Two More Weeks or So

I think a lot in the early morning.

I woke up to the house still and a yearning to just muse.

I picked up my copy of The Strong Black Women: How a Myth Endangers the Physical and Mental Health of Black Women by Marita Golden and read the imagined thoughts of the late Fannie Lou Hamer. In it, she wrote about her body broken by the systems of hatred, racism, and sexism that sadly haven't gone away since her days organizing with SNCC.

Women have had a tough year.

Black women and women of the Global Majority have had a near impossible year.

So, I woke up thinking about them, us, me, this morning.

A bit of me is exhausted. Perhaps it is because I am an early riser and daylight savings time means nothing to me.

Maybe it is because my youngest son is bringing his girlfriend home for Christmas because Covid cancelled family plans back home for her, and my house is a wreck.

Ok, maybe wreck is too strong a word, but it is different when company comes.

Tired because I haven't wrapped a present yet or decorated or planned the menu or anything else that would probably have been in the works with the final days of Christmas a a week from today is Kwanzaa.

Two more weeks.

But what do I want to happen in two more weeks that will make a difference in my life and the lives of so many women at the cusp of a moment?

I want the mothers who lost children to gun violence to have presents to wrap and arms to hug, but that isn't so for so many.

I want young people in the last days before finals to not have to worry about a copycat nut threatening their school on Tik Tok.

I want to breathe.

For them to breathe.

To not be afraid of some sexistracisthomophobicguntotingmisognisticxenophobe to live out his fantasies and fears by imagining himself free like that pimplyfacedchubbymassmurdererwhogotawaywithit.

Or to not fall victim to the capitalist structure that considers human beings just cogs on the wheel and breakfast has changed for everyone.

To not have to get their magazine glorifying a Trillionaire - a word now in our possibilities - and a wannabe Trillionaire - who played with his phallyic symbolic dreams and shot up into space instead of paying people fairly or eradicating poverty or a deadly pandemic.

I want promises to be kept to really Build it Back Better and not succumb to the whims of a OWM in a state that almost literally no one wants to go to.

I want Black women's dreams and Brown women's labor to not be appropriated and pit against each other.

I want to talk about books and reading and not have some man be afraid of words on paper.

Two more weeks, could that be possible in this time when lights twinkle and we see the endless movies promising joy and wonder, candy cane and hot cocoa, and all the world's problems solved in two hours.

We can hope.

We can dream.

Like so many of us who have shared it on IG or TikTok or subscribed to the need for our emotional, mental, spiritual, financial, and physical health as a priority. We have named what it is that is for the second holiday season.

Perhaps that is the gift of this time of anticipation, if one follows the Advent season, this coming, this waiting, this hoping, this wondering, this looking to the stars for a sign.

Two more weeks.

Maybe the world really can change before the calendar turns.

Hannah's Song

We came together last night and sang Hannah's song. Family from California was in town, it was the night before Aunt Hannah's Home Going Celebration. We met at my house late in the evening to fellowship, remember, hug, eat, and laugh. Thom felt the love in the room and I'm sure his mom would've appreciated us doing what she did all her life - love. Aunt Hannah was a gracious woman. Her gentle spirit, sparkling eyes, and constant smile will be remembered. She has left us physically, but never spiritually. The laughter was like music in Thom's ear. For the first time in weeks I saw my cousin relax. He has been in a tornado for the past four weeks from his mother's diagnosis to her death. Even in her final stage, Aunt Hannah was granted her desire. She asked to not suffer long when it was her time to go, she had been a caregiver her whole life and I'm sure her prayer was for her son. In the last days of her life, she still greeted well wishers with a wa...

Brothers, Can we Talk?

I'm a Black woman, born of a Black woman and a Black man. When my mother died, it was my father who nurtured me and instilled in me a sense of pride of self, of my race, of my abilities to do whatever I put my mind to do. He never imposed limitations on me as a Black woman. The only caution he ever gave me was to not burn my candle at both ends and to be mindful of my health, I am an asthmatic. He never stopped me from trying anything and always encouraged me. Daddy was a strong Black man who introduced me to Shirley Chisholm when I was a little girl. He reminded me of the fortitude of my late mother's quest for gender equality in the workplace and of the namesake who marched at Selma. He is the one who gave me my pseudonym, Tayé. Daddy was a strong tower of empowerment and fought all the way to his last breath for social, gender, and racial justice. It is in remembering my father this morning that I'm asking the brothers, can we talk? What is it, especially those of my g...

Ashes to Ashes

This is Ash Wednesday. For a lot of Catholics and Anglican Christians, it begins the holy season of Lent. We remember we are but dust and to dust we return, ashes to ashes. It is a somber reminder of our humanity and the finality of life. We are a mere breath. Today, as a Hospital Chaplain Resident, I am imposing ashes on patients, family, and staff. It is a visible marker of a shared faith and belief. We look with anticipation to the finished work of salvation on the cross and in eager hope of the resurrection. As my day progressed, I noticed how much hope was in the eyes of the ones giving and receiving this reminder of our existence. It was both a somber moment and a joyful moment. Two things can exist at the same time. Like the world we find ourselves in. Even as it seems like the darkest, certainly the darkest I’ve known in my six decades on this earth. Completely imperfect as a nation, there was still a glimmer of light until the nightmare became reality. We wonder abo...

The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

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