Vanities of Aging ~ Confronting Mid-Life Challenges

On August 25, 2012November 17, 2012 By dancingpalmtreesIn 50+, Africa, African American Queen, Catharsis, Creativity, Dark Skin, Dreams, Ecclesiastes, Edward Palmer, Ethiopian Goddess, Fantasy, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, Goddess, Images, Innovation, Inquisitive, Inscriptions, Mable Elizabeth Palmer, Mable Palmer, Menopause, Mid-Life, Sacred, soul, Spirituality, Stigmata, Surrealism, Tattoos, Vanity, Visions, Wisdom2 Comments

The Vanities of Aging

Confronting Our Mid-Life Challenges

Ecclesiastes 1:2

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

Three years ago I experienced the thrill of turning 50. For me any birthday with a zero behind it was a special occasion. Each new decade signaled a new chapter in my life, a new beginning of sorts. I remembered when I turned 40 my Aunt Helen lovingly expressing to me the old adage, “Life begins at 40!” For me it really did. My 40s were a decade of singular accomplishments. I earned my B.A. at age 43; I reached a high level on the earning ladder at my then workplace; I was at my physical and sexual peak as a woman; and I had a new sassiness and vibe that enabled me to reach new heights on that climb to success.

My 50^th birthday was exciting with friends taking me out to dinner, a beautiful birthday cake, balloons, flowers; but after the celebration was over a certain uneasiness set in. “Wow. I’ve lived over half my life.” The career I had carefully developed had hit a brick wall. In fact I seemed to hit a plateau in terms of career success. Then came “The Change”. I was not prepared. For puberty my mother and I had “The Talk”. However as I entered menopause my mother was long since gone on to her Heavenly reward and during this frightening period of my life my last link to the past, my beloved Aunt Helen passed away. I missed my Mom and my aunts terribly. Then horrible things were happening to my body that I did not understand. I sought explanations and some assistance from various GYNs. Their answers usually involved some sort of hormonal treatments which I instantly rejected since both my parents died from cancer. I decided I would just endure the deluge of sweat that engulfed my body day and night, drenching my clothes and making sleep impossible.

Of course I tried all types of holistic treatments. I do believe I’ve been through every herb and natural juices offered in the health food store. Nothing. No effect at all. I’ve decided it’s best to stay near the A.C., turn the fan on at night and keep bottled water with me at all times.

Menopause is an evil creature. She brought along her friends high blood pressure and arthritis to add to my daily pain and discomfort. Yes, this certainly was a ‘Change of Life’. Everything changed in my life, my diet, my ability to go up and down stairs without stopping for breath, the increased popping and cracking in my joints. I kind of felt like a human Rice Krispies, “Snap, Crackle, & Pop.” My mind was just as sharp and creative as it was at age 25 but I could not get my body in agreement with my mental desires.

But I told myself that I still had my good looks. Thanks to a fantastic gene pool and being a dark skinned African American Woman the saying, “Black don’t crack” is really true. Mind you this proverb only works if you took care of yourself when you were in your 20s, 30s and early 40s. I never smoked, did not do drugs, and only drank socially. I also exercised albeit moderately which kept me in fairly good physical condition. I’m also lucky that most of my family tend to be small people so I’ll never gain an extreme amount of weight.

However specific physical changes cannot be avoided. By the time I was 52 all my hair had turned white, seemingly overnight. Finally one day when I overheard a co-worker described me as the African-American lady with the white hair I knew I had to do something. The bubble burst. Reality set in. Oh My God! I look old! This would never do.

After conferencing with several women co-workers I decided upon L’Oreal Feria. First I started out brown because I had read that going back to my original color of black would just make me look hard and emphasize any lines my face might have. Finally I went red, no not Kool-Aid red like some of the pop stars but a spicy Fire Engine Red that matched my fiery personality. This was the time of my life to really experiment. After 40 more of the free spirit in me came out. I got tattoos on a yearly basis. Sometime after I turned fifty I had my belly button pierced but then my belly played a trick on me and I developed that menopausal belly bulge that comes to nearly all 50+ women.

Was this a chase after lost youth? No because I’ve always been a non-conformist. My parents were Free-Thinkers and they brought me up to be my own person. I remember when I decided to spike my hair back when I was in my 20s. My Dad thought I looked so wonderful that he took pictures of me and had them blown up to poster size. My parents support and encouragement fostered in me a self confidence that has enabled me to survive a multitude of challenges. It has given me a sustaining power. My mother and father always encouraged my creativity and insisted that I think for myself not just follow the script handed to us by society in general.

For me the next 50 years will be a celebration of maturity and individuality with lots of creativity and a little bit of insanity thrown in for good measure.

Donations and Freewill offerings can be made directly to my PayPal account deborah.palmer280@gmail.com

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Jephthah’s Daughters

On July 14, 2012July 14, 2012 By dancingpalmtreesIn Ambien, Battle, Black Unicorn, Bridge, Cat fights, Catharsis, Cathay Williams, Delusions, Dreams, Ebonics, Education, Edward Palmer, Elements of Style, Ethiopian Goddess, Eurydice, Eyesight, Facial Hair, Family History, Family Tree, Fantasy, Fears, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, Genetic lineage, Gifted & Black, Goddess, Grace Slick, Green tea, grief, Hallucinations, Hamlet, Health Food Stores, Henry V, homeless veterans, Hood Stories, horror, Hypnos, Icelus, Images, Inscriptiona, Inscriptions, Insomnia, Instability, Intellectualism, Jacob's Ladder, Jesus, Kinky/Nappy Hair, Knowledge, Koyaanisqatsi, Law of Attraction, Loss, Love, Lyrical Family Memories, Mable Elizabeth Palmer, Mable Palmer, Madonna, Manufacturered Reality, Maternal lineage, Menopause, Midnight Marauder, Mind Altering Substances, mitochrondrial DNA, Morpheus, Mother, Mozambique, Mystical Creatures, Native American, Nature, New Age, Night Bird, Night Sweats, Nightmares, Nirvana, Noah's Ark, Ohio, Oneiroi, Orpheus, Paradise, Phantaso, profane, Protean, protest, Redemption, Rejection, River Styx, Romance, Royalty, Sacred, Sages, Scars, sci-fi, Sexual Fantasy, Shakespeare, Sherlock Hollmes, Short Stories, Skeptic, Songs of Solomon & Sheba, sorrow, soul, soup kitchen, Soy milk, Spirit, Spirituality, Squatters, Stigmata, Suffering, Suicide, Surrealism, Tattoos, The Secret, Thracian King, Trail of Tears, Understanding, Vision, Vision Quest, Visions, wage slave, War, Wisdom

Jephthah’s Daughters.(Click here to read more)

Shall we regard our girl children as Jephthah’s Daughters? How long will we continue to perpetuate the adage, “Women love their sons, but raise the daughters.” Every child deserves the opportunity to succeed in life but success comes through accepting responsibility and learning to be accountable. Any child male or female who constantly lashes out at authority figures in a bid to always be “right” is a child bound for prison or the graveyard. Stop making girls the sacrificial lambs!!

Ladies, let’s love our girl children and stop putting them on the altar in order to save a son who does not wanted to be saved and does not think he needs help or worse some no account man who should not even be a part of our households to begin with. Let us not return to ancient times when girls and women were thought of as little more than chattel or commodities to be bought and sold. (See below for more details on ancient economies)

“One of the unusual things about the Bible is that it preserves some bits of this larger context. … It would seem that the economy of the Hebrew kingdoms, by the time of the prophets, was already beginning to develop the same kind of debt crises that had long been common in Mesopotamia: especially in years of bad harvests, the poor became indebted to rich neighbors or to wealthy moneylenders in the towns, they would begin to lose title to their fields and to become tenants on what had been their own land, and their sons and daughters would be removed to serve as servants in their creditors’ households, or even sold abroad as slaves.

“[This is what the biblical book of Nehemiah is referring to in the passage,] ‘Some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them.’ One can only imagine what those words meant, emotionally, to a father in a patriarchal society in which a man’s ability to protect the honor of his family was everything. Yet this is what money meant to the majority of people for most of human history: the terrifying prospect of one’s sons and daughters being carried off to the homes of repulsive strangers to clean their pots and provide the occasional sexual services, to be subject to every conceivable form of violence and abuse, possibly for years, conceivably forever, as their parents waited, helpless, avoiding eye contact with their neighbors, who knew exactly what was happening to those they were supposed to have been able to protect. … http://www.delanceyplace.com/view_archives.php?2009

Donations to this Ministry for the Housing Fund can be made in U.S. Funds via money order or bank checks made payable to Rochdale Village Inc. 169-65 137th Avenue, Jamaica, NY 11434, Account No. 083-11G-16924 or directly to deborah.palmer280@gmail.com via Paypal. Thank you and God Bless.

Colorstruck — The Colour of Beauty

On July 4, 2010 By dancingpalmtreesIn African American Queen, African Goddess, Colorstruck, Colour of Beauty, Dark Skin, Ethiopian Goddess, Female Divinity, Feminine Divine, Kinky/Nappy Hair, Royalty, Spirituality1 Comment

The Colour of Beauty

Please take time to view the above link.

Colorstruck

I feel you Brown girls.

I just wanted to say to my Brown Skin/Dark Skin Sisters that I had many issues and insecurities concerning my skin color when I was younger.

Especially coming up and going to school during the 1960s, Black was not Beautiful. It still took some convincing even after James Brown declared “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud”. I can’t tell you how many times I was called “Tar Baby” and various other insulting names by the other Black kids on the playground and in the neighborhood.

I used to go home to my Daddy crying. Daddy used to tell me, Deborah, “The Blacker the Berry the Sweeter the Juice, if the Berry’s too light it has
no use”. My Dad was dark skinned like me and he soothed me as well as
instilling self-esteem and pride within his daughter.

Well the 1970s came along. Soul Train, Watu Wasuri use Afro Sheen.
Black Power. Famous Black Models gracing the covers of fashion magazines such as Vogue.

Props to Beautiful Brown Skinned SisterGirls:

Grace Jones

Bethann Hardison

Beverly Peele

Naomi Sims
Toukie Smith
Roshumba Williams

My current favorite: Alek Wek

Essence magazine came into being.

Suddenly it was a good thing to be Dark Skinned. My Dad and I wore our Afros proudly.

Ethnic looks, fashion, the flavor of the month. All Cyclical. Especially in America a nation caught up in the youth craze. America, a nation that equates youth with beauty. America, whose standards of beauty change with each passing fad.

Now that I’m middle-aged I thank God for this dark brown skin. Why   because many of the white women want to know what I do to look the way I do. As soon as they hit their late 30s, 40s the wrinkles and lines appear. Why do you think those anti-aging creams and formulas are so popular? Botox. Restylne.

Those things are not being marketed to us. For the most part we don’t need it. I’m 51, look 41, if I colored my hair could pass for 35.

This dark brown skin I used to curse; now I celebrate every day when I look in the mirror.

My baby cousin Veronica, age 15 showcases the beauty of African, Hispanic and Native American in one gorgeous package. Yes she has the light skin coupled with the shoulder length hair.

Years ago I would have been jealous of someone like her. But many years have passed and I’ve been her caretaker off and on since she was a little girl so Veronica is my defacto daughter.

When I see Veronica I feel love and joy, not because she’s light skinned and pretty, but because she’s smart and talented. Roni just has a different type of beauty than mine. My family has mixed heritage from many branches. If you saw all of us together, you’d see a living human rainbow bound by blood. Even though we are on two shades of the skin color spectrum when my friends, neighbors and co-workers see us together they assume that’s my daughter. As far as I’m concerned Veronica is my Daughter. One of my goals is that when Roni is around me to teach her not to capitalize on her looks. Not to manipulate men or people in general.

I want Veronica to get her education. I envision her receiving a BA,
then a MA in whatever discipline she chooses. Leave the boys alone. They’re no good anyway. She is a girly-girl. Loves the latest looks but young women dark and light skinned need to get wisdom, knowledge and understanding in their heads.

I still get plenty of attention from men. All men Black, white even some from the Middle-East. Some unwanted but that’s another story.

So, Thank you to both my African and Native American Ancestors for dark brown skin, high cheekbones and Nappy/Kinky hair. I am the best of all worlds.