Walking Shoes.... On.

I'm a #CaliKid. Flip flops ARE walking shoes.

So there are times when I go for a walk. I know what you’re thinking – it’s a walk, but it’s for a run, so it’s really a variation of a run because there’s a race. Newsflash: There is always a next race... Most times, you’d be spot on if you saw me out in the streets. But every so often, I wander around the world in walking shoes (that were once running shoes).

Naw, scratch that. I wasn't that introspective. See, what had happened was, I went to the gas station, and well, the price of gas made me think about some things. Like, why would one drive to the store when it's less than a mile away and you're not in a hurry? When, not months ago, you paid someone what it cost to fill your gas tank (maybe a lil more) to run on that same exact street. Yeah, maybe you should walk to the store once...or more. So, I walk now, on occasion, to bring some balance back to my life and my checkbook.

The last two times I was out walking, cars driving by stopped me, to ask if I needed a ride. I did not know the driver, and was shocked at the gesture. I had to pull my earbuds out to make sure I heard what I read their lips saying. One time was a week day during commuting traffic. Who stops in that? The second was an early weekday morning, just before commuting traffic. I say again, who stops in that?

Black Women.

Both drivers asked if I was okay and if I needed a ride. I smiled and share that I was walking on purpose. Both gave me the you sure you not in danger, girl eye, but smiled and continued on their commute. Nobody walks during commuting hours on purpose. You could see it in the wave of their hands gesturing me to the empty front passenger seat. You know you wanna get in the A/C girl…it’s hot outside! You realize we can CARpool, in this here CAR. Anybody else stopping to ask me if I needed a ride, I would have felt some kind of creepy way. But them?

Made the walk all the merrier. I am relearning to love my city post-gentrifiers. I mean, there’s more of it to gentrify, which they’ll get too soon, but the real damage is done. It started long before the IKEA arrived. When Ravenswood High School closed, that was the real beginning of our end. But that’s a conversation for another time. The truth is, I really don’t feel all that warm and fuzzy when I lace up my running and/or walking shoes and pound (and/or pitty pat) the pavement these days. The street signs are the same, but the signs of life have changed.

I got a reprieve from those thoughts though during these two walks. That’s usually what’s running through my mind – where in the world am I? Could it be? I stayed away too long... In those specifically beautiful instances, I got a glimpse of the home I knew and walked around in it a little longer than I planned.

Also, I love Black Women. It's nice to know that we're not too busy trying to save this dying world to save each other.

Black Girl (Thanksgiving) Magic

Yo, I’m hella greedy. (I should stop being greedy.) I mean, I’m not even going to try to hide it.

But to be fair about my level of greediness, it’s not the gluttoness, day-to-day, eat’em’ups kind of greedy. I’m not judging that, because well, after I tell on myself, I really won’t have an argument worth defending. We’re just…just…opposite side of the same coin.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. I didn’t come to the realization that I was greedy by happenstance. It was actually when I was having a much better, kind of amazing, life epiphany.

It was when I realized one of the earliest times in my life when I saw Black Girl Magic.

So, take it back a minute. Sit back in your chair at work – you’re reading this at work, don’t front – and think a minute. *conjure up the spirit of Sanaa all of her brown sugariness* When was the first time you witnessed some Black Girl Magic?

Enter: My Greed.

Okay, so every Thanksgiving is so special. It takes me back to that time in my life when my mother was playing the starring role in I Don't Know How She Does It… I mean, 7 girls, a full time job, a husband with particular food needs, bowling league, usher board, and Lord bless it, pressing seven heads a week?! Can I get a witness up in here?

…she just did it. All of it. And for a time, she did all of the cooking, every holiday. All by herself. I seriously, not using the pun because it works, have NO IDEA how she did it, and I was growing up right in that house with her doing it.

Every Thanksgiving we would have a feast. And two to three days later we would be totally over the feasting. I had no idea that I would come to love Thanksgiving leftovers they way I didn’t love them back then. It was around this time, the magic began.

Mama would go into the kitchen and pull out the remains of the turkey. Our hearts would sink because this would be day three or four of eating the same darn thing, right? Well, not exactly. She’d pull out a really big bowl, and begin to picking. I watched her because when I was a kid I had this weird thing with dead things. Like, looking at the skeletons. Inspecting the deadness. That stayed with me all through UCLA #cadavers. Anyway, she would pick and we would sulk.

Something strange would happen next. Mama would start chopping. It was this bizarre wizardry, because it wasn’t cooking. Like she used no pots or pans. Just a knife and a spoon. OMG, did my mother go to Hogwarts? I bet she was a Gryffindor with her ole usher board righteous first lady self. Maybe she’s a witch? I bet she took one of Snape’s classes. I mean, she been in her late 30s forever. She must drink the blood of unicorns. Like Voldemont? OMG, my mother is a dark wizard!!!!! O_O My father is going to be heartbroken when he learns of this. Maybe we can have an exorcism or something?

Wait, like what in the entire hell was I talking about? Do I really get off topic this easily??

Oh, yea… Chopping away. All those leftover remains of turkey. Then some of that celery/onion/bell pepper crap she started all of the holiday cooking off with. Some hard boiled eggs. Then a bunch of other stuff my fragile mind was too young to understand because, look at all the glitter coming out of that spoon shaped wand #SheIsAWitchAtBest?!?!? I have no idea what’s happening but I am in a trance. Hypnotized by the symphony of stirring and chopping and tasting and sprinkling and OMG what is she doing now?!?!

Then, right at the moment when my little underdeveloped heart could take no more, Daddie would walk by, grab a ritz cracker and dip it in. Then walk off. Yo, he’s like a food sniper. You never see it coming, but you always see him going. He has a food radar that knows when a dish is just about done because his timing was more flawless than Beyoncé.

She would wipe the side of the bowl, and leave it on the counter. Grab the white bread, and make sandwiches. Spreading that magical concoction on the bread, sans edges, cut it in half, and hand it off to kiddies to and fro.

That’s when I tasted it. Magic. Black Girl Heavenly Magic. Thank You Jesus! Yes Lord! My Soul Says Yes! My soul is anchored in…this bowl!

Had to be magic. It never lasted long enough to be anything else. It was magic that only happened around the holidays. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Easter. Never more than three times a year. Never.

Eventually, my scheming got good enough to figure out that, if we don’t eat the turkey, like wait her out those three to four days, she would have more material to make magic. And so it happened. Every holiday we would eat less and less turkey, so Mama could make more magic. We banked on her failing memory (no magic, bruh…unless you count coffee) remembering to purchase the same size turkey every year because she like had a big family, so she needs the biggest effin turkey they have, right? Magic.

So what she caught on to us. The point was, negros was knee deep in magic for decades. I had to come clean with her one year. It was too obvious. One of my sisters got a little turkey happy, and I almost came across the table with the might of Moses and the Red Sea behind me. Like, what are you doing? Are you crazy? YOU EATING (MY) MAGIC! So, I told her what I was doing. How, I live for the magic that she creates after we’re done with the turkey.

The next year, I bought a separate turkey for her to make magical and still policed the Thanksgiving turkey because I’m hella greedy son. I told you that in the beginning.

I never realized the creativity it took for my mother to create dinner day after day, year after year, and almost always get it right. Anyone that’s gone out to dinner with me knows that I can be a smidge particular with my food order. I mean, the waiter gets a tip. My Mama got nothing from me yet she actually made double turkeys multiple years! Damn…like why yall never tell me how greedy I was #BeenEatinLongEnough? And you call yourself my friend?

From sweet potato pies, to strawberry shortcakes without the strawberries, and fried cabbage – yes Lord!, to turkey salad – I lived with incredible magic from the first black girl I knew. But the thing about magic is, if you stay around it long enough, you pick up some of your own. It’s not the same magic. It’s a magic you learn to harness, without even knowing you’re perfecting it. You just end up in the store one day, down the turkey aisle.

Yup. You are absolutely correct that I made a turkey this year. And ate like 3 pieces of it. #choices

Yes. There is a big bowl of turkey salad in my refrigerator right now.

No. You cannot have any. #BetYouWishYouHadABite #BishYouCannotHaveABite

Get your own Black Girl Magic Mama.

I ain’t sharing her either. #StillGreedy #IveLEarnedNothing #NotSureICareEither