Nina Foxx's Blog, page 8

The Good Friend &The Trapeze

Good friends are amazing. I was feeling nervous about an upcoming life change, hesitating on making a choice that seemed frightening, but could make a huge difference in my life. As I stood paralyzed, my good friend gave me an except from The Book of Essenes that compared such life changes and the fear that accompanies them to a series of trapezes. You are content as you swing along on the trapeze you know, so you hesitate on making the leap to the empty trapeze when it appears in front of you, not sure if the new trapeze is a figment of your imagination and certainly terrified of that space in between. In this transition point, you may free fall, but you most certainly grow. My friend was devastated that my choice might put physical distance between us, but she has been in the very same spot herself years ago, and was familiar with the growth such a leap could bring. She “leaned in” and reaped the benefits of doing so, and encouraged me to do the same. Through her tears of separation, she convinced me that Now is my time and I should certainly leap onto the trapeze presented to me and ride it onto the next phase on my life. She made me feel more confident and certain that the path presented is the one I should take. 
So I’m taking that trapeze. And though a little distance may separate me from my good friend whom I am convinced is my twin born 20 years earlier, I’m going to smile as I do it and make sure I have lots of frequent flier miles and minutes on my cell phone plan. 
She told me that someone had the same talk with her when she was faced with the same decision, and that stuck. Her talk with me was paying it forward. Not only did she encourage me to not let my chance pass by playing it safe, she left me with the responsibility of bring someone else’s mentor and friend when they need it, when their time comes.

Writing Overload

I go from feast to famine as far as writing is concerned, at least in my head.  First, I’m miles away from any deadline, artificial or otherwise, so there is no real urgency to create anything.  As a result, I spend a lot of time “thinking’ about my story and what the characters are doing.  Then, I’m within days of a deadline on not one, but two projects, but still miles away in terms of word count. If I have done the first thing properly, the ideas will tumble from my head faster than I have to ability to type or can even dictate, and I become a slave to a daily word count goal and there are a lot of late nights. This is where I am now.   I have one book that was due (really) a bit ago, but in my head the deadline is still ten days away.  My characters are still moving around and revealing their motivations and haunting my dreams, generally driving me even more nuts than I am.  (Trust me when I tell you that some of these are pretty unsavory characters and I don’t want to meet up with them, even in my dreams, and I’m the one that dreamt them up.) I have another book due almost immediately after, a new sort of project for me, an anthology. Most of the authors that have to committed to participate have delivered their work on time, but there are a few (whom I love) that have not.  This bunch is generally my friend group and they are obviously not enough afraid of me.  I will have to call them now and start acting like a bill collector to get their submissions, but if I’m doing that, that means I’m not working on project  number one. I also have to do contracts for the whole lot so I can deliver the finished project to the publisher on time.This project started simply but has grown into much more than I ever could have imagined.  It is a global project, including writing by women from several countries, genres and backgrounds.  It includes some submissions by previously unpublished writers  and I have to say all of the submissions have blown me away, many giving me new respect for people that I had no idea had such things in their past.  It is amazing that these woman have become so phenomenal with the support or in spite of.  I find I love them all. Some have brought me to tears.  On top of that, I am so floored and humbled by the writing talent these people possess and am in awe of the global similarities we all have.

Looming Deadlines

Yup, I had a book deadline, and my time in the hospital, combined with my usual procrastination (including writing this blog) has left me seriously in danger of being late with this book.  I want to get it done before I get the revision letter for the last one, but that is terribly overdue now, too.  I was expecting them in December, so I could get them any minute. I really can’t afford to be late as I have a Nina Foxx deadline about 4 weeks after this one is done. I know I shouldn’t complain as some writers have no deadlines at all, other than those they impose on themselves. The book I’m working on is third in a series for Cynnamon Foster.  These are harder to write than anything Nina Foxx has worked on, for some reason.  I don’t know if its because they all take place in a foreign local and I can’t just take a walk or look out the window to orient the characters and instead have to rely on memory or photos I have taken, or if they are taking a long time because the deadlines are short and I really want to include the details, or if its just the sex.  Many people I talk to ask if I’m in the books, but if this was based on life I’d have to time to write another book, for sure.  To tell the truth, I’m relying on the news, TV and reference tools to come up with new ways for the characters to get their groove on.  (Yes, there are reference tools for erotica writers, some complete with animation!) I’m also working hard to make sure the story is as good as the sexy parts so that there is something for everyone.  So often we have a book that is steamy, but the story isn’t so good, or a good story where the sexy parts are vague. I want  both in these books.  I want people to look back and say yes, that book was explicit, but look what it did for the genre.  

A Therapist and a Bill Collector

Editing an anthology has left me feeling like a therapist and a bill collector.  When I wrote my part, I thought I was done but now, after receiving almost all of the submissions I was expecting, I realized I have so much more to write.  I had no idea the project would impact so many people the way it has or that I would find out all the things that I have about my writer-friends.  For them to be so fabulous after all they have experienced makes me respect them that much more. I feel like a bill collector because there are still a few more submissions that have been promised that I have yet to receive.  I know that everyone has deadlines for much bigger projects, but its time to hound people for their 4000 words now, and I hate that. For some of them, its because they do have a very busy schedule, for others, the delay is because is because I asked them to write about a hard subject that they are not ready to face.  Creative non-fiction is like that.  Sometimes the words don’t come until you are absolutely honest with yourself.  Its not easy to flay yourself and just leave everything out in the open.  The flaying needs to commence, though.  Other projects are waiting.

Hunt for Flats that don't hurt the tootsies.

I am on the hunt for flat shoes that don't make me cry.  I haven't had any that don't hurt my feet in years.  Even sneakers hurt if I wear them too long.  Either my arch starts to ache, or they hurt around my foot where my toes connect.  I know I am the Empress of the stiletto heel, but I'd like a pair of shoes that I can slip on to walk the dog that don't look like I've had foot surgery, or I can put on to drive that so I won't ruin my heels. The other requirement is that they can't make me feel as if I have flippers.  Too often I feel less confident in flats because they feel as if my feet are flipping along in front of me.

I found a pair of simple looking ballet type slippers on sale at gilt.com, but my foot started to scream before they were even in there good, so those suckers are going back.

I came across Tieks.  (www.tieks.com).  I'm not an Oprah watcher, so I had no idea they were one of Oprah's favorite things.  They come in tons of colors, but starting well over a 100 bucks, many would say they are pricey.  I ordered a pair today.  I will update you when they come. My toes are crossed.

Excerpt from Southern Comfort by Cynnamon Foster (aka Nina Foxx)

If you haven't read it yet, here's something to get you started.  I'm diligently working on Eastern Spice, the next installment in the series, and reminiscing on how my characters met. Just a head's up, it's hot and steamy, but packs a real twist,  so if you don't want to read that kind of stuff, skip now. If you do continue, I promise you will enjoy it.  If you want to read more than is presented here, the book is available at all your book outlets.  You  can ask  your library, your local independent bookseller, or Barnes  and Noble to buy it, or you can get it at any online outlet.  it is also available electronically on Nook, Kindle and IBook. Enjoy.

One/Sería I have to face it, I’m dick-whipped.  That could be the only explanation for why I was standing in the doorway of my apartment, wrapped in the sex-smelling sheets off my bed, answering my door while James was still laying in my bedroom, delirious with the aftermath of the good-ass sex we just had.  It was one in the morning, so I knew no good could come of the loca pounding on my door, jarring me away from some of the best d-I’d had yet.I paused before I opened the door and tried to get my composure.  It was getting harder and harder for me to deal with all of the drama that seemed to follow James.  Finally, I took a deep breath and pulled the door open. None of this surprised me, but it still took a moment for the crazy-looking woman outside my door to register in my brain.  “Where he at?”  She didn’t even wait for me to say hello, instead she tried to look around me and into my apartment. I hadn’t seen this one before. This puta, probably one of James’s many tricks on the side, had the nerve to be standing in my face, outside the apartment I pay for, in the middle of the night.  She didn’t even have the decency to get dressed before she left home.  Instead, she looked like a reject from a B movie, wearing what had to be her abuela’s bathrobe and pink fuzzy slippers. Her weave was jacked up, half in rollers and half down, and her face was smudged with the remnants of last night’s mascara. A big glob of what used to be eye makeup sat in the center of her nose and made her look like she’d gone to church on Ash Wednesday and received her ashes from a very short priest.“Who are you looking for?” Of course I knew exactly who she meant, but I refused to be rushed or give her the satisfaction that she wanted. I knew this was going to make her more loca than she already was. We’ve been here before. You see, James had lots of indiscretions, but he always came back to me.  That’s just how it was. We had what some might call an open-relationship, an agreement that we occasionally “see” other people.  We never formally called it that, it just happened that way when I caught him with someone else and we never really talked about it. People trip sometimes when I tell them that our relationship is just about sex ‘cause they think that a woman ain’t supposed to have a fuck-buddy but I like to call things what they are.“Don’t play me, Sería.  Where is James?” She spat his name like he was a bad taste in her mouth.  Well, the girl, Wanda, I think was her name, was certainly a bad taste in mine. My nosey ass neighbor across the hall opened her door and stuck her head out. “Do I have to call the police, Sería?” From the look on her face, I knew that she hated and pitied me at the same time, but I didn’t give a damn.  No one had asked her to pass judgment on me the way I was sure she had.  “No, but you damn sure need to mind your own business.”  Wanda hissed at her and she quickly slammed her door.  Every time James and I broke up, it was behind some bitch like this one.  Most chicks wouldn’t be able to put up with their man being with other people, but it worked for me.  I was surprised at that at first, but I soon figured out that I could use it to my advantage, too.  The problem was the other woman didn’t always have the same agreement and they would act all crazy, like now, and my patience was wearing thin.  I was trying to be calm, but my anger was bubbling through. My back was so tense I was starting to have a headache.I pulled my sheet tighter.  “What do you want? He’s asleep.”“Well, wake his ass up then!”  She yelled at the top of her lungs, trying to do the job herself. Wanda wasn’t leaving and it looked like she was going to try and clown me.  She shifted her weight and placed one of her hands on her hip while a loose curler weaved back and forth, dangling near her ear. I was starting to see colors.  This witch only had a few more minutes before I totally lost it.  I have a long fuse, but when I’d had enough, I’d had enough, and I was having a hard time believing that this crazy woman was up in my face like she was.  “Look, you’re disturbing my neighbors.  James is not coming out here to talk to you. I don’t know what in the hell you think this is, but you got no right to be banging on my door with your trifling ass! Don’t you have no home training?”“Home training?  Don’t you bring my family into this!” Wanda’s eyes got wide and tension lines appeared in her forehead. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that she was going to try and push her way into my apartment in a minute.  “Don’t you tell me what I got a right to do.  I got every right.  James is my ex and I need him now! You knew what this was when you got involved. Go get him, and don’t you be trying to do none of that new age, voodoo shit either.”I’d had enough of Wanda.  New aged voodoo shit?  I couldn’t believe she’d said that, yet I could. People often criticized what they didn’t understand.  Incense and candles ain’t voodoo. “Voodoo? You’re the one standing in my door at a crazy hour looking like a witch!”  Before I knew what was happening, I’d let go of my sheet and raised my hand to bust her in her face.  I never had a chance to hit her.  Something stopped my hand.  I looked over my shoulder and realized that James had sprinted out of bed and across the apartment to where he was standing now, holding onto my elbow like it was a slippery fish out of water.“Sería, calm down,” he said.  James tried to pull me behind him but I wasn’t moving.  He leaned around me to talk to Wanda.  “What are you doing here?”How in the hell was I supposed to calm down when the heifer was standing in my doorway, grinning ear to ear?  Right before my eyes, she stepped through the doorway, and just as she did her belly swelled until it looked like she had a cantaloupe under her shirt.  She sauntered into the room, her belly growing with each step.“Aw, hell no,” I yelled.  “He my baby daddy!”  Wanda yelled, pointing straight at James.  Instead of denying it, the fool clapped his hands and jumped up and down like a two year old.  “I’m a baby daddy!”Her belly kept growing and by this point, Wanda was as big as Eddy Murphy playing his mother in The Nutty Professor.  I started screaming but I could still hear Wanda’s words.  “You asked for this so you best be a good wife-in-law!”Wife-in-law?  We were married?  I must have been really drunk last night.  My mother would kill me if I didn’t have a church wedding.  I screamed, James was still clapping and Wanda laughed like an evil scientist.  I stood there shaking all over until finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.  I thought I was going to faint and then I heard James calling me from far away.“Sería, wake up.  You’re having a nightmare.” He shook me awake, and it was a good thing too.  This was unbelievable. If I’d kept dreaming I might have had a heart attack in my sleep. “You okay?”I opened my eyes and blinked and realized it was really all just a dream.  Wanda wasn’t here and she wasn’t getting more pregnant by the minute.  I wasn’t even by the front door.  I was still in bed, wrapped in that sheet that smelled like us.  “I’m fine.  I shouldn’t have eaten those peppers last night.”James kissed me on the forehead and then lay back down, spooning me from behind.  Almost immediately, his penis poked me in the back.  “I can help calm you down.”I let my body melt into his, enjoying the hotness of his breath on my neck.  I needed some comforting, for sure.  That was the most disturbing dream I’d had in awhile.  I’d had the same dream before, only not in so much detail.  Last time I had it, Wanda wasn’t pregnant, just crazy. James and I had been seeing each other for two years, and we’d broken up and gotten back together more times than I could count. Each time, I’d swear that I was done, and then we’d have the most amazing make-up sex ever, and I’d be right back where I started.  My friends kept telling me that it’s unhealthy, but it worked for me.  None of them were getting sexed the way James sexed me, so they couldn’t possibly understand. James wrapped his arm around me and ran his hand down the front of my body, slowly, from top to bottom, letting his hand come to rest between my legs.  I let them fall open slightly and his index finger found my clit.  Electricity shot through me and I moaned. “Yes, that’s it.  Relax and let me take care of you,” He said, kissing me on the back of my neck again.I didn’t want a lot of foreplay.  This was morning-after sex.  He’d taken his time the night before, and we’d enjoyed it.  Now, I just wanted to get to the good part and we both had to get to work.Apparently, James wanted the same thing.  He flipped me over onto my stomach and then spread my legs with just enough force, pulling me up onto my knees at the same time.  I dragged a pillow with me and leaned into it.  James entered me from behind in one movement and we stayed there for a minute, enjoying the feeling of his balls being so close to my ass.  Finally, he began to move slowly.  He used one hand to finger my clit and he moved me gently away, then back to him until out bodies touched softly.  The feeling was amazing. I felt like fireworks looked as I gently pushed my hips back toward him.The pressure started to build immediately.  I suppressed a moan and buried my face in the pillow in front of me.  We moved faster and he placed both his hands on my hips, moving me back and forth with a little more force.  Our bodies began to slap together and his balls tickled my clit just a little with each forward motion.  I moved with him, to make sure that I enjoyed the feeling of the full length of his penis. I rode it in and out, savoring each stroke.  There was no way I could be silent now.  I moaned, not caring what my neighbors thought of me.  James slapped my ass, and I screamed.  I liked it just a little rough.  When we were like this, it was so much more than sex.  Our bodies reflected how we truly felt about each other, and it was almost primal. “That’s it, baby,” he said.  “You let it out.” James grabbed my hair with one hand, and thrust hard.  Our bodies made one last, loud slap.  He pulled my hair at the same time and my head jerked backward.  We both screamed and I was still as we came simultaneously.  Everything went white and my body tensed.  We didn’t move as James shuddered.  Finally, we collapsed forward onto the bed, together and we stayed that way until he got too heavy.  Gradually, I was able to see.  We might have our differences, but the sex was amazing between us.  The nagging feeling left over from my dream slowly returned.  It couldn’t be this great between them, too. He could play around with those other putas if he wanted to, but he’d only always be just playing.  Our shit was for real.

Homies, Vatos & White Trash

     Yesterday, I met a man who was far too young to be as racially ignorant as he seemed to be.  Or maybe he was just ignorant, I’m not sure which.  We had a business appointment, and he was very comfortable with me, so much so that his mouth seemed to have a bad case of the runs.  Though he had moved to California in High school, he professed to be a former New Yorker.  He still wore his New York accent, and it was a thick as if he’d just left there last year.                As it often happens when I met a New York refugee, we quickly slipped into questioning mode.  I pulled my own accent out of my bag and slipped into it as comfortably as I might my favorite pair of jeans.  After the normal “where did you go to school” and “what part of town did you grown up in” questions, he started to ask the questions that, in other circumstances, gotten him a tongue lashing or a slap in the face.  Instead of becoming violent or exposing him to my long vocabulary of swear words, I took another route. I tried to remember what I’d read in Baratunde Thurston’s How to be Black.                 He asked me how I’d gotten to California.  “Job-related” was my reply.  Okay, easy enough.  The hard ones were about to come.                  “Yours?”                “No, my husband’s”.   That caused a momentary pause in his word deluge.  I needed to get something from my car.  He watched me from the window.  When I came back, he said,  “Nice car.”  Our conversation continued.  “How’d you get into writing?”  This one was a normal one that I got all the time.  I told him the bored-while-writing-my dissertation story.  The next question was normal enough too.  “So, any of these books you write, have they been published?”I paused.  I’d done my homework on him, but he obviously hadn’t done his on me.   “Just ten of them, or so.”His turn to pause.  “Or so?”I nodded.  “Yup.”  He recovered, and we continued.  “And films, how did you get into that.  Did you study film?”I replied that I’d become interested in film while I was working on my MFA.His mouth dropped open.  “You have an MFA too! In writing?”I smiled, but didn’t comment.  “I want to make a film.  I can picture it in my head, and I have lots of friends with money that would invest in it. ““Well, if you have friends that want to invest in film, you should use those connections.  Lots of people have ideas and talent, but have no way to access the necessary capital.  Have you written the screenplay yet?”  I asked.“No.  But I can see it in my head.” I was hearing crickets in my head.  Classic story.  “And your films have won awards, right?  One will be in theaters  soon?  I want to do that.”“Then you should, especially since you have access to cash.  But you’ll need a screenplay.”He waved me off.  “I have no time for that.”Then he had no time to make a film. “Is your husband black?”I cocked my head to the side.  What was this?  An odd question, for sure.  The possibilities raced through my brain.  I was obviously of African descent and nothing about my obviously brown daughter, who was with me, suggested otherwise. “He is a lucky man.  You’re a busy women.  You obviously have stuff on the ball.”I cocked my head the other way.  “I remind him of that every day.”  Mild smile.  “Is your husband like you?” “Like me?”“Yes, is he a professional?  What does he do?”  Ah, there it was. I was used to this one.  There are many times that people take a look, then assume that the black man in the nice shirt must certainly be an athlete.  (Not that athletes are bad, its good if that’s your thing, but there are other ways that we make an honest living.)We were on a bad road.  I’d been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but there were only a few possibilities here and none of them were good. He was either trying to hit on me, implying that I couldn’t possibly be where I was and driving my nice car with a black husband, or that as a couple, we couldn’t possibly be as successful as we appeared to be.  I decided to give him more rope—“My husband works. He works an executive type job.”“Really?”  “Why do you seem surprised?”The mouth diarrhea was momentarily stopped. He was at a loss for words.  “Um, well, I don’t meet many people like you.”“Like me?” We were in Hollywood.  There a lot of married black people with degrees in Hollywood.  ”Black professional, types.  There’s just not that many.”Maybe his judgment had been clouded by our prior discussion of movies, including Tyler Perry and Steve Harvey.  “Maybe not in this room.  Are you sure you’re from New York originally?”  A New Yorker, for sure, would be used to such things.“No, no, It’s just—“I used some reality to dam his talking before he drowned in his own shit.  “There are quite a few of us, whole communities, actually.  I know this is Hollywood and you’re used to people making a living in the arts, but there are a lot of us who go to school and get degrees. We run companies and live as well as you do.”  I took it back down to the level he could understand. “Madea isn’t real.  Those men in the Steve Harvey movie, those were more realistic. Didn’t you ever watch the Cosby show?”  I added a smile on top of that to make it easy to digest. It got better.  He asked me if both my children had the same father.  He asked me if my ex-husband paid child support and I had to fight hard to hold back.  He really tried everything to rationalize how I could be there and able to afford his services. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize that most of his rationalizing would play better as internal dialogue. I just smiled at that and reminded him again how television wasn’t real.  Not all Black men are deadbeat dads.  Barack Obama did not happen in a vacuum.  There actually are more white people than black on welfare in this country, statistically, it just has to be so. “You’re right, your’e right.”  He agreed with me.This was a professional appointment for my daughter.  He did his job, then decided that we were worthy.  “She has a really good look and a pretty smile.  She should be in front of the camera.”“If she wants to be.  She’s really good in school, too, so I’m thinking she can work the business end and the front end of fashion if she chooses that. She’ll have options.”I’m not sure he even heard my words.  “It’s good really, she’ll be able to do a lot of things.  Colored girls are usually overweight by the time they are her age.  They always need a token. I don’t meant to be crass, but she will be able to have her pick. I bet there are a lot of Mexican vatos who hit on her all the time.”  It was clear to me then.  He was just going to insult everyone he could in the space of two hours.  And had he said colored? Really?“We don’t live around here, like you.  There are no “vatos” where we live.”  The coolness had left my voice.He stopped then, realizing that I was not coming along.  “No vatos?”“None.  No homies or white trash in our neighborhood either.”  I bestowed an icy stare upon him.  The one that conveyed  mother-fucker as if I had spat it in his eye.We finished our business and I did not have to utter one expletive.  On the way out, he put his hand on mine to stop me and offered me his business card.“I would love to work on one of your film projects.  I really have a good eye.”“It’s obvious you do.”  My smile was back, but my New York accent, reserved for friends, was gone.  I replaced it with my ‘strictly business’ voice.  There was no need to be nice anymore.  He’d served his purpose and it was obvious our business relationship would never expand.  I was far too un-stereotypically black for him, and he was just too tiring and ignorant for me.  “I tell you what.  If you have your agent contact my people, we’ll see if there is something coming up where you fit.  I don’t deal with all that small stuff.” I smiled and squeezed his hand to help cement that thought as I lifted it off mine.  What was not so obvious was his common sense. 

casting Call for Staged Reading

FoxxTale Productions is seeking talented passionate actors for a staged reading of Baby Mama Drama in San Diego.




Baby Mama Drama by Nina Foxx

Based on the best-selling book Just Short of Crazy

Directed by Nina Foxx



Baby Mama Drama is set in modern day Texas where Attorney Alexis Pearson is getting her life together after being left at the altar. With her new hair and new hobby, she finds herself in hot water and falling in love when she accidentally breaks a man’s arm in her Tae Kwon Do Class. Unfortunately, her love interest, Remedy Brown, has a seedy past and an ex-wife from the other side of the tracks who is not quite ready to let go. The two ladies discover that the road to “happily ever after” isn’t always a neat and clean yellow brick road and must discover their own self-worth before truly moving on.



Roles Available:



ALEXIS PEARSON: 30s, African American professional, newly minted short hair cut. Left at the altar prior to start of play. Sings.

REMEDY BROWN: Rugged, attractive bar owner.

AYZAH BROWN: 30s, Rough around the edges, ex-wife of REMEDY. Can carry a tune.

MAMA: Late 40s, African American. Hellraiser turned church lady. Ayzah’s mother. Sings.

PRINCE JONES: African American, 30s, always has a scheme. Thug-like. AYZAH’s boyfriend

PARIS MONTAGUE: 30s, African American professional, Alexis’ cousin, about to be married.

SARAH: White, 30s, best friend to PARIS and ALEXIS.

ATHENA MONTAGUE: Society mother, 50s or older, very put together at all times. Raised both PARIS and ALEXIS.

ANGEL: Flamboyant hair stylist. Can carry a campy tune. Comedic chops.

ERICA: Ride or die type girl. Sometimes-friend to AYZAH, having a secret relationship with PRINCE JONES.

MONTY MILLER: White, ALEXIS’s boss. ANGEL’s secret partner.

 





Please email headshot and resume to nina@ninafoxx.com to schedule an audition ( if I don’t’ already have it) Include the role for which you are auditioning, your name, and your phone number. All roles are currently non-paid for the reading. Future full production in late 2012 is a possibility and actors cast in the reading will be considered first for roles.



If a role requires singing, it won’t be necessary for the reading, but it would be a plus.



Reading date is to be determined according to when casting is finalized but we are looking at mid-late June.

Mother' Day- A Love Letter to My Dad and to My Love

I haven't blogged in quite awhile, instead, I've been using twitter and facebook to say what I had to say. Mother's Day was a few weeks ago and it left me with remembrances that need more than just a few characters to get out. My mother's day was wonderful,probably the best I ever had. Many who know me might think I took some fabulous trip or got some great gift, but I didn't. It was very simple and that is mainly because my sweetie took control. He insisted that mom's get one day a year--even when my teen pushed back and in her own teen way, tried to make it about her. (Because that is what teen's do). I had breakfast in bed, saw the movie I wanted the family to see together (its funny how my mother's day wish was about EVERYBODY seeing this one movie), and had the dinner I chose at a place I wanted--sushi. It was perfect. I was able to start my week so relaxed that I felt like a different person. What sticks in my mind about Mother's Day though, is memories of my father. I was raised by my father after losing my mother at an early age. I'm not remembering him on mother's day through some rose-colored glasses. He was by no means perfect, but he was able to make me laugh on Mother's Day, every year. We had an on-going joke that happened quite by accident--an accident of unfortunate word placement on my part as a young child. I think I was always a glass-half-full person. When everyone was making a big deal of mother's day, it could have been very sad for myself and my younger brother, but it wasn't. I was about 8 or 9, and decided to make my father a mother's day card. He was, after all, both to us. I used construction paper, crayons and my best (non-existent) art skills to come up with what I thought was the best mother's day card ever. I was so proud as we presented it to him, but perplexed when, after reading the wording, he wasn't as happy as I was. Somehow, he didn't like my greeting. "Happy Mother's Day, to the best mother-father there is." In my innocence, I asked, "What's wrong with that?" It took me a few years to get it, but when I did, I made sure I greeted my father that way each and every mother's day. Like I said, he made his mistakes, but I learned to appreciate my mothering where I could get it, no matter if it came from my father or some other relative. Years later, when my daughter was first born, I would be offended when it was suggested that I couldn't know how to be a mother because I didn't have one (yes, someone almost got cussed out). They would never know that my father, with all his faults, had worked very hard to fill the big shoes of a mother while still being my daddy. I was offended in graduate school when, on learning that I'd been raised by my father, a professor asked me "Was he A BLACK?" as if it were an impossibility that a Black man would take care of his children. (and yes, he almost got cussed out, too). Men can nurture. Black men can nurture AND be responsible for their kids. It doesn't make them soft, it makes them loving parents, husbands and partners. I am fortunate enough to have experienced several such men in my life, and every mother's day, I thank them.

Minolta C.White: Nina Foxx

Minolta C.White: Nina Foxx