In the Black Community voluptuous curvy Women are celebrated. Think Dorothy Dandridge, Venus and Serena Williams or Beyonce.
I’m on the petite side but thankfully I’m not that 17 year old skinny minnie with the thigh gap any more. As I’ve gotten older I have finally begun to put on some weight which makes me very happy. Most women want to lose weight but I’m happy to see those extra pounds when the doctors weigh me. I welcome having more “Junk in my Trunk.”
However due to DNA I will always be on the small side. My Mom Mable Elizabeth Palmer pretty much weight 95 lbs all her adult life even after having two children. Lack of appetite was never a problem. My Mom cooked Soul Food as did all my female relatives and we chowed down. Like eye color, skin color, height etc… weight is pretty much predetermined. It is hereditary. Both my parents were slim people and they had two thin children. Of course now that Stephen and I are both past 50 headed towards 60 there are things that we can no longer eat. But we both like to indulge every so often.
Funny story. My favorite supervisor at work Phil who retired last year marveled at the amount of food I used to consume during lunch at the Staff Cafeteria. When we first got to know each other he would walk by the table where I was sitting in total astonishment because I had at least $12.00 worth of food on my plate and had the nerve to go back for dessert!! I guess he wondered how such a small woman could eat so much food and still stay slim!!
I do exercise. Mostly walking sometimes keeping my arms toned with free weights. I enjoy hiking. Naturally housework is plenty of exercise in and of itself. Osteoporosis runs on both my mothers and father’s side. My mother had it and so did at least one of my paternal aunts. This is Not something I want so I will keep up my somewhat limited fitness program and really go for the gusto once I retire Summer 2018.
Apologies are powerful, transformative experiences. This week, use an apology as your creative springboard.
When I was a young woman I was forever apologizing. Mostly for perceived failures, faults and weaknesses. I wanted for people to not only like me but to think that I was talented, smart, gifted and intelligent. I think that women often fall into that trap because we are raised to be people pleasers. Make your parents happy, siblings, husband, children, boss, Pastor/Preacher/Minister, society in general. Then I turned 40 and stopped apologizing for being me. Whether I win or lose, pass or fail the only One I must please is God and everybody else can step to the side.
After I turned 50 I stopped caring what people thought of me. Whatever other people think is on them. I’m Living this Life for me and Nobody else. Naturally like anyone else I want to make a good impression on supervisors at my job and potential Lovers but you know as time has marched on I realized that all I need to do is the best job possible as for men well I made the choice early in life to remain single. Single by choice. I don’t chase men. Also if they are not up to my standards they will get kicked to the curb. I enjoy my own company and have learned that being alone does not mean being lonely. The Goddess does not apologize for Being In Total Control of Herself!!
When I was a girl My Dad Edward G. Palmer was constantly reciting various radio programs from the 1930s/40s when he was growing up. The Shadow was one of his favorites. Lamont Cranston was The Shadow.
Why do you create? Publish a post about your artistic raison d’être.
I create and in creating give Praise to the Master Creator!! All that I have and all that I am comes from God!!
I also give Thanks to my most excellent parents Edward & Mable Palmer who encouraged my creativity. Growing up during the 60s/70s I was a very active child. Actually if I was a kid now I’d probably be diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. During the PTA conferences the teachers would tell my parents that I was a very smart child but I kept finishing the lessons too early, going ahead in the books, helping the other kids in the class and reading the books in the small classroom library. My parents only heard or chose to hear the words smart and intelligent. Mom taught me to read, spell and write at an early age. I believe by the time I was three or four I was reading above and beyond grade level. By the time I was seven or eight I had created my own special alphabet/language and using construction paper and markers made a book about a character named Mr. X.
My parents encouraged me to read. Thank goodness there were no cell phones, PCs, tablets or computers back in those days. I read voraciously! I was a lean, mean reading machine!! Still am!!
My parents and my paternal Aunts all felt I had artistic capabilities. Therefore Dad lavished me with all sorts of art supplies, drawing implements, sketch pads and when I became a teenager a drawing table. The ones that angle. I also received many arts & crafts projects like Latch hook rugs and various other art kits.
Now along with my brother Stephen I create Photo Collages. Stephen and I are working on a joint collage project. Below is one I created in 2012 as a solo project.
Family Photo Collage
Family Photo Collage
Then during High School I decided I wanted to be a writer specifically a poet. I created many poems. After I got out of the Army in 1981 I took video classes at a local arts center and made my first and only video poem. Somewhere either in storage or among my messy room is a VHS tape with me acting out the poem.
Fast forward into the future after my beloved Dad passed away in 1995 at age 36 I returned to college. Attending and earning my B.A. in English at Marymount Manhattan College in May 2002 at age 43. Over the course of eight years the professors at MMC worked me hard. The class work was demanding but I thrived on the challenge. My writing really began to bloom. Of course if you had to constantly write 25 page research papers on a regular basis you would either bloom or bust. I bloomed like a flower in the desert. My professors nourished me. I made the Dean’s List in 1999 and was recommended by then Dean Joan Brookshire for a special program called Women in Urban Leadership. Dean Brookshire kept telling me that I had a gift for writing. I was honored but did not take her words seriously because I was moving up the career ladder. Not until I was laid off from my great managerial job and found myself in a much lower paid and lower position as a museum guard at age 49 did once again did I not only return to my writing but found that with all my trials and tribulations my writing had matured. I suppose when you are struggling and barely getting by that gives you plenty of fodder and a new way of seeing the world.
No more fancy vacations. No more zipping around in my car. No more TV. Lost my apartment but at least I do have a place to live and my room-mate is an artist. On the surface it all seemed like a loss. But not so. I’ve gained more spiritually with each layer of material goods that has been removed. Everything happens for a reason and I believe the reason in my case was so that the following Bible Scripture Verse that the Lord gave me back in the late 1980s could come to pass.
Habakkuk 2:2-3
New King James Version (NKJV)
The Just Live by Faith
2 Then the Lord answered me and said:
“Write the vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it. 3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.
Also my genetic gift and talents for photography has been growing by leaps and bounds. My Dad Edward G. Palmer was an amateur photographer. I still have his Kodak Koda Chrome slides from the 1950s up to the 1980s. My genre is Street Photography. Please take a look at my photography blog Roaming Urban Gypsy. https://roamingurbangypsy.com/
You’re My Praise!! You’re the Song My Heart Keeps Singing!! You’re the Reason why I’m Living!!
Espiritu en Fuego/A Fiery Spirit 