Underwater Movie

Littletree has created her first short film; an underwater one no less!

We went to the pool in town to try out the new waterproof camera, which was loads of fun, and works really well.

Then I showed Littletree how to upload the pictures onto her computer, and how to work a basic video editing software. Since her camera doesn’t have a microphone on it, she decided to record herself singing a song to go with her movie.

So here it is, written, directed and scored by Littletree:

I’m sure we’ll get a letter from the academy any day now ;P

Fifteen Year Dreadversarry

Well, this post is a little overdue, but yes, I marked the fifteenth anniversary since I started my dreadlocks!

Thanks to everyone who responded to my post Dread Beads with questions; I shall endeavour to answer them all, as well as a few I get asked regularly by random people.

How many dreads do you have?

I currently have nine dreadlocks. They’re pretty fat. I think I had around 25 when I started them, and slowly they merged. I was aiming for 13 dreads for a while… but they seem to have a mind of their own.

How long was your hair when you started them?

I started them when I was 16, my hair was fairly long, I guess about halfway between my shoulder and elbow. Here’s a very rare photo of me from before I had dreads, age 15 (and yes, I looked like that most of the time. At least in this photo I was sort-of smiling!)

Did yours start out loopy too?

Yeah, mine started out really messy – I did the neglect method. They do settle down with time, and a little palm-rolling helps. The loops are just part of the individual beauty of natural dreads. Here’s another rare photo of me, when my dreads were just starting out, age 16.5:

Though they did settle down, they shrunk a lot, and stayed on the short side of shoulder-length for a long time before they really started to grow. Here’s a pic from when I was about 18 (note how my brother and sister have grown up!):

Have you ever done a dread timeline?

Nope. But I kind of am now. Here’s a pic from when I was about 21 at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe (you can see how my hair grew in 3 years)

And this one is when I was nearly 22 in the Deadvlei in Namibia

How do you maintain them?

I don’t really do much of anything; mine are fully natural. I started them with the “neglect” method, which basically means stop brushing one’s hair, and no more using conditioner. I was living in the bush, and went to stay in a cave for a while, and lost my hairbrush.

After my dreads were well-formed enough, I went back to regular shampooing, but I stopped using shampoo or soaps of any sort on my hair when I was about 19. I wash my hair thoroughly at least once a week, just a really good scalp rub under lots of hot running water (or in a cold creek, as the case may be).

Then I set about making sure they dry as thoroughly and quickly as possible, so I usually only wash my hair early in the day when it’s sunny. I’ve also recently started making use of a hairdryer. Frequently damp dreads can get mouldy and stinky, so diligent drying is essential.

Me, age 24 in, Bolivia

A similar shot for comparison, age 30, in Far North Queensland

Also I am wondering if you had or have any dandruff problems and if so what you used. I've tried oils and its not working.

I don’t have dandruff or any problem with it, sorry. I have heard that using bi-carb soda and an apple cider vinegar rinse is good for that. I do use oils for head-lice prevention. I hate those nasty little @#$% and I don’t tolerate them anywhere near me or my kid. I spray Littletree’s and my hair daily with a mix of rosemary, geranium, lavender, citronella and tea tree essential oils (diluted). It smells really good too – people often ask me what the wonderful perfume is, and it’s very effective for preventing lice. :)

Here’s me with Littletree when she was about 12 months old (and I was nearly 25) in Costa Rica.

I don’t use wax and I don’t recommend it. I think the only people who really rave about wax and other dread products are people trying to sell them to you. Even if you don’t want to wait for the full neglect method (or just want neater dreadlocks), palm-rolling, back-combing and/or crochet are far better in the long run. Using wax will create nice-looking dreads overnight, but then you have a bunch of wax in your hair which is a pain to get out, and the dreads won’t hold over time.

How do you handle stray hairs or do you just let them do their thing?

I don’t worry about stray hairs. They always find their way into dreads when they’re good and ready. If you want to neaten up straight hairs, I think crocheting them is a good method.

Also is it wise to have a professional do the dreads?

That depends on what you want. Having them done professionally can be really pricey, but you do get them “done” in a day. Personally I’m a big fan of natural hair.

I wonder if I can get them done in Singapore.

I imagine you can, but I don’t specifically know of a place.

Are they super heavy or do you not even notice the weight anymore?

I guess they are heavy, but I really don’t notice the weight (except when they’re wet!) I usually find having them up in a bun means they’re well balanced and comfy (and out of the way). I’ll probably notice the lack of weight if I ever cut them off!

Do you use pins or hair sticks to hold them up in the bun you wear or do they just stay like that on their own?

I don’t use anything. They stay up like that all on their own. I just twist them around each other and then tuck the ends in. Takes me about 10 seconds. I do, occasionally, put a wrap or scarf around them, but mostly for aesthetics. I restrain them with a strong scarf when I go dancing though!

Do you keep the beads in all of the time?

Yep. What gets put in stays in till it falls out. I have almost never put anything into my hair myself; the vast majority of beads, wraps, bells, shells, and random trinkets get put in there by other people. I still have one ring in my hair that was put in there by a schoolgirl I didn’t even know, back when I was about 18!

Have you ever found anything strange in them? (I had a client once who found a big spider in his!)

While the spider thing is largely an urban myth, I will admit I’ve had spiders in my dreads before. I don’t know if I’ve ever had anything really weird in there though. I had a friend who used to plant seeds in his; some of them even sprouted!

And also do you ever get unwanted comments from people and if so how do you deal with them?

I have rarely gotten negative comments. When I first started them, pretty much everyone said “what have you done to your beautiful hair?!” because, yeah, though you can’t tell from that photo, I had that kind of ‘beautiful’ flowing, silky hair that looked like something straight out of a shampoo commercial. Strangers would regularly stop me in the street to ask who did my hair. Negative comments in general don’t bother me; what other people think of me is none of my business.

Do you think you'll tire of them?

Sure, maybe, one day. Maybe not; who can tell? I do like the idea of being an old woman with really long, grey dreadlocks!

Can I touch them?

If you ask me first, I usually don’t mind, but don’t think you can just sneak up behind me and feel my hair without me noticing, and probably being annoyed.

Is all of that really your own hair?

Yep. All the way to my knees.

Why do you have them?

I like them, and I have a strong belief about not altering my body’s natural state. I keep clean and healthy, without modifying. I don’t comb my hair; it just grows naturally like that – most people’s does. For some reason there’s a common myth that only African hair will dreadlock, and Europeans have to work hard to get their hair to dread. It’s just not true. There’s loads of cultures around Asia that have dreadlocks, and some evidence of it amongst ancient European tribes as well. I don’t see it as cultural appropriation, not for a second. I also don’t fit into many of the stereotypes associated with dreadlocks: I don’t smoke marijuana, I’m not unemployed or on welfare (nor do I have a trust fund), I’m not vegetarian, I’m not unwashed.

Mostly, I love that they’re extremely low-maintenance and I can do all sorts of crazy stuff with them :)

Unschooling Awesomeness

We’ve been having loads of great times with home school group lately, despite a few families dropping out.

Lots of fun days at the beach

A trip to Sea World to see the new Penguin Encounter exhibit

Which was pretty cool

We were rained-out a couple of times, but discovered we can go to the local library and book out enough computers for all the kids to have one each, then they all sit together playing games like Fantage or Club Penguin

A couple of times we went to the roller skating rink in the city

Littletree’s friend Anasho gave her a hand-me-down pair or rollerblades as an early birthday present, so Littletree has learned to skate properly on blades.

The first time she put them on, she was asking to rent roller skates because she couldn’t manage to stand up on the blades. We convinced her to keep trying for a bit longer, and about 20 minutes later she was zipping around the rink, no hands!

Littletree skating

Hooray for unschooling :)

Spider Explosion

The other night Purple went to turn off the dehumidifier (which, by the way, is an awesome device for people living in humid climates and suffering from mould-related problems)… only to be surprised by an explosion of cute little baby spiders.

Freaky! There were hundreds of them, scattering everywhere. Good to know we have significantly less problems with mosquitoes than our neighbours! I’m not sure I’m really happy about them all over the appliances, but at least they make a great photograph.

Early Birthday Present

Since Littetree is going to Israel with Purple for her birthday, and I won’t be there, I decided to give her her birthday present early.

She had on her wish list: A charm bracelet, a historical book about dinosaurs, a little fairy statue, an underwater camera, rollerblades and a trip to India. I found a really cheap camera online and got her that. (sacrificing photo quality for underwaterness, but I think for her it’s a good trade-off).

Littletree was, naturally, super excited to get an early present.

The great unwrapping:

Even more surprised to see what the gift was:

Didn’t take her long to get it out of the box and all set up

And before too long she was running about snapping away

Here’s the first test shots she took

I figure now she can use her own camera for the hours and hours she spends making little videos with mine :)

Purim!

Yesterday we celebrated Purim, the most fun religious holiday ever. Everyone dresses up, gets intoxicated, and celebrates. The classic example of “they tried to kill us; we won; let’s eat!”

So we all got dressed up in costume and went out to the village dance

Littletree went as a gypsy-girl, complete with accessories her Savta sent from Israel (along with a big box of candies for mishloach manot.)

And Purple looked awesome in a get-up of mostly my clothes, along with a wig from Littletree’s dress-up bag. He certainly turned a few heads at the dance!

Of course we had a fantastic time dancing the night away :)

One Billion Seconds

My birthday just passed last month – one billion seconds since I was born.

According to some calculations, I passed one billions seconds on Sunday, 23 January 2011 at 6:49:40 PM (local time, which is the same as the time I was born in). Depending on how the billion seconds is calculated, and depending on daylight savings and whatnot. Also, some seconds are longer than others.

Like the second when Littletree was born – that’s a second I will  remember and cherish always.

The second when Littletree was about 2, and running down a street in Tel Aviv towards a bomb that was about to be detonated was a second that stretched out for a really long time.

The second when we crashed our car that was probably about 20 seconds, but it all happened in a second of my perception.

Time is rubber, sometimes the seconds race by, sometimes they drag on, but every one of them is precious, every moment is worth living for and worth cherishing.

We change the future with every choice we make, and we make choices every second, so make them count.

Me at around 16,000 seconds old (2 days).

Broken

Where to begin?

Start at the beginning, and when you come to the end: stop.

I haven’t been blogging lately, or online much for that matter. To be really honest, I haven’t even been out of the house much, I haven’t seen any of my friends or neighbours in the last few weeks. People are starting to worry.

Fair enough; I’ve been sick. Not my usual upper-respiratory-infection kind of sick, but processing some deep, unpleasant personal stuff. Everyone has *stuff*. Some more than others, and it’s not something I generally like to talk about. In fact, *stuff* is something most people don’t generally like to talk about.

And that, my friends, is the problem. DENIAL.

This is me, the gorgeous green goddess, Majikfaerie herself, saying: “THE DENIAL ENDS HERE”.

I will no longer perpetuate the cycle of abuse nor the denial that aids and abets it. I will speak my truth, and be in my truth. I will not tolerate lies or sugar-coating. I will not abide by denial of abuse or of truth.

~~~

I went to my sister, Chicky’s wedding at the end of last month.

Just the decision to go there in the first place was hard for me. Initially, it seemed obvious that we won’t go – while I love my sister, and we’re pretty close, and I’m okay with my brother, I don’t have any contact with anyone else in my family; I haven’t spoken with any of them in several years at least.

I am a survivor of abuse.

My parents,  their parents and all our associated siblings are all a part of that, both as victims and as perpetrators, as is generally the case. While I am deeply scarred; I’m hurt; I suffer and I’ve gone through hell to get to the point I’m at now, which is generally healed and happy, I do forgive the past. I do recognise that my abusers were merely acting out of their own abusive patterns, and for the most part, trying to overcome that.

What I don’t accept and will not tolerate, is the denial that goes with it all – the denial that left me exposed to abuse in the first place, and the denial that continues to this day.

There is a very strong ethos amongst my blood relations that we all pretend nothing ever happened, ever, and we never, ever talk about it. Everything is business as usual. This I stand against and this I protect my child from. Because it DID happen, and the denial is what perpetuates it.

So I thought we wouldn’t go to Chicky and River’s wedding. Obviously. I don’t want to see all those people who continue to cause me so much pain, people who lie to my face and call me a liar when I blew the whistle on the whole sick story.

But then I thought: hey, it’s just not fair! I don’t want to miss my baby sister’s wedding; I’ve suffered enough and missed out on enough! I’m strong, I’m empowered. I can rise above all of this, and be in my truth, and be there for my sister.

I could see three options:

1. Don’t go. Like I said, this would mean missing my beloved sister’s wedding. Lose

2. Go, and speak out, and accuse my abusers and call them all out on their lies and insist on the truth. Essentially, making a scene, which would ruin my sister’s wedding and not really help my cause. Lose.

3. Go, and rise above, be strong, calm, and beautiful; a shining example of wholeness and healing.

Seemed like a no-brainer. So we went.

It was a fly-in-fly-out deal, not stopping long enough to see anyone, because Purple has work, and really because I didn’t want to see anyone.

And I was strong, and I didn’t make a scene. It was a pretty wedding, Littletree was a flowergirl. My grandfather who molested me and my parents kept a respectful distance. I made small talk with some cousins and family friends I’ve not seen in more than a decade.

Only in hindsight did I realise, somewhere around the time the wedding photographer called all the immediate family in to pose for family photos, that I’d not seen all the implications of option #3: that by going there, and posing in the photos, and making chit-chat with relatives and vague non-answers about why we don’t visit more often, I was participating in the denial; perpetuating the cycle of abuse.

I wish when all my cousins and uncles and aunts came up to say hi, and they all said they wished we were staying longer and asked me when we’re coming for a visit next, I wish, I wish, instead of smiling vaguely and mumbling something about maybe, probably not, I don’t know, I wish I’d said:

“WHY ON EARTH WOULD I WANT TO COME HERE AND SEE ANY OF YOU EVER AGAIN? HONESTLY, YOU ALL STAND AROUND HERE, ACTING LIKE NOTHING EVER HAPPENED, AND HERE I AM, DAMAGED, ABUSED. THAT MAN WHO MOLESTED ME IS RIGHT OVER THERE AND YOU ALL CALL ME A LIAR! NO CHANCE IN HELL I WANT TO COME BACK HERE AND BE A PART OF THIS!”

But I didn’t say that. I didn’t make a scene. We had a “nice” time, then we went home.

Somehow, I thought I’d be able to do that and not be affected, and I’d be fine. I didn’t understand till it was too late that by taking option #3 I was collaborating in the denial, and I’d hate myself for it.

Since then, I’ve been badly depressed. I haven’t been blogging, I haven’t been seeing my friends, I don’t eat much, I don’t sleep much, I’m just managing to keep up with basic household tasks. I feel broken.