Death, Cultural Customs and the Interaction between a Mourning Period and Social Entrepreneurship
December 10, 2012 § 1 Comment
In 1997, a Makerere University study reported that for a widow to be socially integrated into local support systems, she needs four factors in her favor. The first factor is the composition and culture of her society. Second is her community, and how it can help her overcome her sadness. Third the widow’s recovery from her problems depends on the support she gets from the family of her late husband. Fourth is a favorable neighborhood and working environment.
I was in Uganda three days after the World Cup bombings. An explosive ripped through a city restaurant and sports club in Kampala. 74 people were dead. Yoweri Museveni declared a one week mourning period.
There are ways to be born, there are ways to celebrate love between two people, and there are ways to die. Our cultures and our families collectively dictate the way we do these things, and I believe we can learn more than we often realize from the way someone else does any one of them.
I remember sitting on a stoop in a compound, listening to seven women talk about their favorable conditions after their husband died. He left a long, U shaped building, with single apartments each owned by a single wife.
“Thank God he provided for us,” one told me. “He was a good man.”
I never thought more about the legacy a person leaves behind than I did in Uganda, that year. It showed itself in the material provision that individuals left behind, in the way communities mourned and in the manner in which the deceased’s family treated any relatives joined to them through marriage. We have elements of this in my culture too. But the societal expectation behind customs of mourning in Uganda seemed to put color and honor to death.
Here, you know, we “need to start moving again.” We know that, “life goes on.” The emotional expectation is that grieving will change the way we perceive our lives, but we laud pushing through as normally as possible. Society does not provide a widow or grieving mother protection from work, from the ripping feeling of time moving forward, from responsibilities. But, in Uganda, they demand that it all come to a grinding halt.
Ugandan surgeon and politician Speciosa Kazibwe wrote in 2008 that, “Most of us spend [more of] our time doing burials than any other thing, especially because of HIV/AIDS and malaria which is very prevalent in Uganda.”
Doing business in a culture takes customs from the classroom to life, so to speak. And, I believe that one of the benefits of “trade versus aid” is that business forces you to engage customs, while aid often provides an excuse for dismissing them as unimportant.
Mourning periods provided scattered timetables in my life this winter, pouring in and taking over weeks at a time. It’s been four this season: three artisans and our lead artisan’s son, three weeks ago.
“This will change things, this week,” my manager’s voice was apologetic, while we discussed our lead artisan. “We can’t reach her during mourning.”
How many days? I ask.
Five.
“You didn’t expect that, working in Africa?” someone said to me recently. Like I should have expected death to come climbing in and hunker down on my desk while I run my business.
No. I didn’t. With ARVs and money in my partner’s pockets for treatment, I thought we’d avoid so many deaths. Somehow I ended up blaming myself – like I should have started my business sooner, grown it faster – done something. As if my business could act as some kind of Messiah, saving a community through the sales of accessories. And, that’s never what this was about. This was about a mutual celebration of the beauty of a culture’s craftsmanship, and sustainable development through it.
“This isn’t just fucking normal just because its East Africa,” I threw out. “It’s not normal. Death never becomes normal.”
And, so, I came to an impasse. Either I pushed to have women work through mourning periods, or I created a plan around them. And I came to the conclusion that traditional practices are higher dictators than the business practices a social entrepreneur like myself is attempting to implement – its not my job to change that.
There are local minds working on issues like these already – minds that understand their importance, and what their erosion might give or take to a culture and its economy. In 2003, BBC Africa discussed the pros and cons of ending costly funerals. Ms Kazibwe suggested, in her piece, that funeral practices are moved to Saturdays, and that each constituency within Uganda should have a mortuary with a fridge that could preserve corpses. Burials take up lots of time as well as productive vehicles, she noted.
“The idea sounds good if more time is to be saved for the sake of work. However, given the strong cultural rituals attached to death and burial of a relative, it is practically impossible to keep the body,” George, a gentleman from Musaka, argued in the comments below Kazibwe’s piece. “I know, for example, from the traditions of Buganda that it is unacceptable in society to go to work when someone has passed away in the same village until the body is buried. It is a strong belief that has existed for ages. So to change the status quo requires a lot of effort. Remember that traditional practices are not easily eroded in society!”
I think its rude to act like death is more acceptable at a certain latitude and longitude, bit of my friend’s head for insinuating it – and yet I caught myself doing the same thing – wondering why our lead artisan wasn’t on her game as usual, and then remembering her son just died. As if five days, in any case, could possibly be enough to be back upright.
I read and I struggled and I oscillated on these issues. And I landed on the truth that they have nothing to do with me. I can debate the economic effects, but I am not in the midst of the affected economy. I can wonder about funeral rituals, but I will never bury a family member of mine in a similar way. And, so, I’m learning that what matters is my cultural respect – my smart movement around these things, out of an acknowledgement that I have chosen to run a business in a society unlike my own.
We decided that, for us, its important to allow customs room to breathe, until they prove harmful. And, what I mean by that is causing immediate physical harm. Like the time I helped name my cook’s baby, and noticed a thin, white film of amniotic fluid that was never washed off his body. My village partner, Agnes, explained to me later that this was because of his mother’s family, and their superstition surrounding a newborn child being touched by water. That week, a friend of mine bought the family a baby kit as a gift, and Agnes took it to them and explained the health concerns surrounding following the custom.
I was pleased to find out how successful she’d been in explaining the risks, and how receptive my cook’s girlfriend had been in accepting a new way of doing things – one that was best for her child. But this line is a tight rope – you get that? It’s not my place to question traditions surrounding death, and its not my place to challenge the Shaman or to debate the way that a bride price might affect a family’s well being. And, it was Agnes’ place – a woman in her own community – to explain to her someone how she might be harming her kid. This is why I partner equally with locals. This is why I am not the one always on the ground.
It’s my place to give due honor to – show respect within – a culture that has different ways of giving birth and celebrating love and giving life over to death – and to allow that culture room to figure out these things on its own.
And, perhaps these rituals, in themselves, are teaching me something. These ways of being run like deep rivers beneath the women who work with me, carrying them along. I picture the erosion, like the caving in of deep banks of Ugandan red dirt, taking a culture with them. And I want to tread ever so lightly when it comes to inadvertently stealing tradition from a place – from a life running beneath a people who teach me how to stop, pay attention and appreciate all the new things I never knew about the world outside my own culture’s way of being.
And, so, we factored an extra week into our lead time, after this season – allowing for death, should it creep up, steal from my partners and sending them from their work for a week to honor the way that their traditions ask them to celebrate and honor the passing of life.
(Photo: Edward Echwalu for Nakate Project).
Nakate + @urcoffeebreak = a Story of Social Entrepreneurship in NYC
November 19, 2012 § 2 Comments
If you have read anything about our story at Nakate, you know that I began my own journey mapping out stories and spots on the globe at the age of 18. This came after a childhood full of stories my father fascinated me with about his travels since he had been little like me.
Now, as an adult running my an accessories line that allows me to share those stories, my office and room are full of gifts from my father – things he picked up in the Philippines and Okinawa, Hawaii and Brazil. Together with the carvings and pieces I’ve bought in Uganda, they tell me the stories of our lives and travels as I go about my day.
I am reminded, as I do this, that it is the stories in our lives that change us and create our paths. The stories we’re told, the stories we tell to others – the stories we read and write and stumble across as we go about our daily lives - all come together as a life tapestry, creating the one, giant story that is our life’s journey.
In effort to better tell the story of Nakate, and our journey as a social enterprise, we have teamed up with Your Coffee Break - a women’s lifestyle magazine bringing you the latest on Fashion, Career Management, Celebrity News, Dating and Relationships, Beauty and Travel from across the world. From New York to London and from Barcelona to LA, I am joining other fabulous contributing writers come from all around the globe to give you insight into what it is to live out the journey that is Nakate.
You can follow my weekly column here.
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
(Photo: AFWNY Adiree showroom with Nakate Project – Soho, NYC)
It Takes a Village: 10 Ways Bootstrapping Plays Out in Social Enterprise
November 2, 2012 § 2 Comments
I love Hillary Clinton. It’s not just about her foreign policy – it’s that I can get down with her love for the radical, the uncomfortable and the culturally risque. From the famed Saul Alinsky thesis to the gay parade marches, and – more lightly – the South African groove (grind?) she recently pulled off, Clinton’s nothing if not ballsy – evidence most recently by her taking the fall for the Libya Attack, and historically by her insistence on transforming herself post troubled marriage, failed presidential candidacy and her smooth slide into a career as the most traveled top diplomat in American history. Au contrare to The Corner, I find her 60s radical roots a bit, er, refreshing? And, I believe that her rejection of faith in revolutionary violence is, in fact, quite a, “meaningful distinction between 60s radicals and Hillary.”
As Susan Glasser so eloquently puts it, Clinton has managed to work out a, “perennially tough set of choices she faces between the human rights advocacy that means so much to her and the pragmatic politics that is often required of a hard-headed American secretary of state.”
I love her comments on Suu Kyi – the pressure of, “putting into practice everything she’s been thinking about and working on her entire adult life” – her assurance that Kyi, “cannot be immune from the criticism that will come because she is playing a political role.”
And – lest we forget – the famed, “Thanks for the many LOLZ. Hillary ‘Hillz.’” In her late 60′s, she’s insisted on re-connecting with an online generation she has never before entered into. And, she’s done it with flair.
Reuters calls her an, “adept behind-the-scenes operator, a tough negotiator not afraid to play the bad cop—or to make fun of the macho posturing of her many tough-guy interlocutors.” And, despite America’s insistence on putting Hillary in a women’s rights/development box, she has maneuvered sensitive issues such as rescuing Chen without blowing up the American relationship with China, and been lauded for taking her “people to people” diplomacy international.
But perhaps what I love most about Clinton is how she’s remade herself using the ubuntu philosophy she wrote of so long ago in her book, “It Takes a Village,” both by taking her role under her political rival with grave and humility, and through her commitment people to people diplomacy in the midst of her shift from advocacy to her new role as Secretary of State. Her lack of knowledge – not to mention a second language – has made being a team player has been a necessity for Clinton, and she’s made it work for her in unbelievable ways.
I’ve been watching Clinton as I’ve made my own small climb as the head of a social enterprise. I went through high school wearing my grandfather’s Vietnam army fatigues and high top red converse five days a week, and focused so heavily on internships and grades in college that I never read a single issue of the 5 style and fashion magazines my then boyfriend bought for me junior year. I left university as an idealistic, advocacy driven journ school graduate, back in 2010, with absolutely no idea what a business plan was, not to mention a pipeline, angel investor or a line sheet. And, I certainly didn’t know what colors were in for fall, not to mention that stylists, as such, rule the fashion world and are key to getting any product into the hands of and onto the right people.
And yet, here I was – looking to start a business entering into the fashion market and trying to make a splash.
Truthfully, I had no idea what the hell to do next.
You’ll read a lot on investors, but what you find less commonly is information about what comes before that point. And, frankly, need more of it. Its where the majority of us are – and where the majority of us need to make things work.
I’ve come to know bootstrapping as an all inclusive term, describing not only my financial situation but everything surrounding my company, and the large needs we have had to meet on a limited budget. And, while I hope that you land that impressive seed grant or large pipeline investor within your first year, reality is its far more likely you’re going to struggle for a few (very long feeling) years in social enterprise, before things begin to pick up – and you begin to get noticed by the right wallets and publications – not to mention your target market.
So, what do you do in the meantime?
Drink.
Ha, just kidding (mostly).
Here’s a few tips on how I’ve been able to hold things together (albeit sometimes loosely) while we’ve sought to grow as a company without seed funding, fashion expertise or an experienced leader (hey, at least I’m fearless – right?).
1. Find your “village”
Antonio Esteban is a celebrity stylist who has not only climbed quickly in his career as a stylist, but happened to know a friend of mine who reached out to him for me, and shared what I was trying to do. Esteban came on about a month after I started Nakate, and hasn’t left me since. Thanks to him, both my business (and my closet) is keeping up to date in the fashion world.
I would have never found Esteban if I hadn’t called a well connected friend and shared my need for someone. Our graphic designer, Shannon Labare, is a similar story – I met Shannon through a twitter SOS I put out for a designer. Shannon jumped in, decided work for us would be her commitment to change in Africa, and has been improving our design ever since.
What I’ve learned along the way as they keep answering their phones and responding to my cries for assistance is that these folks are not just my friends, they are believers in the vision of what I’m doing. Not to mention, the only person that expected us to make a large sum of money off the bat was…well..me. And, they understand the process of building something.
2. Admit to what you don’t know
When I first admitted that I didn’t have a business plan, or even know what a strategic plan, budget or predicted revenue agenda should look like, there were many, many people who jumped in to help me out. Contrary to my nightmares of ending up standing on a stage in bright orange underwear with everyone laughing at my messy word documents on a great big projector behind me, no one has ever laughed at me. To the contrary, everyone from a business advisor to import fashion lawyers, African fashion firms and, most recently, an import broker, have kindly walked me through even the most basic questions.
3. Trade your skills
Trading works like this: you meet someone you have common interests with, except they’re skilled in areas you’re not and vice versa. You engage in lively conversation. You laugh. You have a drink or two. You ask their advice, you learn through their expertise in conversation and – next thing you know, you’re grabbing coffee and catching up over an issue you needed assistance with. Two months later, you’re doing the same thing for them. This is, actually, one of my very favorite parts of networking – I love learning from people I not only respect but like talking to – people who break things down, help me along and don’t make me silly for asking my honest questions. Conversely, I love doing the same for others.
4. Air out your depression
There is an intense, hopeful idealism will carry you through your first six months. After that, you’re going to realize that you will have to make intense sacrifices for a result that no one can guarantee. You will lose faith. You will get tired of bouncing checks and living on a budget and telling your friends you can’t go out for drinks. You will also hit a point where you don’t know how to make things work – your talents and drive has limits. And, you will want to give up.
It’s time to call someone – not to remind you why you’re doing what you’re doing (though that would would also be a good idea) – but to help you get through your next set of hurdles.
I almost quit last year – at which point I called in a friend to work as a temporary VP while I re-gained my strength. He helped me move things past a point of shifting that I couldn’t do myself. By the time he took on a full time job and didn’t have the time to help me anymore, we had – together – moved past my point of crisis, and I was ready to go again.
5. Hire a coach
I have found that our generation is doing something unique in the world of socent, and is in need of unique skills and assistance. I needed an entrepreneur coach, more than anything, to help me believe in my business again, develop a strategic plan for how I was going to spend my time and to get me on track for branding that not only me, but would help us build business. At the end of the day, this is not about passion, for me – it’s about passion that will pay my bills. My coach, in particular, focuses on young female entrepreneurs, and helped me develop a working system that would stop me from feeling guilty for not working 16 hour days, and bring back some enjoyment into my budding career as I worked towards more revenue.
6. Do some hard streamlining
Don’t have the capitol to buy a large inventory, or invest thousands of dollars in your own business? I didn’t either – and now I’m paying the consequences of deciding to do so anyways. I’ve learned, along the way, that streamlining your processes works much, much better than preparing for a big boom that never comes. How can you create product development process that allows for growth without sitting on inventory or investing large amounts of money? It took me several months to figure this one out and, it took several volunteers on the ground in Uganda that were invested in my mission and could help me do so. Get creative. Find another solution. It will come quicker than you think.
7. Share your vision
On that note, I’ve learned that the best way to bring committed folks into your business is to share your vision. Sit down over skype or coffee and share – from your heart – about what you’re trying to build. You’ll be surprised how quickly people will say “ours” instead of “yours” – and how hard and far they’re willing to work to make a vision that they’ve now begun to share begin to take flight.
8. Offer up your failed ideas to the gods of great discussion
Umair Haque writes that, “My friend Steve…spent his twenties and much of his thirties in one failed venture after another — today, finally, he’s at the helm of a start-up that leaves him not just comfortable, or even ‘happy’ — but abidingly, almost overwhelmingly, fulfilled. ” I’ve already “failed” several times with ideas I thought world work. As I’ve worked through them afterward with others I respect, I’ve begun to see the holes in them – or the reasons they may have worked for someone else, but not for me. Airing all my dirty laundry has enabled better minds than mine to pick it apart and help me know how to put my ideas back together in a way that brings in revenue.
9. You just might need a part time job
A year into my enterprise, I was hoping I could start just living off my enterprise. While I expected to be on a budget, I didn’t expect that this would quickly drain the life out of my enterprise and that my little baby business was actually still at a point where I needed to be putting money in, instead of taking it out. So I landed myself a nanny job, and it was that job – and a strict budget – that got us through a restructuring period in year two.
10. Get some (like minded) friends
There’s nothing I love more than a productive, 16 hour work day. I could go days talking to absolutely no one, drinking huge amounts of strong coffee and sleeping only when its entirely necessary. However, every time I do this for weeks on end, this inevitably leads to burn out. And, I have to admit that I really and truly need friends – and friends that get it. Go join a meetup, get involved in a network or simply find a group of like minded entrepreneurs to drink with every Tuesday night. But, at the very least, find someone – preferably a few someones – who are living and working like you. What you’re doing is unique, and if you don’t have a community you’re going to burn out quicker than you think.
Lastly, it might help to let a little more humanist philosophy seep into your daily thinking. After all, “Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity” (Tutu, 2008).
Check out Nakate here.
Consider Me Lovely Kicks off Week 3
October 24, 2011 § Leave a Comment
I chose Rocquelle from Consider Me Lovely for our third week in Nakate’s 8 Week Event because she’s excellent at a few things I think we all could take note from:
1. She responds.
No matter how many followers she gets, or how many comments you see on her blog posts, she responds to people – personally. And, when she comments or tweets back to you? You feel like she legitimately cares.
2. She is part of a network.
Black female fashion bloggers are incredible. They support each other. They not only comment back and forth on social media, but they are a core group of friends that I’ve seen to be some of the kindest, most loyal bloggers I’ve worked with. I watch as they trade clothes, support each other’s promotions and keep up not only on each others fashion, but each others lives.
3. Her fashion blogging has meaning behind it.
Rocquelle writes, “If you have read Consider Me Lovely long enough, you know that while I am all about clothes, shoes, outfits, and shopping, at the root of it all, I am much more than those exterior things. At my core I am really about positivity and how to be a blessing to others.”
4. She does what she wants!
I love that Rocquelle’s fashion posts are unique, and that, while she does follow trends, she keeps her own unique sense of style alive, and she doesn’t compromise it.
Read her Nakate post, and pick up this week’s 25% off coupon code.
(Rocquelle is wearing the green runway necklace).
Kind of a Big Deal Announcement for Sac-town
October 20, 2011 § 1 Comment
My dear friend Bella from the Citizen Rosebud has graciously arranged a special spot for Sacramento fashion bloggers at the next open air market, hosted by House of Fringe and This n That Thrift and Gift (oh, that means me!).
Nakate will be there, with our usual 50% street fair discount.
This is kind of a big deal, since it’s our first street and/or open air market event in Sacramento.
Ever.
Here’s some details:
What is it? The “Open Air Market” in the lot next to Fringe is a dynamic, eclectic flea-market party
held every Second Sunday of the month (*weather permitting). This event was created to coincide with the highly-successful, well-attended, Sacramento Antique Faire (www.sacramentoantiquefaire) under the freeways at 21st & 22nd Streets. Our ‘petite’ but big-fun, “junior” market is ‘free’ for shoppers, held in the parking lot adjacent to Fringe, at 2409 21st Street.
Who? In the spirit of community and diversity, our market offers a wide range of fun and functional treasures for flea-market lovers. Art, antiques, bohemian chic, feisty fashions, unique crafts and thrift store finds can be discovered. In the spirit of “Second Saturday” and the energy generated from that midtown event, performance artists and other entertainment are often part of our market activities.
In light of growing interestspace is limited, early confirmation and payment is encouraged!
When? The “Open Air Market on the Fringe” is held every Second Sunday, monthly from
10:00am-2:00pm.
Where? 2409 21st Street, Sacramento, 95818
Fashion my way: Nakate, Global Influences and My Father
September 28, 2011 § 1 Comment
I’m spending 8 weeks in Northern CA, after moving to Portland. I feel the urge to be back in Oregon. That’s important. It’s important to walk a way from a thing, if it proves to you that it was, indeed, what you were looking for. And, I’m thankful for the perspective I’ve gained in four days. Here, I’ve holed up in a corner room that has five windows with gorgeous craftsman molding, a faded olive green shade of paint and a hardwood closet with book shelves for my shoes. I’ve got a table set up in the corner as my desk, and a friend lent me an old wooden bed frame that I love for its height and distinct posts.
I hadn’t finished taking my things to Portland, so I’ve made use of them while I’m here. My space is only half way decorated, but it’s already revealed some things about me that I had forgotten. The first is that my father is my life’s greatest influence. From the Filipino basket on my wall above my desk, to the wooden Japanese rice farmer shoes to my left, to the antique Pork box slats I’ve hung together, the beautiful things in my life are mostly from him. My room has always been filled with old road signs, rail road ties and a bottle collection he put together in his travels with a father who served as a Colonel. Others have helped, and the things from them help me see the way others perceive me. My cousin brought me home an antique camera case for me from his work at a factory a few summers ago. It sits on my book shelf with inventory around it. I was a personal assistant for a woman in New York who used to send me home with baskets. Her redneck boyfriend called it “Puerto Rican shit,” and whatever didn’t fit in her private quarters was sent home with me.
It’s also revealed, to me, that my travels have made me who I am. Around me, along with my fathers things, I am most comfortable among my collection African masks, an old tribal drum, and a bust I bought from an artist in Jinja, among other things.
And then there’s Jeremy, who I didn’t need anyone to remind me has filled my life with things that encourage me to be brave and, in that regard, to be completely myself. His is the influence bringing in a camera I had to grow into this year. His eye searched out tunics and dresses with plunging necklaces and cuts I greeted with unsure facial expressions. And, his was the laughing voice encouraging me to make plans to wear out that tunic I felt odd about the very next day. He pushes me towards ballsier shoes, and that one pair of earrings I love but I’m not sure I can pull off. He also laughs at some of my outfit choices, and tells me I “cannot!” go to Albertson’s to buy beer in my sweat shorts. His is also the presence assuring me that my work is valuable, that my company will succeed and that I should continue submitting my writing samples to literary magazines.
Before leaving for Portland, I sat down with my dear friend Ben and curated my closet. Together, we found what pieces accurately represented my style, and what I should throw out. We almost cut my wardrobe in half, enabling me to see what I love most in my closet. I coupled some of my favorite pieces, this week, with the Nakate fall line, and created some outfits that represent my true self, and my own sense of fashion, while loosely following this season’s trends.
Photo 1: ALDO’s yellow heels, new from Crossroads Trading Co., the Jane white and black necklace from Nakate, jacket from Express World Brand.
Photo 2: Shoes, F24, and jeans, Anne Taylor Loft, from Crossroads, top Jeremy picked up for me at a boutique in NE Portland I can’t remember the name of, jewelry – the Jane, in brown, from Nakate.
Photo 3: ALDO’s heels, Anne Taylor Loft denim, striped shirt from Forever21, cigar purse bought at a vintage shop in Northern CA, necklace coming soon to Nakate’s Three Corners line.
Photo 4: H&M leggings, zebra print top from Forever21, shoes from Charlotte Russe, jewelry is the black Sandra from Nakate.
Photo 5: Heels and leggings from H&M, blouse from Forever21, clutch from Portland consignment shop What’s Upstairs, jewelry is the green and brown Sara from Nakate.
Photo 6: Black H&M heels and leggings, Moroccan purse from New York street fair, tunic hand-me-down from a roommate in Port-au-Prince in 2008, Sandra yellow necklaces from Nakate.
Fall, a trunk show and the new Nakate line
August 31, 2011 § 1 Comment
Our first Portland trunk show is tomorrow! We’ll be selling our fall line for the very first time, and before its available online. Here is the facebook invite.
Fall is lazily finding her place here in Portland. She’s softly around with lazy rain showers, colder nights and cloudy afternoons as I make my way up and down the 5N.
Fall is my favorite season. And, it’s our best season yet at Nakate this year. I love the collection that just arrived, and how different it is from Spring and Summer. I feel like we’re moving into another level of design – simplicity, boldness.
Here are some of my favorites, going on sale after September 9th:
Banish the word ‘escape’
August 30, 2011 § 3 Comments
Question: I am interested in so many things, and I have a terrible fear because my mother keeps telling me that I’m just going to be exploring the rest of my life and never get anything done. But I find it really hard to set my ways and say, “Well, do I want to do this, or should I try to exploit that, or should I escape and completely do one thing?”Anaïs Nin: One word I would banish from the dictionary is ‘escape.’ Just banish that and you’ll be fine. Because that word has been misused regarding anybody who wanted to move away from a certain spot and wanted to grow. He was an escapist. You know if you forget that word you will have a much easier time. Also you’re in the prime, the beginning of your life; you should experiment with everything, try everything…. We are taught all these dichotomies, and I only learned later that they could work in harmony. We have created false dichotomies; we create false ambivalences, and very painful one’s sometimes -the feeling that we have to choose. But I think at one point we finally realize, sometimes subconsciously, whether or not we are really fitted for what we try and if it’s what we want to do.
You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too. No, I think there was too rigid a pattern. You came out of an education and are supposed to know your vocation. Your vocation is fixed, and maybe ten years later you find you are not a teacher anymore or you’re not a painter anymore. It may happen. It has happened. I mean Gauguin decided at a certain point he wasn’t a banker anymore; he was a painter. And so he walked away from banking. I think we have a right to change course. But society is the one that keeps demanding that we fit in and not disturb things. They would like you to fit in right away so that things work now.”
photo via.
Fall 2011
August 29, 2011 § 1 Comment
Just got one of the photos from a shoot we did with Michael Costello Cotoure‘s 2011 line. I love it! Fall this year is so exciting – the darkness and the glamor of it, the chic softness, combined with its hard lines.
I can’t wait to show you our fall collection at Nakate. It just arrived today!
Balance
August 10, 2011 § Leave a Comment
August, for me, has been a search for balance. I am moving. I am working with a naturalist to find healing from some parasites and other physical issues I picked up in Africa. I am trying to grow Nakate. I am packing. Though focused on monogamy, this piece spoke to me, and my current journey:
After years of grappling with monogamy and marriage, I finally understood it a few months ago when I went to Japan. The answer, deceptively simple and devoid of much romance, came to me while I sat at a Shinto shrine. In the pursuit of clarity, many have embraced various kinds of asceticism – some in seclusion, others within the world – living life with strict discipline to achieve lucidity. This drive to spiritual fullness, as bizarre as the choice to be together with someone forever, suddenly became fused in my mind. Monogamy is a form of asceticism, a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various worldly pleasures, not because these are inherently evil, but because restraint brings focus.
In the book Musashi, the Zen priest called this striving for discipline a means of achieving balance and becoming a complete human. I like that better than words usually associated with being a decent spouse: good, faithful, loyal. Edith Wharton may have imbued me with the fear of adultery at heart, but she also taught me how wretched a life that strives for extremes can be, even if this extreme is “good.” I would much rather discipline myself on the quest for balance, giving myself room to err and learn, in the hopes of one day being a complete human being. That, in the end, is all we can be.
It made sense because I am searching for balance in devotion to my work. Nakate often takes over my life, and I stop enjoying it. Instead, I start resenting it. That’s when I know I have gone too far. So, when do I stop working? How do I know when it is “enough?” When I am tempted to walk away from something I believe is part of my life’s work, how do I handle that? When things are hard, and I don’t feel grateful – how do I handle that? How do I become balanced?
My friend Margaret posted this affirmation a few days ago: Balance is integrated into all aspects of my life.”
I am moving to Portland to for myself, for Nakate and for Jeremy. How do I balance these things well? How do I balance being a girlfriend, being a woman committed to global change and being myself and enjoying who I am?
I think it comes in striving for discipline, discipline as, “a means of achieving balance and becoming a complete human.” I think only the individual person knows how this looks, and feels, for them. I think it is a singular journey for each person.
Today, balance for me was leaving my own office to go sit and work in the backyard at my friend’s home. I needed to enjoy the air, the backyard, the creative space and the company. And, as I work to balance myself in purging my things as I pack, I feel that my time working there today gave me the focus necessary to balance myself tonight.
Thank you, Musashi. Thank you Margaret!
