(This post was originally written on 26 October 2017 at Caballo Blanco Horse Trekking Center in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Southern Spain)

This morning I finally made this fig tart that I’ve been salivating over for 40 days and 40 nights — seriously. Back in the states I might think about baking something for a while before getting around to it just because I didn’t make time. Here at Caballo Blanco I’ve got all the time in the world. I plan and I plot and no matter what I do I can’t escape the realities of my current kitchen situation. Here’s how all it went down:

Day One:

When I first started planning the fig tart the kitchen pantry wasn’t stocked with all of the things that I needed. They’re all baking basics really — copious amounts of butter (not margarine), vanilla, brown sugar, powdered sugar, baking spices and a few other ‘bits and bobs” as they say here in our British colony. Once I realized that we were missing these staples I added them to the weekly grocery list which, as luck would have it, was set to go out the very same day.

The way that it works here is that we, the volunteer helpers, write a list of food items. Sarah, the owner of Caballo Blanco, then stocks our kitchen for a well rounded vegetarian diet. She buys shelf stable staples at the store(flour, rice, oats, pasta, sugar, spice, margarine, oil, milk, beans, bread, etc). We get a lot of produce from the extensive gardens on the grounds (tomatoes of all kinds and a variety of gourds, squash, melon, hot peppers, broccoli, a variety of leafy greens, sweet potatoes, onions, egg plants). Any veggies that arent grown on the grounds are bought at the Friday Farmers’ Market in Lnajaron, the nearest town. There’s tons of things that can be foraged from the mountainsides or traded for with the neighbors (basil, thyme, oregano, rosemary, figs, pomegranates, walnuts, lavender, honey, goat yogurt, goat milk, goat cheese, and a few other things). Our eggs come from the chicken coup next to the kitchen.

I love that all I have to do is write a list and the groceries or fresh garden produce just **magically** appear in the Kitchen. I don’t love that we never know when the groceries will magically appear. Sometimes Sarah and her family have the items on the list in their house. In this case they just go shopping in their own kitchen and immediately bring us a mix of what they can find to hold us over until they can get down to the store. Other times it takes a few before the things can be gotten from the store or multiple stores. We never know.

Day Two

In the case of the 40 day fig tart, half of the grocery items arrived the very next day.

Day Three

The other half arrived the day after. Diona had already picked the figs from a tree on the mule track that runs from town up to the ranch. For a few brief moments I thought that we had everything that we needed to make the fig tart of my dreams a reality. Then I went to light the oven to make a pot of tea to sip as we mixed. I turned the knob until I heard the oven wheeze out the tiniest breath of gas. I tried to light it, and in the end I did, but it was clear that our oven gas can was on its last leg.

Our oven is a gas oven. Unlike the gas ovens that you might be used to, it is not connected to a gas line that is always (as long as you pay the bill) there just waiting for you to tap into it. Our oven is connected to a gas tank, which before working at Caballo Blanco, I would have thought was a a helium tank for filling gallons. When our gas tank runs out of gas a couple of things could happen. Best case scenario: we’ve got a full spare tank in the garden and just have to swap it out with the empty one. Worst case scenario: we have no full gas tanks on the ranch and have to wait for the empty tanks to be taken down to town, refilled and Brough back up. Worst worst case scenario: the gas tank is one of the special silver gas tanks. This tank, unlike the others which can be filled at any station in town, can only be fill at one station in town. The station where it can be filled is not open every day. Each week it is only open for four days, maybe five.

Day Four & Five & Six

Day four was not one of the days that it was open. Day five was not one of the days that it was open. Day 6, thanks be, the damned station was open and the gas tank got filled. We were able to cook hot food again! Specifically hot and delicious fig tarts. Except that by this time we had already decided to eat all of the very very ripe figs and the chickens had decided to eat all of their own eggs.

Day Six & Seven

So we needed a slow work day where Diona had the spare time to run 20 minutes down the very steep, slightly treacherous mule track, gather some figs from the fig tree that may or may not belong to the person who build a fence around it but that still dropped figs in the road anyway, and then run 20 minutes back up the same mule trek which is even more treacherous to when you’re trying to climb up it then when you want to run down it. We also needed a fast laying day where the chickens would lay enough eggs for the pastry cream and the pies crust.

Day Eight & Nine & Ten & Eleven & Twelve & Thirteen & Fourteen & Fifteen & Sixteen & Seventeen & Eighteen & Nineteen & Twenty & Twenty One

Diona ran down and of course — OF COURSE — there were not enough ripe figs on the tree. We waited. We waited for figs and another day that we had enough time to go and fetch them. We waited for eggs. We kept getting eggs with no figs or figs with no eggs.

Day Twenty Two & Twenty Three & Twenty four & Twenty five

And while we waited a little tiny depression happened upon me. Tiredness settled into my bones and my appetite deserted. I wanted nothing, not to eat, not to cook, not to work, not to write, just to sleep. At one point we had the eggs, and the figs and everything else. I simply didn’t have the will to cook.

Day Twenty Six & Twenty Seven & Twenty Eight & Twenty Nine

Thankfully I had already planned to take a week off traveling with a visiting friend. Travel always brings me back to myself and it did.

Day Thirty

That day it rained. If our kitchen was inside like everyone else’s kitchen, it wouldn’t have matters. If our stove were maybe covered or somehow sheltered, maybe we could have managed. If the wind weren’t so vicious that we have to bolster or doors with weights to stop the door from being ripped from their hinges. If the cold weren’t so intense that we couldn’t stand in the rain ( even when fully clothed in waterproofs) without shivering. If the rain weren’t so thorough that it would make everything unburnable for the next week — even a gas stovetop. Then maybe we could’ve left the stove outside and cooked on it. Since none of those things were true we spent the time that I might have spent baking a fig tart moving the oven and it’s gas tank from the outdoors where it lives in the horridly hot ( over 40 degrees Celsius!) summers to the indoors where it lives in the intrepid wind rain and cold of the winter. By the time that we got the cooker inside, I wasn’t up to doing anything too complicated. I made a sweet potato pie instead.

It was tasty, but it still wasn’t a fig tart.

Day Thirty One & Thirty Two & Thirty Three & Thirty Four

I went back on the road with my friend.

Day Thirty Five & Thirty Six & Thirty Seven & Thirty Eight

I returned to a fig-less refrigerator, and another egg strike. Diona promptly scurried down the mule track to gather some figs. That was one problem solved. The chickens were no longer eating their eggs, but as the days got shorter and the nights got colder they weren’t laying as many eggs or as often. Where before they might have laid 12 or more eggs in a day, no we were lucky if we got just one or two. The figs sat in the fridge waiting. We checked every single day. Meanwhile, as our attention lay elsewhere we got careless with our butter supply. We buttered bread with abandon, used butter to cook crepes in or bake squash when we could’ve used olive oil. We put butter in our baked potatoes and swirled it into out pasta. We just about used the butter all the way up.

Day Thirty Nine

Just about. Somehow I had managed to squirrel away a package in a back corner of the fridge. After weeks and weeks, a whole month of weeks and then some we finally had everything I needed to make a fig tart. I made the crust and put it in the freezer to set. I made the pastry cream and put it in the fridge to thicken. There wasn’t enough time for me to throw it all together before bed — I’m really committed to my sleep. I went to bed and made plans to bake it first thing in the morning.

Day Forty

I followed through with those early morning baking plans! The reward was well worth the wait. This beautiful! masterful! delicious! pastry, this labor of love for myself was everything that I dreamed of and more. As we ate it those first few pieces our appetite for more expanded exponentially, so we ate another and another until we ate it all. Our appetites were still not satisfied. We must make another. We have somehow managed to get ourselves back to:

Day One

Gather enough figs for two fig tarts: one for now, one for later.

For the next year I will be traveling the world on a solo mission to conquer my fears, realize my dreams and make my souls sing!

I left on Sept 11, 2017 to begin my journey across 6 climates, 4 countries and 3 continents. I’ve chosen each of my destinations for their connections to other parts of my life and things that I am passionate about.

This is my digital diary cataloging my thoughts and experiences during that trip. For more of my story follow my Instagram (@oinsideout) and Facebook (Omolara Di Molinha Williams McCallister).

Visit my YouCaring to make a financial contribution to support my trip: https://www.youcaring.com/omolarawilliams-910251

#ogoesglobal #osbigadventure #queercaravan #blackwomenbackpack

I have never really done New Years’ resolutions but this year I am going all in! In many ways my year started in September when I set out on my year long, round the world solo mission to conquer my fears, realize my dreams and make my souls sing. This year is all about reflecting and reconnecting to myself in various ways. The cultural phenomenon of the new year’s resolution presents the perfect opportunity to do that in a support group — that’s all of ya’ll! ( We got this! I believe in us!) For my resolution making process — its a whoooole process ya’ll — each day I’ll be exploring an intention to carry forward into future or doing a deep dive into things that I am allowing to become relics of the past.

My first resolution is to move through the world with ease. The concept of ease is one that I first learned about from my biological mother when she taught me how to sew. She taught me that one of the ways to tailor make a garment is by making a custom pattern. In this process you take the measurements of there person who will be wearing the garment. You do the necessary math to figure out what exact size to make every line of the pattern. Then you add ease. Ease is an extra bit of space on top of what you already have.

Ease allows for the softness of the human body to fill out two dimension fabrics, transforming them into a garment. Ease allows for the uniqueness of how each individual body is formed differently and has its own unique relationships between each of its parts. Ease allows for the daily changes that our bodies go through: bloating, and shrinkage and tense muscles and water retention and things really just move around a lot more than we realize ( get some tailored clothes and you’ll see!) Ease allows for variation in fabric — some fabrics don’t stretch, some stretch one way but not the other, some stretch all the ways, and every fabric has a limits of how far it can be stretched without breaking. Basically ease is the space that allows for life and all the unpredictable things that come with it.

A very common and very grave sewing mistake is the omission of ease. A seamstress can very easily take the measurements, draw the pattern without ease, make the garment without ease, and then find that the garment doesn’t fit, can’t be altered and has to be started all over again from scratch.

This common sewing mistake — the omission of ease — is a mistake that I make in making patterns for my everyday life. As a result I expend a whole bunch of additional energy salvaging or starting things over or trying to force ill fitting things to fit. Usually I make it work, but it costs me. I’d rather keep that and spend it elsewhere or put it in my rainy day fund. Thus I am resolving to add ease to my everyday patterns of being.

It’s a simple resolution with a lot of moving parts, most of which have to do with understanding my own relationship to time and tasks. For me making the adjustment to moving with ease means:

• letting rituals and routines do some of the work of day to day living, creating a framework or structure that undergirds my day to day existence and insures that I get the basics done : food, water, sleep, bath, physical activity, a reflective and/or meditative practices, and a creative practice
• setting realistic goals and expectations for myself based on my capacity and other self-knowledge. The logic goes: Maybe it takes some other person who is not me ____ amount of time to do ____ task. I am not that person and it actually takes me ____ time which could be more or less. That’s ok. Ether way it needs to be accounted for. This also means paying more attention to how much time it takes me to do things at different times of the day, month and year.
• accepting, accounting for, and anticipating things that will result from the fact that I am living with multiple chronic illnesses. Life is so much more manageable and enjoyable and lovely when I am actually anticipating and tending to the needs associated with said illnesses.
• treating myself like someone that I love. Forgiving myself and being kind, compassionate and gentle with myself when I disappoint myself/others or am not able to do things that I think I “should be able to do or in the time frame that I think is reasonable while also being accountable.
• allowing things to take the time that they take while also making sure that they get done. In the process communicating with and being accountable to anyone else who may be impacted when or if there is a change in the timeline.
• pre-empting and planning recovery time as needed. Scheduling the appropriate restorative practices for that recovery time as well.
• designating time for routine maintenance self-care and leaving a little extra time on the side just in case something comes up
• saying NO to all sorts of people and opportunities, even ones that I REALLY REALLY want to do and sometimes even when it’s really going to disappoint me/someone that I love. IE: I know that you really want me to do this thing today but I only have the capacity to get out of bed and feed myself today, don’t even think I’m gonna make it to a bath so that’s waaaay beyond what is possible for me in this moment. I will let you know if that changes.
• Celebrating myself for surviving another day, however I survive it — I did it! Again! “Come celebrate with me…”

So really this first resolution is 9 discrete and really substantive resolutions that cumulatively lead to a common outcome which is ease. I’ll admit that I cheated a bit on this one. I’ve been cultivating patterns that support ease, and using this language to talk about it, since the beginning of my Big Adventure. I’ve been separately working on each of these resolutions for a looooong time, years. Its seems that I am just getting to the implementation phase with them. I have given myself the gift of this whole year to focus on me. As a result I have ample time and emotional space to delve into each of these areas and then to really set a firm foundation for me to bring back home to the states when I return. I’m crossing my fingers, toes and eyes, and lighting all of the prayer candles ( while of course doing the work) in hopes that this year might be the year that I can finally look back and say “I used to really struggle with…”

Whatever happens I am thankful to my mother for gifting me with the knowledge of sewing, and all of the wisdom that comes with it, at a very young age. It is a gift that I will carry with me my entire life, a gift that continues to add richness and complexity at every turn, a gift of ancestral knowledge and technologies. For this I am forever grateful. #teachthebabies

https://www.youcaring.com/omolarawilliams-910251

— —

For the next year I will be traveling the world on a solo mission to conquer my fears, realize my dreams and make my souls sing!

I left on Sept 11, 2017 to begin my journey across 6 climates, 4 countries and 3 continents. I’ve chosen each of my destinations for their connections to other parts of my life and things that I am passionate about.

This is my digital diary cataloging my thoughts and experiences during that trip. For more of my story follow my Instagram (@oinsideout) and Facebook (Omolara Di Molinha Williams McCallister). Visit my YouCaring to make a financial contribution to support my trip: https://www.youcaring.com/omolarawilliams-910251

#ogoesglobal #osbigadventure #queercaravan #blackwomenbackpack

Here, in this family-run horse ranch perched on the edge of a mountain top, I wake each morning to a chorus of cowbells, cock crows, and horses feet stamping and snorting impatiently as they wait for their morning feed. Most days it’s a competition to see who will get up to the stable first, me or the morning sun. So far we are 6–2 and I’m in the lead — on a good day I even manage to sneak in a quick breakfast of peanut butter (an exotic and expensive delicacy here, one of the few luxuries that I allow myself), apples (everywhere falling from the sky), and fresh mint tea with local honey (mmmm) before work.

At 8 am, work starts. I, along with my fellow volunteers (Melissa, the British den mom; Danielle, my Dutch roommate the silent schemer; and George, the jolly smoking Dutchmen), meet at the stable to begin our daily dance of feeding, watering, walking, medicating, and generally keeping happy 40 chickens and chicks, 26 horses, 20 goldfish, 10 geese, 10 dogs, 6 cats, 1 guinea pig, and a giant green toad that lives outside of my cabin.

First feed happens at 8, then we do it all again at noon and finally at 5 pm. Each time, if nothing goes awry and no other chores or business pop up, it takes about 60–90 minutes between the four of us. Usually though, something or someone pops up and then you also have to add in the learning curve for new volunteers like myself.

In my first week I made quite a few time-consuming rookie mistakes. On my second day I didn’t realize that we had a hose to fill the horses’ water troughs. So I hand carried 13 pairs of buckets, each holding about three gallons of water back and forth: fill two buckets at the fish pond, walk 32 feet to the nearest paddock, partially fill the trough, walk back, repeat, then onto the next paddock a little farther away, and then the next and the next and the next. I think if I’d been wearing a pedometer, I would’ve met my daily goal just in the 30 minutes it took me to go out to the hill and fetch those pails of water. It was a few days before anyone realized what was happening and put me on to the conveniently located hoses right next to the horse paddocks.

A few days later, Melissa was out on a ride and Danielle had the day off. That left me as the most senior volunteer and also the person in charge of the evening feed. Well.

The horses’ feed consists of two scoops of muesli — the universal farm food staple for human, horses, dogs, geese, chickens, and guineas pigs (more on that later) — and one scoop of dried beet that has been soaked for at least 12 hours. Muesli must have water added to it before the horses can eat it. Muesli that has been left to soak for more than a few hours will kill a horse. The dried beet must be soaked for 12 hours before the horses can eat it. Beet that is dry or partially dry will also kill a horse. And then, some of them have medicines or supplements on top of that. All of that to say, there’s a lot of little details that, when forgotten, can lead to large consequences. On the first day that I was responsible for the feed, the pre-soaked muesli ran out. So I caught myself being helpful and forward thinking by soaking some more, a whole lot more. It was too much feed (translation: money and resources) to waste and too little to feed all the horses. In the end, we had to add in an extra feed at 9 PM since horses need four hours between large feeds to properly digest their food or they get colic and die. With two minutes and ten gallons of water, I turned a seven-hour workday into a twelve-hour one. For EVERYBODY. Never again! All part of on-the-job learning I suppose.

Feeding the animals and dog walking takes up a good part of most days. In between feeds, we have second breakfast, elevensies, afternoon tea, pre-dinner dinner, dinner, and post-dinner snack — holding on to any amount of body fat here is a real accomplishment, one I have yet to accomplish. Then every other day or so there’s a horse to be exercised or tacked up for a ride or a lesson. I get a one-hour lesson per week and sometimes a two-hour or so ride. All in all, it’s good, honest work. At the end of the day, I can see the fruits of my labor clearly laid out in front of me and feel it in my body (more on that to come). At the end of the week, I have a day off to just sit and do absolutely nothing (or to spend 6 hours fighting through spotty internet to get a blog post up!).

Within the usual 8–5 farm day there’s plenty of time for me to explore the mountainside, day dream about dishes that I want to cook (look out for a blog post on that! Food, glorious food!), write this blog and other things, play with horses and farm animals, take a nap, or do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

All the time, no matter what I am doing, the landscape is breathtaking. There’s mountains with countless ridges and squiggles, fluffy clouds lazily drifting across the sky, a constant lavender and rosemary scented breeze that is just strong enough to keep the trees constantly sighing as if they were ocean waves. At night, there is an inky black, star-encrusted sky with no light except starlight for miles and miles in each direction. I don’t yet have words to describe dawn and dusk so I’ll leave it at that.

Life is good here. As of right now, I’m very satisfied with my life decisions.

Also, I’m still raising money to cover the cost of my year-long round the world solo mission to conquer my fears, realize my dreams, and make my soul sing! Contribute here: https://www.youcaring.com/omolarawilliams-910251

#ogoesglobal #osbigadventure #queercaravan #blackwomenbackpack

I packed for weeks, I planned for months, I still haven’t raised all the money — $1,644 more to go — but I made it to Spain and am three weeks in to my yearlong, round the world solo mission to conquer my fears, realize my dreams, and make my soul sing. It’s singing yall!

The beginning was a bit bumpy to be honest. Two days before take off, I slammed my pinkie in a car door and landed myself in the emergency room.

And you know everything that can go wrong will, so there I was with my pinkie tip almost severed from my pinkie one week past my COBRA insurance expiring and two days ahead of my travel insurance kicking in. It was a literally painful reminder of how broken our insurance system is. I hadn’t even left the country yet and had to spend $216 just to get seen. Once they brought me back, they immediately recommended a tetanus shot and an x-ray to see if the finger was broken. I requested that they not offer me treatments without including how much everything would cost. Another $179 for the shot and the x-ray they said, but then reading the x-ray would cost more. It would be outsourced to a nearby hospital who would charge me an unknown amount and bill me separately. WHAT.THE.ENTIRE.FUCK!

How was I supposed to make decisions without knowing how much it would cost? And how could I decide not to get care when I was about to be traveling for 12 months with unknown access to healthcare? And even if I could find care in Spain, I don’t speak Spanish. It was a hot mess. Figured it out though! The staff helped me figure out that I could buy a $180 medstar pass that would cover the tetanus shot and the x-ray and result in me actually getting a refund from the $216 that I initially paid (why didn’t they just say that when I walked in though — “the whole damned system is guilty as hell”). I took the deal and contemplated my options. Though the pass would get me $36 back, it still wouldn’t cover getting the x-ray read. I still wouldn’t know whether my pinkie was broken or not, or know how to take care of it. I still might have to spend a significant portion of my shoestring budget to get the care that I needed. I still might have to shorten my trip to absorb the cost of care.

It’s worth noting here that I do have a family support system that I can tap in emergency situations and I did. My moms agreed to help me if needed. It’s also worth noting that though they could provide the help that I needed, it would cost them as well and have ripple effects in all of our lives. It would not be without noticeable consequence.

While I weighed my options it occurred to me to ask the doctor, who I still had yet to see (I was being seen by a nurse in preparation for the doctor’s appearance), a few key questions:

“What critical information would the X-ray tell me?” I asked.

“Whether your pinky is broken or not,” he said.

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what is the difference in care between a broken pinky and a not broken pinky?”

“If it’s broken, you’ll need to put on Neosporin with a bandaid and wear a splint for 4–6 weeks. If it’s not, you’ll wear a splint for less time or not at all. In either case, I’ll refer you to a hand specialist to see whether or not you are going to lose the nail.”

“How much will the splint cost?”

“Nothing.”

In other words, I would have to get an x-ray that would cost unknown hundreds and possibly a thousand dollars because it was a weekend, to tell me whether or not I would have to wear a free splint on my pinky.

“Well, I’ll just wear a splint for 6 weeks, no x-ray needed. It’s Sunday though, and I’m leaving the country on Monday for a year, so I may not be able to see a specialist.”

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Spain,” I answered.

“Great, I’m French. I know that their healthcare system is good. You will be able to see a doctor and it’ll be much cheaper than it would be here. Also, your travel insurance should cover it.”

YALL! Yes, it was a relatively happy ending: I got the care that I needed. I spent less than $200 to get it. It took me less than two hours to get in and out. The staff was eventually very helpful. BUT WHY?!?!?!? Why did I have to ask so many questions? Why were there so many potential cost barriers? What if I hadn’t been able to think creatively about how to get what I needed with what I already had? Why is it that it will be cheaper, more accessible, and possibly better to get treated in a country I don’t even have a relationship with and don’t speak the language of?

Why? Why? WHY? This is why I need to get away for a little bit. **Insert shameless plug for expanding access to healthcare and commendation of organizers doing this work everyday here**

I wore the splint for about a week and a half. I still haven’t gone to the doctor but have plans to see one next week. The nail is growing back. The pinky has full range of motion and isn’t painful to move or use, though it was painful to type until this week (didn’t realize how hard of a key striker I am!). I am out here, broken pinky and all, living my best life!

Follow my blog posts here to see what happens next! I’ll be putting up a long form blog post or two every week.

Follow me on Instagram (@oinsideout) for more regular updates about and snapshots of my day to day life.

Help me fund my travel here https://www.youcaring.com/omolarawilliams-910251 . I’ve got $1644 more to go!

#ogoesglobal #osbigadventure #blackwomenbackpack #queercaravan

Grad schools completely rejecting me and my life’s work

Or

Living beyond the (made up) borders that encircles all of my family and friends and that encompass the safety and security of my known world.

This year I am conquering both fears! In one of the most amazing feats of pre-planning, preparation and non-procrastination of my whole entire life I have managed to complete the applications for 3 Community Based Art/ Social Practice MFA programs. The application don’t even officially open until November! It’s August and I have already assembled my recommendations, documented & described 20+ of the studio and community base art projects that I have completed in the last 2 years, and written several versions of a bomb ass personal statement. I am so proud of my own self just for taking that step. I’ve been playing with the idea of applying to these programs for three years and I am finally doing it!

Your contributions to my journey will help to cover $240 in grad school application fees.

Contribute here: https://www.youcaring.com/omolarawilliams-910251

Share this post with your networks! Share it on Facebook, post on IG, tweet it out, write an email!

Follow me in my travels on Instagram (oinsideout) or medium (https://medium.com/@RidingintheMargins)

Footnotes & Accountability

I am applying for the MICA Community Arts program https://www.mica.edu/Programs_of_Study/Graduate_Programs/Community_Arts_(MFA).html; California College of the Arts Social Practice and Public Forms https://www.cca.edu/academics/graduate/social-practice; VCU fiber Arts http://arts.vcu.edu/craft/areas/fiber/

Special thanks to Reese Bland & Chris Myers for photographing my portfolio for me

The images included here are of a piece called Fishers of Men (2011). It is a performative meditation on the ways that the hyper sexualization of black women is weaponized against us to limit our agency and by us in service of our own liberation. The garment that is the centerpiece of the performance is constructed from cottons strips of muslin hand braided into rope that was then hand knotted into a body binding fishnet. More on this piece later : )

For the first three months of my year long BIG adventure I’ll be in Spain working with horses. I grew up riding horses in a community of black cow folk — cow boys, cow girls, cow people — that lived just outside of Atlanta in College Park, GA. ( Yup the same College Park of T.I. , Ludacris, and Young Joc). I competed — and won! — in junior barrel racing competitions at local and national rodeos. For several summers my mom, two brothers and I followed the Bill Picket Rodeo from city to city in a little red firebird. My mother and I both competed using the same mare, a chestnut colored Arabian thoroughbred named Strawberry who traveled separately from us in a trailer with one of the other horses from the ranch. These trips were some of my first and fondest memories of interstate travel. Those rodeos were one of the most welcoming and supportive black communities that I’ve ever been apart of. I have not had the chance to ride since then. It’s too expensive. This September will be my first time back in the saddles in about 15 years.

I’ve saved 2/3 the cost of my trip and need your help to raise the final third! Your contributions will help cover the $1000 cost of international travelers’ insurance that includes horseback riding + related injuries + any other medical emergencies that pop up for the whole 12 months of my round the world trip.

Contribute here: https://www.youcaring.com/omolarawilliams-910251

Share this post with your networks! Share it on Facebook, post on IG, tweet it out, write an email!

Follow me in my travels on Instagram (oinsideout) or medium (https://medium.com/@RidingintheMargins)

— —

Footnotes

Barrel Racing

Barrel racing is a rodeo event in which a horse and rider attempt to complete a cloverleaf pattern around preset barrels in the fastest time. Though both boys and girls compete at the youth level and men compete in some amateur venues and jackpots, in collegiate and professional ranks, it is primarily a rodeo event for women. It combines the horse’s athletic ability and the horsemanship skills of a rider in order to safely and successfully maneuver a horse in a pattern around three barrels (typically three fifty-five gallon metal or plastic drums) placed in a triangle in the center of an arena without touching or knocking down the barrels. (wikipedia)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNrB00F51qg

Black Cowboys

Bill Picket

Bill Picket is a legendary black cowboy known for his skill in steer wrestling. Learn more about Bill Pickett here: https://www.blackcowboys.com/billpickett.htm

Bill Picket Rodeo

The Bill Pickett is the only touring black rodeo competition. The Bill Pickett tours the country bringing some of the best black cowboys, cowgirls and cow folk to areas spanning from the DMV area down to Atlanta all the way over to LA, Oakland and many points in between. Folks can sign up to compete in events including: steer roping, barrel racing, pole bending, bareback riding, bull riding and more!

College Park, GA, look it up

What I’m Doing : in Spain!

For the first three months of my year long BIG adventure I’ll be in Spain working with horses at the Caballo Blanco Horse Riding Center. In exchange for doing some of the chores associated with maintaining 27 horses I will get food + housing + riding lessons + trail time.

I’ve saved 2/3 the cost of my trip and need your help to raise the final third! Your contributions will help cover the $1000 cost of international travelers’ insurance that includes horseback riding + related injuries + any other medical emergencies that pop up for the whole 12 months of my round the world trip.

Contribute here: https://www.youcaring.com/omolarawilliams-910251

Share this post with your networks! Share it on Facebook, post on IG, tweet it out, write an email!

Follow me in my travels on Instagram (oinsideout)

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Footnotes

Labor Trading

This is a common barter practice — you’ve probably even done it before! — where you work and instead of being paid in money you are compensated in something else. The compensation can be anything that you want and are willing to work for: housing, food, clothes, a new i-phone, a vacation, etc. Many folks’ first labor trade experiences are with their parents or someone in their family or someone in their kinship network. This practice of labor trading has almost always been a part of human community and doesn’t necessarily require that folks know each other, just that they each have something the other wants to trade for. Today labor trading is facilitated by many online sites. There are whole online communities dedicated to labor trading. Some of these communities are specific to skills or needs like organic farming( worldwide opportunities on organic farms) or childcare ( there are sooo many au pair sites) or language teaching. For this trip Workaway will be my primary online labor trade community. I’ve provided a few links to sites below.

Labor Trading Sites

WWOOF : http://wwoof.net/

WORKAWAY : https://www.workaway.info/workaway-account-en.html

AU PAIR : http://www.goaupair.com/

I’ve saved 2/3 of the cost of the trip! Your contributions will help to cover the last third. This includes the $1000 cost of international traveler’s insurance which will pay for any air travel mishaps ( flight cancellations, missed flights or connections, lost baggage, trips home for emergencies, etc) and medical mishaps ( let’s not make a list cause who wants to conjure that!) for the whole 12 months of my journey.

Contribute here: https://www.youcaring.com/omolarawilliams-910251

Share this post with your networks! Share it on Facebook, post on IG, tweet it out, write an email!

Follow me in my travels on Instagram (oinsideout)

or here on my medium page!

The visual narrative of this movement continues to upset me. Again & again media sources who write sympathetic, impartial or objective articles about the protests & uprisings, and those who are leading them, pair their articles with images that continue a long tradition of representational violence against black and brown bodies. Particularly bodies that are also woman. Representational violence involves portraying or choosing not to portray an image of a person or group of people in a way that limits our ability to feel empathy for or recognize the humanity of that person or group of people. Our inability to empathize and humanize shapes our interactions and assumptions about that person or group of people in a way that negatively impacts their quality of life.

Below ( Image 1 & Image 2) are two examples of that. Yesterday Erika Totten (@2liveunchained) of ‪#‎ThinkMOOR‬, a lead activist and organizer in the DC movement, and Johnetta Elzie (@nettaaaaaaaa), a lead activist on the ground in ‪#‎ferguson‬ attended the March Against Police Brutality. Despite being major forces in the grassroots movement that has allowed us to arrive at the place of national discourse where we now stand, neither of these women—nor anyone of the other more than 400 Ferguson protesters or hundreds of DC protesters who have been actively participating in direct action and organizing—were invited to speak or were even officially addressed or recognized by the people who put this march together.

As people who are and have been for the last 128 days committed to speaking truth to power, the significance of their exclusion from this major action was not lost on them or any number of other people who have been actively engaged in direct protest. These two articles decry the injustice of that act of exclusion and attempt to recenter and legitimate these voices, while choosing photos that do the exact opposite.

The Root article was paired with an image of Erika wresting the mic from a man’s hands, mouth open, face turned away from the man who holds the mic. Netta stands next to her watching as she does it. When I see this image, I see a woman fighting with a man to allow herself to be heard. Looking at this image through the lens of the white-supremacists-capitalist-patriarchal society that has taught me how to see, I see a woman disruptive, demanding, disrespectful, overly emotional and out of line. What I do not see is what I know exists: a woman who is unafraid to demand respect in places where people would otherwise view it as acceptable to disrespect her; a woman who is unafraid to disrupt the status quo and in fact who is committed to doing so until the status quo involves an understanding that values her humanity and the humanity of all black people; a woman who is unafraid to feel the things that she feels OUT LOUD, further to say that those feelings are valid, should be acknowledged, and that being able to feel those things are part of her strength. Where is the picture of this woman standing, unafraid addressing thousands of people—the world even—and telling our stories, the stories that have moved her to action everyday & every night in pursuit of justice? We as a society need to consume that image and other similar images. These images need to be part of our visual narrative and unconscious associations with those who are leading and participating in this movement. Excluding such images is an act of representational violence that continues in the tradition of excluding black people from leading roles in movies, images, books and other media. ( I’m not even going on on the headline: “ fierce,” “bumrushed”—let’s just say angry black women and be done with it. I CAN’T.)*

I will not go into such detail deconstructing the visual narrative that accompanies the Sharpton article (mostly because this is a Facebook status-albeit a looong one).** This is a fantastic article that intelligently critiques the March and its impact in the context of other such marches and their impact. Seeing their leading image and looking again through the lens of the white-supremacists-capitalist-patriarchal society that has taught me how to see, I see Al Sharpton in sharp focus behind one of the mothers who has lost her child. I do not know her name, because it is not mentioned in the caption or the article. That’s the first act of representational violence. The second blaring act of representational violence within this visual narrative is that even though the text is centered around the importance of remembering that this is a movement by, for and about everyday people, there are no pictures of any of those everyday people in the article. They are visually absent and we as readers of this article and consumers of these images will remember the face of Al Sharpton as we think about it and the narrative of this movement.

…I promise I’m going to get a blog to store these responses…***

In the meantime, don’t look at the pictures, but read these articles—They’re great!

‪#‎blacklivesmatter‬
‪#‎staywoke‬
#ferguson
‪#‎dcferguson‬

Image 1

​http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/12/the_fierce_urgency_of_now_why_young_protesters_bum_rushed_the_mic.html

Image 2

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/13/march-on-washington-ferguson-movement-al-sharpton

*This article was originally posted on my Facebook ( Omolara DiMolinah Williams) where you can find many of my responses to Ferguson from while I was there, as well as my responses to protesting in Washington DC and in Miami, Fl.

**It was brought to my attention that this title is a reference to a Public Enemy Song!Check it out—it’s completely relevant! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-Z0aXB_qgA

***I got a blog!