CLARAFIED BUTTER

Started therapy last week, have a session tonight where I will discuss Ma. I gave my therapist a link to this blog so she could get a sense of who I am and what I'm dealing with. I write more effectively than I speak, so I'm working on that but until then she has access to these thoughts. She said she thought I write "beautifully". That compliment had me on cloud nine for a few days...lol Anyway, the idea of talking about Ma to someone new is kinda terrifying. I NEVER know when just saying her name will trigger tears or if they will even appear at all. I wish I knew which part of that was grief and which part is drama? I am fully consumed by both. I spent that last few days searching for this song that was on my wedding playlist mix CD. I finally found it online yesterday and bought the song again, been listening to it on a loop for hours. It's such a beautiful song, slow and sweet, kinda melancholy about wanting her partner to "hold my hand".  That l...

It's as if I took the summer off, cannot believe I haven't posted anything since August! But here I am in my post-retweet glow, Lalah Hathaway retweeted a tweet of mine on Twitter today...YAY! And last night one of my dearest friends, interviewed me for an artist expose she's working on. I had to give insights on a process that is constantly evolving and being uncovered from myself. I love her so much, she's a great listener and analyzer of thoughts. What I think is just rambles, she can break them down and turn them into precious gems. She gives my thoughts value. Everyone should have someone in their life who can do that for them. I'm surrounded by people in my home but am somehow still quite lonely. There is no one whom I fully trust with my thoughts. Maybe that's how it should be, no one is entitled to them but me but sometimes I want to discuss them hear feedback on them, maybe that's a therapy session. I will look into it. I just found a therapist, s...

Picture it. A young woman is having a baby shower for her first child. Her request is not for material things but an offering of something creative.  I tell my Mama the friend's request and she proceeds to ask me everyday for two weeks straight, what I have come up with as my creative offering. I am kinda thinking about it but not with her urgency. So she offers a beginning phrase and from there we craft a beautiful poem. She then tells me that she believes the young lady and I will have a closer relationship, loosely based off our shared experience in motherhood. I scoff at her initially because 'motherhood' has been much lonelier than I imagined it. Soon after the baby shower, my Mama dies. Soon after that the young lady has her baby boy. We become closer through our shared mothering but also in our story telling. She helps me tell my story, she encourages me and believes in me as an artist. She creates safe spaces for me and my children, so I can explore the dark plac...

7/24/19 Sometimes I feel like I'm being selfish, how badly I want her back. I feel like our relationship was one-sided, and I was the benefactor in it. Then there are days when I don't think of her at all. I am completely distracted with life, those days are rare but they occur more often now. Until I get a piece of mail with her name on it or a note from Thrivent, a life insurance company she invested into for herself and I. She loved me so much that she was even preparing for my afterlife. It makes me feel like she's still taking care of me. Especially when I cook dinner, I channel her then for sure. I make all her same faces when I'm mixing and stirring, when I can tell something is going to turn out yummy. I miss our talks every day. She was my person. We just knew each other so well and it was only getting better! I  started taking her for granted I think . I was only just starting to grow up. I still needed her though, just less and less. Still stings. I had s...

All of my son's classmates rode on a school bus everyday, except for Izzy. We live so close to school that we are able to get him there easily without the use of outside transportation. So one day, when I came to pick Izzy up from school, his best friend saw me walk in and proceeded to shout, "Izzy, your bus is here! Your bus is here!" He then grabbed my hand and brought me to Izzy saying the exact same thing at least ten more times! I died laughing each and every one of those times. The memory of this moment still makes me chuckle. Israel has always wanted to ride the bus like his classmates so this summer because of the extended school year program he was able to finally get the chance! I remember his first day waiting for the bus to arrive to the house, he was so anxious and excited, when it finally came he didn't even look back to say 'good bye' or anything! He rushed onto the bus and found his seat. I was so proud of him and nervous at the sam...

The thing about grief that I'm noticing is how whole passages of time, that I know I lived and definitely 'mothered' through have been lost. When I try to recall those first few years, I often come up blank. I feel like I have cheated my son from something my daughter got to experience fully, an attentive and fully present mama. When I think hard enough during my pregnancy with him, it was grief from beginning to the end. He has only just had his first birthday party this year. It's as if I have been going through the motions his whole life and am only just noticing important things now and he's FIVE! This grief has been tough. I was not prepared to lose time because of it! Like really, my daughter had to convince me that she has been in 4 schools. I only recalled 3 but damn if it took my husband to remind me of her first school experience, months after Ma had passed. I had completely blocked it from my memory. I was knee deep IN it then. It's just heartb...

I believe worry is an inherited affliction and that I may have gotten my propensity to worry from my Grandma. As her worry was epigentically passed down to me. I have indeed passed this worry to my offspring. When I was a kid, my biggest fear was something bad happening to my Mama. I always felt like if she died I would die too, just drop dead with her last breath because I just didn't believe I could survive the hurt. In a way I didn't survive it. The death I experienced was metaphorical. It was a death of a certain kind of familiar that only she could provide, i.e my life with her at the center of it. Ma was not a worrisome woman, in fact she was the opposite. She often stepped out on faith and did things that even made her family think she was strange. As a parent I notice the traits of worry in my daughter. She's very inquisitive, so she's always investigating and asking questions about things that interest her. However once she learns the new information sh...

My first year of motherhood was an opportunity to relive my youth but with my own child. So we went everywhere, did everything and lived our absolute best lives! I would take photographs of everything and share them with my friends and family. Once, while recounting a trip to the farm at a family gathering, a comment was made about our safety while at the farm, something about the proximity of the chickens and other animals to my child while there. I think they asked what would I do if a goat or a chicken were to attack her. Before I could even think of a response, I heard my Mama say, "You shouldn't be worried about India, you should be worried about the chicken! She knows how to take care of our baby." When she said it I was taken aback. Honestly, I hadn't even thought about the scenario of a rogue chicken becoming territorial and hurting her. It could've easily happened and been something I worried about that could've deterred me from visiting again but...

It's been a challenging couple weeks. First, my baby girl got strep throat and had to be out of school for a week. Then directly after that me and my whole family got a mysterious respiratory infection-like illness that mainly had us coughing up copious amounts of phlegm. It was awful because initially it was painful to cough or talk or breathe even! Then it took away our appetite and our ability to taste food! We still don't have our appetites' quite back yet but not being able to delight in the foods that bring us comfort? Despicable! So we were out for a good two weeks, whatever it was I never wanna see her again! Now we are dealing with allergy season and her relentless assault on my son's eyes and face! Not even Benadryl seems to be enough, his poor eyes are so red and runny. He has the stuffy nose and sneezing, needless to say my Boo has the blues and I feel so frustrated with myself! I knew from last year how serious his allergies were and I had bought everythi...

"SHUT UP!" The words haunt me now. Much like the phrase that can still be found on t-shirts, "I can't breathe!" While she was on the gurney in the ambulance pleading for some help to breathe, I was pleading too, begging for someone to help her. The paramedic never did anything. He claimed the truck wasn't equipped. So once she gathered all the oxygen she could summon, her last words to me were, "I LOVE YOU!" As loud and as strong as I had ever heard the words from her mouth. It felt like a huge boulder being thrown at me, like she really needed me to know it. It took every ounce of strength out of her and I responded, "Shut up." It was practically whispered in comparison, but I promptly apologized and told her, "I love you too".  I just didn't want her to spare, precious breaths on a sentiment that I had felt my whole life. There isn't much that I know more than my Mama loves me. It's been the basis...

You know how when you read or hear something and you FEEL IT. You find a kind of contentment that you didn't even realize you needed. Simply because someone has found a way to express what you also feel. I remember first experiencing this in 2002, when I heard Lauryn Hill's song "I Gotta Find Peace of Mind". When Sis sang, "To finally be in love and know the real meaning of, a lasting relationship, not based on ownership, I trust every part of you 'cause all that you say, you do. You inspire me to be the higher me, you make my desire pure." I had never heard anything so beautiful in my life. I felt every part of these words and the fact that she was able to put them in a song, still mystifies me. So today when I read the words "visceral cellular loss" I lost it! A new way to express the anguish of the loss of my Mama. At this point it feels as if it's an all consuming event that has absolutely transformed, reshaped, overtaken, domi...

I feel so happy, my birthday is coming up soon. I don't know why this year feels different, I want to celebrate seeing another year. A year of being with my kids, being in love and genuinely confident about us. I have more physical ails but I'm here and thankful for every second, every minute, every hour, every day I am here taking up space, doing what I love, in the city I love, blessed with this family and these friends who truly inspire me. I feel very rich! I know what I love and who I love and they know it too. I want to accomplish things like my book but also make lasting contributions to the world. I would love to work for an organization specifically motivated with elephant conservation. I also enjoy being a tutor and helping kids read better. It's fulfilling work, I teach but I also learn so much. So Friday is Ma's 64th birthday and Saturday is my 37th. I told my Bestest a long time ago that I wanted to dance to Ma's favorite song at her favorite spot in ...

Why is it so difficult for us to stick together? How come we judge us the harshest? I've wondered these questions since I first heard of Black slave owners and warring tribes in Africa selling each other out to be shipped and sold and made into slaves. It's our biggest sin. It's what has been our demise and what will continue to be our greatest shame if we let it. This Jussie Smollet case has really shone a light on what ails us. Folk came out and chastised this man from the beginning, not believing him when he said he was attacked? Taking the word of the Chicago police department because they put a Black man on the podium and verbally charge him as a criminal? The same department that covered up the case of Laquan McDonald just a few years ago. Now we suddenly TRUST the police? Hmmm. He wanted more money from his show? Really? His family had a show in the 90s, he's been in numerous films, had released a book with his family and an album and had just got off tou...

"Relax, relate, release." This is a chant I recalled from an episode of A Different World , when Whitley needed to achieve calm she would say it for relief from her moment of stress. There's so much going on in my world right now. Like my husband is starting a new job and attending training in Texas for almost a week, after a few months of working I'm noticing my own challenges and trying to improve them for my students, and finally a letter I got from my son's teacher really got me in my feelings.  I have avoided being a single mother, all of my parenting years. When I say single, I mean sole parental provider for consecutive spans of time. When my husband would leave for work overseas for a full week every now and then at his previous jobs, I would retreat to my Mama's house where both my child and I would get pampered and shown so much love and comfort, I'd almost forget about missing my hubby! Parenting is such a tough job, having that other paren...

I love listening to my favorite podcast, The Read . Much like my obsession with Beyonce, my adoration for the show Steven Universe was acquired through osmosis and much convincing from the hosts Kid Fury and Crissle. They were who initially suggested that it could be substituted for therapy if one were open to it and ever since season 2 when I got hooked, it has been my sanctuary. In the show Steven is the product of a fusion between a human and a diamond gem from another planet called Home World. His parents Greg and Rose were in a relationship but once she became pregnant with Steven she knew she couldn't coexist with him on Earth. So she made him a video that attempted to explain her absence and offer Steven comfort. Though Greg had to raise him without Rose, he acquired a family of gems that helps him. Steven, a 14 year old hybrid, spends much of the series trying to figure out his purpose and how he can help those in need. He struggles with having to figure out who hi...