You are … (take a look)!

DURING A SPEECH AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY, AUDREY LORDE SAID,

“If I didn't define myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive,"

I had a powerful prayer session this morning that left me feeling truly blessed. I'm not sure where to start, but I've decided to share my thoughts on the importance of love in our lives. I've been listening to "Say You Love Me" by Jamison Ross for weeks, and it has been a source of comfort for me during this time. Soul music and my bible keep me inspired!

What to do when you’re not sure!

There’s a divine plan in work in all of our lives. It nudges us and guides us to just the right people and places that are meant for us. And If you want to see a Black woman SHOUT, recite,

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD,

“plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

‎Jeremiah 29:11-13 NIV

Most of us know that God’s plan is in place. If you need evidence of this, revisit the Fired Up and Ready to Go story of Edith Childs and Barack Obama. It explains that sometimes when we’re tired and at our worst, God will send an angel to guide us to our destiny place. Edith Childs was that angel for Barack Obama.

And for the last seven days I had my own encounter.

We Love You!

This is the theme of the 30th Anniversary of the 2024 Essence Festival which fits perfectly with my mission as a writer for the last 30 years. For me, One Night in LA being picked as an official selection of the 2024 Essence Film Festival is a convergence of a perfect storm, a Quiet Storm: Me 30 years after beginning the writers journey!

I started writing in 1993 because I needed a place to express the love I had for America, my birth country that I thought I would always love. I wanted to express my admiration and love for African Americans. We were so strong to pursue our best lives in the wake of so many obstacles, I was in aww of our light and success. Our rhythm and the love notes we sang in the midst of trials and tribulations. My love would always be peppered with contradiction; a little anger about this or that. Forgiveness for missing the mark, and finally ladled with acceptance of it is what it is. We can only just be!

I needed to allow the emotions swirling in my head to land on a soft surface. And so I prayed and I was guided to write. The first thing I wrote was a novel, On Edge. I called it a ”Coming to sense” novel, a novel about urban professionals, figuring out how to be true to their inner selves and cultivate self-love no matter what. By the time it got to book store shelves it was 1997, and some weren’t ready for my main character's husband being in the closet, a dedication to my high school BFF Dennis Billups.

Dennis was a 6'9, handsome Moorehouse graduate, a Kappa, who passed from an AIDS-related illness. He was my wing man, my encourager when I decided to write and talked to me on the phone all night long while my husband worked the night shift and my three boys slept nearby. We talked about his life as a professional gay man in Los Angeles. Dennis had been openly gay since high school and hated that many didn't dare to come out. Now that we had lived a little. Gone to college — I’d graduated from UCLA, he’d graduated from Moorehouse, we were coming to grips with the reality of it all.

I loved having three little boys but was coming to grips with, in the words of my favorite poet, Life Ain't No Crystal Stairs. It has tacks in it!

But, still, We Love Us, could have easily been our themes of life. We met our Junior year at El-Cerrito High School, El-Cerrito is a picturesque Bay Area town, settled between Richmond and Berkeley; in its hilly parts, there are 360-degree views of the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, set beneath blue skies. When I moved there in the 70s, the people were friendly and open-hearted. It was diverse. Although the Blacks were bused in, all the students were one big happy family with Dennis leading the charge as our class president. As such, he was the organizer of decorating our class float and we would party and have fun in the sessions decorating it.

The moment I swung open the doors of El-Cerrito High School, walked its corridors with my swagger, picked up during my time in Detroit, Michigan, which was the land of cool Black people, who had migrated from the South, I was a big hit. I had an R&B Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson vibe. My favorite album that year was Smokey Robinson's Quiet Storm. I was an old soul, a jazz note, a Quiet Storm.

I was instantly popular as Dennis Billup's sidekick. It also helped that I moved down the street from the Vice President of El-Cerrito and she and I became car poolers and instant best friends. It helped that my Mother was a big wig, literally and figuratively. She and her cohort were the first Black women to wear weaves, drive Cadillacs and Mercedes, and dress in St. John. She was a Rockafeller Fellow and studying under Dr. Ruth Love and Laval Wilson.

We Love Us was the theme of America,

We loved America for changing. Changing its laws that made my Bigmama, Daddy Floyd, and Mama sit on the back of the bus. That wouldn't allow Black folks to go to school.

We Love Us metamorphosed into a country where everyone could move on up, to get degrees, move into a house overlooking the bay, drive fancy cars, leaning to the side adorn in St. John.

We Love Essence for putting us on every cover with our brown skin glistening, and being proud!

We Love Us, Black People, for persevering with love in our hearts, for going through horrific injustices, while being a Natural Woman as Aretha was and a Quiet Storm as I will be like the lyrics below,

Quiet storm blowin'

Through my life, through my life

You're just like a quiet storm blowin', blowin'

Through my life, through my life

Quiet storm blowin'

Through my life

Quiet storm blowin' (Oh, yeah)

Through my life

Check back tomorrow for another cup of tea from me.

#gratefultowritehere

It all begins with an idea.