Happy Birthday, Mother

When I was younger, I was convinced, in a childish, egocentric way, I knew better than my Mother. I viewed her life and choices from a judgemental, critical perspective. I failed to understand that the reason I thought independently and voiced with audacity is because I stood on her teachings, planted by her sacrifices and watered by her experiences.

My mother carried and birthed me at 16 years of age. A little over a month later, on December 31st 1990, she turned 17. She was a baby herself, but nevertheless, she parented. 

Years later, when I was 17 and she was 33, I thought "How dare she? How dare she fall a part? She has responsibilities. She's a mother. She's a grown woman. She should handle life better. Her coping skills should be better."

Today, as I stand around the corner from 30, I think "How did she? It's just me. I'm college-educated. I earn more than my mother earned, but she made it work WITH three children. How did she? How did she do it? How did she stand so strong for so long? How did she recover? How does she still have faith? How did she still love and trust? How did she forgive? How does she have any semblance of sanity and peace?" 

Now, I think "If she did, and I know she did, then I can. I know I will."My Mother did not teach me perfection. I saw her fail and struggle, but I witness her grow and defy. My Mother models resilience in womanhood and motherhood and life. 

I wish her the happiest of birthdays. May every day of this new year, age 46 and year 2020, bring you ever more closer to joy, peace, and prosperity. I love you, Sister. I love you, SisterWoman. I love you, Mama.

"My mother's gifts of courage to me were both large and small. The latter are woven so subtly into the fabric of my psyche that I can hardly distinguish where she stops and I begin."

- Mom & Me & Mom | Maya Angelou

"She said, "All right, you go, but remember this: when you cross my doorstep, you have already been raised. With what you have learned from your Grandmother Henderson in Arkansas and what you have learned from me, you know the difference between right and wrong. Do right. Don't let anybody raise you from the way you have been raised. Know you will always have to make adaptations, in love relationships, in friends, in society, in work, but don't let anybody change your mind."

- Mom & Me & Mom | Maya Angelou

"She liberated me from a society that would have had me think of myself as the lower of the low. She liberated me to life."

- Mom & Me & Mom | Maya Angelou

"I really saw clearly, and for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and cuddles and even mollycoddles a child, but because in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known."

- Mom & Me & Mom | Maya Angelou

I belong to You.

You're more real than the ground I'm standing on
You're more real than the wind in my lungs
You're thoughts define me

You're inside me
You're my reality

Abba, I belong to You
Abba, I belong to You

[You're closer than the skin on my bones
You're closer than the song on my tongue
You're thoughts define me

You're inside me
You're my reality

Abba, I belong to You
Abba, I belong to You

Dream Big Big One

Sometimes, in order to protect myself and my heart, I stifle the desire for a thing or person. I deny it outright with such vigor that I am convinced I never desired that thing or person at all. Denial can be temporarily effective, but it is not a long-term solution.

Recently, I accepted that I desired something more than I thought possible. The realization scared me 💩less. It still scares me, but here I am "feeling the fear" and not denying myself the beauty of that vision. I feel the hope in spite of the possibility that everything may not go according to plan, and this will not be an easy journey.

I feel ill-prepared and overwhelmed, but my heart is open in a way that is wonderfully brave and vulnerable. I feel undereducated and uncomfortable, but I know a force of excitement that is barely containable. I feel panic that can only be described as "Expletive! Expletive! EXPLETIVE!," and I have peace and joy that can only be described as Philippians 4:7.

I recently talked to my 6 year old stepsister who advised me that she wanted to be a Scientist, Veterinarian, and "Solver" (investigator or detective) among other things. She asked me, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" She gave me permission to dream big because in her hopeful, extraordinary, bright mind, no vision is beyond realization. (Thank you, Daniyah!)

Maybe, and I have a good feeling about this, becoming like little children is not only the path to humility and Heaven. Becoming like children it is the path imagination and a purposeful, visionary life. Opening oneself to one's vision, dreams, and desires is opening oneself to hope and imagination.

My heart's desires are not outlandish or impossible or beyond my capabilities, capacity, or grasp. Neither are your heart's desires. I purchased a children's book for myself, Dream Big Little One by Vashti Harrison, and I'm so excited to read it. (It will be delivered tomorrow. 😁😁😁) With a sense of urgency, I implore you and me:

Dream Big Big One 🖤

What do you want?

"I want a guy to show me myself. I want him to love me so deeply, I’m not afraid to show him how ugly I can be. I want him to show me scars I never knew I had. But I don’t want him to make them go away. I want him to hold my hand while I nurse them myself. And I want him to cherish the bruises they leave behind." - Queen & Slim

Happy Day

My day has ended, and I am about to go home and sleep. My coworker, who also clocked out at 6 am, is starting her week's end. As I sit, waiting for the cafe to open at 6:30, I realize that the lady behind the counter is likely starting her day. 

This is all perfectly normal. No one is alarmed. No one is passing judgment or offering critiques. We accept the variability of roles and schedules.

If we can all be in different stages of our day, why isn't it acceptable to be in different stages of our lives? Why does progress have to have a relational component? Why do we need everyone around us to be so damn similar to us? 

The Coworker, Lady Behind The Counter, and I are different individuals working for the same company. You and I are different individuals navigating the same planet. We are both having human ecperiences, but we are not experiencing life in exactly the same way on the exact same time-tables. 

That's okay. In fact, it is more than okay. It is perfectly normal.

Good morning 😁

Good night 😴

Happy Monday

Happy "Friday" 

or simply...

Happy Day ❤

Back To You

***Harry Potter Spoiler Alert***

In JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Ginny Weasley shares all of thoughts and fears with Tom Riddle via a diary. Unfortunately for Ginny (and the Wider Wizarding World), that diary belonged to Lord Voldemort, aka Tom Riddle, bka You Know Who. Riddle's diary contained a piece of his soul. 

As she, Ginny, shared herself, her soul, with Tom Riddle he used her self-disclosure and trust against her. Ginny's trust and confidence in the diary created a parasitic connection between her and Riddle. He began to feed off her soul. He weakened her, almost to the point of death, to strengthen himself. 

To our intense horror, we later learn that Riddle's diary, along with Marvolo's ring, Slytherin's locket, Ravenclaw's diadem, Hufflepuff's cup, Nagini, and Harry Potter himself all contain pieces Voldemort's soul. Before Voldemort can be killed for good the pieces of his soul, his Horcruxes, must be destroyed. 

As I was thinking of this whole soul splitting, draining, and attaching business, I thought I most related to Ginny. I inadvertently jeopardized myself [my soul] by trusting the wrong individuals. Ginny was the victim. Lucius Malfoy used her as a pawn then Voldemort preyed upon her.

I could even relate to Harry,the unknowing and unwilling host to part of Voldemort soul, on some level. Voldemort tried to destroy Harry, and when that was unsuccessful, he attached himself to Harry creating a strong and complex connection that could not be severed without drastic measures.

With reluctance that teeters on denial, I have to admit that I can relate to fucking Tom Riddle. I have unwisely split myself [my soul]. Although it was not via dark magic, it stemmed from darkness  nonetheless...

When we act in fear, self-loathing, and or self-hatred, we mutilate ourselves and thus our souls. "The soul is supposed to remain intact and whole. Splitting it is an act of violation; it is against nature." (Professor Slughorn) 

Unlike Harry, Ron, and Hermione, we do not have to go on the hunt for soul fragments, and we, those of us who have violated ourselves, do not have to engage in any further self-destruction. I think the only way to reintegrate one's self with one's fragments is to choose love, self-love, on a daily, sometimes minute by minute basis. 

Self-love means refusing to participate in anything or with anyone who diminishes you. It is rejection of thoughts that affirm the the worst of you. It is self-discipline and sometimes it is even self-indulgence. Sometimes self-love is using your powerful, beautiful voice, and other times it is standing in your powerful, beautiful silence. 

Whatever form it takes, self-love is always restorative and compassionate. It always seeks to strengthen the "incomparable power of a soul that is untarnished and whole." Self-love calls the fragments of self back home, back to you.

"You are protected, in short, by your ability to love!" said Dum-bledore loudly. "The only protection that can possibly work against the lure of power like Voldemort's!... he was in such a hurry to mutilate his own soul, he never paused to understand the incomparable power of a soul that is untarnished and whole." -Albus Dumbledore

Well-Read Black Girl 😁

Deliberate Illumination

"But not all dark places need light, I have to remember that." -Jeanette Winterson | Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

"I don’t even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it." -Jeanette Winterson

"As it is, I can’t settle, I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me. There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other’s names. Naming is a difficult and timeconsuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name. Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed. That is why they are unfit for romantic love. There are exceptions and I hope they are happy.

The unknownness of my needs frightens me. I do not know how huge they are, or how high they are, I only know that they are not being met...One thing I am certain of, I do not want to be betrayed, but that’s quite hard to say, casually, at the beginning of a relationship. It’s not a word people use very often, which confuses me, because there are different kinds of infidelity, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it. By betrayal, I mean promising to be on your side, then being on somebody else’s."

- Jeanette Winterson | Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

Happiness is not a potato.

"The curious are always in some danger. If you are curious you might never come home, like all the men who now live with mermaids at the bottom of the sea. 

Or the people who found Atlantis.

Curious people who are explorers must bring back more than a memory or a story, they must bring home potatoes or tobacco or, best of all, gold. 

But happiness is not a potato."

-Jeanette Winterson | Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

Stories

"...Of course that is not the whole story, but that is the way with stories; we make them what we will. It’s a way of explaining the universe while leaving the universe unexplained, it’s a way of keeping it all alive, not boxing it into time. Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just to remind us that everybody sees it differently. Some people say there are true things to be found, some people say all kinds of things can be proved. I don’t believe them. The only thing for certain is how complicated it all is, like string full of knots. It’s all there but hard to find the beginning and impossible to fathom the end."

-Jeanette Winterson | Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

Exodus

"Round and round he walked, and so learned a very valuable thing: that no emotion is the final one."

- Jeanette Winterson | Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

Finally Miss Jewsbury yelled so loud even I heard it. ‘This child’s not full of the Spirit,’ she screamed, ‘she’s deaf.’

"Once I went deaf for three months with my adenoids: no one noticed that either. 

I was lying in bed one night, thinking about the glory of the Lord, when it struck me that life had gone very quiet. I had been to church as usual, sung as loudly as ever, but it had seemed for some time that I was the only one making a noise. 

I had assumed myself to be in a state of rapture, not uncommon in our church, and later I discovered my mother had assumed the same. When May had asked why I wasn’t answering anybody, my mother had said, ‘It’s the Lord.’ 

‘What’s the Lord?’ May was confused. 

‘Working in mysterious ways,’ declared my mother, and walked ahead. 

So, unknown to me, word spread about our church that I was in a state of rapture, and no one should speak to me.

One Sunday the pastor told everyone how full of the spirit I was. He talked about me for twenty minutes, and I didn’t hear a word; just sat there reading my Bible and thinking what a long book it was. Of course this seeming modesty made them all the more convinced. 

I thought no one was talking to me and the others thought I wasn’t talking to them. But on the night I realised I couldn’t hear anything I went downstairs and wrote on a piece of paper, ‘Mother, the world is very quiet.’ 

My mother nodded and carried on with her book. She had got it in the post that morning from Pastor Spratt. It was a description of missionary life called Other Continents Know Him Too. I couldn’t attract her attention, so I took an orange and went back to bed. I had to find out for myself."

-Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...

"Write what you know is reasonable advice. Read what you don't know is better advice. Reading is an adventure; adventures are about the unknown...Literature is mix of unfamiliarity and recognition...As we travel deeper to into the strange world of the story, the feeling we get is of being understood...It's the story or the poem that is understanding us. Books read us back to ourselves...Read yourself as a fiction as well as a fact." 

-Jeanette Winterson | Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

When I was younger, I wrote to hold on to embers of sanity. Many, many times writing was the only coping tool I had through bouts of loss, depression, and uncertainties. It would, without fail, strengthen me. If I could express it, I would survive it, so I wrote myself stable.

In the last two years reading has become my primary source of solace. 

When I read, I feel connected---more alive, more human. Reading tethers us to hope. It expands our capacity for compassion and empathy. It challenges our assumptions and enhances individual and collective knowledge. And it redirects one's focus from self to others and somehow that helps to see one's self and experiences more fully and clearly. 

Reading, for me, is an offensive, sometimes preemptive, stance against isolation, catastrophizing, depression, resentment, disquiet, hopelessness, regret, and a range of unnecessary insults.* In short, reading is an act of war against the forces in life that accommodate mental, emotional, and intellectual destitution.

I read the Harry Potter series for the first time this year, and I just finished my third reread on Sunday. I am struggling to wait for my lovely friends to complete the Good Days section of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, so I can greedily inhale the rest of that wonderful read. I am starting Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit with great anticipation.

There is so much I don't know. I'll be reading for a lifetime. Thank goodness for that. 😁

Lose Shame To Love Me

She never liked to be challenged

Estranged with her power

She sank in cowardice

Lost in internal malice

She was sure to be a casualty

Of her inner war...

She preferred them unavailable,

Emotionally stunted, and unstable 

She wanted everything familiar

Then she would go into it fearless 

Confident she would hurt...

She punished herself 

Just for being her

She believed she got 

Exactly what she deserved

Now she knows that was bullshit

Now she speaks to herself in the silence

"I love you, Kechia." 

She said it aloud...

I'd always go into it wildly

I needed to lose guilt to find me
This regret was killing me softly
I needed to hate doubt to love me, yeah
To love, love, yeah
To love, love, yeah
To love, yeah

I needed to lose shame to love me

Odds of Being Alone

You're watching your world spin
You feel farther from it now
Nowhere to begin
And are you to figure it out?

Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Yeah?

Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
The odds of being alone...
The odds of being alone...

Learning goodbyes
It's never easy, love
The harder we tried
Can never be enough

Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Yeah?

Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
The odds of being alone...
The odds of being alone...

I need answers now
'Cause I am caught off guard
The quiet feels so loud
Tell me this is the hardest part
Tell me this is the hardest part

Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?
Wouldn't you like to know?

The odds of being alone...
The odds of being alone

-Trent Dabbs and Amy Stroup

The 7 Months Begins Again

Cameron, Buck, (😍)
Brandon One and Brandon Two,
Bryan, DC, and You-Know-Who (😔),
Kevin, Flanigan, Richard, and John...
Fuck me! (🤦🏿‍♀️)
To be frank, I'm omitting some (🤷🏿‍♀️)
I've ran out of fingers (😢)
I've started counting toes (💩)
"I love you" and "I love you too" (🤥)
The most redundant stories ever told
Maybe the next one will be The One (🎻)
A love to rival the fables (🙄)
Or it will be a farce (🤡)
Another tally added to the stable (🙅🏿‍♀️)
Or maybe, just maybe...
The pattern will be recognized
I'll follow Maxine's plan
There'll be self-evaluation and growth
And an idle profession won't be spoken again (🤞🏾)

"...to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity."
- William Arthur Ward

untitled

I don't know where this leads.
Will I still recognize me?
When my being's whole
And my truth is spoke
Who will I be?
Will I recognize me?

27:13

One foot in front of the other
Moments turned into days
Though many times she grew weary
She's walking anyway
One breath after another
Heartbeat to heartbeat
Fear threatened asphyxiation,
But she was determined to breathe
With awareness of all she's survived
Her heart echos the psalmist
Gratitude fills her being
She embraces hope and continues to journey

Love and Light

"Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it." -Elizabeth Gilbert / Eat, Pray, Love

The Warm-up

I found Grace and Frankie. Well, actually, they found me. Netflix was like "You should totally watch this show; you two are a 98% match." Fortunately for me, I trust Netflix's algorithms.

I love Grace and Frankie. I love that they're two women navigating life, friendship, family, love, AND careers. They are hilarious. They're unfiltered. They're bold. They're beautiful. And, they are older adult women. At the series start, Grace and Frankie are 70!

Perhaps for the first time, I've been picturing myself at 70, and it is really something. To think that I haven't even lived half of my life adds perspective. It took some pressure off the first 28 years.

I'll be 29 soon-ish.  Before I know it, I'll be 30 and saying good riddance to my twenties, the trial by fire, and I am determined to end this chapter on a triumphant note. I am hell-bent on making decisions 30 year old Kechia will be glad I made. I've been thinking of her a lot, and that is something I can celebrate even now.

I am a capable, fairly intelligent, resilient woman, and I am not in my prime. I'm warming up. 😁 Yep, two badass, fictional women portrayed by two vybrant,* real women inspired me.

*[sic] aka not a typo. Just watch the show. 😜

Befittingly...
Rupi Kaur / Timeless
the sun and her flowers
"they convinced me
i only had a few good years left
before i was replaced by a girl younger than me
as though men yield power with age
but women grow into irrelevance
they can keep their lies
for i have only gotten started
i feel as though i just left the womb
my twenties are the warm-up
for what i’m really about to do
wait till you see me in my thirties
now that will be a proper introduction
to the nasty, wild, woman in me.
how can i leave before the party’s started
rehearsals begin at forty
i ripen with age
i do not come with an expiration date
and now
for the main event
curtains up at fifty
let’s begin the show"

Braver. Wiser. Better.

A little over a month ago, on an especially challenging, lonely, and mentally grueling night, I lie in my bed sobbing. My sadness was the only thing palpable and within reach. It clung to me. I recalled a paraphrase of a scripture I've heard many times but never read.

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes with morning light."

I tried to immerse myself in the hope of morning's light, but I was engulfed in darkness. It pulled me back to the moment and the facts. And the facts of that particular moment in time is that my heart was broken, and I was scared, alone, angry, and incredibly sad. There was no light to look forward to; I would not make it to the morning. How could I? How could my mind and body survive this degree of emotional pain? No, it wouldn't. This time, I would break.  I accepted my fate.

I stopped struggling. I stopped searching my mental index for scriptures and platitudes. I stopped looking for poetry and lyrics to strengthen me. I stopped fighting, and the oddest thing happened. From somewhere deep within me I heard "I will emerge braver, wiser, better." I listened as my soul stabilized my self with powerful insistence and surety.

The tears did not cease, but they did slow. I was still sad, but I was comforted. I fell asleep repeating "I will emerge braver, wiser, better." Since that day, this has become my battle cry. It is my patronus*. It is the sound of hope that my most authentic self recognizes.

Emerging is a process. It is damn hard, often shitty, work, but it is affirming, rewarding, beautiful work. Keep going. Keep living. You will emerge...BRAVER. WISER. BETTER.

emerge
verb | \i-ˈmərj\
1: to become manifest : become known

2: to rise from or as if from an enveloping fluid : come 
out into view

3: to rise from an obscure or inferior position or condition

4: to come into being throughevolution

When I Get Home

"I can't be a singular expression of myself
there's too many parts,
too many spaces,
too many manifestations,
too many lines,
too many curves,
too many troubles,
too many journeys,
too many mountains,
too many rivers,
so many"
-Solange / Can I Hold the Mic

A Seat at the Table

"Fall in your ways, so you can crumble
Fall in your ways, so you can sleep at night
Fall in your ways, so you can wake up and rise
Walk in your ways, so you won't crumble
Walk in your ways, so you can sleep at night
Walk in your ways, so you will wake up and rise"
-Solange / Rise

A Seat at the Table

"I'm gonna look for my body, yeah
I'll be back real soon....
But you know that a king is only a man
With flesh and bones,
he bleeds just like you do
He said, 'Where does that leave you?'
And, 'Do you belong?'
I do.
I do...
I'm going to look for my glory, yeah
I'll be back real soon..."
- Solange / Weary

Mirror Conversations

I know you. Hello Old Friend!
I missed you. Where have you been?
It is a pleasure to see joy in your eyes.
And today you're actually wearing a real smile.
Ah!
You must be reacquainted with Hope
because I feel your soul.
She sparkles again.
How I've missed you,
my Dearest Old Friend!
I'm so glad we've reconnected.

"Nitro Chris Hemsworth"

Last night, for the first time in weeks, I slept without waking at 3 am. I dreamt happy, lovely dreams. I laughed, loudly and without care, during my morning shower. I dressed with the lightness of someone without depression. I felt present at work. I wandered the aisles of a craft store and happened on a sale. I spent the evening engrossed in a project that felt good.

I experienced a gloriously satisfying day.

I lie in bed listening to the rain with awareness that healing is within my reach. Whether tomorrow is a good day or bad one, I'll still possess that knowledge. I will still have this hope.

Rupi Kaur

i don’t know what living a balanced life feels like
when i am sad
i don’t cry i pour
when i am happy
i don’t smile i glow
when i am angry
i don’t yell i burn
the good thing about feeling in extremes is
when i love i give them wings
but perhaps that isn’t
such a good thing cause
they always tend to leave
and you should see me
when my heart is broken
i don’t grieve
i shatter

They Went Home by Maya Angelou

They went home and told their wives,
that never once in all their lives,
had they known a girl like me,
But... They went home. 

They said my house was licking clean,
no word I spoke was ever mean,
I had an air of mystery,
But... They went home.

My praises were on all men’s lips,
they liked my smile, my wit, my hips,
they’d spend one night, or two or three.
But...

Insomniac by Maya Angelou

There are some nights when 
sleep plays coy, 
aloof and disdainful. 
And all the wiles 
that I employ to win 
its service to my side 
are useless as wounded pride, 
and much more painful.

Black and White: Choice

My victim story is powerful, vivid, well-rehearsed. It is mutating, evolving, expanding and expanding. It overshadows me. I am traced in it, overwhelmed. I am trapped in it, overpowered. I am trampled by it, overlooked. I am lost in its arrogance and redundancy. I retch self-doubt and loathing because of it. I keel over, dripping anxiety, entrenched in fear, and losing my wits.

Am I the victim or victimizer?

I want there to be gray, but, in fleeting moments of clarity, the story is silenced and truth is free to speak. "You recoil from and embrace pain. Hurt is your native language. It is as familiar as your flesh. It is as comfortable to you as home. In your experience, you are equal parts protagonist and antagonist. You are quell and rampage."

I listen, rigid from my desire to detach from and cling to truth. I sit. The conclusion comes to me as if it were an outsider and not a part of me all along. I accept. "Whether I betray myself or save myself, I'll face pain anyway." It is not the experience of pain I should focus on; it is the outcome. Hurt to hurt, or hurt to heal. Hurt to remain bound, or hurt to become free. Hurt to hold on to victimhood, or hurt to grasp victory.

Welcome to Holland

"And for the rest of your life, you will say, 'Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.'

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away…because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But…if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to go to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things…about Holland."
-Emily Perl Kingsley

At Your Mercy

I'll devour your suggestions.
Tell me something.
Say anything.
I'm not keen on pleading,
but you have what I need.
So, here I am.
Without pretense,
here I am.

Reintegration

My heart races.
My stomach leaps.
I listen as though
I'm not the one who speaks.
My innards shout.
My anxiety prods.
I'm there, in that moment;
I'm outside my mind.
I observe myself.
It's my voice speaking my truth.
It's my conscious both aware and aloof.
Those are my emotions and experiences.
Disassociation from her
doesn't disconnect me from them.
"Damn. I cannot disown myself."
The realization stings.
I'm coaxed from hover and observation
to awareness and participation.
I rejoin myself, and we sit in our truth.

Wow. Just wow. Stop and listen.

https://youtu.be/-qy3REaKk2Q

Welcome Home

This was different. It was neither rumination nor impulsivity. It wasn't ossified or skittish. It flowed through me, a foreign object with a soul good feel. "Balance?" I spoke aloud and paused to await its response. Gratitude nudged, retrieving me from an awestricken state, and I remembered my manners.

Allies of Heidi

My dear friend, Heidi Brooks, had a stroke this week at age 26. Since I met Brooks, she has become family away from family. Although I am older, I look up to her.

I admire Brooks' confidence, awareness, compassion, and accountability. I respect the unapologetically feminist, millennial, YA afficionado, "friend connect," beautiful force that is HCB. (HCB is yet another nickname.) She is an independent, intelligent, civically engaged, passionate young woman.

Heidi has a Bachelors of English and looks forward to starting a Masters of Library Science program soon. She has worked with youth for years and currently serves as a Volunteer Coordinator for a nonprofit organization. She is determined to make a positive impact, and you can bet your ass that she will.

She loves Harry Styles and Taylor Swift. She introduced me to the magic that is Janelle Monáe. (I am forever indebted.) Heidi is a sister and dog lover. She has the best nickname for her mom. Her lingo is completely original and catchy "AF."  She is one of the sweetest, most genuine people I know.

We want Heidi to focus on recovery, and this fundraiser is to help her along her journey. Nothing is too small. If you can donate, please do. Thank you.

https://www.gofundme.com/allies-of-heidi