What Does 2022 Hold?

I don't know what 2022 holds for me but I know that as scared as I am about the variant, I must also learn to live with the virus. I also know that I must get up and search for gigs. I must rise and keep house because I now share living space with the love of my life and I want to live in harmony and not squabble over silly things. I know I will seek to cultivate more love, widen my love circle, move my body and eat healthy. The last two I know will be the most challenging but I hope I can hold fast to the idea of self-care and let that lead the journey.

Mania Has to Be Good for Something, Anaa?

A week ago I turned 44. I have lived 4 years into my 4th decade. This is no small feat since Bipolar Disorder often makes it hard to survive life. 41 was the worst tour since 30 and 31. I have to say that I am grateful that the last three birthdays have been nothing …

Single Stories of Places

Grandmother joined the ancestors on her 96th birthday, 8 months ago. Today as I tried to change my FB cover a photo of hers just shot up and went into the spot. I thought, maybe she wants airtime so I left it alone. I am at the desk this afternoon because I'm thinking of her …

Checking In

It has been a really long time since I blogged. Three months, I believe. I have written with my friend Lisa on as many Mondays as we can manage to line up our schedules. We started this the moment we went on lockdown and somehow have managed to sustain this new normal for almost 6 …

A Productive COVID or Is It?

Today Bae got fixated on a groundhog who has taken residence under our deck. Although I haven't seen more than one, Bae is convinced that there are more, a whole family. She was so tickled that she took several pictures and posted them on FB. She's also convinced that is is a female and she …

Put Money Where Your Mouth Is!

Everyone is releasing a statement. Literally even my accounting firm say they are supporting their “customers” and they won’t stand for it. There are lots of articles just calling bs, mostly because of how late they released these statements and how these places are known for racist practices. The Black struggle is in the news …

We Are Tired! Do Something!

I have been glum for about two weeks. This weekend, I decided to take matters into my own hands and de-stress. Bae was out at a cabin in the woods. She invited me, but y’all know how I feel about the outdoors, grass and woods. I politely declined and wished her the best on her …

No One Can Hold All This Darkness

No one can support all the grief I hold. I've known that for a while now. Sometimes it makes me whisper: I can’t do this anymore. The funny thing is that I could have been laughing and chatting up a storm with different people over the course of an evening and then boom I end …

The Bank

And she said, “I just want to write.” And I look at her and smile remembering the belly laugh we just had over dinner. Rubbing our own bellies and comparing and contrasting our body flaws not realizing that the flaws are our interpretation of perfection. Not realizing that the bursts of laughter coming from apartment …

A Mighty Oak Has Fallen

I stare at the plant, the lily, that received the Guinness libations on the night of Grandmother's wake. So much of tradition is lost when the burial of your loved ones are left in the hands of these newfangled funeral homes. My sister and I poured libations ceremoniously via Skype. This newfangled way of doing …

Beautiful Ebony Queen

Beautiful Ebony Queen, with eyes bright and skin shea-butter soft.What have you done to me?I am taking you in with every breath    and I don’t want to exhale.You take my breath while you give me fresh air.    Breathe for me.I call upon the ancestors,    the Queenly Mothers from a long line of Feminine Royalty.Hear me.Hear us.As we go …

Afihyia Pa o! Afihyia Pa!

There is an emoji on my phone that has emoji Kuukua holding her nose from the stench of the thrash that is 2019. I am not quite sure I'd bag the whole 2019 and hold my nose on my way to the dumpster, but it was a rough year for a good chunk of the year. The year did have its moments of reprieve when something wonderful happened and I was just so thankful to have been witness to it, recipient of it, or the benefactor. Those are the moments I wish to focus on and give thanks for.

The Curious Case Of Lack

I operate from a place of lack. I said that a couple weeks ago but I didn't develop the thought. I think articulating it to myself the first time it popped out of my mouth surprised me. I operate from a place of lack. There! I said it! Now it doesn't seem to control me. …

#52essays: Grown Up Love

I've missed two months worth of blogs. The first week I did, I thought I'll catch up next week and then it happened again, and very soon, there was no catching up to be done. I just had to let it go. Too many weeks had gone by and I really didn't know where to …

#52essays: Woman Thou Art Loosed!

I don’t want to apologize for existing or interrupting your existence. My Beloved said something to this effect a few days ago. I was telling her how that afternoon a student in my Wellness class had sat folded in on herself the entire length of the class, her long weave shading her slouched body and …

#52essays: Look What the Aging Challenge Dredged Up!

I wanted to participate in the 10 year Aging Challenge that is making its rounds on SM. I recalled that I came to FB in 2007, so I went searching for the first photos I posted. I found some but every single one of them was with others. I'm sure I opened the account with …

#52essays: Eternal Nomad Resolution

My North Wind came calling a few days before the New Year, and it's been blowing wildly about, clouding my vision. I think I am a perpetual nomad at heart, a restless spirit, and any attempts to lay down roots are going against my grain. The price of belonging is high to us nomads. It …

#52essays: Mi Ma Mo Afihyia Pa O!

The song, "So this is Christmas" keeps making its rounds on my playlist and every time it comes on, I really pause and think: "what have [I ] done? Another year over, a new one just begun." I begun this year joining the #52essays challenge and even though I didn't do it justice, it gave me something to strive for. I begun this year with a lot of disappointment and upset over the business struggles and I end with a new clientele that has welcomed me. I am nowhere near where I started out this year and for the most part it's been needed and welcomed changes.

#52essays: Demons

For as long as she could remember she had been dancing to the rhythm of her demons. Sometimes they'd grant her respite and she would feel the illusion of control so much so that she could almost taste normality. Sometimes she would forcibly take her own respite and with wanton abandon refuse to follow her …

#52essays: #Foodie

I think of you often throughout the day But it’s when I sit at my dining table that I think of you the most To say that I love food and feeding people is to speak a half-truth You eat, and you relish in whatever I place in front of you I don’t pray often, …

#52essays Daydream

Do I dare dream beyond the now Beyond this chilly Fall day That Spring will indeed meet us here And Summer will follow And we will be in love And want to be in each other’s lives still?   Do I dare dream that Perhaps at an age like ours We should go into it …

#52essays: A Life of the Mind

I hosted one of my former students this past weekend and while she was here I realized how much I miss intellectual banter. That first evening, I struggled to respond to her probing and her agitating. Not in a bad way, but she was pushing me to be my old self which I'd hung up …

Bring on the Juju!

I was my parents’ little girl for about 3 years and 8 months. After my sister was born I was nobody's little girl. There is more to this story but suffice it to say for all intents and purposes I didn’t belong to anyone. My parents both left the country to go and work overseas …

I Dream of Ghana

7 years ago, I moved home to Ghana under the pretense of going to teach English. I use the word pretense because I got a job within days of arriving (whom you know!) I knew I couldn't handle Ghana just on my own; a job would create for me that ready-made community of friends. What …

#52essays: You Are Not Mine to Keep

I ready myself because I know you will leave eventually. I don't usually sit still and do nothing because the demons, they haunt me then. So a couple times, I jump up and suggest we do an activity, but you are content with talking, being with me, just taking it all in. You tell me …

I DON’T GOT THIS!

I've been diagnosed with a debilitating disease that is progressive and chronic and has no cure as of yet. I am in Week 2 of when the symptoms first appeared although at this point after going through my medical history, other symptoms have been manifesting all along; this was just a defining one. I posted …

#52essays: The Scabs

My sister got married today. She asked me to pour the ceremonial libation which is an integral part of any auspicious gathering in our culture, at the reception dinner. I positioned myself and steadied the plant that would be the recipient, my voice and hands shook as I juggled the mic and calabash. As I …

#52essays: Peut-être, peut-être, peut-être

A refrain of my own thoughts has been ricocheting around my brain for some time now but I haven't been able to put words to it until now. I belong to me and for right now, that's all there is. Me. And I (me) should be worth it to stay alive for. The past 8 …

#54essays: Butterscotch

"Even when I'm happy, there is a something between me and whatever good news comes my way. It's like eating a butterscotch still sealed in the wrapper."
This one, made me take a pen to write it down. It seemed to describe the ravages of mental illness very well. There is almost always a fear about being and feeling completely at ease in a happy thought or in something pleasant that happens to you. It's even worse when you are caught in the throes of a particularly bad stroke of luck and life seems to be playing a sick joke on you. You are staring at a bowl of butterscotch candy and when you touch one, you find out they are all just wrappers. At this moment I can't see the forest for the trees.

#52essays: Sometimes there is only Silence

The depression came late this year. For the last two weeks I've been battling to stay alive. There are lots of good things happening all around me but the really shitty thing about the sickness is that it brings with it myopia and the only thing you can see are all the negative things happening …

#52essays: Keep On Keeping On

"Money comes and goes but you live through food." Fetlework Tefferi says to Carolyn Jung in Spice Genius, an article in Eating Well (jan/feb 2018 edition). I was sitting in my chiropractor's office waiting to be called when I picked up the magazine.

#52essays:Resurrection Sunday

I went to Passover last night with a chosen family. I'm going to an Easter lunch with my other chosen family. A friend wished me a "happy day of resurrection" and this friend is a practicing Buddhist. What do you say back to that? My biological sister who hasn't spoken to me in a year …

#52essays: 41

Maybe these are thoughts that happen as one gets older and starts to take stock of what’s important. Or maybe these are just thoughts of someone who has been challenged by reflecting because of the absence of my native language in my life this week. Whatever it is, I am here at the paper, writing and that’s a feat accomplished not for any colonizer, despite the fact that I have written all this in English.

#52essays: Scattered Thoughts Determined to Breathe

I've been dragging my feet about the essay for this week. I haven't particularly written anything this week. Usually, I write here and there during the week. There have been moments of brilliant recognition of a great line to start with but I have been either too sleepy or tired or take the pen and …

#52essays: Another One Bites the Dust!

I've been around the block a few times in my 25 years of dating that I know to leave well enough alone based on a few quick evaluations. So remember the story the other day: the man who is making mad money, drives gas for a living, and has only read one book? Well, there …

#52 Essays: What Are The Odds?

To the other Black woman in the room with my diagnosis. To shedding the "strong Black woman" image for 20 minutes to be real with each other. To everyone in the daily fight to live or (if desired) die with dignity. To surviving. To dying. To us who walk that fine line everyday. To those who truly get it and support us. #mentalhealth #invisibledisabilities

The Impromptu/Accidental Essay

When someone dies a public death the interpretation is left to too many people. There is no control over what happens. Last night Ghana lost a very talented and very young (in age and career) artist to a car accident. I woke up to news of her death all over FB with people asking others …

#52essays: One’s Life Path

Why do I share this encounter? Because it made me sad. Sure education doesn't help you climb out of poverty immediately, and looking at me, folks would say I am silly for getting all these degrees, but the critical writing and thinking skills can.

#52essays: 700,800 minutes

That was about 700,800 minutes ago. Rent is my favorite musical of all time and this particular song: "525600 minutes...how do you measure a year?" rings true for me tonight more than ever as I write my fourth essay of the year. I've written several variations of #4thessay but somehow this one feels right to outdoor.

How do I measure 700, 800 minutes?

#52essays: Pondering Singledom

What is it that makes people unable to or unwilling to part from a coupledom if only for one night? I think to myself this morning. Maybe that's why I'm still single and for the most part I'm happiest living alone to come and go as I please without seeking another's permission to spend a night with a bff or my sister.

#52essays: Where It’s At

When you are sitting in your car and contemplating whether you have the ovaries to show up at a Food Pantry, you know things are really bad. Why do I need ovaries, you ask? Because for some of us, pride stands in the way of hunger. And worse yet, I am a chef. I don't …

#52essays lit a fire under my proverbial B

2017 ended a week ago. We are a week into 2018. I have been avoiding writing like the plague. I have not blogged in months, and every time I contemplated it or even showed up to the page, I found lots of excuses and reasons why I shouldn't, needn't, couldn't write, but tonight something shifted. …

Clearing the Cobwebs of 10 Years

Sometimes when there's a break in my disposition and I turn from crying a few times every hour to have supreme bursts of energy, I worry. You see with Bipolar Disorder, being too happy is often a sign of hypomania which could turn into full blown mania. The tricky thing is that there is such …

Thoughts Collecting Dust

I've beaten myself up for not writing. I've thought about writing...a lot! I've told others I quit writing. That there's not enough time in the world these days. The reality is, I was so scared of everything that was going on inside, I didn't dare write. Most of you who know me in person and …

Telling My Truth

When we choose to love, really let someone in our lives, we open ourselves up for a lot of things aside from love. These are often by-products we don't think about as we fall in love. I've been steeping in one such by-product:shame, for 4 months, and the shame led to fear, which led to …

What Remains

As I am surrounded by my language less and less the longer I stay in the U.S., keeping my radio dial on this CD is all I can do to stay comforted that there is some method to this madness called life.

At The Crossroads of Life in North Country

I've been gone from the blogosphere for exactly 6 months and 6 days. I've done little writing in the time since I wrote A Pronouncement. It's not that I haven't thought of writing; I have. When my writer friends were making NY resolutions about writing more, I was praying the winter wouldn't be so bad …

I Am Beautiful the Way God Made Me

https://youtu.be/J5t78ygF_Jc My first performance in my little North Country village.

The Weight Conversation

I've been wanting to write about fat for a while since I hit 200. You see I weighed about 110/120lbs until about when I turned 36. I remember celebrating that I finally hit 136lbs and couldn't get enough of staring at myself in the mirror and seeing all the places I had rounded out in, …

Oman Ghana

I look over at the woman I intend to marry as she is driving. The conversation I've been avoiding having is happening and I am every bit as uneasy as I imagined I would be. I don't have answers and it makes it harder to speak freely. This conversation is not as big as the …