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The Empress of Imperial Travel (As she goes dancing)
When I was eighteen I went to a college, but my dad said that it wasn't very good school. "Why", I said? Well he said it was just a state university. "But they have 'higher learning' there", I said. "Yes, but they're not going to make an executive out of you." "What if I don't want to be an executive." There was no reply, no discussion.
So I went down to the guidance counselor's office lonely, bored, confused, and I saw a sign. "Wandering Scholar for five continents. Just call this number and you can become one." That was me, I thought. I'll just call Friends World College.
So I called the number, and dialed, and the next thing I knew I dialed my way all the way across the ocean, to Japan, where I could do---Japanese dance--and Japanese movements, and learn how a culture teaches its women to move. I did the dance called Kurokame, which means "black hair". And I was dancing a lonely woman who lost her man at sea, as all the women do. ---combing my hair---. And I had to wear a kimono, that would touch the edge of my thumb. If I didn't it would be very, very shameful. So I followed all the rules--so well, that people mumbled while I performed, "Ssshhhh, I think she's Japanese". "No, she's too tall! she's a white woman". But they let me perform. They allowed me to be graceful--in a sort of way.
Everything seemed so fine--I really wanted to know--I wanted to know what the roots of the dance was. That's why I went there! To observe ritual and ancient movement - I studied a little Noh - I'd seen this beautiful wave woodblock by Hakusai, and I thought that's what all Japan was, a beautiful wave. But it had come upon the industrial revolution. But I was eighteen and I didn't really know.
So I took my self to another continent with this Wandering Scholar school, and I ended up in Haiti, and there I could breathe, and I could live, and I could move my body. It was allowed there. And people were talking, "Haitian creole-Pas besoin parlez con sa devan tout monde"-- and they weren't even angry. They spoke like that--right from here. And I studied dance with Madame Gautier, and she had all the dancers in her troupe perform for the white folks at the hotels. But I couldn't be a performer--I was too white--I wouldn't look authentic. So I asked my friend Yvette if I could meet her mom, who was a mambo priestess. And she said, "Come on!". So I came, and I ended up at a big ceremony by the water, where Dambala, the snake goddess, blessed the ground. So I came--and blessed the ground. And I blessed the ground so well people thought I was a white goddess. They were naive. Or maybe too trusting, like the native American Indians.
My father was upset that I was down in a revolutionary country. "Its Baby Doc Dad, not Papa Doc". "I don't care. I want you out of there!". So I obeyed his will. But I decided I'd go on route to Africa, just like all the other famous dance ethnologists who had traveled and studied the roots of culture, where the slave dances really came from. But on route I met a man on a plane. And he had a mustache, that was very enticing, a painter. So I had that plane trip to Kenya, but ended up in London, sleeping in a sofa divan--good for two--a bit tight. And after one week it was over.
And then there came this other man. His name was Orisheyome, which means "King" in Yoruba. And he taught me how to read cola nuts, and we'd play in our garden apartment in London. And the nuts said we wouldn't be together too long. There might be an unwanted child. But, well, he said he really wanted me to be the third wife. I said, "The third wife? Is that you're from a third world"? "No, we're a polygamous society, and men have many wives down there, and you can be one of mine". And I said, "I want to be the one and only wife".
All my dreams--just--It was those men--took it away from me--so I just went home to my dad.
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