Nabila Tabassum Chowdhury > Recent Status Updates

Youth is terrible: it is a stage trod by children in buskins and a variety of costumes mouthing speeches they've memorized and fanatically believe but only half understand.

I reminded him that Myslbek had sculpted liberty as a nude, that Ales had a famous painting of the Jizera River as three nudes; that painters had done this forever.

Still, if we don't like a pointing finger, we can turn our back on it. I did, and headed for the alleyway to the street.

That it was an expression not of my freedom (as I might have seen it, say, a year earlier), but of my submission, my limitation, my condemnation.

If home is 1ly the parental house,it's no thread;it's 1ly d past:letters written by ur parents r msgs frm a shore you r 4saking;worse still,these letters recalling d port u sailed away frm incessantly repeat tht u strayed,leaving an environment so decently&so laboriously put 2gether;yes,such letters tell u, the port is still there,unchanging,secure&beautiful in its old setting,bt d bearing,d compass bearing is lost!

Now it came to me stripped, just as it is, in its true and original form, and it forced me to call it by its true name (for now I was living sheer time, sheer empty time) so as not to forget it for a moment, keep it constantly before me, and feel its weight.

It was not the time with which I had previously had dealings, a time metamorphosed into work, love, effort of every kind, a time I had accepted unthinkingly because it so discreetly hid behind my actions.

“You’ve been a hard worker—white, black, Asian, and Latino women ship out of the San Francisco port because of you. You have been a shipfitter, a nurse, a real estate broker, and a barber. Many men and—if my memory serves me right—a few women risked their lives to love you. You were a terrible mother of small children, but there has never been anyone greater than you as a mother of a young adult.”

I took her hand and said, “I’ve been told some people need to be given permission to leave. I don’t know if you are waiting, but I can say you may have done all you came here to do."

I was happy to laugh with her and to know that although she was not healed, she had chosen to be better. After two months, one of the physicians, Dr. Imamura, said there was no explanation for her recovery.

My mother’s gifts of courage to me were both large and small. The latter are woven so subtly into the fabric of my psyche that I can hardly distinguish where she stops and I begin.

"I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother.”

I thought of the irony of the woman who had forgotten major portions of her life. She had forgotten that she had been married to one man for over fifty years … but she remembered the art.

I returned to my mother’s bedroom and thought about what I had just experienced. I had had a physical response to art. I breathed deeply and was relieved. For the first time in my life art seemed to have a tonal quality. I could almost hear the art as if it were a great chord of a symphonic piece.

The Stockton Black Women for Humanity gave scholarships of $350 to students as they finished the eleventh grade. My mother said many students dropped out after the eleventh grade in high school because they didn’t have the popular clothes to wear into their senior year of high school. The scholarships were given as money and gift cards for students to use at Sears and J.C. Penney department stores.

"You see, baby, you have to protect yourself. If you don’t protect yourself, you look like a fool asking somebody else to protect you.” I thought about that for a second. She was right. A woman needs to support herself before she asks anyone else to support her.

“How far are you going?” My mother patted her purse and said, “I’m going all the way. I came here to go all the way. How far are you going?”

I asked,“Why,Mother?”She had a real estate license,she had been a nurse&she owned a gambling house&hotel.“Why do u want to go to sea?”

“Because they told me they wouldn’t let any woman in their union.They suggested tht the union certainly would not accept a Negro woman.I told them,'You want to bet?’I will put my foot in their door up to my hip until every woman can get in that union&can get aboard a ship&go to sea.”

“I am not surprised. You are going far in this world, baby, because you dare to risk everything. That’s what you have to do. You are prepared to do the best you know to do. And if you don’t succeed, you also know all you have to do is try it again.”

“No, you learned that you have power—power and determination. I love you and I am proud of you. With those two things, you can go anywhere and everywhere.”

"I’m explaining to you, not apologizing."

"That day, I learned that I could be a giver simply by bringing a smile to another person. The ensuing years have taught me that a kind word or a vote of support can be a charitable gift."

"Love heals. Heals and liberates. I use the word love, not meaning sentimentality, but a condition so strong that it may be that which holds the stars in their heavenly positions and that which causes the blood to flow orderly in our veins."

এবছর গুডরিডস এওয়ার্ড পাওয়া বইগুলোর মাঝে মাত্র দুটো বই পড়েছি, দুটোকেই দুটো করে তারা দিয়েছিলাম! দুটোই পড়েছিলাম হাইপের কারণে। কয়েকবছরে এইটা বুঝলাম যে, গুডরিডসে সেই বইগুলোই এওয়ার্ড পায়, যেগুলোর নাম সবচেয়ে বেশি মানুষ জানে। সেগুলোর মাঝে কোনোটির মান ভালও হতে পারে, কোনোটির মান খারাপও হতে পারে, কোনোটি হতে পারে মাঝারি মানের, তবে সেসব কোনো ব্যাপারই না। -_-

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"The world may be mean, but people don’t have to be, not if they refuse."

"if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty."

"if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty."

"That is how the European tribes operate, she said. If they can’t control it, they destroy it."

“Master said the only thing more dangerous than a nigger with a gun,” he told them, “was a nigger with a book. That must be a big pile of black powder, then!”