The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

There is an old African proverb that says when an elder passes away, so goes a library. In my family, we had two libraries close their eternal doors. Both of my uncles, the younger brothers of my family clan, the only males, left this world within fifteen days of each other. I was sitting in my room with pen in hand, preparing a spoken word piece to honor Uncle #1 when I received the phone call from my sister-cousin-in-law that Uncle #2 was being rushed to the ER and was not expected to make it.  She was on her way to tell her husband and prepare for the ten hour drive to get here. Holding his hand, stroking his curly hair, seeing my grandmother and great-grandmother in his pale features, wondering what we hadn't asked yet, what we hadn't learned yet, what we hadn't heard yet from him and older brother. Worlds away we were all mourning one and trying to wrap our minds around the other and it is too much to process that in our small part of the vast family clan, on...

Just hours ago, the United States Supreme Court, filled with five of the most conservative, Republican, misognistic, racist, bigoted justices ever, have furthered their intent of putting women in this country in the dark ages.  These men, today, ruled in favor of a privately owned corporation's "rights" to "regulate" the private lives of their female employees by denying access to birth control pills because it is against their religious beliefs.  The corporation, long held as a non-living-entity, was deemed a "person" through this same court's ruling of them in Citizens' United.  This same court has now thrown us back into the deep dark ages while these same old white men with their Viagra can continue to have as much sex as they want, without thought of the repercussions of those acts. I, like many of my progressive women friends, are angry, understandably so, for the future of our daughters. Roe v. Wade was a right, access to birth control...

I went "silent" for a month...to the extent that a writer, poet, philosopher, teacher, activist is able to silence the words that beg for life. There is so much that draws for attention - the Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, that the media has now forgotten because of the Sunni/Shiite centuries old conflict escalating in the Bush/Cheney illegal war in Iraq that has been going on for a decade and the media and the GOP are now trying to pin on President Obama, the open carry legislation raging through my Missouri legislatures and the lake tourist town worried that the locals with open assault rifles will scare away the tourists with money, the continued assault on the rights of black americans whether it is through education, housing, employment, or the new money-to-be-made in legal marijuana, it seems that black people are at the perpetual bottom while wkephite corporate america is making millions off their labor, their pain, and their existence. There was just so muc...

Sometimes there comes a moment in life where you just need to listen. Listen without preparing a reply, listen without being defensive, listen without justification. The process is not easy, it is actually hard, because each of us has an ego, an ID that is waiting for its "see me, hear me" moment.  This is especially true when your voice has been snuffed out through all the isms that plague everyday life. The many controls and manipulations that threaten to snuff out your existence can make the walls go up and the living thwarted. Hearing, truly stepping outside oneself and stepping into the heart of the speaker to hear the words, thoughts, and intents they are sharing requires a sacrifice many are not willing to pay.  It is gutwrenching painful to listen to someone share their story, it is even more painful to learn that part of their story involves some damage that what done to them by someone they trusted.  Hearing is therapeutic and triumphant. Life stories ar...

This morning, the sun was streaming through the balcony, bringing with it the promise of opportunity and the rush of misunderstood spring pollen.  It burst forth with the promise of a new graduate and the hopes of a new mother. Then the morning turned to the afternoon of working and reading and while the sun was shining, it felt less promising as one after another tidbit crossed the threshold of this writer's desk. As a black woman, well into middle age, and a child of the promise after Brown, after Civil Rights, after so many afters, all I could feel today was a bit numb, like being stuck in neutral. Overwhelming the sense was first being informed that a well educated Muslim young woman, married, was being ousted from her position as a college counselor because someone was uncomfortable with her pregnancy.  College educated, non-hijab-wearing Muslim married woman, a year out of her baccalaureate studies from the state's top public institution. Then there was the remin...

Today would have been my late mother's 90th birthday. She has been a figure in my life for all of my 50 years, despite being absent from my life for the 46 years that her breath left body. When I think about her, sometimes I think about her as an image, a shadow, her passing away happened before memory was solid in my mind.  I can not "see" her except through the pictures hanging on my walls and when I look in the mirror. Everyone, my entire life, has told me how much I look like her, have hands like her, write like her, do so much like her.  She was a creative soul who danced, sang, wrote, wanted so much out of life that convention would not allow her to achieve. My mother loved deeply, unconditionally, and wanted so much to breathe life into everything around her. 1924 was a different place, so was 1946 when she married young because that is what "good Catholic girls do," even if her aspirations were to be a designer in New York. When I think about...

I was looking through my posts the other day and noticed a few things. Huffington Post has an entry about childless mothers essentially justifying their decision not to have their body stretched to within an inch of it's limit, not to have a grapefruit sized head come through a normally pin sized hole, not to have their breasts engorged and filled with sustenance that some feel is too sexual and want the feeding to happen in a nasty bathroom. They are justifying their choice to continue with their hopes and dreams and not giving into the women-who-are-sexual-without-producing-children-are-sluts mantra that is all over my news feed. There are the purity balls which scream of pedophilia of the conservative WASP christian type. Then my home state of Missouri just passed a 72-hour-wait for an abortion after a woman visits a doctor to confirm that sperm and egg met in a sexual encounter approximately 2-6 weeks prior. If that isn't enough to make me, a woman, feel robbed, the...