"It must be so nice to be able to reconnect to the Motherland," my boss says to me today, after I tell him I am going to Nigeria for the holidays. I have no doubt there was a rhythmic drumbeat, maybe something from The Lion King, playing in his mind when he said this. He continued, "I don't really have...I mean I could go to Connecticut," he drifted off, shrugging his shoulders. I imagine that is why people like him become Buddhists and visit the Dalai Lama.

"I really just want to see my grandmother and eat her home cooking," I replied. This is true. And if I only do this, I will be happy. But my boss doesn't get it; he doesn't have people. He is adopted and, now that his parents have passed away, he is orphaned. Both of his daughters died well before their time. I imagine that family is somewhat of a distant reality to him, and life more of an abstraction now.

I can see how much he longs to genuinely connect with me, with anyone, but he is too busy abstracting -- my family and heritage and even my hair -- to really get me. Some guy actually asked me, tonight, whether my dreadlocks were a part of my culture. I replied, "It's just a style." End of discussion. I do not particularly enjoy bursting bubbles, but I don't know why people find messages buried in my hair. I am not that obvious.

I have not packed a thing yet. I actually went to a web site today that, with a few questions answered, will spit back a list of things to take with you on your trip. I am not big on packing or planning, and I think I will end up throwing a few random things in a bag anyways.

Finally saw Precious last night, the perfect nightcap for a snowy day. I have to process it a little more before blogging, but thought I'd repost a blog I wrote earlier in the year after all the Sundance buzz. I think the accolades are deserved.

I can scarcely believe that I was capable of writing 50,000 words in one month, let alone at all, for NaNoWriMo. It requires an almost Machiavellian determination that I previously did not know I had. Along the way, I have learned that there is definitely a difference between the "process" of writing -- the showing up every day, no matter your mood or the weather -- and the "product" of writing -- a blog, article, novel, play, screenplay etc.

So much emphasis is always placed on the product that many creative folks feel there is something wrong when they are not churning out literary gems every second they sit down to pen and paper (or laptop). Boy did film school totally mess with me in that regard. From my recollection, it was all about getting something onscreen, and very little about the convoluted process of arriving there, which is 95% the battle. Granted, I only did a year, but I don't think I learned anything tangible about the process of writing and telling a story that I couldn't have found out on my own.

One of my Hedgebrook sisters hipped me to a theory, proposed by Claudia Johnson, that the rising and falling action theory of dramatic writing is entirely phallocentric. Johnson suggests, from a more feminine perspective, that narrative storytelling is really a series of connections, disconnections, and reconnections. After going through my story outline, I found that this was a better way of describing what was happening organically in my writing than anything I read in Aristotle's Poetics.

Maybe this whole focus on the end goal is phallocentric too.

I find that every day I am negotiating either a connection or disconnection to my writing, and so this "novel" product becomes a vaguer goal than the immediate one of managing my own interest in the subject matter, authenticity in the storytelling, and personal commitment to finishing. Just some food for thought.

And for any folks looking to churn out more product, NaNoWriMo posted a handful of other competitions from poetry to screenplay writing on their site (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

What a rare pleasure seeing Zimbabwean actress, playwright, and Hedgebrook sister Danai Gurira on Law & Order last Friday, opposite S. Epatha Merkerson. I love seeing beautiful, powerful black women command the screen. Especially Gurira, with her chocolate-chocolate skin and close-cropped fro, in a love triangle gone deadly. I do not look anything like her, but at least seeing her allows me to envision an image of myself as beloved on the small (or silver) screen.

Blessedly, I once had the opportunity to see myself this way, shot on 16mm film in a classroom exercise @ NYU on the visual caress. I leaned against a telephone pole on Lafayette Street, wearing a black skirt slit up to the thigh and a wispy floral blouse, my dreadlocks tumbling around my shoulders. The camera started at my feet and tilted up -- tracing my legs, negotiating around the curve of my behind, the softness of my chest, and my face gazing off into the sun.

There is something breathtaking in the image of a black body beloved.

So too watching Gurira, whose presence lit up the screen fresh off a successful run of her new play, Eclipsed, at Yale Repertory Theater. Wish I could have seen the show, but I know a gathering of beloved black women -- Zainab Jah and Adepero Oduye among them -- lit up the stage then too. Soldiering on in an ongoing struggle to claim and reclaim the black body.

My oh my. I call myself having fallen off the fashion bandwagon. Among the trees and flowers and writerly women at my residency, I moved freely sans makeup or a care to my appearance -- and felt the most beautiful I have in a long while. It might be that old media effect, ie, when I stop watching TV and reading magazines I always feel better about my appearance.

Returning to NYC was a major shock to the system. I found myself somewhat put off put by the emphasis on style and image here, to the exclusion of character. There are people who live in this city as literal images and not real people, and this is considered normal. And perhaps my hesitance to return to any kind of fashion consciousness is a deliberate attempt to dissociate myself. And to not deal with the whole rummaging through, choosing, and trying on of clothes which by their very design tell me that my body is wrong.

When I was a kid and we did the thrifty thing as a matter of necessity and not option, I always felt like I came up short. Moving to NYC didn't help, although there is a wider range of stylistic options available for those of us who aren't uber brand conscious, ie, hand-knitwear (thank God I can't knit or it would be scarves and sweaters in the summertime). I am not actually unstylish, I have simply dispensed with caring too much about it. I have only so many brain cells and I would rather not pump 50 percent of them full of meaningless tidbits about leggings and frocks. But I would also not like to walk around in the NYC equivalent of a potato sack.

On lunch break today, passed the infamous Mango that I've been hearing about for at least two years and haven't yet investigated. I might stop in and check it out (although the dresses seemed a bit on the short side for those of us above 5'5" and a size 4). So there might be hope for me yet!

On a related note, just getting hip to the release of Gentlemen of Bacongo (pictured above), a photo book documenting the Sapeurs of Congo-Brazzaville. It is now, after only a few weeks on the market, SOLD OUT, with more available after December 18. Check out the exhibit showing at the London Newcastle Project Space if you're lucky enough to be there. Sure wish I was, although I doubt I would be fashionable enough to attend. :)

I finally booked my ticket to Nigeria yesterday for holiday vacation. The agent informed me that, even though I booked a two week ticket, I can stay up to six months. The universe is apparently on the side of my defection from NYC. LOL! I bought the ticket not without much gnashing of teeth over the astronomical prices around the holidays. I think that the supply/demand curve should take into account people's emotional needs, ie, the curve inverts when people's demand is also matched by a profound benefit to their emotional/spiritual/relational wellbeing. I'm dubbing it the "W" factor. I am not sure who in the Obama administration can make it happen, but I'll look into it. :)

My cousin is in town visiting from Akwa Ibom/Uyo, a rare treat, so I am doubly excited as he's already catching me up on what's been going on. I have to spend some qt in Lagos, Uyo, and mostly Calabar where my grandmother lives and the legendary Christmas Carnival will be happening. I will likely be sitting in the kitchen watching her cook most of the time (I'm simple that way), but it brings me so much joy. I was hoping to take a videocamera with me to document her a little bit while I'm there, but I don't know that I can afford one at this point. She will probably hate it too, though like all documentary subjects, she will eventually forget the camera's there.

I also need to make some theater/film contacts in preparation for my Fulbright application next fall. And I need to do some research at the National Archives (can NG please get up to speed on the whole digital archives thing? their web search function is malfunctioning). I also wanted to visit Abuja, but it seems a distant dream given my two week time frame!

It has been six years since I last went home and in that time I have grown dreadlocks halfway down my back. I am not entirely sure how my hair will be received. Last time I had a short afro and my aunt dispatched me to the salon for extensions ("You can't wear your hair that way here!").

I hope I don't get too many "Ras Empress!" shouts. I get so tired hearing that in NYC.

As children, we are conditioned to seek permission from our parents, if we are lucky to have one or both of them. In grade school, we ask the teacher when to go to the bathroom; and as adults, ask our bosses if we can leave early from work or take a vacation. We seem to always be asking someone permission for something, like they're God standing with a giant thumb poised over our heads, ready to squash our joy.

It takes a long time to outgrow that conditioning, and maybe even a lifetime to realize that it is only your fear hanging overhead -- a frightful ghost that disappears when you look it square in the face (my yoga instructor actually repeats her fears to herself in the morning mirror, watching them scuttle away).

I recognize this often in fellow writers, always asking whether they are "real" writers, when they will become "real" writers, why they are writing, and whether they should be doing something else. We can be vulnerable people, using writing as a form of self validation.

Nevertheless, it dawned on me today that I have finally stopped asking myself those questions. I'm not sure when, exactly, but it likely had something to do with Hedgebrook.

In reality, nobody can give you permission to live your life except you. Nobody has the right or authority to tell you that you aren't a writer (or actor, or dancer, or singer) or that you should not write (or act, or dance, or sing) if that's what brings you joy.

As an artist you are not anybody's child, you are an embodiment of divine energy imprinting your unique vision on the world. And nobody can give or take that from you. The energy is already flowing through you; you have only to give yourself permission to experience it.

So write (or act, or dance, or sing) because it is your right. Open up the book of your life, write your name on the first page and fill it up with all of your dreams. Then close the book, get up, and go after them. If you get lost along the way, there is a wonderful book that I am reading that is helping, called Wild Mind, by Natalie Goldberg. I carry it with me in case I forget.

And if you still need permission from someone, I give you permission to be who you are in all your divine brilliance. You may go to the bathroom, take a break, eat chocolate cake and spoil your dinner, but you may also officially stop asking if it's okay.

I spent a bit of time looking for my passport today. I realized that I hadn't seen it in a couple of years, which became an issue since I'm trying to book a flight to Nigeria. I found it more easily than I thought I would and, like I suspected, it's expiring soon. It's slightly depressing that I haven't used it more in the past ten years since I renewed it last.

I went to Ghana in 2001, the summer of my sophomore year of college. I have this crazy video of myself, rehearsing with a dance troupe in the dead of night in a suburb of Accra. A lone lightbulb casts a triangle of light across a cement enclosure lined with a fence, flanked with a battalion of drummers. I am whirling around in the middle of a circle of dancers, my hair in a short afro, wearing a gauzy black shirt over a floor-length skirt.

I forgot my change of clothes that day, the last rehearsal before my plane ride back to US. I had gotten lost on my way to the enclosure, coming from a different part of town than usual. I was wandering through the darkened street, when a pair of headlights approached me, and a kind taxi driver offered to help me find the place. We drove around madly for a half hour, before we stumbled upon another black woman wandering the streets who was also in need of a ride.

It turned out that she was a Stanford alum, though a decade older than me, and a former member of Kuumba Dance Ensemble, also like me. She had a video camera with her and agreed to come with me to rehearsal and tape us, so that I would have something to show for my time spent (I took no photos of rehearsals out of respect). My karma restored, we found the enclosure. Cut to me whirling around in the dark, the vision of which now simply amazes me. I am trying to remember this young woman I once was, the steps I took along the path to get where I am now. Wiser, I suppose, but in many ways missing my youthful bravado.

All of this to say. There are various colored stamps inside this tiny book with my picture in it -- Belize, South Africa (a couple of times), Brazil, Ghana, Botswana, Nigeria (a couple of times) -- but there are far too many empty spaces for it to be expiring. Maybe it is my own will that has expired? I dreamt of London and Paris and Havana and Marrakesh, but perhaps I lacked the courage to do more than dream. When I was younger, I did not dwell on dreams and I did not plan; I simply left.

I met a woman at Hedgebrook who has lived everywhere in the world, from Yosemite to Amsterdam and Kenya. She took her first semester college tuition, twenty years or so ago, and traveled cross country with it. She hasn't stopped since, although she recently purchased a home in New Jersey and is now, from what I gather, reconsidering it.

She does not know this, but she is my hero. I think there is wisdom in stones, especially those that roll -- gathering no moss, being shaped by time and the earth and universal flow. There is a natural order in remaining in motion, in seeking disorder.

I only wish I could say this to her in a way that she would believe it. I think she may feel flighty and haphazard about her lifestyle, but I think that life is full of expiration dates -- on relationships, jobs, leases, countries of residence -- and one need only know how to recognize and respond to them. The truly courageous and unstuck people simply let it expire, and move on. That said, I don't think most people do.

I certainly have expired on many fronts, but am hanging on for dear life. I have wanted to do some drastic thing with my appearance for some time now, be it cutting my locks, or dying them again, getting a new wardrobe, but I inevitably find myself still feeling awkward in my skin. I have wanted to simply move anywhere else in the world for no reason at all but to encounter my own difference in that environment and thereby discover myself again, yet find myself straggling here in NYC. I have wanted to really be a starving artist, instead of a gainfully employed professional sneaking her writing in on the subway and on her lunch break; but for some reason, here I sit, and here I stay.

I don't know what any of that means, but I do think expiration dates can be used to reevaluate the status quo. If it hasn't been working for you, let the universe help you change it. For now, I definitely need some more stamps in my passport. That much I know is true.

Went to a panel discussion at NYU Wagner School of Public Service tonight, with participation of FilmAid, Communication for Change, and Barefoot Workshops (skypeing in from South Africa) -- all organizations that teach video workshops in refugee camps, NGOs, and educational settings in Africa. I showed up a little prickly after a long day at work, expecting the same-old panel talk with a few US-based organizations peddling brochures covered in dusty brown children.

And I did largely encounter what I expected, with the exception of Barefoot, that also invited a budding Nigerian filmmaker, in Capetown for a video workshop, to participate in the discussion. The filmmaker, Jonah, had lost both of his parents to HIV/AIDS and wanted to shoot a documentary to educate Nigerians about the disease. Education is largely the goal of these trainings, offering refugees and other at-risk populations a media-driven tool for battling gender-based violence, disease, and even female circumcision.

I suppose in a way, I did not know what was meant by "participatory filmmaking." I thought that these folks maybe collaborated with Africans to make feature films that were competitive on a global scale. Pardon my ignorance. Most of the films were in the style of PSAs, or stories that appealed to a local audience, and the quality was kind of hit or miss.

I understand that the local communities are the target audiences, and mainstream audiences are not a main target (as far as I could tell no distribution networks even exist to this end), but I think that high-level filmmaking should still be a goal.

I suppose I would have liked to have seen the act of filmmaking itself used as a vehicle for radical autonomy, ie, equipping the refugees with the tools and vocabulary to make films on par with those readily consumed in the West. I had a great conversation with MTV Africa head Alex Okosi about this a couple years ago, and he said that a rising number of Africans are fairly sophisticated movie viewers.

I think these video workshop participants should be grappling with the same creative dilemmas as independent filmmakers. All it would have taken to do this was a bit of diffusion here, some tighter sound editing there, a little bit more attention paid to the picture itself and I would not have felt like these organizations were doling out a remedial film education.

I have seen the curriculum for some of the inner-city video programs happening in New York and they are teaching youth at a more sophisticated level. Although, disclaimer, I have not seen these organizations' curricula, and I must also admit that funding may play a significant role, since FilmAid was so much better than the other two.

I do not believe that, even in the remotest villages with no access to television, that a person cannot enter into the pantheon of acclaimed filmmakers if given the same tools and vocabulary. My ten cents.

Petina Gappah has won the Guardian First Book Award for her collection of short stories, An Elegy for Easterly. I first heard about her in an African Voices interview (Part One below, find the rest on YouTube) with memoirist Alexandra Fuller, author of the phenomenal Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight. I remember watching Petina bristle sitting beside Fuller, a white Rhodesian woman, talking about the plight of the Zimbabwean writer.

Her palpable defensiveness, though thinly veiled in pleasantries, was diffused by the authenticity with which Fuller interrogated her own entitlement as a white woman. And I found myself confused about whether hers was a fruitless anger. But I have come to understand that what I interpreted as anger was only Petina's embodiment of radical autonomy. On closer examination, she is simply engaging in a disruptive act by writing, pushing against a deeply ingrained power structure that was not meant to include her own voice. In that way, I too may appear "angry" at times (and I certainly will own up to that).

Thank goodness for vindication.