Amena Brown:
Ooh, y'all, welcome back. We are new episode of HER With Amena Brown this week. I'm excited for many reasons, y'all. I'm excited because since I've launched this podcast, this is my first, or I guess I should say, since I relaunched the podcast in September, this is my first in-person conversation to have. Secondly, I am having this conversation with my sister, Makeda Lewis.
Amena Brown:
We're here together, I normally tell y'all, we're creating a HER living room space. We are technically in my husband's studio though, but we were in the living room just a few minutes ago, so that's fine. First of all, let me tell you a little bit about my sister. She is a visual artist, as well as being an art curator, but for some reason, I want to say, curator.
Makeda Lewis:
That's because you're bougie.
Amena Brown:
She's freaking amazing. Also, yes, we do know our mom is listening and she knows that we're going to be cussing on this episode. Goodbye. Thank you.
Makeda Lewis:
Sorry, mom. Love you.
Amena Brown:
Love you so much, mom.
Makeda Lewis:
Love you, mom.
Amena Brown:
Love you very much. I had an idea. We're recording this during the summer of 2021. I had an idea of not necessarily wanting to do a set of interviews, but wanting to do a set of conversations. My sister was the first one to come to mind. My assistant, Leigh and I were talking about a conversation that you and I were having, Keda. I'd be calling her Keda, but it don't mean y'all can.
Amena Brown:
Anyways, so I was telling her about a conversation you and I were having and Leigh was like, "Oh my gosh, I would love to hear this on a podcast." She was like, "I've actually watched you and your sister interacting before in person." Because Leigh was here visiting one time when you came over. She was like, "I just think it would make a really good episode and also, I'm super-curious to know what y'all have to say about these things."
Amena Brown:
That transpired now into, I think I'm going to do a set of episodes y'all that will be with people that I actually have close relationship to in my life. I thought it would be nice to have some conversation around friendships, around family relationships that also turn into friendships. I just thought it would be dope for my sister and I to politic in part what we would do when we're together. 75% of that is not for you all.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah. It'd be a lot of shit talking and personal things.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. We're just taking a little slice of what we would normally be doing and maybe you're listening and you also have a sister you want to hear this discuss what sisterhood is like, maybe you were growing up and always wanted a sister. I think it's also just interesting to me, the relationships we have in our family that can convert over into friends. I can definitely say that my sister is one of my best friends. I know, I know. I feel emotional. I totally felt my feelings just now saying that. okay, Keda, I want to get into the dynamics of being sisters. I guess since I was here first, I will tell the story of how you got here.
Makeda Lewis:
Not pulling rank.
Amena Brown:
Nope.
Makeda Lewis:
Yikes. Yikes on bikes. Yikes. Now I need a big piece of chicken because I'll be working the hardest. Yikes. Yikes, yikes, yikes, yikes, yikes.
Amena Brown:
Y'all, Keda and I are almost 11 years apart.
Makeda Lewis:
Really?
Amena Brown:
Yeah. I was 10 when you were born. You were born in March, and I was 10.
Makeda Lewis:
Then you turned 11 in May.
Amena Brown:
I turned 11 that May.
Makeda Lewis:
Really?
Amena Brown:
Yeah. We're like 10 years, 10 months to the day apart, because both of our birthdays are on the 20th of the month.
Makeda Lewis:
It's still alignment for me.
Amena Brown:
Very much aligned and we love to see it.
Makeda Lewis:
Love that for us.
Amena Brown:
I always wanted a sister. I would have these dreams of, I wonder if it's possible somehow that I have a sister who's my same age and she lives somewhere else in the world. We're like twin sisters, but she's having a whole other experience in whatever country she lives in, whatever. When our mom told me that she was pregnant, I was like, "This has to be a girl. I just don't know what other way." I had also decided that if it turned out to be a boy that I was going to find somewhere else to live. I don't think I had nailed down...
Makeda Lewis:
Not you at the Motel 8.
Amena Brown:
I was like, "I'm getting ready to go somewhere." I think I had narrowed down like, maybe I could go live with my dad. Or maybe I can go live with grandma. I think I had some primary, secondary choices there. I was like, "It's not going to be in this house. I'm leaving this place." It really changed my life in a lot of good ways that you became my sister. I feel like, first of all, I got a real close-up look at what it's like for someone to have a baby. I'm not going to lie about that. I was like, "Oh, this is different than when I'm holding my dolls and do-do and then I just put you down and go somewhere for three days."
Makeda Lewis:
Nah bro.
Amena Brown:
And then don't come back.
Makeda Lewis:
Ain't none of that.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. Keda was, I mean, what a normal baby would be doing, I guess, waking up every two hours, you were, every two hours on the clock waking up, I'm hungry. I need this diaper changed. I need y'all to attend to these things and you would go to sleep. Then you got to a certain age where you would stay up in the middle of the night. I think that was because our mom is a nurse. She was working nights while she was pregnant with you. You got to maybe five or six months where you would get to 11:00 and you would just sit up until 4:00 AM.
Amena Brown:
You weren't crying or anything, you'd just sit there looking at me. I was like, "Okay." I feel like it gave me a very realistic, like, "Okay, this is what newborn babies are really like." I learned a lot of that. Mom let me learn how to like warm up your bottles and stuff. A lot of those care-taking things that I learned.
Amena Brown:
I also think I had never felt such a fierce feeling that I would fight someone if they laid a hand on you, feelings. I think watching you as so small and being defenseless, you can't fight for yourself. You can't speak up for yourself. I definitely felt that sense of responsibility. I don't care who you is, what you say. I don't care. It better not be a follicle turned over the wrong direction.
Makeda Lewis:
Turned over the wrong direction, because you're so weak.
Amena Brown:
I don't care. Better not be. Better not be. I've never gotten to ask you this. What was your experience like? Okay, and I guess I should say in our family unit, it was really the four of us. It was my sister and I, our mom and our grandmother, I feel like.
Makeda Lewis:
Grandma ain't show up until you was about to leave.
Amena Brown:
You right about that.
Makeda Lewis:
It was really, it was just-
Amena Brown:
It was really just the three of us.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah. The three musketeers.
Amena Brown:
Until you were eight.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah. Then grandma came and moved down there.
Amena Brown:
Okay. Before grandma moved, what was it like to you growing up, being a younger sibling?
Makeda Lewis:
I just remember being really obsessed with you. I wanted it to be in all your shit. All your things, all the things that I was doing to ruin your day and ruin your clothes, it was really just because I just wanted to be in your business. I don't remember ever actually thinking that I wanted to annoy you or push you off, even though I'm sure I did, but I just remember just wanting to be in your things, whatever your things were, I wanted to be all in it. Like that time I put baby oil in your shoes.
Amena Brown:
I was about to bring that up because we were like, I mean, my mom is still a very church-going person still. As a family, we were even more church going then because the church we went to, it was a thousand activities to do. It was a lot, a lot. I sang in the choir and we had to wear, those of y'all that grew up in a Black church may remember doing this, that we had to wear black and white on Sundays. We had to wear a white top and a black skirt, also black pantyhose and then black shoes to match.
Makeda Lewis:
We had to wear black pantyhose, not nude?
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Makeda Lewis:
Did they even have nudes for brown people back then?
Amena Brown:
I am going to go with, maybe they did, I think maybe just around the late 80s, there were starting to be, I mean, there weren't as many gradations as some companies have now. There was like a dark brown. You could get away with a dark brown in church. I think it was mostly black pantyhose. I also want to give a dishonorable mention for...
Makeda Lewis:
It's not an honorable mention.
Amena Brown:
I want to give a dishonorable mention for first of all, being questioned about what undergarments I was wearing under my white blouse in church and being-
Makeda Lewis:
They were very concerned about your bra.
Amena Brown:
Super-concerned about your bra.
Makeda Lewis:
And your panties.
Amena Brown:
And your slit or your camisole.
Makeda Lewis:
Camisoles are so aggravating. Literally, the concept to me right now does not even make any sense. I cannot imagine like, wow, I'm about to put this shirt on. Let me put another shirt on under it. What type of shit is that? Like, "What?"
Amena Brown:
Mom had told me that if you wear white, you should wear black undergarments, like your bra should be black.
Makeda Lewis:
Right.
Amena Brown:
If for whatever reason you're wearing some sort of tank top or whatever, it should be black, so that nobody is seeing-
Makeda Lewis:
Seeing the situation.
Amena Brown:
Then in charge they would be like, "It should be white, so we know you got it on." I also had like my shoes that I wore to sing in the choir. The way our church was set up, there were two services in the morning. Then there was a period of five hours that you had after the second service to eat food, take some kind of nap. Then there was a service that happened at night at 7:00. It really was like a whole job.
Makeda Lewis:
You really need to be in church during the day. What the hell?
Amena Brown:
It really was like a whole job. In the intermittent time, sometimes when Keda was little, she would like get into something. When you were maybe like four years old, you got into some hair products. I think your intention was to mix your own hair product. It became some like Vaseline and pink oil moisturizer. I mean, I saw the science that you were trying to go with and then you just dipped your hands. You cupped your hands into whatever you were mixing it in and you slathered it on your hair.
Amena Brown:
I remember we were like in the tub using Dawn, trying to get the oil out of your hair, bless our hearts. Then by the time Keda got to be like six, there was one Sunday that she decided to put baby oil in my choir shoes that I always wore to sing in the choir. Y'all, I woke up from my little church nap and the insole of that shoe were like floating inside of the shoe. That's how much oil was in there. Because our mom was a single mom, you get that shoe like once a year. You can ride a rocket until it looks bad and makes her look bad.
Makeda Lewis:
The specificity, and makes her look bad.
Amena Brown:
And makes her look bad.
Makeda Lewis:
Mine looks bad and you feel bad.
Amena Brown:
No, but if it makes her look bad. Because what you're not going to do is embarrass our mother on God. You're not going to embarrass her. If the shoe looks bad enough that it makes her look bad, then you get a new shoe, or if your feet grow and now you can't fit the shoe, she not going to let you be in the shoe your feet hurt and, okay. Otherwise, since you got to rock with this. I was squishing around in those shoes for the rest of the year.
Makeda Lewis:
Sweet. Oh my God.
Amena Brown:
I was squishing around.
Makeda Lewis:
I did not know mom made you keep wearing those shoes.
Amena Brown:
Definitely. I had to put the paper towels. I tried to dry them hoes out. My little heels was extra moisturized. I mean, and maybe that was part of the blessing. My little feet was extra moisturized during that time. I didn't even have to put lotion on my feet. I just put them in those shoes.
Makeda Lewis:
Oh my, God. My face is, I can't, I can't. Oh, my God, I'm so dead.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah. I was just really attached to you. Like inside of myself, there was like a really strong attachment and like a need for your attention and your presence and affection, even though you were not very affectionate.
Amena Brown:
It's not a lie.
Makeda Lewis:
You're generally weren't like super into affection. Then I made it worse by always being on you. Like it was giving like those little toy monkeys with the Velcro hands. It was very like, they you'd be like, "Oh my God." I also remember feeling like a strong offense. One, when other people were around taking your attention. Two, when it was niggas around. Yeah, when there was dudes around, I will always be like, "What the fuck?" As you know, I mean, I hold all your grudges. I don't care that you've forgiven them and that you're polite. That's great. Love that for you. You love the high road.
Makeda Lewis:
If y'all go low, I'm going to hell.
Amena Brown:
It's not a lie.
Makeda Lewis:
You'd be like, "Yeah, I saw such and such." "I'm sorry, who?" I've had all whoever's see me out of the thing and be like, "Hey, Keda." I know you're not speaking to me. I know you were about to call me Keda, either, like we're comfortable.
Makeda Lewis:
Because I told y'all that, that name is reserved for a very small number of people. If you know, you know. If that's you, you know.
Makeda Lewis:
I just remember feeling like very attached to you. It's only been within the last like 10 years that like, I think that attachment has been illuminated to me or that initial attachment has been illuminated to me in some ways, like, as manifesting in an unhealthy way. When you got married, I remember like being really sad, like, not even like just the day of you getting married, but like the period of time where you and Matt met. Y'all were dating and stuff, even though like, I remember feeling genuinely happy for you, but I was also really hurt, like really sad.
Makeda Lewis:
Because obviously, you were spending time with your man, which is fine. Objectively, that's fine. I just could not like get it together. I think probably shortly before y'all got married, I was reading Till We Have Faces by CS Lewis. Because it's like a retelling of the story of Psyche and I guess her older sister, I remember reading it and at the end of the book, it was just this really solid transformation for me on how I should love you. That there are good things here intrinsically for how I love you. That there was some of it that was more about me and what I wanted from you and who I wanted you to be to me and not loving you just for existing.
Makeda Lewis:
Also, loving you for the blessing of like, dang, that's crazy. My mom had two kids and one of them is my best friend. I literally thought that to myself two weeks ago, I was like, "That's crazy. My mom really had me and my best friend, that's wild."
Amena Brown:
Wow. Because it's like, some people get to have this experience where they're like, "Wow. I lived in that neighborhood and I ended up living in the same neighborhood with somebody that totally became my best friend." You never think, and I totally would not have been able to envision that when we were children.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah, absolutely.
Amena Brown:
I always felt we was going to be cool and love each other. The vibes were always good. I think at that time I would've thought like, "Oh, there'll be this separation. She'll have her friends and I'll have my friends." We still have that.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah, we do.
Amena Brown:
I do feel like as grown women, there have been some moments particularly for me and this last decade of our life where I've been like, "Yo, she really knows me."
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah, bro. This really my nigga.
Amena Brown:
Really, really knows me. I can count on one hand the amount of people that know me like that. There's particular ways that only you know me. Because we grew up as siblings in the same household, even with our ages. Even with the years we had a part. I also resonate with what you said about that moment of me getting ready to get married and how like that shifted in you. Like, "Oh, this is how I need to love my sister." I feel like for me, I realized when you got into your, maybe your early 20s going into your mid-20s, I realized I had these dreams for you that I had, had in my mind of like, "Here's the life, I think it would be great for my sister to have. Here are the types of relationships I want from my sister to have."
Amena Brown:
I don't do this poem anymore, but there was like an initial poem that I had written that was sort of that was me saying like, it's me telling those stories about, here's this beginning time. All that stuff I was saying at the beginning of the episode about these things I'm thinking as even being jealous when you were a first born and being like, "All these people just come here to visit somebody who can't do nothing but eat and go to the bathroom."
Makeda Lewis:
They really wasn't coming to see you.
Amena Brown:
Oh my gosh. I would literally open the door and be like, "She's over there."
Makeda Lewis:
Oh, my God.
Amena Brown:
Yeah, I'm fine, I'll put the gift over there. Whatever.
Makeda Lewis:
Oh, my God. That shit was legendary. I'm screaming.
Amena Brown:
She's over there. I didn't care. And I was like, "Hmm."
Makeda Lewis:
I did. Oh, my God.
Amena Brown:
In the poem, I was laying out for you, here are the dreams that I have for you or for your life. Once you like got into that, about to end college, and then when you were graduating from college into your mid-20s was when I realized like, "Yo, I think you have some dreams for her that she doesn't have for herself. That's not what she wants for herself. You should want for her what she wants for herself. If that's how you love her as an older sibling, want for her, what she wants for herself." I think that was a helpful, like get healthier thing for me too, because then as we got older, then I felt like I had more openness to be like, "What do you want in this season of your life, professionally? What kind of relationships do you want? What kind of partners do you want to have?"
Amena Brown:
Otherwise, I think if I hadn't had that moment, I think that would have been a strong stop on us being able to be friends. Because you would've been trying to be yourself and I'm trying to get you to be somebody that I had in my mind when you were eight and like, that's not fair to 25-year-old you or a 30-year-old you. That's not fair to be like, and not even what I thought you were going to be what I wanted. Still me, if I'm enforcing my ideas and I think that really opened up the door.
Makeda Lewis:
I also feel like at this point out of line, go sit your ass up and get on here and eat this food. I'm not playing with you. I'm not going to argue about this.
Amena Brown:
I do feel like that in our family unit, that is a trait that I do love, especially among me, you, and mom. Because I do feel like it's like, I'mma ride for you. Even if you've made a decision and I don't like it, even if you're dating somebody and I don't rock with them. Even if I thought when you guys just work in a row, you're supposed to turn this way, and you did. I might be mad as hell about it, but I'm still rocking. You, I don't care. You're doing an event, I'm still showing up there because I'm proud as hell of you. I really do love that for us.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah, same. Same, same.
Amena Brown:
I think we both have had moments where different times of life where mom was like, "I really don't rock with this thing you've done." Mom's chest be tight, but she be there though.
Makeda Lewis:
You so right. You so right. I remember the first time when I first told mom that I was dating a woman and I had some art thing, some art show and my girlfriend at the time was an artist too. She was there. My mom came to like, I'd usually be telling her to come early. Because art things be getting hype, it'd be turned into a party like real quick. If it opens at 7:00, by 7:45 it's a function. She came and she looked at my art and she was getting ready to leave. She was like, "Oh, where's Ariel? We have to take a picture together." I was like, "Wait, what?" I was really shook, because there was no conversation between the initial, like letting you know. Like, that was a hard moment. Then her being like, "Okay, we have to take a selfie together." I was definitely shook. Those are definitely the vibes. Like, "I feel a way about this thing, but also I love you and I love you happy. That's not going to stop me from celebrating you and being in a relationship with you."
Amena Brown:
Like, celebrating you and like, I'm to you. Yeah, absolutely not.
Makeda Lewis:
I don't care. Certainly, there have been times that you have watched me date some people that you were like, "I really don't want to see this person ever."
Amena Brown:
Yeah, and vice versa.
Makeda Lewis:
You would be like, "You have an open mind, I'll be over there. I know they're going to be there and I ain't going to like it, but I'll be over there because I'm not going to distance myself from you because you've made a decision I don't rock with." I do love that for us because I feel like that leaves this openhandedness of like, "Yo like I love you, but you know your life the best. I'm trusting that even if I'm getting the bad vibes that you're going to get them eventually."
Makeda Lewis:
It's about like trusting this person, like trusting their own ability to discern and take care of themselves. Also, it's helpful nurturing that trust when you know that you're not going to be abandoned just because somebody doesn't like a decision that you've made or that you're not going to be dragged through the mud because someone that's supposed to love you doesn't like what you're doing.
Makeda Lewis:
That just opens up this level of like, I still feel like I can talk to you about anything. Honestly, the older I get, not only is it easier for me to as possible shift more quickly, it's also easier for me to know, like I might approach you with something, and you're going to be like, "This is some bullshit." It's not like at least 80% of the time I'll be like, "No." I be knowing like, "Yeah. I mean, I'm probably going to be like this, some bullshit. I'm going to talk to her about it anyway because she's my friend." We don't laugh about it, even if you think it's some bullshit. As long as it's not like, dire. You know what I'm saying?
Amena Brown:
Even in that, even if it is dire, I have to say, "Hey, these are the dangerous zones I feel. I still have to trust that you're going to take whatever I say, put it through your own filters and wisdom and what you really want for your life." I do think for me, a big part of me being like, "Yo, I need to really embrace who my sister is and not the life I have wanted for her was the first time that you told me you were in love with a woman. Just along the journey of you sharing with me, "This is me. I'm a queer Black woman. This is me."
Amena Brown:
I think with us growing up in a house where there were no men, it was like, I feel like of the two of us, even like little small things that I've read to Keda were like, I have found little things I was writing as a child. I was like, "Was I just a little conservative as a little girl? Why was I writing these things?" I feel like there was this very like, way that I thought I could fix that. I felt like, because we both, for various and sundry reasons, we're growing up without our fathers in the home and without them being in our lives very much. I think I had this dream for us. Like, we're going to grow up and man, I really want us both to like, now of course, y'all know that this was me also being at that time, not only probably having conservative thoughts, but because they were Christian and conservative.
Amena Brown:
My mind, it was like, "This is what changes things, Keda and I will both grow up, will marry these good men. We'll have children and that's how we'll "break the cycle" whatever that is." It was like this thing I envisioned for myself at the time, but I also was envisioning it for you. As you were sharing with me, "Hey, I'm queer." Then I had to be like, "Yo, you're putting on your sister, this thing you think, this thing." First of all, goes to therapy. This thing you think that's going to fix some choices adults made that affected us as kids, but wasn't on us as children. It was the choices the adults made. They were unfortunate in some regards.
Amena Brown:
I think as you began to open up and share that with me, I started digging back in there and being like, "Okay, let's get rid of all this previous thought. What is the thing you want most for your sister?" I was like, "I want my sister to be free to love. I want my sister to be loved well." Whoever that is, I want that for my sister. When you were like, "It's a woman. If it's not this woman, it gone be a woman, period." Then I was like, "Yo, then I want that for my sister." Because it's who my sister is and it's what my sister wants for herself. I would even just say Keda, like it made things easier. I just feel like it made it more true between us.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah, for sure.
Amena Brown:
It's more honest then, like, "All right, I say, word." Now, I'm dealing with you. Not like some other thing I've made up.
Makeda Lewis:
Something that I've always appreciated about you, I feel like when you don't understand things, especially in the last like, as we've gotten older, I feel like when you don't understand things, you ask questions or you read or you like sit with it and think for a while. Every time I talk about you, you'd just be so amazed, bro. I'd be like, y'all be hating y'all siblings. Are y'all dead ass right now? Like, y'all dad, like that's not y'all bestie? Bro, people will be twins and they hate each other or they're just not that close. There will be no hatred, but they just like, they're like very, very concerned with like separating themselves from a close relationship with their siblings. I'd be like, I can't even imagine at this point now.
Amena Brown:
I don't even care if you move to somewhere else, I still feel like there would be a certain amount of times a year that I would be like, "Okay, well, this is the week I'm off. Is you're going to be off that week?"
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah, pretty much.
Amena Brown:
If you're not, it's okay. I can still come and we could just hang out when you're done with work or whatever you're doing.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah, pretty much.
Amena Brown:
Okay, well, let me book this flat. I would still be like, I really don't care. Let's take it back, because this is the thing I wanted to ask you about. I want to trace back how the being sisters actually becomes friends. Because of course, I feel like we all have family members that were like, "Oh, that's my, insert whatever their family member relation is to you." That you're like, "Yeah, we're just not friends. We do have blood relation or we were raised in the same family, same hometown, with each other all the time." It's like, I have plenty of family members that I'm like, "Yeah, I would never want to kick it with you. I don't want to really share my life with you on a level." I like it if we're at the reunion together, or a family functionally, I like seeing you. I like knowing you're good and stuff like that.
Makeda Lewis:
I like seeing you while I walk by and say, "Hey." Take my plate to the table across the kitchen. Because I don't actually want to sit next to you and talk about time apart.
Amena Brown:
I don't really want to be chatting you like that. I'm okay with it. Like, you're okay with it. There are some family members I have that I'm like, "Yo, I think actually if we weren't in the same family, we actually would be friends in real life." I feel like if you weren't my sister and we both were on the art scene and somehow met each other. I just feel like the vibes are there. I feel like I saw a transition in you when you were getting ready to become a teenager when you were hitting like 13.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.
Amena Brown:
I feel like when you were like a little kid, y'all, every time I would come home from college, I would always leave something that I didn't mean to leave. Then Keda would send me either drawings of herself wearing the thing. If it was a piece of clothing wearing the thing that I left or I would see pictures of you later wearing the thing that I left, which I always thought was hilarious. I would never quite figure out what I had left or if I had left it. I would either come home the next time. Or you would send me a picture sometimes and be like, "This is me in this shirt that you had left."
Makeda Lewis:
I'm so weak.
Amena Brown:
I've been around to school and everything's been going fine. I feel like you had like a time like that. Then right when you started to get to 13, then it started to, instead of me calling and you being like, "Mena, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah happened at school. Then like, you won't believe, mom said this. Then we went to church and they said that. Then I was like, "Oh, man." Then I started working on this and I started, do-do-do." You would tell me all the things. Then you got to be 13 and I'll be like, "Hey, how's school going?" You'd be like, "It's fine." I was like, "Oh, okay. Do you have a favorite subject or anything?" "No, not really." "Oh, cool. Cool. How about your friends? You have some friends you like to hang out with?" "Yeah." I was like-
Makeda Lewis:
You were struggling. Like, "Oh, my sister."
Amena Brown:
I was like, "What does it mean that she went from telling me like all the details of everything?" To now, I'm getting like one-word answers.
Makeda Lewis:
Oh, my gosh.
Amena Brown:
I was like, "I don't want to lose my relationship with my sister. How do I get her to like talk to me?" Of course, you've not talked about this before, but at that time, you were really into Avril Lavigne.
Makeda Lewis:
Yes. He was a skater boy, she said, "See you later, boys." He wasn't good, oh, oh, oh. He was a boy, she was a girl.
Amena Brown:
Yes.
Makeda Lewis:
Can I make it any more obvious?
Amena Brown:
Can I make it any more obvious?
Makeda Lewis:
Do-do-do-do.
Amena Brown:
I'm going to have to go back and listen to that. I'm not lying about it.
Makeda Lewis:
That is good vintage fake emos, alternative girl.
Amena Brown:
I'm not going to lie about it. Whatever I was able to get out of you, that you were listening to that. I think you were listening to a little bit of Lil' Bow Wow. I remember I was working corporate at the time. I had been hired as a writer for redacted fortune 500 company.
Makeda Lewis:
It's the legal protection for me.
Amena Brown:
Yes.
Makeda Lewis:
I'm screaming.
Amena Brown:
Yes.
Makeda Lewis:
I'm sorry.
Amena Brown:
For redacted company. And you probably heard me talk about this on the podcast before. I had been hired with three other women in our same position. We did all of our little breaks and stuff together, and it was two black women, one Korean woman and one white woman. It's the four of us. We would have all of our breaks, meals, most of that altogether. I came back to work after you said that to me and I was like, "I don't even know where to begin." Y'all, at the time that Keda is saying this to me, this is not like you could go to Apple Music.
Makeda Lewis:
No, you had to take your ass to a store.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. You had to get ahold of like a CD somewhere. I can't even remember the periods of time that Napster was online or offline. Because that was always a tricky thing of when it got shut-down for a while and whatever. I was like, and then sometimes people downloaded things from over there or Limewire. There's a bunch of other ones.
Makeda Lewis:
I love me some Limewire.
Amena Brown:
Then you would get the song and a virus. Or it will be completely different song. You'd be like, "What is this?" I was like, "I don't know what to do." I said to them, "I'm not getting like any responses out of my sister. I feel like maybe I need to do some things she's interested in, so I can know what's up." They were like, "Well, what did she say?" I was like, "Well, she said, she's listening to some girl, Avril Lavigne." One of the women said, "Oh my gosh, Avril Lavigne." She was like, "I have the CD, I love her music." She was like, "I'll bring it to work for you and you can listen to it and then you could talk to your sister about it."
Makeda Lewis:
That's so cute.
Amena Brown:
Y'all, she brought that CD to work. I put that thing on a CD rom. Some of y'all are like, "Wow, what's that?"
Makeda Lewis:
Not a CD rom.
Amena Brown:
I put that thing in the CD rom at redacted company, we were restricted about listening to headphones, sitting at our desk. Can y'all even imagine? I was like, "I don't care." I brought my little headphones from home and I put my little headphones in and I was like, "Okay." Then the next time that I called Keda, I was like, "Hey, I listened to Avril's album, and I like this song and I like this song." She was wearing this on the album cover. It was like, y'all, it was like Keda went from like, "Yes, fine, sometimes." To like, talking to me. I was like, "Yes. Yes." That opened up a whole conversation thing. I'll tell you another thing when you were a teenager, first of all, my sister is responsible for every technological innovation that I have ever done. She's basically responsible for that.
Amena Brown:
She is the reason why I was on My Space because when you got to be an older teenager, you would write to me more on there than you would talk to me. You would send me messages on there. If I had a question I wanted to ask you, I would write to you on there instead of calling you. You would tell me what was going on with your friends and how you were like, at that time, I think y'all had moved to Atlanta. The differences between school and being like Atlanta area versus what it was like in San Antonio. I would get all the things, or sometimes you would chat me. I feel like My Space maybe had some kind of a chat component or maybe you wrote to me enough that we would be, it was like we were chatting on there.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah, it feels like we were there, yeah.
Amena Brown:
That's the reason why I did that. When I first got a cell phone, Keda is the reason I added texting to my plan because you were just like, "I'm going to be texting. I'm not going to be talking on the phone like that." I paid for my little plan where I could 1500 text messages a month.
Makeda Lewis:
Oh, my sister. Oh, my God. This is so sweet.
Amena Brown:
Mom was calling me, like, "I'm going to have to get unlimited plan because your sister is burning through these text messages." Because y'all had like, there's a certain amount of text messages that were supposed to be shared among you, mom and grandma. Mom was like, "We got to figure out something else, because your sister is just texting." Then when Keda was like, "I don't really be talking on the phone like that, I'm just texting." I was like, "Oh, let me add this plan." I look back on it now, Keda though, and think like, I don't really know what would have happened to our relationship if you had moved here when you were going into your freshman year of high school. If we had remained distant, I feel like that was a part of the saving grace of us remaining close as sisters. Because by the time you moved here, you were 14 and I was just turning 25. I was in my-
Makeda Lewis:
It was a young, sexy year. Yeah, go back to you.
Amena Brown:
Showing these legs and everything. I had a social life.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah, good for you.
Amena Brown:
I would just come pick you up on Saturdays or whatever. And just be like, we would just go run errands together and just hang out. Then y'all, I will say, one thing about my sister, even though I feel like we have a lot of similarities, here is where we're different. When I tell y'all that my sister would be speaking her mind though, and if you have a problem with it, then I think you need to deal with it in your own time. I be having a mind, I'll be thinking a thousand things before I say it. Even if I really do feel whatever way I feel.
Makeda Lewis:
See, my filter is, you know how I changed the filter in the AC? I feel like I should have changed mine a couple of years ago. It's just in there, just like.
Amena Brown:
There's just a hole there now. It's like, everything's getting through, everything.
Makeda Lewis:
Barely, like even I don't even know if it was ever really a whole filter.
Amena Brown:
Y'all, let me tell you how Keda would play me, but now it's the best. She would play me. She would be like 14, 15. We have a whole day. We went to Walmart and got the car washed. Whatever my little errands were, we would hang out and I would talk to her. Right when it was time to go home, Keda would drop some type of like, bomb on me. Something she saw her friend do, something that happened at school. She would tell me the really real, real. When Snoop was like, it's realer than the real deal holy feel. She would tell me that, but like realer than that. Then she would say it to me and she be like, "Okay, well, I'll see you later." She would get her stuff and walk in the house.
Amena Brown:
I would be trying everything to appear unshocked. Super-trying to be like, "Yeah. Okay. Then after that happened, well, what did they say? Okay, well, how did you feel about that?" I'll try to keep my face neutral. Then after she was done with the conversation, she would be like, "Okay, well, I had a great time. Thank you, my sister." She would walk her -self into the house and I would just be like, "Literally, what just happened?" Can you take me back to this time and what were your thoughts about the move here? Then I would also like you to speak to your ability to be like, here we what's going on and then just go in the house.
Makeda Lewis:
I think that I definitely had like a romanticized vision of like what it's going to be like living in Atlanta. Because at that time, it was like it was giving so-so def, it was giving like bikini strings hanging out of jeans because Ciara. Of course, I had like all these like thoughts of what living in Atlanta is going to be like, additionally, I had all these thoughts of like what living in Atlanta, where you live is going to be like? I thought that like you were going to come over all the time. I was going to see you every day. We're going to do everything together. Then when that didn't happen immediately, I was so pissed. Honestly, it was really like her manifesting as like angry feelings.
Amena Brown:
I feel it.
Makeda Lewis:
Because I don't know if you remember this, but there's this one time we lived in that first apartment, when we lived in Dunwoody, there was a couple of times you called the house and I wasn't trying to talk to you.
Amena Brown:
That's true.
Makeda Lewis:
It was one time you called the house and it was like me doing my general, like petty little sister things, like I wasn't trying to talk to you. I think I gave the phone back to mom to talk to you. I can't remember if you were still on the phone when she did this or if she had hung up the phone, but she came to my room and like angry, cried at me that I needed to get it together because I only have one sister and I cannot talk to my sister like that. I definitely felt so bad.
Amena Brown:
Oh, my God.
Makeda Lewis:
I knew that I was trying to make you feel bad, but it's like when somebody points something like that out, even though you're already aware of what you're doing, it'd be like, "Oh wait, you can see me? Now I'm embarrassed." I'm ashamed of how I've navigated this. I definitely remember moving here and like romanticizing it and like not being exactly the way I thought it was going to be. I remember going to high school for the first day. I went to Wheeler in Cobb County. Whoop-whoop. I still don't really know how to describe this feeling.
Makeda Lewis:
I guess there's definitely some level of amazement that there were so many people that were not white. Now, it's Cobb County. Y'all know it's still a bunch of white people and it's really, it's probably still majority white, but there were also so many more people than where I was that were Black or Brazilian or Korean. That was definitely amazing. I remember feeling lonely, but only because I hadn't made any friends just yet, but it didn't take me that long to make friends, I don't think. I was a theater kid, orchestra kid. I made a friend because of those things. That was definitely a transition period in our relationship.
Amena Brown:
It seems to be in 10-year increments, doesn't it?
Makeda Lewis:
It does actually, now that we're talking about this. I feel like that period was characterized, because when we did hang out, it was like, basically what you were like, you would pick me up and we'd like go to the mall or we'll go see a movie. I think letting me in on the things that you do with your life in general was really helpful. It wasn't a mentorship program. You weren't like, "Okay, let me spend this quota time with my sister or whatever." It will be like, "Oh, I have to go to an open mic. Do you want to come with me?" Or, "I'm performing at this thing." Or, "I'm hosting this thing. Do you want to come with me?" I got to meet your friends.
Makeda Lewis:
I know that we had met some of them, we'll be like, we'll visit you while you were in college. It was different like after you were out, because these were like general life friends, like people. At a certain point in adulthood, there's like friends that you have that part of the foundation and realness of that is that y'all know y'all have to make the effort to nurture it, because y'all don't work together or because you don't go to school together.
Makeda Lewis:
Because you're not in some concentrated environment where y'all have no choice but to connect. I think that, that was like really helpful. I was just really like your little sidekick. You wake me up and take me to your things. It made me feel like I knew you as a person and that you respected me as a person and that you wanted me around. Because I mean, to be fair, even once I've got older, like I was 18, 19, I still was a kid. You still made it a point to bring me around. Obviously, you were very protective of me.
Amena Brown:
Definitely.
Makeda Lewis:
It never made me feel like I was a toddler. Also, I mean, as far as the bomb dropping thing goes, I'm not going to hold you. It's crazy. Because I don't remember most of the shit that I said to you. The depressing side. I feel like the biggest thing I remember was that time I cut my hair before Thanksgiving. I had like cut this part. Then I had these little things that went down and these little bits. If anybody listens to this podcast, watches anime. I tried to cut my hair like Major from Ghost in the Shell.
Amena Brown:
This was when your hair was still straight.
Makeda Lewis:
Yes. It was still straight and it was long. If you don't have that reference, feel free to Google it so you can know what kind of visual vibe I was going for. Also, let's add in a layer that like I'm up Southern Black girl with a Southern Black mama. That means that there's a lot of everything wrapped up in your hair. What I do with my hair is somehow a reflection of the quality of my mom's motherhood and/or womanhood or like general, standing as a human. It might've been something that I asked her for that she said, no, or we got in some argument or something. I just knew that I was going to run our gears.
Amena Brown:
If you cut your hair.
Makeda Lewis:
If I cut my hair. I'm pretty sure it was the day before Thanksgiving.
Amena Brown:
Where we going to be with other extended family members on this Thanksgiving, or it was like a Thanksgiving that was had here in Atlanta? Or you don't remember?
Makeda Lewis:
It was just at the house. I think it was just us.
Amena Brown:
Oh, honey.
Makeda Lewis:
I'm pretty sure it's the night before, because I remember waking up. First of all, I was very pleased with myself. I was very pleased with my haircut. I was very pleased with my haircut.
Amena Brown:
This story is very on brand. It's very on brand.
Makeda Lewis:
It's not like I cut it and I was like, "Oh, well, Keda, why did you? I was like, "Ooh, this is cute." Girl, yes, did that. I knew it was going to be a whole big thing. I also knew that even though it was going to be a whole big thing, there was nothing that mom could do to fix it. Like, "Yes, I did cut my hair. We're about to have this argument." Then it's going to be over, and my hair is still going to be cut. I'm so sorry, mom. I'm so sorry. I know I have brought you so much stress. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I remember getting ready for Thanksgiving, setting the table and whatever, but I was wearing a hood all day. Remember mom asked me if I was cold and I was like, "No, no, no, no, no. I'm not cold. I'm fine. I'm fine."
Amena Brown:
Because she didn't know yet. You cut the hair the day before Thanksgiving and did a reveal on a holiday, Keda?
Makeda Lewis:
I can't remember if I came to your car when you pulled up or what? I was like, I mean, I have to tell you something.
Amena Brown:
Y'all know that based on the things she had been telling me, y'all know that I was prepared for it.
Makeda Lewis:
You were stressed, and I just took my hood off and I was like, "I cut my hair." You were like, "Keda."
Amena Brown:
Oh, my God.
Makeda Lewis:
You were like, "Keda, why did you do this?" I was like, "I don't know. I think like me and mine got an argument and I just wanted to cut my hair." You were like, "Oh, my God." I was like, "I've been wearing my hood all day, so mom doesn't know yet." I'm pretty sure when we came back in the house, I took it off. I remember mom looking at me and being like, "Keda."
Amena Brown:
Whenever mom gets that tone of voice.
Makeda Lewis:
She was like, "Keda, why did you do this?" She definitely was like tight.
Amena Brown:
Let me see if I can find a picture with that haircut.
Makeda Lewis:
I really do, I really do need this picture of my life. It was in the same like style era for moi, that I was wearing suspenders. Do you remember this?
Amena Brown:
I do remember this now. It's coming back to me now, the haircut.
Makeda Lewis:
I had a little thing. It was a little thing.
Amena Brown:
It was like, a haircut.
Amena Brown:
It was like a little bob, almost.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah, it was like a little bob.
Amena Brown:
Yes, I do remember this. I do remember that.
Makeda Lewis:
And the chucks. I feel like that's the most vivid story that I remember, in terms of bomb dropping, like cutting my hair and being like, "Yeah, girl, I cut my hair. Also, I haven't told mom yet. Also, I know you're about to walk in the house. Also, I know it's Thanksgiving."
Amena Brown:
I forgot about that.
Makeda Lewis:
It's so interesting too, because sometimes I feel that way about serious or uncomfortable conversations now in adulthood. It's not scary enough to me to not say it. It's also, not so heavy that I can't laugh while we're talking about it. That's probably what be pissing my friends and partners off too. Shout out Anthony, Jean, Liz, Akil, all my peoples. You know what I'm saying? Carter, Reese. Peoples I'm getting close to, people that I'm in love with. I'm in love with pretty much, most of everybody that I allowed to be in my life. If I'm not in love with you, then you can't be around my life. I'm sure they'd be blown, but I'd be really be like, "Men, blah, blah, blah. Existential crisis." Then I'll be like, insert joke.
Amena Brown:
No, that's a vibe for me too. That's a vibe for me.
Makeda Lewis:
I just feel like there's nothing serious that we can like laugh about. I also feel like laughter, like it just takes the edge off things. Let's just laugh, bro. It's fine. It's like a tiny vacation.
Amena Brown:
I do enjoy that about having serious conversations with you at this season of our friendship, though. Because I feel like there are times that I'm like, "Some stuff is going on and I need to call Keda and talk to her about it." I feel like I can really say what I need to say. I can cry or whatever those feelings are. Then like pretty immediately after that, one of us will say something.
Makeda Lewis:
One of us will crack a joke.
Amena Brown:
Or sometimes in my attempt at trying to express, like sometimes the laughter comes up and trying to come up with a metaphor to express the serious thing that I'm trying to say. the metaphor is so wild that it's making us laugh to even be like, let's try to associate this serious thing to this wild metaphor. Then that makes me laugh. Or sometimes it makes me laugh the way that you are just so quick to cut through my shit tot. Where like, I'll be calling Keda to be like, I think I do remember one year I was having like, again, this is a very serious thing paired with like a thing that Keda did that made me laugh.
Amena Brown:
There was like a food holiday that was coming up and I had, had a miscarriage around that time a year or two ago. Whenever that holiday would come up, it would be like, I wasn't sure how the grief was going to show up. Whenever year this was, the grief popped up and I didn't have it in me to do all of the cooking that I would normally do. I shared it with you just because I felt like I just wanted to tell you and that I was feeling very sad and depressed around that time. I call Keda and I say all those things and then she listens and she's like, "My sister, I know it's really hard for you to not feel like that. You don't have to please everyone.
Amena Brown:
I know that, that's like a temptation for you to feel like you have to please everyone all the time, but it's okay to just focus on yourself." I think that was one of my first moments because I think that's also an interesting dynamic between the older sister and the younger sister, that there's a period of time where I am the one who has all of the adult experience. When you come to me about your teenage relationships, I can be like, "Oh, when I had a crush, or when I like this person, they blah, blah, blah. When I dealt with that school teacher, dada-dada. This is what they said about my grade. You don't need a blah, blah, blah."
Amena Brown:
There comes a point in the sister relationship where now we're both grown and it really can't be quantified according to the amount of years one's been grown. We're both just grown now and have had like various sundry experiences now. I think I had to start practicing as I realized what a wise person you were, that our relationship didn't just have to be when you had something going on, you coming to tell me that I'm going to-
Makeda Lewis:
That you can also talk to me.
Amena Brown:
Yeah, that I'm going to bestow the wisdom of my years on you. I think that was another, like, this is a thing I can do that makes my relationship to my sister more healthy, that I don't need to hide from her when things are hard for me or when I'm struggling with something. My job as an older sister isn't to keep up the appearance that my life is all the things. I think I started trying to practice in this healthy way, saying those things to you, so that you could see that like, I'm just my, my friend Helen and I always talk about like, I'm just a girl in the world, trying to navigate relationships and career and art and whatever.
Amena Brown:
I feel like that moment was one of the first times that I said something vulnerable like that to you. You really spit back to me a very true thing about myself. I think it's the realization that not only as an older sibling, not only is your younger sibling also their own person, a wise person that has advice they can give you. On top of that, they know you better than most people in your whole life. You know me because you've seen me when I didn't know how to clean my room up and my little breakups and whatever.
Amena Brown:
You've seen me through a lot of things. When you spit that back to me, I remember being like, even though it was a very serious and vulnerable moment, for some reason, it made me laugh because I was like, "She really just told me about myself, in a very loving way." You were very gently like, "I can come over and help you do this thing. Mom can help do these things. Even if we don't do any of that, you're important. You matter. That's what's more important than keeping up whatever we would normally do around this holiday."
Makeda Lewis:
We'll eat chips, bro. I don't care.
Amena Brown:
I think something about you saying that to me had me, like, I was like, no other friend would say it to me exactly like that, or would have felt that type of comfort to be like, "Hmm, I understand the dilemma here because it is normally hard for you to not please others and put their desires for your own. However, at this situation, I think that you should uplift your desires and that's important too, my sister." Then just got quiet, and I was like, "She just told me."
Makeda Lewis:
Screaming.
Amena Brown:
I was like, it's not a lie. Everything she said, number one is accurate as hell. Number two, there was something about you saying that to me, that way, that also was a good reminder for me. Because you know me and you watched me do the thing you said. I do think that also, the time where you in your 20s and I was in my 30s, was this good turning point right there.
Makeda Lewis:
For sure.
Amena Brown:
Of me being like, "I don't need to hide this from my sister. She doesn't want to have some stilted perspective of me. I just need to tell her." Then the added layer of like, I also need to accept the things that she's going to say to me. I need to accept it and that there's going to be like a lot of truth in those moments. I feel like the moment of when y'all moved here to Atlanta, that I was 25 and you were 14. I remember setting the groundwork with mom, like several times and being like very excited that you've decided to move to Atlanta. I'm very excited that you've decided to move to my city. I think it's going to be really useful for you and your career.
Makeda Lewis:
You're saying my city, when you've been there for six years. That's crazy.
Amena Brown:
I also think it's going to be really useful for my sister's education. I think that's a great parenting choice, but I do just want to let you know that I do have a life with my friends. I'm mostly going to be spending time with my friends and then I will make some time to spend time with you and other members of our family. The priority is really my social life and what my friends and I are doing. Also, I want you to know that on birthdays, there will be two gatherings because I need to have a gathering that's just for my friends and I, and I don't think you need to come to that. I think our birthday gathering is going to be separated. I think we need to have-
Makeda Lewis:
Well, not this list of rules, oh my God.
Amena Brown:
Bless mom's heart that she was just listening to me and just like, for real, mom just really loved on us and let us just, we'd be saying ridiculous things. Her, just being tight about it, but she'd be like, "Okay, that's how you want to live." There comes a point where like, you have like a decade in there between your early mid-20s, your early 30s, where you've had a chance to be with your friends. You got to travel with them, maybe. You got to do your professional stuff and go through relationships and breakups with them and all that. Some of them are good to you. You have some good friends, some of them are shitty to you. You're like, "Wow, I need to learn. These are not the people to have in my life or whatever." Then I do think by the time you're hitting your 30s, you're starting to realize like, "Wow, there's certain things that happened in my life. Here are these people that have been a constant through that. A ruckus moment of my life, where I had to walk into my mom's house and ask her and grandma to help me get my car out of repossession." They pooled their moneys together and being like, "Yo, I've had some friends to help me, but that was one of the lowest points of my life. Those two women, hold it together for me."
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah, they were there.
Amena Brown:
I do think the more I went through things in life, I realize like, "Yo, you're going to have a very small number of ride for you friends in your life. You're going to be able to count them on one hand." Those friends that would ride for you like that and that remain in your life over time. Whereas I looked around and thought like, "Man, this lady as my mom, she'd been there on my worst days, my best days, she'd been at a celebrate me. She'd been there to tell me some truth and I didn't want to hear that, whatever." Looking at you as my sister and being like, "She really does know me and remains in my life and wanting to be close to me and she's seeing all of me." You're seeing me when I'm at my best, I'm doing great. You're seeing me when I'm in an unhealthy kind of space and you're like, "I don't like that." Or, "I don't like what you did there." Or, "I don't like this attitudes you have, but I'll be here tomorrow."
Makeda Lewis:
Will, and will.
Amena Brown:
You know what I'm saying? I think in a way that in our family unit, because I know that's not the case for all of my family members and not the case for everyone's families. In our immediate family unit, it's like, when I'm in the house with you, mom and grandma, that's home to me.
Makeda Lewis:
Yeah, that's home. Wherever we all are. Wherever we're all gathered together.
Amena Brown:
If I'm sad, I can still come over because you're not expecting me to have to be happy.
Makeda Lewis:
Nobody wants you to perform.
Amena Brown:
If I got to cry, I mean, I remember we had a gathering during the pandemic, we were doing all of our socially-distanced family gatherings. You had something going on that made you cry. You cried about it. We were listening to that. Then two minutes after you shared that with us, you told us something that I still, one of the funniest things to me. We went from like, we crying, we trying to hold the best space for you, to us, like cackling so loud.
Makeda Lewis:
This is be hurting.
Amena Brown:
At this like, okay, and so I'm like, "That's a real blessing to me." I do think that really brought me back to the family in this way where I felt like I can be here. My being here doesn't take away from me being my own person. Also, like I need the grounded-ness of being with the people that have known me most of my life, most of my life in your case, all my life for mom and grandma. I think I realize now, like that type of grounded-ness is important. As much as I love my friends, I may never quite get that from them.
Makeda Lewis:
Once I got to like early college, like late high school, I feel like you just treated me like a person and you treated me like I was someone that you were building a friendship with. You wanted me to be involved in your life, in your things and not just like be trying to project onto me all of your, like, "I'm smarter than you and I know all the things."
Amena Brown:
I always wanted you to know you could come to me. I felt like if I'm going to say, lecturing her so that she feels free to come to me, I would rather that.
Makeda Lewis:
I want to come here to talk to you. You're not my school counselor.
Amena Brown:
I'm not your mama. We love out mamma, but I'm not your mama, though.
Makeda Lewis:
Love you, mommy. You know what I'm saying? I'm coming to you because I want to talk to you. Maybe I do want to hear your thoughts, but you have to give me your thoughts in a way that you would give your thoughts to your friends. To your peer. I realized that we're not the same age, but like, you wouldn't talk to your peer like they're somehow emotionally beneath you or emotionally unintelligent or not as intelligent as you are. It's like, "Don't talk to me like that." Because if you do talk to me like that, now I feel like I don't want to talk to you about nothing. I want to hear her mouth about it. Which means they're not really friends.
Amena Brown:
To me, that meant, especially when you were younger, not as much now, but when you were younger, that meant if you were in danger, if you were in some type of bad situation.
Makeda Lewis:
I will feel safe coming to you.
Amena Brown:
Now, what's that mean? I'm like, "I want you to feel like you can come to me all the time. Even if I do be freaked out."
Makeda Lewis:
There's like a level of safety that still feels like you are not going to look down on me for getting myself in something that I have to ask for help to get out of. I feel like that was really important. It was just effort. The way that you put an effort with any relationship. You, going to listen to Avril Lavigne, knowing good and damn well, that was big 13-year-old girl taste. You would not have been listening to no damn Avril Lavigne, that was not your jam.
Amena Brown:
No.
Makeda Lewis:
Even that whole genre of music was not like, you listen to it because of me and because you wanted to have something to relate to me.
Amena Brown:
My sister, thank you for just coming on here and talking to me about the sisterhood things. I love having you as a conversation partner. Now of course, I'm like, we need to think of other things so we can go over here.
Makeda Lewis:
I know, I was just thinking to myself like, "Dang, can we talk about our self-grief and trauma around creativity?" Is that too much?
Amena Brown:
I would like to talk about that. We have a lot of things that we're excited. Makeda will be back here on the podcast, but thank you for joining me here and talking about all the sister things. I appreciate it so much.
Makeda Lewis:
I love you.
Amena Brown:
I love you too.
Makeda Lewis:
Let's play some after this.
Amena Brown:
Okay, thank you. Her With Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions, as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network and partnership with iHeartRADIO. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.