Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Special Treat – Maura Badji

August 24, 2006

We are pleased to announce yet another new writer for Storytime Tapestry; Maura Badji becomes writer #351.  I hope you enjoy her delightful fantasy and be shore to welcome her to our home.

And another wonderful surprise, today is Maura’s birthday please send her a card: maura_badji@yahoo.com

Charmed Life: A Secret History

Maura Badji

 My God Mother sold me to the gypsies when I was ten, drove me from her too-quiet house with its pale-lit rooms.  But not before she bought me what she assumed I needed for my new life--melon-colored hot pants, matching midriff blouse, peppermint life-savers, cherry lip gloss, two crochet hooks and this notebook. 

The gypsy woman wanted me since the day she spied my four-year-old ringlets; when she turned her brown eyes on me I didn't cry because I saw myself reflected so clearly.  She admired the dark blue circles beneath my black eyes, said they'd bring me good luck.  Once I was Talia's, we wandered the city reading tea leaves and Tarot, sculpting stars of tin and glass; traveling by stars, we taught children to whistle and dogs to stray.  Most nights, beside our evening fire we drank pear wine, ate dark honey on moon bread. 

When God Mother found me, claimed in her high-pitched whine it was all a mistake, my hair had already grown past my knees.  Each night Talia, my gypsy mother, braided my hair into thick ropes the color of spiced tea; one rope she tied to the bedpost to keep marauding dreams away, one rope she tucked under my chin, to keep good dreams in.  When the God Mother found me, alone near the river one day, I no longer spoke English; I wouldn't reply when she shouted: You belong to me.  Her hired men pulled me to her too-quiet house and her pale-lit rooms.  She cut my braids to my chin, laid the dead weight of the ropes on my lap as a keepsake.  Come morning, I'll be gone.  Gone with this notebook and my stars of sharp tin and glass. 

Gone with the heavy ghosts of my braids and the rusted crochet hooks I'll use to weave a shawl for Talia, a soft shawl the color of spiced tea.  The shawl I'll give Talia when I find her, by the light of our star maps, when Talia finds me.     

~Maura Alia Badji

maura_badji@yahoo.com

Bio note:

Maura Alia Badji is a poet, writer, Early Childhood Special Education teacher, and mother of Ibrahim.  Her poems have appeared in Switched-on-Gutenberg, exhibition, Synapse, Gather.com, The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and many other publications.  Her chapbook, Resculpting :poems (Paperboat Press), was published in 1995 and is for sale on Amazon.com.  She is currently at work on a full length collection. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of WA in Seattle (1998) and her M.Ed in Special Education at SUNY New Paltz (2003), where she also earned her BA (1988).