I keep my podcast queue updated and my playlists in rotation. Whether I’m taking a trip to Ikea or humming down 85 South to Orlando on a whim, the destination isn’t important: the need for motion, to remind myself forward is a gift and that I take up sacred space in this world, is the call to shift gears.

What the Saturn Return brings, let no BS put asunder. Some people blaze a new trail of understanding in your life. When you meet, you discover you have similar laughs and senses of humor. You learn from one another and embrace their family as they’ve embraced yours. I sat down with a bowl of the best ramen in the city to chop it up with the Sauce Lord himself.

Do the destined get to mourn, to grieve, to have doubts, to say the subconscious part outloud, to follow the intrusive thoughts just to the edge?

Too many times, we parents try to shield the tough things from our children out of fear of psychological and/or emotional harm. We deem sights and sounds too much for young bodies to endure, so much so that we paint the world a rosy sheen and hope it sticks. It does us, but mostly them, a huge disservice.

Dr. Maya Angelou fell silent after trauma. I know that sound. It’s the sound of swallowing words because it’s safer. Stomach acid will protect you but not from memory. Her tale of learning how to speak again shows me how much is possible on the other side of silence.

I wanted to write something about the Black women sex educators I look up to.

What truly is power? Is it an action? A presence? A state of being.

Is power used to justify or villify? Can power be passed down, like a sacred heirloom only those trusted with the legacy can hold onto? Can abused power be reborn? I asked Nikkea Sharee and Shivawn Mitchell these questions and they provided me some thought-provoking answers. Read along with me.

The double-mindedness of being moved by this thing and being told that this thing is nothing to be moved by. An elder church thing — watching the women in white chastise the “fast-tail” girls that looked like me but weren’t. I didn’t understand why. Why the hatred. Why the words dripping with disdain through furrowed lips.

The next time you’re drawing an internal blank, stand in front of a bevy of notebooks.

Dick is abundant and of low value.
I deserve peen attached to someone worthy of my time and energy AND who holds my time as valuable because it is. And I don't have to explain why.
Sis (I’m sis) has been traumatized by aint-shit individuals and constantly relearning how to trust herself.

Robin Thicke wrote a whole album named Paula. Not this Paula - another Paula. A Paula that is not this Paula. Because this Paula doesn’t require other people to write sonnets and ill-fated love ballads to her; she writes her own things. And not in a creepy, self-aggrandizing way. I sit down with Paula - again, not that Paula. That’s the other Paula. This is Paula Paula. Anyway, I sit down with her to ask a few non-Thicke questions.

Imma give it to you straight: Ashley Cobb don’t play about shit. That shit being: outdated mindsets towards and about sex, gender roles, sexual expectations, wack sex and pity moans. Fall into the gravity of her Facebook page and community and you’ll find spirited conversations with folk from all walks of life. Ashley is never with the negativity bullshit and I’m happy I got to chat with her about it.

Some people enter your life via IP Addresses. A slide down a timeline can change the course of both of your lives.

As the smoke clears on all 2019 wrought, we see just how far we've come, and I ask that we take the time to acknowledge, really acknowledge all that we've made it through. Because we out here. And dammit we made it.

My work is speaking. My work is writing. My work is empowerment. My work is advocacy. I am as board and specific as I need to be. I sit in hotel lobbies with the room paid for by those who requested my presence. I walk and talk my worth and my vulnerability. I change lives by simply being who I am.

In my office needing to release but holding back tears, I am exposed. My nerves are exposed. My triggers, exposed. And the tears don’t shock her.

That’s it. That’s the blog.

Last night I broke in my writing teacher shoes. Kristen excitedly told me that I “am officially a teaching artist!”. Imagine your soul hitting the book-lined roof. Imagine looking back at the months of throwing away pages, rage qutting and starting over again. Imagine the culmination feeling like this.

There is no “sorry” in your self-redemption. You take up space and so do your tears.

They both are magnetic magic, making up two halves of a nurturing whole.