Black Girls Must Be Magic

by Jayne Allen

“For any woman who wants children,” she said, as softly as if reciting a love poem, “she has to be ready to face her greatest fears and the uprooting of any lies and delusions she holds about herself. She must be ready to fail . . . and hurt. It’s life’s way of making you face necessary resolutions. That beautiful baby growing inside of you will demand that of you. And the purpose and blessing, at least in part, is to become more aware of who you are and the strength you have access to as a woman.”

Sometimes it takes that feeling of focused support, even just for a second, to realize how much weight you’ve been carrying.”

you have to just be you. That’s all you’re responsible for. Let everyone else sort out their own mess. And believe me—half the stuff they try to put on you, that’s their mess they’re dealing with,”

Girl, we’re living out our dreams. Sometimes it’s just happening in slow motion, so you don’t notice until you hit a milestone or look back on everything.”

“You know what they say, we make plans, God laughs.”

But death isn’t a transition only for those who’ve passed. You never know who or what it will change for the living.

You have support too, which is great, but you do have stress. It’s in the fabric of living and in the layers of your life. It’s invisible until it’s not.

because you want to be, not because you feel like you have to be.”

this is your life, so it’s up to you to live it. At the end of the day, you are the one who is going to have to deal with the consequences of your decisions. So make them for you and nobody else. If you stay true to yourself, there’s no way that it won’t work out.”

“Then he’s just going to have to trust your decisions. But maybe the hardest part is that you’re going to have to trust yourself.”

“I don’t spend too much time thinkin’ too much about other folks’ business,”

“Sometimes, you can’t tell when a person’s hurtin’,” she said, “so you just have to take their word for it.”

This was what triggered the disappointment that I saw in my mother’s face. This version of me that had to be protected with new laws, that triggered letters from viewers at work, and that I had hidden under wigs and shame for months. This version of me was literally itching to be set free. This was the me that I needed to love and to be loved; it was the me yearning for acceptance and a space to rightfully occupy. This was the me that I desperately needed to be enough.

There was what I wanted, and there was what I was supposed to want, and I still couldn’t tell the difference between the two.

I wanted to look at photos from a life milestone and finally see myself in them.

It was a reflection of my work, of trial and error, of education hard discovered on social media channels and in salon side conversations. This, on my head, was my own Garden of Eden. It was my God-given paradise that I needed to protect, nurture, and name. Today, I would name it strong and healthy. I would name it perfect. I would name it love and beauty so that my daughter could come into this world and call hers the same.

“Stories aren’t written about women who follow the rules, Tabby. Stories are written about women who break them and show us all what’s on the other side. The world runs on that magic. Don’t let anybody limit you with what they can’t handle.

When you need some extra courage, you need to get yourself a red cardigan.” “What am I going to do with a red cardigan?” “Oh honey, I just mean that as a figure of speech. I had an old red cardigan that I brought with me to Los Angeles when I first started teaching. I didn’t know how to make those kids listen to me, and some days I had a hard time getting through a lesson plan. I just told myself one day that I was going to wear that red sweater, and they were going to have to pay attention to me, just like they did everything else red—the bell, the stoplights, and the fire trucks. Red to me meant authority, and if I couldn’t find it on the inside, I sure was going to wear it on the outside.” Ms. Gretchen took another sip of her champagne. “So I put on my red cardigan and went into that classroom. I don’t know if I was right about the color, or if the kids just decided to behave that day, but it was my best day. And every day after, since I’d done it that first time, I knew it was possible, so I stuck with it—all the way until I retired.” “Well, I don’t have a red cardigan, Ms. Gretchen.” “You don’t need one. Just find something that makes you feel special. I eventually figured out who I was when I wore the cardigan was more important than what I was wearing.

On this day, the reward for my risk came in the form of unexpected offers of support. For my trust, I was able to gain help and alliances. In this moment, within this group, my vulnerability was met with protection. Here, in the same room where I often faced workplace rivals, somehow I’d also found a family.

It had been the worst time of my life when I’d first said to Lisa, “Every problem can’t be my problem.” It was at my breaking point, and an outburst that I wasn’t proud of. But it was honest. In this moment, perhaps one of my most professionally vulnerable, it would take more than a wall full of Hallmark cards to express what it meant to me that she remembered.

Somehow too much truth too fast could start to feel like blocks of emotional concrete, stacked one by one on your chest.

“you’re a full-grown woman, so you ought to know, there’s no such thing as too red—or too bold.”