Re-Markle-Bull $#*!

This is a post that I started over a month ago, but got distracted by life so it didn't finish in the intended time frame. The recent verdict that went against Prince Harry and this subsequent statement issued by his office, along with a few other developments with the Royal Family convinced me to revisit and finally publish this piece. 

I haven't written about Meghan Markle in a minute. I was content to let that woman live her best life in peace because other than a few concert sightings and public appearances at the Invictus Games with her Prince, she wasn't doing anything to draw unnecessary attention to herself. That includes starring in a new show on Netflix that premiered in March. I was all set to ignore it until y'all started complaining.

So I accept the challenge, because dagnabbit, I need to know why y'all can't leave well enough alone! Then I realized that since January and the return of the Troll King, there haven't been any Black women in the public eye other than Rep. Jasmine Crockett to draw your ire, so it looks like Duchess Meghan is the volunteer tribute...

Y'all are upset that she has a job? 

Or is it that she's getting paid to do what so many of us do every day for free, and that just doesn't seem right because she's a princess...duchess...still married to a Royal? Because stay at homemaking has always been a thankless, under-appreciated form of devalued labor; however, now that affluent women are embracing it as a form of "soft living" they can brag about, it has become a glamorous trend that they get paid for...

For the sake of argument, yes, it is crazy once you realize that an actual princess is being paid big money to appear to be happily doing the kind of work she could have had servants perform. Isn't the dream of becoming a princess to have somebody else do all of your chores? Alas, she left that life behind in merry olde England, so instead of having servants, here in America she has staff and their job is to make it look like she enjoys doing all of her own cooking and bee-keeping. It's like code-switching accents: potāyto-potăhto...

When you really think about it, her show is just another celebrity cooking show. Singer Trisha Yearwood had a show for 16 seasons as did actress Valerie Bertinelli for 14 seasons. Other celebrities who had shorter runs include Tia Mowry, Haylie Duff, Tiffani Theissen, and Rev. Run (of Run DMC). Heck, not too long ago, Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart hosted a potluck dinner party show on Vh1. Other than being shocked that Snoop and Martha weren't pranking us, I don't recall any of those other efforts getting this much negative attention. Therefore, if you were ever bored/sick/curious enough to watch any of those other shows, then it doesn't make sense to dissect Markle's show for its lack of authenticity, unless you're a bona fide hater. 

On a whim, I googled Gwyneth Paltrow because I couldn't remember if the name of her lifestyle website, Goop, was the same as the skincare company, and yes the same entity. I guess others responded to a similar vibe because the comparison searches popped up immediately. Only, I was initially looking for that infamous vagina candle to point out how celebrities are always selling unattainable lifestyle "luxury" items, such as handbags, jewelry, and other symbols of conspicuous consumption. Look at any glossy magazine photo spread to see what I mean (e.g. Paltrow featured throughout this Vanity Fair piece). I was amazed to learn that not only have y'all been actively comparing these two women, but Lady Gwyneth Kate Paltrow was declared more relatable?!

Can we take a moment (but not ten minutes like this video I watched, so you needn't bother), to state for the record that someone actually posted on Blue Ivy's internet that Lady Gwyneth Kate Paltrow, in her wrinkled Ralph Lauren jammies baking $14 biscuits in her "own" kitchen sans makeup a few doors down from Meghan in the hills of Montecito was throwing shade?! If you sat through any of that in spite being forewarned (and to be honest, I clocked out at 5 mins), then you, like me, are at a loss in understanding this irrational hate for the Duchess. Because it is literally the same, bland, let them eat scones with expensive pots of jam (beginning at :33) schtick!

Her haters really want us to believe that Markle is some massive phony and a failure, so that leaves me wondering who bought up every pot of jam on her website last month? IDK, what do you call people who will probably plan an entire garden tea party in a few weeks just so that they can show and tell you all about the keepsake packaging that came with their runny fruit spread?

What does it say about the people who have time to hate-watch and comment on every move this Meghan makes but have no smoke for the other infamous Megs...like the one who capitalizes on her Daddy's name and reputation or the former journalist who once claimed Jesus is white and Santa too. There's Meghan Trainor who used to sing about her booty, but now that she's lost all of that baby phat, she's selling laundry detergent. There are other Megans/Meagans and so many other more pressing issues to complain about, so many injustices that should have us in these streets...

But y'all would rather take time to rail against somebody who isn't destroying the world with every stroke of her pen. She's not doing anything different than the rest of us in sharing photos of her family or of herself on IG. She's spreading sunshine and joy, sprinkling edible flowers and hanging out with her celebrity BFFs...so what is the deal?

Like WTF, Bethenny Frankel (whose video I juxtaposed on the FB page with Kamie Crawford's, formerly of MTV's Catfish a few weeks ago)! What's with the green-eyed envy? You do realize how petty and bitter you seem with your constant snipping and sniping at Markle? Rich coming from someone who rose to fame on other people's coattails--first, as a reality show runner-up and then as the unmarried wannabe on a show about NY society housewives. You had your shot, made millions selling watered-down cocktails, but now you have the nerve to opine and stew in your feelings about someone else's life? If you want a Netflix show, get a better agent!

A few weeks back when it was announced that the Duchess would get a second season to regale us with more bread baking and butter churning, I saw an avalanche of reactions, most along the themes highlighted in this article that panned the show and offered up a bunch of reasons why she's so polarizing. Perhaps it is as simple as people not liking her, which is how it goes sometimes--she's not everybody's spot of tea. My problem with these formal pronouncements is that we're constantly being told how unlikeable she is by people who are paid to write negatively about her, and that stacks the deck. It isn't my imagination that every critic writing for The Hollywood Reporter, the New York Post, Screen Rant, and Variety had the exact same reaction.

Doesn't it seem rather coincidental that there are anti-Meghan stories pumped out by the tabloids at the same time there are waves of stories written in support of various members of the British Royal family? Like Queen Camilla deciding to repurpose her wedding suit on an official state visit...it is newsworthy and laudable for the Queen Consort to repeat a 20-year old outfit, giving the impression of being budget-conscious (for once, the Frugal Queen). How about those adorable official birthday portraits being released to celebrate the Wales' spares Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte (better enjoy all of that positive attention now kids). With all of their good news and noble deeds, why was it necessary to pan the roll out of the Duchess' product line in the Daily Mail, The Sun, and the NY Post unless the entire goal was to undermine her efforts?

Furthermore, whenever someone suggests that there is something more sinister behind the immense hatred aimed at the Duchess, we're accused of being woke or ultra-sensitive. Awake to the double-standards or ultra-sensitive because we recognize the abusive cycle of seeing Black women getting built up and then strategically and methodically torn down as some kind of perverse entertainment? The Duchess is hardly the first Black woman to face this; some of her best friends, supporters, and peers have braved the same firing squad of shifting public opinion. Right now, some of y'all are Red-State mad on Blue Ivy's internet that her Momma has the audacity to insist that Black Southern culture is a thing, and not just the fear and complacency y'all would prefer people to believe. 

So let's take a moment to address the irony of this backlash to a Black woman occupying a space to which we were once relegated--why is it so hard to accept the notion of an accomplished Black woman knowing her way around the kitchen? Is it more offensive that she does so while dressed in her designer duds and making use of that good Le Creuset cookware or did y'all expect for her to be sweating over a cheap frying pan from the Dollar Store wearing a red head hanky and a gingham apron?

Lawd...that can't be it, can it?

Surely, it can't be that scandalous that she opted to film her series in a rented kitchen as opposed to her own. Did you honestly expect that a woman whose husband is the son of the King of England, brother to the future King, uncle of the future-future King, and still 6th or 7th in line to the throne himself, who also happens to be fighting several high-profile battles in court to protect his family from tabloid gossip and other nefarious actors--surely she wouldn't be that reckless as to allow cameras into their personal residence to film a cooking show? Other than reality TV Housewives or the late Julia Child, who else is willing to allow a film crew all up in their personal space like that? 

To be clear, the aforementioned Lady Gwyneth Kate was filming herself (or perhaps, she was being filmed by an assistant) in a home video that she posted to her IG account. I shouldn't have to explain any of this, but you do know that most of those TV cooking shows are filmed on sets because there are strict safety protocols for food handling that are difficult to follow in one's own kitchen. If you watch any of those cooking competition shows, they are filmed in spacious studios with fully stocked pantries, farm-fresh ingredients, and state-of-the-art appliances. Do you know anybody who has butcher-block counters or a walk-in freezer?

Speaking of the incomparable Julia Child, most of us who grew up watching her didn't take much notice of her expensive cookware. But if you did, then you rarely, if ever saw her reach for any of those copper pots she had adorning her wall. So why is it unreasonable for Markle to make use of those expensive wedding gifts she amassed when she wed Prince Harry as opposed to letting them collect dust in storage? 

In Meghan's own words, this is a thing, in 2025? Really, because women have been buying discounted enameled cookware from Marshall's for years. Our pieces might not match, but most of the items in our kitchens are a hodge podge of stuff we bought or inherited. I have an enamel Dutch oven that my parents bought me during a post-Christmas clearance sale at Macy's years ago from the Martha Stewart collection. I also happily use my Circulon pots as well as my mother's 50-year old stainless steel cookware. My Mom also had a collection of decorative copper pots adorning the walls of her kitchen. So where is it written that we can't have nice things too?

So what is the big deal? It's a doggone cooking show. On Netflix. Which means, you have to intentionally decide to watch it, unlike the shows that you leave on as background from the Food Network or the Cooking Channel during the holidays. In order to find Markle's show, I had to use the search function because it didn't come up automatically as a recommendation even though every season of Bridgerton, The Crown, and the Downton Abby (2019) movie did. 

By the way, I watched one episode. But I'm not here to offer a review...

I'm here to question why this woman is more polarizing than a Kardashian (whose nonstop attention-hawking we've been subjected to for 20 seasons). Most of us American commoners couldn't care less about the lives of European royalty, yet we know more about the British royals because their family drama is inescapable. Thus, when a Black woman married into the family, more of us got invested and have taken keen notice of how she has been treated. And she has been accused of everything from contributing to global climate change and drought to worrying her husband's nonagenarian Grandparents to death. Since I don't know her personally, I can't tell if she is as terrible as Wallis Simpson...or any more of a phony than this guy.

You would think that she had falsely accused a member of the Royal Family of sexual abuse or that she was a long-lost descendant of one of the rabble-rousers at the Boston Tea Party. As it turns out, it was her naiveté in assuming that in exchange for becoming a mascot for the British Empire, she was entitled to some measure of respect. That she would prove to be as valuable and beloved as one of the Queen's corgis. Upon realizing that the household staff at Buckingham Palace was better regarded, she did what every self-respecting American has done since 1776. And they act like she stole the Crown jewels the way the Brits ransacked everybody else's treasures and antiquities as their own.

I've been trying to wrap my head around this for years, and other than the visceral hate some people seem to have for Black women (and I've got receipts), Meghan hasn't done anything to deserve this. And that's exactly how most of her haters see it too--what makes her so special as to think that she can abscond with our spare prince, keep that title while refusing to allow us to use and abuse her, and live her life on her own terms? Who does she think she is?

As Ever, and With Love...she's HRH Meghan the Remarkable Duchess of Sussex.

Grounded in the Stars

Emotionally, the week leading up to Mother's Day was fine...until the night before when I found myself gnarled up in an emotional heap over asshole comments on the internet. Triggered, bothered, agitated by online reactions I read to the installation of this statue, Grounded in the Stars, by artist Thomas J Price in New York City's Times Square.

I like it. I wish that I could get to New York to see it up close and in person before the exhibition ends in June, but the way life has been lately, that might not be in the stars...

As for reading the comments, I know better. I've been on Al Gore's internet since the beginning, and I know that people shitpost and troll and get away with being awful because that is the nature of unmoderated free expression. People are going to post their innermost asinine unfiltered thoughts because there are no other places in polite society where one can go around and say whatever nonsense pops into one's head about other people unless they are Donald Trump holding a rally for his cult of deplorables. Not unless they want to get beat down...

So trust, I didn't go looking for negativity. It was dumped onto my timeline by the geniuses who manage the Meta algorithm. Apparently, they get bored once a week and decide to flood the zone with crap that I would never interact with from all kinds of random pages. Or they throw out red herrings since I did happen to like a post that highlighted this very statue; perhaps they thought that meant I would appreciate seeing some alternative viewpoints.

Hell to the naw!

Which brings us to this unprecedented Busy Black content move: I erased a post I had previously shared to my Facebook page. When I saw some of those nasty comments, I was compelled to write on impulse, and even after I allowed my thoughts to marinate overnight before posting, I ultimately changed my mind. I was uneasy about what had triggered my anger though I remain steadfast in my admiration of the work itself. However, once I sat with my discomfort and deconstructed it, I figured I would write about my change of heart.

My initial reaction to the piece was to shrug and think, huh, as in is this a newsworthy distraction given everything else that is going on in the world? In the same week that we got an American Pope from the Southside of Chicago by way of the 7th Ward in New Orleans with Haitian Creole ancestry, does a 12-foot statue of a Black woman dropped in the middle of Times Square really need all of this attention? Of course, I shared Grounded to the FB page as it had become clear that the reactions appeared to be divided between the like and laugh FB emojis. Hardly scientific, but random enough to take notice that while some pages celebrated the installation, others deemed it "woke"--the new buzz word to indicate that something is unnecessarily polarizing. Nevertheless, I posted a quick looky here and moved on...until a post in one of my groups directed my attention to the comments section. Curiouser and curiouser the farther I fell down that rabbit hole...

There I saw numerous cruel and mean-spirited memes attacking the work and Black women, including this re-imagining of the Statue of Liberty as a heavy-set Black woman checking her phone (inspired by this other Price exhibition in Florence, Italy perhaps). Accompanying their laugh and hate emoji reactions were images depicting morbidly obese Black women scantily dressed with exaggerated breasts, protruding stomachs, and thick hips. One meme depicted a woman pushing a shopping cart from the "EBT" store; another picture juxtaposed the image of a woman "mocking" the statue by posting a picture of herself striking the same pose. The most offensive meme contrasted this statue to a "preferred" mock-up to immortalize the recent racist encounter on the playground with the woman from Minnesota. 

Having made a trip to see the iconic Lady Liberty colossus in person just last year for the first time since high school, I decided to share this meme since I deemed it the least problematic. My visit to Liberty Island had been so uplifting and empowering, especially as I learned that this beloved American symbol had been a gift from France in celebration of the abolition of slavery. Over the years, her symbolism evolved to serve as a welcoming beacon to immigrants from abroad (and despite what anyone else says, those dual purposes are not in conflict).

My knee-jerk reaction to this and those other aforementioned memes? An emotional fuck y'all. Fuck y'all racist, sexist, homophobic, fat-shaming, Trump-voting fascist asses! This was the day before Mother's Day, so fuck your Momma (since she raised you to be this special kind of asshole); fuck your Daddy next month when Father's Day rolls around; and whomever else agrees with your fucked up worldview! But instead of all those f-bombs, this is the more thoughtful reaction I initially posted: 

Moment of emotional transparency: I really effing hate how *free speech* on social media has turned this country into a nation of rude assholes.

Really. If I could cuss people out and be convinced that it would matter for them to know that I see their racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. And while it may just be words that aren't supposed to permeate or hurt, the truth is that taken individually, no, you don't hurt me. But the accumulated impact of your cruelty and meanness, yes...it's like pouring lemon juice on a thousand paper cuts. Salted wounds.

I've been writing about the small indignities and micro-aggressions endured by Black women on this page (and other platforms) for YEARS. I know only a handful of people care or are moved. I write anyway because I think that maybe, one day, someone's heart will be pricked, pained by seeing the impact of the hurt that is so easily heaped on others. But I know better. No one who knowingly and casually inflicts pain recognizes or cares about how exhausting it is to wake up EVERYDAY as the object of their insatiable cruelty.

I know who and what I am, as well as what I am NOT. I am NOT the ugly, stupid, classless, undesirable, useless, (fill in the blank with whatever adjectives/insults you've been taught that are supposed to describe Black women and girls)... I am not a mule, nor a beast. I am a woman of flesh and blood, who knows better, even as I foolishly and vainly hope otherwise.

We are taught to let them...Laugh. Joke. Think the worst. Believe the lies of their superiority and our inherent inferiority. Prove their weaknesses and insecurities by highlighting our ability to endure, survive, and sometimes thrive in spite of their best efforts to destroy us. 

I should mention that I did not (will not) post any of those memes but chose this one that spoke directly to how I feel. I also did not wish to attract the wrong kind of attention to engage with my page (I have better ways to waste my time than to argue with morons). A few hours later, my anger wasn't as raw or as intense, but much like seeing a taunt from this DEPOTUS posted on his official social media account, it had numbed. Stings at first, then I get used to the pain of the daily indignities and humiliations because he can, so he does...and the futility of accepting that there is nothing I will ever say in retaliation that can penetrate or appeal to any semblance of decency. 

As far as I am concerned, everyone who sees this Grounded statue as an object of mockery or scorn, that is how they see me, my nieces, my daughter, my sorors, my aunties...my late mother. My dilemma is whether to accept their judgment or to subvert it. I will admit that it isn't always easy to ignore the noise. The attacks began to feel personal upon seeing the fourth, then the fifth, and later the subsequent posts that took aim at this composite of a random, non-famous Black woman. The comments assumed that she's on welfare, that she speaks in her outside voice, that she barges her way into exclusive spaces where she doesn't fit in or was not invited. That she has multiple children by different men. That she doesn't work a full-time job. That she expresses herself in vernacular colloquialisms. That she twerks when her favorite songs play. That she eats at McDonald's and so do her children. That she complains about injustice.

That she exists.

All she did was stop for a moment to survey the sights in Times Square, just like everybody else visiting for the first or even the 50th time, because you try navigating an amusement park without a map to indicate where things are? Doesn't everyone need to take a moment to get oriented to the utter chaos and confusion that is New York's Time Square?

So let's do just that--take a moment to fully establish what Times Square is and what is surely ain't. Like it ain't the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) nor the Whitney Museum, where I took the Kid on a special trip to see an exhibition on Alvin Ailey last December. It also ain't the Guggenheim. So the idea that any kind of art installation in Times Square is supposed to evoke fantasies of taking a leisurely stroll through some tranquil sculpture garden is insanity.

The most accurate way of describing Times Square to someone who has never been there is to compare it to a large open air, overpriced food court located in the middle of the most crowded and loudest set of city blocks in America. I've never been to the Mall of America, but I imagine that is the same kind of chaos. Thousands of tourists; folks trying to sell you same-day show tickets; the stench of burnt hot dogs and roasted peanut wafting from the carts on every corner; Sirijul and Mujibur; bootleg merchants; overpriced chain restaurants; and ginormous neon billboards with blinking lights. There is a Naked Cowboy and his wife. There are also people walking around dressed as cartoon characters, so if you've ever wanted your picture taken with a Disney character but cannot afford a trip to the other most expensive amusement trap on Earth, then Times Square is a viable alternative. That is, if no one will notice that the Times Square Mickey Mouse always looks like he just lost a bar fight in the alley with Elmo (also on hand in case you get lost on your way to finding Sesame Street, which as it turns out, is within 2 miles, not that far away).

The only reason to make an effort to go to Times Square is to see a Broadway play. I was there a year ago to see The Wiz. The only other reason to be there is to kill time on your way out of town by bus at the Port Authority or by train at Grand Central Station. Otherwise, you're only there to get robbed--by spending too much money at one of the multi-level concept stores (like we did on M&Ms), or by one of those shady looking dudes posing as the Mario Brothers.

As the resident of another city that is full of statues and monuments, I appreciate when something new comes along to break up the monotony of generals, presidents, and historical figures as decorative sculpture. Nothing wrong with a little whimsy here and there, such as past public art installations that featured painted pandas, donkeys and elephants, and now all kinds of vibrant murals. There have been varying responses to these kinds of works. They can be polarizing. They stoke derision. There is no such thing as a universally beloved piece of art that appeals to everybody, so it isn't surprising that some works are more controversial than others. However, as long as people understand that not all pieces are intended to appeal to everyone, then the easiest thing to do is move along until there is something that does appeal to you.

For example, a local favorite piece of public art here in DC wasn't initially an art installation but an advertisement for a furniture store. The Big Chair of Anacostia was erected in 1959 and is located in a strip mall in Southeast DC, across the Anacostia River--a world away from most of the city's other more famous monuments. For years, it was known primarily to those of us who grew up in the neighborhood, but as our population has grown and changed, the chair has become a more recognizable city landmark. It is still mostly significant to those of us who live in the SE quadrant; I doubt that anyone who doesn't have a reason to drive into Anacostia would go out of their way to see an oversized piece of furniture. Nor do people who have only become residents of the city in the last 20 years know that this isn't even the original chair.

In response to Grounded, I had no visceral reaction other than curiosity for why a 12-foot tall figure? Assuming the same question was asked when it was an installation of 10-foot tall Balloon Dogs or the 8-foot tall LOVE sculptures, then part of that answer becomes why not? If public art is meant to be seen, discussed, engaged, debated, then it has to make some kind of bold statement. Perhaps the next logical question is why now, given these tumultuous times we've entered with the return of Donald Trump. Because once the default complaint that this statue was "woke", that became a bat signal for MAGA to come out swinging. To which, my retort: if not now, then when?

For such a time as this, why not celebrate an unassuming Black woman standing in her own skin? Why not look upon that Mama Liberty meme as an affirmation of our power, instead of the insult to our appearance as was intended? Black women worked hard to preserve American democracy and its ideals in the 2024 election. One of us was handed the baton at the 11th hour and still got 75 million votes. No need to cringe as Mama Liberty holds that torch aloft while also busy organizing and handling her business!

To be clear, one can dislike Price's statue and not be a racist. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My problem is that people were intentional and comfortable in bashing the work through the lenses of racism, sexism, classism, and body-shaming. We've already acknowledged how the term woke functions as a dog whistle; others sought to express their anti-Blackness in more subtle forms. For example, conservative provocateur Matt Walsh penned this pseudo-intellectual opinion piece to proclaim his disdain for Price's oeuvre of public art. Then there is the use of the historically loaded term Mammy which somehow becomes the default description of any full-figured Black woman...

Mind you, Grounded could just as easily have been someone's impression of me during the pandemic. Me, or any one of my friends whose struggles with menopause, stress, and the weight of the world have manifested on our bodies, settled into our curves. Once upon a time, full-bodied women were symbols of fertility and abundance. Isn't there a proposal floating around about paying women to have more children? When did our society become so repulsed by the sight of fleshy, Rubenesque women? Especially since many of our mothers, grandmothers, and your Trump-loving aunties have that same body type...when did we become so intolerant and shallow?

Instead of being distracted by superficial concerns, we ought to be more offended that our society has become immune to the ways that racism and sexism compound to harm the psyche of Black, Latino, Asian, and Indigenous women. Or that we're too proud to admit that the daily drip-drip of undeserved mean-spiritedness, insults to our intelligence and competence, and the outright hostility and disrespect exact a heavy physical, emotional, and psychological toll? Women of color disproportionately suffer from higher incidences of infant and maternal mortality, more diagnoses of autoimmune disorders, and greater tendencies to develop aggressive and debilitating chronic diseases. 

Why is it so triggering that a temporary art installation in the most garish public plaza in the most crowded city in America happens to be statue of a Black woman? If you aren't in Times Square right now, nor will be at any point before June 17, then why do you care? Everything you see in her is a reflection of you: your assumptions, your insinuations, your discomfort, your anxieties, your prejudices and biases, your insecurities. It is incredible to see how much fear and loathing she's inspired just by standing there, taking up space without saying or doing anything remarkable!

Stand tall among the stars and stay grounded.

Ten Years to Life

My daughter just celebrated her tenth birthday. I had wanted to write a long dedication in the days leading up to the big leap from single to double digits, but I got all caught up in my feelings. I am ecstatic. I am in disbelief. I am overwhelmed by a list of things to do for this "surprise" birthday party that I'm sure she'll be smart enough to figure out is really happening in spite of what I told her. (That it was cancelled because she got out of line, but how can I be expected to keep that kind of promise in anticipation of this particular birthday???)

And now, when I should be packing for a family trip, I am procrastinating to write about this pending major milestone, because this is a moment that deserves to be preserved and celebrated!

So let's start at the beginning: ten years ago in March 2015, I returned to this blog after a hiatus of two years. The last post I wrote in 2012 was on my 39th birthday. The first post I wrote in 2015 was to announce my pregnancy with just little less than a month remaining. At the time, I was still very unsure and uncertain of what was to come, including the gender of the child I was carrying. That was an intentional choice for reasons that I can only summarize as a delayed delusional denial--I was scared but unwilling to unpack those fears. Not knowing was a way of maintaining control, managing expectations, and like I said, delusional!

You can read between the lines I wrote in the few weeks before the Kid was born, including two pieces that were published hours before I went into labor. I had NO idea. Then the Babe was born, and I got caught up in those sleepless and seemingly endless post-partum days and nights. After a few months, it took more time to find both my motivation and rhythm to write. For example, when I wrote at the end of that year about Mommy-blogging, it was with the explicit intention of avoiding that lane and label. I was ambivalent about identifying myself as a "Mom" in the political sense, because I believed (and still feel) that it was necessary to embody many identities as a woman. 

Before I take you down that road, let's talk about my evolution over the past decade. 

First, let's acknowledge the transition from being pregnant (and still fertile) ten years ago to entering this new season of life called menopause. It is jarring. Literally, just a year ago, I still felt halfway normal, and now I don't. I have weird sleeping patterns, night sweats, and I am perpetually unfocused and cranky. As someone who never dealt with major PMS until after I had a baby, it is unnerving to undergo such drastic changes after so many years of knowing my body and how it worked. Now, I have no idea what to expect from one day to the next. Given my "advanced maternal age" when I finally got pregnant, I knew that I was on Team One and Done, but this change effectively ends the game.

Which brings me to the significance of this past year since the death of my Mom. Because if losing a parent forces a formidable life adjustment, letting go of the ability to have more children has me mourning another substantial loss. And for lack of a better way to describe this, it just feels cosmically unfair. My life isn't over, but this change puts the matter of my mortality on the horizon. I know, referring to menopause as the start of a death march is overly dramatic, but I can't help but to think that I am now counting down as opposed to gearing up. And that sucks.

Especially when your ten-year old is going through puberty. Because it suddenly registers what that all entails.

She's still my baby, but no longer a baby. She's still very much a kid, but she wants to engage in pre-teen things. Soon, that will become teen things, and before long, I will have a young lady making decisions about her future. So while I adjust to my own changes, I have to mentally prepare myself for hers. I know I've joked about that once or twice, but now that the time has come, and we are both in transition I'm not laughing. No, I'm not curled up in a ball, but I am trying to come to terms with this season of growth for her while trying to resist the fatalist tendency to regard this as a season of decline for me.

Ten years ago when my daughter was born, I had a dogwood tree planted in our front yard. I was following the example of my mother who had planted a dogwood tree in the front yard of our family home when we were kids. The tree at my parents' home started off small, but it grew and spread over the course of nearly 40 years to become a focal point of the yard. We took our annual Easter pictures in front of it and continued the tradition with younger cousins and grandchildren. 

Then about three years ago, I noticed that the tree seemed to be struggling, especially in the summers through successive years of drought. Since the tree had been resilient in previous years, we assumed it would recover, as it had each spring. Unfortunately, in the summer of 2023, only half of the leaves came back and one weekend, they all just dried up and died. I initially fretted this was an omen...

I had a tree specialist come by to conduct a post-mortem and we learned that the tree wasn't supposed to have been planted in full sun. It had survived a lot longer than it should have in the wrong location, so it wasn't neglect, but a combination of factors that had killed it. (Incidentally, two dogwood trees planted by a neighbor are also dying under similar conditions.) For a replacement, we opted for a sun-loving cherry blossom and planted another dogwood in a more temperate location. The new trees were planted in November 2023; my Mom passed three months later.

It didn't escape my notice that the cherry blossom tree bloomed the week of her funeral, followed by the new dogwood tree a few weeks later. Instead of regarding the death of that older tree as an omen, I have chosen to interpret my observations of all these trees as messages. The end of one life and the flourishing of another is the how this world turns. As painful as it was to accept that my mother's time was coming to an end, like the dogwood, she had lived a lot longer than expected under unsustainable conditions. Alzheimer's had taken so much from her and us...

I chose to have my daughter and niece read When Great Trees Fall, by Maya Angelou at her funeral. I knew they were too young to grasp the significance, but I knew that it was important for two of her saplings to have a prominent role in saying goodbye. It was important for people to see life flourishing, planted firmly in temperate locations and blossoming. 

Ten years of motherhood. At times it seems surreal to recall that I had a very different life prior to the birth of my daughter. I had different dreams and aspirations. It was by random chance that I ended up on the path toward motherhood after I had determined that it would only happen by some divine intervention...and I guess, that is how I would define the sequence of events I shared in this post. If I didn't believe in miracles before, I sure do now.