CLARAFIED BUTTER

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...

My Mama's favorite cartoon was always Peanuts.  Having watched many episodes every holiday season since I was a kid and especially now with my own kids, Charlie Brown's famous catchphrase is one that recently made me reconsider it's significance. "Good grief," was always CB's (Charlie Brown and oddly enough my Mama's initials as well) lament when things weren't going quite right but for me, the phrase means something just a bit different. When I saw these two words together at first I thought it was an oxymoron. How could any kind of grief be good? Grief in and of itself is a process that is usually difficult for everyone who has to go through it. Maybe grief can be good once you have accepted reality in all it's unfair and untimely glory. Maybe grief can be good when you realize it was all a gift, one that you didn't have to have but are thankful you did. For me I knew it was good when I was able to speak of her without crying profusel...

Thoughts of her are frequent. They come and they go as often as the days turn into nights. She is all around. I notice her in my daughter, I notice her sometimes even when I speak, I hear her in my voice. I notice her in my husband, which may seem really odd but when we married my catch phrase was that 'I had married my Mom'. It's the damnedest thing because even though I notice her, I still miss her all the while.  Like today I passed by a park we had only visited once. It was her job's picnic and we were there early to set up. We were talking and laughing as usual, when we remembered hearing about a rapist on the loose in the area, on the radio. She went into full mommy mode by taking something potentially scary and making me feel completely safe. She talked about the diabolical things she would do to anyone who tried to hurt us, something involving carving our initials into their skin. Ma was crazy but she knew just how to make me smile. So recently when I was de...

This Judge Kavanaugh case has me all messed up on the inside. Feelings I never even knew I had, have been stirred so I really want to be active in my resistance. I want to protest, I want to argue with idiots who still victim blame! I wanna hug on some women that have bravely spoken their horror stories. At the same time I'm doing all the necessary things to start a part-time position tutoring elementary students with reading. I'm both nervous and excited. I want to connect with my students and learn what they like while making reading fun. But also I'm feeling some kind of way about starting a new gig, despite my kids being in school I have always been able at a moment's notice to jump up and go to them if they were to need me. With this position I will be a few miles away, still willing to leave at a moment's notice but not able because I will be working with kids who depend on me. Then my daughter keeps dropping hints that even before I start the position, sh...