 was not the first choice in one's career. 60 is a time to be practical yet daring. Do something different if what you're doing now is not working.

Teaching was perhaps my fourth or fifth choice. I wanted to be a sign painter, an architect, a medical illustrator. I think I fell into teaching, because I like to share knowledge and I am good at it; I would have liked to write for a living. Creative writing. I never thought about journalism as a career. I liked to write stories and poetry and plays when I was a kid, then later in junior high and high school I thought about being a mathematician, because I was good at formulas and equations.

Abeokuta

I kind of follow what I am good at-- like Arabic. I wanted to do a womanist translation of the Qur'an. I think secretly I wanted Alice Walker to be proud of me. Womanist-Walker. It's her theory. Black women feminism. This year, Alice Walker told me that she'd planned to come to the MAAFA Commemoration, but she was on a book tour. She even had planned to share something with us. She enjoyed the MAAFA Commemoration 2017 she attended with her friend Dr. Gayle Myers, Farms to Grow.

The One Life Institute Program, Take the Arrow out of the Heart with Desert Rose was so wonderful. I didn't get to a lot of events this year, but Alice Walker and Desert Rose was one I did not miss, nor did I miss the 50th Anniversary of ABPsi which was also lovely. I was a part of the opening ceremony-- Both were really cool centering programs and events. ABPsi was a lot of running back and forth. I was too tired Sat-Sun to attend and missed the sunrise ceremony. I am looking forward to seeing the video footage.

As an adult I thought about botany. I like plants. I considered being a park ranger and leading nature tours. I also thought about having a museum and a book store, a theatre and a performance space.

When I ran the Basic Skills Lab at College of Alameda (a position I was hired), I really enjoyed integrating the pedagogy for non-native speakers with that of native speakers. Today, I hardly teach this level composition or reading. Perhaps this is one of the key reasons why I do not enjoy teaching anymore. My classification changed in practice, but not on paper.

So as we move towards May 2018, I am teaching an English 1A and then an accelerated English 5 and English 1A and another English 5. I had some pretty awesome students this Spring, really awesome. One young man from Afghanistan shared how he worked with US commanders as a translator and how dangerous the missions he survived.

I saw some pretty awesome plays and films this year. I missed quite a few too. I have learned to not push myself to do too much. I am not interested in seeing everything and doing everything. I still do not have enough hours in a day to visit all the people I would like to visit. I have not returned to my writing discipline, but writing this has reminded me how important it is to keep at it.

In March I completed my year for Daddy with a performance piece: "Choreographing Diaspora: Daddy's Girl"-- Now I want to get the trilogy published. Tomye illustrated the poems and Lionel Tanner accompanied me on bass.

The Poetry Celebration in February was also great. The theme was "Aya or Resiliency" and Chelle Jacques and I did a riff on a popular tune. Oya joined us. It was so cool. Iya Osumare started chanting and dancing. It was awesome.

The MAAFA Commemoration was lovely, what was lovely were the two priestesses. We'd never had a reading at the beach before-- The elder Iya threw kola nuts. It was so lovely and then Victoria's choeropoem and call for healing our girls, protecting our girls . . .

In July I went to Louisiana for the MAAFA Commemoration and for my auntie's 80th birthday. It was really lovely-- she was so surprised when she got the birthday party she wanted. She had a party at the senior center. She had a dinner party at a Casino in Bay St. Louis, and then when she thought it was all over, there was a surprise party that weekend at her house.

It was really nice. Two elder cousins also celebrated their birthdays that month. Too bad they didn't all celebrate together.

JANUARY 2018 (59 . . . 60)

FEBRUARY
Featured at Alameda Island Poets for Black History Month (newspaper article)



28^th Annual Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry

MARCH
Staff Development—AVP

Daddy’s Girl performance at Joyce Gordon Gallery

APRIL
Visited Montgomery, AL – Ground Zero for the opening of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum, From Slavery to Mass Incarceration

Selma – Edmund Pettis Bridge
Africatown
Tuskegee

Utilizing Poetics to Transverse TransAtlantic Cultural Barriers with Karla Brundage, Tyrice Deane and Wanda Sabir

In this session, be ready to take poetry out of the classroom and out of the country to build solidarity. In a unique epistolary exchange, West Oakland to West Africa participants share how they made authentic connections through poetry

In light of the current political climate in which impacts the international perception of the US, this project seeks to create transatlantic solidarity with West African countries of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.  In exchanging Renshi (linked) poetry between poets who live in Oakland (West Coast) and poets in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire, (West Africa), participants develop a sense of cultural humility and literacy which aids in cultural understanding. I designed the curriculum in collaboration with Yibor Quaye Kojo a West African Slam poet and founder of Ehalakasa. After living in West Africa, and observing the griot tradition for 3 years as a teacher and practicing poet, our goal is to create a conversation that authentically links the communities in which we live. This project deepens understanding across continents, giving voice to those who may not be able to make the journey.

1) Karla Introduces purpose  (10 minutes)

2) Tyrice and Jewell- (5 minutes)

3) Marcus and Akombo (5 minutes)

4) Wanda on Poet Traumatic Slave Syndrome and MAAFA (5 minutes)

5)  Writing Exercise (15 minutes)

6) Sharing and questions (10 minutes)

MAY
Sacramento State Conference

Ghana – WO2WA

Nigeria

JUNE
Nigeria

Libations for the Ancestors

Ratna Ling—Hummingbird Stories in the Redwood Forest

JULY
NOLA—Auntie Henrietta is 80

AUGUST
10^th Anniversary Wanda’s Picks Radio Show (August 8, 2008-August 8, 2018)

On Sabbatical at COA August-December 2018

Project: Develop capacity for transfer level college courses for women at a local jail or prison. I looked at the Federal Institute for Women in Dublin and the longer term women who have graduated from college at Santa Rita Jail. 14 women responded affirmatively. I am waiting for copies of the questionnaires.

I am on my way to a training at Claremont College in So Cal early January. The Inside Out Prison Exchange Program is out of Temple University in Philly and does not have an iteration in Northern CA.

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

MAAFA Commemoration

Higher Education in Prison Conference in Indianapolis

NOVEMBER

Told I cannot teach at Santa Rita

DECEMBER

Solstice Celebration
60 ½+1
Caribbean All-Stars
Zulu Spear

Preparing for Spring Semester and returning to work