Preparing for a Season Loneliness
I know some seasons feel more lonely than others. I know we often outgrow places that once felt like home. And even knowing that solitude has purpose, it’s been hard to stay grounded and keep the momentum needed to transition from sabbatical into something sustainable. So here’s how I’ve been preparing.
Histories
Over the last few years, I’ve started pressing record whenever my grandmother enters the room. A small brown woman, toasted almond brown from an afternoon nap in the sun, perched amongst a cloud of decorative pillows poised for comfort or stability. There’s always a story in her eyes, an “I know more than I’m saying right now” look in swimming behind her stylized spectacles.
For Audre and Toni
She gave me anger, glory, goodness, resistance, and love in the tragedies she surmounted. She unfolded my girlhood so that I could be woman today.
Thoughts on Tennis
The capacity and strength to process your way through, allowing yourself to feel all the frustration, all the anger, all the fear to fuel a greater blooming. This is more than finding a silver lining. It’s about accepting the feels as they come, allowing them to wash over you, to consume you, and then finding your consciousness within the emotional climax, channeling it into something new.
Self-Celebration
May 20 was supposed to be a day that celebrated the closing of my chapter at NYU: holding commencement ceremonies with my family, friends, and peers. Instead, it’s a day that represents healing and a deeply reflective self-celebration.
On Black Optimism and Other Forms of Magic
Black Optimism that offers an even brighter stain of hope on this grueling exploration of Black/Human. Blackness is “walking in another world while passing through this one.” It is a state of disorientation, of being and unbeing at once.
