Ready...

i have been transitioning from relaxed to natural hair for about a year and a half. just like the natural hair websites predicted, i have become frustrated with the two different textures that have presented themselves to me. growing towards the ends of my hair are the nicely straight ends. very polite in nature, they remain intact, no matter how much water i put towards them, no matter how much i twist them with my fingers. they let me know, "we prefer the easy path...we're the least resistant, honey." i've been accepting of it. i have always...

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uh oh. i can see now that blogging is going to take over my life, but in such a very good way. my soul will be fed and it will be cleansed. everything will be in order.i'm just up...thinking as usual and the thing/person that popped into my head was love. i am very much in love, and have been for almost two years. i have told others before him that i loved them, and in that space and time, i did. but i am, as expected, a different person, so i love him in a difference space and capacity and with a different effort.it is a more freeing love, a more...

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I am changing into who I am meant to be and it is scary.My body is turning into someone who looks like a woman. I look at my hips, widening with the days, block back the tears that come when people pull me to the side and give me the knowing glance.Those hips came from...you know. They say, giving me a side grin. I look back and sigh. No, no bun in this oven. Still trying to figure out the yeast in my own oven.I see how my steps have become more confident. I speak up more, but then in the same breath, I've become quieter and more fearful. I am...

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If I Could Make Time Stand Still

I always complain about not having time to write personally for myself, but the truth is, I do have the time. I just don't spend it as wisely as I should. Well...that is definitely something that I plan on working towards doing--spending my time more wisely. So...I plan on blogging more (and I have my wonderful teacher, Tamara Jeffries, to thank for this). I can't work on developing my craft if I don't actually practice it. My creative juices flow at their best at night time.Something that India.Arie said in her recent blog really stuck out to...

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I Am Woman

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/09/AR2009120904546.html?sid=ST2010041904904- Helena AndrewsThe second issue I hear, mostly from heterosexual black women, is a deep concern about being un-partnered, which I blame on an overwhelming discourse around this idea that there are no available black men.So in some ways, young women may be more connected to these gender scripts than we were, because marriage and motherhood is at the center of popular discourse.- Beverly Guy-Sheftallhttp://www.theroot.com/views/root-interview-beverly-guy-sheftall?page=0,2...

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There's No Good Music Left!

"There is no good music around anymore! I feel sorry for your generation!" My boyfriend's relative said to us recently on a car trip tp their hometown of Philadelphia. We were in for an 8-hour drive, and she was determined to make use of the time that she had with us. I could tell that she enjoyed speaking with us. We defied her stereotypes of the typical 20-year-old college students.I shook my head as I glanced at her from the rearview mirror. I loved having conversations about current music. I'm not the typical music listener of my generation....

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Move Me

At the same time as my decision to wear my hair in its natural state has really increased, so has my decision to delve deeper into my writing. No longer do I want to just write a pretty sentence. I want to write a sentence that has to be rewritten over and over again before it makes me say BOO-YOW. I want to write not just for the sake of being "deep...yo, that was deep, man". No, I want to "go free", as Tamara Jeffries, my Creative Nonfiction instructor has been pleading with us to do. But no amount of pleading and prodding from her can take us...

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