Pretty

http://broadist.tumblr.com/post/6754399892/you-dont-have-to-be-pretty-you-dont-owe#notes

Really love this quote.  It begins - "You don't have to be pretty - you don't owe prettiness to anyone..." 

I'd never realised, till very lately, the actual ugly oppressive weight of the word pretty. I thought, when I first found the size acceptance movement and encountered my very first fat admirers, that I had found home.  The longer I stayed and played and read and learned though the more and more I saw that this was a space that, again, came with some very ugly hypocrisy.  Drama about feeders and feedees aside, about sexual fetish, about waste and desperation and actual mental illness and social dysfunction aside, the sexual fatosphere is where I learnt absolutely the ugly lessons of 'Pretty.' 

For years I knew pretty was not me.  I was short and fat and very dark and this was not at all conceivably pretty.  In the sexual fatosphere those lessons were, ironically, even more deeply ingrained. In the fat world you can be the wrong kind of fat.  If you fat is not attached to your boobs and bum its the 'wrong' kind of fat.  Fat girls who are not hourglass or pear shaped are routinely told my 'fat admirers' to try to lose weight.  If you have a fat belly you are called an ugly blob, misshapen, ugly - all this within the fat movement.  It was almost funny to find that I had run from a space I thought I was rejected to one where again I did not measure up.  I often wander if I was light skinned, hour glassed and just generally less loud mouthed if I would keep swallowing the lies of pretty - if they wouldn't sting as badly because I fit.  I can't know so I move forward with what I have, with what I've seen and I've learnt.  What a crazy ramble lol! This youtube vid expresses this far better than I have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0

FLICKR

I'm finally getting my flickr account sorted and turned into something I'm actually not ashamed to have online.  I'm also very seriously contemplating changing the name of my photography company.  I love Fierce Fotography but there are a number of Fierce Fotography's out there - its not exactly original.  Something I've been mulling over for a while and now that I'm ready to take this business to the next level I'm thinking a change in name would be appropriate.  Not sure to what though.  Its funny how crazy I was about the name to begin with.  There isn't another Fierce registered in South Africa and it makes me happy...we'll see - just weighing where I want to be going with all of this.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tauslair/

I'm feeling a great deal of focus.  Have been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster recently.  That looming 3-0 man.  I don't have a problem with getting older - what terrified me is how quickly time just zooms by and how much I still desperately want to do and achieve and feel and enjoy in this life.

When I was 18 I told myself that I would have my first baby at 34.  I was very, very shaken when I realised that 34 is right around the corner and I am in no way, shape or form ready to have children.  I'm still barely able to take care of myself, still such an emotional and mental mess, that the thought of caring for another life fills my veins with ice.  I want babies - I do - but not now and its scares me to contemplate exactly when I'll feel ready because I don't think I ever will.

Its a time of epic growth for me again - and I'm savoring it but also a little weary of the constant growing pains.  I figure if I keep putting my faith in God, trusting that he knows the path he wants for me, I can't go too badly wrong.

Soaking up the Love

The last post was gloomy and I cannot leave it at that because there is goodness too – so much joy in my life.  I cannot end leave this blog just lost in anger.  I’ve been home for 3 weeks spending time with my niece and nephew and my parents and it has been amazing.  My babies are so beautiful.  There is pure joy in the spirits of children and I’ve soaked up their happiness and their generous love and I am so thankful – so, so thankful – to have the family I have and the love I have in my life.  And now for pictures!!! :D

May

May was the month from hell. School was madness, a dozen essays, thesis proposal and presentations all due at one brain crunching time and work...well I’m not going to say much about that.  Work is status quo – a quo I’m working very, very hard to change as soon as possible. 

I was exhausted just about every day, couldn’t sleep and everything hurt – my body, my mind.  Sometimes I felt like my soul was too full of pain and hope and anger – like I could barely put thoughts together that weren’t tinged with resentment and urgency and frustration.  I’m still finding equilibrium, still sort of staggering back to a happier space.   This course on Gender and Transformation has been...life changing.  This is no exaggeration – literally life changing.  Sometimes I feel like I put a part of myself to sleep years ago, when I realized just how hard life is – and that part of me, that dormant part of Nomonde, has just shaken awake and I’m just feeling all these things.  The conversations I’m having, the books I’m reading, the course work, all of it is tearing off the bandages I’d wrapped myself in.  I am numb no more, blind no more, but now I can no longer pretend not to see the constant injustice of the society we live in and the endless layers of oppression that mire us in ugliness.

I’m in a dark place right now – very dark.  I’ll write more lucidly about how I feel about all of this when it doesn’t feel so close, when it’s not suffocating me.

Gelato and Sunsets

I spent a beautiful Saturday afternoon with one of my favourite couples, Layla and Meryl.  Caramel ice-cream, the ocean, a glorious sunset and glorious conversation - a girl could not ask for more *BEAMS.*  Then my girl Tumi just called me.  She's settling into her new life in the US beautifully - I am so damn happy for her.  Miss her like burning.

Romantic Bullshit!

I'm so angry today - even angrier because as a result of this anger I have been completely unproductive.  The day started off with just amazing promise.  I woke up and realised my cold had made a vicious comeback.  I wasn't surprised - I've been pushing myself really hard work wise in the past two weeks and my body just hasn't had an opportunity to recover.  So I rolled over in bed and gazed outside at a blindingly blue sky and just contemplated with glee the joy of an entire Sunday stretching ahead of me.  I had a date with a man I'd met in the store bout two weeks ago - really sweet, humble guy who was going to take me out for ice cream and sun downers. 

So dude calls at around 3 in the afternoon and says that he can no longer make our date because he has a work commitment that has just suddenly come up.  I'm cool with this, actually a little relieved because I have a lot of readings for class to get through.  I decided to go to a piano recital instead, was there for a delightful two hours, then came home.  When I turned on my phone again I had a missed call from...wait for it: THE DUDE'S WIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She left a message on my cell introducing herself and then she said: "I just found this number on my husband's phone and I didn't recognise the name so I wanted to call and check who this is?"
I was in shock - just pure shock that has not faded at all.  I'm enraged - my head is still throbbing with rage - and I feel sick and humiliated and dirty.  I didn't ask this man if he was single because why the hell would a married man be asking me out?????!!! But this dick faced shit head made a date with me on a Sunday fucking afternoon even though he is committed, MARRIED WITH A WIFE AND LORD ALONE KNOWS HOW MANY CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was just so bleak and so angry and just disappointed and tired.  Just so fucking tired.

I've been celibate for 2 years because casual sex and casual relationships, while a great deal of fun, mean nothing to me.  I want love.  I want intensity.  I want to belong utterly to another being.  I want hours and days and months and years to learn a cherished body.  I want that and it seems impossible to find.  I told myself that this year in Cape Town I was going to open my heart up again – I was going to leave my defensive attitude behind and try new things.  And it has been amazing – I’ve learnt so much about myself and made fantastic new friends and I am happy about this.  But the events of the past two weeks and the plain stupid, selfish bull shit pulled by the men I have tentatively allowed into my life have reminded me why I chose celibacy over the boring crap and drama of the dating scene.

Just two hours ago another man I’ve been seeing asked to come see me tonight.  He made this call at about 9pm.  Now I am not a young lady averse to a booty call – especially with a boy as beautiful as he is – but I’m busy and I was finally getting through my course readings.  I told him he couldn’t come tonight but I’d be happy to see him next week Thursday.  An hour later this boy calls me again.  I missed the call cos I was talking to my friend Tumi and so I called him back.  WHY DOES THIS DUDE TELL ME HE’S STANDING AT MY FUCKING GATE???!!!  I was livid – I’m still just speechless at the sheer presumption and gall of his actions!  He decided that my telling him no, that my saying to him that I did not want to see him tonight was nonsense and that he, as a man with a dick that wants pussy, was going to ignore my very clear NO and was going to show up, uninvited, at my home.  I just want to explode I am so angry.  I wanted to hit him.  I wanted to scream and shout and swear at him.  I told him that what he had done was so disrespectful I had no words to even explain it to him.  I told him to get back in his fucken cab and go the fuck home.  I just...I have no words.  

I genuinely love men – all kinds of men.  I love their differences and revel in the new things and thoughts they bring into my feminine world.  But I am tired of having to demand basic fucking values and respect from heterosexual men.  I am tired of it.  I love heterosexual sex – I love big, strong, hard male bodies.  I love masculinity.  I love male energy and essence and power but right now I just want to scream at how time after time male people let me down.  

I have an amazing example of what a loving marriage should be in my parents.  I love my Dad you guys.  He is my hero.  I know I can rely on him for everything – the man is my pivot.  And it just exhausts me having to go through man after man after man who has no knowledge of himself and zero respect for me when I have a living example of what I honestly believe a man should be.  

I wish I could just hand in my straight girl identity somewhere because I am tired of wanting men.  I am tired of desiring them and their bodies and their company and their affection and attention because it is too much damned heartache and work. I know there are good guys out there and I am not seeking perfection – just an equal in compassion and empathy and value and ethics and love.  I really do not think that I’m asking too much.

I’m just very sad tonight – and lonely.  And pissed. 

An End to Hunger

I've started working on my research proposal and I'm so excited.  My topic is land reform and agriculture in SA and my question essentially is: Has land reform in SA had a positive impact on black rural female farmers?  That's the main question and there's obviously a subset of others.

I believe, absolutely, that women are the key to feeding all our populations - we've just got to figure out how.  I read somewhere (will find source and post it) that Angola and Southern Sudan alone could feed the entire AFrican continent if these country's agricultural systems were correctly managed.  DUDES THAT WOULD MEAN AFRICA WOULD NEVER HAVE TO BEG ANYBODY FOR ANYTHING EVER AGAIN! I dream of this day - I want to be one of the people who make this day a reality.  And finally, with this research I'm beginning, it feels as if I've taken a step in the right direction :D 

The link below is to an article that made me beam - absolutely worth a read and it suggests an interesting case study that I'm looking to incorporate into my research.  Imagine a world with no hunger - where there are no babies begging in the street.  I want to live in that world.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/food-for-everyone/the-city-that-ended-hunger