I told him I will make you a deal. You use me the way you want to but I must be able to be who you created me to be. If we do this, whatever this is, we do it together. That will mean God, you will not always be pleased in your creation. But always remember, you created me and I think you knew what you were getting.

A few months before my mother passed from earth I went to her bedside. I did not even know she was sick. I knew she was sickly but I had no idea she was about to die. Neither did she. She told me, if anything were to ever happen to me, take care of your sister. I had two older living brothers. She named my sister. This was in July. By October, she was gone. Just like that. In February of the next year, I moved my only sister and her young family from California to Georgia. I bought them a small house, filled it with furniture, filled the refrigerator with food and then I stood this deeply troubled soul in front of the fridge and told her unapologetically, "The next time it gets filled, you will fill it." I was tough and generous.

A few years later my sister would buy her own house and to this day, keeps it full of food and joyous laughter.

One of the things I was created to be is generous. I was also created to be very tough on people, including myself. People wonder where I get it from. I am evenly split, tough from my mother, generous from my daddy. Now back to God.

I am preceded in death by my mother at age 55, father age 73 and two brothers age 45 and 54 respectively. There remains my only sister and myself. My mother lived much of her adult life troubled, likely even depressed. As I lost the only close family I knew, I got to the place where I made a promise with my creator. I said, only you know how much I can take. I have always tried to be strong. You might know how much more I can take but I don't. So I need you to promise me something. "Keep me off those ropes of depression." And if you do and I can be strong, I will show the generosity you poured into me. I will shine like the angel you created.

But if you don't, I will fall. And then God you will spend a lot of my wasted time putting me back together again. I do not want to spend our time together putting me back together. Use me Lord, but don't let me hit those ropes. Keep me tough and keep me generous.

And he has, and together we are building something amazing together. That something amazing is my life. A life centered on giving and letting God take care of the ropes.

http://www.liveyourawesomelife.com/living-your-aweswome-life-one-oops-at-a-time/the-tension-i-keep-with-god

As I prepare to return to the U.S. and because this is my first time blogging since being away, I have a couple of way over yonder observations. Let me begin by saying, I have been traveling away from home for a long time. So what I am about to say, I say with a bit of gray hair sprinkled throughout. In sum total I have been to about 38 unique countries and if you count repeating them and traveling from city or province or village or state within them, then I have seen a lot over the years.

Travel has changed me, mostly for the better. Travel makes you tolerant, more sympathetic, and appreciate of others. In my case, especially for those who have less means. If you travel enough and far enough from home you will know exactly what I mean. Once a child in South Africa living with no inside plumbing asked my daughter how many bathrooms she had at home. I begged her with my eyes to answer one. We have more.

The two observations I want to make about travel are these. The first is this. I have encoutered scores of times, people with far less than me who appear much happier. I have tested this over and over and over. Whether in Egypt, Morocco, South Africa or Bali. I have seen pure joy in others who don't have a lot. They seem to get their joy from their environment and from the bonds they have with their family. I envy this. I try always to bring a bit of this joy making home with me. I try to get joy from living joyously and by sharing myself joyously.

The second observation is a bit more mind boggling. The second observation is the fact that no matter where I go outside of the US, the country where I end up...They always seem to know much more about America than we know about them. More of our history, past and present. More about our politics sometimes. They seem much more studied on our affairs than I can begin to know about theirs. I do not think I am alone.

This is particularly true when I am in Europe. Europeans run circles around my knowledge. I am only speaking for self. Their general curiosity far exceeds mine.

So here is a new promise I am making to myself. The next time I leave home, I am going to study up. My inkling is my travel will take on greater significance and I will better understand my role in it. Perhaps become a better teacher and student among those I encounter abroad and at home.

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

Happy travels.

http://www.liveyourawesomelife.com/living-your-aweswome-life-one-oops-at-a-time/wayward-traveler-observations

My father was the first male to ever love me. I only knew because he told me sometimes and he showed me always. He called me "Beautiful" a nickname he called me til his death. I learned early and often how a man should treat a woman by the way he instructed me when I came to him for advice and by the ways he looked at me disapprovingly, yet without interfering, when I provoked my thorns to get my way in relationships.

My dad used to ask me hard thought-provoking questions about life, faith, the meaning of things. He was patient with my answers. I know I tested his resolve. He probably thought I should be quieter around men, more adaptive.

Dad only wanted to see me happy and smiling. I know because he told me every single time we were together. He used to wink at me from across the room and mouth, "I am proud of you my daughter." I honestly think he loved to hear himself say those words, "My Daughter."

On my wedding day, I asked my parents for advice. My mother said, "Memorize his social security number so you can always find him. And always save something...just enough that only you know about. An amount that will get you back home from anywhere."

My father had just six words. "Let the man be the man."

I know my dad was happy with my choice in a mate and father to our children. I know because of the way Dad showed interest and love to my husband.

The only signs my dad looked for were my happiness and my smile.

I married my mate on Father's Day 25 years ago.
I do know his social security number, but I never developed a single reason for that stash. Any stash is going toward "our" seeing the world together and our getting home together.

I feel just like a watered flower.

I am not a politician. I have subzero interest in politics. I think the term is apolitical. I am however steadfastly interested in policy. I am mostly interested in policies that affect me or mine. In this writing I will use the word policy loosely. Loosely because my message is less about the policies themselves and more about the impact of policies. In particular as they impact the economic development in the nose bleed section of the bleachers. The disenfranchised section of the bleachers. My goal is to stimulate thinking.

What I want to shine a light on is the emergence of African Americans in leadership positions across the country and how that emergence has not proportionately led to more power or a stronger powerbase for the collective cultural unit. Said differently, we have more Black mayors, Senators, and even most recently a Black president. More people of color in positions of power than any other time in history. Yet, we continue to lag across nearly every institutional metric compared to mass America. To which metrics do I allude? I will name a few; household income, homeownership, salaries, business ownership, college degrees, post graduate degrees and the list goes on.

What this has led me to believe is this. Power without economic leverage is power-less. This leads me to my specific niche of interest, Small Business Ownership. Let's start with the facts. Black businesses make up about 3% of all Small Businesses. Black people are 12% of the US population. Revenue and receipts of Black Owned Business (BOB) lag not only other small businesses as a whole but also other minority owned business including Asian and Hispanic. (SOURCE: Blackdemographics.com). Black businesses are smaller in revenue, are almost always singularly owned and operated, are concentrated in service industries, and are concentrated in just a few states in the nation.

What is the problem with this you ask? Though I could go on for days let me just give a quick regurgitation that I hope will lead to some really new thinking and some really quick action by those in "power". Here goes;

1- With small receipts there is little room for scalability
2- Without businesses in high tech industries, high commodity industries there is no lasting leverage especially in the mass market
3- Without employees, there is no legacy, no cross-pollination, no generational wealth
4- Being so concentrated in a few states there is no growth in voice as a people for our people by our people

The floor is open. I hope those in power realize the frailty of their position. Power is a trick of the mind. True power speaks with the outcomes it has created.

It was 1989. I had been summoned together by my Bison brothers, Lewis Paul Long, Douglas Selby and William "Dollar Bill" Taggart. Summoned because I told one of them I wanted not only to attend Harvard Business School where they currently attended, but I also wanted Douglas Selby to pass the torch to me as President of the most prestigious student club, the African American Student Union (AASU). Most prestigious largely because of its extreme history and extreme budget. The largest budget on campus.

The last time us band of brothers were all together was on the Howard campus just under a decade before.

I remember Doug being most hard on me. I think he had clear foresight into what I was asking  both from the school and out of the club. It would be hard to lead from the helm. He knew that firsthand.

We were after all in a fishbowl. And many in the environment questioned how we got there and expected us to fail. So even before I set foot on that campus they pledged me. They got inside my head and made me declare what I wanted and precisely how I planned to achieve it. Lewis was the most balanced of the bunch, always descriptive and professorial in tone. While Doug was busy conducting a Kamala Harris like deposition on me, often by phone. It was Lewis or Bill who would put me back together after those calls.

Then on one pre-winter day, I was invited for a personal interview with Admissions, the last step in acceptance. The first thing Mr. Selby said upon seeing me is "Where is your makeup? You are only interviewing with the highest selling Mary Kay agent in the history of the company, Gloria Mayfield Banks." Now minutes before my interview, we scrounge around his network putting our hands into bookbags and purses looking for some semblance of makeup we can apply to a face who had never worn any. I can still hear Douglas saying, "I think you need more stuff on your cheeks and more lipstick."

These three guys taught me getting into Harvard was not the hardest part, believing you belonged there was the hardest. They were counting on me not only to get that but be able to convince others of the same should I become president of the AASU. My job was to get all of us out of there. No man left behind. I only had one casualty in my club and I was almost the second.

As president of the AASU, one of the biggest issues I faced was the professors mixing up our names. Calling black people by the same names haphazardly. This may not seem like a big deal to many reading this, but when your grade is dependent on your oral partcipation and your identity is already being called into question among your fellow students, it becomes a very big deal.

At the helm and with my brothers having since graduated, I had to take on this quibble and I did. Head on and with each of these brothers in my head. "Don't back down. Remember why you are here. And most of all, remember what Howard taught us."

Bill was the peacemaker. He was the one I could call day or night and get the truth and the medicine to fight another day.

Lewis went on to do a lot. Well let's just say anything he ever set his mind to. Now he owns a successful art gallery in Harlem. Douglas became that lawyer and is a partner in a prestigious Atlanta law firm. Bill too, took on the world and won. He last held a position as interim President of Morehouse College. And myself? I am a work in progress. Still calling on this band of brothers to check my thoughts and occasionally the application of my makeup.

We will come together again on 6/16/17 to say a final goodbye to the nicest among us, "Dollar Bill". We will miss every inch of his moral fabric. He taught us well.

When I was young I used to study my shadow. Wherever I found it I would examine it. Mostly I wanted to see where it cast itself. Was it in front of me, in back, to the side? I am not really sure what fascinated me so much about my shadow, but something did. I used to look for my shadow if I could not see it. I would stand in the light and try to force it to come out and play. Sometimes this worked and "poof" it would appear. Most times it did not. I used to wonder, why not now, why not today? Of course these were more rhetorical questions asked silently to self, never aloud. I did want anyone else to know what I was up to. Heck I hardly knew myself. But there is one thing I noticed every single time. That is when my shadow did appear, it always extended from me and it was always bigger than me.

As I have matured through life I still think about my shadow. I think more about what it represents. The symbolism behind it. I have a few ideas I have conjured up on my own. My shadow to me is my gut check. It is that one small part of me that reminds me I am being watched by an extension of myself. That sense that I am casting something that is reflected outside of me. And that part of me is bigger than my physical self. It is a part that can't be ignored or manipulated or denied. My shadow is the real me being projected by light as my true self. What it reflects can't be hidden. It represents a mirror replay of my actions be they good or bad. My shadow is me.

Nowadays I think a lot more about my shadow. I care more now about how I treat it. How I cast it. Today when I look for my shadow I take great care in how it looks, what it is doing and how I am treating it. I care most how it looks to others knowing that I am the cause and in complete control of its reflection on the universe.

​Casting your shadow is akin to painting your truth on concrete. "Poof"

You may read this and think I am old-fashioned. That I use silly analogies, simple phrases and unusual tandems. You might even think I play with words to get a rise out of you. It's okay, as long as you read this to the end. I can handle the rest.

I urge you to develop your mental beauty along your journey. Start young so by the time it is fully developed even you will see the significance of its creation of your own making. You will take pride in it more than other qualities you grow into. Spend time quilting your mental beauty and you will never be alone because alone will not suit you. Your kind of mental beauty is meant to be shared. And the type of energy you attract will thirst for the opportunity to share in your glow from the inside out.

When developing your mental attraction pay close attention to your temperament. If you need more time to develop it, take it. Temperament can be a feisty element but you will acquire it along with patience, warmth, humility, forgiveness, fairness, openness, and discernment. These usually go together like peas in a pod. There I go using silly analogies already. Stay with me though.

Mental beauty is lasting. It settles quarrels, makes lifetime friends, and fixes things. It creates leaders, Statesmen, and people who rise up and create things. This mental attractiveness is the last thing to leave a relationship, because when it is built right it becomes your DNA and is incredibly hard to destroy. Others can't change it simply by throwing poison darts at it. Mental attraction does not work that way.

With physical beauty, other's harsh words can diminish your perception of self. Not so with mental beauty. This is because you own it. It is yours to bend and tuck and spring forth anytime you choose and anywhere you choose. Not so with physical beauty. Physical beauty is an objective thing. Is she or isn't' she? Is he or isn't he?

I will end with the magic of mental attraction. When you have that you become irresistible. Yes. Others are drawn to you like bees to honey. You become this beautiful enchanting being that glows with qualities about you that are associated with a Higher Order. Qualities given to a chosen few upon the asking and the work.

You become connected to people in ways that fulfill you absent physical qualities. Your mental and physical attraction becomes the total package. And that package was built on the time spent becoming beautiful from the inside out.

It was not just that she won. It was the way she treated the dust as she was winning! I don't know if it is because she grew up in Cabrini-Green in Chicago. I don't if it is because she understood the overall importance of this win to her still young business, young self. I don't know, I don't know.

But I do know this. She won convincingly. And she taught us how to win.

You ever watch someone in her race and for awhile she races as if she is saving something for the end? Saving the big push for that last bend. Then have you ever seen that She who spends her every moment in the race racing, using everything within her every moment she is on that field?

Ever see someone who knows she is capable of winning and just the thought of not winning takes the breath away? I have.

This winner was even more than just a winner. She taught me something about winning. She kept leaving bread crumbs along the way of what true winning looks like, feels like. She wanted to win handedly, yes. But she also wanted to win without kicking dust up in her competitors' face. She wanted them to win along with her. And with that she took measured efforts to win by winning from the inside out.

And even though she blew us all away from the moment she stepped on the field, when it was her time to claim the prize she had fought so doggedly for, she never once spoke about her win of the prize. Nope she poke of her win from the inside out.

Her words to all of us."What I really won today is the ability to win by being who I am, my true self. And winning at that is everything!" http://bit.ly/2q3szhi She Prints It

When she won, we won too!

Let me be clear, what I am about to tell you I have not always felt. Most of what I am about to tell you is more new to me than old. At age 53, I strive to live a healthy lifestyle. I respect my temple. I firmly believe there is a very thin line between healthy and the opposite of healthy. Good health becomes harder to sustain over time. We can take steps maintain it. And those steps taken may help tremendously if we are in need of sustaining it during rough patches.

A wellness, preventative care doctor told me recently that the more you do for your body when it is well may help you immeasurably during periods of it becoming unwell. He said if you treat your body right, treat its cells right, they will remember and will try with all might to course correct. I believe this. I haven't always cared, but I do now. It is not until you become ill or someone close to you becomes ill that you truly appreciate how ultra fragile the body is. And yet there are so many things we can do to show it we care. That we respect it as our temple. My respect is simple. Walking, water, waste.

Although I am a long way from being a health nut, these three have provided me relatively good health and a regimen I can adhere to without much guilt or more stress.

Walking helps me maintain calorie count, maintain muscle mass, and provides me a comfortable dose of cardio stimulation. I walk about 3-5 miles per day, mostly everyday. Among these, muscle mass is really important as we age. Muscle mass helps if and when restorative healing is needed within the body. I am told I need to boost my upper muscle mass a bit more.

Second, water. Lots and lots of water. I drink 1/2 my body weight in ounces each day. That is about 9-10 eight ounce glasses. The trick to drinking this much water? Keep it near you. I place it all around my house, car and office. I drink akaline water at room temperature. When I travel, getting water I like is my first order of business. Water is the cheapest and among the best things your body can benefit from. It is the very best for maintaining healthy cells. Those healthy cells you will rely on when God forbid, nasty unhealthy cells come out to play. My body's water level is 65%. That, I was told is excellent. I don't even drink juices anymore unless in a smoothie. Water is QUEEN!

Third is waste. Getting toxins out consistently. I strive for twice per day. My strategy is ruffage, healthy snacking, water, and bad for me things in moderation. If I said anything more here, I would be straight up lying. Truth is, I love to eat. I repeat. I love to eat. I have iearned to push that plate back before over-endulging.

My one non-negotiable is no salt. I do not cook with it and I do not add it to anything, ever. I have found ways to make food taste good using herbs and seasonings. My favorite go to is lemon pepper. I use lemon pepper a lot!

Last thing before I let you go. Don't beat yourself up over what you are or are not doing regarding your health. Think of it this way. Your body is yours to do what you want. If you want to live in it longer with energy and vitality then behave like it. It is your gift. Your temple. Take baby steps toward better health.

#happyliving

In my teens it was unpopular to be the smart girl. Boys wanted pretty and flirty. Smart to them was climbing through bedroom windows.

In my twenties smart was okay but still not the "it" thing with the guys. Guys liked catching pretty more than they liked chasing smart. Oh well all was forgiven because at least most guys left the windows alone and started using the front door. Nothing sweeter than hearing the chiming of the door bell ring.

In my thirties, guys were attracted to smart but not the "know it all" types. Smart girls were allowed to be "smart" but not too "smart". No problem, because we could be too sweet, too giving, too forgiving, too loose, too available, too "anything" but never ever too all-knowingly smart.

​In my forties, smart pays bills, opens doors, solves real problems. Smart own their houses with lots of doors, lots of windows and the most beautiful sounding chimes.

By 40, men will invite smart in leaving pretty on the porch. Trouble is by now, the smart girls have all grown up and moved on to marry very smart boys with very nice porches.

In his fifties, he has met and married two, maybe perhaps three really pretty ladies. His latest pretty can be found gazing out their window looking straight past him sitting on their porch.

​Pretty smart of her. What he was missing, not seeing was her pretty in smart all that time.

My mother passed away of a sudden heart attack at age 55 in the year 2000. This is two years older than I am now. My mother did the same few things most of her adult life. She did all of them well. She drank, she swore like crazy, she slept well especially when it rained, she kept a garden and she cooked better than any human I have ever met.

One thing my mother never did do was anything long enough, healthy enough, happy enough... to bring her peace on the inside. It was hard to watch.

I learned how to cook watching my mother cook. Though she had cook books I never once saw her actually use a recipe. She looked at the pictures I guess, then improvised. Everything was "to the taste". Her words not mine. But it was magical. I don't use recipes either, just ingredients, like Momma.

My mother loved to watch you take the first bite of her food. And because she worked nights sometimes that bite would wake you from your sleep with her holding a bite of something too close to your sleepy-eye - encrusted face. "Just take a bite then you can go back to sleep!", she would always say. Her favorite was most anything fried, like catfish.

My mother could make anything taste good even spinach. She made the best spinach ever.

Someone I imagine was much like my mother recently passed away from a heart attack at age 59. I saw something in her eyes, something like I often saw in my own mother's' eyes. That is a crossroads between okay and not so okay. Just a feeling, but I think I am right.

Later today I am going to make spinach and the first bite I will hold up to heaven in honor of them both.

They are probably busy frying catfish for the angels in heaven. Have them angels fighting over the crispy tails.

RIH Momma Nancy
RIH Auntie Fee

Y'all look after one another. And both of you taper down that cursing up there! Dang.

This blog should speak for itself. If you are African-American and grew up before 1980 it will need no preamble.

Don't start none won't be none
You better shut yo face
Move your hands, You better move those hands!
That didn't hurt, but the next one will!
Somebody did it. You have 10 seconds to start talking.
Get out of bed. I told you earlier, your behind was mine.
Are you rolling your eyes?
I am going to give you something to cry for.

Get out of her smelling like you have been outside all day.
Hush up before I really give you something to cry for.
Did you just try to stop me from hitting you?
You laughing? Something funny?

Now before I start. I wanna remind you boys that if you tell a lie, you gotta tell another to cover the first one.
It breaks my heart to have to spank you guys but....

Hold your hands out and don't you move them.
You better not pee on yourself or I will get you again.
Don't go where you ain't wanted
I see you don't believe fat meat is greasy.
Every time you move I am starting over.
Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and I will give you something to cry about.
Do as I say and not as I do.
Don't make me move from this chair
I am going to knock you into next week.

Don't go around telling our business at school.
Oh because your friends did it, you do it? So if your friends jump off a bridge, you goin to do it too?
Please don't make me pull this car over.
You gonna learn you don't eat everybody's cooking.
A hard head makes a soft behind.
You rollin your eyes?
You can give your heart to Jesus but your behind belongs to me!
I brought you in this world and I will take you out!

Go get me that thing from over yonder
Now that you explained what everybody else was doing, help me understand your part in this foolishness.

The same thing that makes you laugh is gonna make you cry.
You can think about it while you rake and bag the backyard leaves and I better not find so much as a twig left on the ground.
Don't be sputing my word girl.

You mad? Scratch your azz and get glad.
You pay a bill you get an opinion.
If I told you once then you already know!
One of y'all better start talking.
You have worked up on this #$$ whippin.
Sit your tail down, before I break it off or wear it out.
What you do in the dark will come to the light.
This is going to hurt you more than it will hurt me.
If you don't be quiet in there, the next sound will be crying.
A hard head makes a soft behind.
Wait til we get home and don't think I am going to forget.
I am going to spank you for today and tomorrow cause I know you going to do something.
Don't look at me with that tone of voice.


NOW STAY IN A CHILD'S PLACE!

If I said it once, I have said it a million times. Winning is a lonely business. What never ceases to amaze me is those who only come on the scene after your ball is in play, you are on the field, with game advantage and with points on the board. They have selective memory in regard to how you got there. Many will cheer loudly because they want something from you. Don't be mad at me. I come in truth.

I recently had to sever a relationship that was beginning to mean a lot to me. I was in a position to help someone who is much less established put a lot of points on their board. Yet they disrupted my field of play mid throw. They tried to take my game away from me and become captain of my team. They tried to go around me and carry my ball across the finish line. I wasn't even that mad, worse, I was disappointed and I was done. Game Over.

It is too bad that when we see others winning we try to interfere for self-gain. Where does that come from? And here is the kicker, I saw it coming. I saw the play being formed on the field long before it was fully executed. I was hoping beyond hope they would see the weakness in the play, but they didn't. Their play had been scripted.

In my case, I did not even call a foul or a time out. I took my ball and I went home, leaving this person frozen on the field. Never a word spoken about what had transpired. I would not allow the insult of any explanation to further spoil the result.

There is room for all of us to succeed. When we come together as a team and respect the rules of engagement we can all score. I promise. This starts with respecting all of the hard work it took to get onto that field in the first place. Things like sacrifice, sweat, tears, preparation, learning, re-tooling, and prayer. And yes it takes a healthy dose of doing what is right and caring more about the team than about one's self. Not everyone on the field is there to play dirty.

Their loss, my win. My ball.