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Revelation For Your Motivation

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Last ones. No filter needed. #soniasanchez (at Chicago, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4LVe1Bn_5y/?igshid=14fatdgzcbh2z

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Black owned natural hair shop here in Chicago. Going to check them out. (at Chicago, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4JdDEcHR8K/?igshid=g8hih4vyv92y

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We were all trying to keep a straight face. What an amazing opportunity to meet the great Sonia Sanchez!!!! #dentheatre (at Chicago, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4JJCpeH9vg/?igshid=araq2118sodk

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Speaking to our now ancestor Toni Morrison. #theintroduction #soniasanchez (at Chicago, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4JE8ynn4EY/?igshid=1uyji8gwp6k4q

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Speaking on Toni Morrison (at Chicago, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4JEpqrnOKZ/?igshid=f9qcb4oxmyd4

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You don’t fail people. You just tell them - when you’re ready to learn, come back. - Sonia Sanchez (at Chicago, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4JCFYeHoQR/?igshid=127qsudo1ywld

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Sonia Sanchez ladies and gentlemen (at The Den Theatre) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4JBPydnu1H/?igshid=1l8h6v1d8b2x0

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When I got to work they had teepeed my office for my birthday. I wished I could’ve sat there all day but I had to leave because I was still sick 😷 #itsmybirthday🎉 (at Rogers Park, Chicago) https://www.instagram.com/p/B3-erD6n11I/?igshid=y8i0tfi57p5o

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My birthday gift my my daughter and Leo (my dog) #itsmyberfday (at Hyde Park, Chicago) https://www.instagram.com/p/B3-eilSnJGK/?igshid=kkjs9pk0atek

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Amen and amen 🙏🏾 (at Hyde Park, Chicago) https://www.instagram.com/p/B38f_rFHKOX/?igshid=vqyqzxqtnjl2

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Just started this. Already can’t put it down. Just finished one of her other books, Deadly Monopolies. #blackwomenread (at Hyde Park, Chicago) https://www.instagram.com/p/B38eEX0HmHg/?igshid=a5dyne61vugt

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This little guy was trying to hurry up and fake a smile so he could get out that door to the arcade. #TJturns2 (at Safari Land) https://www.instagram.com/p/B34i9WcnbbR/?igshid=t0q2f1qnd2xq

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Moonlight is on Netflix!

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Yaaay!!

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Fuck. Yes!

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@dazedbeauty on Instagram

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Why You Mad, Sis?

Man one thing I can’t stand is a sister hating on another sister. As if Black women don’t have enough challenges, we have to turn on each other like a battle scene in Transformers. Like, come on now. Let’s get it together. I have always been the type of chick to gravitate to a sister who....shall I say...got the keys. But many women I meet have it backwards. ASS backwards. They take the woman who seemingly is doing better, has better or brings better to the table and TURN on her and then go and make friends with the mediocre bunch in the room. I never got that. If anything, a sister should want to warm up to someone who would be more likely to help her progress. But, NO, we have to gravitate to the hate, pick snare over share. I recently encountered this at work. 

I just started this job and I went in it because I love the field and needed something more predictable than my independent consulting could do for me while I finished my terminal degree. So I go in literally just wanting to do my damn job. And as always, I rocked the shit, if I do say so myself. Humbly. Now there was this chick there who was getting all the attention as the superstar on the team. And she could have the shine. I am simply trying to go to work, finish off my educational path I set for myself and jump my black ass back on my consulting train. The limelight is all yours, sis. Have at it. 

BUT I notice that sis throws mad shade in meetings and then blurts out stuff that can rarely be taken any other way than offensive. The last time she did it I was the bigger person and just addressed her like, sis, you may not mean such and such a certain way, but you are offensive, dismissive and seem a lil bitter. I even told her I valued her and her work. I tried to make peace and tell her I looked forward to working with her. But there were a few things I had to understand and radically accept:

1. This chick is bitter and insecure. Point blank period. That’s an inside job and all the affirmation I give ain’t gone have shit on the work she needs to do with her self. That shit is deep rooted, ain’t my fault and I just need to make a cope ahead plan around working with her. 

2. When she acts a fool she LOOKS a fool. The last meeting I was in with this chick, she rolled her eyes and made audible huffing sounds whenever I spoke. I started to address her but realized there were other people in the room and she made HERSELF look like an idiot. No assistance required. 

3. A thief never tries to rob an empty house. If sis is throwing all this unprovoked shade, she obviously sees something to be worried about. I can just keep doing me and leave her to her insecurities. 

4. I extended an olive branch and if she wants to take that branch and plant it in a pile of shit then that is her prerogative to do so. I did my part.

5. Unprovoked shade and sneak dissing just translates into --> B****, you’re a fan. Just admit it, embrace me and move on.  

Let me encourage you to NOT spend your nights worrying about why someone acts an ass and a fool towards you. Sometimes it ain’t you. It’s them. I know it sounds like a bad break up cliché, but it’s applicable. Some people have issues deep rooted and not connected to shit you did or your person at all. You are just a tool that reminds them of how mediocre they think they are. Some of those people are actually pretty fabulous folks oblivious to their own greatness. So they take it out on you. Don’t meet them where they are, beat them where they are. The best revenge is continued progress. Don’t let a fool drag you off your square. A man (or sis) can’t pull you down without first already being positioned underneath you. Step over the puddle and keep on down that yellow brick road. 

Peace.

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My Relationship with Death

My grandmother was born February 10th, 1925. And her story will close its final chapter very soon. Earlier last year, my grandmother woke up and went on her porch and said that she was going to look for her husband, my grandfather. He has been dead for over 40 years. I knew then that my grandmother would not be around long after that. My premonition was not due to any concern about her cognitive state or health concerns, but my understanding that sometimes the universe taps us on the shoulder to let us know that, simply, it’s time. That implication can be related to death, the beginning of something or just a simple reminder to move forward.

I have views and responses to death very different from those around me. I have been around death and the grieving for quite some time. At 20, I interned for a victim witness unit and worked with family members of murder victims. I marched with families and to death sites when individuals were slaughtered in Chicago streets. I fought for justice for men whose lives were cut short by hyper-vigilant cops. I cut into the dead for education. I visit with and sit at family gravesites without hesitation. 

I have a strong conviction that death is more of a transference rather than a hard cessation of existence. The bodies may cease to function but the person transitions on. There are many religious theories around where they transition to, but I believe that death is a process of moving on. My family has been torn and pained by my grandmother’s transitioning phase, understandably so, but I cannot bring myself to feel that level of grief and loss. There is even a rejoicing inside of me as if I would like to dance around her to guide her joyfully into her next state of actuality. To guide her into a realm where she will be reunited with the young daughters she lost and cared for in their sickness. Be with the man she loved and cherished and held in her arms as he took his last breath. I also believe there are spirit guides who assist those that we love and lose and I trust them to guide my grandmother as she enters the next phase of her existence. 

My grandmother gracefully squeezed 94 years out of this life. She moved through, cared for her children, survived her husband 40 years after his death and outlived five of her children. She cared for grandchildren and great-grandchildren in her home while parents worked, ran the streets or just figured themselves out. She did not deal with long-term illness or have to suffer through frequent doctor visits. She cared for herself and her home almost until the very end. What a life to have LIVED! She did not just exist in the world, she lived in and impacted it. So for me, there is no cause for sadness or loss. There will be a change, no doubt. But there is a lot to carry gratitude for. My grandmother leaves me with a guidebook of life and the type of woman to be and the way to love others - unconditionally. Of course, I will miss her physical body, but I will never lose her presence. 

Peace

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The Point of It All

I am sitting in a bedroom in New York City. My flight back to Chicago leaves in a little under five hours. I decided to come here and spend Christmas away from home for the first time ever. The photo above is one I snapped while trailing through rain in Midtown on my way to the MoMA. The last time in my life I can remember not being in Chicago Christmas Day was when my father brought us here and we stayed at my aunt’s house in Far Rockaway. I was 11 years old then. 

2018 has been quite the mother fucker. I have been through some things that I don’t feel quite comfortable disclosing fully yet to people I may not know or those I do know but just don’t want to tell. But I will tell you this - I learned a lot about myself and people I thought I knew. I was surprised by some and then suspicious undertones were confirmed with others. 

I had a friend who I thought cared about me and really wanted to help me out, but had selfish reasons and twisted motives. 

I had a girlfriend of nearly 12 years talk down to me and become one of the most insensitive people I could have turned to in my time of need. 

I found out that my family LITERALLY does not care if I am alive or dead. Ask me how I found out. 

My father scammed me out of hundreds of dollars by pretending to sell me a car out of concern only to report it stolen, leaving me carless, damn near arrested and him in the wind with both my car AND my money. 

A friend of 20 years who I had stood by during the illness and death of her mother disappeared and forgot my number when I was myself on the brink of death’s door and going through hell. 

I trusted a family member to support me in a long term goal I felt THIS close to only to make an unjustified split second decision that not only turned my world upside down but threw me behind tremendously. 

But in all of this I also learned some things about myself that will forever stick with me. There were some characteristics that I had that needed to be strengthened and some that needed to be eliminated altogether. For one, I found out that I didn’t like a part of or none of myself and the company I kept and the troublemakers I kept running to, blood and no blood, were a reflection of that. We are what we eat - physically, mentally and spiritually. I didn’t think I deserved unconditional love and friendship so my relationships reflected that. When I was going through, I turned to ones who were the least capable of being effective support systems and that ended up only making things worse. Those who really cared, I turned away from out of shame. I had to keep up this perfect image to them  even if I had to suffer to do so. Once I noticed this pattern, I began to change it little by little. 

I called up a couple of girlfriends who I spoke to regularly and disclosed to them some things I had been hiding. They were shocked but supportive. They gave me whatever I needed and was within their capacity. They sent PayPals and hard words of encouragement. They made me feel like I could do it and encouraged me to push forward. One of my girlfriends disclosed a a secret trial she herself had endured that I had no idea about. She gave me her testimony and pushed me to ‘show up’ through it all. She reminded me over and over that my situation is not my identity. On the up side, there were some memorable moments. I got to travel solo to Costa Rica and experience the beautiful city of San Jose, the country’s capital and its lovely culture. I got a new job that I enjoy. I was able to finish prerequisites for a doctoral program and do it with a bang! I got to spend Christmas Day wondering Times Square and Rockefeller Center with my daughter and catching a film adapted from a James Baldwin novel (If Beale Street Could Talk is HIGHLY recommended). My daughter traveled to, and studied in, another continent for an entire month. 

I am also beginning to rethink and explore things I had begun but stepped away from while I was overwhelmed with the storms of life. I am going to revamp my business. I am finishing my goal of becoming a nurse practitioner and advocating for the quality of life and care of individuals living with mental illness. I am planning my goal to complete my 10 country tour before by 40th birthday, which means I have to visit 7 countries in 3 years. I am getting back to planning out my dream of having a vacation home and indulging my guilty pleasure of hosting and showing hospitality and a piece of home to others. I am preparing for life to go on. Because go on it does. One monkey don’t stop no show. In my case, there was a whole cage full, but I somehow made it through and am continuing to live life, the full pie, one slice at a time. 

Peace