Just Whitney.

I was in the shower washing my hair...a more detailed task these days with my increasingly longer coils and curls...listening to Pandora...Erykah Badu's station....listening to Erykah when my cell rang, interrupting the song.  I like to play a guessing game when I miss a call....guess who it was....who I wish it was.  Will the two match?

My mother and I had an impromptu girls' sleepover that night, so of course I heard her cell phone ring right after my missed call.  I heard muffled sounds and "What!?!"....more muffled sounds.  Is that disappointment I hear?  Surprise?  Instantly my heart beat quickened.  Instantly it did.  My family has gone through so much tragedy in the last decade plus, that I subconsciously brace myself for the blows these days.  Before my mind could analyze what the muffled sounds meant, my mother stuck her head in the bathroom and said "Whitney Houston died."

Silence.  Oh no.  Confession: Slightly relieved.  It wasn't my great aunt or sibling or cousin or Daddy or...any relative.

But Whitney.  Hadn't seen it coming...just like with Don Cornelius...definitely didn't see that coming.  But Whitney? 

Confession:  Sad but....not surprised.  The struggle was just as legendary as The Voice.

But she's not just a voice.  Not just "the voice of a generation".  Not just a gift.

She was beauty and spunk and grace and grit and elegance and "hood" wrapped in a flawless caramel shell with long narrow legs, perfect white teeth....complemented by a full lip, the top of which would always sweat and quiver when she was reaching the mountaintop of a song.

She was who most of my generation mimicked during our 6th grade graduations...marching in and belting out The Greatest Love of All.

She was the pretty woman with the big smile....and the broken soul.  She was who so many of us wanted to be for so long.

bite of the day ~ She said it best...."Yes, Jesus loves me....". See you on the other side Ms. Houston.  Your struggle is over. 

thirtiesgirl

colors

I dreamed a dream....in vivid color I dreamed. 

In royal Purples, soft Yellows, pulsating Reds and yummy Greens, I dreamed. 

 I waded and flipped and rolled around  in my hazy vibrant dream. 

I dreamed a dream of LOVE. 

The floating in the clouds-while feet firmly planted-sinking deep into the earth-kind.  The lash to lash, iris to iris kind.  Breath to breath.  In-Ti-Ma-Cy.  He breathed into me and I gave life back to him.  He reached without hands and touched the depths of me...genuinely.  I reached back and he opened up to that soft mushy place.  That secret "I'm too much of a man to show you" space.  And I explored.  I looked.  I smelled.  I touched that place....the mushy place, gently I touched.  And he didn't close up nor shut down.  Didn't snatch nor push away.  He stood bravely, open and trusting....knowing I would never bring pain.  And even if I did, it was worth the touch, the sound, the feel of our hearts beating in rhythm.  Together.  One.  And I trusted that beat.  In his love, I was FREE.  Safe and Free.

Then I woke up.

Woke up to crumbly grays ashy blacks dusty blues....

and even reds....the mean kind.

I sighed a deep sigh....an indescribable longing in the pit of my center.

Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

Then I remembered my dream...my vivid colored DREAM.

And I smiled.


bite of the day ~ Don't let go of The Dream.  It will live...if you believe. 

 
thirtiesgirl

that's what friends are for...

I had my whole evening planned.

After scurrying in from the cold, I would unwind with a bit of reading from my God's Calling book and Woman Thou Art Loosed Bible, then listen to something to empower my spirit further and calm my mind (it's a Pastor Winston night)....actually cook a nice complete meal....protein,  fresh veggies, colored starch (something I haven't done on the regular lately)....meanwhile fold the laundry in the dryer (oops still a little damp)...ok, dry the laundry still in the dryer then wash a load of whites while folding the first.  Enjoy my Christmas tree (FABULOUS! :-)) while eating and catching up on some re-runs of Criminal Minds (Shemar...yum!)  The rest of the night would be devoted to completing Episode Two of my web series (more on this later ...smile), which I started last week and have yet to return to.  Sooo stoked about finally getting some writing done when.....

The phone rings.

It rings in mid-chew of crunchy lettuce, peppers, tomato...and a close-up of Shemar.  Darn.  I left it charging in the kitchen.  After ring two and a lingering glance at the screen, I decided to run for it.  One of my best friends....since 6th grade best friend....exchange deep secrets best friend....quality not quantity best friend.....her name popped up on the caller id.  Split second decision.  If I pick up, the rest of my evening will be thrown off.  Toast.  Busted.  I NEED TO WRITE!  Sigh.

As quickly as those thoughts came, I also remembered this day is not about me.  My FRIEND is calling.  It may be important.  Then again it may not.  So I picked up.  It wasn't important. But after 15 minutes of trying to finish eating, lock eyes with Shemar AND listen to her, something dawned on me.  For over a year, she has listened to me, counselled me, empathized with me, prayed for me....me me me for over a year consistently.  And tonight, she just wanted to TALK.  So I turned off the television, put my plate away and gave my best friend since 6th grade my attention.  And when we hung up an hour and a half later with our I love yous and see you soon, I was glad I hadn't wasted my TIME.  Selah.

bite of the day ~ Give yourself away.

thirtiesgirl

just one of them days....

I'm taking an online empowerment class from an up and coming motivational speaker/life coach/author (Shanel Cooper Sykes)....Igniting Your G-Spot: 21 Days of Personal Fulfillment.  Um...get your mind right.  It's not quite how-to sessions on THAT KIND of personal fulfillment!  I'm sure the whole G-Spot thing....anyway!  It's really about giving and receiving all that God and life has to offer....and actively focusing on that through actions in the next 21 days.  Great concept, but I have to admit...I registered and logged on last night and tonight with lackluster enthusiasm.  It's not that I think the class is not going to be empowering and inspiring and all that it's designed to be. I've experienced her classes before, and it's all that and the pickle....or I wouldn't be wasting my TIME.  Trust.  I guess I feel a little...funky inside right now.  Which is why I'm forcing myself to take the class...regardless.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been in a bipolar-esque rollercoaster that only I can seem to see...at least I think so.  I can be completely content and grateful and positive one moment...and then the next, that nagging, haunting, dark feeling tries to ooze over me as I force a smile through it.  "Ride it out", I think to myself.  (I know I'm not the only one, right???)  Negative.  Irritated.  Frustrated.  FEELINGS.  Yes, of course I fight it.  I fight it by praying, talking to myself...out loud while walking down the street sometimes (yep, I'm sure they think I'm crazy)....I put on Winston, Dollar, Jakes, Copeland.....Franklin, Hammond, Haddon, Houghton.  This quiets the raging thoughts playing racketball in my head....for awhile.  Then the fight starts all over again.

And there's the others....thoughts and questions that wake me up in the night sometimes....

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO NOW?  

HOW ARE YOU GOING TO MOVE FORWARD?   

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE NOW!?! 

Pressure.  And it's not that I don't know my purpose, my gifts. I resolved that much with God in my twenties.  And it's not necessarily that I don't know WHAT to do (I guess..sigh.).  But HOW?  Time is moving so fast. Living for the weekend? No.  I don't want the weekends to come this quickly.  Slide your leg out the bed on Monday morning...by the time your foot hits the floor, it's Friday.

I need time!  I need time to do all the things that I want to do.  Time to be who I want to be.  I need time to create....time to clean...time to organize...time to connect...time to read...time to pray...time to study...time to just BE.  time Time TIME! sigh. 

Yet, the time I have, I find myself just trying to gather the strength to stay sane...and saved.  Some days it's easier than others.  I guess today is just one of those days when it's not.  Tomorrow is another chance...another chance to get it right.  God help me.  

bite of the day ~ make TIME your friend, then master it...conquer it.  cause while we're trotting, it's travelling at the speed of LIFE. Selah.

thirtiesgirl

remembering Michael Jackson....

I remember it like yesterday.  I was on the train....on my way home.  Cell rang.  It was Tee.  She said "Did you hear Michael Jackson had a heart attack?"  I had not...and frankly, I didn't believe her.  It was just too.....unbelievable. Unfathomable.  Unreal.  Could not be real.  By the time I got home and turned on the news to confirm it was all just a bad joke....he was dead.  Confirmed dead.  I screamed at the television.  "Noooooo!!!!" It was all I could say.  Michael Jackson and DEAD? No place in my consciousness for that. 

Yes, of course...I know that eventually everyone dies...but some people are so "larger than life",  you almost expect them to be around forever.  And I'm not talking in the philosophical "he'll live on through his music" sense.  I mean a lot of us can't imagine some people i.e. stars, dying.  More evidence of deifying humans...putting regular folks (even SUPER talented ones) on pedestals...that they can't help but fall headlong off of simply because they are HUMAN.  They will disappoint eventually....either by being crackheads, cheaters who have babies outside of their marriages, liars, closet this & that or overall bad decision makers that put their very charmed lives in danger.

When Michael Jackson died, we mourned in our house for at least 6 months.  This included blastin' the History Album over and over, scouring the internet for rare interviews of MJ....spending hours on Saturdays watching said rare interviews, his music videos, and anything JACKSON (including his brothers' reality show)...and of course "schooling" our nieces and nephews that came to visit on MJ.  This meant they had to watch Thriller, whether they wanted to or not.

Our mourning was not because Michael Jackson THE KING OF POP died.  It was because Michael Jackson, our buddy who we had so many memories with...who was like family...had died.  And he left way too early.  The fact that they found his doctor guilty of causing his death today doesn't really do much for me.  MJ is still gone.  sigh. I guess this is how my parents felt when Marvin Gaye died....

bite of the day ~ He wasn't perfect, but he was ours.

thirtiesgirl

do good

There are times that you just know that you are in the right place...doing the right thing.  It's not about you or anything else except being PRESENT.  This past weekend was one of those times.  The 1st Englewood Film Festival.  Closing night film...The Interrupters.  If you know, enough said.

 I first heard about it via Facebook, since I am "friends" with the founder, independent filmmaker Mark Harris.  If there was ever a little Giant on stilts, it's him.  When he has something going on, he will BLAST messages out to anyone who will listen (or read)...over and over...and over again, in search of a response.  After seeing several of these messages, I finally went to the official website...admittedly with a sigh... "Like, dude..really??? (sigh again) Let me check this out before he blows up my computer pubbing this thing!".  Persistence.  Gotta love it. lol

Now, Englewood has a pretty rough rep....even my no news watching self has heard about all the crime and violence jumping off in this neighborhood.  Most folks that don't live there, ain't trying to go there....for nothing.  Fortunately, I'm the same girl that moved to a town called Berwyn, clueless about the history of racism (and yes, the white folks emptied them apartments with the quickness after two little black ladies moved in...claiming they couldn't afford the rent anymore.  Hmmm.  Suspect!)....and even if I had known, I wouldn't have cared.  I'm crazy enough to believe I'll be SAFE anytime, anywhere by God's grace.  Therefore, I go where I please without a second thought, that includes Englewood.

The arts changes lives....and Mark bringing his own personal "Stop the Violence and Do Something Productive" campaign to the hood hopefully will do just that.  Instead of just complaining, he took action.  So, I knew I not only had to get our arts nonprofit, The Anointed Harvesters, involved in some (last minute) way....but I had to personally BE THERE to support.  At the end of the day, I got much more out of it than I gave or anticipated.

The closing night film "The Interrupters" is a documentary about a Chicago-based nonprofit called Ceasefire and three of their "Interrupters".  The film followed this group as they literally stepped into violent situations and mentored folks caught up in the cycle of gangs, crime, miseducation and overall hard living.  All of the interrupters come from the same background as the folks they are now trying to help.  Turning back, not to go back...but to pull others forward.  My heart was especially touched by Ameena, infamous gangsta Jeff Fort's daughter.  She is the eagle that soared...in spite of the broken wing.  Selah.  They all made me want to do....better.

bite of the day ~ If you're not DOING, at least support those who are. 
DONATE:
http://ceasefirechicago.org/
Support positive independents:
 http://1555filmworks.com/  www.logosthemovie.com www.ofboysandmen.com
DO GOOD, every chance you get.

woman thou art loosed

TD Jakes Woman Thou Art Loosed 2011

I'm not a screamer...nor a shouter.  You know, the organ going a mile a minute....serious footwork, head boppin', hair flyin', face sweatin' - shoutin'.  The old church used to call it "catching the Holy Ghost".  The new church has some sterile version of it, which still includes yelling out "Hallelujah!  Praise da Lord!  Thank ya Jesus!  Say it Pastor!"  Don't get me wrong....I get my praise on.  I'm just not usually very vocal.  It's a personal relationship between me and God...so I tend to speak in a regular tone of voice or even a whisper, as if He's actually as close as inside of me...or at the very least, standing right next to me with His arm draped over my shoulders with pinkies locked...Boyfriend-style. :-)

But when I went to TD Jakes' women's conference, Woman Thou Art Loosed, in Houston last week, I felt the power of 16,000 women (with a few men sprinkled in...) singing, yelling, praising, shouting, laughing...many at the top of their lungs.  It was humbling to say the least. Standing in the heart of this...."movement of loosing", I took the opportunity to survey the room, breathing in the essence of the moment.  And it was a moment.  A turning point.  I know it was Divine strategy that I was there.  God knew I needed to be.

I went alone seeking guidance, direction, peace, inspiration, encouragement and a Word from God for my life. There is something absolutely freeing about being a stranger amongst thousands of soul-thirsty women. Who I was (or wasn't) didn't matter in that place.  Nor where I had come from or what I looked like. The only thing that mattered was I was there with the same agenda as the sister-strangers I was surrounded by. Every woman had come for a specific and special reason.  Had been drawn there through tribulation and pain and heartbreak and brokenness.  Each of us had pressed our way to a Divine appointment with The Healer, and we were not left disappointed. 

I held my breath during each session, with pen in hand, intently listening for MY Word....MY reason for missing two days of work and flying all the way to Houston.  Although the teaching was good and anointed on the first night....I didn't come away with anything that hit me hard enough in the heart.  The second night, I connected with Pastor Paula White, whose personal trials and tribulations made her that much more relatable to me.  I thought her teaching on discovering my authentic self...and her breakdown of transformation and life changes was the word I had come to hear.  Not quite. And although Sheryl Brady was awesome and moving and demonstrative on Saturday morning with her teaching about what to do when you find yourself in a whirlwind created by a tornadic person in your life...I still hadn't gotten IT. 

It wasn't until Cindy Trimm took the stage that I recognized my breakthrough.  I have to admit, I didn't think she would be very good (...it was obviously my first time hearing her speak). She was using her laptop and seemed to be reading her notes a bit much for my taste.  I like organic teaching...that seems to come unrehearsed and straight from the heart. Dr. Trimm admitted to preparing for 6 months for the conference, but at 2am the night before, God had changed her whole message (...which is why she was sticking to her notes...glad I didn't judge too quickly and shut it down).  She dissected the cycles of life (spiritual & physical), how the mind is the womb of the spirit,  the importance of the number ten, and how many of us are OVERDUE....said the enemy has been fighting us because God is about to BIRTH something important through us.  By the time she finished breaking down revelation after revelation...each of which I took very personally, I was ready for IT.  When she instructed us to put our left hand (which symbolizes judgment) on our stomachs and the right hand (which symbolizes blessing) on top of the left....I felt something run up through my gut and burst out of my eyes and mouth.  It was like a delivery (...or perhaps deliverance...).

 I yelled to God at the top of my lungs with tears streaming down the sides of my face..Maybelline and all.  In that moment, I could care less how I looked, how I sounded, who was watching or not.  It was a moment....a Divine moment.  God was breaking through, bringing me to a climax after a 368 day journey. Selah.

So now that the 16,000 sister-strangers have dispersed, returning to the four corners of the world to fight another day....I am left changed.....and facing forward. 

bite of the day ~ Free yourself and birth your new life into existence.  PUSH!!!

thirtiesgirl