i have an awesome life

–i have amazing friends.  really.  journalists, writers, filmmakers, artists, hustlers, students, teachers, n americans, europeans, africans, revolutionaries…and we have a great time together, we laugh, we cry, we drink, smoke, stay up too late, laugh some more, dance at 3 am, fall asleep on couches and mattresses and floors, paint walls, ride taxis, motobikes, and microbuses, talk politics, sex, music, history, writing, and bullshit. really, sometimes when we are all together, i just stop and look around at us and think, damn, we win.

–aza blows my mind.  today she was doing cutouts, yesterday was she was making collages.  she tells me wild stories and comes into the office so she can massage my shoulders and bring me drawings.  her birthday was a week ago and she got gifts from her grandparents but also from lewis, the 23 year old auc student (paint and canvas) and malte, the 21 year old german painter (a ‘diamond’ ring).  these are the kids she considers ‘friends’.  she is so confident and self assured.  so determined and attentive to others.  so into explaining everything that is happening around us.

–i have a new studio space.  grey blue walls, multiple rooms, high ceilings, when you speak there is an echo…will be great for recording in.  the studio still needs a name (any suggestions?).  and i still need to move a few things into it.  but i have dreams about artist collectives, showings, movements and revolutions swimming through this studio.  (will post pics soon)

–i am writing this because i forget.  i forget how awesome life is.  i forget how i live a few blocks from the nile river.  and how i hear the call to prayer 5 times a day.  and how i am witnessing the movements of revolution and counter-revolution up close and personal.  and how cal and i have made a good balance together.  and how it is spring in cairo, and how the birds start their day before dawn, and how i get to experience this life that is so good.

just a reminder — outlaw midwives zine submissions due may 15

call for submissions

focusing on pregnancy, birth, post partum, baby and breastfeeding

for and by: mothers, friends and allies of mothers, doulas, midwives, birthworkers, childbirth educators, childbirth advocates,

intention: to create a zine for pregnancy, birth, and the first year of motherhood centering the lives of working class, marginalized mothers and birthworkers.

submit: photos, drawings, visual art
poems, essays, fiction and non-fiction
tips, suggestions, lists of resources

check out the outlaw midwives manifesta and website: http://outlawmidwife.wordpress.com/

outlaw midwives: creating revolutionary communities of love

some suggestions for topics on which you can submit…but these are just suggestions…

suggestions for those trying to conceive.  and for not conceiving.  stories of conception, abortions and miscarriage.

what are the social, economic, legal consequences and limitations for marginalized mothers to make choices about how, when and where they will give birth.

tips for the first, second, third trimester.  relationship with doctors, clinic, midwives, family, friends, etc.

how do our ideas of gender and sexuality influence how we view childbearing, midwifery, and parenting?

Your take on reproductive justice?

how do we resist the high infant and mortality rates?

what are the ways that community could support the childbearing year, mothers and families?

how have you navigated through the systems of welfare, protective child services, hospitals, etc?

reflect on the state of midwifery today.  what do you see as the positives and negatives?  how has legalization and licensing affected mothers and families access to care?

what would you want to tell a soon to be mother about pregnancy, birth, and early motherhood?  or write a letter to your pre-mother or pre-pregnant self about what you should expect.   what didnt you expect to happen/learn/experience in pregnancy, birth, the baby year?  write a letter to you daughter and/or son about what you learned/want to pass on about pregnancy, birth, baby year.

what was your personal experience/story of birth? pregnancy, the baby year?
what did you learn/are you learning from the baby year?

what do you wish someone had told you about early motherhood and/or being a birth worker?
what do you wish you could have said to someone, but didnt?
what is your vision/ideal of how pregnancy, birth, baby year could be?

what family/traditional wisdom did you receive about pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding?  what practical tips do you have for working poor mothers?

breastfeeding vs. bottle.  what are the social, biological and economic influences and consequences of the choice to breastfeed or bottle feed?

what to do with the placenta?  placenta art, consumption, burials?

why did you become a birth worker?  what has been the highlights of the experience? what have been the difficulties?

what does ‘outlaw midwife’  mean to you?

keep it simple

deadline may 15

send submissions to maiamedicine at gmail dot com

oh this tumblr for april poetry month is so beautiful.  the poems. gawd.

crip chick’s poems

across the table

i am as water

mosquitos cling to the walls and nothing can escape their sound

while you write a letter to someone who isnt me but is worth (to you) to write a letter to

i stand up to escape

you reach out your hand to me, saying, stay, because sleeping alone is living the hard way

you and me dont need an organ that pumps blood and time,

but nicotine and cheap red wine

your important words slip away

in other words

the price of your freedom?

its hunger, a scratchy throat, stories, pacing the kitchen at 4 am

in other words, freedom is the only thing you got,

when you got no one left

naivete

this beer, my favorite beer,

tastes like ox sweat–fuck.  i just realized

i dont have a clue what the game is

im just following the rules

for you

i would kill every mosquito in this room

and tattoo my lips with the blood

i listen to the silence

nothing lasts, not mosquitos sucking the blood from the tip of the skin,

not icebergs erupting into fire and mountains

everything changes from red to green and back again.

from heaven to this humus body

what does that mean now?  spring has come and my brown body erupts into gunfights and golden nuggets thrown at sling shots

we talk about the revolution like seeing a double rainbow on a dry day

a red rose, a white jasmine, a black kiss

talk about it like migrants talk about night, black spray paint to hide the bruises

self destructive, running into the middle of soldiers and tanks with flip flops and beer

listen to the wind and then run the opposite way

kick, fall and get up again

refuse the poison they feed the suburbs and ghettos, kids growing bold before their time

listen to the silence of mosquitos and spring

belonging

i want this to be, yes

i want this to be space and hunger, fuck and forgiveness

and i want this to be stronger than death

but my skin constantly peels away

and i am left like an apostrophe without a possession to my name

tell me what is so confusing about a necklace of jasmine and red carnation

a pink barrette tangled in dreadlocks

a yellow tube of raisin lip gloss

the traces of mosquito blood on a dirty palm?