Although sometimes I’m all over the place so it may not seem like it, I love order. So before I can really get going on the events of this past weekend, I must revisit Raisin’ Cane.
Like I said before, the production was phenomenal. Here are some quotes and works that pierced me. I think today, I’ll highlight the womenfolk.
I Want to Die While You Love Me by Georgia Douglas Johnson
I WANT to die while you love me,
While yet you hold me fair,
While laughter lies upon my lips
And lights are in my hair.
I want to die while you love me,
And bear to that still bed,
Your kisses turbulent, unspent
To warm me when I’m dead.
I want to die while you love me
Oh, who would care to live
Till love has nothing more to ask
And nothing more to give!
I want to die while you love me
And never, never see
The glory of this perfect day
Grow dim or cease to be.
Isn’t that beautiful? I’m usually not even a poetry kinda girl, but that poem captured my ears during the performance.
Who’s ever heard of Pig Foot Mary? Well, I hadn’t either, but now I’ve read about her, and she’s someone to look up to. Hailing from the Mississippi Delta, Lillian Dean Harris moved to New York City and went from peddling boiled pigs’ feet out of a torn up baby carriage (yes, I’m from MS, but no, I do not and never have eaten pigs’ feet–they look mucho gross, but yay for Lillian!) to being able to retire with hundreds of thousands of dollars in Cali. After cultivating her business of providing Southern food to the many transplants in Harlem (and anyone else who wanted some), she invested her money in real estate. Now how’s that for girl power?
Finally, before I go, I’ll share a Zora Neale Hurston quote that makes me chuckle (and reminds me of something I might say jokingly but not really):
Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.
By the way, if you haven’t voted today, what are you waiting for? Tootles, my dears.