Tag Archives: thoughts

I Hope

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To choose hope is to step firmly forward into the howling wind, baring one’s chest to the elements, knowing that, in time, the storm will pass.
— “The Book of Joy” by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu  

I love this quote. The case for pessimism is hard to refute when we live in a very imperfect world, with various struggles and strife.

There has been this undercurrent of fear for many since November 8th. The tensions and animosities that marked the marked the election have only increased in the days between Election Day and Inauguration Day.  With January 20th only a few days behind us there is this sense for many that life is going to be faced with arduous trials, but that doesn’t mean we need to live in despair. We have to have optimism, to have hope.

Hope.

It is such an elusive word. How do you describe hope?

We all know what wrong is when we see it. We may not even have an exact name for it. Sometimes it is nothing more than gut feeling, but we know it. The same is true of the expectation that comes with hope, the trust the comes with optimism. We just know it.

Like pessimism, optimism is a feeling. Hope, however, is a conscious choice. It’s far too easy to wallow in the woe is me. We have to actively choose to have hope.

Hope makes us believe that things will be okay. It is a great support which makes us not give up easily, because it makes us believe that situations will eventually get better and can be solved. Hope finds out bright lines even in utmost darkness. It lets one to think miracles even in impossible situations. Someone who has hope will usually continue hoping. Hope makes our life have more motivation to continue and carry on in hard situations.

If one cuts off hope, it ultimately cuts off life. The desire to get involved in making the world a better place is not a bad instinct, it’s a necessary one.  It’s how we have survived. It’s how we will survive.

Having hope is an active, decisive mindset etched into every single moment. No matter the haze and fog that clouds our vision, hope cuts through, never losing sight of the stars behind the clouds.

Hope is not the promise that it will be easy, but the faith that we will get through it.

And we will.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 4
52essays2017
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

And let’s see how others are slicing this week:
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Slice of Life Writing Challenge|Two Writing Teachers

And A House Is Not A Home…

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“But a chair is not a house, and a house is not a home…”
– Burt Bacharach and Hal David

Also with a respectful nod to both Dionne Warwick and Luther Vandross of course, I have to say – yes.

Until the age of twenty-three when I moved-out for good, I lived with my parents, more or less – that’s a very long story that can be summed up in a poem I wrote here.  It was my parents’ home yes, but not mine. I lived there as a child as all children do because, I had no choice.  Until I could afford to be on my own, I had no choice.  Most parents, at some point, will explain the finer points of home ownership. It almost always comes first in some form of My house. My Rules.  I had my bedroom, yes, but I never felt at home in my parents’ house. A stanza from the  above referenced poem…

Where do I go
This was my shelter
It was all I’ve ever known
I’m taught never to be where I’m not wanted
But what do I do when I’m a child
And where I’m not wanted is home

It was an intangible difference, but one I innately, if not completely, understood even as a young child.

“Home wasn’t a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.”
― Sarah Dessen, What Happened to Goodbye

When I moved out of my parent’s house, I moved into Bill’s parent’s house. They were both retired and aging, still for the first couple of years very much with us. Yes, it was technically the parents’ house and there was definite clashing of heads twixt all four of us adults from time-to-time, but there was a mutual respect companionship and love throughout those walls.  As his step-father’s health rapidly declining and his mother was showing the very first hints of Alzheimer’s I found myself in the role of partial caretaker of the elderly parents. Living with them taught me that home and family is are relative terms less defined by blood, more defined by relationships. Bill has cousins, the family of his mother’s best friend. People he was not related to by blood, but were very much his family. That was the first place I felt at home.

“When I think of home I think of a place where there’s love overflowing…”
Home – The Wiz Soundtrack

Whether in an apartment, but especially when we actually owned our own house I learned home was more than my four walls and the roof over my head. Home is an environment. It was my dog I could hear happily barking and doing what we dubbed the happy-happy-joy-joy dance as soon she sensed my approach to the door. It was the feeling that greeted me when I walked through the door. It was my sons and husband who waited for me to get home. It extended out of the walls and windows of my actual abode to those we welcomed within. My sons’ friends who knew they better “greet an adult first when coming through my door” before going to play video games in their bedroom. Our friends and family coming over for barbecue and the annual Superbowl party.   At long last I had found home.

And then I lost it.

“Home is where somebody notices when you are no longer there.”
― Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project

Through a series of events I’m not going into here, when my husband died I was no longer able to keep living in our home and long story-short I wound up moving in with the one person who always had my back, and opened her home to me when I needed one, my best friend. Coming from a life of being an only child, living with Bill who was estranged from his living sibling and myself having the two boys, I had lived in relatively quiet homes. The realities of living with a large family was foreign to me. It was one thing to know, or rather know of, a string of siblings and nieces and nephews of her family, but I had very little interaction with them over the years. I understood them in the Hallmark card concept of everyone was around for Thanksgiving dinner in which we showed up for an hour or so and then left to visit elsewhere. Still very much walking the Path of Grieving at the time, plus a series of other mayhem that befell, I was grateful, to have a roof over my head. I was grateful it was with my best friend, whom I love dearly. After a twenty years of finally having a true feeling of home in my life, being in a home not my own again was especially stinging. The day-to-day of always having people who were not my family, always around, and as I felt in my business, was something to which I had much trouble adjusting. I quickly understood that none of them would ever really understand how I could be in my room, reading a book not wanting any interaction just as I would never understand the sound and fury and a constant stream of people coming and going that was their norm. Over time I was definitely more at home there. A couple of her siblings have claimed me as I have claimed her as my sister on all legal forms. Still, for all of that, I could never really make the apartment we shared feel like my home. Because I knew from the onset, no matter how long I stayed there, it was always a temporary thing and she would likely be the only person to miss my presence when I finally left.

“Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there anymore.” – Robin Hobb, Fool’s Fate

Twice times I rode the train and went back to my old block, to “casually” pass by my old home. The first time was maybe a year or so after the boys and I left. The house was empty of tenants, the fence needed repair, the yard was overrun with weeds.  The second time was perhaps around the third year mark when I saw it in passing from a train.  The yard was cut, a car was in the driveway, the house was occupied by a family not my own. Both times I was still in grief, so all I saw in my heart were how the Christmas decorations would hang from the awning. The football shaped balloons we attached to the fence for Superbowl, where the grill stood in the yard. I saw it while passing by in a car a couple of summers ago. The building was almost out of my sight before I even realized where we were. I understood I would have been immediately in tune with it before, it did not register because it was no longer home to me anymore.

If there is one thing we humans all have in common, it is that we all want a place to call home.

After several years of living with my best friend I am under my own roof again. I am on totally on my own, no children, no romantic partners, just me, but I feel it. I still have some furniture I need to purchase, some décor I need to work out, deal with a host of other changes, big and small, in my life because of it, but I feel it. The views are very different than before, how I move around is very different than before, it is a very different feeling than before, but I feel it nonetheless.  And oh when I climb the stair and turn the key in the front door at the end of the day, yeah I feel it…

“Home is where the heart is.”
– Gaius Plinius Secundus

HOME.

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge – Week 3
52essays2017
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

And let’s see how others are slicing this week:
sol
Slice of Life Writing Challenge|Two Writing Teachers

 

May Auld Acquaintance Please Be Forgot

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Though born in raised in New York City, my family background is from the South. Or as I sometimes joke, I am from South Cackalaky (a colloquialism for South Carolina) via the South Bronx. My Yankee/Dixie mix is apparent in my daily life, but more so around the holidays where part of my Christmas Day meal this year consisted of Italian (baked ziti), Spanish (yellow rice) and Southern (pork shoulder) cuisines.

As we rapidly approach the very end of 2016 I am now reminded of a different tradition — how one must start off the very first day of each year. With variances for local and/or home preferences the checklist is as follows:

New Year’s Day Prep Southern Style:

  1. New mop and broom.
    — One does not bring last year’s dirt into a new year.
  2. A man must be the first one to come into to house.
    (2a. That man must have money in his pocket.)
    — Usually, this was the man of the house, who would walk out the back door, if available, then enter through the front door.
  3. Everything must be clean. Your clothes, your linen, your home, you.
    — A continuation of not bringing in last year’s dirt into a new year – starting after Christmas, the home gets a scrub down.  For some homes, the parts of the house that would be seen by any company that may happen to come calling was enough. For others, the home is cleaned stem to stern within an inch of its inanimate life. Then once everything was cleaned, it was time for everyone to get clean. Hair washed, toe nails clipped, root-to-toot clean.
  4. Prepare the good luck meal of Pork, Black Eyed Peas, and Collard Greens.
    — Though generally a ham, it can be any kind of pork, but it must be pork. Black-eyed peas, on its own or mixed with rice. Collard/Kale/Mustard Greens, or any combination thereof, rounds out the holy trinity of culinary tradition.

All of the above, if followed properly, was presumed to be an assurance of a healthy and prosperous year ahead for you and your family.

So after all that – speaking solely from personal experience – considering the fucked-up, not even close to putting the fun in dysfunction people I was blessed to have to shape my young life, all I can say of all that is BULLLLLLL SHIIIIIIIIIIIIT!

After all, these traditions were ones passed down from families who lived in or were a part of private homes. As poor tenement dwellers, this premise was a glass cliff from the start.

  1. A new mop and broom: Unless it somehow was no longer usable during that week, my mother held on to mops or brooms until the last strands or straws fell off. Who could afford to waste money replacing perfectly good items?
  2. A man must be the first one to come into to house (and have money in his pocket). The only way this could occur is if my father went out for New Year’s Eve and drunkenly stumbled in the door first by happenstance. If there was something needed from the store we could not wait for him to get up first, for if he was home at midnight that meant he did not have any money to go anywhere the night before. So much for money in his pocket. Not to mention, we lived in a tenement, duh! There was no back door to go out of in order to come in a front one. And he damned sure was not getting out of bed and getting dressed to walk out of a door -only to walk back in again- just to satisfy some tradition/superstition. More often than not, I was usually the first person to cross the threshold on the first day of the year.
  3. Everything must be clean.  As an only child and a female, with a father who lifted nothing other than a fork or a liquor bottle, the totality of this cleanliness ritual fell to my mother and I. As I got older the brunt of it was on me.  The days between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day were bloody torture for me. I do not exaggerate when I say bloody as my knuckles often became cracked and raw from the constant scrubbing with bleach, ammonia, Lestoil, Pine Sol and hot water as I cleaned. And don’t you dare ask whether I used gloves. Despite years of seeing others, yes white women, doing so on television and in movies, I was well into my teens before it even became a thought in my head as something I could do for myself. The one time I actually brought it up, my mother looked at me with much disdain. “What? You think you too precious to touch water?” The use of gloves was never brought up again.
  4. The good luck meal. Since ham was made for Christmas, in my mother’s kitchen the pork part of the tradition was almost always in the form of chitterlings and hog maw (the smaller intestines and stomach lining of a pig, respectively, cooked for food). If you have no idea whatsoever of what I speak, my God I how I envy you and wish I shared the wonderful bliss of your ignorance! Years after I left home, the smell of bleach and ammonia combined -something everyone knew you should not mix, yet everyone did exactly that back then- would immediately take me back to New Year’s Day when my mother’s kitchen was an olfactory assault of cleaning products and offal stench as my mother spent a good hour or so at the sink cleaning the -ahem- meat before cooking it. Once I was whipped and not allowed to eat anything if I did not eat everything was cooked for the house for New Year’s Day. I took the beating and went hungry for two days because I refused to let that nastiness cross my lips. The only reason I did not starve for three days was because winter break was over and school had started again where I ate breakfast and lunch. I still was not allowed to eat dinner at night. This stalemate lasted until all of the chitterlings was gone and something else was cooked that I was willing to eat.  This whipping and starving routine were repeated several times over a couple of years before I was taken seriously and allowed to eat only what I wanted. I just realized, I was only ten when I first defied my mother like that. That was truly the precursor to what was coming down the pike – but I digress.

Each January 1st this plague of tradition fell on our apartment with the hopes of a better new year. I presume as we did not follow the rules to the letter, three hundred and sixty-five/six days later, the January 1st of the new year found us just as miserable and poor as it found us January 1st of the previous one.  So what was the point? Suffice it to say, when I became the matriarch of my own household, things went a lot differently for New Year’s Day. At least I thought so.

As I look back on it now, it really was not all that different. I have enough south in me that each time I have moved I purchased new mops and brooms to not bring old dirt into a new place. Yet, like my mother, I do not purchase new cleaning implements each year. With two sons to run to the store if necessary, plus my late-husband –having a man being first to come through the front door, with money in his pocket, was almost a given. If someone non-male somehow cross the threshold first – whatever. Granted, while whatever place we called home was not always white-glove spotless, it was clean – except perhaps for my younger son’s room, depending on his mood, that is. And as I was the one in the kitchen, I cooked any damned meal I felt like cooking that day. As I am now a single woman whose adult sons are out on their own, even that much of the tradition is just a memory. Yet, I am living better and happier than I ever have in spite of it.

The closest I come to preparing for the new year is in my spirit. I fully believe how I find my heart at the stroke of midnight is what guides the rest of my year. The years I started off depressed, pretty much remained so. The years I started off on a good foot, stepped on accordingly.  As for this year, I admit my bank account needs some serious replenishing, but I can keep a roof over my head, pay my bills, not starve and still have something of a life on my own. It’s going to be a long while before I can globe hop again the way I did last year, but I will be able to travel a little this year.  Yet all of those things are material. Most important is that I am content. I am happy with myself. I am happy within myself. I am prepared for some new craziness/challenges with this new year, but I am also looking forward to seeing what new joy/beauty/happiness 2017 will bring.

What better way to start?

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Writing Our Lives #52essays2017 challenge.
52essays2017
A year-long weekly personal essay/memoir/creative nonfiction writing challenge. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out Vanessa Martir’s website and learn about it.

 

And let’s see how others are slicing this first week of 2017:
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Slice of Life Writing Challenge|Two Writing Teachers

Decked Out

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After eight years of living with a roommate I am under my own roof again. It was a long hard climb to get myself back into a solid enough financial stability to do so and I am so happy! It was almost like Christmas as I unearthed the things from storage that I had not seen in all that time.

Some of it was bittersweet: The clock with the traditional wedding vows and our wedding date – a wedding gift from my best-friend. The shadow box containing last flowers and card he sent me, that were received after he was gone (you can read that story here). My late-husband’s folded flag in its wood case. Of those three items, only the flag is out to be seen. I decided other than a picture, it was the only other physical reminder of him that was needed – even the kitchen magnets agreed.

My eldest was placing kitchen magnets of our astrological signs on the new refrigerator the way they were on the old one. When he placed Aquarius, Bill’s sign, on the door it fell to the floor and broke. He looked crestfallen showing it to me, worried about my reaction. I shrugged and explained, it’s been ten years and this is a new space. He was not supposed to be here prominently like this. My sign and my sons’ respective signs were the only ones needed.

Most of the unpacking was long, but happy: getting my king-sized bed back after years of sleeping on a full-size. My barely used pots & pans before everything happened just soap and water away from use again. Seeing my favorite books back on shelves and seeing the artwork I loved displayed again – squeeeee! What brought a huge smile to my face was uncovering all of my holiday decorations. I now have a closet that is full of nothing but holiday cheer. I was determined that my place would be free of any unnecessary boxes by Thanksgiving so I can spread that cheer.

For being back on my own meant I could return to doing what I could not do for eight years. My annual tradition of putting up the Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving was back and I could not wait! I have a lot of decor. Enough that I can do color various themes. Oh, what to choose! I literally opened boxes and whatever three colors captured my eyes first were what went up.

Now, I am not going to lie, 2016 has been one doozey of year. Still, with journeys to Dubai & Abu Dhabi, Cuba and Italy now under my belt, I cannot claim it was all bad when I can walk in MY door and for the next few weeks I get see this:

ch-1

cr-2

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!! Happy Holidays !!

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sol

Slice of Life Tuesday Writing Challenge  – Two Writing Teachers

A Mile In… 

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It has been a couple of days now since we’ve made Donald Trump the new president-elect. Between the various camps of who voted for whom or berating/thanking those who did not vote at all and what it all means,it has been a shit storm of a week. In the midst of it are those saying it won’t be as bad as others are making it out to be. And that is the thing that has probably bugged me the most.

The majority of those who have touted unity, to pull ourselves together, have predominantly been white cis and yes, male. Now,to a point they are correct. It won’t be bad for them with Trump as preident, for it was not bad for most of them to begin with regardless of who held the title of POTUS. Their privilege comes with rose colored glasses that not nearly enough have chosen to at least lower them enough to view how things are for others whose shoes walk a different path. And those shoes coverd many different paths during the campaign – Blacks, Hispanics, women, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, gays..

Muslim women who have had their hajibs snatched from their heads. American born Mexican children being tauted by classmates they will be deported. A black man being called nigger and spat upon. A gay man being told he will soon be executed straight or to death. All of these events, perpetrated by whites, happened within the first 48 hours of Trump being elected. This is not to say any of these could not have happened at any other time, it could, and likely has, many times before. But it has ratched up considerably in just three days. This daily fear and unfortunate reality for many of us -for as a black woman in America I do feel those  crosshairs- is not going to be abated because many chose to push those rose colored glasses higher to hide the ugly.

Anyone denying that the climate has changed enough that the more hateful among us feel not just free, but justified, to behave this way since Trump’s election are accessories to the perpetrators, for silence is consent. Armchair tut-tutting after the fact is empty lip service to those who hurt. For while I do not believe the entire country will completely fall into the dark ages racially and socially, if the past couple of days have proven nothing else, I do believe the day to day social climate is going to be a rougher path to travel. 

In all honesty, I have no idea what kind of president Trump will be. I have no idea how a Republican led House, Senate and presidency will effect this nation as a whole. They may yet shock us all. Not holding my breath on it,  though. I have lived through several presidents now in my adult life. Some were given my vote and I lived through them, some were not and I lived through them. Like it or not, and I don’t, the nation has elected Donald J Trump, President of the United States of America and I am an American. I will respect the Office of the President of the United States, for I know it is bigger than the man who serves in it, and I will live through this president as well.

As I explained to an erstwhile colleague I ran into on the subway, just because it’s not your reality doesn’t mean the reasons for my fear are not real. Telling me it won’t be that bad is in fact saying it will be bad. Don’t you dare then belittle and dismiss my fears as unjustified.

Where The Buffalo Still Roam

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For centuries the sun and moon have risen
here over the horizon of rolling hills
in this home where the buffalo still roam.

In the centuries past, our forefathers were forced here.
Here where the land, and our forefathers, were thought
never to be needed, wanted and preferably seen again.
Giving away that which was never owned by them to begin with
in this home where the buffalo still roam.

In the centuries hence, we dried our tears and made this land ours.
We’ve lived and died here. And in spite of it all, thrived here.
Keeping that which is sacred – sacred,
in this home where the buffalo still roam.

In this century now, the smooth grassy curves of the horizon
are broken by the sharp lines of a civilization, vying to creep in.
Exhausting what is theirs now profanely vie to disrespect what is ours
in this home where the buffalo still roam.

This is our sacred, because it is not so for them does not belie it,
in this home where the buffalo still roam.

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Inspired by the buffalo sighting at the Standing Rock Dakota Access Pipeline Protests last week.

And This Too…

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I came across this old comic Calvin and Hobbs strip on the internet a while back. It broke my heart.
calvin-grows-up
It’s not that Calvin is growing up which makes me sigh, for that is the natural way of things. It is through the use of pills (Ritalin?) that stymies his imagination and thus reduces Hobbs to his stuffed animal reality that saddens me.

Please note – this is not a post for or against the use of such medications for children. I understand that. Every child, every need is different and we can all tell stories siting the pros and cons for its need. This is more a bittersweet acknowledgement of this too shall pass in the time of imaginary friends however that passing occurs.
sol
Slice of Life Writing Challenge : Two Writing Teachers

I Want To Know

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I was minded of Foreigner’s power ballad “I Want To Know What Love Is” when I read this post and while the bastion of nonsense that is the world of Tumblr every now and again someone gets a clue. This is not an end all-be all answer, for every love is different, but it is one that gets  the core of all long lasting loves it right.

(Click each one to enlarge it)

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ro-22

ro-33

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ro-66

This is what lasting love is.

This is not to say that sparks won’t happen anymore, they do, but lovers tend to forget a spark is designed to be a temporary thing.

A spark is what gets the fire started, not the fire itself. And it’s that fire you want to build.

Now and again a new spark causes a flare-up to help keep those fires burning, but again it is not the fire itself. It’s not the spark, but the fire of the heart/h that gets you past the first year, the first decade, the fifth decade and beyond.

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sol

Slice of Life Writing Challenge – Two Writing Teachers

Cuba: Past – Present – Future

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Ah Cuba! A Country Frozen In Time does not begin to cover it.

The varying architecture of neo-classic is next door to art deco and Spanish moorish influences  through mid-century modern is amazing in its unique beauty. It is also in sharp contrast with the appalling decrepit state so many of those same structures that is Havana. Crumbling exterior walls, layers of peeling paint it is like viewing photos of beautiful old abandoned; haunted buildings, only the people still live there. There is no homelessness per se as everyone one has a solid roof over their heads. However, the state of that roof and the rest of the structure varies from completely renovated and structurally sound, through passing fair, to just barely habitable depending on the finances –or lack thereof- for the home dweller. So much of Havana reminded me of the initial squalor of the squatters who took over abandoned buildings in the late 70s early 80’s. And very much like those squatters maintain and rebuild the best that they can, with whatever skills, funds and/or ingenuity they can muster to do so. And that spirit is also Havana’s beauty. What has held them together during this Cold War and embargo with the US.

Cienfuego and (almost typed “y” instead of “and” there), Trinidad are unique beautiful places unto themselves. While still poor, they  almost look more affluent than some parts of Havana because they do not have the massive amounts of three – four hundred years old architecture

The Cubano view of Americans is mixed. Most seem to like that we’re finally coming back. Others have said to our faces “I hate America”. And though they toe the party line and deny it to a person, like America, racism and classism rears its ugly head here as well.

Believe me Cuba is colorful and vibrant and so very much alive.  There is art everywhere; plazas and parks with sculptures, and beautiful murals along walls. You turn a couple of corners and there is something to capture your attention. Of course there are bars a plenty and I had to visit Floridita, a favored haunt of Ernest Hemingway and birthplace of the frozen daiquiri. Nearly every restaurant had live music, every plaza had something to sell, and every other street had something to buy.

As such, you can already see where the beginning of capitalism is rearing its head. Iberostar has hotels in Havana and Trinidad, Cuba. A Four Point Sheraton is being built in Havana as I type. There are several fancy hotels in cThere is new construction or buildings being renovated throughout. Showy restaurants whose owners clearly have access to foreign –read American- coin dot the calles, alongside the more homespun dining fare. Citizens having private businesses have only been a recent advent in Cuba, creating a pseudo middle-class of sorts. I am praying Cuba will not go the route of some of its sister Caribbean islands where there will be tourist only places and/or areas of affluence, while the average citizen lives far below the poverty line.

Oh! And let’s not forget about the vintage American cars. After decades of mileage and eco conscious cars here in the states seeing a fleet of huge, all metal, shiny classic American cars still running the roads is indeed a sight to behold! Talk about they don’t make them like they used to?! These things are tanks. Painstakingly restored and maintained they are things of beauty. It is more impressive when you consider they do not have easy access to parts for these cars. If something breaks they have to fabricate much of what they need to repair it. Many are privately owned and used as tourist taxis. Even so, they have fun with the vehicles as the bubble gum pink Hello Kitty taxi I saw attests to.

 

I have taken a ton of pictures, but not nearly enough. I have seen some of Cuba, but not nearly enough. I’d like to return in a few years to see the differences.

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sol

Slice of Life Writing Challenge | Two Writing Teachers

 

 

 

Hair We Go

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Deepica Mutyala a noted stylist on NBC’s “Today” show had a segment on August 3rd, where she styled different women’s hair into simple “One Minute Summer Hair” looks mostly meant to be done after a swim or on humid days when your original style isn’t going to make it through the day.  Only when it came the African-American model Malyia’s hair – she failed – completely.

Facebook user Joeline Payton posted a video of the segment with the caption “I need answers” and it has understandably gone viral.   I want to be fair and say I’m sure her intentions were good. And I was note overly impressed with the rope-braid style given the Asian woman either, but when it came to Malyia’s hair – what the fuck was she thinking?

Maliya actually had a cute curly style to start with, only to have it horrifically mangled, live on national television nonetheless. into something that looked like the early morning hangover aftermath bedhead of a rough night. There are discarded dolls in an attic or basements with hair that looked better. Hell, Halley Berry’s crack addict hair in “Jungle Fever” was better coiffed than that.

First Deepeica tried to pull the curls into a side ponytail high on the head. No grown woman has worn her hair like that since the 90’s and no woman with natural hair like the model Maliya’s at all.  The amount of rough tugging, brushing and pulling, it would take to get natural to look like that would cause so much damage, we simply wouldn’t do it. It was painfully clear that Mutyala does not know how to work with black natural textured hair when she pulled apart the curls to fluff out bangs and just gave up in the middle of it. To be blunt Deepica Mutyala fucked that model’s hair up and tried to pass that shit off as a style. It was brutal to watch the model sit there with a pasted on smile through Mutyala manipulations. Granted, she’s a model and her job is to sit there, smile and look gorgeous no matter what, because a girl has to get paid (/Jaqen H’ghar voice <– a Game of Thrones reference for those who didn’t get it). Still, she had to know how messed-up her hair looked in the “after”. I understand Maliya defended Mutyala afterward, but when that segment was over and she looked in a mirror, saw the hot ass mess made of her hair, she grabbed the first thing smoking back to the Bronx, Brooklyn or Harlem to get her hair done right!

I mean just because you know how to fry chicken does not mean you know how to make duck a l’orange. If Deepica Mutyala had any respect for her craft she would not have touched Maliya’s hair. A simple “You know what? Your style is perfect as it. I really don’t need to do anything here.” would have sufficed. Granted, we’d all still know Mutyala knows nothing of natural black hair, but she at least would still have our respect for having the sense not to go into a kitchen in which she does not know how to cook. If Mutyala can’t work with ALL hair types, she does not deserve to be called an “expert”. She should not be on TV promoting her expertise in such for her embarrassing demonstration was a far, far cry from such.