Photo of The Day

Originally uploaded by Zanalee
I have decided to do a "Photo of The  Day" entry in addition to my regular entries every day for a bit. I will post a pic I've taken (usually from my flickr account) and say a bit about it. And that's it.

This is a building in Chelsea around 18th Street where I was this morning. I love the red brick and the moldings around the window frames. I took this using the Instagram app. I added a cirular tilt shift effect.

Octo-Mind

My mind has countless arms
Reaching,
Some I can't even see,
Some I don't even know about
And perhaps for my sake
May never get to see,
That is if my self remains as always
Never free.
My mind has countless arms
That reach.
They grasp and pull and tug
Like a baby
And like a thug
Like a weaver
And like a bum.
They wave fondly at others
And shake a fist at some.
My mind is making arms that will
Preserve my legacy.
My mind is making arms that will
liberate and strangle me,
and sometimes they both feel the same.
But my two hands that I can see
Are vulnerable and empty.
They sense the underlying game.

-Zenzile Greene
(Written in Bryant Park)

It's been a while, kind of...

I think my last entry was on how I learned the true meaning of my name on my birthday. I am now sitting at a reception desk where I work weighing the pros and cons of attending an honors ceremony by catching a ride with someone I despise to a place I hate to go. Not much has changed.

Oh wait that's not quite true. I've gained more weight, my knees crack more and my back pretty much hurts all the time if I'm not careful. I've noticed that all the chiropractors at the practice I go once a week are all male an all white. This is not something that would have occurred to me about 15 years ago. Now it's starting to make me wonder. I can't buy food anywhere anymore without wondering about the conditions of the place, what the benefits are like and whether that bored and depressed look on the cashier's face is that way for many of the same reasons mine is often. I wonder if they're exhausted from fake smiling all day and pretending to be civil to supervisors, they'd just as soon see dropped off of a tall building. I wonder if their lives are treadmill like and what they do to temporarily relieve that each day. I guess for me, photography is a very big part of what I do to escape from the banal routine. Writing used to be this for me but hasn't been for quite some time. I think photography and nature may two of the last few places I can go to breath anymore.  Everybody's got their something and that is mine. And if it wasn't for the work of others I don't know if I would feel the same. Creativity is fed by creativity so if you're not inspired, neither am I. Thank God for nature.

So let's see, where does that leave me? It's scorching hot today, about to get worse tomorrow and I'll be upstate with Fran this weekend, maybe taking in the new Woody Allen film and if it's not too hot maybe a game of catch on the Ramapo High Football field. I like playing catch with Francis. It's very calming and reminds me of when I was girl playing baseball with my dad and brother in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. We talk, we laugh, we get to just enjoy being outside. Yeah, I'm an expert at escaping and relaxing. But regardless, there are some very practical, some very urgent matters that are starting to catch up with me. If I can tackle even one of those this summer, I would feel pretty triumphant.

My name is Zenzile

My mom picked my brother Gaidi’s name out of a book of African names. It was a thin book I remember, thin and worn with a blue cover. As a girl, I would take it out to flip through every so often and find my brothers listed among a column of male names. Gaidi is an East African name that means Guerilla fighter. The name in the book was underlined I imagined by my mom. I would always look for my name but I knew it wasn’t there. My name was not chosen from this book of names. It was chosen from the back of the album cover of one of my mother’s favorite artists, Jon Lucien a singer songwriter born in the British Virgin Islands. The song entitled “Zenzile” was off the album “Rashida.”

Over the years, my mom came up with several definitions for my name, some she made up, like “to pierce through” because she felt I had very piercing eyes, and some like “hard worker” which we found somewhere vague or heard from someone who heard from someone else that said this was it’s meaning. I started doing internet searches years ago looking for the meaning and all I found, in addition to a French band, the popular book “Zenzele” (everyone who’s read it says I should too) and general dead ends are a couple of women who, having given the name to new born babies, also wanted to know what it meant. All we ever new for sure about the name was that it was South African.

I met a student with the same name over the phone at my job while I was taking down her contact information only last year. It knocked me out when she started spelling it and I was like, she’s spelling my name! But that was pretty much the extent of our conversation. Long before that I had resigned myself to being satisfied with having a name I love but whose meaning I have never really been sure of.

Tonight at a  birthday gathering for my friend and academic mentor, who share my birthday as well,  I met a woman from South Africa who asked me how I got the name Zenzile. She said that it is a very common name in South Africa and a very beautiful name meaning “We have done it” in Zulu. I feel like this one of several wonderful birthday gifts I have received today. I have never known the true meaning of my name before and tonight after completed my 36^th revolution around the sun, I now know. And I love it even more.

My Sunbonnet Babies!

My Sunbonnet Babies!
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

I don't really know how to make you understand about this book but it is a book my mom used to read to me when I was a girl and that I read for myself over and over again as soon as I was able. It was one of the many books that sparked my imagination about far off lands, planted the seed of association with Holland to Tulips, Cheese, clogs and windmills and essentially paved the way to my ultimately bookwormness.

I was also obsessed with knowing what the Sunbonnet babies really looked like since they wore the Bonnets in all their books. In this book they briefly trade the Bonnets with their cousins and you finally get to see their faces! That was what passed as a thrill for me as girl! LOL!!

I found this nice cheap copy on Amazon last week and decided to order it hoping it was like the one we had when I was a girl and not some awful reprint. This is a "reprint of the Antique Original Edition" but I flipped through it and smelled the pages (I like smelling book pages, I know, weird) and it's the real thing. It's exactly how I remember it.

Oh I cannot wait to get home and read it to myself again! *Sigh*

A Reminder

"If I get old
I will not give in.
But If I do,
Remind me of this.

Remind me that
Once I was free.
Once I was cool
Once I was me

And If I sat down
And crossed my arms
Hold me
Until this song.

Knock me out.
Smash out my brains
If I take the chair
and start to talk shit.

If I get old
Remind me of this
That night we kissed
and I really meant it

Whatever happens
If we're still speaking
Pick up the phone
Play me this song"

-Radiohead

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mothers Day!
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

An old photo my dad took of us at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden where mom inspired me at a young age to meditate on the beauty of nature and balance. It's because of her that I love the garden so much. It's one of the many countless precious things she has given me that continues to give back. I love you mommy!
♥