it's that time of the year again...

Was just thinking about the 'lunch ladies' from my middle school cafeteria and how epic those cookies were. As big as my head and came in three flavors: sugar cookies, melty chocolate chip, and double fudge. Even after I went on to high school, my dad still brought some home. Miss him and those cookies. 

February comes around and I think about two things: my dad, Valentine's Day, and Chinese New Year.

My dad was diagnosed with stomach cancer in January 2007 after he had to threaten his worthless primary care doctor, a shiftless idiot he should have left years ago. February is especially egregious as the cancer progressed and he underwent surgery. This in turn made the cancer spread. He passed away on February 23, two days before his and mom's anniversary. He was born on February 12th, traditionally Abraham Lincoln's birthday. 

During this time, I was in a long-distance relationship- won't do this again. It's not for me- and this as well as deciding to celebrate Chinese New Year was probably those two things that helped get me through this month. 

But now that I resigned, I know I will need some other traditions and rituals to perform to handle this month. I'm still holding on to Lunar New Year in mind as it's widely celebrated by a variety of Asian cultures worldwide as well as their diasporic communities. And Valentine's Day wasn't worth much to me though while I was in the long-distance(boyfriend was Asian), I did receive a V-Day gift, one of the few I've received from a significant other. 

I'm an introvert and not good at dating. My relationships also don't last as long as I want. I've actually wished I was from a culture that does arrange marriages because I can't stand going on dates. They fill me with dread. And now with how emotionally fraught February is even more for me, no thanks.

Yes, this post was more about me than the memorial posts I've done for my dad in years past, but I just don't have it in me now to do that. 

Here are a few photos of my father: Kenneth L. Welsh Sr.:

💔💔 💔

Remembering Wizards - my memoriam essay to Ursula K. le Guin

 *NOTE: I mentioned I would post this essay here on my blog in case it failed to be published elsewhere. If in case I see another opportunity to submit it, I will take it down from here*

                                                        Remembering Wizards

On January 22, 2018, a notable author died. There are cultural icons that pass away and their effects on the collective psyche vary. This time it was Ursula K. le Guin’s death that affected the literary collective. Not only a towering figure within speculative fiction but among the mainstream community too. Shortly after news of her passing, social media posted personal anecdotes from readers, authors, from the aspiring to the famous, from science fiction/fantasy publishers to mainstream media outlets. Le Guin’s power lay in her words that covered topics such as feminism, sociology, activism, publishing, children’s books, literacy, and politics. Le Guin candidly wrote about the windswept and dynamic islands of her Earthsea series and was outspoken in her extensive essay collections.

During the 1990s while I attended Miami-Dade Community College, fresh from a creative writing course, I decided to take my writing seriously. Since being on the Dean’s List, I was allowed to take a specialized elective. Taught by Prof. Tixier, a white woman with short hair more pepper than salt, bright eyes behind constantly tilted glasses, walked with a slight stoop and spoke with a smoker’s voice. I was the class’s only senior and the only student remotely interested in the topic; the other students behaved as disinterested as I was enthusiastic. 

When I shyly revealed to Prof. Tixier that I was an aspiring writer and showed her a manuscript, that’s when she introduced me to famed mythologist, Joseph Campbell and fantasy/science fiction author, Ursula K. le Guin. She asked if I had heard of A Wizard of Earthsea, and I replied I had heard of the series in passing. Because my pride got the better of me, I rushed to the campus bookstore afterward to see if there were any Le Guin titles in their paperback section. Outside the bookstore was a bargain table and, behold, A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, a Le Guin short story collection! It was kismet!

Inland Sea’s provocative prose read like crystals, especially the collection’s title story for I love rhythmic titles. A Fisherman of the Inland Sea is a glittering tale of leaving home and second chances. Within the trappings of a society that practices a culturally complex form of polygamy, the protagonist becomes an astronaut to get away from the mundane only to encounter time-bending redemption before returning home, forever humbled and appreciative. Already a fantasy/science fiction fan for more than a decade, I voraciously tore through the collection’s other titles that were anthropological and philosophical in scope. I wanted more from this writer and sought out other titles. After I completed and passed Prof. Tixier’s course, I found the complete A Wizard of Earthsea at my local used bookstore and nearly crowed from delight.

In the now-closed bookstore chains, either Super Waldenbooks or Border’s, I purchased an essay collection titled Dancing at the Edge of the World and learned about Ms. Le Guin’s academic parents and how she felt indebted to her father, a famed anthropologist. She openly stated his influences on her writing and it shows. Le Guin’s sci-fi/fantasy cultures are candid, finely detailed, believable, and given a respectful objective touch whether human or alien. Her characters are diverse, not only by ethnicity but in beliefs and by sexual orientations and identities. In The Left Hand of Darkness, a novel that deals with gendered politics from the standpoint of the lone human visitor on a planet with evolved humanoids who change sex while in estrus, I’m ashamed to say years after reading that I learned the protagonist happened to be a black man. So used to Eurocentric speculative fiction books and cinema, it angered me to know I had not recognized someone whom I may have resembled! 

When the SciFi Channel adapted her Earthsea into a TV mini-series and they whitewashed the cast except for the mage (played by Danny Glover) who trains the protagonist, Ged (he, himself white-washed), Le Guin became the first writer I witnessed to openly denounce her book’s adaptation in the spec-fic press, stating this was the channel’s ‘interpretation’ and not a true adaptation. She turned her back on the mini-series, telling fans to read the actual books!

 In another essay, Le Guin spoke about the difficult decision she had to make as a 20-something college woman when she realized a youthful and romantic relationship was fading and she was pregnant. She often brought up this chapter in her life to speak about women’s rights and the right to choose. Because of her hard decision, she later explained she was able to meet the right person (the husband who survives her) and have the children she wanted. 

Ursula K. le Guin has written extensively how pop culture portrayed female characters, especially the speculative fiction field’s inability to create credible female protagonists while it reiterates destructive stereotypes. She wrote male protagonists who weren’t the testosterone-driven kind from other sci-fi/fantasy stories, but thoughtful, sensitive, focused, and chaotically complex. Ms. Le Guin has been documented in countless journals, interviewed in numerous magazines, and though she is often controversial and scathing, her words are couched in irony and humor. Her discussions on various topics remain long in the reader.

After Le Guin’s death, a Twitter writer friend, another black woman and writer in SFF, mentioned that, while reading The Lathe of Heaven, Le Guin’s portrayal of the protagonist’s love interest, a black woman lawyer, made her ‘feel seen’. There was a social media discussion explaining that while other white writers did not often get black and brown characters ‘right’, Ms. Le Guin succeeded. As we fans and admirers struggle on how to live with the void she left, I remember the conversations with Prof. Tixier already long gone, that led to my becoming a fan of Ursula K. le Guin: not just by her incredible wordsmithery, but as a celebrated author, social commentator, and champion for women’s, civil, minority, and indigenous rights. 

RIP Lois Duncan

     Last week Wednesday, June 15, 2016 an important literary figure died. Her name was Lois Duncan, and she was important in my life. Writers are often asked who are the people that influenced them, and no self-respecting writer can remember all those inspiring titles or even the authors that penned them. Unfortunately, it is often when such an influential writer dies that the living, whether they also became writers or went into other professions, that we suddenly remember what such a personage did for us.

     Let me give a scenario, despite others' ideas about me, I was a poor student while in grade school. Often sickly, I would miss enough days that would put me behind certain subjects. Therefore, from 6th grade to 10th grade (with at least two summers I did well enough), I was in summer school. In 1986, I had to attend summer school (sequentially) for the first time. Because it was a private school tied in with a religious denomination, this it did not offer a summer school program, and therefore, I had to attend a middle school near the elementary school where my mom taught.

     This particular middle school was in a rough neighborhood and had some rough children. I understood the work because it was not sixth-grade but actually 4-5th level. I also did not dress as my classmates did. This wasn't my neighborhood. I didn't speak like them. My parents made sure I always had $2. My classmates hated me for this. I was bullied every day. Eventually, our class went on the prerequisite trip to the school library. I was in heaven. At this time, maybe others have noticed this, but, a lot of YA (Young Adult) novel front covers often had photographs with models posing a scene from the story, or, realistic paintings. Mostly, though, I noticed they used real people.

     Paperbacks were often on spinning racks then and the school libraries were no exception. One particular cover struck me with its blonde teen girl, sitting in an armchair with her whole body curled in it. Her unnerving stare at the reader and a ghostly image of a little girl in blue floating behind her.

From Jezebel.com 

     This looks really cool! I thought and immediately rushed to the check-out desk. I received snide remarks and under-the-breath "nerd" comments, but I didn't care.
I began to read the novel "A Gift of Magic" and was sucked in by Duncan's use of flashback, memory, and especially how her protagonist, a teenage girl with psychic abilities navigated her life. Often interested in the supernatural growing up, psychic phenomenon has often fascinated me. I credit "A Gift of Magic" for my first time reading about psychic powers. And though I have since digested other stories dealing with this subject, and perhaps, have dealt with it better, Duncan's "A Gift of Magic" was sincere, non-condescending, and a good read during a difficult moment in my childhood that I can't recommend it enough.

Dates with my Mom

My earliest happiest memories usually involved the performing arts.

On certain nights, Mom would take me to Poe Park, and we would buy ice cream cones - mine usually vanilla - from the Good Humor® truck.
We would sit on a wooden bench and watch the band play hit tunes in the white gazebo.
The weather would be crisp.
The band wore full uniforms: carmine red with braided gold trim. The bandmaster, with his tall hat, would wave his conductor baton as a wizard, stiff and starched like a wooden soldier or Christmas nutcracker.
Show tunes, marches, all kinds of syncopated beats would pulse through me, and make me remember music that I was too young to understand. The instruments were shiny, glossy, and glinted when swayed around by its musician.

I miss the white gazebo, the vanilla ice cream I can't eat now because of sensitive teeth. I miss seeing that band in carmine red and their shiny instruments. I can't remember the music played. Maybe Souza.
I miss being seven. On Sept. 18 will be my 37th birthday. And I'm sad I can't remember what the bench felt like in Poe Park in New York City in 1982-83.