Women of a Certain Age

If things had gone a little differently in my life, I would probably be one of the post-menopausal childless cat ladies that JD Vance and his running mate, 34 counts yet still running, keep insulting. As you know, when I started this blog, that was the path I was traveling (oh wait, some of you probably weren't aware that I had a cat-Mommy stint prior to the start of this blog...will tell you all about it in a minute)--except I was/am married. I was a dedicated Auntie to all of the kids in my husband's family and had just the one Baby Niece born to my younger brother. We were coming up on ten years of marriage, and all indications pointed to the probability that we were going to be one of those childless married couples--the kind who were content to spoil everyone else's little cherubs with unnecessary frivolity until they had to be returned to their parents.

We got really good at that. But then life took some interesting twists and turns...and well, we are now living another old married couple cliche--that of being the older parents of a young child. We are so old that we can't relate to any of the other parents in our daughter's peer group because we were in college or full grown adults with bills when most of them were children. Some of them are as young as our adult nieces and nephews!

And though I am not Post Menopausal, I am acquainted with her younger sister Peri while their niece Puberty has been trying to catch up with my daughter. Fun times for the Hub, let me tell you...

Since I mentioned it, allow me to take you on a quick trip through my childless cat lady phase, which got underway exactly 15 years ago! It started in late Spring or early Summer of 2008 when I happened to notice a stray kitten on my doorstep while I was grabbing the mail. It ran away, so I didn't think much of it until I happened to see another kitten with a larger cat out on the walkway in front of my house a day or so later. What struck me about them was both the coincidence of seeing two kittens in a span of days near my house, and the fact that the larger cat and the first kitten (black/white tuxedo cats) were obviously related, but now there appeared to be a tiger-striped sibling. Within a few days, I saw the original kitten (whose name I forget, and it is driving me crazy), Tiger, and the Mother cat whom we called Midnight in my backyard, at which point, I became obsessed invested with these strays. It didn't take long for the Hub to warm up to our little cat family once a fourth sibling (another tiger-striped kit whom he named Pudgy) befriended him, and for the next few weeks, we became foster cat parents.

Yes, you read that right. The soon-to-be Busy Black Lady with lifelong animal fur allergies bought cat food, a house, and even a heating pad in case the night temperature dropped. One night I saw a fox stalking my kits and I chased it away in high heel shoes! I scowled when their deadbeat fat Cat-Daddy (a tiger-striped that reminded me of Heathcliff) showed up one day, expecting to be fed even though he wore a visible collar. We contacted the Humane Society for guidance to support our kitties, and they referred us to a special program for stray cats. They recommended that we could extend the life of our strays by having them spayed/neutered, which we paid to have done (and I think we still have one of the cages they left behind). 

Bob Barker would have been proud; alas, this was a short-lived sitcom. To my next-door neighbor, who kept a strict schedule of meticulous yard work and immaculate landscaping, our cats were a nuisance. They were crapping in his yard, so his demand was if we weren't going to bring them to live inside our house, then we needed to stop feeding them. I ignored him, so he retaliated by using some kind of repellant that kept them away. No matter what I did to entice them back, they never returned to our care. 

The nature of passing fancies is that they pass, and once we were in the full throes of Obamamania, his Inauguration, and that first year of wow-we-got-a-Black-president euphoria, I moved on. By year's end, we were blessed with a Baby Niece (now the Mean Teen) and in spite of our excitement over her, we had accepted that God's plan for our lives wouldn't follow the traditional route of love, marriage, and baby carriages. As it turned out, the delay was not a denial with quite a few detours and left turns before we got here.

I shared that bit of personal history in response to the truly tone-deaf and insensitivity of the statements made by GOP Vice Presidential candidate James Donald David Bowman Hamel Vance (yeah, not exactly the kind of hillbilly name we're used to). He said some things about women that don't sound like a guy who hopes to ascend to a higher office with our support. His wife Usha, also a rather preppie Yalie in her own right, doesn't seem to know how to help him pull that country club loafer out of his mouth...

Childless cat-ladies is the kind of insult one would expect from some bitter IT guy living in his parents' basement because those are the only women he meets--the ones who post cat videos online. I'm not throwing shade because people like what they like, and cats happen to be the pet of choice for certain kinds of folks. I imagine that collecting houseplants and gardening would be similarly regarded, which is something I've done off and on for quite some time (and even blogged about it). So, I'm just saying that if we are categorizing people, basement-dwelling man-babies living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

James David has argued that people who don't produce offspring don't have a sufficient stake in the future of the country, and therefore shouldn't have the same rights. Sounds kinda like a version of second-class citizenship that people marched and protested against, say 60 years ago. Because what about my Aunt E, a childless divorcee who taught pre-K for 35+ years? Or the nuns who taught me French, Biology, and Religion back at my all-girls' high school as part of my training and preparation for a good Catholic marriage? I could provide examples of the countless women, many of whom are good friends of mine, who wanted to follow the traditional path of love and marriage, but either never found the right man or experienced some course alteration that put them on a different path. Most of these women are doing great work in their professions, as business owners, and as civic leaders, because they have chosen to focus their energy on making the world better.

Because Lord knows, those of us with children barely have time to take care of ourselves. Ask me how I know...

Furthermore, just as there are childless women who have the time, talent, and treasure to dedicate themselves to improving the lives of others, there are men who are just as similarly convicted and concerned about human welfare. I happen to know quite a few of them as well. James David happens to be a recent adult convert to Catholicism, an entire Christian denomination that follows the edicts and proclamations made by unmarried men--a Pope, a college of Cardinals and Archbishops, Bishops, etc., and somehow, I don't believe he intends to disenfranchise his parish priest. That the men who are leaders of his faith have neither been married nor have any biological children, yet they have taken it upon themselves to impose their moral authority on the entire world...not at all problematic. But it's the cat ladies who can't be trusted?

(In all seriousness, because not only is my Dad a Catholic as are several people I respect, such as President Biden, so I won't dare make a crass joke...just a passing reference to the fact that yeah, substantial and unforgivable harm due to the sexual abuse that was covered up for centuries, but let's move on.)

As a former domestic relations attorney, I can tell you that there are too many people who have had children for all of the wrong reasons, so there is NO way we should entrust our country's future to their poor judgment. I could write a whole separate piece on that part of my life and what I have learned about human nature, but suffice it to say 

Post-menopausal women sounds on par with referring to pregnancy after the age of 35 as geriatric. It is the kind of insult that may be technically correct terminology but might get you shanked if aimed at the wrong person. So of course it gets uttered by two men engaged in light banter on a podcast. And look, I would take James David at his word that he didn't agree with that term if his word could be trusted. This is the same guy who went from being a never-Trumper to his bottom bitch in less time than it takes for a woman in her mid-50s to become post-menopausal...

As offensive as their implied use of that term was, it was actually the awkward white guy "compliment" of their respective South Asian mothers-in-law that was more offensive. Perhaps I'm just being hormonal, but why do white men who marry outside of their race always seem surprised to learn that whenever possible, their non-white in-laws don't consider caring for their grandchildren as an imposition? (And have y'all ever considered that it's you they are most concerned about?) My MIL moved in with her son and then her daughter to assist with her grandchildren too, and I imagine had she lived, she would have moved to DC to assist us 9 years ago. Not because that would have been her purpose, but her pleasure. 

Be clear on that distinction--it would have been her pleasure to assist us, and our privilege to accept and receive such selfless support. Because not all families operate under the automatic assumption of assigned gender roles, nor should it be regarded as an obligation. Relationships are choices. I am perplexed then, by someone like James David, who claims to understand and appreciate how strong women chose to intervene at various points in his life to save him, could so easily betray them with his misogynist rhetoric. I know that he wants to appease the hedge funders, venture capitalists, alphaverse Podcast Bros, and millionaire grifters running for President to avoid prison, but c'mon man! 

Seriously, what kind of man talks shit about women the way James David has done and expects that all will be forgiven once he gets home? Would his beloved Mamaw, the woman he immortalized in his memoir appreciate being reduced to a post-menopausal woman whose only purpose was to keep him from ruining his life? Really? And what of his wife, Usha, an accomplished woman in her own right who has apparently chosen to compromise her principles to stand by her man...I imagine that if she's rethinking her life choices, she's wondering how much she might have accomplished as a childless cat lady.

This is the thanks they get--a man who prevaricates to obscure the impact of his shape-shifting and weather-vane politics. A cardboard cut-out opportunist who wears guyliner. A man who can't even settle on a consistent name for himself, but he's got disparaging names for women. Contrary to the various clarifications and remixed explanations issued by the campaign, James David isn't some inarticulate rube who misspeaks or makes up words. He's the kind of self-made everyman whose trajectory from the Appalachians to the Marines to Ohio State to Yale Law School to Silicon Valley to the NYTimes Bestseller List to the Senate to the point where he could be a heartbeat away from the Presidency is...almost too good to be true. 

I may just be a former cat lady aging my way towards menopause, but this talented Mr. Ripley act James David is pulling has been calculated and methodical. He's not campaigning to be the wing man to someone he despises, because his mission isn't to help elect the useful orange idiot. Trump is a means to an end. Apparently, y'all haven't watched the Manchurian Candidate (1962) enough times. (What, you thought cat ladies and post-menopausal women only watched rom-coms in their downtime?)

Women who can think for themselves, exercise the freedom to make choices about what to do with their lives, and who aren't overwhelmed or tied down by familial obligations threaten the New (Old) World Order. Even if you haven't taken the time to read Project 2025 (and I have a kid, so no I don't have that kind of time), many of the proposals and policy recommendations are intended to undo much of the New Deal/Great Society reforms of the 20th Century. James David wrote the foreword, so even as his running mate disavows knowledge of what is contained in the plan, we know he's lying and it doesn't matter because James David knows. These are the people who groomed positioned him!

Thus, even if they lose in November, they have already sown enough seeds of discord. They have polarized this country along every fault line that exists and have exploited every vulnerability. We are embroiled in daily cultural skirmishes over the most ridiculous of topics. We live with constant agitation and anger over the pettiest stuff with the objective of keeping us under constant stress, exhausted, and on a hair trigger to overreact to just about anything. I mean, why does anyone need to lose sleep over a woman who prefers the company of cats unless she's insisting on bringing a dish to the office potluck?

Do you realize what these people have gotten us so angry about: rainbows, kittens, Dr. Suess books, tampons, crying babies, and RuPaul's Drag Race?! Remember when we used to end friendships over the choice between Coke vs. Pepsi, McDonald's vs. Burger King, and The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones? Me neither because I just picked my preferences and went on about my business. Sure, we've got fundamental disagreements, competing perspectives, and divergent ideas because this is a diverse country. Allegedly, that is supposed to allow us the freedom to be ourselves, whomever that may be.

For some women, that means choosing to adopt cats instead of having biological children. That's also a valid choice for men too. Choice means that children are born and raised by people who want and are able to provide for them, including extended family members, such as a post-menopausal woman or a retired elderly man. Parenthood shouldn't be mandated or forced on anyone, nor should certain family structures be proscribed by law or deemed superior to others. 

Finally, because I don't know what to make of Usha Vance (is she a manipulative Eleanor Iselin, conspiring with the Kremlin to facilitate a scenario to deliver the Presidency to her husband) or is she a captive would-have-been a cat lady, and it is she who is under hypnosis? I don't know what your choice will ultimately be, but if you need to escape, there's an army of women ready to pounce, just say the word.

In Search of Our Mother's Gardens

My inner Boho Busy Black Woman is quite pleased. I am sitting outside in my backyard, dressed in a flowing caftan, and surrounded by growing plants. I have a functioning compost pile where I deposit daily food scraps. What I don't compost, I am attempting to re-grow (so far an onion and some celery look promising). I found all of the pieces to my juicer and may try a new juice concoction later (nah, I'll pour a drink instead).

I don't know whose life this is, but I kinda like it.

What I mean by that is, I had an epiphany this morning as I sat outside in my backyard for my daily prayer call. I was pulling double duty, so I was up a little earlier and sat bundled in a small blanket because the air was still crisp and moist with morning dew. Right before I dialed into the first call, I took a moment to breathe in the scene--there were all kinds of birds and the white noise of my neighbor's A/C unit. At the end of the second call, I inhaled again and felt transported to some distant memory of a scene that didn't quite mesh with my usual Busy Black life. Familiar, yet strange to feel so at peace in the midst of pandemic and protest chaos.

The last time I had a summer garden was the year I got pregnant. I mentioned this on the Facebook page the other day, and I promise to tell the full story of the zucchini plant that foretold the coming of this rambunctious girl child I had the following Spring. (I checked the archives and realized I wasn't writing during that time period, so stay tuned for another post.) She is very excited, yet easily bored and disinterested in this gardening effort. Though not at all surprising, I am proud to say that she did maintain her focus long enough to help me plant some of what is now growing.

Is it a vision of my life I am channeling in these peaceful moments, or is it a memory of a scene that belonged to one of my foremothers? Is it my Grandmother Viola's tiny front-yard flower bed, full of store bought annuals that came from Eastern Market a few blocks away? I look at my unproductive and diseased peach tree and remember how the one in her ivy-covered yard, planted by the careless toss of a peach pit by my mother and her younger brother as children, flourished and yielded edible fruit for years without much effort. Or at least I was unaware that anyone affirmatively did anything intentional to keep it alive from year to year. I wonder should I dare to resuscitate mine since the squirrels and the deer probably wouldn't let the fruit ripen to maturity.

Is it my Grandmother Amanda's flowering bushes that framed the front and side yard of her little house? She had the typical assortment of what I call nice-lady bushes: azaleas, Rose of Sharon, hydrangea, roses, and probably others that I cannot remember. She and the other nice ladies bonded over their bushes, grandchildren, and the slower pace of retired life. There was also an evergreen bush that produced berries she cautioned me never to eat and a giant blue spruce that I called the Christmas tree. I remember it being a sore point when the next owner (my cousin) cut it down and planted an old rusted cab in its place. Or maybe it was Mrs. W's backyard oasis, one of Grandma's neighbors and church buddies, who had upped the ante with a fish pond (funny how I hadn't thought about any of that in years)!

Is it my MIL Martina's urban vegetable garden that had to be protected from her ball-tossing sons and their friends? The Hub recalls that she grew tomatoes and that his father had to install chicken-wire fencing to shield the plants. When I knew her, arthritis prevented her from gardening, but she still maintained various house plants outside on a deck that overlooked the street.

Is it Soror B's garden? Every year I marvel at her hot peppers, collard greens, and other garden delights, so this year I am attempting to duplicate her success in containers. I cannot wait to share pictures with her as they grow. I want to install flower beds similar to hers around my little patio and maybe plant flowers that the deer won't find appetizing. Or is it Soror M's backyard paradise, where for years, we gathered every August for new student send-offs? Like my Grandma Amanda, her house is framed by the same assortment of nice-lady bushes in the front yard and along the sides, but then the backyard transforms to an extensive outdoor mancave/she-shed. There is a grill built into what looks like a fireplace or an altar that is the focal point, along with a lounge/entertainment space decorated with potted flowers. Come to think of it, that appears to be a common pattern...

Mrs. E, Mrs. B, Mrs. M, Mrs. F all planted the same nice-lady bushes in the front of their homes, and then ceded some space for their husbands' side projects out back. Of course, that was not how it worked with my Mother. Audrey wanted nothing to do with nice-lady bushes, and my Dad was never granted a special place for any outdoor hobbies. She did have azaleas planted by the front door after she pulled up some evergreens and our basement flooded. She maintained two respectable flower beds on either side of those azaleas that are now overgrown with vinca and other assorted weeds. Since her illness, no one has tended to those beds, and while it has been something of an annoyance that I am the only person who gives it much thought, I may spend Independence Day this year digging up and planting something special for her. 

As I scrolled through my Facebook timeline after the prayer calls, I saw posts of friends with pictures from their gardens, all in various stages of development. Some were planted weeks or months ahead of mine, so they could show off first fruits. Others were planted a bit after mine, so they were excited about first buds. Some people bought already established plants while others started from seed. All of us are excited, so perhaps I might start an online group for us to share our progress. I have also wondered whether it would be worth the effort to revisit my old garden blog to track mine.

While admiring their work, I remembered the Alice Walker book and essay that gave this piece its title. It has been quite a while since I last read it, but it seems so appropriate in this moment. All of us who are planting flowers or vegetables or maintaining fruit trees, how many of us are channeling memories spent with a mother, grandmother, or aunt who tended a garden? How many of us recall how those women came home after a hard day or week of unappreciated work that never paid them what they were worth? How many of those women taught us indirectly how to create art and beauty in our own special way?

Having just written about the liberation of Mammy, my head is still in that space of recognizing how extraordinarily gifted our mothers, aunts, and grandmothers were. Those women whose hobbies we assumed were about killing time, when in fact, they were about making do with the meager resources at their disposal. Gardens were about providing vegetables to eat in-season and then to can for use in the winter months. Cooking elaborate Sunday meals were about having leftovers to sustain their hungry families on those weeknights when they had to work late. Clothing scraps were sewn into quilts and curtains and patched up holes in clothes. Sewing helped them to avoid Jim Crow humiliation in stores where they could not try on garments before purchasing. Our foremothers taught us to make the best of less than ideal situations...we just didn't know then how it would be useful to us now.

In my recollection, my mother stayed up late to sew dresses for me and clothes for herself. It had nothing to do with Jim Crow in the 80s, but she had two other children, and not many hand-me-downs from older cousins fit my lanky frame. She also sewed costumes for her students, and I still remember one night when I crept downstairs to find the entire living room swathed in velvet pantaloons for some Shakespearean festival. Rentals were not in her budget.

I remember how we had a grape vine in the backyard of our first home, and how Grandma Viola made us jars of grape jelly (and peach preserves) every year. I remember that we never had to worry about grapes going unharvested because one of our neighbors, Mr. J, enlisted a crew of relatives to pick them for us (and then spent half the winter drunk). His mother and sister were the overseers and chief vintners.

Since I haven't developed a desire to sew, my interest in gardening probably came from my Dad, who had a vegetable garden the summer we lived with him in Michigan some 40+ years ago when he was in grad school. I was younger than my daughter when I helped him harvest carrots and corn from our backyard. I don't recall that he ever attempted to duplicate that effort here in DC because I'm guessing Audrey would not have been down with it. However for years, he talked about getting a plot at the community garden nearby. He never did that, so maybe that's what I'm doing--planting my Daddy's garden (he was Amanda's only child)...

Not that it matters which parent, grandparent, family friend, etc., bequeathed this innate need to watch things grow to me. Like everyone else who finds solace in nice-lady flower bushes, koi ponds, barbecue altars, self-designed backyard patios, outdoor work spaces, vintage clothes, heirloom quilts, cookie tins full of extra buttons, rag dolls, handwritten recipes for gumbo and red beans with rice, shelves of pickled veggies, fruit preserves, secret diaries of poetry, soap or candle-making, or bathtub brew, we are all in search of peace. We are looking for beauty that we cannot conjure up on demand, places we can go to retreat from the relentlessness of chaos.

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see: or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read. -- Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mother's Gardens (1972)

How Are You, Sis?

Over the past three months, I have randomly sent that message in a text to various friends of mine. I always feel that I should check up on more friends and definitely on more of my relatives, then I try to rationalize my neglect...I am the Busy Black Woman, after all. But still, if I have not checked in with you yet, trust that I will do my best over these next few weeks.

Because I need you to survive. I need us to get through these public heath crises of pandemic and racism. I need us to have the strength to keep marching and protesting and agitating for our babies, our siblings, our parents, and our neighbors. I need us to make it.

Thus, in the midst of the crazy, I have done the opposite of what I would normally do. I have not been down to Black Lives Matter Plaza to join any protest marches. I haven't written much for the blog in days. Instead, I have been in my back yard, sitting in the sun and sowing seeds/food scraps in the container garden that was intended as a stay-at-home project to occupy my daughter. It has now become a necessary retreat for my peace of mind.

Lord knows I need it. As the outside world reels from COVID and protests against racial injustice, my Mom has been hospitalized for dehydration and other health concerns. We'll be facing a very different care dynamic once she returns home. My daughter has been lashing out in anger, frustration, and distress as the isolation from friends, family, and normal routines has dragged on for over three months. My temper is short. I barely have enough energy to do anything significant.

I have friends who have lost parents and loved ones in this pandemic. Folks have lost jobs and businesses. I have stopped commenting on the actions of the DESPOTUS because those of us who are perpetually horrified remain so, while those of you who have an insatiable appetite for his crap sandwiches are all lined up for that rally in Tulsa (please wear a mask). I had thought that Dr. Fauci was ghosting us, but there have been sightings. However, nothing he has said in those periodic pop-up appearances has been reassuring...


I started on this piece when the news was shared about the sudden death of the staff writer from This Is Us, a show I used to watch (no I haven't taken the time to catch up). Her name was Jas Waters. At first, I thought she was another COVID-19 tragedy, and was all prepared to lament the disproportionate health outcomes for people of color, but then the truth was revealed. She had committed suicide, so my lament turned to that other health disparity that we're not discussing because we would rather focus on racist food packaging.

Black woman cannot save the world if we cannot save ourselves.

However, before I drill down on that point, I need to go back and emphasize that the world is literally upside down for so many of us because nothing is as it should be. So everything is messing with people in untold ways. The sad story of Jas Waters reminded me of Lorna Breen, the New York emergency room doctor who committed suicide weeks earlier. She had recovered from COVID and was convalescing at home in Virginia with her parents. But the emotional toll of watching countless people die was too much for her, but it was only a 12 hour news story that we just shrugged off because mental health only becomes a big deal when it manifests in harm to others.

Throughout this pandemic, people have been posting those well-meaning (yet meaningless) status updates where they implore others to reach out if they need help. Let me tell you, that shit is as annoying as those like-if-you-love-Jesus chain letters. If I need a suicide hotline number, I promise that I won't be scrolling through your FB timeline to find it. And heaven forbid, in the moment when one's mind wanders to that dark place, I hope the the last person I would want to speak to is a stranger. I would like to know that I could turn to a friend.

And that is always the unspoken problem with depression. In the times of greatest need, no one wants to talk about it. I had a rough week, and after crying, eating, drinking, and sleeping my way through an emotional roller coaster, I am still not that keen on discussing my feelings. It is too exhausting. And I am not in the mood for a disingenuous pep talk about how I can make it through if I just blah, blah, blah. Don't worry, I'm not suicidal, but I completely understand how someone who is on the edge can prefer disengagement to outreach.

Thus when someone asks, it is so much easier to lie and say that things are okay. That is the most noncommittal and honest assessment I can offer most of the time. And while I know that if someone is responding to my texts with that same mindset, saying okay doesn't set off the alarm bells for me to spring into Busy Black Superwoman mode (yeah, sometimes I must amp up my mutant powers for good).

I can't save you if I am also drowning. And let's real talk the fact that what I really mean by 'saving' anybody is just listening and possibly going to the liquor store. We can tread water together.

I won't conclude this piece with any profound insights. These past few weeks have been Hell. We might have to endure several more weeks of disaster before shit evens out, and that might be worse than where things are now. If we only have control over our response, then let's start there by taking these calls for self-care seriously. If that is bath salts, candles, loose teas, gardening, hiking, and yoga, or going to bed in the middle of the day with a pint of ice cream, a fifth of vodka, or some racist pancake mix--so be it.

I am joking about that last part. DO not eat anymore racist foods. And if you find yourself reaching for the vodka more often than you are heading outside to take a walk or to garden, then be honest about that. When someone asks how you are, tell them the truth, that you are not okay. They might not be able to say or do anything useful to help, but knowing that people care is important. People do care and they will mourn you (but you won't know that). If no one has reached out to inquire about your well-being, then start the ball rolling on your end. You might save two lives with one phone call or random text.

Fried Chicken Wednesday: Cue the Blacklash

I don't know what day we're on and I'm sure that today isn't still Wednesday, but dammit, I'm pissed. I have been posting similar rants on my Facebook page over the foolishness and stupidity of others during this pandemic, and it gets more frustrating with each passing week.

I don't understand why it is so hard to convince people that this is a deadly virus. Don't quote annual flu statistics or car crash fatalities when there have been more people to die of this virus in this country in three months than the number of American casualties recorded from the Vietnam War. It is NOT a badge of honor to lead the world in fatalities. And it isn't just your local coffee shop or nail salon that was impacted but it has been EVERY coffee shop and EVERY nail salon on the entire planet, save that one combo unit in Antarctica, that have all been impacted! EVERYBODY has to start over from scratch.

I don't know how else to say it. So I will consult my Google translator and say Coronavirus has shut down the world in other languages to see if it becomes clearer:

Coronavirus het die wêreld gesluit. (Afrikaans)
Karōnābhā'irāsa biśbakē bandha karē diyēchē. (Bengali)
Koronavirusŭt zatvori sveta. (Bulgarian)
Coronavirus har lukket verden ned. (Danish)
Coronavirus heeft de wereld gesloten. (Dutch)
Koronavirus on sulkenut maailman. (Finnish)
Le coronavirus a fermé le monde. (French)
Coronavirus hat die Welt geschlossen. (German)
A koronavírus leállította a világot. (Hungarian)
Coronavirus ha chiuso il mondo. (Italian)
Koronauirusu ga sekai o heisa shita. (Japanese)
Kolona baileoseuga sesang-eul dad-assseubnida. (Korean)
Koronavirusot go zatvori svetot. (Macedonian)
Coronavirus har strengt verden. (Norwegian)
Koronawirus zamknął świat. (Polish)
Coronavirusul a închis lumea. (Romanian)
Coronavirus apagó el mundo. (Spanish)
Coronavirus funga dunia. (Swahili)
Coronavirus dị pid taw lng lok. (Thai)
Coronavirus dünyayı kapattı. (Turkish)
Koronavirus zakryv svit. (Ukranian)
Coronavirus đã đóng cửa thế giới. (Vietnamese)
Koronavirus hat farmakhn di velt. (Yiddish)
Coronavirus ku aye. (Yoruba)

And if it still doesn't make sense to you then I guess I could try some universal language like Morse code, pig Latin, American sign language, or the NATO phonetic alphabet (but I don't have time for any of that shit), so to sum up:

And yes, I know American sign language isn't a universal language. That isn't the point; however, coronavirus is a Charlie Foxtrot or in Busy Black Woman parlance, chicken fried poop.

My other point is that I have complied with the stay at home orders issued by my local government, neighboring jurisdictions, and acting-President Andrew Cuomo. I have been supporting local restaurants by eating their over-priced take out. I have put on a cheerful face during my daughter's daily community meetings even though I would much rather be doing anything else. I am still laminating lessons that the Kid may or may not feel like doing because free-range Montessori children are special like that. I have done my part to keep the economy going by shopping online, and I have been recycling all of the excessive packaging too. I plan to start a garden. I might even join a CSA to get more variety in my produce until my aforementioned garden bears fruit. I have donated to all of the worthy causes that my friends have asked me to support because I know that needs are acute right now.

I am doing what was asked of me to help flatten the curve. I have been wearing a mask and maintaining my social distance from my parents and other family. I'm not asking for a medal, but dammit my nails look like they haven't been done since March. We won't even discuss the state of my hair or my marriage. 

So when I follow the directives and only venture so far as to take a leisurely stroll through my neighborhood and see that almost no one else is wearing a mask, that angers me. It upsets me that people take their kids with them on errands and don't have their faces covered, while my Kid looks like a cartoon gunslinger in her bandana. This entitled heifer's entire existence irritates my soul--like what medical condition does she have that prevents her from wearing a mask, debilitating arrogance? Why isn't this human gem not the subject of an eyewitness news segment reporting how her ass got beat down by an angry mob? Amid human interest stories of the people who've lose their lives and livelihoods, we're treated to this self-involved and unapologetic bullshit, eloquently dismantled and exposed for its chicanery by the always on point Very Smart Brothas. And then there is this fuckery right here from Miss Anne's great, great, great granddaughter who was raised not to see color:

I am so tired. But I don't own a gun and let's face it, I'm Black so any kind of confrontation I might attempt to won't end well. If I could be so cavalier as to assume that I am safe simply because no one I know has died yet...but I can't because I know of several people who have lost family in that ever increasing number, including a cousin. So yeah, I hate you people. I hate your smug sense of entitlement. I hate your hypocrisy. And I know, I can't do anything about this except seethe and rail against you on this blog or or my Facebook page.

I don't wish you any ill will though. I refuse to repay your oblivious narcissism with the requisite wish that you learn first-hand what it must be like to lose someone in this pandemic and then have it shrugged off like the way you would swat a fly. I bet if dogs were dying of COVID-19, y'all would care. I know, people die everyday and if you have ever uttered those words in response to someone else's loss during this crisis, I pray that you never experience the sting of having that sentiment spat back at you from some similarly insensitive prick.

This is the point where I am supposed to wrap up my little sermonnette with a hymn of forgiveness for the crimes and sins you have committed, but absolving you will not set me free. No thank you, but I don't drink bleach. I refuse to believe that in all of this, there is some silver lining that will result in a better world...for you. I refuse to accept that a return to your normal is what's best.

We will not be reverting to the state of passively acquiescing to your double and triple standards for evading accountability. We've seen how you regard our sons and daughters as threats, declared guilty for the crime of merely existing; then in order to receive justice, we must redeem our dead as innocent and worthy of life itself. We see how some of you have been more than willing to sacrifice your own parents to this virus because well, death is inevitable. We have lived for centuries with your sadism and refuse to descend to that level. We will not participate in this existential debate--this Morton's fork (yes, there is a use for philosophy in practical life) where a face mask is deemed more threatening than an assault rifle.

Coronavirus has brought an end to the world as we knew it. Period. I won't be translating that for you because you already know it to be true, but in case you're in doubt, here is a visual aid:

Seeds in the Ground

The Busy Black Woman has had enough of the bickering and whining and back-stabbing and hysteria! So Mother is going to share some advice with you, which you will need in the coming weeks. First of all, WASH YOUR DAMN HANDS WITH SOAP. They still have plenty of that at the store. I know, it dries out your skin and makes everything ashy and hard so you look like you've been playing in flour, but just do it. Because the revolution cannot afford to lose you to some preventable disease. Besides, antibacterial hand gel will not work against a virus.

Second, I had another great epiphany the other day (a lot of those lately, I know) wherein I realized that the 60s were to our Boomer parents and grandparents what the 90s are to us Generation Xers. Because it was 30 years ago this month that House Party was released, which technically makes Freaknik our Woodstock! Therefore, accepting that one of the perks of middle age is that I'm right about most things, I am gonna give a lecture just like my parents and their friends used to give us whenever we thought we knew more than they did.

So let's get down to discussing a few political realities. You might have to vote for someone you didn't intend to come November. Either it will be a vote for the status quo (in which case, why are you even reading this blog), or it will be a vote for the other status quo. Choose the latter and keep it moving. Okay?

In case you forgot, the Busy Black Woman taught American History and Government online in a past life, so this lecture will consist of some outside readings, a few bad jokes, and at least two stories from my past. I promise the glaze that overcomes your eyes will subside in time, so to give you some perspective on what is happening right now, we must first take a trip back to 1988.

Picture it, Atlanta, in the middle of the summer, there was a convention in town, and the goal was to select a candidate who could beat the current Vice President, George Bush the First (only then we had no idea that he would be the first Bush to occupy the Oval Office). The Democrats had been humiliated in the previous election against Ronald Reagan, so you would think that the effort to choose an electable candidate would have yielded a better result than Michael Dukakis, whose cousin was and is still better known...

Back then, the most prominent Black leader was the Rev. Jesse Jackson. He had been a candidate in 1984, so this was his second run for the White House in the Democratic primary. (Ordinarily, I would pause right here to share a story about his first run and how that was the first time I wrote a political opinion piece back in the sixth grade, but another time.) At my conservative Catholic high school, most of the institutional support was for Bush, so the primaries were only of interest to the Black students (another story, but for another time). The field included a certain Uncle Joe Biden (DE), who was making his first bid for President until he had to withdraw due to an embarrassing plagiarism allegation. The other choices included Sen. Al Gore (TN), Sen. Paul Simon (IL), Sen. Gary Hart (CO), Rep. Dick Gephardt (MO), and the aforementioned Gov. Mike Dukakis (MA).

Now, to move this story along, your first homework assignment is to read up on the convention machinations later, and then note that Jackson delivered one of the greatest convention speeches until Barack Obama's keynote at the 2004 convention. Despite coming in second place, Jackson was not chosen as Dukakis' running mate and they lost. While it was naive of us to assume that America was ready for a Black man in the Oval Office in 1988, it took us twenty years of working through the party system to get us to that reality in 2008. It was the seed that was planted by Jackson's historic run, one that was ready to bloom once the stars aligned accordingly. (Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about Shirley Chisholm...keep reading.)

After you have read Jackson's speech (seriously, the speech is required reading), you will note that after a typical Baptist preacher intro, in which he names and thanks his family and friends, he offers a formal greeting to former President Jimmy Carter, elder statesman of the Democratic Party as well as a nod to fellow civil rights activist Mayor Andrew Young. Ironically, ten years earlier, Carter had fired Young as Ambassador to the United Nations; now he was the mayor of what would become the capitol of the new South. Jackson then went on to invoke the names and places from civil rights events that laid the groundwork for his journey to that stage. Specifically, he calls the names of those who were denied a seat at the 1964 Convention (thus, your third reading is Fannie Lou Hamer's famous testimony and the shenanigans President Johnson attempted to keep her out of prime-time).

So marinate on that for a moment--Jackson got to reap the seeds that had been sown just twenty-four years earlier by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. And Obama got to reap what Jackson and his Rainbow PUSH Coalition had sown twenty years later. So my beloved, your time is coming. The seeds are in the ground.

I know how hard it is to wait and see what the end will be, but impatience is a vice, not a virtue. Some people do not live to see the harvest of their labors, which can be unsettling and disheartening. But you need to have faith. (OK, that veers into sermon territory, which I am not equipped to give, so let's get back to the lecture.) If you want to see some tangible proof of how progress works, then look at how Jackson's speech invokes several themes that have become synonymous with the Democratic Party. This speech references a multi-hued coalition, support for the working class, unfettered access to the ballot, universal health care, a living wage, LGBTQ and women's equality, common-sense gun control, and affordable housing. Here is one key line in that speech:

Progress will not come through boundless liberalism or static conservatism, but at the critical mass of mutual survival.

Progress [through] the critical mass of mutual survival. Not from the extreme poles of ideology, but on common ground. Because Jackson repeated that sentence and that theme, I am tempted to believe that this was some prophetic wisdom he saw fit to impart to future generations. We won't get very far unless we find a way to work together as a united party with a mission to serve the common good. Kinda like the current Democratic Party platform.

Oh, and here's a footnote to fill in a few gaps. When Jackson ran in 1984, he was the second African American to seek the Presidency in the 20th Century (Frederick Douglass did not seek the office, but he was nominated in 1872). One hundred years later in 1972 Rep. Shirley Chisholm (NY) was the first to seriously seek the office. When she ran, she was dismissed by both the nascent Black political establishment and the polarized women's movement. I encourage you to listen to this excerpt from her campaign announcement and see if anything sounds familiar.

When Chisholm died in 2005, it was before Barack Obama was elected and before Hillary Clinton was nominated. She did not live to see the harvest, but she still planted the seeds in the ground. The disappointment some of us feel by the choices we have now, having lost the four women from the U.S. Senate as candidates is real. But when we look back to when Chisholm ran in 1972, to when Rep. Geraldine Ferraro (D-NY) was the first woman to be nominated for Vice President in 1984, we see the evidence of the seeds they planted. Our time is coming.

Those of us who have been around long enough to remember these past battles know how frustrating it is to trade idealism for realism. But we have watched the incremental changes that have brought us to this moment and know that while pragmatism wins the battles, idealism fuels the fight. In my lifetime, we almost elected a woman to succeed a Black man who had previously lost a congressional campaign in 2000. So from what had been the most diverse field of rising political stars in my lifetime: a Latinx former Cabinet Secretary and big city Mayor (Castro); a Black State Attorney General and U.S. Senator (Harris); a Harvard professor, U.S. Senator, and creator of a federal agency (Warren); another big city Mayor and U.S. Senator (Booker); a gay naval intelligence officer and mayor (Buttigieg); an Asian American venture capitalist (Yang); and two other women in the U.S. Senate (Klobuchar and Gillibrand)--yeah, it's a blow. But our time is coming.

There is a place for idealism in politics; it's just not always in the seat of power. Thus, from that collection of former candidates there could come a Vice President, future Cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices, Governors, Senate leadership, etc...if y'all get over your feelings. The shortcomings of an imperfect leader can be overcome by a good team.

Therefore, if your preferred candidate doesn't get to accept the nomination this summer, you do not have the luxury to stay home to sit this election out. This country cannot survive another four years of this moronovirus incompetence. Nor shall you vote third party in protest. Those folks never truly intend or desire to be President. Show me what Lenora Fulani, Ralph Nader, and Jill Stein have done for this country after they lost and I will remind you how we ended up in a never-ending land war in Asia with a fake-tan pussy-grabbing reality TV show wannabe dictator.

I know, you wanna cancel folks over past mistakes that had unforeseen and catastrophic consequences. Like this 1988 interview on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Yeah, she deserves to be dragged for unleashing this pestilence on the land, but I assure you that everyone has committed major regrettable acts. I think a certain well-meaning, but tone-deaf person should regret recording this album. But living long enough has given us the hindsight and wisdom to know better for the future. Not all seeds are good, so be careful what you plant.

A few closing thoughts: I was never at Freaknik and no one saw me there. Through the years, I may have regretted my choices, but never regretted making the effort to vote. For the record, I was not old enough to vote in 1988 nor was I born in 1972. Yet and still it feels kind of liberating to be to be so unbothered about being old enough to remember things that I can incorporate into a lecture. So no, the readings are not optional, and maybe I can still dance like they did in House Party. The final this fall will be whether you choose to tend this garden so that good seeds can grow and flourish, or if you prefer to bulldoze the plot to make way for a big beautiful border wall. That's the lecture--choose wisely and wash your hands.

Freedom Ain't Free

Perhaps it is appropriate that on this Independence Day, my soul is not at ease. In the past week, so much has happened to put me in a space of turmoil--such that I haven't felt since 2am on the morning of November 9, 2016.

At that precise moment, I woke up from a restless sleep. My daughter and I had spent most of Election Day with my parents, then we went to hang out with a friend where we had hoped to celebrate the election returns. Of course, by 9pm when it was well past the kid's bedtime, we were staring in disbelief as states were being declared too close to call or worse. Even when the Hub called with obvious worry and concern in his voice, I was still guardedly optimistic. The kid went to sleep, and maybe it was exhaustion that allowed my mind to quiet down just enough to fall asleep for a few hours until I heard the announcement over the radio.

At 2am on the morning of November 9, the ground shifted. I hugged my child and somehow went back to sleep for a few more hours, but by the next day I felt defiant enough to write this. And then a few days later I felt introspective so I wrote this, but then in another few days I was angry and distraught and wrote this. Y'all, I never intended to write much political commentary on this blog, but ever since November 9...

By the time it was Independence Day last year, folks had marched in the streets by the millions all over the world and there was still hope that we could weather this storm if we just kept up our momentum to resist. There was already a revolving door of high profile firings and departures from this Reality Show Titanic. We were encouraged and woke and quoting Frederick Douglass. But then there was Charlottesville and Puerto Rico and the NFL and...

A year later, I'm tired. My contempt for this Administration intensifies with every new disaster, every new policy announcement, every new depravity. In two years this man has been the human equivalent of an aggressive cancer.

I am trying to maintain my sanity and my health in a toxic environment where stronger people have already been taken out. I am trying to remember what we are supposed to be celebrating today while children are sleeping in cages. I am trying to be optimistic about the future as we await the announcement on Monday that will determine how much harder we will have to fight for justice over the next 30 years. Last week I was chastising folks to stop lamenting the end of the world. Today I am in my bed with the covers over my head. I should be getting dressed for a barbecue somewhere...sharing laughs about who is violating the BBQ Commandments or who brought the raisins. Instead, I don't want to leave the house. I just want to eat bacon and shop on Amazon.

I know that the goal of this relentless assault on everything is to kill us. Not merely punish or tame or demoralize, but to kill us dead. That isn't hyperbole. That's what ego-maniacal despots do--Hitler killed 6 million Jews, Stalin killed millions, as did Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, Francisco Franco, and now Bashar al-Assad. How many people have already died in mass shootings, in hurricanes, of broken hearts and destroyed dreams since November 2016?

Of course, as I write this and think about real loss and destruction and catastrophe, I am reminded that this is the price of the values we espouse. People died so that others might live. People have gone through much worse and survived. Freedom requires sacrifice and constant struggle. Reflecting back on how painful it was to face a new normal on November 9, I knew it could get this bad. I knew that a whole lot of us found out that checkers and chess can be played on the same board, but they are not the same game. But we can still mount a challenge to the king, even as a ragtag army of pawns. We did it once before, 242 years ago (and several times after that).

I can waste today feeling sad and despondent over how much ground we've lost, or I can plant some seeds in the ground that we still have (no matter how small the plot). 

 

A BBW Top Ten for Summer 2011

I'm back!  (Actually, I just took a short break from posting here...I needed to blow off a little steam at the Cafe blog last week).  And according to my calendar and the Facebook updates of my friends with children, summer is pretty much over.  Which kinda sucks...

And I know I am dating myself by mentioning this, but one of my favorite assignments from the first week of school was the summer recap essay: "What I Did During My Summer Vacation".  I also enjoyed writing book reports, but children's books read to the Baby Niece do not count...

Alas, there will not be a desk or locker with my name taped to it come September, but I thought it would be fun to write the Busy Black Woman's version of that same essay, presented here as a Top Ten List:

1. Walking through the Alumnae Arch - To everyone who does not know this, I LOVE visiting my alma mater, and this year, I went down for a meeting and had the opportunity to participate in the Reunion/Graduation activities.  No, I did not get a ticket to see Mrs. Obama as the commencement speaker (that would have been the cherry on top), but I did get to walk through the Alumnae Arch while carrying my class flag!  This was a very big deal because it was not even my Reunion year.  I also got to connect with a few of my classmates, and I got to see some sisters I had not seen in 17 years!  The downside was the unfortunate photo of my puffy, "ugly cry" face...I started bawling less than five feet away from the Arch and that is when someone snapped the photo.  But the best part about that day was standing on the opposite side of the Arch to greet the new alumnae-to-be as they came through!

A Cure for My Friday Funk

Let me just start off by saying that this is not another complaint about the heat...at least not entirely :)

But this morning I woke up in a pool of sweat and with an unexplained pain in my knee.  Mind you, I went to bed last night with a full glass of wine and a heating pad strapped to my lower back...but it was the failure of the air conditioning that was the source of my misery this morning. 

Wash, Rinse and Repeat

The mind of a BBW is always churning--a million questions run through my mind on the regular: What should I wear, where are we going, how to get there, how late am I running, did I forget something, can I finish this, should I be here, do I need this, who is it, what do you want now, did I call her back, do I have to read all of this email, can I leave now, did you get my message, do I care, is it done, am I talking to myself, do I have time for this, will you please shut up, do you know what you are doing, did I just hear that, can I get back to you later, why are you asking me, are we there yet, what did I just tell you, how much is it, why me and why today?

Relax, relate, release!

My mind has been going full blast this morning.  I am thinking about my case, robbing Peter to pay Paul, thinking of ways to promote the blog, worried about family members, wondering if I am a hypochondriac, planning activities for the fall, fretting over stuff that I have yet to do and should have done yesterday, avoiding my email, avoiding phone calls, lamenting my age and just generally driving myself crazy! 

Woosah!

Every now and then I need to remind myself that it is okay to be frazzled and it is also okay if people discover that yes, I am human and really I do not have any mutant powers.  That totally belies the BBW mythology that I-can-keep-it-together-all-the-time-because-if-I-don't-the-world-will-end, but sometimes, like in the next ten minutes or so, if the world ends, then so be it.

Here is the deal: I will chillax and calm down and then get back to work until 4:00pm.  Then I will take a walk and maybe do a little gardening and play with the Baby Niece and then I will find something else constructive to do until the husband comes home.  Then I will go to bed early and pray that tomorrow will be better.  And if tomorrow is bad, then I will wash, rinse and repeat until one of these days the sun comes back out.  And if that does not work, then I'm headed back to yoga!

Namaste!

The BBW Gardening Chronicles

I mentioned a while back that I decided to take up gardening again...which is totally insane given where my life is at the moment.  Like if I don't feel like pulling weeds, why am I planting more stuff into the ground?

Which is why I am gardening in containers!  And another cheat--getting plants that were already started at the nursery instead of starting my own from seed.  Yes, I should be ashamed, but I'm not since that is precisely the reason why they sell those pre-started plants anyway.  For busy folks like me who did not start their tomatoes in April, these will do the trick just fine, thank you very much.

Home Improvement

The BBW has a confession to make: I live in an old house, so something always needs to be fixed and I love DIY!  Unfortunately, I am the Queen of Unfinished DIY projects...And I am confessing this now in case you hear the husband complaining about not being able to use the bathroom.

This latest DIY bender started when I broke my toilet seat back in April (not by sitting on it), but it could not be fixed so I went to my local Home Depot to buy a replacement.  Since it was late and I was on my own, my plan was to go in, find the replacement, jump on line to pay, and badda-bing, ten minutes later I would be on my way.

Except, as everyone knows, there is no such thing as a quick trip to the hardware store.