Friday, November 26, 2021

Destination: Home

 It was really quiet this rainy Black Friday morning.

No one in my home was awake when I was frothing milk for my rosemary brown sugar vanilla latte. 

Comforted by the soft whir of their sleep, I sipped my creamy latte and watched daylight dawn on our second Thanksgiving weekend in our new state. 

It feel right.

Like home.

No one wanted to leave.

From dinner last night with everyone's favorites to annual games of Uno and Spades to movies until everyone fell asleep, no one wanted to stir.


That was the gift. The joy and laughter of the youngest daughter with the youngest son, their banter as only siblings can have.






When the first ones started to stir a few hours later, awakens to the smells of my husband flipping bacon and adding cheese to the eggs, it was the moment when joy just enveloped me.

Home has been their destination.

This year, my older daughter is visiting her college boyfriends' family and my youngest son came home with his girlfriend. The youngest daughter was chilling with us and while we were snuggling on the sofa last night munching on big bowls of my husband's homemade popcorn, all I could do was smile.

As a mother of adults and emerging adults, any bits of their time is a gift. I realize that more now that I am the age my father was when I used to fly home on the occasional holiday. My presence was the gift and all I wanted to do was sit with him and sip coffee.

This year, as the vaccine has made some bits of what 2019 holiday felt like seem within reach, home has been a destination for so many who could not travel last year. Then while there, so many have ventured out to the shops on Black Friday to get those gifts they think will not be there in three weeks. Home and the memories of it still offer the promises of acceptance and comfort.

That no one in my house was eager to get up at the crack of dawn to fight crowds intrigued me a bit.

They just wanted to chill and watch movies, eat whatever we were making, and for brief moments in their twenties, not have to worry about what was swirling around them in the world.

I want that for them, for all of my children and grandchildren, to find acceptance and support, to find comfort and care, to just be able to exist in the ways that nourish and refresh them. The world is big enough and broad enough and beguiling enough.

Sometimes, just sometimes, home is the sweetest destination.

Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Spacing Out Jane, Kooling it with Karen, Annoying Anne and other tales

 I was in Target this afternoon, grabbing a few pre-Turkey Day items for my daughter. We didn't do the cart-full of a normal run and thought we'd just run in and out.

All was well until my daughter pointed to the aisle that was open. I moved my cart to the aisle and the young woman, Asian-American, said, "Oh, ma'am, I'm closed, sorry." I looked up and her light was out. I replied, "oh, wow, I didn't even look, thanks."

I moved over to the open aisle next to this one and was just waiting, the lady in front of me in my new one and the one I was just at both had long purchases. My daughter was off on her make-up or whatever second-look in the cosmetic aisle so I wasn't in a hurry. I was just looking through my phone when I noticed something that annoyed me.

Here comes a lady, about my age, I'm Black, she was White, and she goes to the aisle I just left. This was about five minutes later, mind you, both ladies in front of us were still engaging in their purchases.

The Asian-American cashier did not admonish this White woman as she was unloading a full cart of stuff.

Perhaps she did not see her the way she spoke up quickly to me before I could even reach my hand in my cart to put up the new pack of pens. So I just watched.

The cashier was still waiting on the lady buying a gazillion gift cards while just looking up at the White lady unloading her cart on the very visible aisle with the lights out. Even the manager walked by and no one said anything.

I spoke up.

"I thought you were closed." She just turned her head.

Then it was finally my turn and the funky haircut, ombre dyed cashier noticed and asked was I ok. I just said I was annoyed and proceeded to do what I often do at retail stores, put on my marketing and retail professor hat about customer service. I just said something about antiBlack racism being a real thing, even among those of the Global Majority. She said, "yeah, I know, I'm Latina." I replied, "me, too." And we chatted it up and talked about the white privilege in the space.

The White lady was probably very nice and maybe, like me, never noticed that the light was out, it is before Thanksgiving and she was just trying to get her purchases complete.

I was annoyed at the young WOC who knew what she did.

It is something we have noticed a lot in some of the places we have been now that we live in the Northeast.

Beyond antiBlack racism is the prevalence of excusing the behavior of EuroAmerican women.

This incident in Target is just a few hours after my morning perusal of social media left us all appalled at the behavior of the White woman defense attorney in Georgia who pulled out all the racist disgusting tropes she could find to speak about a Black man fleeing for his life from the vigilante, wannabe slave catchers who murdered him in cold blood. She knew what she was doing.

All this is just a few days after the pimplyfacedmassmurdered was found not guilty because the judge and nearly all-White jury just couldn't imagine taking him away from his dear White mother. The same SallyAnnKarenSusy who raised him to be a then seventeen year old racist mass murderer.

In this season of backlash against Critical Race Theory and wringing hands as the 1619 Project book hits shelves, we are deeply reminded of the very real actions of our sisters-without-melanin who played integral parts in the lynchings, school integration protests, who uphold restrictive covenants in their neighborhoods and are willing voices to their partners' dog whistles about values and safety. 

They are not without dirty hands.

They were owners and traffickers of human beings, just like men.

They attended lynchings, just like the men, and were often the willing voice to set up Black men for this vigilante justice.

They are the ones protesting masking, reading books about real history, and anything that makes them uncomfortable.

I said to my cashier in Target, "can we just normalize not being scared of white women." 

We have to fear their feigned fear because it is deadly those of us who are sun kissed. We have to fear their tears that take up all the oxygen in the room. We have to fear their looks and curiosity of our hair. We have to fear them touching our children. We have to fear them being indignant because we are exhausted about teaching them about systemic racism. We have to fear them being intimidated by our confidence. We have to fear their jealousy of our accomplishments. 

And all of it is annoying.

So I'm wondering, as this year draws to a close and we started it with White women storming the nation's capital along with their men and ending it with them screaming in stores because they had to wear a mask or holding school board meetings hostage because they fear their child reading one Black book, I'm wonder if we can just stop. 

They are not the majority in the country.

They are not the standard of beauty, class, or intelligence.

They are average.

Plain Jane.

So what if we de-centered them?

Decolonized their yoga pants and hunger shakes they eat to stay appealing to their men and an entire marketing strategy has been developed to keep them from aging.

Can we just stop listening and paying attention?

Stop privileging them in line because we are scared of what they would do if we said no.

Maybe, just maybe, if we all, all of us in the Global Majority did that, the SallyAnneSusyBeckyJanes will realize they are not the center, not the standard, and reach out to try to be human.


Sunday, November 21, 2021

Counting Voices' Cost

 I was at the store picking up some things for the upcoming holidays. 

Perusing the aisles, I noticed there was plenty of everything anyone would want for a gathering.

Where were the shortages?

Maybe I was in a different place, but everywhere I went over the weekend from the local orchard for fresh vegetables to the discount home store to the favorite big box, nothing was missing.

But it gave me pause for something else.

The high cost of one's voice.

See, I think while I am alone in the store, especially my daughters' favorite place to get running gear and. makeup, without them to distract me with sudden carts full of sports bras and socks, I had time to really ponder the price we are paying.

A few days ago, a verdict came that many expected, none were surprised, yet, the sting was still felt while others are awaiting a verdict with Black pastors like me being advised that our presence was costly to there other side, the currency of presence was too much to bear. Thankfully, that judge was equally weighing justice's arm and did not buy into the shenanigans.

But that is not the case across the country.

No sooner was the news out and many of us opted out of tuning in on Friday and Saturday, then the Sunday morning pundits were reminding us that this is going to be felt far into my grandson's adulthood.

Do we walk around as vigilantes or do we walk around as victors, avengers, or just stay home like the Pandemic forced us to do last year?

They talked about those attempting to capitalize on the image of the boyavengermurderwhogotoffscottfree so they can regain power and attain the dominance they crave. 

Then they talked about the price of apathy from those who indicate they are standing on the side of justice and equity, for the everyman and everywoman who would benefit from their legislation if they would just stop fighting and see what is really happening everywhere not on the hill.

It is too much.

The thought is too much.

But so many are silent.

Because raising one's voice, advocating has a high price.

No one wants to be ostracized or relegated to the rejection table at the holiday meal. They don't want to lose relationships, friendships, or standing by simply advocating for what is right.

Believe me, I know, I'm still reeling from the cost of lifting voice and "going to bat" for someone else. I'm still calculating what I lost, much more than the income. So I know. It is not for the faint of heart.

Perhaps they have counted the cost and found it too great to bear, so they are silent and hoping the currency of just going along to get along with keep them alive for another day.

But what about the future generations?

The ones that will be ruled by a minority of power hungry control freaks if we continue on the current trajectory. Who will risk anything for them?

It made me shudder, much more than the fast moving cold front heading to my state. 

Yet I refuse to be frozen in space, to not speak up.

Like so many others who braved cold and waved signs of defiance against vigilante actions of those too young to vote at the time or too young to even celebrate with a beer, I refuse to just sit back and hope this all goes away.

Jobs may be lost, friends may be lost, that board seat may be lost, entree to the country club or even a seat at the holiday table may all be lost, but we are in crucial and desperate times in this country. Is anyone paying attention to something more than the cost of a turkey?

Lifting one's voice has a cost but the payoff is worth every payment.


Saturday, November 20, 2021

Anyhow

 Live, anyhow.

Laugh, anyhow.

Love, anyhow.

Those are the messages I sent to my children yesterday after a Friday of elevating my leg and binge watching the happily-ever-after Christmas stories on the Hallmark Channel. It was after I got one of those "dings" on my iPhone about the breaking news that was not all that breaking to us.

We knew they would absolve the monsters raised by mothers feigning fear of those blessed with color and culture. Even if those they slaughter with sticks of blazing fire, are those that share their hue but not their depravity.

So I refused to stay glued to the news channels with pundit after pundit analyzing what has been in this soil for centuries. Genocide and slaughter is in the heart and soul of pimplyfacedchubbymilkmarshmallows who only feel like men when they drive across state lines to avenge what never belonged to them.

I sipped jasmine tea and snuggled under my covers.

I sent notices to my children to enjoy their weekend, my youngest daughter flew down to visit her older sister in college, my sons enjoying their respective performances, businesses, and families. 

Because they can not extinguish our light.

They can not silence our laughter.

They can not stomp out our dance.

They can not erase our smiles.

They can not.

Because

We live.

Anyhow.

Besides, I was reminded in my early morning muse watching the brightest moon and the twinkling stars, that She who upholds the sky gave me solace in that She knows, She sees. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the LORD." Romans 12: 19. 

So, beloved, go on and be.

Smile in the changing seasons.

Marvel at the Creators artistry of changing colors.

Dance in the frosted morning.

Be present with love.

Because the enemy does not win.


Thursday, November 11, 2021

The Courtesy of Indifferent Glances

I'm reading this book by a Persian writer, set in the aftermath of 9/11. It is about a teenage Muslim girl in yet another high school trying to find her way, to be invisible in the midst of the vitriol of this country against anyone with any visible sign of Middle Eastern heritage - even if they weren't Afghani.  

In the book, written in her voice, she replays this scene in her Global Studies class. The teacher forces her and a white boy to stand in front of the room and as part of that teacher's methods, wanted them to tell each other what they see when they look at them. He has the blond haired, blue eyed white boy go first. Cliche the American idealistic phenotype.  The boy gets all flustered and red because the one thing about them, back before Facebook and Instagram made them Internet Warriors, they hid their coded language in innuendos to each other or the random reporter who asked them. This was set in California, far far away from Ground Zero that is about an hour south of where I live now. No, they did not have smart phones or unlimited minutes, so they had what was always a part of high school, stares, whispers behind hands, boys jumping up and down as they passed in the hallway, laughing at some inside joke, girls who were either envious or jealous, universal high school 101. But this encounter was different. The teacher kept pushing the boy to say it and the girl, clad in her loosely worn hijab, had to just stand there. Finally, after multiple probes from the teacher, the boy's response was essentially, "nothing, I see nothing when I look at her because I don't see her."  That was much worse than him saying some ignorant thing about her wearing a scarf like the group of teen boys who jumped her at the town they lived in before this one. Or the many comments about what she was hiding under there, and the incessant curiosity of what her parents may be forcing her to do since she did not have friends, did not date, had an older brother always around, and just did not speak in class. In reality, like many on the other side of ignorant discrimination, she kept to herself, found her place of solace during lunch, and had at the brand new iPod on under her hijab, the gadget that came around during the turn of this century, it gave her a bit of cover. But this time, she heard loud and clear what he said and what he meant, and it cut deeply, so much so that she ran out instead of letting her hurt and anger show.

Over and over in society, so many have been rendered invisible to society. We are here, we Women of the Global Majority. Our presence can't be missed. Our hair texture and color, hues of different shades of peaches and cream to a stirred affagado and espresso, our color certainly made it so that we did not just assimilate into the American fabric. For some of us, our dress and our language made us stand out. We could not just disappear, even as we tried to escape into spaces of care and comfort just for us.

Except even those spaces can be considered suspect. What are they plotting? That has been the uttered fear of white Americans every since the first Africans were on this Turtle Island. So much so that they split families and made sure there was some poor white overseas to keep no more than two together and even then, someone was listening. They created a system of fear and traitors. There was one or two who would willingly betray their own for an extra morsel of approval from the dominant class as they quickly tried to learn the new language and system of approval. Some were able to assimilate, those with hues closer to white and without the tell-tale curl or fuller lip or curve of the hip that gave them away of having African heritage blood. Some just gave in, but others, so many others, used that visible invisibility to become and forge a space for themselves in this place not their own.

I was thinking about the many times I was rendered invisible, treated with indifference, silenced, and ultimately, called a courtesy by someone who said they valued my input. It stings, it hurts, and it also angers, yet keeping it from destroying the inner woman or man is the triumphant work of People of the Global Majority who find themselves on the other side of this curious dismissing.  

Like many, I know about the two trials going on in this country. Both of them of white male individuals who knowingly took the life or lives of others for the sake of their irrational fear. They each had a created fantasy of themselves as vigilantes on the Wild Wild West saving the land from the likes of "those" people who would harm "their" way of life. One could win an academy award for his performance on the stand of crocodile tears and huffing and puffing while he looked up at the judge for reassurance that he was doing it right. He is eighteen now, when he committed his heinous crimes with an assault weapon, he had the child-like appearance of a barely-past-puberty seventeen year old. The films of him stalking the streets at night during protests was not innocent, though. He had driven across state lines armed with military assault weapons with an intent to kill. The psychosis of this depraved indifference of human lives that are twice-kissed-by-God's Sun is deep in the soil of this country and continues to be taught by mothers across this land. The hand that rocks the cradle truly rules the world when they are in technicolor protesting at school board meetings against everything that does not measure of to their image of a puritan view of who belongs. 

The other trial of a father, his son, and a neighbor, are the fullest reminder that we are not post anything in this country but still living in the patrols of those who considered anyone of the Global Majority to be suspect, even a stellar young man just out for a run. He did not "belong" their according to them and instead of just minding their business, just like the hispanic white man who gunned down an innocent teenager that sparked outrage in the created fear, these men thought they would just be applauded for saving the streets of pure white life. They chased this man down and murdered him in broad daylight. 

These white men all murdered innocent people, one walked free, the other two are currently on trial. None of us are sure if justice will prevail because the very same thing that caused them to take unarmed innocent lives is the very same thing that happens across this country every day - indifference, considering our humanity a courtesy, not seeing us. Maybe, just maybe, 2021 won't be like 2013 and 2014, but we never know. Of the current trials,  one has a nearly all white jury and a judge whose phone rings the marching song of the whitesupremacistorangemenancewhooncesatintheovaloffice. We already know what the media wanted to portray of that blubbering crying man when he sat in the witness box explaining that he drove across state lines to protect himself, defend himself from the "looters." Yeah, make it make sense.

That is the problem, it doesn't make sense. None of it does or every had.

According to science, we all, human beings, share 99.9% of the same DNA. 

The only difference in the .1% is what has destroyed communities, neighborhoods, and nations. The "they" and the "us" and if it was just a matter of the scattered nations after the Tower of Babel scene in the scriptures, that could be ok. We are not all alike. I'm an INFJ, only 3% of the world has my rarest personality type and I am in the same company as President Jimmy Carter, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Mother Theresa, and some even suggest, the man, Jesus was also INFJ. So I understand that a minuscule thing is what makes us a little bit different from each other so that we are not walking around like a clone. The slight change in hair color or voice is really meant to pique our curiosity and not rile up our fear. We are human beings.

Human beings who see, feel, hear, smell, and taste the wonders of the world like everyone else. Who share similar hopes and dreams for our families and futures, who want to use their talents to do something wonderful like hand roast coffee, write a beautiful sonnet, paint murals, or even lead nations toward greater human interaction. We are a wonderful creation. We are more alike than different. 

Yet, to some, to so many, we are just a courtesy to keep around until they have used up from us all they can get and then toss us aside like we never existed. Or they are simply indifferent to the pain they cause with their invisible gaze and blank stares at us. Or they are depraved with both and are hellbent on removing from the earth anyone who is not like them.  

It is enough to make you want to run to your safe space, to find your shaded tree and just sit down to breathe. 

Like the protagonist in A Very Large Expanse of Sea, it is not like anyone is going to come after her to express care. Well, maybe, like one character who saw how wrong the scene was and knew that she was mortified, so he ran after her to see if she was ok. To see that she was hurt. To say that he was sorry even though he was not the blond haired blue eyed kid who said she was nothing. He gave her recognition.

In the waning days of this year, now that almost a million little kids, Generation Alpha, have taken their first shot, now that more and more know that life on the other side of Covid is possible if we consider each other was worthy enough of care- maybe just maybe there will be hope. Without it, we are just like squids walking around trying to eliminate each other for the delight of some sick machine. We must be more than that. 

It is that hope that I see in some of the future generations. They see each other's differences not as something to eliminate, but something to celebrate. Maybe they will keep that innocent curiosity and not be tainted by the hysteria of school board protesting moms who use the "unmask our kids" as the real coded language around the fact they don't want their little blubbering brainwashed kids to know the actual truth of this country. Maybe just maybe GenZ and Generational Alpha will get it right. I hope to live to see it. 


Saturday, November 6, 2021

Staging Dreams

 It has been forty years.

That is a lifetime.

The children of Israel wandered in the desert for forty years.

Forty is supposed to be that time when one gets really serious about what one is going to do, that moment when being the grown up in the room really hits. Forty.

That is a very long time. Lifetimes. Many lives.

When did the calendar pages turn that quickly? 

I watched my last child, my youngest daughter, the one that the universe smiled at me and gave me literally at thirty-nine years and six months because I said, "God, I refused to be pregnant at forty." Right under the wire! 

She is living her fullest and best life at almost eighteen.  

Filled with so many possibilities that she has no time to even consider them all. As a scholar, a cellist, an athlete, her days are so full, and then there are are friends and the business of living.


Last night, it was senior night at the football game and they honored the senior dancers, cheerleaders, and football players. It was the first time I was out on the football field with a crowd. Pretty exciting, the bright  lights, truly Friday Night Lights, and the balloon tunnel and the claps. Of course we were so proud to escort her out.

I looked at the bright young faces and their parents whose hopes and dreams were wrapped up in these seventeen and eighteen year old bodies. And I wondered.

When do we stage our dreams that reality may or may not let happen?

It is the stuff of every late night or early morning Netflix show. It is about to fill our airwaves with all the holiday magic of hope eternal, that all can be with the right cookie, right holiday drink, or right song.

For one moment.

But that is really what life is,  moments.

One.At.A.Time.

And then we blink and realize that time has truly passed.

If I had that allegiance and Covid hadn't wrecked havoc on everything, I can imagine that I would have flown back to my childhood hometown for the homecoming game, to ride in the back of a car during the parade celebrating our class. 

Forty years!

Since when did time go by so fast that we are the elders in the room.

I'm still figuring out who I am. I think we all are figuring out who we are. 

As we near another turn of the calendar and another holiday season of negotiating if it will be open windows or outdoor under a tent or family showing their cards at the door, we still have the wonder that this time gives us, and that is what this season is inviting us to do.

Much like the parents who were escorting their seniors through one of more-to-come escorts. It was acknowledging what was, the announcer called their names and who was escorting them, he thanked them for their dedication to their sport and wished them well in their future endeavors.


Now, we are a way off to graduation, like many, we have to get through those remaining college acceptances and auditions, for some, and portfolio review, for others, and so many essays to write before graduation. That means we have time.

A bit more time.

Time to just sit and watch them as they decide on their dreams, for it is their life, their future.

Because forty years will go by in the blink, I'm trying to make sure I've given her all she needs to dream.

Tomorrows are filled with hope, like the blue gray meeting the new light of day, there is hope in what is yet unwritten and yet still possible.

I'm not finished yet, even as she is beginning.

Neither are so many of you. 

What dreams are you staging? As long as you are breathing, you are, you are, you are emerging.

So go on and emerge.

Emerge with smiles and pride, escorted by the memory of your brightest thought, knowing that whatever you want to do, the universe is waiting for you. Waiting for me.

Just this one moment, and be.

Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Must We Die Exhausted Though?

Black Girls Must Die Exhausted is not only the title of Jayne Allen's 2018 debut novel in a trilogy, it is a phrase that we, Black women have heard for generations. 

The "mules of the world."  As coined by my  Triumphant Soror, the prolific anthropologist and writer, Zora Neale Hurston, in her book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, opens up an entire body of work (just Google it) about the colonizing racist sexist trope placed on Black women, echoing still Sojourner Truth's question, "Ain't I a Woman?" We carry so much.

When do we get to just lay our burdens down?

To be more than a stereotype, a syndrome, or a symbol?  There is an entire body of work and study about either the strong Black woman or the Black women who is just tired. People getting PhDs on us, Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes, psychologist, professor, minister,  wrote about the impact of it in her 2014 book, Too Heavy A Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength.

The last chosen and never wanted.

The least protected and most overworked.

The regulated, the scrutinized, the ones that need an act had to be passed just so we can walk around and not continue to have our natural appearance met with detention, demotion, or disdain in schools and workplaces.

The loud ones.

The oversexed ones.

Or the pent up ones.

The mean ones.

The everything but loved ones.

Yes, it all seems that Black Girls Must Die Exhausted.

But I am deciding differently for myself and for my daughters.

We are deciding differently, if my Instagram is telling the tale. From Black Girl Coffee 

to the Black Nutritionist, and the Nap Ministry, Black women are deciding a different narrative.

When I was thinking about this, I was reminded that I spent the better part of my mid-twenties all the way to my early forties being exhausted.

When I was a young professional in Chicago, I was up at 5 o'clock in the morning to get my young sons to their daycare - a bus, a train, and a long walk away, to turn around and hustle back to catch the train for my 8:30am job in the Loop. I was the walking epitome of tired deep in my bones, but I had to keep going.

Then, we had all the demands on our time to be present in church, in community, in every social cause that happened, because mostly, it was happening in our community and who was going to save us but us.

It was draining.

So, over the past two months  that I pulled from one of my favorite books, daughter by Asha Bandele, and said, "I will be a collector of me and put meat on my soul," and left something that was sucking the life blood from me,  I have been refreshing and renewing myself every day.  

It had me thinking this morning, as I was making coffee for my last child, my senior in high school, that I was exhausted. 

Mentally.

Emotionally.

Spiritually.

Physically.

It wasn't just the pandemic, albeit that altered some things about my life, but I already have an office at home and was working remotely, so not much changed at first for me. It changed more for my daughters who were in high school at the time, and for my in-the-community meetings, but other than that, I didn't have to adjust to working-at-home.

What was draining me was that the demands placed on Black, specifically African American women, were taking every bit of everything out of me.

I was not "woke" enough in some of the circles, even though my body and. memories bear the scars of when I was "closest to the pain." 

I was too educated for some of the folks even though we advocated for kids in school to get all they can in the nation's public education system, as their birthright.

I was too comfortable for some even though they do not know the cost of structuring my life around the lives of my daughters, both of whom battle chronic illnesses that made it necessary to be accessible during the day, to have flexibility, and autonomy.

I was too aware for others because I read and read voraciously, I am an intellectual, as my seminary sister called me, and I connect the dots. It was never about self-aggrandizement, even thought that became the badge I saw others claim, about how much they were doing in "the movement." 

In the end, I was too ethical.

I could not continue to live an exploited life, of my own story and the stories of others, but ultimately, of a community that has become the scapegoat for everything.

Educated Black Women are the office scary woman that others either wanted to regulate or modulate, or even well-meaning, want to restructure into their image. Catch episodes of Netflix's  "The Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce" and see what I'm talking about with the sole Black female character in this ensemble. They were always trying to fix us, even other Black women, cue a scene from The Only Black Girl by Zakiya Dalia Harris about the fictional account of the only Black editor in a publishing house until another one showed up.

It all had me thinking this morning, as I was putting on my dressy sweat pants and "I'm speaking" t-shirt to drive my daughter to school, must we die exhausted?

Over the past few months that I have not had to worry about what was happening in a state a whole other time zone away. The toxicity of the work that entailed being so aware of every single social, cultural, political, and economic thing that was going on was too much, so over the past two months, I tuned out.

I tuned out of Facebook, even before Zuckerburg tried to rebrand it to Meta. I mostly just tuned out, I needed the quiet contemplation of my heart.

The news was mostly read, in The New Yorker, and of my daily posts on Apple. I had to get still.

So this morning, as I am thinking about 2022 and emerging, I am deciding that while I may have more years behind me than in front of me, I do not intend to use them up for endeavors that will not feed my soul.

That means I am going to choose what I do next. I have worked my entire life for that luxury, sacrificed much, and as my last child journeys through her senior year of high school, embracing this time of renewal.

In 2019, I uttered a word - S H I F T - over my life. That was my word the entire year. It was when I graduated seminary, when I made a decision to stay for what I thought was just one more year in a faith-based organization, and while I navigated through my denominational ordination process.

In 2020, I uttered a phrase - Reclaiming the Dream. Little did I know all that was going to happen that year, after I was in Las Vegas for a foray into what was to be a tumultuous political season, that a month later our world would stop. The phrase still became reality as my family stood in the gap for a life cherished and thankfully still with us.

In 2021, now in a new state, my word became, B E I N G. I wanted to be present in my new space and was working on ways to extricated myself from the former places that were taking up all my energy. I wanted to be fully present for my life here. It took nine months into the year to be able to release the last hold, but I did and I am, being.

Black women don't owe the world anything.

We have already given everything, especially in America.

And we continue to do so, in so many ways.

One of the things I am claiming for myself and others is that we give to ourselves.

Give to ourself the gift of space, of renewal, of thinking, of dreaming.

It is not too late to shift, reclaim the dream, and be.

I do not know what the remainder of the year will entail and I do not know what 2022 will bring, what I do know is that I will not die exhausted, I will not die unspoken, I will not die unfulfilled.

Maybe I will just C L A I M all that was mine in the first place.

Me.