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Knew what pleasure was, knew how to ask for what she wanted, knew when and how to say no. Tried to teach us to do the same. Sixteen was about experimenting, about setting boundaries and being bold enough to go right up to the line.
We all turn forty this year. We are not opposites or just-alikes. More like a buoy for each other.
Kendra’s dating life can be summed up in two words: single and content. What’s love got to do with it? Her motto—she has many: The body needs sex like it needs water. Don’t drink out of any ole well, but don’t die of thirst either.
We can be content being single and also want to be in a relationship,
I was taking notes. Learning what kind of things you like to do. I studied you, girl. Wanted to be an expert in all things Lena Baker.
He thinks he is right most of the time—he is—and it is his knowing that annoys me. How he is not smug about it at all, just a wait-and-see-that-I’m-right kind of person.
What we have in common is wanting to share a life. Not everyone wants to share life with someone. And I mean share what happened at work when nothing happened at work, talk about the best lunch we ever had, admit a fear, learn something new together. I knew I loved him when I realized we could survive Wednesdays. Wednesdays are nothing days. Anyone can love on a weekend, be around for the exciting, for the thrill. I’ve dated guys who love me for the big moments. Friday guys. Saturday loves. But love me on a rainy Wednesday afternoon when nothing is on television but reruns, love me when I’m
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My whole life they have been a real-life fairy tale. Not in the way that they have everything they want, but in the way of things always working out in the end.
They better heed the warning: not all liberation frees you.
You come from a people who know how to make do, you hear me? Everywhere Black people go they make do, figure out how to take better than nothing, make it more than enough.
You don’t ever have to say yes to a person who doesn’t meet your standards. Dating or friendships—you get to choose who you give your love to.
Hurt is essential to love. Not in the martyr way but in the human way, in understanding that even lovable people make mistakes.
What does bougie mean? Aaliyah asks. Aunt Aretha doesn’t hesitate. At its worst, it means stuck-up, but it can also mean a person who likes the finer things. So eating neck bones and mac and cheese with rice and gravy isn’t being bougie? Not at all, chile. Not at all. Unless you eating at one of those gentrified soul food places that charge an arm, leg, and entire backside for a spoonful of black-eyed peas.
A woman should be allowed to take her time when it comes to who she’s giving her heart to.
She is masterful at twisting the truth just enough to keep it true.
Monitoring our bodies was never about God and modesty. It was about control and manipulation. And instead of telling the men in the church to control their desires, they tried to control our bodies.
It feels like old times. We fit together like we’ve never been apart.
He has an ease to his charm, and even though I am irritated with him, I can’t ignore what his presence does to me, how our attraction to each other is always a simmering pot on the back burner.
And I know some of you are not going to want to hear this, but I have to tell it like it is. Some of you women out there praying and fasting and vision boarding for your man to come, when really what you need to do is get yourself on a treadmill.
We embrace the rain, we understand that even nature needs to release, needs to let go.
Well, now I know better. No man can complete me. I say this all the time: I don’t need a man, I want a man. I want partnership, I want companionship. I want— Okay, I hear you. I do. But that feels like some deep way of trying not to sound needy. Like, okay—maybe it’s semantics. But it’s like saying I don’t need chocolate, I want chocolate. I don’t need ice cream, I want ice cream. Well, I want to be needed. I want to be someone’s water. We need water, we need it to survive. I want a woman who needs me like she needs water. I don’t want to be an option she can do without.
Believe that it’s not your responsibility to make anyone see your worth. You just be every bit of brilliance and beauty you are. Just because they don’t believe you, don’t mean it’s not true.
There are Black people everywhere, and everywhere we are, we know how to create community. Somehow, someway, without meeting each other, living in different regions, speaking different languages, there is a knowing, a way of being that we all relate to. We are not a monolith, yet even in our individuality, we are one.
onyx, obsidian, melanite, coal, tar, cast iron, smoke, soot, storm clouds, ink, oil, blackboards, pepper, sesame, blackberries, coffee, crows, ravens, night, afros, beaded braids, cornrows, du-rags, silk hair bonnets, shea butter for skin, cocoa butter for scars, coconut oil for hair, wide-tooth combs, hair picks, raised fists, dap, the hum of a church organ, the collards at a repast, the solo before the sermon, the hair grease dripping down the edges of foreheads, the plastic butter container saved for tupperware, the eye roll, always the eye roll, putting a handle on an elder’s name, the
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love is a risk, a trust in the uncertain, a walk of faith, a calculated gamble. Love is not about falling in, but growing in. It is a choice, a confidence not in the person you love, not in yourself, but in the surety that even if your heart breaks, it can heal.
Do you want me to respond or just listen?
This is the age when we start taking account, enough time behind us to figure out what to do differently with the time ahead of us.
This is the age where, if we let it, our best years can be ahead of us. If we decide to not waste any time on people or possibilities that don’t align with our purpose.
peach cobbler Ingredients Filling 5 cups (750–800 g or 2–2.5 lbs.) chopped peaches (peeled or unpeeled) ¼ cup (31 g) all-purpose flour ½ cup (100 g) raw cane or turbinado sugar (go up to ⅔ cup if you like it really sweet) a pinch of salt 1 tablespoon (15 ml) fresh lemon juice ½ teaspoon caramel extract (pure vanilla extract also works) Topping ½ cup (100 g) packed dark-brown sugar ⅔ cup (84 g) all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon spice blend (cinnamon + nutmeg, with tiny dashes of ginger and allspice) a pinch of salt ½ cup (113 g) salted butter, very cold, cubed ⅔ cup (57 g)
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port As in haven, as in harbor. As in hold me close, keep me safe, bring me what I need to survive, keep me from anything that means to harm. Take me to faraway places, but never let me forget the beginning, never let me forget home.
