About Me — Karen Traub
I Dance in Libraries with a Snake
I am happy, a dancer, and a mom. I perform in schools, libraries and at cultural events as Hadama Seshat.
American Cabaret style belly dancers choose a stage name that reflects their aesthetic or higher calling. When I joined The Crescent Dancers in 2002, I needed a name. My screen name “Happydancermom” could be contracted to “Hadama.” I loved the idea that my mom would be there in the “ama,” which is what my son had called her when he couldn’t say “grandma.” The choice was confirmed at a friend’s Passover Seder when I heard in the prayer “Ha’Adamah,” meaning “the fruit of the earth.”
Seshat is the ancient Egyptian Goddess of wisdom, knowledge and scribal writings. I learned this from reading Layne Redmond’s “When the Drummers Were Women; A Spiritual History of Rhythm.” Her description of Seshat as being “foremost in the house of books” resonated with me.
I am crazy for libraries. I have a tattoo of the library goddess on my right calf. I belong to the Facebook group Tattooed Librarians. I have enjoyed the privilege and responsibility of library patronage ever since my mom walked me up the smooth marble steps of the Framingham Public Library and I checked out “Make Way for Ducklings” with my brand new library card. I can still hear the kerchunk of the checkout machine, remember the neat way the card slipped into the manilla holder on the inside back cover and the feeling of standing on tippy toes to watch the librarian work her magic.
For me the library is a temple. I share UNESCO’s “belief in the public library as a living force for education, culture and information…an essential agent for the fostering of peace and spiritual welfare through the minds of men and women.”
And that is why I dance in libraries with a snake.
The appreciation of other cultures, history, world affairs, imagination, sequins and glitter are all components of my job and mission. Sometimes I dance the story of the women who convinced their captors to let them dance with their swords, and then when the men were sated and slept, used their own swords to slit the mens’ throats and escape. Sometimes I dance with Chloe, my four-and-a-half- foot royal python whose stage name is Nisaba after the Sumerian goddess of writing.
I’ve always loved to read, but I never thought I’d be a writer. I was relieved when I finished school-I’d never have to compose another essay or thesis! Writing requires reconciling the creative flow with the structure of the craft to get the story out. Putting thoughts and ideas into words and sentences is a challenge I thought was best left to others.
And yet, years ago in a guided meditation, the image of a jeweled box full of old stories rose up from deep within me. There was no lock in the hasp but the hinges were rusted shut. There was a sense of urgency that the stories be released before they disappeared. It seemed impossible that I would ever be the one to tell, rather than listen to the stories, but I knew that telling the stories was what I needed to do.
I am finding my voice as a writer, a happy dancer mom and a bellydancing bibliophile. My greatest wish is to contribute to the world of stories that has given me so much. Little by little the lid of the jeweled box of stories is beginning to open.
Karen’s goals for 2021 include completing the Newport MFA and dressing like a Star Trek alien from a utopian planet. Her Creative Nonfiction and poetry have appeared in Brevity, NPR’s The New Normal, Straw Dog Writer’s Guild Pandemic Poetry and Prose, Multiplicity and Voices of the Valley Anthology.
