Back in Memphis.. a little under the weather, seem to have picked up some kind of sore throat cold combo.. eating spaghetti.. watched a ridiculous old movie called Franny.
Planning diabolically and otherwise the next move. Onward path.. onward math...upward have been having funny dreams.. funny dreams about the next things happening.. pulled a nice card yesterday with a fish on it, so I made a wish and went swimming in the pool with my clothes on.
That was yesterday, made it to the airport a little late so didn't end up leaving atlanta until about 1. People watching in airports is so interesting, particularly if you have a bit of time to spend there as you are sitting facing the big aisle and so many people pass by, looking so many different ways. And particularly if you have people to remark upon the experience with. And I was thinking.. we all conduct ourselves differently in airports, even when we are already past the security checkpoint. There are things we just don't do. No one dances in the aisles. If there is a place you cannot dance or you feel you can't move your body maybe there is something a little wrong. Maybe.. though I won't extend that to all situatios. Once when I was in .. 2nd grade.. I started dancing or moving my body in the classroom.. was it dancing..? it was more like a playing a role.. not too different as I look back from the things I do now. I was by and large an E conduct student. Maybe too much of an E conduct student. So anyways the teacher was out of the room and somehow or another I began to do some kind of dance and somehow or another I got in trouble for that.
Kind of I guess. But I keep remembering that.
Fall semester in a class I was in called Perspectives in Dance as Culture we read a piece by Foucault "Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison" to which I must needs pay a new visit. I'm paraphrasing everything, but it spoke about how aspects of human relational qualities- in the ways that we position ourselves in relation to other people have taken on forms reminiscent of military structures- classrooms etc. are positioned in lines, columns, and rows as are military.. figures, structures.. forgive me I don't have the language.
" Discipline sometimes requires enclosure, the specification of a place heterogenous to all others and closed upon itsel. It is the protected place of disciplinary monotony. There was the great 'confinement' of vagabonds and paupers; there were other more discreet, but insidious and effective ones. There were the colleges, or secondary schools: the monastic model was gradually imposed.. there were the military barracks: the army, that vagabond mass has to be held in place.."
This is all simply to say that in an airport or even in life there are certain implied paths of motion, which children have not learned yet.
We are, everyone is in motion yet standing still. in airports. And normal things. Adults and those who think they are on their way there do not talk to each other so often. We are all in so close proximity yet there are so many gates around. Part of it is that you need to craft some kind of bodily home around yourself. Its amazing the things we can do with our intention. The other part of it is just a kind of.. shall I say fear, or reticency, or maybe some are just tired. But anyway Aisha was like "I don't like it over here" when we had sat somewhere there were no other children. She was continually attempting to find someone to talk to despite my reticence. Because I halfway had my bubble up ( i was feeling sick you know). As in I am just trying to get where I am going.. etc etc. But then she found a child and her mother and walked over there and began to talk to them. Some of us stop doing things like this at a certain age... that thought welcomes more .. there is a question therein.
Right now I am listening to this sade lover's rock and I am not in school. The life I am living cannot be measured in a box with checkmarks nor the letter I will be assigned at the end of a 4 month period. The range and the angle of motion is much bigger. I am waving about in the sea and listening sometimes with eyes closed to the motion. How do you measure the progress of days. I think I will take my time with this that I am doing.
Memphis bears a little analysis. Headed to DC next week instead of this one to meet with various people there. An older cousin who I hear tell is back and forth to Ghana. Friends from various places. Haile Gerima, director of Sankofa to get some insight on the film angle. He was at Wesleyan some months ago and gave this great talk. I took notes..
- tv access to you.. you'll never produce your own story.
- silence is when you really confront yourself.. silence is when you reflect -
who the hell am I, what do I want?
-As soon as they saw the drum they thought Africans are dancing. No, it is a talking drum. There is information there.
- Missionaries are cartographers. Globalization grows from maps.
-... humble so you don't become egotistical.. nothing should remain permanent.
So that. Hmmm. What else. Kalimah is going to be in Philadelphia for a little bit.
And I am beginning "Up from Slavery" by Booker T. Washington.
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