I'M HER

I am her, that woman who is part of a line of bad, bodacious women. Except for my Aunt Bea, who was the publisher and editor of Sepia magazine, most of their names are not highlighted in history books or a PBS special.

My grandmother, who is 106, continues to wake up and be present in her world, although she no longer has sight. This propels me to get up when I want to sit down. She told me when she was living in Wilmington, North Carolina, that she sat in the front of a bus before Rosa Parks. The white bus driver told her: “you might as well get used to it” because of the civil unrest that was happening in her southern, segregated town. My grandmom is a trailblazer and entrepreneur who had a sandwich stand and a childcare business.

My Nana was a tiny woman in stature who had the spunk of a giant and the heart of a lion. She protected and provided comfort and rest for a world of women and men in her home. My mother continues Nana’s work to offer me and others who need her home a respite against a world that too often can be mean. It is my mother who taught me how to be a sister to other sisters.

I am part of women like Momma Emma who nurtured a neighborhood of children including her own and who told me: “Tell ‘em you don’t come in body parts.” I belong to that tribe of teachers and poets like Sonia Sanchez who told me not to gossip, but instead help a sister or brother to improve their condition. She continues to teach me what it means to be human and a Black woman in this world. Momma Sonia often reminds me of how some are surprised by our contributions like those showcased in the book, I Dream A World, which was produced by photojournalist, Brian Lanker and documents a range of Black women that editor Barbara Summers notes had a “fist up, death-defying love that challenged the unfair conditions of life and muscled in on injustice as it nursed both sides of a nation.” Without reparations, this nation has nursed our tits dry.

Recently, Gwyneth Paltrow noted how she learned about self-love from her Black friends. She says, “It’s like from the deepest part of their souls all the way to the tips of their fingers.” My question to this is if we don’t love us, who will? This is the muscle earned when we are not put on pedestals, when we have to fight white women, white men, and our men too, to claim our femininity, brilliance, and space. I am her!

For The Love Of Money

It’s Valentine’s Day! It’s a day when some are blinded by Cupid’s arrow and professions of love and ignore red flags. Red flags like finding out a fiancé’s credit is in the toilet because he signed for a car for someone which was later repossessed, and this impacts the couple’s ability to buy a home. Then there’s the mate whose debt ratio is so high because of back child support that they will only marry with the condition of keeping their name, so they aren’t financially liable, or the gambler who falls for pyramid schemes and other get rich ventures who marries someone to give them financial stability, and their partner thinks they will instill financial discipline in them. Sometimes there is not a big red bull with a matador waving a flag for someone to catch these bad behaviors because the other person hides them well. At 20 or 21, both might be walking red flags, fumbling through financial darkness; however, when one is over 30, both sides of the brain are developed, and falling into financial quagmires becomes a habitual way to look good, to feel good, and to say they are enough to be loved and not in a healthy way. 

One of SOAR’s first workshop modules asked participants to excavate their earliest memories which are emotional triggers that impact their behavior. This same strategy can be used to find out how others respond to money. To see if this strategy worked, I called my cousin, Terrence. Terrence recalled how Granddaddy would load us up every Sunday with papers to deliver. Afterward, Grandaddy asked us if we wanted to go out to breakfast. We always answered yes, expecting him to treat us instead of making us use the money we earned delivering papers for him. Do you remember how Lucy held the football for Charlie Brown to kick only to pull it away leaving poor Charlie Brown on the ground? Well, we were Charlie Brown, and Grandaddy was Lucy because we fell for it. After breakfast, our stomachs were full, but our hard-earned funds were depleted. 

If one is told “money doesn’t grow on trees” but is never shown how money is manifested and managed, then that line means nothing. Growing up, I was in a fantasy land thinking my family was rich, and we only lived in the ghetto, so I would remain grounded. Unlike most of the kids in the neighborhood, my cousin and I both went to private schools, summer camps, and family vacations out of the city. We had no way to know how our mothers sacrificed or denied themselves. Looking back, my cousin realizes he didn’t know money was a resource until he overheard his parents’ discussions about tuition. They talked about how it was being wasted because of his poor grades, which his childhood mind interpreted as him not being good enough—not that there were money issues. No one explained the sacrifices made. We shook the money tree every Sunday and the change left over from Sunday breakfast was more than what most kids had. To this day, both of us hate to ask for money because it makes us feel less than. Grandaddy taught us there are always conditions to the ask. I had to get over this for SOAR and the participants who need our financial assistance.

Money became a tool to look good and to give us freedom; however, to not be taught about money and not financial management is not freedom. When asked about their relationship to money, some folks respond: “I ain’t got none, it’s fleeting, or I’m a broke ass look good.” The need to “look good” to others is what has some people uptight about their $70,000 car; their $600 car note, and $600 car insurance payment because they can’t pay their $700 rent. They use money to validate their hard work, sense of being, and ability to look good. It’s okay to look the part but at what cost to financial freedom? They are hustling backward without knowing it.

Understanding finance which includes management, creation and study of money means self-worth is gained from a source other than money. Terrence thinks, “if the dinosaurs have a reset, then maybe we’ll catch up with the wealth masters who deal in future markets and stocks. Think about the one percent who purchased in the fuel industry at a locked price years ago for .50 cents a gallon and are still getting it at that same price while we pay $5.00 a gallon.” He is correct about a reset. It is possible to change behaviors that are disruptive even for those of us who fear the window to fix financial errors is closing. At this juncture, it is more important to understand how I am relating to money and not being used by it than it is to be hit by cupid’s bent arrow. If I look at the basics, my God has always provided for me. This provision is not always in the form of financial favor but also by way of a SOAR-hosted two-part online financial workshop facilitated by financial coach Tony Jackson who is ordained with a talent to heal the financial health of others. Like any good coach, he will ask how long have I had the pain and where does it hurt? It’s up to me to do the work to root out the answers.

For The Love Of Money

February 25, 2024, 4:00 – 5:00 PM|Zoom Meeting

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Blessings on Blessings

When saying Happy Birthday, I also include Happy New Year whether the person is born in January or not. I believe each person’s new year begins with their individual birthday. I look at the new year just like a new day –another opportunity to get it right. Whatever “it” may be.

My new year began in September when I celebrated a milestone birthday. Instead of making resolutions that would later send me on a guilt trip, I took a page out of a dear friends’ book and asked the creator: “How shall I serve?” I heard my answer not from a loud booming voice from the heavens, but from the work I already had in action.

While on vacation, swimming in a small pool of water, off the beaten track and away from the tourist beaches, a woman and her children drove up to me, and asked if this was a place she could swim. I told her yes. Her kids impatiently watched as their mother climbed down a small hill to join me.

Stretching out, letting her head rest in the water’s waves, and ignoring her children’s glares, she said,: “I needed this.” Our spirits clicked. She shared some of her concerns and her need to destress. I told her about a gratitude jar I started, but let lag, and how I need to get back to it because it’s a reminder of how much good there is when negativity wants to claim space. Before she left, she said a prayer over me and thanked me for being a blessing to her. I could not figure out how I blessed her. Perhaps the why and how were none of my business. All I was supposed to know is that I served as a blessing.

In truth, the way she prayed over me, I thought I was the one who was blessed. Perhaps that’s how blessings work-; they are reciprocal. At the close of 2023, SOAR was blessed with over $1000 worth of donations from our GoFundMe campaign as well as from a fundraiser given by Melaine Ausbrooks, a SOAR Board member. Although we have not reached our target of $10,000, I feel blessed by those who are joining our effort to bless a new cohort of young women who will come through SOAR’s My Daughter’s Power Circle to attend the annual retreat. At the fundraiser, a video message from Anaya, who is a member of the first “My Daughter Power Circle,” was played. She too used the word “blessing” when speaking about the circle and SOAR’s work. 

The opportunity to serve as a blessing to other young women by introducing them to writing as a path to heal and then linking them to mother mentors who serve as guides for them at pivotal moments in their lives creates an inter-generational legacy of sisterhood that will live beyond me. I’m grateful that I asked how I am to serve when coming into my new decade and new year and that the Universe answered. 

Ask not what the New Year will bring you, but rather what will you bring to it?  How will you serve?