White Hair - A Story of Difference

I see you, shifting your gaze from my eyes to my hairline, from my mouth to my hairline and then back and forth and back and forth. This is not new to me. I see it often. I see you, old and young, black and white and all the different shades between. What is it that stops you in your tracks? Is it unfamiliar to see me, a woman of forty three years with strands of silver in her hair? Some sitting pretty looking intentional, others acting the fool springing in different directions like they're seeking attention. The young ones around me who speak of the white hair, I do not find bothersome. I am charmed by their blatancy, their stares and their direct comments. They reveal so much about the adults in their lives with the words they share, 'my mum has that, that's why she uses henna but don't say because she doesn't like anyone to know', 'once a week I have to sit down and pull the white ones out for my Aunty', 'if you no have this then you look nice', 'this one (pointing at my white hairs) is no good', 'my dad says when this happens it's because you don't want to take care of yourself anymore' ( so I prompt you child and ask what you think about this and you reply 'I think it will make you pretty if you take away the white hair.') These are just a few of the comments I scribble down 'out of the mouths of babes'. These are words which they share openly and willingly, words that leave me intrigued and of course not in the least offended. Their words are a powerful reflection of what many in our society believe is a standard of beauty, especially although not exclusively for women. Do we view men and women differently as they age? Are we inclined to perceive men with greying hair as 'silver foxes' and as 'suave gentleman' and their female counterparts as simply past their sell by date or as simply elderly as so many of the articles I read as I prepared to write and comment  on this topic. I don't ask in judgement but truly out of curiousity, I sit and watch and ponder from week to week, from month to month, from year to year. 

I have exchanges with women where they tell me that this greying or white hair is a reflection of a lack of effort, as a surrendering of self and a succumbing to old age. I have other conversations in which men tell me they see it as a bold and confident statement, a choosing not to conform in holding these white strands as friends and not as enemies, as a part of a chapter rather than a concealed secret left in the confessional pages of a journal. There are those too who suggest that I affiliate myself with the subculture of 'The Hippie Mum', they suggest I'm one of those breastfeeding types, the ones that don't dye their hair or wear proper deodorant, the ones that use moon cups and worry about the environment, that spend lots of time ion nature, that love plants and natural dyes, the ones that probably have hairy legs and hairy armpits and eat quinoa. Truth be told, all of those things bare some truth and reflect how I might feel from one day to the next. I do lack effort in making myself presentable in the way that is more the norm, I do feel bold at times and brace myself ready for the eye rolls and nose twitches that my body hair can provoke in folks, I am a bit of a hippie and I don't like all of the chemicals in antiperspirants and I do like quinoa. There, I said it.  

However, my hope would be that choosing to not change the colour of my ageing hair or choosing not to remove the hair that grows on different parts of my body would not define my identity. I would hope that my attractiveness as a person would be defined by the words that I utter and the acts and kindness that I show rather than being boxed off neatly into a category based on refusal to comply with the surrounding societal views of beauty and the compliance that it demands. Do I feel the pressure? Of course I do. Do I often feel unattractive when compared with my  counterparts (either by myself or others) who spend more time and money on removing body hair and changing hair colour? Yes. But when I change my appearance under duress, out of peer pressure, for fear of being called out, then I feel disappointed in myself and a sadness overcomes me. A sadness greater than the sum of all the other negative parts. This is when I try and draw on the strength that goes way beyond anything I could muster alone. I draw on my faith and belief in a maker who has made me, uniquely me, who knew me when I was being knitted in my mother's womb.

The legacy of family gives me confidence too. I am proud to have been surrounded during my childhood by strong, proud, feminine African women, who did not worry about hair dye or hair removal or saggy breasts or wide hips. I am proud to have had Czech and German Aunties who were more concerned with teaching the children around them about language and culture and strategies for life and about outdoor culture and fun, there wasn't a lesson that focused on 'fitting in' to a way of looking or presenting oneself. I had the example of a mother who was more concerned with work ethic and principles and of 'sticks and stones breaking your bones but words never harming you', a mother who would so often say 'oh, take no notice!' and Aunties who would exhale wise words denouncing judgement followed by the very African retort of 'DON'T MIND HIM/HER/THEM!' I have too, the acceptance of a husband, who was once a boyfriend who I may never have been initially attracted to had he judged me on the things of which I now speak. Had he found me unattractive for choosing not to wear bras or for not shaving my body hair when we first met then our story would be very different. Had he judged my body differently after bearing our children and gaining weight and a different body shape and reflecting the signs of wear and age and battles fought, then our story would be very different. Had he not persistently told me not to dye my greying hair  and uplifted me and complimented me and told me my worth in a million different ways, then perhaps I would feel differently.

I have sons that see their mother, a woman with greying hair, hairy armpits and hairy legs. An individual that may or may not remove said hair depending on how great the pressure is to behave as the majority do. They see me with greying hair, with my afro out or with my hair tied back, they see me with my head wrapped in different ways, they see me. They compliment me. I tease them, that they will connect and have a relationship with all of these views and behaviours of mine that I take a proud stance with, that I often choose not to overthink and in fact that I sometimes do not even give a second thought to since they seem so natural and insignificant. 'My mother, myself' rings in my ears and I hope in theirs too. This is important work, this legacy stuff. I am thankful for the examples that I witnessed as a child and I take my own work in this field seriously. People have so often asked me, why do your boys have long hair? I always stop and smile and think how strange the question is but I think too, quite simply 'because their hair describes so much about their identity that words cannot in an instant'. The narrative of hair is incredibly powerful and it belies such multiple meanings. It is an entity that can so easily be replaced by any body part or emotion that we struggle with or want to guard or honour. We need to remember this. Remember that people see you as you look to understand all that this entity belies. They see you searching, they see you. Tell your story proudly, whether you choose to grow or colour, to display or remove, to disguise or reveal. I see you. I see your story and it is beautiful and significant and truly powerful. Spread the good news, wear your joy and if the storms do come, just remember that the rainbow is still to follow.  

Scraps and notes and scribbles - journalling stories.

So, nearly two weeks ago it was my older sister's birthday. In my usual fashion, I had a birthday card sat on my bedside table for her but never actually got round to sending it to her on time. This meant that the night before her birthday, I pulled out the family heirloom photo albums and took some shots of the photos in bad lighting, late at night in order to send a makeshift card that would, hopefully, make her smile and distract her from how disorganised and rubbish I am as a little sister. Now, I am no photographer, I say this not to be self deprecatory but because it's just not a strength and so something like 'Stories' on Instagram totally appeals to my love of the simple, my love of low fi. It allows me to feel like I'm scrap booking or journalling without having to find scissors and glue or a bunch of different coloured pens with different thicknesses of nib (which is sometimes a tall order). So these are the results. I know the framing is off and the size is odd but I like that it was quick and I didn't get bogged down in the whole 'why are everyone else's photos on IG so amazing and mine are ALWAYS blurred' and more importantly, it took me back to the good old days of daily journalling with pictures, words, photographs and found images etc which is where my heart lies.

Last week-end we took my mum out for breakfast and a catch up as we hadn't seen her for two weeks and she'd returned from visiting my sister in Nottingham. We found a place in Knowle that sold pancakes which was perfect for the boys on the rainiest of rainy saturday mornings. This picture, even though my husband and mum are not pictured in it, reminds me of the car journey. For some reason, my mum likes to direct my husband in the car even though she doesn't drive and despite my husband trying to quietly reassure her that he doesn't need the guidance. It makes for a little tension that also makes me want to laugh out loud, kinda. I have never mentioned it to anyone and so feel a little naughty mentioning it here but hey, this is real life with all the nuances and complexities of family and it's one of the advantages of having so few people following the blog now. I can say a lot more than I might have at one time because I'm aware so few are reading it which is both empowering and isolating. I feel a little sad that my very neglected blog now has a very, very limited audience. Mostly a biproduct of choosing not to use Facebook which is where I used to post links to the blog. I'm not keen to re-engage with Facebook but it does present a dilemma because I do want others to read what I write. Any ideas? Food for thought.

We've found a new hipster(ish) cafe that we like a lot in town. We love Digbeth in Birmingham and the cafe is actually in the Custard Factory which is a creative hub for Birmingham's makers and shakers. My husband gets his art work framed by a great framer based there, buys his spray paints from the graf shop there and gets frustrated that the great jeans in the skate shop never do his size. I've had lovely bespoke necklaces bought for me from indie stores based there and there's a great feel to the place. We like to park up locally in Digbeth and have a good walk around, looking for new graf and new eateries as things tend to close and other things re-open in their place pretty frequently. 

My eldest boy has really got into making music more recently, using samples and Garage Band. We had loads of fun the other day when he asked me to record a vocal for the chorus of his track. It felt a little bit special that he acknowledged something that he knows I love to do and that I don't do nearly enough of, he's sensitive and a sweetheart in that way. I loved collaborating with him. We still do battle over his guitar practice, he plays classical. He's far exceeded any capability of mine or his fathers as far as playing a traditional instrument,  particularly as he reads music, something which neither of us can do and which I for one would love to be able to do. I keep reminding him that the lectures from me to practice, come from knowing that the future will only bring more commitments and time constraints, so please, please please do this hard stuff now and not later - said all parents and previous generations everywhere! My twelve and a half year old is changing by the day. This new phase is moving so quickly and I can hear the jubilant chorus and testing cries of all those that have gone before, I see my errors and parenting fails and there are the highs and joys and trials and feeling ways, the feeling so, so many ways about stuff all at once. One of the reasons I stopped blogging was because so much of what I talked about was my children and I wondered if it was fair to air so much about their lives here, although I always check with them before posting content that relates to them. Somehow though, I feel compelled to come back to that, to document this next chapter because I know I certainly won't remember it all. For today it feels ok and so for now perhaps that's what's right. These things too change daily and by the minute. Feels good to write and talk and say and lay it all out. It makes more sense of it all.

She Told Me I Had A Wonderful Story

I've always been good at making stuff up. Like when I was sent to buy fried fish and I lost the money along the way and so ran home exclaiming to my father that I had been robbed! Or the time that Miss Brass kept making me repeat my failed attempts at the 'Fosbury Flop' in PE, using my very awkward and uncooperative teenage body and when I could face the humiliation no longer, I stormed out and into the girls changing rooms and burst into tears. Miss Brass quickly followed and gently put her arms around my shoulders and asked what was 'really' wrong. Unwilling to admit that I just hate being crap at stuff, I said that I missed my deceased father. Yep, thinking on my feet! There was also the time that I pointed to a framed poster on the wall of one of hubby's friends, that had a mixed couple in the audience pictured in front of Miles Davis and said that the couple were my parents. Although I don't know if that one counts as my hubby laughed slightly nervously and said 'sometimes she makes stuff up' in spite of the death stare I shot him to caution him to stay out of my ... performance. I was after all trying to detract from the fact that I really didn't want to be there! A few months ago I pretended that I couldn't speak good English because I really didn't feel like talking to the cab driver and I'd watched an episode of Seinfeld the night before, the one where Elaine pretends to be deaf in the back of the cab for the same reason as myself. I felt inspired and tried it and it worked, I'm good at this stuff. 

Why do I mention these things that expose a slightly darker side of my character? Well, because I feel like I've been having lots of conversations of late with different people about 'what you're good at'. When I was asked the question recently, I didn't think to say, being a mum, being a good wife, being a friend, listening, writing, which are the things that I know my hubby would say and does say about me. No. The first thing that came into my head was, I'm good at making up stuff.I have no idea what this means or why I'm sharing it here today, perhaps it's one of the few occasions I get to not overthink, I get to be slightly crazy, crazy kate the maker upper! It's really not like me in so many ways but then when I think about it, I can gather a long list of stuff I've made up. Thinking about it, it's just storytelling. I think that at nearly 40, I've found what I'm good at and even though I feel slightly self conscious to blow my own trumpet, I think that I am a storyteller. I'm not going to say that I'm a maker upper anymore, I don't think I will say I'm a storyteller either because it conjures up too many stereotypes, having worked in the arts over the years! But I like Story. Telling Stories. And if someone said in years to come, when I've hopefully lived a little and had more time to make up stuff, 'hey, she could really tell a story'. Well that would be enough. That would be my fill. 

A great teacher of mine, Mrs Ram, once wrote these words for me:

'You have a wonderful story to tell, May your world be filled with colour'

I have carried those words with me ever since and am so grateful for them, everyday. Sometimes life feels like disparate pieces, flying chaotically round the room after the door unexpectedly gets blown open by the wind. Some days the papers get blown away, lost, trampled, they're out of reach. At other times, no matter how strong the gusts, those papers just seem in reach and normality and calm is restored quickly with the peace of mind that all is captured, gathered, harnessed. It gives me the cosy feeling, the same feeling I used to get when Little Miss Tidy would say .... 'Everything's tidy and in its proper place'.

I now think of my life much more like the collages I make. On some days the pieces just fit, they almost call out my name knowing they desire to sit alongside another. On other days, play and sift and dance and shift as I might, images fight one another and it all feels like such an effort, and I have no impulse, no desire to engage. Eventually I walk away hoping to come back another day, at another time. The distance normally works. It's all so much clearer with a little distance. Always.

Tides

Last night I came down with my first cold of the autumn season. I felt compelled to make chicken soup and so I did so even though I know I won't consume it, it's just the comfort of it, the process. It makes me think of my Grandma Peppermint and it signals winter, it signals the call for nourishment. Right now, I'm sitting here enjoying the silence. Sitting here thinking of sunday morning, when the lack of my signal to chivvy everyone along meant that the family were running late, very late for church. When I was being less than gracious about it and may have uttered some stereotyped words about the male species. When that hubby of mine recognised the need in me for quiet and took those boys of ours and himself off and out of the house, leaving me in the thick of quiet. That was when I curled up on the sofa in my flannel pj's and listened gratefully to the beautiful low fi hum of my vhs copy of 'The Way We Were' playing. Just me and Katy and Hubble. Of course I cried big sparkly diamond tears as I always do and I felt an ache of sadness for the rest of the day in that nostalgic, self indulgent kind of way that washes over you when you have the time to allow it in. That family of mine were out for hours, and between cooking a couple of meals I was even able to watch a little of my very worn 'Lovesexy' live concert on vhs too. But then I heard the key in the door and my eldest walked in and uttered 'Cool, Prince!' I watched him as his eyes widened as he watched 'Cat' pulsating to Prince's lyrics 'Glam Slam, Thank you Mam, You really make my day'. Alarmed that my boy had stepped and fallen into the crevice of my adolescence, I quickly switched it off and came back to earth, transported back from my memories with a mighty glam slam.

Today seems to be one of those days for drifting, drifting in and out of my memories. I can see myself sat bolt upright on one of those hard wooden chairs at my school in Mamprobi. The sun is squeezing through a hole in part of the corrugated iron roof and is casting a shape on the cement floor of my classroom which is hypnotising, especially when on occasion is seems to dance a little. I am watchful because the teacher whose name I forget but that might be Mr. Quashie, is staring at me. He is holding a cane in one hand with the tip of the cane held in the palm of his other hand. He moves the tip of the cane in and out of the palm of his hand, opening and closing his palm as he does so, walking, pacing along the rows of chairs with pupils sat on them. He is asking us to recite our times tables, we are six years old. He approaches my desk and asks me a times tables question. I stand up from my chair as protocol requires and I answer correctly. As I return to my seat, heart racing, legs wooden like the chair itself and fingers shaking, Mr.Quashie as we'll agree to call him, utters these words: 

"Don't think that you will get preferential treatment just because you are half-caste"

He looks at me scornfully at first and then smiles and I experience that feeling of utter confusion, that feeling that has you on guard, that feeling that tells you that a smile is not always a smile. I take a deep breath and and look out of the large square window frame, the one that frames the blue, blue ocean that sits behind my school building. I watch the waves turn from blue to white, from blue to white and then I quietly pull my chair in closer to my table and I sit bolt upright, ready once again. There is no view of the ocean today but still there are waves, some come big and heavy and completely wash me away. Others come slowly and just brush my toes. I am grateful for each of them and what they bring and however hard it is at times to still be standing after the crash of the fiercest of waves, I can at least know that it can be done. I can still stand and that's enough for me today.

Master Bobbi: Passing the baton of oral histories.

I have long been interested in documentation, oral histories and cultural traditions relating to the relaying of family history and so it's something that I long to log in a variety of ways for my own children. The mobile phone and in particular the iphone (for me personally) have revolutionized the very immediate way in which we can capture our lives moment to moment and with the likes of facebook and instagram, we can share those with millions potentially. Alongside the mobile phone staple, I really enjoy taking audio recordings. I still use both my cassette recorder and my mini disc recorder to record, usually of things like my boys talking, roleplaying, singing etc particularly if I am able to record them without them knowing. This is something I spent hours doing from around age 11 when I began using my portable tape recorder to record my family members in secret. I would tuck the recorder behind the settee, behind doors, behind plants, under cushions etc trying to capture my family going about their daily business. It was these recordings that I worked from when I first began making sound pieces and sound installations during my Fine Art degree, also many years ago now.

Looking back I realize that I have continually documented using sound. I have purposefully collected peoples stories throughout my life. When I was a teenager I visited my Grandmother most week-ends and I spent a lot of time asking questions about her life, wanting to know details about her that seemed trivial to others but fascinating to me. I wanted to know all of the places that she'd ever lived, where she rode her bike, how she learned to cook, if she had always had so many pretty hand made aprons, why she had been made to have elocution lessons. All of her answers however informative or vague, defined this greater picture, this greater story of who she was and is still today, in my mind and in the stories that I now tell about her. It is a comfort to me to know that when I think I can't remember the sound of Grandma Peppermint's distinctive voice, I know that amongst my many tapes I have recordings of me interviewing her about different topics and periods in her life. 

I feel the same comfort and exhilaration knowing that I still have hours and hours of recordings that my hubby and I took on our pre-children trip back to Ghana, recordings that I still have many plans for. One of the last sound pieces that I created was titled 'Journey from Mamprobi to James Town, Accra 2002'. It featured my sweet Aunty Adelaide singing in the car on a journey we took together. Alongside her singing voice, you hear the hustle and bustle of traffic and horns, that great 'whoosh' sound of cars passing by an open window at speed, hawkers shouting prices of their products on offer. It is these sounds that transport me right back there in a way that a photograph does not. I'm immediately back where I can feel the heat of the black leather seats in the car and my right arm burning in the sun, I can taste the plantain chips that we bought from a hawker, I can picture myself dropping a plantain chip in the footwell and noticing for the first time a small hole in the rusted metal of the car that meant you could see the road when the car was static. This is sound working its magic! In my explorations of sound there is always that same interest, the same desire - to give others a chance to feel the heat of the black leather seats in the car as it were, for them to be transported into that world, even if it is for a short time. I have for a long time loved the idea of piecing together narrative in this way and of taking sounds and narrative relevant to one context into another context. 

At the moment the boys and I are enjoying telling the exciting adventures of Master Bobbi! I have no real idea about the origins of Master Bobbi, I've tried googling to no avail but in my memory it was the creation of members of my village in Agege in Ghana where I grew up. Master Bobbi was a character not unlike the popular west african character Anansi the spider except in this case I had no idea at all that Master Bobbi was the work of fiction! To me he was a teenager, a young man who was always up to no good through no real fault of his own because he was driven by the great calling of mischief. It was actually my czechislovakian Aunty, Aunty Gita (an aunty through marriage who had married Uncle Joe, my dad's second cousin or something like that!) who really embedded the great stories of Master Bobbi. Many years passed before I found out that it was in fact Aunty Gita who had been taking great bites out of unripened mangoes, leaving these crime scenes for us children (my siblings and my cousins) to discover and which lead to hours and hours of plans to try and catch Master Bobbi in the act of trespassing on our properties and stealing from our compound! Oh how we would teach him a lesson! (said in a necessary African accent whilst wagging a finger of disappointment in front of another persons face).

It fills me with great delight and pride that my boys beg me for stories about Master Bobbi every night, that they know what follows as soon as I bellow 'ONCE UPON A TIME ...' in my African accent, that they know to pause and then shout back 'A TIME', just like I used to as a child in Ghana. It warms my heart that this has been a fun and easy way to work in stories about my father and his homeland, about my childhood, about walking on hot sand, about lizards and gekkos and cockroaches, about foods that they don't see or eat everyday. It pleases me that they seem to cherish these things nearly as much as I do, that they make up their own stories about a place they have never visited and correct me! Ok, so now according to my boys tales, Master Bobbi's greatest mischief normally involves farting or pooing somewhere he shouldn't but so far he is still in Africa, he's still eating mangoes and climbing coconut trees to escape and the boys definitely have not introduced Master Bobbi to dvds, the internet  or ds games, so it's all very old school and simple and imaginative and lovely. The many stories of Master Bobbi have been told in schools across the Midlands that I have worked in,  where he has been transported to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iran, Poland and Ireland to name a few. I love how adapatable Master Bobbi is, he is so easy to get along with, so international, I've never met a child that doesn't want to claim him as their own, but hey, everyone loves a rogue! So, perhaps it's time to write that book on oral histories, it would definitely include recordings  and I think I'd just have to make them available on cassette, of course!

I previously owned a recorder without the tape counter but believe me, it was by far inferior.