The real Joy in my healing

COVID brought out my truth. It forced me to reevaluate the importance of things around me, including and most importantly what things belong and with whom I choose to spend my time.

You can’t experience COVID in survival mode and come out unchanged. I lost a lot but I gained a better perspective on who I am, what I need and what I am willing to give up to have it.

During COVID I sank to a bottom floor with steep stairs but on my way back up I found Joy. And I like her. I like her a lot! I can’t wait to try new Joy out on the world around me. Reclaiming my time.

Garden Hustle

If anyone ever told me I would be approaching 60 and starting a new chapter I would have laughed out loud. I have done most everything I ever imagined. Traveling the world and finally having a baby are the top two.

I lost most of my business income 3 weeks into COVID. After nose diving into depression and self loathing I picked myself up. Sometimes I still visit sadness but just to say a quick hello.

I started planting, creating, selling from a place inside me I never knew existed. I don’t do it for the money; I do it for the oxygen.

For now, I have a new hustle. It is called living, growing, inspiring based on the cards I have been dealt. I think I am holding the two Jokers. I am good at getting better.

I pray my hustle inspires others and thank God Momma raised me to stash money in my bra.

Waiting on Superman

The only constant are my prayers. Everything else about the past year has bordered on a shit show. I don’t have one book out of this, I might have three. Though I really only want a testimony.

Depression, family illness, taking in a homeless girl, losing my contracts, anxiety, starting an online business, a first garden, a garden cookbook, helping others by breaking my bread in two, three, fourteen pieces.

I want this to be over. I need this to be over. I will be 57 this year and I can’t imagine not having joy in my corner again. I am used to being on top. I am not used to throwing caravan parties for twenty one year olds and god-forbid two upcoming graduation celebrations.

I am not just feeling sorry for myself, I am feeling sorry for ALL of us. This includes a nation held in suspense by a silent killer. The worst kind. My family is bursting at the seams to move beyond this while also being too in love with one another to make a false move.

Inaugurations spent at home. Zoom meetings that went nowhere. Virtual hugs. Air kisses. Elbow shakes. The shit show that has no immediate curtain call.

Well it had been awhile since I purged my thoughts. I had to. My sadness vessel was getting full again. And the thing worse than surviving this is surviving this in a million shattered pieces.

Soon it will be spring again. Just outside my window there is a garden calling my name. We will grow together.

Bored. Lonely. Afraid. Bored. Lonely. Afraid. These describe the good days. The good days because and other days I add angry. These describe days that I don’t talk about much. The days that it is best just to try to shift the atmosphere. Turn off the news. Pull the shades down on the images flashing across the screen of my mind. Put all my will into rewinding these confusing days and dreadful moments forever etched inside me. That is COVID to me. At the prime of my life that is what you, the pandemic have reduced me to. Bored. Lonely. Afraid. And sometimes angry.

But Alive.

I have always been in control. Bored lonely afraid angry replaced with lively enthusiastic driven optimistic. I lived in a world of good input good output. Expect the best out of each day..

March 3rd of 2020 started as any other busied day of my life. I had just returned from a DC trip and recently been invited to speak to high school students in Atlanta and give a speech to minority small business owners in another part of the city. Hugs, Handshakes. Pictures. Close encounters.

I remember one young Asian student wearing a mask when I spoke to her small group. She looked so unwell, pale, cough, frail. She said she had the flue. I politely asked her to keep her distance not wanting to get the flue myself. We stood close enough for a group picture but that was it.

Just under two weeks later, on the he evening of March 3rd, I was relaxing texting a friend while also playing Words With Friends. I asked my son to tell his father, my husband, I wasn’t feeling well. Over the next ten hours I became sicker than I care to remember. I made my husband swear a promise to me No Hospital. I had started hearing more of this thing called COVID and I knew just enough to plant that first kernel of fear.

At this time GA had less than 15 “reported” cases.

My feelings of lonely bored afraid would cascade from here. But first I needed to be fired. A COVID firing coming out of nowhere.

My Hero G-Lew Wadley

Burl called. He knew I would want to know. Less than an hour later, on a beautiful Sunday morning, I walked into his hospital room unannounced. As I came into focus, Lew’s glee was hard to disguise. He didn’t even try to hide his happiness. We would be alone for the time we needed.

We were not 17 anymore, but we could have been. I bit my lip to keep from crying. I wiped away his sweet tears that flowed freely, especially when he spoke of his darling mother. He dreaded hurting her. Not being here longer for her.

We were no longer each other’s first date at Howard University. So much time had passed. I bent down to kiss him, purposely angling to catch the edge of his sweet smile. It worked.

Lew and I had never been out of one another’s lives for long. I have this memory of him finding me long before it was easy. My vision of the thick White Pages on his lap, him searching, dialing, crossing off every Mc Gaha as he went in search of me. He found me. That was Lew.

Together now, we searched for comforting words between us. He remained funny and uplifted, overly interested in my well-being, despite his circumstance.

Most of what we talked about will remain ours. But I do know how we ended. He said, “LD I do not know how to die of cancer.” As I stared into his eyes, I took him by his frail hand and whispered, “It is okay my dear friend, because I do not know how to say goodbye to you dying of cancer. So just for today, let’s just say you are living with cancer.”

Two weeks later at about the same hour I was with him, Lew succumb to the cancer that riddled him. And now I must learn to live for both of us.

I love you my friend. Go easy on the ladies up there. See you when I get there. I know just where to find you.

I remember being told and believing that a reality star could never win the highest elected office in our nation. After it happened, I closed the curtains in my house and stayed behind them for a few days inconsolable.

I remember being at an election party just days before and leaving early. Not a single word spoken from the front seat on the drive home. It would remain that way until I could conjugate enough words with enough meaning to caption this moment in time.

The events that followed I liken to a bandaid being perpetually snatched off a sore. Day in and day out. No room for healing. I am not alone.

I study how others treat their sore from that day. Played out in satire, memes, caricatures, swears, jokes, admonishments, and ridicule. I guess this temporarily pacifies the immediacy of the insult they feel.

His snatching back of the bandaid not only exposes that sore but allows the infection to spread. On his watch, it unearths permissive bigotry, prejudice, disdain, sexism, hatred, intolerance, and violence from every corner of our nation. It reveals the progress we imagined among us was simply disguised as a sleeping giant. Left largely unchecked, the infection is spreading. But then again, the fish rots from the head down.

The other thing about this snatching back is what it reveals about America to outside spectators. Those watching have so far been complicit, but even that is slowly changing. Now they too have formed a chorus of laughter against us or at least against him. They see what we feel. They can’t escape notice of our nation’s slippage toward darker times in our history.

Quietly at first and as not to be disparagingly singled out, they come to realize that the emperor has no clothes. And so has he, yet he must pretend the crowd came to see him and all is well.

A youthful voice in the crowd yells what everyone knows. The emperor has no clothes. That yell is exposed through its vote. No meme, no taunt, no satire needed. That vote speaks for itself. The chorus is now their collective vote.

And through this very act, the healing begins anew.

Those that know me well know that I do not watch TV unless it is news. That said, most of my "current events" comes from the news. I know little else. Really behind on all things pop culture. From the news I learned of what happened at the GRAND SLAM. For anyone sensitive, you should keep scrolling FB and stop now and any further reading of this post.

Know that I very rarely regret anything I have ever said to anyone. I mostly regret that they were unable, unwilling and/or unready to hear it.

I don't follow any sports. I do follow Serena. I follow what I pick up on in reading articles or see on the news. I met her father once. I wrote about that too. From meeting him it is not hard for me to see from where she gets her grit.

What transpired on the court and during the ceremony do not surprise me one bit. I saw her daddy's temper and I saw her compassion for others that followed.

Now this part. The coaching rule at the Grand Slam sucked in duplicity. It reeked of sexism and was emblazoned with powerism. I do not believe it had to do with race. I do believe this male umpire could not muster the idea of being yelled at by a woman. I believe the very act reached him at levels that instigated a primitive strike back. I sensed he could not fathom the very act of this powerful woman pushing back, standing her ground and defending her virtue, integrity and reputation.

Had a male player done the same, and they have plenty of times, this umpire would have cast warnings or threat of repercussion.

Men must come around to the fact that we live in a new day and are raising a new generation of female. There are Serenas everywhere. And once you birth one, she cannot be put back in the bosom.

We are readying ourselves for a new revolution of strength and position. I think someone should warn the umpire that like Serena, we are just getting started.

We are fully awake! And that is not a bad thing. Being silenced is not an option on or off the court.

I was having outdoor lunch with a friend of mine who is a marriage counselor while visiting sunny California. A general curiosity overtook me. I asked her to share her work. Not any one story, but maybe a morphed quilt of her total counseling experience. She looked at me like she had been asked a million times or maybe not at all. But anyway, she exhibited a slight eagerness to share.

​She told me of a couple she had been seeing for about a year. He seemed to be dragged in back then, but in recent weeks they both seemed to be there together. Thing is, she told me, he was always responding and she was always the one sharing. So one day, she asked to see him alone.

​Now I am sipping my water like its wine, leaned in and trying not to get ahead of the story. It felt like the making of a sitcom, maybe better. My friend continues.

​So I invite him in and I say, "today is free, but I need you to listen." And on she goes.

​She begins by telling him what he is doing has a perilous ending. What you are doing will play out and you will feel like you are having an out of body experience. Like you are in a room floating above your life playing out in front of you.

​Now I am beside myself with full blown - what next curiosity?! I motion the waitress over and I say four words, "wine, bottle, right here." My counselor friends says, "one day, whether it be tomorrow, months or a year from now, someone you meet is going to kill what little is left of your marriage. And she will do that not to regain anything you shared, but she will do it for the impact that ensues. She will do it because she is hurt. The hurt that you caused."

​I interrupt by asking, "What is he saying?" She responds, "Nothing, he just listens."

​What you think you are doing to protect you from demise is ill-conceived. There is no protection from her hurt. What you should have done in this situation was never done. And what you could have done at home, was never started.

So, she will do what hurt people do and THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP IT.

​I turn to my friend and ask, "You mean couples don't go through counseling and stay together?" My friend responds, by the time they make it here she has heard everything, done everything, and tried everything to save it. By the time she makes it here she needs closure, he just wants to avoid change.

​Wow! Ever the hopeless romantic, I ask, "Well did they stay together?"

"What do you think?"

He was a neighborhood kid turned man with big hands, born then raised within twenty minutes of everything he ever knew. People around him called him Little Rufus. No rhyme or reason because he wasn’t exactly named after anyone by the same name, at least not that he knew.

Little Rufus got around. Everyone knew. Where Little Rufus was trouble soon followed. Thing is no matter what Rufus got involved in he had one cardinal rule. Never own it. Never tell it. Never give it up. And that is how he lived his life. His entire life within twenty minutes of everything he ever knew. His time spent running from his truth.

One day again trouble found Rufus or vice versus, who really knew. Common pattern though - don’t own it, don’t tell it, never give it up.

This day, an angel was sent and sat down beside Rufus as he sat on the side of the road contemplating his next denials. She whispered something only he could hear. She spoke sweetly and with gingerly eloquence. The angel whispered this. “It matters not what they know of you; it matters most what you know of yourself. It is what you know and deny that will hold you forever prisoner.”

And then as quickly as she appeared she was gone. All that within twenty minutes of everything he ever knew.

A Promise Is A Promise

I learned to apologize early in life. Most of those lessons came under the threat of some type of repercussion like a spanking to ensue. Every time I apologized I promised never to do the infraction again. In my mind I meant it. In my heart, I am not so sure. In life, my apologies evolved into telling the truth and into promises. The difference between them comes down to two things--- being willing to tell the truth and being willing to keep those promises. Telling the truth is easier than keeping a promise. Ask my heart how I know.

​It never cripples me when I hear someone's truth. It hurts sometimes but not in a way that erases the purity of the moment of truth. Truth is hard to tell. Truth deserves credit. Truth telling has its place. Truth trumps lies.

​Broken promises is a truth on an entirely other plane. I tell my children the worst offense to the heart is breaking a promise to someone. Unlike truth, the teller of truth just has to walk out the consequences of that truth, no matter how hard and for no matter how long.

​With a promise though, you have a contract. You enter a new sacred space on a spirit level. Thing is you are under no obligation to make a promise, so when you do it is sacred. It is lasting. It is without condition. And if and when that promise is broken, it much like a ball that has been stepped on under full pressure leaving all the air to come gushing out. Even if that ball wants to inflate again, it will never take the same form. And it is because of that broken promise that it will never be the same.

​You may try to handle that ball differently, reshape it, hold it close, force new air into it. But unlike telling the truth that hurts with its consequences, a broken promise has no where to go for healing. Time does not heal, reshaping does not heal, handling it gently does not heal. A broken promise is purposeful and hence the outcome and response is purposeful too.

And even if that ball starts to behave like a ball again, you best believe it is not telling its truth.

​A promise is a promise and when it is broken everything it touched breaks too. A broken promise carries with it a regrettable finality.

http://www.liveyourawesomelife.com/living-your-aweswome-life-one-oops-at-a-time/when-a-promise-is-a-promise

I have no idea why I feel the need to purge my truth. Okay that is not true, I know why. Because it feels better afterwards. I feel a weight lifted. I feel lighter inside. I feel brave and smart and liberated and even cool. I feel like I am doing something I would have never done most of my adult life. Tell my truth. Tell my truth knowing some will sit in judgment of me. But I tell it anyway. I tell it because by telling it, it makes me feel better. I even tell myself, "You get this out and you will live longer."

​Tomorrow as many as 35 women and a few men are going to tell their truth. Yep. They will share their truth in our new book, "This is my story, but it is not my life." I hope they will feel better too. My guess is they will. They absolutely will.

​I could not think of what to share this time around. This is my 3rd published truth story. And it was not for a lack of having nothing to say. It was the choosing of what hidden part was ready to reveal itself. The hardest part of truth talking is when everyone around you has a certain perception of you and your telling will shatter that paradigm. I have learned that that shattering comes with the truth telling part.

​Would I tell people that how I have deep fears? Fears of becoming my alcoholic mother, a deep fear of being alone if my only remaining sibling were to die first. Would I share my guilt of being the first one in my immediate family to break out of poverty and make it over to what they call "the made it" side? Would I tell of how I move so fast because if I stop too long I will think too much? And sometimes thinking brings sadness.

​Do I just share another uncomfortable piece of me and whatever that new revealed piece is that I share, I will own it? I will embrace it as an essential part of who I am and share how God is using even that piece to craft his work in me. Do I tell the world that I have learned to love even the hidden parts of me? And that even though some parts have not been revealed to others, I know what they are and embrace how they came to be a part of me.

​The truth is this. I am complicated. We are complicated. The difference between my new self and my old self is my insatiable desire to use everything inside me to discover the best parts of me. And through that discovery I desire to love all of me in return. And that is my truth. It really doesn't matter what anyone thinks. It matters that those hidden parts had their chance with light. And that I might live longer.

What I am about to share is about me. If you think anything beyond that you will be missing me. You will be assuming much more than intended.

Recently I took a break from drinking. I did not make a big promise to myself or a proclamation or even an apology of any sort. I simply stopped doing something I had become used to doing for a very long time. I stopped letting alcohol do my feeling. I decided to do my own feeling for awhile.

I grew up watching what alcohol does to one’s soul. I saw firsthand how it can become friend and foe in the same evening. How it can make you laugh and cry then sleep. Sometimes I saw how it can make you want to fight. I saw how it can make you change your mind about things, make you forget things too. Watching this I vowed “that” would never be me. I will do my own thinking, my own forgetting, my own fighting, my own laughing, my own sleeping. I did not need that kind of help.

Then I turned 50. Then I forgot what I had told myself way back then. And because I did not exactly look like “that”, behave like that, sound like that, forget like that, then I had not become “that”. So I told myself. That is until I realized this one thing. That “that” looks differently on everyone. I had become a different version of that. But “that” I had become or was well on my way to becoming. I had become my version of “that”. That one thing I promised myself I would not do. I had begun to allow alcohol to do my feeling.

The most difficult part was breaking a habit that though had not become an addiction has become a familiar habit. A familiar feeling. I put my habit into pretty glasses poured from bottles with pretty labels hung with nice necklaces displayed on beautiful shelves in pretty rooms filled with charming people on days that did not matter in that week. What mattered was my habit was on standby to shape my feelings no matter what was going on in that room on that day or any other day.

I told myself you eat well, you exercise well, you live well. I could not deny, I drink well too. And that habit was beginning to take over my feelings.

So, I broke up with drinking. We will meet again. Maybe a month from now, a year or some time after that. We will meet and I will be glad we did.

But this next time my feelings get to lead our next dance together.

​#truthisthebeginning

In the year 2000, I was fired from my golden handcuffs corporate job. The moment was encased in words like "You will be just fine. With your pedigree you can get another job anywhere." It would be the last time I worked for anyone. Well kind of.

​The Monday following that Friday firing I began working for myself. I became a paid consultant. Less than two years later, I would officially hang my own shingle and begin working for the government. It would be very difficult terrain to navigate. A system of crooked roads, convoluted paperwork, and without certain outcomes. It can also be a road to financial freedom. A very freeing path to independence. It would take me a decade to realize the 360 degree benefits of sticking it out.

In a nutshell, I have become able to package my skills, assess my worth, and leverage my vast experience to make a very lucrative living working exclusively for government across the nation. In the process, I have made a lot of others rich too.

​Each year billions of dollars are awarded to businesses via the government (city, state, and federal). Most of this money goes to big business. The federal government alone awards in excess of 90 Billion in government funds each year. Most government agencies have a small business quota who must receive their fair share of those funds.

​My goal is help others prepare to receive some of those funds. Therein lies the rub. Improper preparation is the number one reason more small businesses fail to get rewarded big contracts. I want to change that.

​I will start at the beginning and bring you across the finish line. If a small business is willing to put in the work. I will lay out the sign posts.

​Working in a corporate environment was a long time ago and many millions of dollars of net worth later. If your business is ready, allow me to help you get to another place in financial freedom. I can help. I started from scratch and now know the ins and the outs.

​I am willing to share my blueprint for success.

Email me for information nobleinsightinc@gmail.com

When I was growing up "white" in Utah I died a slow death looking for role models who looked like me. Despite not having any I could count beyond my one hand I thrived. I broke barriers, wore crowns designed for white girls and took on causes that drew the word 'nigger' as a side dish. Still I thrived, but slowly and surely I left a piece of my spirit on the sidewalk, in the classroom and on the playground. I did not become more black, I became less human, less confident, and yes in many ways wilted because of the pain of isolation along the way.

​When I was in my twenties I did two things. I studied to achieve A's and I prayed to become Oprah. I recorded her show and I watched them over and over. In my early thirties I wrote to her so often I think I was put on a stalking list. This is true as legend has it.

​A marvelous thing happened on my way to becoming Oprah, I became me. At some tipping point, some pivotal point in my psyche, I put down my "Dear Oprah" pen and I became what Oprah made room for...me to be me.

​Rumors are aflutter that Oprah might run for President of the United States. I am 53 and she a decade older. The possibility exist that my lifetime idol might be President of these United States. In truth, I could really care less that she might run and actually win. Though if she were to officially enter the race you would hardly recognize me. Why? I would work as hard for her as I did Obama. And I lost many friends over Obama running.

​I don't care about the ultimate win as much as the "win" pursuit. I care most about that young brown girl in Tennessee or Idaho or wherever watching the pursuit of it. Oprah pursuing the Presidency and what that single act might mean to her sidewalk, her classroom, her playground.

​Go for it Oprah, I pinky up double dare you. I will be right there with you. I promise not to pen you my thoughts....well at least not every day.

​Sister, La Detra

Hi there saint. No worry I come in peace. I have planned to reach out to you for some time now but waited patiently to share words of truth that I meant. See I did not want to say things in the moment as they would have been painted with words dipped in dark ink that stains. But I am ready now. I hope this reaches you in good health and peace of mind.

​I hope you are enjoying John's bike as much as he did. It was his only transport to school. It was a gift from his mom too. One gift to him that she worked really hard to acquire. Do you like the way it rides? Is it comfortable? Each time you ride it perhaps even to school do you think about how you are riding something you took from someone else without their consent? Knowing John the way I do he would have shared the bike with you, allowing you to ride it freely. But that is John, a giving young man with a huge and forgiving heart.

​I do hope you take good care of the bike. I mean don't run it into the ground. Keep the tires inflated, careful to keep the chain well lubricated and every once in a while have the gears checked out. Take a few pictures with it. Post them on FB. I mean it is one good looking bike isn't it? And the next time you are riding it test out the speed. mean, I bet it can take some pretty good corners. In any case, enjoy it! John is not coming for it. As John says, Simple Obedience allowed him to let it go. John told us, "It is yours. Keep it!"

​While you are keeping it, the bike that is, allow me to thank you. I thank you for allowing so many of us to be introduced to John because of your misdirected acts not of God. Your thievery opened the flood gates of reciprocity in John's favor. All that good and forgiveness and simple obedience and peace John poured out into the universe came back to him in ways his heart could hardly receive. And though we hardly spoke of you in those moments, know that I was thinking of you. I was thinking, I am John's friend. And the one who took his bike should have been John's friend too.

​Enjoy your ride. Watch out for speed bumps and pot holes. Keep the wind to your back. Read up on Romans 8:28
​Miss La Detra, friend of John

https://www.facebook.com/ladw1/posts/10215087601566265 Our Meeting
​Meet John The Preacher for yourself https://www.facebook.com/ladw1/posts/10215029398151216