Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 46

Amena Brown:

You all, it's been almost a year since my podcast joined Seneca Women Podcast Network and iHeartMedia. I want to celebrate with all of you, my listeners who have been joining me in the HER living room every week. I know we can't gather in person. I'm not even sure there's a house that would be big enough to have a big enough living room for all of us, but I'm glad we have our podcast living room here. I would love to hear from you. I'm working on an episode to celebrate my HER anniversary and I would love to include you in the episode. Here's what you do. You go to speakpipe.com/her with Amena Brown and leave me a one minute voice message telling me your name and where you're from, if you feel comfortable sharing. Then tell me your favorite episode of the podcast and why you loved it. Leave me a message by Friday, September 3rd and you could possibly be included on a future episode. But don't worry about writing all of this down. The link will be included in the show notes and the episode description as well. I can't wait to hear from you.

Amena Brown:

Hey everybody. Welcome back. We are still in a friendship mode here. I wanted to make sure I got a chance to answer your question. This is part two of me answering your questions about friendship. Friendship, it can be really, I mean, a part of me wants to say complicated, but complicated sounds so negative. Doesn't it? It could be complicated, I guess. That's true, but it can also have a lot of layers to it, right? Here's me. I'm going to take my best shot at answering your questions. Question number one from a listener. Are there truly friendships for a season or is that a cop out from having hard, boundary or conflict conversations? Well, we're starting off our episode with a zinger. Are there truly friendships for a season or is that a cop out from having hard conversations, boundary conversations or conflict conversations?

Amena Brown:

I am of the belief that sometimes friendships are only for a season. I know I've had some. I actually think both things can be true. I think there are some friendships that don't continue on in our lives because we didn't have the hard conversation or because we didn't, I was going to say embrace the conflict, but you all, I really hate conflict so bad. I don't really want to embrace it. That's not the verb I want to put there, but you know, because we didn't face the conflict and talk through it. But I do think you can have friends that there is a season of time where you may have really needed that person in your life, or they may have really needed you in their life. Then you grow and you find that maybe your values are in different places now or the directions of your lives are in different places now.

Amena Brown:

That can totally make a difference in whether a friendship continues or not. But I'm also of the belief that not every friendship in your life is meant to be a long-term friendship. I think that's okay. I think there are times that we're trying to force a friendship to be long-lasting when that friendship maybe was never supposed to be that. I do think that there's a both end that's present here. I would say, when it makes sense, I think you should have a conversation. This is going to come up in some of my other answers to your questions as well. If there is a friendship and you feel it fizzling out or something, I think when you can have the conversation that you should. But I think it's important to know that a conversation is not going to fix all friendships, but sometimes that conversation will actually tell you that the friendship should be over or that the friendship needs space. The two of you need space away from each other.

Amena Brown:

The other hard part about having conversations with friends is having to realize that not every friend will be in a place where they are ready to have that type of conversation or receive whatever it is you have to say. Of course, there are some friendships that are so unhealthy that you may get to a point where it's not even healthy to try to have a conversation with that person. I am of the opinion that there are friendships that are only meant to be for a season in your life. I don't think you can always know that when that person first walks into your life, but I do think that's true. Although friendship and dating are not the same thing, you'll find me referring back to dating a little bit here, because I think that some of the parallel lessons are there. And so I want to make a mention of that. In the same way that I don't think every friendship is supposed to be lifelong in your life, I don't think that every person you date is somebody that you're supposed to marry.

Amena Brown:

I think that sometimes you are supposed to date that person and maybe there was something you're supposed to learn. Maybe there is something they're supposed to learn. Maybe there was just something good or not good to the season of time that you knew that person, but it doesn't mean that every person you go to coffee with, go to dinner with, go to a movie with has to be your lifelong partner or your lifelong spouse. I think that can also be true of friendships. But I think when we think about it that way, I don't think that has to be viewed as a cop out necessarily because I think if we think about it like, yeah, there will be some friendships that won't last forever. Then for me, that puts me in more of a place to be able to be grateful for the time that I do have someone in my life, if it was good to have had them around. Sometimes there are people that it wasn't good to have them around. I am not thankful for the painful experience, but I like who I became in spite of it, or I like who I became after having to endure that. Right.

Amena Brown:

I think in a way that can help us to hold our friendships with open hands. That means that we are open to however those friendships develop and grow and however we develop and grow in the process. Right. Next question. What do you do when you always feel like you're one ring out of a circle of friends? My, my, I have a little theory. I don't think I'm the only person with this theory. I don't think I'm the person that came up with the theory. I believe in the theory of three. I do think when you're in a friendship group and there are three or more people in the friendship group, I feel like there's always going to be someone that feels like they are left out at some point in how the friendship continues on. I think if you know that and you're in sort of a friend group, that can maybe help you to not feel freaked out. Sometimes in groups of friends it's just a seasonal thing that may happen, or it could be something going on in different people's lives that makes that friendship lean one way where this person feels left out. Right?

Amena Brown:

I'll give you two examples. When I was in college, my mom moved from the neighborhood we lived in when I was in high school to a different neighborhood. When I got home from college, instead of me being five minutes away from most of my friends, I was 25 minutes away. I didn't have my license yet. I didn't have a car. I wasn't able to be like, hey, you're five minutes away, come by and pick me up before you all go over to the whatever. They were really going to have to love me to drive across town to see me. In a way, I know there were some things during those breaks home from college that I was left out of, but that was simply because my location had moved and that changed things. It wasn't necessarily that my friends didn't want to kick it. It was just that they had to think through a lot more logistics to kick it with me than they did before when we all lived near the same area or in the same neighborhood.

Amena Brown:

The other example that I was going to give you all is just in thinking about when we think about the theory of three or four or more friends, this isn't even one that's from my personal life but those of you that are fans of the TV show Insecure on HBO. Shout out to Issa Rae. On that show, there is a group of four friends there. One of the friends got pregnant, but she was the first of all four friends to get pregnant and have a baby. With her getting pregnant, that shifted the whole friend dynamic because the four of them were used to going out together to parties, to the club, to have drinks. She's got her mind on different things as she's preparing to become a new mom. She's processing that very differently. There were certain ways that intentionally or unintentionally, she was beginning to be left out of the group activities not because they loved her less, or didn't want to hang out with her, but because she's at a point in her life where she's getting ready for a big change.

Amena Brown:

She has these three friends that are not experiencing that change. Right. Just giving those couple of examples that there can be just these natural things that happen that are not malicious. They're not malicious behavior of anyone in the group, but there's just the natural swings of time and life changing that make it so that we feel like we're left out of that ring of a circle of friends. Here's what I think, in answer to your question, dear listener. I think you have to ask yourself, what do you really want the most out of a friendship? What are the reasons that you are possibly one ring out of a circle of friends? Are you new to this group of friends and everyone else has been there longer than you? Are these friends where you all used to hang out together and used to do these different things but you're finding that they're going places and you didn't know about it and you don't know why they didn't tell you? I feel like there are two things that you can do here and why I said you should ask yourself what you want out of a friendship.

Amena Brown:

I think this will also come up in some of the other answers here. You should ask yourself this question because sometimes we want something out of a friendship that we may have a friend that just isn't at a place where they can meet that expectation or provide that what we might want. We may want to hang out more and they, for various sundry reasons may not be able to provide that, so that we have to ask ourselves, am I really asking something of someone that they can't give or don't want to give? Does that mean that I should branch out and find some other people that I can get to know, kick it with, hang with, build community with that may be at more of a place where they can do some of the things that I want to do or like to do with my friends? My two answers here as what to do. One, if these are people that you feel close to, that you feel trusting to have a conversation with, have some communication. Say to them, hey, I noticed you all's pictures on Instagram and you all went over there and I would love to go. Is there a reason why you all didn't invite me?

Amena Brown:

Now, I'm going to tell you right now, opening up these communications, the thing about effective communication is it doesn't always feel good. It's helpful in the end, but it doesn't always feel good. Who knows what your friends may say? They may say something that's true but it's hard for you to hear. Or they may say something that is really hurtful and is them not being considerate of you. But either way, by you asking the question, you're getting communication so that you know what to do moving forward. Right. Think about branching out. Sometimes we can get so focused on what we don't have or so focused on what the people in our lives are not doing, that we don't realize we have an opportunity to get to know some other folks that maybe more on the same page with us, or maybe more in the same phase of life we are. I know I've had friends that have experienced it where most of their friends got married and they weren't married. Right. They experience that shift of their friends doing whatever they felt they needed to do to go into this new stage of their life being married.

Amena Brown:

But if you're the one friend or the couple of friends in that group of friends that isn't booed up, doesn't look like you're about to get married anytime soon. Or maybe you're not even interested in getting married or whatever, those things can cause these shifts. It's not like if you get married, you can look at your single friends and be like, hurry up and get married so we can still be friends. Maybe it means that there are other friends that both of you need in your lives. Friends that are in whatever your phase of life is so that you can have that way to identify with them. I'm just using that as an example. But we watched that in all sorts of changes people have with their jobs, sometimes with becoming parents, when people move, like the location point that I brought up. Sometimes when you move, you want to hold onto your friends that you knew in the other city you used to live in, you sure do. But now you live in a new place. Maybe there are ways to meet some people that live there also. Right.

Amena Brown:

There can be a both and, and when you can get the both and, try for it, try for it. If the both and doesn't go, then you know some other either or options that you have as well. I hope that answered your question about what to do when you are one ring out of a circle of friends. Question number three. What to do when friendships end? When you initiate the hangouts and just keep getting ghosted. First of all, I want to give a special shout out to the MTV show, Ghosted. You all need to watch it because it's great. There are two hosts on there. I believe it's Rachel Lindsay from The Bachelor. I feel like the guy who's hosting with her, his name is Travis. Anyway, shout out to that TV show because it's literally like a show of people who got ghosted, and the ghostee goes to Travis and Rachel and tells them like, here's what happened. I don't know why so-and-so ghosted me. Sometimes it's a friend. Sometimes it's somebody they dated. Then Travis and Rachel track down the person that did the ghosting and they end up actually meeting up in person.

Amena Brown:

I think they did some during the pandemic where they were meeting up on Zoom and the person who did the ghosting has to explain to the person why they got ghosted. It was a variety of reasons, right? Sometimes it was that the other person had really done something very hurtful and so the person just ghosted. Sometimes it was because the person ghosting had something really terrible going on in their lives. Sometimes the person ghosting was just a terrible person. Those options are the same in this situation. I'm going to admit to you all that I have been a friend who has ghosted another friend. I have never ghosted a close friend. I have had some friends that I wasn't super duper close with, but I would say we were friends. We talk, we hung out. I have ghosted at least twice. I'm going to tell you why in both situations, and maybe this will bring some understanding to you, or maybe you will be like, wow, done with this podcast. Because Amena ghosted friends. But it's only happened to me twice that I can think of right now.

Amena Brown:

One of them was really, the reason that I ghosted this friend really had very little to do with them personally. They didn't do anything wrong. There wasn't anything that I was like, oh, I don't want to see them anymore. It was honestly a whole lot of really hard personal stuff that I had going on at that time. Both of these friends that I ghosted, this one was more of a very new friend. We had hung out a little bit and we had a great time hanging out. I really enjoy their company. However, I realized at that time that I was really in an unhealthy place in myself. And so I started back going to therapy. As I was going to therapy, I realized, oh my gosh, I have this new friend. I really jumped in there with this new friend like way too deep, because I don't know if any of you have ever experienced the kind of depression or even grief or sadness where you almost feel like your body is turned inside out. You feel like all your tender parts are on the outside of you, and all you can do when you meet people is like, whatever is going on with you.

Amena Brown:

I was really at that point but I didn't realize I was at that point until I got back into therapy. Once I got back into therapy, it took me some months of therapy before I realized, oh my gosh, I can't be what I was in that friendship. Now, because I went to this depth, this friend is expecting that of me. Now, if I were in a healthier place, I would have been able to go back to that friend and say, hey, I actually really like taking it with you but I had a lot of really hard stuff happen to me right at the time that we were starting to be friends, which is why I was telling you all the things that you probably didn't even want to hear really. I do want to stay friends, but I kind of want to like start over if we can do that and just really start over giving ourselves some space and time to be friends, without me having to jump into all this stuff that's happening while I'm healing up. That's how I would've said that, but I really wasn't in a healthy enough place to even say that at the time. So I ghosted them in an effort to try to take care of myself and get myself into a healthy place.

Amena Brown:

I'm sure that that was probably really upsetting for them. But I bring that up to say that sometimes when people ghost, they are ghosting not for reasons of anything being wrong with you. It may be some stuff that's going on with them. People can be going through such emotional and really hard things that they don't even all the way have the language in that moment to tell you why they're ghosting you or to tell you why they can't be present. Right. The other time that I remember ghosting a friend, and this was like a short-term ghosting because some time did pass. Again, going back into therapy where I was able to finally articulate to them why I had to ghost, and this is what was happening. But I had another friendship where I really did like spending time with the friend and we hung out. We were probably friends a bit longer than the previous example I gave you. But as I realized I was going through this really hard thing, there were times that I noticed them not being sensitive to that.

Amena Brown:

I at first accepted that they weren't being sensitive to it because you know how sometimes people can say things that are insensitive but it doesn't mean their hearts are coming from a malicious place. But then over time they keep saying the insensitive thing to you. And so even though you're looking at them like you don't think they mean to be mean, but it doesn't mean that that's not processing to you as mean. Right? Or as hurtful at the very least. I went through a period of time where really I ghosted that friend because there were some insensitive things being said. Also, because the things they were saying that were insensitive were hurting me because there were some bigger issues going on with me that were making that very painful. I ghosted again, because I needed some time to figure out in myself, you know, okay, what do I need to do? What's happening with me? How do I care for myself? I actually talked to my therapist about the fact that I had ghosted this friend.

Amena Brown:

As we were working through my other stuff, I did finally get to a point where I told my therapist, I think I'm ready to communicate to them. And so I did reach out to them and I was able to tell them, this is what was happening during that time. This is where I am right now. I am in a bit of a better place, but I'm still in a tough place. During this time, I need to really cling to my family and my super close friends. I'm also sure that that was hurtful to them to hear me say, and basically to hear me say like, I don't see us reconnecting as friends. I'm sure that was hard to hear, much harder than I can imagine right now saying it to you. But I tell that to you, to the person who asked this question and to people who may be listening that have that question to ask the person who has ghosted to give you a perspective. That in my case, it really was a lot of just hard, hard things. These were not super close friends of mine that we had even gotten to the point where we could have that type of honest conversation.

Amena Brown:

Here are my tips I can give you from someone who has ghosted and been ghosted. Try if you can, to establish communication with the person. If you keep getting ghosted, try to say to them, hey, I feel like whenever we try to schedule something, I feel like you're saying you're not available. Maybe that's your schedule, but is there something else going on that we need to talk about? Are you okay? Try to have that communication. However, accept that even the communication may still mean that that person ghosting or not being in a friendship with you may be the best thing for them and may be the best thing for you. That's hard to hear, right? Because a lot of times when we're looking to have a conversation with someone, we're thinking like, okay, I'm going to have this conversation. We're going to come to some agreement. We're going to either go back to the way things were, or the path forward is still going to be us forward together. It just may not be. I think when we're thinking about what to do when friendships end, when you keep trying to make the connection and you keep getting ghosted is I think you have to first of all, accept that sometimes people are going through things that they may not be ready to talk with you about.

Amena Brown:

Also, accept that they may not have the capacity to go through what they're going through and maintain a friendship with you. Also, accept that you may never find out why they ghosted. You may have to find a way to give yourself closure. This is also true for dating. We love closure. I love closure, but sometimes people are going to be unable or unwilling to give you that closure. Finally, I want to say, sometimes people ghost, I'm trying to say this without cussing, but sometimes people ghost because they're terrible. They're just they're terrible. They're terrible. They knew it was mean. They were selfish. They chose themselves, and that's why they ghosted. That also happens too. That means from that person, you may not ever get communication about why they did that. Even if they did communicate to you, the reason why may still be asinine to you. Consider these things, try communication, if you can, but also accept that even that communication may not fix the friendship.

Amena Brown:

Even that communication may not help you to not still feel some type of way about why they ghosted in the first place. Last question. Do you have any recommendations for drawing a line between A, I want to help my friend, and B, I don't have to be the main person who helps my friend. Sometimes I wonder if my helping is selfish because I feel like I need to be the main one to help. I want to tell you dear listener that I have been there. Okay. If you are into Enneagram, folks, I am what would be considered an Enneagram two, which I nicknamed the anti-agram, because I feel like the two is the person that wants to care for people, is good at caretaking as well. Here's the situation. I just want to tell you in short that you don't have to be the main person who helps your friend and you're not being a good friend if you expect to be the main person that helps your friend. I'm going to give you an example. My best friend was having her first kid. I was so excited and we're very, very close to each other. I was checking in on her and monitoring how things were going with her.

Amena Brown:

I really, truly in my heart just love to do things for the people I love. I love it, love it, love it. It really brings a lot of joy to me. I was on tour at the time that she was getting towards the end of her pregnancy. We were hoping that her baby was going to be born at the beginning of April, because I wasn't going to be back from tour until then. Her baby came a couple of weeks before that. I was so happy for her and really, really devastated for myself because I wanted to be there when she had her baby. I wanted to be there when they were headed home. I wanted to be there to do whatever I could for her and her husband and her little girl that was now going to be my goddaughter. I wanted to do everything, but I couldn't do anything because I was on tour in the middle of nowhere, basically Midwest somewhere. I wasn't going to be home for another few days. That meant other people had to help them when it was time for her to come home from the hospital with the baby.

Amena Brown:

Other people had to help them in those first few days that they were home. Getting them food and all that. I did what I could from afar, but I couldn't be there in person. That was really a good lesson for me to remember, first of all, and thankfully my best friend had a village. She had a whole bunch of people that love her, that love her husband, that love this little girl we were all just getting to meet. And so I did not have to be her village. I was a part of her village. For people who love taking care of the people that they love, it can be hard to accept that your friends don't need you to be everything to them. Sometimes if you are a person that can be the caretaker friend, you have a need inside yourself to be needed. And so if you look around and you watch your friend's village caring for them and you weren't there to do it, then you're like, well, what does that mean? Does that mean my friend doesn't need me? That's not true.

Amena Brown:

That means your friend needs all of you to do whatever your part is. Okay. The second thing I want to bring up is as a person who loves to really take care of my friends, I noticed that sometimes I would put a lot more focus in being the main person caring for them because I was avoiding doing what I needed to do to take care of myself. I found that when I was actually spending time giving myself the same energy that was so easy for me to give to other people, when I gave that energy to myself, then I realized, first of all, I actually don't have as much time to give all my time away to everyone else when I give some time to myself. I have like this time to give. That taught me to really focus less on doing the most for people when I love them and focusing more on the fact that my good enough is good enough for them. That whatever I can give them, whatever time I have, they are happy to get that from me and they don't need me to run myself ragged for them.

Amena Brown:

I don't need to run myself ragged because I'm not the only person in the world that loves my friend. Even though I love my friends till the cows come home. Make sure if you do fall in that category where you're the person who loves to attend to everyone and care for everybody, really think to yourself, am I giving that same energy to myself? Would I care for myself in that same way? Lastly, just remember when you are helping a friend, you want to help them because you want to, you want to help them because you love them, because it's good for you to help them. Not because of your own ego or your own insecurities or your own internal need to be needed or wanted, right? You don't have to be the martyr for your friends. If you were in a healthy friendship with friends who love you for you and not just the things that you do for them, your friends don't want you to run yourself ragged to help them when they move, when they had their baby, when they start their business.

Amena Brown:

They want you around because of who you are, not just what you do for them. If you find yourself in friendships where the people only care about you because of the gifts you give or because of the time you spend, or because of the things you did for them, then I do want you to evaluate that and reevaluate that so that you can have some friends in your life that want you for you, not just all the things that you do for them. Thank you all so much for asking such great questions. We've got one more episode coming your way. I will answer the rest of your questions. We'll get a chance to talk about what it's like when you feel like you're in an imbalanced friendship. We're going to talk about how you know as a Black person if a friend who is not Black can hold your experiences. We're going to talk about how to end a friendship if it's no longer serving you.

Amena Brown:

We've got a few other things to discuss, as well as next episode, I'm going to give you some tips on how to make and keep friends as a grown adult. All right, I'm sending you all love today. I'll talk to you all next week. HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 45

Amena Brown:

Hey everybody. Well, we have been talking about friendships a lot on the podcast lately and I thought it would be fitting to go behind the poetry in this episode and talk about my poem Girlfriends Poem. Take a listen.

Amena Brown:

We find our friendships in coffee shops and at lunch tables and in green rooms and quiet corners of other people's parties. We skip the shallow small talk and pleasantries. We turn public places into living rooms. We decide to bare our souls. We decide not to hide where the extra folds have made their home on our bodies. We drink wine and margaritas and chai. We tell jokes over guacamole and queso and tortilla chips. We toast to cupcakes and butter rolls because who needs champagne when you can dish over donuts because calorie counting don't count here. Your round hips are welcome here. Here, we celebrate cellulite and stomachs that never return to taut after gaining weight or birthing children or slowly losing our need to impress people who care nothing about us here.

Amena Brown:

We preach acceptance to each other. We say to each other, "Girl, love yourself the way you love me, the way you forgive me when I'm late, even though I say every time that I'm going to be on time, the way you let me cry when I'm angry, the way you let me vent when I want to be mean to the world and to myself, the way you pray for my soul to find rest when you watch me carry my stress into panic attacks and migraines." We walk together. We sweat together. We lift the weight of this world so our arms and souls are stronger for it. We try to mend each other's broken hearts by saying things like, "Remember that time when...". Like, that time I was head over heels in love with that man who looked so good but his lips could never manage to tell the truth. And, that job you hated. How I called you to make you laugh and you pretended I was a customer for the coworker who always eavesdrops on your conversations. That time I was so broke we switched cars to play tricks on the repo man. True story.

Amena Brown:

The day you found out you were pregnant and that your husband lost his job. Sometimes when we meet, we drop bombs about the parents and babies we've lost, about grieving, about starting over, about jobs and promotions that mean new locations and cities, about finding new ways to do the same old things, about first dates that never make it second ones. We are warriors. We are menders. We have watched each other become women, become wife, become mother, become boss, become single, students, activists, become so many things that we always thought we'd become. And, so many things that we thought we'd never be or we decide not to judge. You can never know the pain another woman hides behind, insecurity or too much mascara or an ill-fitting outfit, until you have not only walked in her shoes but also know her pain and wounds, how she survived her scars, that it is brave to look yourself in the eyes every day and decide to love the woman who stares back.

Amena Brown:

We are more than bestie or BFF. We are tribe and sisterhood. We are not what reality TV tries to convince us woman friendship is. We do not pull weaves and throw martini glasses and derogatory words. We hold each other up with grace and laughs and love, just because, girl, we are here. And so, we stop hiding our grace until the generation after us begins to take care of us and so we help them stand while they help us sit, until we turn our porches into town hall meetings and drink wine to stave off sickness and can barely hear out of either ear because we danced too close to the speakers at all the parties and concerts, with no regrets, with no we haven't dreamed and done that yet.

Amena Brown:

We carry the meaning of the word friend in the wrinkles of our hands. We take each other's secrets and stories to the grave with us.

Amena Brown:

Oof. That poem. It always make me feel my feelings and I'll talk about this later on in the episode, but I have mostly done this poem in front of audiences that were either all women or predominantly women, and it is a very emotional experience to perform in front of those crowds, but in a good way, in a joyful way, I think. So, I always like to start by telling you what made me write this poem, and the first beginning lines of this poem, "We find our friendships in coffee shops and in green rooms and quiet corners of other people's parties." I think I had the first two or three lines in the Notes app of my iPhone for a long time and I think what made me write that is I realized several years ago that most of my closest girlfriends don't live here in Atlanta.

Amena Brown:

Even if I met them here, maybe they've moved, and some of that fact is because of my work, that prior to the pandemic, I was traveling a lot. So, a lot of my friends that I knew, we knew each other from having worked together in the event space, and so, that's how I ended up with a lot of wonderful friends that were all around the country. My two best friends don't live in Atlanta. My one best friend that I've known since high school, she still lives in Texas and so now we have... We have been friends long enough that most of our friendship has been us living not in the same city, even though we went to high school together, right? We went to college in different cities and have never lived in the same city since high school. And, my other best friend, she lives overseas now, but she used to live in Atlanta and I feel like maybe we're almost at the half and half where half of our friendship was when she lived here in Atlanta and then the other half has been since she moved overseas.

Amena Brown:

So, I think me thinking about that and because most of my close friends don't live in Atlanta, all of the various ways that I find myself catching up with them and the different places we have to just get down to it and have a conversation when we do have time to be in person somewhere together. And, when I think about my girlfriends, I feel like there are two... If I... I was going to use the word two tiers, but I don't think tiers is accurate. I think they're more like concentric circles almost. Like, there's a very inner circle of girlfriend that I have. There are only a few girlfriends that fit into that inner circle that I really, really talk to them about what's really going on in my life and same with them.

Amena Brown:

For my best friends, my friends that have known me since college, some of them, we've had a long time to walk through a lot of stuff in our lives together. And then, I have what would be the next, I guess, concentric circle of girlfriends which are girlfriends that, they may not be my super close girlfriends but I just... I love them. I love hanging out with them. I love catching up with them. Maybe we're like part girlfriend and part work colleague or maybe we're part girlfriend and we have a hobby we share. I have some girlfriends that I do talk to them about what's going on in my life and they do the same with me, but we also just talk about reality TV stuff, which I really love.

Amena Brown:

And so, I was just thinking about all of these women in my life that have brought so much to my life and wanting to write a poem dedicated to them. So, when those first two lines came to me, then I spent some months working on the piece, seeing how the piece was going to come out. And then, bringing me to the next question, the real life story, or stories in this case, behind writing the poem. If you've ever watched a movie or a film that's based on a true story... I'm very nerdy like this, that whenever I watch a movie or a TV show that's based on a true story, I always go back and Google all the facts after I watch it. And so, sometimes you'll find that maybe that person actually was married three times but in the movie or TV show that you watch, there was only one spouse. Or, maybe they hustled a bunch of people but in the movie or the film you only see two of the victims that they hustled, you know?

Amena Brown:

And, when you go back and like read into all the information of how the TV shows or the films get made, they'll basically say that sometimes a character can become a composite of a few people or become a composite of certain other characters in the story. But in the movie, they don't have time to address all three of the spouses, right? So, they make one character out of what having those spouses represented to the central character. And so, in a way, for me, Girlfriends Poem is a composite of a lot of the girlfriends that I have just loved and been loved so well by as friends over the years.

Amena Brown:

So, a few of the real life stories that are mentioned in this poem. In the beginning, I talk about friends in green rooms, that that's where we meet, that's where we find our friendship. And, when I was writing that line, I was thinking very specifically of my friend Candy. And, Candy and I have been friends now... Gosh, it's almost 20 years that we've been friends. We met each other when we were 22 years old and at that time, even though we are both doing very different things from what we were doing back then, but at that time we were both artists performing in white, Christian, conservative spaces. She was a singer at that time and I was doing what we would call in that context worship poetry or poetry that you would do during the singing time of like a Christian church service.

Amena Brown:

And, over the years... I stayed in Atlanta all this time but over the years there were different times that Candy and her family would move in and out of the city, and so, there would be times that she would get booked for something in Atlanta and our only time to catch up was going to be in the green room between sessions of a conference or between services on Sunday wherever she was going to be singing. And so, I would drive over there and meet her there and we would sit in a green room, typically at a point in time where everybody else was leaving for like a lunch break or a dinner break or sometimes everybody else left to go be in a session, and instead of being in the session, we were sitting in the green room, like, catching up.

Amena Brown:

And, because we had such a limited amount of time, there wasn't a lot of like, "Woo, it's been hot outside, girl." Like, we weren't talking about that. We would just jump right in, like, "Who you make out with, girl? What's his name?". Like, jump right in talking about that. And so, that line was very specifically inspired by Candy. And, since then, I have gained some other green room friends because over the years some of my other really good girlfriends were also speakers or performers and so, that was also the space where we got to know each other.

Amena Brown:

I also really loved writing the section with all of the donuts and here we celebrate cellulite. I... I loved writing that because when I think about a lot of my girlfriends, especially being at this point in my early forties... Even though sometimes, y'all, I'm not going to lie that I say early forties and to myself I still feel like I'm in my thirties. I don't know if maybe you have that experience with your age. Like, it's not bad to be in your forties. I think it's great. But for some reason, when I say that, I'm like, "Am I? Am I? Oh, I am. I am in my forties." So, now being in my forties, you know, a lot of the friendships I've had, I've had for a long time and over these friendships of 20 years, 15 years, 10 years, you go through a lot in your own body. You're watching your girlfriends go through a lot in their own bodies as well, you know?

Amena Brown:

So, I have been through cancer diagnosis with friends. They've been through medical diagnoses with me as well. Experiencing surgery, experiencing weight gain and weight loss. For some of my friends who had children and experienced birth and pregnancy and the different changes that that brought to their bodies, and surgeries and what that brought to their bodies, right? And so, I just loved this idea. You know, I was sort of trying to... I mean, if you've been listening to this podcast long enough, you know that I have a lot of fascinations with the living room as a room in the house because for me, when I think about my girlfriends, that's the room that comes to my mind. That's where we're like... We took our shoes off. We're curled up on the couch, you know, under blankets, like, talking to each other in there. And, wanting to think of this space where you as a woman are there with these other woman friends of yours and however you are, whatever body you are in at that moment, it's accepted here.

Amena Brown:

And, I loved that idea because that's the thing I want for myself, that I continue working on in myself, is loving the body that I'm in at this moment, not wishing for the body that I had back then, but loving this body in this moment but also wanting to provide that space for my friends as well, wanting to accept them. And, over the years, you know, as we're aging and growing and developing, you know, we may experience cellulite. We may have had cellulite all this time, you know? And, loving that body when there are so many ways that society send these different messages that we shouldn't love those parts of our body, those folds of fat on our backs and stuff like that, you know? So, I... I really enjoyed writing that section. That was a lot of fun and a lot of fun to perform in front of a crowd full of women, for sure.

Amena Brown:

I loved talking about dating here. I loved getting to that section of, you know, we mend each other's broken hearts by saying and thinking about how when you have girlfriends, they know your dating history. They know your dating mistakes. And, you do have those funny stories to bring up. The men that I totally thought they were going to be it, that was going to be it for me, that was going to be the love of my life, and my friends were begging me, "Please, please stop dating this man. Please."

Amena Brown:

I loved talking about friendship and work in this poem as well. Big shoutout to my best friend Kimberly because there are two mentions in this poem that are actually about her. One of them is... She and I went through a season of time where we were both receptionists at different companies and so, of course, you'd have some days you were just slammed with calls. But on the days that calls were slow, we would call each other in the afternoons and talk on the phone, but of course, if anybody walked by, we had to pretend like we were on some sort of a professional call. "Okay, thank you so much. Goodbye." And, like, we would totally hang up on each other any time and, you know, that... That was part of the rules of engagement, you know? That we were answering phones for a living. If so and so manager or supervisor walked by, we'd just hang up and call each other back later, you know?

Amena Brown:

And, the line when I talked about switching cars to play tricks on the repo man. That was also my friend Kimberly. For those of you that listened to my 40 AF episode, I think I may have talked about this a little bit because I was addressing my thirties, too, what it was like going into my thirties as well. I think I may have talked about this there and also in an earlier episode. I think it was episode 18 when I was talking about that time I quit my job. This was around that time because I quit my job to become a full time writer and performer and went broke.

Amena Brown:

And so, my car was, at that time, what I'm mentioning in the poem, at threat of repossession. And, Kimberly had a very nice car at the time, so for her to switch cars with me and drive my little raggedy car to let me drive her really nice car just so I'd have peace of mind for a few days while I was trying to get my life together, which of course it's even more ironic to think now that I did all that and the car still got repossessed. But you can listen to that other episode. I'll tell you more about that.

Amena Brown:

And, my friend Kristen was what inspired me to write the line about how we meet together and sometimes it's when, you know, you find out your friend is not only pregnant but that her husband lost his job right at that same time. She's finding out she's pregnant and he no longer has a job at the same time. And, I remember Kristen and I were actually newer friends at that point. We had only had... We had met at an event where some mutual friends introduced us and it was totally like a friend match made in heaven, honestly. And then, we went from that to having coffee together. We had a great time talking and our second coffee was literally her saying, "So, I'm pregnant. Also, the place my husband was working when we met, he's not working there anymore. Also, looks like he's going to get a job in Texas, so we're moving." It was like all the bombs, which is what made me write that next line that sometimes we meet and we drop bombs on each other, which is true.

Amena Brown:

And, all of the sort of announcements, I guess, that you live through with your friend, whether that's new jobs, it's breakups. Sometimes, it's a divorce. It's all these different things that when we meet, because we do have limited time in our schedules to meet, we meet up and we get right to it and really have to just start digging in to what's really going on in life, you know?

Amena Brown:

And, I mentioned reality TV in this piece and if you've been listening to this podcast, you know that I love reality television. It's one of my favorite things, honey. But I wanted to mention it here because I'm... I'm a huge fan of shows that are set up, like Real Housewives, that are supposed to be around this group of women who are friends. Of course, with Real Housewives, who are also supposedly rich or very well off, so we're getting this window into their friendships but also into their, you know, lavish life. But there are things that those shows are saying in the stories they tell that, for me, have not been true of my friendships with women in real life.

Amena Brown:

And, I of course have come to understand in my own work in production as well as just becoming a fan of these shows that there's so much about how things are done on the show that are totally real. It totally is reality. But also are things that are set ups in a way that you wouldn't have if you were just living your regular real life. And, I have had disagreements with my friends. I've had to have hard conversations with them. I've had some friendships where we had to just do the breakup and all that. But I have never pulled on the hair of a friend and I have never thrown a martini glass. I haven't had any friendships where I've just like cussed a friend out, you know? I'm not a person who really cusses people out, so maybe that's why. But I wanted to say that there's a lot more to the wonderful things about being in friendships with other women than those types of scenes in reality TV can really show us, right?

Amena Brown:

And, I loved closing with this idea of the longevity of our friendships with other women. And, of course, I have thought about my own friendships. I've told you I, you know, have some friends that I've been friends with for almost 20 years or sometimes it is over 20 years at this point. And, I thought about my mom. My mom and her friendships with some of her close woman friends were really that model for me of what it can look like when you really have wonderful and depthful friendships with other women. And so, I'm looking at my mom, you know, and her years ahead of me. And, my grandmother has a couple of friends that I think she had from high school that I think she even still, you know, has stayed in touch with over the years. And so, it's beautiful to me to think that your friendship with another woman could last you until you go gray, could last you until you are in sort of that twilight of your life.

Amena Brown:

But what's really amazing about that is, you know, when we look at the women who may be older than us in our lives, you know, we may be seeing them only as mom, grandma, aunt, as elder of the community in whatever way they are. We didn't know them when they were young and flirty and going to all these parties and dancing and dating and whatever that is, you know? And, I love that idea of getting to this certain age of life where I am now living in whatever that body is at that time, but I am still the person that went to all the parties and danced too close to the speakers and that I did that with my girlfriends, you know? That those are memories and secrets that we share.

Amena Brown:

And so, I... I loved sort of getting to include a lot of Easter eggs in this piece because the women who are close to me would hear this poem and go, "Oh, oh, that's me. That's me talking to her in the green room." And, I love writing a poem that at a certain point is very personal, that there's a lot in here that is very specific and unique to me and my friends. But when I perform the piece, I love that other people hear the poem and it feels like them, too, and it feels like their story, which is really beautiful.

Amena Brown:

What is the real life story behind performing this poem for the first time? Okay. So, to be honest, I really don't remember. I don't... I don't remember the first time I performed this poem. I feel like... Because some of my poems, I kind of write in batches, and so, I feel like there are a couple of other poems that got finished around a similar time as this one. And so, I feel like because of that, I think I would probably guess that my first time reading this was at an open mic, that I tried it out there. But at the time that I was finishing this poem, I was still performing in a lot of Christian spaces, but very specifically women's event.

Amena Brown:

And, it's interesting to me to think... You know, I had a very long career doing a lot of Christian spaces, mostly white, but I also had some Black churches that I went to as well and it was interesting to me that even though I was like a grown adult, I didn't really start getting invited to women's events until I got married. And, I don't know if like the update of my bio, the new pictures... Like, I don't know what it was. But I started getting gangbusters of invites to do women's events. And, honestly, over time, you know, I just started getting less and less comfortable with certain types of Christian events that I was performing at just because my work felt like it was getting beyond the scope of what would be performed in those environments, right?

Amena Brown:

And, really, the last one for me was women's events because that was one space in sort of church and Christian industry... Large air quotes, right? That I could actually go there and be entertaining because it wasn't a Sunday service, which is pretty hard to do anything entertaining on a Sunday in most churches. And, it wasn't something where I had to do something that was exactly a sermon. And, a lot of times at a women's event or women's conference, you know, they were going to get plenty of preaching, you know? So, I didn't need to come in and do that. I got to come in and just do some poems and tell some stories, you know?

Amena Brown:

And so, doing this poem in those environments was a lot of fun. I think first of all, people don't always know what to expect from a poet in that setting and they're thinking, "Oh, I mean, she's a poet, but it's probably still going to feel like a sermon." And, when they end up laughing and you know, having that sense of nostalgia from their own joy and memories, then it's just a beautiful moment we got to share together on stage, you know? And, when I would do this poem, I would always give the women in the audience an assignment and I would tell them, "You know, think about a girlfriend that you really love, that it's been way too long since you've talked to her, and like, your assignment is before the weekend is over, text her and just say hey, girl. I was thinking about you or I heard this and it made me laugh and I just want to know how you were doing."

Amena Brown:

Because a lot of times in our friendships with other women, sometimes... I mean, I'll tell y'all what happens to me and you all can tell me if this is true for you. But sometimes what happens for me is, you know, I have these friends in my life. I love them. I'm close to them. But then, my schedule just gets really wild and all this time goes by and, you know, I haven't talked to them. We haven't caught up. And then, I'm kind of waiting for this perfect moment where I'm going to be some place alone and they're going to be some place alone and we can get on the phone and talk for an hour or two hours. And then, you know, that moment never comes because maybe I didn't have an hour or I know they didn't have two hours or whatever it was. And then, we look up and a year passed and it's been a year since we actually talked to each other.

Amena Brown:

Well, now I feel bad to just text and say, "Hey girl. Thinking about you." You know? I feel bad because we haven't talked and we haven't had a chance to connect to each other. And so, I tried to encourage the women when I would do this poem live and I would say to them, "Don't worry about how long it's been. If that's a woman you love, you know? You love her. She loves you. Y'all are good friends. Just text. Send an email. Drop a line." You know, sometimes we're waiting for this perfect setup that, according to our real lives, is never going to happen. Most of my conversations with my close friends to this day is through texting, email and different communication apps that we are able to use. You know, record messages to each other or record video to each other. That's how it is.

Amena Brown:

It's... It's more rare for me to have moments with a friend where we can actually, like, get together. I mean, especially being in a pandemic right now as of this recording, right? Even more rare now, where you would be getting together in person or having a night where you would just go out and do these things together, you know? Those are going to be fewer and farther between, but don't let your friendship ride only on those moments. There are ways to still stay connected while we all have the busyness of life. I mean, at this point, when I look across at a lot of my close girlfriends, some of us are caring for an ailing parent. Some of us have started a business. Some of us are in graduate school. Some of us are climbing the corporate ladder and some of us have a partner or we have a marriage that we're tending to that relationship. Some of us have children that we're taking care of and wanting to nurture them and make sure they've got everything they need. Some of us are selling a house, buying a house, renting a place, moving again.

Amena Brown:

You know, there are all these things that come up just in life that make it difficult to have the kind of free time that you may have had when you were in high school or in your early twenties. But it doesn't mean that we can't still cultivate those friendships. So, I give that same assignment to you, listeners. Think about a friend or if you have a good girlfriend. You know, think about a girlfriend that you haven't talked to in a while and today... You can even do it while you listen to this. Text them. Text them and say, "Hey. I was thinking about you today. Hey." Send them this GIF. "Remember when we saw the blah blah blah." And, "Remember when you was in love with that person and they were terrible? Remember?" Do those things. Cultivate those friendships. Stay connected so that you don't look up and realize you don't have the women, the people, close to you that could really walk through life with you.

Amena Brown:

How do I feel about this poem now? This is still one of my favorite poems to do. I really, really love most to do this poem when I am in front of a predominantly woman audience and I really had an idea from this poem that still hasn't been fully realized. I got to do one night of it. I had an event idea I wanted to do when I wanted to call it Girlfriends Night and I wanted it to be a night where women could come out to my show and they could bring their best friends and bring all their girlfriends, bring their friends from college, their friends from work. And, I would look out in the crowd and it's just a crowd full of women hanging out with their girlfriends that they've loved and met over the years, you know? And, we would just have a night of celebrating our various womanhood experiences and laughing about some of that and probably crying about a little bit of it, too, you know?

Amena Brown:

And so, this poem really inspired that event idea in me, and so, I hope to be able to eventually do like a Girlfriends Night tour one day, you know? Where I could just go across the country and get a chance to meet with all these women and their best friends and their good friends. So, this is still one of my favorite, favorite, favorite poems, and I love that it has a way, like Lorraine Hansberry used to talk about in her writing... I love this poem has a way of being specific and being general all at the same time. So, that's Girlfriends Poem.

Amena Brown:

Thank you all for going behind the poetry with me. I really appreciate it. And, don't forget to check out the show notes which will have links to any of the episodes that I mentioned here and any of the other little fun tidbits that may be links you can click on. You can definitely go to there and all the information will be there. I appreciate y'all. I hope you will get in touch with one of your good girlfriends soon. Thanks for listening.

Amena Brown:

HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of The Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 44

Amena Brown:

Hey y'all, in this archived episode of HER with Amena Brown, I am talking with Doctor Meredith Evans. A historian, archivist, 74th president of the Society of American Archivists, director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, and the first Black woman to helm a presidential library.

Amena Brown:

Doctor Meredith shares why it's important to preserve and document history and how she navigates being first, only, different. Let's take a listen. Today we have a very distinguished guest as a part of the podcast. Like, we had to have security bring us to her. Okay? I'm happy to welcome to the podcast, manager of cultural institutions, historian, archivist, librarian, 74th president of the Society of American Archivists, currently the director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, also first African American woman to direct the Presidential Library. I want you to welcome Doctor Meredith Evans to the podcast. Crowd goes wild, crowd goes wild. Doctor Meredith, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Awesome, happy to be here.

Amena Brown:

Let me tell y'all how I met Doctor Meredith Evans, I got to give a special shout out to Austin Channing Brown. Because Austin Channing Brown, hopefully y'all have listened to her episode on this here podcast, as well, hopefully you have read her book, I'm Still Here. Because it's just everything.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

That's a word.

Amena Brown:

It's a whole book and a whole word all together. Austin Channing Brown is also my friend. And I get a text from her a couple weeks before her Atlanta book tour stop. And she was like, "Hey girl, so you're going to introduce me and LeCrae at our event." So, I not only meet you, but you were on stage before me. And then by the time I met you, I was like, "No, no. No, no, no, I think I should've gone first and then Doctor Meredith should've introduced them." The order, hmm-mm(negative). Doctor Meredith graciously agreed to have coffee with me, we met up at a Starbucks. And she basically fixed my life. She fixed my whole entire life over some chai. So, I am just so honored to have you on the podcast. We're not going to share most of what we talked about at coffee because it was for the coffee. But there's one thing that I asked Doctor Meredith to elaborate upon that she'll share with us.

Amena Brown:

I ask every guest, Doctor Meredith, an origin story question. You are an archivist, a librarian, a historian. What of that was reflected in your upbringing? Do you look back at your own story or family of origin in your life and think, "This was all leading me to the path to where I am now."? Or do you look at your early life and think, "I ended up a totally different way than I thought I would have."

Doctor Meredith Evans:

No, actually I think I have lots of things that led me to this, without me realizing it was going to lead me to this. I always kept things, very personal things, magazines, autograph books, papers, report cards, pictures. I kept things. And it was always organized. I didn't realize that until I moved and had to really move out. And I saw, "What's in this box?" And it's literally all the things that I had filed, it was my life in a box. Always loved history, was infatuated with Oprah Winfrey for a minute because I just thought look how you can expand people's minds through discussion of things. But we want people to really know where they've come from and what the future looks like. And you can't do that without some history.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

So, I knew I wanted to do something along those lines, I just didn't know what it was. And then I went to school for history and I loved it. And I thought, "I'm just going to go get my PhD, I'm going to do this." Life happens and I ended up managing in restaurants.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

My father passed away when I was a senior in college and he was a marketing VP. And I was always around corporate parents, but I was historian. But then I got this job. And I was like, "Oh, this is cool." And then he passed away and I was like, "Huh, grad school? I don't know." Then it was like, "Is this a job or is this a career?" And I didn't know. And then I made it a career, it was my first career. And I loved it. I loved managing people, I loved working with people. I felt like it was beyond giving advice, it was beyond that. It was really helping people better themselves. And then you could always see a tangible outcome. But then in a while I got tired. I was falling asleep during holiday dinners and you never get a day off and you never going to get a life.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

So, they also was very clear, particularly in the south, that women were not going to be GMs in restaurants. And People of Color were nothing but cooks and bus boys. So, that was a double sword for me. So, I left. I have friends who are librarians, and they were like, "Go to library school." And I thought, "Yeah, I can manage a library and be home by 6:00. I've been managing people for eight years, I can do this in the library world and be closer to history." And then I discovered archives. I knew about them because I had worked in them, I didn't know what the profession looked like. I took classes and then I really realized that's what I'm going to do.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Because people are writing history on the documents in these repositories. But their voice is missing in these repositories. I mean, even early century things in different European nations, its legacy of that specific person who built that legacy. For me, the goal was how do I build collections so people can see and hear the voices that have been left out for centuries? And that was always my goal, while managing people, which was always fun. So, it was sort of a double joy for me to do. The irony of this current position is that I wrote President Carter when I was way little, and invited myself to the White House-

Amena Brown:

Come on, invited myself.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

... for my birthday. I even sent a little dollar talking about, "This will help." And he wrote me back and sent my dollar back. And I have a little book on the White House, I still have that dollar and pen, I still have the note. And my letter is here in this collection.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

With these really crazy drawings. And I thought, "Look at that, full circle." That all this time these little things that I did as a kid that you just think are kids, everything comes back around in some kind of way. So, my boldness and then my archiving and my history are all wrapped in one, in this one little letter.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

It's very cool.

Amena Brown:

That is really cool, to think little Doctor Meredith, little, little was forecasting, in a way, what was going to come to you in your future.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Yeah, who knew?

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Fascinating.

Amena Brown:

Yeah.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And it's good to have different support systems around you to help guide some thoughts. But when I look back now, I can see all the things that led me to doing the work that I do, with the concerns and the heart that I have for it.

Amena Brown:

I learned the importance of an archivist going to Spelman, Taronda Spencer.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Taronda Spencer.

Amena Brown:

Yeah, was our archivist, may she rest in peace. And I just remember being so curious every time she would spend time with us, come into class or sometimes she just might be hanging out sometime at homecoming or whatever. And she would always have this ... I mean, her brain was this place that felt like she would just reach her hand in there and pull out this really interesting nugget of our history as Black women, the history of these women at our school that had come before us. Whenever I see the word archivist, I think of her. Because as a writer, I love storytelling. And she told some of the best stories. But it was even better because they weren't fictional.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Right, they were true.

Amena Brown:

Yeah.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Yeah.

Amena Brown:

They were actual accounts of history. And I never got a chance to go into the archives, I should do that now. It just felt like she was some superhero who was-

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Holly Smith, she's just as wonderful.

Amena Brown:

Yes, yes, Holly, I got to come there, actually go inside. Because it felt like Taronda would come out and talk with us and we'd be like, "We don't know what she does when she goes back in there."

Doctor Meredith Evans:

There's something to be said for the HBCU community or women's colleges or just colleges that are specific to certain audiences. Because they play on that legacy that they have. So, you learn so much, but you always know the foundation which you're standing on. I've worked a lot of places, and the bigger the university or the more public the university, the less you hear about the history and the legacy of the people that have gone before. I'm a Clark Atlanta grad, so I do miss that part of college. I call it old school HBCU, where we still had dorm mothers and we had a curfew. And people are like, "Why would you want to go through that?" And I said, but it did teach us, it taught men how to treat us and it taught us what to expect. There was something to be said for those things. And then to know the women and men that come before me.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

I come from a Clark Atlanta family, my mother had gone, my aunt had gone. We meet the elders when we're at homecoming. And just seeing not just the growth of the institution, but seeing how difficult it was for them to come through and how they paved the way for us, I hate that we lose that. Even if you're not Greek or Greek, when they painted over the benches and things like that, that we do to take away the people who built the place, it's so hurtful. Because then the kids today think that they're doing everything on their own. That they're just in school to get a degree or this is where they had to go because that's where their parents went or this is what got paid for.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And not realizing the joy of being in a room full of women. Or a room full of African Americans. And being able to say in an academic setting, whatever you want to say. Whereas in predominate institutions, you're very cautious. Whether you realize it or not, you've very cautious of what you say and from what perspective you say it from. But in these more small liberal arts schools or an HBCU or a women's college, you have that comfort. And then the discomfort is you're dealing with people who look like you, act like you, talk like you, who are as smart as you. And that's a harsh realization for you.

Amena Brown:

Whoa, isn't it?

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Because you've been the only one. And then you get into this environment where you realize oh, there's more. Oh, I'm not ... Oh, okay, I'm not the only one this time. It's fascinating. It's crazy. You feel real uncomfortable at first and then you're embracing it. And you're like, "Wow." And then I look at all my sisters and brothers now from Clark and Morehouse and Morris Brown and Spelman.

Amena Brown:

Yes, Morris Brown, yes.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Who are lawyers and doctors and restaurant owners. And we remember that camaraderie and that strength that we gave each other. It's just a blessing.

Amena Brown:

That was totally my experience coming to Spelman. It was like I was a big fish in my little pond from home. So, I was used to being the only person that had been president of the such and such in high school.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Exactly.

Amena Brown:

And started the this and that in high school. And I remember that first year, being such a rude awakening.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Surprise!

Amena Brown:

Being like, "Oh, I would know about that because I was president-"

Doctor Meredith Evans:

I was too.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. And then hearing that person go, "Oh yeah, me too. And I also started this nonprofit when I was 16, and then I also started volunteering for the ..."

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Exactly.

Amena Brown:

And I was like, "Wait a second. Wait."

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Exactly. Yeah. It's interesting because I'm a federal employee now. And I remember, I tell this story how I got off the FBI list and I didn't even know I was on it. And the reason I was on it is because in high school I was really active in Amnesty International and the Apartheid Movement, I got to actually see Nelson Mandela. I had a really interesting time. So, when I got to college I guess I got quiet. And all of a sudden I got this weird letter, which I need to look for, I'm pretty sure I have it somewhere. That was like, "Just wanted to let you know that we are no longer looking at these lists and you are one of the people named." And I was like, "What?"

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And then I think about archiving. And I think about all the documents that we suppress or we don't want people to see. And truth is real. And I think over time, people need to be able to see how things came about. I miss print. I get the digital, it's easy. But I miss print. I miss the multiple memos where you had to write the change on the memo or somebody had to retype the memo.

Amena Brown:

Or the CC.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Or put it on the CC or the V1, V2. Or people had to sign off. So, if you didn't sign off, that means you didn't really read it. I miss that ability to track. It's a lot more difficult in the digital world. But I think about those days that shape how I think now. I think about my high school yearbook, I went to a Quaker School, one page is like Ephesians and the other page is Malcolm X. And I thought, "Huh, okay." I was down, I was down.

Amena Brown:

We love a combination.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

I was like, "All right." It brings new meaning to the things my sister used to say to me now. My sister's older, now I get why she was concerned. I think she thought I was just going to march forever, get my fro by any means necessary.

Amena Brown:

Can you talk about the importance of archiving and the importance of documenting our history? I remember in my upbringing in a Black church, in my Black college upbringing we talked a lot about our oral history. And what was important about that, that it was important for us to hear the stories told from our elders. And I love about your work and the work of other Black archivists, that a part of that is also the documentation of our history. Why are both of those things important for us?

Doctor Meredith Evans:

First, archiving is documenting in any format. It really is. It's really trying to put together a collection of materials that can explain or speak to a person's life, an organization, an institution, a family, over time. And that's what you want to see. You hate to see the gaps. I love oral tradition. And I hate that we as a People of Color have to conform to the written word, only because that's not our heritage. I'd love to maintain both. I advocate for the print because if we don't, we get left out. And until we are in places of power or places of position or the people writing the narratives that is accepted by the masses, then we will continue to be left out.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

So, what I like to do in an archive setting is build collections, which means collecting papers, collecting pictures, collecting oral traditions from different groups of people that have had an impact on that community, that society, whatever it may be, that organization. Even if it's sharing everyday life, I think that's the other piece that we miss. You can look at a Civil War ledger and you can see the buying and selling of materials, slaves, the land, who owned what land, what part of the land. It's all in writing these big ledgers. What do we have now? How do we know where our families came from, what land they owned, what apartment they had? How do we know that? For us, sometimes it's oral. Is that proof, quote unquote? The document's the proof. Who has the deed to grand mama's house? Who knows what those taxes are? And when Aunt Maybelline passes, who's going to take that on?

Doctor Meredith Evans:

When we lose touch with family, we lose the story of the oral tradition, but we also lose the print. I'm always challenged by that. My original research was churches, black churches. I love my black churches, particularly at the times where we were the epicenter of community. We were the social services, police, we were the builders of banks and insurance and schools for our people, whether we were segregated or integrated, we were building things to better our community. Very much like the Jewish community has the Halal, and they still have the Halal. And they're very clear that this is a place for our children and our families to grow and be one. I don't know why we don't continue that tradition in any culture. African Americans, we tend to just ... We like to assimilate and be part, we're all American. And I get that. But we have some really important cultural things that we need to maintain in our communities, that we don't.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

So, if we're not going to continue to tell the stories, whether we lose contact with family or not, or whatever the reason may be, then where are the documents? Where are the photographs? Where are the pieces? I want my son to be able to see his great-great-grandparents. And we only have a few pictures, and those are now copies. Who has those originals? I want to be able to say, "I know who my great-great-great-grandfather's name is." Not sure I can. Because the stories don't continue down and there's no writing. There's no family Bible or no family tree written. There's no letter. And that's where we stop learning about ourselves.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

In the medical profession they say, "Oh, what's your family history?" In terms of health-wise. But I would just ask you, "What's your family history?" And if you can't go past two generations, then do you really know who you are? The best thing about those shows, like the Henry Louis Gates shows and the genealogy shows out there is watching him take people all the way back. Because people think they know, and they don't know. And of course our community's always like, "We're part Native American," "We're part this." And then he finds out and people find out that they're not.

Amena Brown:

That's what happened to my family, honey. They told us my grandfather's mother was Cherokee as the day is long. And I said, "Honey, I looked it up. That's just the biracial, that's not Native American. We love it, but that's not-"

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Your hair's straight because some Irish master went through and ... It's okay. Let's embrace that, we can forgive, we can heal, but recognize it for what it is. We may not have that in paper, but we can have that in oral tradition. And then we can look and see. There is some census things you can look for, for our heritage. I mean, I think the DNA testing's great. That's really great. There's a lot of them out there now. But do you take the time to go back to the census and the slave ledgers to try to trace your heritage? Every time I pass through a town that says Whitaker, which is my mother's maiden name, I'm thinking, "Huh, we got some cousins out here somewhere?" I'm sure that's a slave name, I get that. But there was probably 100 of us. So, it'd be interesting to see. For me, archiving is about having that combination of both.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

It's interesting, Lonnie Bunch, who's the director of the Museum on the Mall for African Americans. And we had this whole conversation on a panel discussion. Because people were like, "Well, you never know, people's memories are bad and the memory changes the history and they don't always know." There's some truth to that memory, whether it's exaggerated or not, we'll never know that. But if it's been passed down multiple times through multiple generations, there's some truth to that. And we should never say, "Well, the paper says this, so your story's false."

Amena Brown:

Because there could be many reasons why the paper would say a different thing from the story.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Right. And did we write the paper? Probably not. There's truth to those stories. I would never negate that. We like to use print as evidence. But in our community and as People of Color, that's not the only thing we can use.

Amena Brown:

Can you talk a little bit about your research in archiving in Black church settings? I'm personally curious about it because my great-grandfather was a bishop at Pentecostal Holiness Church in North Carolina. So, we were able to go back to the original church building and see, my great-grandfather and my grandfather and his brothers, they had a business where they built church furniture. So, we were able to go back to this original church building where he pastored. And of course all those intricate pulpits and in remembrance of me tables. I mean, it's heavy stuff. So, when churches would move from that building, they would leave the furniture.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Leave the stuff, right.

Amena Brown:

Because they were like, "What can we do with this?" But to be able to go back into that building and see that original furniture that my ancestors had built was so wonderful. And I was trying to call and find out, I've seen pictures of the choir in the choir stand. But all those things are scattered. And now the original church that was in that building is in a new place. So, I'm just curious to know, in your research, how are many Black churches archiving?

Doctor Meredith Evans:

They're not. Because nobody knows how to do it and what to do. I did a case study on three, four churches in Atlanta for my dissertation. I found deeds to the church in people's trunks of their car, or they'd have a third bedroom in their house with stuff. Or the church would have things in trash bags, not knowing what to do with it. Every new pastor, you clean out, not knowing what things are. Then there's places that create small little museums or they keep some records. I think people don't know what to do, which is always scary because then you lose stuff. And you don't have to keep it all. When I go through a collection, 90% of it, I don't keep. Average, give or take. But I am trained to know what to keep. And in a church setting, particularly older churches, you have to keep some stuff. You have to keep some minutes. You don't have to keep every program, you can keep the sick and shut in list, that's always useful. But you don't have to keep the whole program because everybody wrote the same thing on the program. That's not useful.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

What's useful is the sick and shut in because you can see people's growth or healing or not healing. Or the christenings, so you can see when people were christened. I mean, 56 years ago, people might not know their birthday. But they knew when they were baptized and that's what they would use for their birthday. So, there's some things that you have to keep. There's these letters that people want. When people went to war, they would send their dues back to the church.

Amena Brown:

Interesting.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And that's huge to see Billy at 18 in Vietnam or World War Two, committed to the church. "Say hi to mama." Or, "Use this to take care and buy new books or buy a Bible." That's where people's heart were and that's important to keep. But you wouldn't know that if you don't look at what you had. And I think there's photographs. You can see photographs of the old community, the land, that's really important in places like Atlanta, where we change street names like we pour a cup of water. We change street names, we rebuild on stuff, we change names, Old Fourth Ward. It's Historic Fourth Ward, there was a neighborhood there before y'all came back in there. It's not old, it's historic. But if you had pictures from the church picnics or when they went witnessing or when the choir sang outside, you can see what that street corner looked like before it became whatever the new name is now. Or you could see where the first church started underneath the condos where it is now.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

I love the churches that still have small cemeteries. Even if people are built on top of people, it doesn't matter. Those stones tell you who they are. And then you can get a better sense of who's here and why and the babies. I mean, it's just those are tangible things churches need to maintain that financially they can't. Or they get a church historian who's not clear what to do. Or a new person comes in and wants to throw things away. You have to keep some things. And if the church doesn't feel comfortable, then you can give it to someplace that will. And that could be a public library, it could be another special collections or historical society. People will take some things because they want to know who the community was, before it is what it is now.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

But it's interesting, churches, because there's generations of people there. And people have memory. But if you don't have that younger generation in the church, they don't care. They don't know what you're talking about. And if you're a Christmas, Mother's Day, Easter person, you don't care about the history. But when it comes down to the funerals or you get back into church and you want to go there. And then you find out that three generations of your family have been at that church. Or they split and went to this one. Having some records or pictures or something is so useful. You'll even catch good gems. What's the big thing? What does every politician do? To this day, every politician when they want the black vote, what do they do?

Amena Brown:

They go right to the church.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Roll up to the church.

Amena Brown:

Go right to the church.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

State representative so-and-so, I'm a candidate for such-and-such.

Amena Brown:

Wants to bring greetings.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Bring greetings, right. You ain't never stepped foot in here, you don't even like to go to the store over here. But you going to come up in this church and be known, clap your hand a little, a little sway. I mean, I've never seen anything like it. I think, "Huh." This church in Durham, North Carolina, White Rock Baptist Church, they had taken minutes on the back of insurance forms, but it's one of the only black insurance companies. That's history in itself, just the paper itself was history. They had a flier that King was coming. I never found pictures, but they had this whole flyer about Martin Luther King Junior coming to their church. And I thought, "See, this is the kind of thing."

Amena Brown:

I had a little fascination with Alex Haley as a child because I actually read through Roots, I watched the original-

Doctor Meredith Evans:

The original, right.

Amena Brown:

... series when it came out. I watched the ... I don't know what you would call this new one. I'm like, "Is it updated? Is it an additional series that came out?"

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Additional, that's a good way to put it, additional.

Amena Brown:

Additional series that came out, I watched that. And one of the things that I've learned too, my parents and grandparents grew up in a very small town in North Carolina, so there were certain things that digitally I got to where I got certain information. And then after that it's like well now you got to go inside this office in here to find this information. But to your point, I went back to their hometown, I had one day. It was a Saturday, so I couldn't even get into the courthouse or anything like that. So, I just had my great-grandfather's name. And we went through the microfiche of the black newspaper that they'd had at that time. And I found this article about him. And it listed his siblings' names. And that's when I realized his mother had remarried. So, his name was listed with his step-father's last name, which is why we'd lost him.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Wow, see?

Amena Brown:

So, then it was like that little this opened up all this other stuff. Just knowing that. And my grandmother, to your point about the elders and what they remember, my grandmother sometimes would remember these, "Oh, I remember so-and-so used to have a store on such-and-such street." And at first you're like, "Is it important that she remembers that?" But then you're like, "Well, she's giving me some place and location right there."

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Right, exactly.

Amena Brown:

That little thing might lead me to another thing and finding more about our family.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

It blows my mind when they build buildings on something and they're like, "Oh, we just realized that this was an Indian burial ground." Or, "We didn't know that this was this." And I thought, "Did anybody look at anything before you just saw the vacant lot and cleared it?" In Saint Louis, they built the highway right between a Black cemetery.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And no one's the wiser. Until people started taking pictures and showing that actually grand-mama Mabel's buried on this left side of this highway and her husband's on the other side because you put the highway right in the middle.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

It's things like that that I think, I can't say it enough, Historic Fourth Ward. It bothers me that we want to erase foundations of things that were there, whether you liked it or not is not the point. Thank you for bringing some more vibrancy to a neighborhood, I guess. But honor it, don't forget about it.

Amena Brown:

And forget its origins and forget the layers of its history.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Yeah, don't do that.

Amena Brown:

Yeah.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Because it's just, it's not fair. It's not fair to the people who want to come back and see it, and then see a sky scraper.

Amena Brown:

A word today. You've had a chance in your career to participate in curating and archiving some amazing collections of work. Do you have two or three highlights in your career that you would say you look back on those moments and feel really proud to have been a part of archiving some of that history?

Doctor Meredith Evans:

I've got one from every institution.

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

I don't work because I have to, I work because I like to. At the Woodruff Library in the Atlanta University Center, I was there when they brought in the King Papers.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And it was my job to work with the books, fascinating. There's two favorite things out of that collection for me. It's one of the books Doctor King had written the grocery list in the back of the book. I guess he thought it was a grocery list on paper he could take with him, but it was literally in the back of the book. It was like oranges, don't forget the milk. I was just like oh see, normal human. My other favorite thing from that collection is there are these postcards from Malcolm X when he was on the Hodge to King. And he sends enough and he changes his name each time until the end. And it's just the favorite thing in the collection for me, is to watch his transformation religiously and just as a man and as a person. And I always argue, because they saw more eye to eye than people think. And because people look at the media, they just assume that this is real. But they were very much in tune.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And it's interesting because I had a conversation with my son who's nine, he read a Malcolm X book. He said, "Malcolm X was troubled, had a troublesome childhood and he was violent." And I was like, "Well honey, if you saw your father get killed in the way in which he saw, you might want to bear some arms too, which is legal." I said, "You have the right to defend. Because he doesn't want that to happen to his family or somebody else close to him." And he said, "Oh." So, helping him see and then showing him the strength and the faith that he had. He was like, "He's a lot like King." I said, "Yeah." I said, "They both had the same agendas in many ways." And King's more militant than people want to lead on.

Amena Brown:

That part, with your misplaced quotes on Doctor King day.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And then I went to George Washington University in DC, where we got the National Education Association Collection. But my favorite is Robert Gibson, who was a Black ex-patriot in the literary world. And he was big on Cuba and communism and Amiri Baraka, he just fabulous writer, and living to this day. That was just a joy to get that collection. It was just something so different. I started an LGBTQ collection there in a very different way. Normally archivists, we clean out basements and attics and we convince you your things are worthy. In this instance, I had a friend who worked in student affairs who was part of the community, who sought out materials for me and brought them to me and was like, "Look, we should keep this, right?"

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And that's how the collection started. And it's fabulous. It turns out that Charlotte had a very old LGBTQ community, that they had women's clinics that actually served as safe spaces. They almost had a very similar to an African American Green Book, they had that in Charlotte for where you could stay safely. The quilt, AIDs quilts. I mean, it's just really fascinating. Drag, some of the best drag in Charlotte.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

I mean, it was just really a fun collection and it was great to see the community heal because it turns out that there was still two prides, Black and white, and also just a place for people within their own community to get together and say, "Look at our stuff." Because everybody's hesitant to give their things to a predominate institution or something that seems white male dominated. But I think it was the point that here your history's going to be saved and safe. And here, you can commune if you need to, I think was really important and was an important shift for Charlotte and the university to be welcoming to all. Because you can't stay a strong academic institution if you're not going to be welcoming to all.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And then it was Saint Louis, and I worked at Wash U. And I actually interviewed right after Ferguson, and still took the job, the killing of Michael Brown was rough. I knew about it, we talked about it during my interview. But I took it. And I, strangely enough, Saint Louis is one of my favorite cities to have lived in. It's super quaint, you don't go into the county. Sorry, people from Saint Louis. But it's really great. It's a great town. But documenting Ferguson was really important to me. It was a group of us, librarians and archivists, and some faculty members. And our intention was to really stay objective, it really, really was. The killing of Michael Brown was less than 10 miles away from the university, we had staff and employees that had lived there. It was just a really trying time, the verdict was announced two blocks from my other office. I mean, it was really difficult.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

But our deal was, how do we archive things in real time? How do we maximize this digital technology and this cell phone technology? How do we make those things work in a way that we can control the narrative of the people? Because when Michael Brown was killed, what started as a local issue, became a global issue. And people came from around the world really, to this little bitty neighborhood, trying to help, or not. And then when the media got wind, it was media-centric. So, what about the people who live and work there? Where's their story? Because what you see on CNN is not their story. That's some news person coming in because they saw this Tweet.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

I also think people don't understand the importance of Twitter. Twitter, in that instance, was the organizing. So, here I, 10 years earlier I'd looked at LCLC organizing papers. Keep your head down, if the water comes, turn to the right. They had all these non-violent steps. But it was all typed out, and this is what they handed you and they trained you on it. Here, we had Twitter. And in Twitter, people were sharing, "This is what you do if you get tear gassed." People from other countries were sharing with the activists on the ground in Saint Louis what to do if you get tear gassed. It was organizing points. It was, "Here's a link to a Go Fund Me because we need money because we're going to buy lunch meat and sandwiches and make lunch for these babies who can't go to school." That was how they communicated. It wasn't just hashtag Ferguson. It was hashtag Ferguson because it's working and helping and getting people organized to do some things.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

So, trying to capture all of that digitally was really important. We did reach out to Darren Wilson's contingencies and supporters and didn't get very far. We did ask archives to manage those websites, like kind of gather as much websites as possible. So, I think the Facebook page is back and the way finder and things like that. So, you can see all sides. People uploaded court documents and verdicts. People uploaded zines, there's a whole Black woman zine in that system that talks about Black women that were killed by the police. People uploaded music that they created. People took pictures of the murals and they would take pictures of the same wall over and over again because people would paint over it and paint something else. So, there's a record of that.

Amena Brown:

Interesting.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

It's not always easy to search, but it was really important it's captured. And it's not captured by the media, it's actually realtime. We asked people, "If you're out there and you want to upload it in a safe space, here you go." And they did. So, I think that's a proud moment. I try to bring the marginalized communities or the hidden voices to life at repositories that don't normally do that. They collect whoever gives them the stuff, and it's usually somebody with money or somebody who's part of the organization or the institution. And I get it, if you're not of that community, it may be hard to get that material. But at least we're at a point in our profession where people are going to try. 20, 30 years ago, nobody was even trying. I think back to that Hidden Figures movie, and as an archivist, all I can think about is nobody described anything well enough to know that this woman was Black and that she had accomplished all these things. From an archivist perspective, I mean, my mind is blown. Did they think she was passing? Because she clearly went to the colored restroom.

Amena Brown:

Walked so far.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

How did we miss this? How did the school that allowed the other women to go to school miss this? As an archivist, those are the things I'm fascinated by and I'm always like, if I could dig up those things. And then here, one of my ... This is a permanent collection and it's federal and it's records of the government. But it's White House records from Carter's Administration. And Carter did appoint the most People of Color and women in positions of any president. So, it's fascinating to see attorney generals and appellate court people and district court people, women, or People of Color, that he appointed or put in these positions. Eric Holder was a lawyer way, way, way back in the day, in the Carter Administration.

Amena Brown:

Wow. Wow.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Ruth Ginsburg became appellate court in DC and district court under the Carter Administration.

Amena Brown:

Interesting.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

You look at these things and you're like, "Huh." And here is a man who didn't know King Junior, he knew Daddy King. Because this is the south.

Amena Brown:

Interesting, right.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Right? His life is fascinating and the materials here are fascinating. It has a lot of federal speak to it, but then it's also the generation that wrote notes. So, when you can catch that document where he wrote notes or Misses Carter wrote notes or somebody in the administration wrote notes, that's a gem. That's like, "Oh, this is what I was thinking. I took notes on this piece of paper," and it's still in here. And you can see how decisions were made and discussions were done. That's just the joy.

Amena Brown:

Wow. I am just overwhelmed at how amazing the work is that you've been able to do. And even hearing the collection from Ferguson and thinking about when we say the word history, we're thinking a lot of the time that those are times so far gone, which that history is important. But we are living in a moment that is also history. And the ability to capture that, wow.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

I mean, there's a reason why people came up with SnapChat. Because they don't want to be remembered or they want their privacy. So, there's a thin line.

Amena Brown:

Sure.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

But I think about what is our life going to be like 10 years from now? I'm beating myself up every day because I have two more Shutterfly books to make, I try to make photo books for my son, I only have baby to three. I have to do three to six, and six to nine, that's my commitment. Because they're all on my hard drive or my phone or my whatever. And I want my son to have pictures of himself. I have two big photo albums of my life. It stops at about college, and then there's a wedding book. But I want him to have that. Because what is he going to show his kids? I have friends that have nothing. They don't have their military uniforms anymore, they don't have any photographs, they don't have anything. And they think that's okay, and I'm thinking that's not okay. You're not passing anything down. I have love letters from this dude in college, and I'm keeping them.

Amena Brown:

I know that's right.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

I even found a picture and I was like, "Oh, I did good."

Amena Brown:

You got to keep record of that, that's right.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

You know what I'm saying? I'm just, you know? I had a life. I think it's important to remember that just the few events that you know about me, is not my life. I have a life. I have hair changes and clothes changes and music changes and relationship changes. And that is important to show my son and whoever he's with in the end, or my grandkids, so that they can see. My mother's like, "Oh, you're going to burn my journals." My mother was director of human resources for a major corporation, I'm not burning nothing. I'm about to flip through those suckers and be like, "That happened to me! This is how she handled that. Awesome." My dad died at 50. I never got to hear what it's like. He went from New York City from a community college to Western Michigan. Where if you look through that yearbook in 1963, it was like him and my godfather. I would love to sit and talk to my dad and say, "What was that like, to be in that cold state of Michigan as a city boy, born and raised in New York City? What was that like?"

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And I don't have that. I have no letter correspondence from him to his parents or no journal from him. So, I really don't know. And that's one of my little goals is to kind of go up there and see what you have on my dad and then find some people who might've known him and say, "What was my dad like then?" And it's interesting because it's historic. He was in the petroleum program. So, my dad did a degree in community college and joined this petroleum thing, and he stuck with it. And he became Shell Oil employee. And he stayed a Shell Oil employee from this petroleum program, that's who sponsored him. He could've gone to Exxon or Mobil, and he stayed at Shell. And he did that all the way up and decided to go corporate. He could've owned gas stations, he chose not. He chose the office. And he ended up doing marketing.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

My dad did the Auto Club books. So, as I look at the Shell Oil truck I just gave my son the other night, I'm sitting here going this truck is history. Your grandfather created this to kind of get the brand up, but also for you to play with. You know what I mean? But I have nothing written, these are the stories and what I remember him telling me. But I don't have it in writing. But does that mean it's not true? No.

Amena Brown:

You are the first African American woman to helm a presidential library, which is a huge deal.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And the youngest, I think. No, just kidding.

Amena Brown:

Come on, get all the accolades, we need all the accolades come together right now. Shonda Rhimes talks about, in her book Year of Yes, talks about being first or being only or being different, which I'm sure you have experienced varying degrees of this in the different positions that you've helmed. What do you have to say about, as marginalized people, what are some good, healthy ways to navigate being the first, being the only, being the different?

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Have a support system and have a belief in something. It's tiring. And it's okay to be fatigued, but it's tiring to walk in the room and be the only one. Particularly in the 21st century. It's exhausting. I think the first few meetings I went to, I believe in colors, so I had my maroon jacket on and some bright colored shirt. And I walk into this room, a sea of navy suits. And I thought, "Oh, I really stand out now." Be comfortable in your skin, but have that support system because you will get fatigued. And you won't, sometimes you don't even realize it. I also think it's a teachable moment. It's true what they say, the older you get, the less you're willing to deal with some things. It's not that you're not tolerant, I have good days and bad days. I don't mind talking about my hair. Honestly, I don't. But then there's days I kind of feel like you should just Google it.

Amena Brown:

This information is available to you, it's available.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

It is, yeah. I think my biggest issue is that I still see things in multiple ways. I see things as a woman, I see things as a Person of Color, as a Person of Color who's a woman, as an academic, as a mom. And the reason I think like that is because people always try to put me in a box that I don't fit in. I don't fit in your box. Particularly in the south. Yes, I was married when I had my son. Yes, I'm actually an executive. Why am I justifying my existence? Just embrace who I am and enjoy that. My other big issue right now is being talked over.

Amena Brown:

I almost just got mad just hearing you say that, I almost just got mad.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

I love me some men, but I'm here, I'm in the room, and I'm intelligent and I run this place. Please stop looking past me, talking to John, because that's who you're most comfortable with, and then try to act like that's respectful to me. It's not. So, I try not to tolerate that. I have very convenient special ways of escorting people out or changing topics or allowing people to be a little more comfortable and forthright. But the talking over is just as bad as the mansplaining.

Amena Brown:

Oh dear.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

You're in my space. Respect me for just that. And if you can't, then don't come. It's okay. We can do stuff in writing until you get over it. I don't see why we should be subjected to that. Or why you think I'm not going to intervene and say something.

Amena Brown:

That part.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

I think they always think I'm not going to speak. I'm the director of the Carter Presidential Library and Museum and you're in my house.

Amena Brown:

A word.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And you brought me no gift. So, you should just then sit and let's have a dialogue about whatever we're supposed to have a dialogue on, and then you can leave. And if you don't want that conversation, just send me a note, email, and we'll dialogue that. Because I'm very comfortable in my skin. I'm sorry you are not comfortable in yours.

Amena Brown:

A word today, there's an offering if you also want to give the offering for that word.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

It's one of those things. It is one of those things. I've learned how to be quiet, I've learned when to speak, I've learned when to share some things in a different way. But I refuse to not stay true to myself. And I'm an extrovert in a very introverted profession. And I'm in a high level. And I don't feel the need to suppress who I am for your comfort all the time. I can be loud, I can be boisterous, I can be fun. But I do know what I'm doing. And I'm happy to hear ideas, I'm happy to give you resources to do your ideas. But be respectful.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. I'm going to take that home. Y'all might have to rewind that and replay that because that was good. When we went to coffee, this the one coffee tip y'all going to get here, because the rest of it is just only for coffee when me and Doctor Meredith sitting there, it don't make the podcast, okay? So, just the one little tip y'all get. When we were at coffee, you said something really profound to me. You talked about the different institutions that you've had an opportunity to partner with, work with, all these different junctures of your career. And you talked about how you don't make a career move if it's not a move up. You said you don't make lateral career moves. And when you said that, I got in my car and just reflected upon my own career.

Amena Brown:

I have had moments where I was thinking about a lateral move, I was thinking about surviving, I wasn't thinking about the trajectory of where I could go, where I wanted to go. Can you talk more about that and about that thought process?

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Yeah. I mean, if it's lateral, that means it's a job to you, it's a check. It pays the bills. If it's a career and you aspire to be more, do more in that area that you're working in, then it can't be a lateral move. And if it is a lateral move, once you get there, make it so it's not. And I think that's the key. And I will say this, as I find for women, we tend to sabotage ourselves and convince ourselves that we're not worthy or capable of. And that's not true. And I think we feel like we should manage like men, and that's not true. We have a different take on things. I won't go as far as saying we're nurturing, that's not what it is. But we do see things in a more complex way. We do multitask differently, we just respond to things different. But trying to act like John does not help.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

However, I will say, I've looked at a lot of resumes. So, my rule is if you've read it, you've touched it, you've done it. And that's really hard for women. "I don't know if I can explain that." Or, "I don't know if I've really done that." I look at more resumes where you talk to the person and they were a member of the team, but they wrote team lead. Or they said they led. And really, you took notes. Let's not play this game. So, each move I make, I look for certain things in jobs too. I want to be in the right environment. I like to live 15 minutes from a grocery store. I like to be on public transportation when I want to. I like to be near a movie theater, certain things that I like near me. So, I look for places like this.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

But when I get the job, I look for communities of people too. Are you passionate about your work? Can I help you become passionate about your work? Are you just here because they put you in this department, your whole family works at the school, so this is what you're going to do? I look at that. If it's more passionate people than, "I'm just going to come to work," I'm more likely to take the more passionate one. Pay is not everything. So, I look for places where I make the money that will keep my lifestyle. But really, it's more about can I come into work every day and enjoy it?

Amena Brown:

Because if you getting paid this amount and you hate what you do-

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Doesn't matter.

Amena Brown:

Yeah.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

What's your work environment got to look like? I've made sacrifices along the way, but as I move up, I'm thinking yeah, I don't think I want to be in a cubicle anymore. And if I do, can I pick my cube mate? Those are the things you have to think about. If I take a pay cut, do I have positions I can hire? Or am I going to be able to live in an area that I want to live in? Or will there be a bonus structure or a way for me to do some consulting on the side? I look at ways to do things to support the things that I want. But I also sacrifice. So, when you make these moves, it could be a title change. So, it could be a lateral move on paper by the time you finish negotiating, your title's different. Or your pay is different. Or your office is different. Something has changed. And then it's not lateral.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

And then you got to make sure that people are really receptive. Part of being interviewed is you interviewing them. You'll know if the people you have to work with or your boss or whoever is not the right fit. And that's not going to change. So, you have to be willing to walk away. And if you're not willing to walk away, then you set yourself up to be unhappy.

Amena Brown:

Yeah.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Particularly when you go places where you don't have support. DC was great, Charlotte was hard. I didn't really have people close. But I built community there and I loved it. Saint Louis wasn't close, it was a plane ride away. But I found community in Saint Louis and really great work. It was a really great town, it's got really cool neighborhoods, it was like old New York. You know, New York has Disney and Target now.

Amena Brown:

It's true, it's true.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Saint Louis, there was some people making pasta, there were some pasta shops. Which is, when you go up in New York, they had that. We don't have that now. You go to Olive Garden, whatever. But Saint Louis still had that. I mean, it was just great. Yeah, I think you have to really think about what you're trying to do and where you want to go. And it's okay if you want to stay lateral. But then either weather the storms where you are or reinvent yourself.

Amena Brown:

I feel like you're getting in my business now, Doctor Meredith, you're in my business now.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Well, because the older we get, the harder it is to reinvent. I mean, I can't retire anytime soon, I have a nine-year-old. But I can enjoy my work. Because if I'm not enjoying it, it affects him, it affects those around me, it affects my staff. So, I want to be happy or it's just a job. And if it's just a job, it's just a check. And that can go away. If you want to do just enough, then do just enough. But let people know that. And then if a new leader comes in and says, "We're going here." If you don't jump on that train, I don't know what's going to happen. If you don't get on the train, you'll be miserable, that person will me miserable, or they'll make other people miserable. And then the whole organization's miserable and we're all slowed down. It doesn't have to come to that.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Honesty goes far. My best employees are the ones that are like, "Doctor E, all I want to do is this. I'm not doing anything else, I don't care what you say." And I'm like, "You know what, thank you for your honesty."

Amena Brown:

Now I know.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

Thank you. But I do need you to smile in a meeting. That's all I need you to do. You just kick butt in this area, I will try to leave ... There might be one or two times I will ask you to do something because I really need it done. Because this is where we're moving and I need you to be able to agree to that. Because you don't want them to sour the pot. Because once they do that, it makes it hard for everybody.

Amena Brown:

Yep, that's so true.

Doctor Meredith Evans:

It is.

Amena Brown:

Ah, big thanks to Doctor Meredith Evans for schooling us on so many things. You can check out Doctor Meredith's work with the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum at CarterCenter.org. This week's edition of Give Her a Crown, I want to shout out Doctor Jessica B. Harris. Doctor Harris is an expert on the food and food ways of the African Diaspora and has written 12 books cataloging this history. Her most recent book is a memoir called My Soul Looks Back. If you watched High on the Hog on Netflix, and if you haven't, you should because it's amazing. High on the Hog was based on Doctor Harris's book of the same name. In this episode, Doctor Meredith Evans reminded us that it's important to keep archives of history for ourselves and for future generations to come. So, thank you, Doctor Jessica B. Harris, for keeping an archive of Black history, innovation, and creativity. Doctor Jessica B. Harris, give her a crown.

Amena Brown:

Her with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions. As a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeart Radio. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 43

Amena:

Really excited about this episode, because y'all today we are bringing Jennifer Hudson into our HER living room. Okay, but before we get to that, let me tell y'all the things I needed to do to prepare for this situation. So whenever I'm going to interview someone on this podcast, I am very serious about the preparation parts of that. That is just my old school journalism training from when I thought I was going to have a career as a music journalist and just wanting to always walk into an interview and be prepared with the questions that you want to ask the person.

Amena:

So all that part is always a part of the process, whoever my guest is. But in this situation, knowing that I was going to in some way sit in a room where Jennifer Hudson was definitely involved some preparation. So first of all, I want to let y'all know that the trouble with having been inside as much as I remained inside during the pandemic is in some ways not knowing how to dress and also not being used to getting dressed in something that is presentable to be around other people.

Amena:

So I'm going to tell you what I have had to be doing around here to be prepared for these moments. Life is wild. This time of the pandemic has obviously brought us a lot of terrible things, but it's totally changed a lot of life, definitely for all of us and in certain ways for me. So of course, as many of you know, in the before times, I spent all my time traveling or performing on stage or producing video content or something. There was just a lot of have to be on all the time, and there was a lot of consistently having to buy clothing in order to have the proper look for these situations that I would be in, whether that was a performance or a meeting or whatever.

Amena:

Well, as the pandemic wore on, and I really had less of a daily need for those clothes, I was packing up clothes seasonally as I would normally do. When it gets cold and you pack up your summer clothes, and then when it's about to be summer here in Atlanta, sort of packing up all that, which sometimes summer in Atlanta feels like it's March. But you know, packing up all those clothes.

Amena:

So now y'all, I want y'all to know that basically my closet and drawers are just full of casual jumpsuits, sweatsuits, and house pants and that's what I'm doing every day. So then I have boxes where I pack away the seasonal clothes, so right now the winter clothes are all packed up. And then I actually have a box y'all that's labeled dress up clothes. So at the point that I'm like, okay, this interview with Jennifer Hudson has been confirmed, here is the time it's going to be, I still didn't know if there were going to be pictures, if there was going to be video, I just don't know. And I have learned in this life to always be prepared as if there is going to be video and as if there will be pictures, because the moment you don't there is always going to be a video and there will always be pictures.

Amena:

And you know how I learned this the hard way is because in the before times when I was going to an event, I would just dress raggedy on my way to the airport, in my flight. Because I would be like, no one cares, this is what I'm doing. I'll get all zhuzhed up when I get to the hotel. And it would always happen that I would be right there at the baggage claim, and somebody from the event would be like, "Hey, are you Amena Brown? I saw that you're going to be at blah, blah, blah conference. Really excited to hear from you. Hey, do you want to take a picture?" I'm going to tell you right now that after that moment, I was like, you can wear sweat pants or whatever you're going to wear, but coordinate that and probably have on either great skincare or light makeup, just be prepared. Whatever you like to look like in a picture, be prepared for that in case people are going to take a picture of you. And, we don't want to be in a room with Jennifer Hudson looking crazy.

Amena:

So basically the night before this interview, I have to open up the box of dress up clothes and pick out things that I think are going to be... The combination of things is very wild that I'm about to say. I need to pick out something that is going to be cool, because I don't want to be sweating to death. And I'm a person who just recording podcasts, talking to y'all I sweat, so not to mention that and being in a room with Jennifer Hudson. So I need to be in something that I'm not going to be sweating to death in it.

Amena:

I also need to be in something that looks good standing up and sitting down. Okay? Okay? Because sometimes you pick an outfit and when you look at yourself in the mirror, it looks so great. This has happened to me having done panel discussions in the past. And then I sat down and was like, whoa, what happened to my amazing outfit? So I had like four contenders of an outfit and it was a blazer and some shorts and another blazer and some pants, and I had two jumpsuits. So I went back to this yellow jumpsuit that I'm hoping you will get a chance to see on my social media, because I did get a chance to take a picture with Jennifer Hudson. See? Got to be prepared for that.

Amena:

Okay. So I spend all this time getting all the outfits ready and y'all, choose my outfit, get all the wrinkles out of it. Did I break out an iron? Of course not, no. I put that jumpsuit in the dryer for 10 minutes. Boom. Hung it up and it was great. Fine. So outfit was together. I was so tired that I was like whatever my hair is doing tomorrow, that's what we're doing. So I just... I'm at that stage of the twist out where it's mostly like an Afro with some very nice curls on the end. And I was like, that's what we're doing tomorrow because I'm tired and I'm not staying up tonight to do any twisting or flat twisting. I'm going to put a scarf on and go to bed and this is going to be beautiful tomorrow, because this curly hair I have, this Afro is beautiful. Boom. Okay.

Amena:

Let me tell you what I realized right as I was about to go to bed. I realized that these toenails, the toenails themselves aren't raggedy, but the nail polish that was on the toenails was raggedy. And I really needed to do something about that because you know it being summer, you want your feet to look nice in a sandal situation. And I was going to need to wear a sandal with this jumpsuit I picked. So I had to do a fast pedicure manicure right when it was time to go to bed.

Amena:

And I want to give a special shout out to the brands that have gel nail polish. I want to give a shout out to that. It's not the same gel nail polish that you might use or have put on you when you go to get your nails professionally done, but it's like the one we can do at home without the UV light. I want to give a special shout out to that because that nail polish dries so fast that I was able to get my little stuff together, put a light coat on my toenails and my fingernails, go to sleep. Okay.

Amena:

Now, of course on a day that I have a really important interview that I don't want to mess it up, okay, and y'all have probably heard that there have been some times here where an interview got messed up or recording got messed up, even if it was just me recording. But if it's just me recording and it gets messed up, I can totally rerecord it. If I mess up this recording with Jennifer Hudson, I can't go back and call her on the phone and be like, "It didn't come out good, girl. Do you think you could just hop on the phone?" You can't do that. You going to have that one time and it's going to be a limited time and that's it.

Amena:

So the morning of course that I have to do this interview, it feels like I have a thousand things. I have a doctor's appointment that morning, I have a meeting with Creative Mornings Atlanta, shout out to CreativeMornings Atlanta because I am the chapter organizer for our local Atlanta chapter of CreativeMorning. So we have our team meeting that morning and I'm literally needing to leave our team meeting so that I can make sure I make it to the very nice hotel where they are doing Jennifer Hudson's presser.

Amena:

And for those of you that work in journalism world or in any way are connected to media that way, you know that typically when a film or something like this is releasing that there will be just a day or certain days where the star of the film will have all of these kinds of slots to be interviewed, and it depends on the size of your outlet if you're going to get 30 minutes, if you're going to get five minutes or however. So it was agreed upon the amount of time that we would have. It wasn't a lot of time, but it was enough time to have some time with her to get a chance to have some conversation, and I was very excited about doing that.

Amena:

So I'm leaving the CreativeMornings Atlanta meeting, and this was our last in-person meeting for the year. And we were still hybrid, so I'm sure some of you are doing this in some of your work in volunteer environments. So there are maybe six or seven of us there in-person, masked, and meeting and then there are another six or seven of us that are on Zoom meeting. And if I'm going to have a meeting and a few people are going to be there in-person, it's very important to me to bring snacks. I just feel like you need a little vittles, you need a little something. So I got donuts from my favorite donut place in Atlanta, shout out to Revolution Doughnuts, and Revolution Doughnuts has a donut called The Crunchy Mister, which is basically their take on a donut version of a breakfast ham and cheese. It's got ham inside, it's got bechamel cheese kind of golden brown on the top. It's amazing.

Amena:

So when I order the donuts, I order the donuts thinking I'm going to order three of these Crunchy Misters because one of them is going to be mine and then there'll be two for whoever else wants to choose and then there was chocolate and vanilla bean. Y'all, it was like my timing and everything was so on point that morning. Finished with my doctor's appointment, made it to the donut place, made it to where we were meeting for CreativeMornings, and then CreativeMornings meeting ended right on time for me to leave and head to the hotel, because, and understandably so, I wanted to make sure this was on record, because when we're trying to navigate these environments now that we've experienced what COVID-19 is like, and at the time of this recording the Delta variant is running rampant here in the States as well.

Amena:

So the protocol for this interview was that anyone that wanted to participate in the interviews had to be COVID tested prior to being in the room with Jennifer Hudson. And that meant you're doing a rapid COVID test. So the interview slot was around noon, but you needed to be in the hotel at 11:30 or before because they needed to COVID test you and then the test results would take 30 minutes.

Amena:

And I'm not a person who's late all the time, y'all, but I'm a person who can be late. And I'm sure people who are late have various sundry reasons why they're late. Some people who are chronically late are late because of a sleeping situation where they are just waking up without giving themselves enough time to get ready. Okay. I fall in the category of people that are late to things because I started piddling around and doing something that isn't something you can do quickly, and then I looked up and realized, oh my gosh, now I'm late. Okay.

Amena:

So I'm walking out of the meeting with the CreativeMornings team and I'm already downtown, so I'm not far from the hotel, but I look at what time it is and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm in the perfect window to actually get there early. And for a person who has been late often, you don't have a lot of times that you're actually going to get somewhere early.

Amena:

And then it dawned on me that I never ate my donut. And I was like, should I go back upstairs and get that donut? And I really had to have a talk with myself, like, you know what? That donut is going to be available on another day, but if you go up there and get that donut, you're going to get stuck in a round of goodbyes. And y'all know what I mean. You get stuck in a round of goodbyes because there's still going to be a few people there lingering, chatting. Then I'm going to start chatting and I'm going to say goodbye to that person and say goodbye to that person and start chatting with that person again and have like a second goodbye, and I'm definitely going to be late.

Amena:

So I want y'all to know that I wanted you all to hear this conversation with Jennifer Hudson so bad that I left a donut all alone, and that's a commitment. It's a commitment I made because I love all of you that I left that donut there, just hoping that someone would take care of it in the ways that I would have by eating it very quickly.

Amena:

Anyway. So I get in the car, I'm so proud of myself for actually getting there to the hotel early, pull up to the hotel, and this is a very nice hotel. Probably would be considered like a four-star hotel, or if there's five stars, this hotel might fall in that category. And so you know how normally you pull into a hotel and it has the semi-circle driveway. Like you pull into the hotel, on the other side of the driveway you pull out. Well, the other side of the hotel driveway was under construction and I'm already downtown in Atlanta, and many of you who live in major cities here in the States know that parking is always a problem typically. It's either a problem because it's hard to find, it's expensive, or where you are if you're going to not park at the actual location, now you're going to be blocks away.

Amena:

I told you all that. I'm not really ready for this dress-up life. I've got a jumpsuit on, I've got a block heel sandal on. I'm thinking to myself, "I'm not parking seven blocks away from this place. I'm not doing it." I'm like, you know what? I'm treating myself to valet parking today. And there's a lot of things in this life that I have wanted to treat myself to, a lot of things I have wanted to treat myself to and I never thought that I would say that phrase out loud, I'm going to treat myself to valet parking. But that is how tired I was, y'all. I was like, I don't even know how much this is going to cost, but this is what I'm going to have to do today. This is what business money is for. Or as Jesse Pinkman would have told us from Breaking Bad, this is the cost of business.

Amena:

I tell myself these things. I actually told this part of the story to a friend of mine, and she was like, "No, that is self-care. It was self-care for you to pay for yourself to have valet parking." So I go there, they're giving me all the tickets and you know all this stuff you've got to do for valet. And the guy is ready to actually like take my car and park it wherever, and y'all, I realized that I had my little flat shoes on from the meeting and I was like, "Oh, I'm sorry. You're going to have to come back. I have to put my shoes on."

Amena:

So I am sitting in my not vacuumed car, sitting there putting on my shoes, grabbing all my things. I also want y'all to know that of course because of COVID normally in this type of situation, I would have had my husband with me because my husband is also my podcast producer. Our hope was initially when the opportunity for this interview with Jennifer Hudson came up, our hope was that both of us would be able to go into the room, but of course it came down to us that that wasn't going to be the case because they wanted to keep the group of people in the room with her small, which if I'm her, that's totally what I would want. So that meant my husband had to walk through with me how to use these microphones and there was a microphone for me to clip onto myself. There was a microphone for me to put on the table so that you all could hear Jennifer Hudson's answers to the different questions.

Amena:

And I'm going to tell y'all that this has happened three times before that my husband has tried to work through with me what to do when I'm recording, and I want to tell y'all that all three times that he left me unattended, something was messed up about it. So I was very nervous, y'all, okay? Very nervous. Because in the past I have never thought about recording backup recordings, but this time I was like, well this is a Jennifer Hudson thing, I can't mess this up.

Amena:

So I record on the mics that my husband showed me how to use and I also recorded a backup audio on my phone, just in case I messed up the whole thing. So I want y'all to know there's a lot going into this and all that's going on, and by the time I'm walking actually into the hotel, now it's like, let me try to be composed and professional and polished and posh in this situation.

Amena:

We go up to the fourth floor of the hotel and that's where all the COVID testing is, and I'm sure many of you by now have had a COVID test. I will say when I first was seeing the videos of people doing COVID testing, I was like, "Wow, that looks horrible. I hope that never happens to me. I hope I never have to get that test." And of course I've had to have that test several times over now. So I will say it's getting easier. It's not any less strange or any less uncomfortable, but it's getting easier as I'm getting used to it. But it was definitely a weird feeling to obviously have that Q-tip like circling your nose and then just having to sit on the fourth floor and wait to hear if your test is going to come back negative. And at the point that your test comes back negative, then you'll be taken to the next floor, which is where all the interviews were taking place.

Amena:

So I sit in my 30 minutes, had a chance to catch up with a wonderful woman that I had met online before and we got a chance to catch up and talk about what it's like to be Black women in the media, and all that was wonderful. And then my 30 minutes passed and I was like, "Woo. Okay, negative test. Great." They give you a little wristband. I mean this thing was secure, secure. Okay. And then we go up to the 50th floor and I was expecting there to be this very long rectangular table and that Jennifer Hudson was going to be sitting at the far end and that all of us were going to be sitting at the way far end away from her and all we were going to have is maybe a mic that we could put near her, but we were going to be far away from her.

Amena:

And when I walked into the room and saw of course the poster for Respect and saw this round table. Even though we had been told it was going to be a round table interview, I didn't literally expect a round table. And they were like, "Here's the chair where Jennifer Hudson's going to sit. You all are welcome to sit wherever you're comfortable."

Amena:

So I'm there with about five or six other Black women representing different media outlets, and so we're all kind of chit chatting while we're waiting for Jennifer to come in. And we were all just talking about how we weren't expecting to get a chance to actually sit that close to her. It was so wonderful when she walked in the room and saw that it was a room of us as Black women and she was so happy to see us. And of course we were so happy to see her.

Amena:

That experience, first of all, getting the opportunity to actually do an in-person interview. I mean, since the pandemic I've done less than five in-person interviews, and maybe it's only been two in-person interviews actually, my sister and my friend Celita, and both of them are people that I know and were in my pod during the pandemic. So this was one of the first, if not the first, interview that I've done during the pandemic where I actually had the opportunity not only to be in-person with the guest, but to also be in-person with other people working in media that were covering this interview with Jennifer as a part of the promo for Respect.

Amena:

So it was really a wonderful experience to me to get a chance to hear all of our voices and laughing and in response to her. Of course I would have loved to have an hour where I had an opportunity to just interview her myself, but there was something really wonderful and special about a few of us as Black women getting to be in the room with her, and that it wasn't just an interview, that we got a chance to really be in conversation. One of the things I really loved about watching that interaction was just how proud all of us feel as Black women, we feel proud of Jennifer Hudson and happy for her and happy for her success. I could tell that she enjoyed feeling that warmth from us in the room, so this was a wonderful thing, y'all.

Amena:

I also want you to know that I had to work very hard on a bra situation, and I am a person that for some reason finds it comfortable to speak about my need to take off my bra around strangers. I remember in that moment having to say to myself, internally like, don't talk about that right now. But I want you all to know that I had to put on a real bra, like with underwire. And we've talked about on this podcast my breast size and my breast size is not one that you really want to be out here, just willy-nilly out here. You really want some support. You need an apparatus, you need some things.

Amena:

So not only did I have to get dressed y'all in like an actual outfit and put makeup on my face and everything and try to draw in the parts of my eyebrows that won't grow anymore, I also had to put on a real bra with the underwire and everything. And all I could think as we are leaving the area once we all finished the interview, and Jennifer Hudson was very sweet to take pictures with each of us. Once she went downstairs with her team to grab some lunch so she could continue her interviews for the day, and then the rest of us that had been in the interview, we got on the elevator to go downstairs, I just literally thought to myself, "Wow. I really can't wait to get home and take this bra off." And that's promptly what I did. So I just want y'all to know I put on a real bra, I wore real shoes, I polished my nails for us so that we would get a chance to have this conversation with Jennifer Hudson. So that's a little bit of my journey, but it was totally worth it.

Amena:

And, last thing I want to tell y'all is this, I don't know if we've had a chance to talk about this fully on the podcast, but y'all know that I had the opportunity to work with Olay for their campaign Face Anything. It's actually been a year now since that campaign started and Jennifer Hudson was one of the nine women in the campaign. Now, because we are in a pandemic, the shoot for the Olay campaign happened in different cities. So originally I would think if we weren't in a pandemic that they probably would have shot all of us in the same location.

Amena:

So weeks ago, when I knew about this interview, I kept saying to myself, "Amena, don't forget. Make sure you've mentioned to Jennifer Hudson that if there hadn't been a pandemic, you probably would have met her a year ago because y'all would have filmed that Olay spot together." Because there is an Olay commercial where the narration is mostly my voice and Jennifer Hudson's voice. And I'm going to tell y'all that the interview finished, I got in my car... also, shout out to the movie studio and the promotions companies because our valet parking was covered. So the movie studio treated me to valet parking, I didn't even have to treat myself. I pull away from there, I get home y'all, bra off, wash my makeup off, I'm texting my friends to tell them how the interview went, and that's when I remembered that I totally forgot to say that to Jennifer Hudson.

Amena:

So Jennifer, if you're listening girl, I was in that Olay campaign with you and it was such an honor to see our voices get to share space together. And I hope the next time that we're in a campaign together, we actually get to do that thing in-person. That's what I was supposed to tell you, girl.

Amena:

Anyways, y'all, everything's fine. I hope that this will not be Jennifer Hudson's last time on this podcast, and I hope that won't be my last time getting a chance to meet her, but I can't wait for y'all to check out our conversation.

Amena:

I've had a chance to check out this film and I know many of you are already excited to check out Respect, starring Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin. Respect is only in theaters beginning August 13th. Jennifer Hudson performed all of the songs live, so you will love experiencing the sound and visuals of this movie in the theater. Aretha Franklin handpicked Jennifer Hudson to play her in this biopic, featuring an all-star cast of Forest Whitaker, Marlon Wayans, Audra McDonald, Marc Maron, Tituss Burgess, and Mary J. Blige. Go check it out. Respect in theaters, August 13.

Amena:

As we begin the conversation, one of the Black women in the room asked Jennifer Hudson what it was like to not only play Aretha Franklin and prep for the role, but to play Aretha Franklin in scenes where Aretha is interacting with Dr. King.

Jennifer Hudson:

It was definitely a process. The director, Tommy Liesl, and I created a whole team. The dialect coach, I worked with a dialect coach. Tom Johnson. Lelund was my acting coach. I had a movement coach, Taj. And every department focused on different things. I added the piano teacher. I cannot do this movie without learning, as an actor, learning the elements.

Speaker 3:

It's about challenging yourself.

Jennifer Hudson:

Yes, and I loved the challenge. And she's the ultimate. I still get up and be like... I still do my piano lessons to this day. I do. That's another piece that I've walked away with. To me, that was the most foreign thing to me out of everything. For the most part, everything felt very familiar or maybe experienced before. But I was like, okay, now if they called me right now today or tomorrow, get up and act and let's shoot this, I would be ready, but the piano. I'm like uh-uh (negative). Although I play a little bit, but I peck. She played. Okay? [crosstalk 00:27:05] So that was foreign.

Jennifer Hudson:

What my goal was in the film was to experience each experience of her life as she did in life. So it felt real, it felt very real. And doing the research, it kind of felt creepy at times because I'm looking at the footage as a reference and then here we are recreating these moments. So the only way to make them that much more real is to actually be in the moment. I always... I'm very present. You know what I mean? Like, well, what does this moment require in living in that moment, which made it feel that much more authentic. And then his voice sounded so much like Dr. King.

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah.

Jennifer Hudson:

Wasn't he amazing? It tripped me up of just how the closeness of the two. Hearing about it in our era, I'm sure you guys can relate, you know of Dr. King and what he represented in that time and you know what she represented, but did you ever imagine them that close?

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Jennifer Hudson:

So even for me, that's a realization, like I'm putting the pieces together too. And that is why the memorial scene to me is so raw and honest, and that's what I mean by trying to experience it as closely to how she lived it. Even the singing. Like no, if she sang it live, we're going to sing it live right here. If that's how she experienced, that's how we're going to recreate it.

Jennifer Hudson:

In that moment I couldn't help to really think about it. Because when you plan something, at least for me, I like perspective. What was it like from her perspective? And I know being the singer, a lot of times you don't know what's going on in our lives and we still got to get up and be the light. Imagine being Aretha during that time having to still get up and be that light to somebody she called Uncle. He was Dr. King to... Imagine how we've been affected. But we're still removed from it and how badly we are affected. I can't imagine how she felt in that moment and still having to get up there to lift up everyone. You can't help but to feel for that. Imagine the pressures of that. Like, wait, Dr. King died and then what he represented then and still to us all, and she had to get up there and pull through that. That's a lot.

Amena:

Music played such a big role in Aretha's life, not just professionally, but spiritually. Jennifer shares how the power of music is so important to her life every day.

Jennifer Hudson:

It goes to whatever I'm going through in that moment, and it shapes everything. Music is that powerful. Whether people are musicians or not, if you think about it, it's a part of everything in life. Music is always there. And I know for me, it dictates my every emotion. I always say a room without music has no personality. You know what I mean? That's how my son finds me around the house. Like, oh, she's up. [crosstalk 00:29:54].

Jennifer Hudson:

I do love Great is Thy Faithfulness. That's definitely a good one.

Speaker 4:

That's a good one. That's a good one too.

Jennifer Hudson:

But it varies. It depends on what I'm going through or what I need to exude.

Amena:

Jennifer Hudson has had the opportunity to work alongside fantastic leading men and shared with us what it was like acting alongside Jamie Foxx in Dreamgirls, and now alongside Marlon Wayans in Respect.

Jennifer Hudson:

We had a great time. I don't know, I love my Jamie too. Jamie Foxx was like oh yeah. Jamie will always be on piano singing something, entertaining somewhat. But Marlon liked gifts though. He will buy you chocolates, he ordered me a massage. He wouldn't let anyone else bring me my food. I'm taking her her food. What do you want to eat? Jamie didn't do all of that.

Amena:

Of course, we couldn't have a conversation about Jennifer Hudson playing Aretha Franklin without talking about the fashions involved in this movie. Here, Jennifer shares her favorite fashions from the film.

Jennifer Hudson:

Well, some of my favorite outfits, the one that's on the poster. It was heavy but it was so true to her. Very iconic. I like the one with the feathers from the Dr. King moment. And then the birthday dress, the gold dress. That's when I felt like... I was like, "Okay, I feel [crosstalk 00:31:17]." Who puts this on for a birthday? Yes, that. But it was the art of it all. If you notice, she starts off very subtle, and if you notice in the scenes where the men are taking the lead, but as you carry on, you gradually see her takeover and gain her own voice and in charge of her own life, which was a cool thing to play out, to watch her. It's the same with her and Ted walks into Muscle Shoals he starts out leading, but by the time you get to the end she has taken the front seat. You know what I mean? It shapes the timeframe in which you're in it. It matters.

Jennifer Hudson:

Even with the costume, all of it plays a role. It's almost a character in itself. And for me as an actor, it helps me feel like the character. So it was [inaudible 00:32:06] Lawrence Davis, or Davison, I call them Seas and Salt because we're good friends. It's like you know your name. I have to give credit to all of them. That was the beautiful thing about this entire project, everybody from every department was in it out of love and respect for Ms. Franklin.

Jennifer Hudson:

It was fun to go back. When I wrapped, I was like, guys, excuse me, I've been stuck in the '60s for like eight months. Because I really felt like it was a time swap. Even coming back, like where are we, 2020? What are we doing now? Because we went back in time.

Amena:

I did want to ask a very important question, which is what is your favorite Aretha wig? Because the wigs. The wigs. I need to know before we leave each other.

Jennifer Hudson:

I got an answer for that.

Amena:

Okay.

Jennifer Hudson:

It's the beehive. The wig is called the beehive. I had 11 wig changes and 83 costume changes.

Amena:

In the movie, we're watching Aretha find her voice, literally as a singer, but also as a business woman, as how she's going to exist in the world. I know you've had to find your voice as well. What advice would you give to Black women on how to find your voice, on how to take up space? I mean, we're even having this interview coming off of watching Black women, Olympians making choices to use their voices for their own mental health, to take care of themselves. What advice would you give to black women? How do we stay on the journey of finding our voices?

Jennifer Hudson:

It's more so not giving it away. Sometimes, even for myself, it's like I've said so many times okay, we use my instrument as a singer, but what everybody else want to say? What about my own life experiences? So us taking up that space for ourselves and saying, "No, no, no. I'm going to use my voice for me." I got a story to tell too. Somebody should hear from me and allow me to use my voice to speak up and be the narrative of my own experience.

Jennifer Hudson:

Learning of the era, I come from a completely different era, we all do. You know what I mean? So to learn how women had to exist during those times, what the circumstances were, the conditions which was completely different. I'm a very outspoken person, take up a lot of... a lot of us do. A lot of room. We don't have to second guess what we can say, what we can do. Whereas wow, well, what was life like for women during that time? And then to have to be able to find a way to translate that more so through expressions than verbalizing things, which was very different. And I'm like, "Wow, I can't just walk in and hey," or speak my mind. So that was different, just going back and trying to understand the era which she grew up in and what it was like for women during that time.

Jennifer Hudson:

You know, I still feel like I'm finding that and that's what I've taken from this whole thing. It's like, wow, if it took for her to own her own voice to own her own voice, that's when we got our queen of soul. So if I took that time, if you took that time, and we took that time, what queen lies within us? It makes me want to own that within myself that much more.

Amena:

Oh, I love that. I love that, especially because at the end of these episodes, I normally like to shout out a woman of color by giving her a crown. I love the thought of us finding the queen in all of us. So, to all of you, my listeners here in our living room, I hope you are reminded of the things you've achieved, survived, accomplished. I hope you remember that giving yourself a crown is a celebration of caring for yourself, being gentle with yourself, and proud of yourself for the ways you've healed and the things you've overcome.

Amena:

Big, big thank you to Jennifer Hudson for being so kind and generous with her time, and thank you to the other Black women who joined me at this round table. Make sure you check out Respect in theaters August 13. Thanks for listening.

Amena:

HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeart Radio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 42

Amena Brown:

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the HER Living Room this week, and at the time of this recording, it is mid-summer. So I hope you all are enjoying some of the summertime while being safe, because I just want to remind everybody the pandemic isn't over. So please take care of yourselves and be very safe while enjoying some of the fun that summer affords us. I'll tell you one of my favorite things about the summer is some of the food that is seasonal where I live. So most of you know that I live in Atlanta, Georgia, and this summertime, especially this part of the summer, there are lots of peaches here. There are fresh cucumbers, and fresh tomatoes here are seasonal, and those are three of my favorite summer things. So I am enjoying all of that as much as possible.

Amena Brown:

We have been doing some new things on the podcast this summer. I normally do kind of a mix of solo episodes and interviews, and this summer I decided to try doing some episodes that were not interviews, but were more conversation. So if you all have been tracking the episodes chronologically, you have already heard my episode with my sister, Makeda Lewis. She was one of my conversation partners, and my friend Celita and I did a two-part episode on how to survive a friend breakup, but we were specifically talking about our own time of having had a friend breakup as friends and actually seeing our friendship come back together after all those years.

Amena Brown:

So that prompted me to ask all of you on social media what your questions are that you want to know about friendships, about how we navigate our friendships, and I thought I would do a solo episode, but it's not quite solo in the sense that I know you are here in the living room with me listening. So I thought I would bring some of the questions that many of you asked on social media, and I actually have more questions that I'm going to address in this episode. I have some other things that I'm working on. So if I didn't get to your question in this episode, just know that it is in the works because I have a couple of guests I'm waiting to hear back from that I might answer some of your questions with them. So we'll do a few questions here and I'll share some stories from my life and some things that I've learned so far that I hope will be helpful to you as we are all navigating friendships in our lives. So let's get into it.

Amena Brown:

First question is what do you do when friendships always seem one way? Great question. One-way friendships can be very draining, and it depends on the reason why they're one way, but I want to start by saying this. Typically, if you have a one-way friendship, you are one of two roles. Either you are the giver that's always giving but never receiving in the friendship, or you are the taker who is always taking but never giving. What does that mean? A friendship could be one way, because if you're the giver, you are typically the friend that may have a tornado of a friend, right? You may have a friend that always has some stuff going on in their life, always has things that they need to process or talk about or talk through, and somehow all or most of your time together is spent focusing on whatever is this person's latest situation or crisis in which they have found themselves. But you find that most of the time you spend with them, the conversation never turns around to you and how you're doing, what may be the crises in your life or not.

Amena Brown:

If you are the friend who is the taker, typically, what that means is you are the person that is getting most of the emotional energy of the friendship. You are the person that is always asking for advice, so your friend across from you, across the table or the phone, or however you communicate, your friend is the one that is advising you, is there to be close to you, gentle with you while you're going through this or that. But if you are running out of moments you can think of that you were really there for that person and just focused on them, on what's happening with them. Could be something great that's going on in their life and you are able to celebrate them and just celebrate them without making it about yourself, or they're going through a hard thing and you're able to hold space for them and focus on giving some care to them without making it about yourself.

Amena Brown:

So when we talk about having friendships that always seem one way, I think the short of it is that if you are in a friendship and you are the giver and your friend is always the taker, it's going to require you, as the giver, to set some boundaries there. It may require you to be less available. Maybe they are someone that always calls you in the middle of the night or wants you to drop everything to go be with them, and it may mean that you have to draw some boundaries to not always be that available to them. It may mean that you have to have a conversation with them about what your needs are as a friend and to see when you communicate your needs to your friend, if their response is resistant or defensive, or if their response is, "Yo, I hear you," in their own words, but, "Yo, I hear you. I see that. Let me think of some ways I can be there for you more, or let me make sure when we talk that I don't let the whole time that we're talking, the conversation is only focused on me."

Amena Brown:

If you are the taker, that's part of your job is to think about how you can make sure that you're making space and time for what's going on with your friend, for how they are doing. Have some time that even if you do need advice still, or even if you have more things that you want them to listen to or encourage you about, have some times that you just call your friend just to say hi to them and hear how they're doing without bringing up your own stuff, especially if you know you're taking up a lot of the space in the conversation.

Amena Brown:

This also brings up the idea of the strong friend, and I know there's a lot of conversation about this that we have on social media or that I've read on social media, and the phrase "check on your strong friend" is something I've seen a lot on social media. Sometimes the person that is the giver, it could be a couple of things. If you are the one that the friendship is one way because you're giving and you're not receiving any mutuality or reciprocity in the friendship, you could have unknowingly postured yourself as the strong friend, and so it could be that sometimes you have one way friendships because you have ended up in a friendship with someone that is self-centered, and that is never going to care for you or make room for you in the friendship.

Amena Brown:

So those one way friendships will have to come to an end at some point if you want to have healthy relationships in your life. But sometimes some of us, and I know I have been guilty of this in some of my friendships because I'm definitely a person that can be the one who wants to give and give and give and give and not always thinking about making sure I'm sharing what's really going on with me. Over the years, I had to learn how to do that better. So it could be that you've become the person that gives and gives and gives and gives, and that you are not also leaving space for yourself to be able to say, "Hey, I can't do that because I'm tired," or, "I know you need to talk to me right now, but I'm having these struggles in my mental health right now," or "I just need to have some time to myself so I do want to talk about that, but let's talk about it next week." Sometimes for those of us that have been the strong friend, it can be hard to admit to our friends that we are weak, that we are going through it, that we're struggling even though to be weak is to be human because to be human is to mean that you would not be strong all the time.

Amena Brown:

So, for some of you, you may have some one-way friendships that are like that because that person ain't going to change and they're just going to stay selfish and stay not loving you as a friend in a healthy way and you will have to evaluate, is that a friendship you want to keep in your life? But some of us who have been the strong friend, we might need to give our friends room to hear from us when we're struggling and to not feel like you got to be strong for anybody, or to not feel like you have to put up a front, put up a front like you feel all these things that don't involve you being a human being and just going through stuff and being tired and whatever else and so.

Amena Brown:

Think about your friends who you may think of them and think that they could be safe people for you to admit some things that may be going on in your life, and you might find that some of those friendships are one way because the friend, the other friend, is just self-centered and they don't really care about you, they just care about themselves. But some of our friendships are one way because we haven't invited our friend to know us and know what we're really going through. We've postured ourselves as the person that always gives advice. We have not allowed ourselves to also ask for advice as well. Sometimes when we do that, we may find that what we thought was a one-way friendship is a friendship that could go both ways if we open ourselves up to it.

Amena Brown:

So those are my thoughts on what to do about one-way friendships. Let's go to our next question. How do you maintain friendships when your family life is just really in a tough season? I feel this question so deeply. I feel this so deeply. I don't mean for this to be blunt, but I'm just speaking the truth to you. Sometimes when you're going through a tough season, you will not maintain your friendships and you will not be able to, and I think that's a real truth. It's very hard because I think sometimes when we find ourselves going through a really hard thing, we want to somehow go through the hard thing and also keep up our normal routines, keep up our normal capacity on how to handle things or juggle things, and I want to tell you as somebody that has experienced some tough seasons in life, some of those friendships, you just won't be able to maintain them. Period.

Amena Brown:

Also, when you're going through a really tough thing in your life, you may want to minimize the amount of relationships that you give attention to. In a time where things are not difficult in your life, you may be able to have six or seven friends that you hang out with in some way, whether it's on the phone or texting. Or, maybe you are in a group of friends and the group of you get together and hang out. Like when you're not going through a tough thing, you have a lot more emotional capacity and mental capacity for social functions, for not juggling, but for thinking about the different ways that we catalog all of the people in our lives.

Amena Brown:

Like, in a time of your life that you're not going through a hard thing. You can remember that this friend of yours loves to bake cobbler during the summer, and so that's a thing you all do together. You can remember that this friend is going on vacation, and you can remember that this friend right here is dealing with this situation with her children. You can remember that this friend is going on her fifth date with someone that she really likes. Like you have the mental capacity to, whenever you talk to those friends, be like, "Hey, how did the cobbler turn out last week?" and "Hey, like, did you ever go on that date?" and like, "You went to that new place for vacation, how did it go?" You have the capacity to remember those things.

Amena Brown:

When you're going through a tough season, you need to accept that most of your focus and most of your capacity will literally be on surviving whatever the season is. Of course, for some of us, some of the tough things we go through are not even a season. Some of the tough things we go through are going to become parts of our regular life, which means you may be making a life shift, a life change based on something hard that has happened. So I think one of the things that I've learned is there'll be some friendships that I won't have time. Like, some of my friends that when I was going through a tough time, some of the social functions they were having, like, I just can't go because that same night that you're having your social function, I can choose between having a night to myself, to finally have like a little bit of peace of mind and have some silence.

Amena Brown:

Of course, these are introverted things I'm saying that's not going to be true for everyone, but I'm using myself as an example here. When I'm going through something that's difficult, I do crave being in relationship with people I'm close to, but I crave smaller spaces, smaller environments, one-on-one contact or communication with a small number of people I'm close to. That's like my best case scenario. You may be a person that being around other people is a part of what helps you get through and you have to pay attention to that too.

Amena Brown:

So if you're a person that you need to minimize the amount of things, people that you need to keep track of or remember, then do that and, if you can, communicate that to your people. Tell them you're going through this difficult thing. They may not be hearing from you as much. You'll reach back out when you can, but you don't want them to, number one, be worried if they don't hear back from you, but also you don't want them to think it has anything to do with them or with your friendship. It's just stuff that's going on in life, you're doing the best you can to make it.

Amena Brown:

I will say think about who are the people in your life that can be low maintenance friends, and I want to talk about low-maintenance friends for a little bit. I don't know, I think in another episode, I want to talk about what it's like making new friendships in your 30s and 40s, but also what it's like maintaining those friendships too, and so we'll talk about that in another episode. But one of the things that has been such a wonderfully enriching thing for me in my 30 and now in my early 40s is having some friends that are close to me. These are my closest friends and they're also low maintenance friends.

Amena Brown:

What do I mean by that? These are people that if you have to cancel at the last minute, even though you totally wanted to hang out with them and do whatever it was, you have to cancel at the last minute because some life thing came up, not because you just lollygagging and you don't care, but like some life stuff came up and you have to cancel, a low-maintenance friend is going to be like, "It's okay, girl. It's okay. We'll get together next time. Love you. Let me know if you need anything." That's a low-maintenance friend. A friend that is not low maintenance is not going to be able to stick around while you go through a hard thing that will mean you're possibly less available. It's important to have low maintenance friends because low maintenance friends can still be welcoming to you, can still sort of have this open arms posture with you while they know you can't meet up every Friday. You can't go to the blah, blah, blah party or shindig or whatever it was that you all would go to every year and, to them, that doesn't mean your friendship's over. They love you. They know that when you have time or when the both of you find a time, that you'll connect.

Amena Brown:

I'll give you some examples in my life. When a lot of my friends started having children, that totally changed the quotient of how we could hang out. So I have some friends and if they listen to this, they'll know exactly that I'm talking about them, but I have some friends that are best place to meet up was going to be at a McDonald's Play Place. We would go in the Play Place, get our little McDonald's, let their kid run around in the Play Place, and I would sit inside the play place with them and that's where we would get together because the way their lives were at the age of their children and that season of their life, they may or may not have had a sitter. Their only time to connect with me may have been while they had their kid with them and we just had to figure out creative ways to hang out or get together.

Amena Brown:

Sometimes when my friends had kids, sometimes their kids would get sick and we planned a wonderful evening to get together and do whatever we were going to do and they had to call and say, "I can't come because so-and-so got sick." I'm also at the age in life where I have friends who were already caretakers of their parents or their grandparents or another family member, so that limits their ability as to how much they can go, hang out, do this or that at the moment, because they are a little bit tethered to whatever the schedule is for how they have to take care of their loved one. I mean, once we get to be grown folks, there are so many responsibilities we have that enter our world that make it more challenging for us to keep this sort of like willy-nilly schedule we may have kept when we didn't have as many responsibilities.

Amena Brown:

So think about the friends in your life, do you have any friends that are those low maintenance friends? Like, I have some friends that I love them dearly and because of our lives and schedules, we may only have a real conversation a few times a year, but when we do, we just get right in. Skip all the whatever small talk it is, I don't care. We don't care about it. We start right, like, "Girl, last time I talked to you, you said you were depressed. So catch me up. How are you feeling?" We just get right in and jump right in there because we only get a limited time to talk to each other. We have to make the time really count, but we're not keeping track of the amount of times we weren't able to meet up or the amount of times that we weren't able to speak about this or that.

Amena Brown:

I think having a way to be a low-maintenance friend, if you can do this, it is a way to really show love to a friend. To be like, "I don't care. I don't care like about talking to you every Tuesday or feeling like we have to talk every day, and that's what makes us good friends. What makes us good friends is that we love each other. We hold space for each other. We support each other. We celebrate each other and we do that whenever it works for us." That's the type of friendship I love.

Amena Brown:

Hey, everybody, before we get into the second half of our conversation about friendship, I want to tell you about a movie that I can't wait to see. Starring Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin, Respect is only in theaters beginning August 13th. Jennifer Hudson performed all of the songs live so you will love experiencing the sound and visuals of this movie in the theater. Aretha Franklin handpicked Jennifer Hudson to play her in this biopic, and the movie also is featuring an all-star cast of Forest Whitaker, Marlon Wayans, Audra McDonald, Marc Maron, Tituss Burgess, and Mary J. Blige, so go check it out. Respect. In theaters August 13.

Amena Brown:

If you're listening to this and you are going through a really hard time, first of all, take care of yourself. When you're going through a hard time, you need to take care of yourself. If you have friends in your life that love you, what they should be saying to you in their own words is I know you're not a bad friend. I know that you're doing everything you can to take care of yourself and survive; that's what they're communicating to you, so focus on yourself. If it's something going on with your family or work or whatever is going on, focus on taking care of you. Focus on being a healthy you and the people who love you, they will also make space for that.

Amena Brown:

You may discover that a friend you thought would walk through all the things with you, that you get to a point where you go through a hard thing and you realize, "Oh no, that friend is not going to walk through this with me," and that is hard. That's hard and it's hurtful, and it just breaks your heart to think about that. But it's the thing that, over time, you will come to accept, and it's better for you to know that now I'm going through whatever this is, I've discovered maybe this friendship is not going to survive that. Sometimes, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, too, but sometimes people, they come into your life and then you get to this tough thing and you realize they can't walk through that with you, and sometimes when we are able to, in a healthy way, let go of a friendship, it gives us space for the types of friends that we really need in our lives.

Amena Brown:

Next question is how do adults find and build new friendships? This person says it was so easy when the kids were little and we were at the playground or Gymboree classes. Finding friends as your kids grow up and move out is harder. So I think the person that was asking this question is talking about their experience as a parent as well, that a part of what brought them new friendships was all of their kids' different developmental stages made meeting new adults and building friends easier. I want to speak to this question even beyond those of you listening that are parents, because I think even for people who don't have kids, trying to find new adult friends and build those friendships is challenging because even when we think about when we were children, you had school, all those years, here in the States, the way our schooling is set up, you'd have elementary school and junior high and high school.

Amena Brown:

Then those of us who even went on to college, or if you went on to be in the military, there were just certain things that you went on to do in your early adult life that even still kept that similar set up to when you were in school. You were still in some sort of setting where maybe you lived near everyone. You were all living in the same area or living in the same building. You had classes that you took together, so you had these different things that really brought you together and then you look up, which, Celita and I talked about in our episode, you look up and if you've gotten away from that early college or early work experience that you had, you get to a point potentially in your mid to late 20s, where at that point you're like, okay, well now maybe you work at a job where you like some of the people you work with, but plenty of people work at a job where they don't want to be friends with any of those people. That makes it difficult because when you're in a work environment, you also want to be on guard about your personal life to keep your personal life personal, and your personal life is not always what has to be up for conversation in your workspace.

Amena Brown:

So making friends as an adult can be hard because we don't have as many environments where you can go and you're just going to automatically end up having to make a friend or making a friend in some easier way, like we would have when we were growing up in school. So I want to separate this into two ways that you could begin to try making some new friendships. One is online. I have made quite a few friends over the years from having online connection to people. There was a dating blog that used to be really, really popping when I was in my 20s and it was focused on dating here in Atlanta. But it got so much traffic that the comments section was really like a chat. It was like being in a chat room. So I was coming out of my church bubble at the time and was trying to figure out my dating life, and so that's what made me start reading this blog. Well, then over time, there were many of us who were at our nine-to-five jobs, and during work, would just comment on the blog, read different things, and we built community over time. Then after a while, it went from blogging during the business day to meeting up for happy hours and karaoke. So that was a part of how I gained some new friends. Some of those friends I'm still connected to online today.

Amena Brown:

Facebook groups is another way that you can really hone in on some things that you may be interested in and you can connect with other people on there. I mean, of course, certain ways that Twitter and Instagram and even TikTok, some of the way social media works. Yes, these platforms have a lot of ills. There's a lot of things that can be wrong, can go wrong, but it is a place, especially if you're in a space in your life where, and even now during the pandemic, sometimes you're in a space in your life where gathering with somebody in person or going to something like that may not be feasible. Like for many of us during the pandemic, it wasn't feasible to do that. For some people, wherever they are in their life right now, the pace of life may not be where they can just go out and bop, bop through a lot of in-person events. For some people, that's just not their best way to meet other people is in-person. Some of us, that's not going to be our strong suit to just be walking up at people, talking to people at events and saying hello. I mean, all my extroverts in the building, you feel me. You love it. You would love to just go to something, start introducing yourself to strangers.

Amena Brown:

So we'll talk about that in a minute, but number one, being a person that starts building relationships online can be so great because you can see some of those friendships that you built online convert in real life. If you're a person that doesn't necessarily thrive on being in person with people as the way you meet them at first, being online can provide a way for you to do that. So I would think about that as a mechanism and, in particular, use the online platforms to focus on things that you have interest in. I'll even tell you a website that I used to love. I mean, I used it in part for dating back in the day too, just to meet people and go to things and mingle, but you can use it also to meet other folks just for friendships is meetup.com can be a wonderful website for that because a lot of the meet-ups are organized, could be by age, could be by interest.

Amena Brown:

So think about some things that you've wanted to learn or wanted to do, or some things you're doing right now that you're very interested in. It could be professional. It could be hobbies you have. Like there are so many ways to connect with people online, and that could be a great start, and then you still have a commonality drawing you together. Like when we were growing up, we had the fact that we were all in school that drew us together to help us become friends. Even for the person that asked this question, you know, as a parent, you had these different places you may have been gathering with your kid and that space is what brings the commonality. You're gathering there with other parents. So think about some of those things and are there ways that you can take a step out there to try.

Amena Brown:

Another way, of course, is building these friendships in real life. Either way, it takes courage, it takes bravery, but I do find that when you're engaging with people in person, it does take courage to start going places and introducing yourself to people, but sometimes a part of why we are struggling to build new friendships as an adult is also because we may find that our social life is stunted. Like if you look at your social life and you're like, "I can't think of the last time I went to a concert, went to a comedy show, went to a fair or a festival," if you can't think of the last time that you really went to a social activity, that may be a part of it because sometimes we're saying, "Hey, like I would love to have better friends. I would love to meet new friends," but then we're hoping that we're going to have some sort of friendship. If there was like, instead of a romcom, if there was like a friendcom, which I'm sure there are.

Amena Brown:

There are comedies that are written like that, that are written like romcoms, but they're about friendship and sometimes we're expecting to have this serendipitous moment that we're in the aisle of the grocery store and we touch the cantaloupe and then the other person comes up and they touch the cantaloupe and we're like, "Oh my gosh, do you live in this neighborhood?" and then we start that conversation. Sometimes that happens. But a lot of times we need to also improve our social lives in ways. So we are still in a pandemic. There are going to be limits right now as to what you can do to gather in real life.

Amena Brown:

But here's a few suggestions and tips for you. If other people invite you to something at their house and you know that there are going to be people there that you don't know, go. Go to that. If you can, and it's safe in your area, go. One of the best ways to meet new friends is to meet some friends of friends. Sometimes people are inviting us to things and we feel I was going to go at first and then we don't go and then we're like, "Oh, like I need more friends," well, that's one way. You can also invite people to something yourself. Host something and ask people to bring a friend with them. That's one way you can do it.

Amena Brown:

Think about in a similar way to what I was talking about online, what are some other things you have interest in? How are people gathering in-person to also do that interest? Now, I'll tell you all about this at a different time, but when I was trying to get my dating situation together, I went and joined a hiking club in Atlanta. I can't tell you that those are friendships now that I have from being in that hiking club, but I met a lot of people that I wouldn't have met if I had not joined that club, and I got to discover some different places to hike in the city as well. So think about some things that you may be interested in that you've never tried, that you want to try, and try being brave, having a little courage, trying something new and something different. Number one, whether or not you meet a new friend there, you've had a new experience and that automatically does a wonderful thing for you, but it can also introduce you to some other folks that you might want to be friends with.

Amena Brown:

Next question says, "How do you make space for physical connection when life takes you to different cities, states, and schedules?" Okay, now I love this question because as a person who, prior to the pandemic, used to travel for most of my work, like there were so many times that my friends were having birthday parties, having holiday events, and I just couldn't go because I was traveling. Also, over the years of me traveling, I've gained some wonderful friends who don't live in the same city as I do. So we had to find ways to stay in touch with each other and use apps. I'm going to name some apps that I love. I'm sure there are more even than these. Use Voxer, which is an app where you can record messages. They could be texts. They can be audio messages. Use Zello. That's another app, works similar to Voxer. Use Marco Polo, where you can use even video to be able to stay in touch with people.

Amena Brown:

I have some friends who are on totally different time zone from me, even. So even for us to try to schedule a time where we were going to actually sit on Zoom or on FaceTime to talk is rare because of how far our time zones are from each other. But having a way to record a message means my friend can record her message when she wakes up in the morning, but I'm still asleep, and once I wake up, she might be already at work, I can listen to her message and respond.

Amena Brown:

Again, use some of these things. I know we all have a best case scenario of how we would love to hang out with our friends. Like my best case scenario is like, "I want to be with you in person. I want to be at your house. I want you to come to my house. I want to go to a restaurant. I want to be looking at you across the table and eating food together and whatever we're doing." Like, I want to do it that way, but life might not always afford me the ability to hang out with you in the most ideal setting. But if I wait only for the ideal setting, we might not talk forever for such a long time. So make use of those.

Amena Brown:

Also, if you're a person that loves to communicate in writing and you have a friend that loves this too, use email. I know I worked some corporate jobs where that's how my friends and I communicated because we were at our computers all day. So it was easy for me to like read an email and type it back or whatever and, of course, utilize your text. Don't wait for only the ideal moments. You can use text. Texting and some of these apps, the very big plus to that is that you can put the messages there when it's convenient to you and your friend can read and respond when it's convenient to them. That way, again, going back to the low maintenance and less pressure, that gives you some other opportunities. So check these out and try texting your friend, even a simple thing. When they come across your mind, when you see something funny and it makes you think of them, when you know they're going through a hard time, sending them a little something, just saying, "Hey, I'm thinking of you." If you're a praying person, you can say, "I'm praying for you." Those are ways we can have even small touch points in our friendships.

Amena Brown:

Okay, whew, you all, I have a thousand things more than I want to say to you, but I think we're at like a good stopping place to think about a few things as it relates to our friendships. If you've been listening to this podcast a while, you may have noticed that I've added an Ask Yourself This segment in a couple of these episodes, because it seems fitting to give all of us some questions to reflect on, some things to think about. So for this week's Ask Yourself This, talking about friendship can bring up a lot of feelings. Some of our friendships have been really enjoyable and enriching to our lives and some of our friendships have just really hurt us and broken our hearts. Having healthy friendships can bring care, joy, and mutuality into our lives. So here are some questions to reflect on as we have talked in today's episode about friendship. In your friendships, are you mostly giving or are you mostly taking? Who are your friends where you experience mutuality and how can you connect with them this month? If you are wanting new friends in your life, what is one thing you can do this week to make some new friend connections?

Amena Brown:

I love talking friendship with you all. If you have other questions that you want to make sure I answer or address in these episodes by myself or bringing in another guest, please feel free to DM me on Instagram. My Instagram amenabee, and make sure you check out the show notes where we will make sure we have links to things for every episode, including this one. Thanks for listening.

Amena Brown:

HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions, as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network, in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 41

Amena:

(silence)

Amena:

Last episode I talked with my friend Celita about the time in our lives where we experienced a breakup in our friendship, this episode is part two of that conversation. Celita and I talk about all the twists and turns our lives made during the time after our friendship ended and we discuss what happened that brought our friendship back together, check it out.

Amena:

Okay. Right here y'all while we're talking through the, I think they call it the black box when a plane has a crash and they go back and they listen to what happened here, if black box is what it's called, we're at the point where now we're at the friendship break.

Amena:

Yes. At this point we are both 24, 25 years old, we are going to get to where the friendship reconnects itself but a long period goes by before it does, over 10 years of time goes by of a break, which of all of the friends I've ever had in my life, that's the longest break that I can ever say I've had with a friend that the friendship actually returned. Most times when you have a friend breakup and I've had many and you have too, that's that, you don't see that person-

Celita:

Maybe that person doesn't hold enough value, if you're completely honest, you realize that prison ain't holding enough value first to really put any real energy into rekindling this. It was literally 13 years that went by and over that time, we had moments, little small moments all over that 13 year period where we were both reminded that this person means a lot to me.

Amena:

Yeah, like the feelings. Okay. Can you track for me and our listeners in the living room here? Well, I'm like wiping my little 41 years old tears.

Celita:

I don't know what that is, it's a little dusty in here.

Amena:

I swear it's so hard right now. We're tangentially on the very far periphery of each other's lives for 13 years, still like at this time we've joined Facebook, there were still some things I see there, we were still both in the Poetry Community in Atlanta, I would see you there sometimes, but otherwise a whole lot of life went by for both of us. Can you track from '04, '05, to us reconnecting around 2017 time, what is happening in your life during that time?

Celita:

Oh, my goodness. Well first, you cannot put all your friend weight on the remaining friend, you just can't do that. I just want to say, I don't think at 40, we're both 40 now, you realize you're mature now, you realize there's some things that, you've learned some things, you've seen some life, you've experienced some things and you don't realize how young twenties is until much later, when you are 20 something, you think that you are a grown and you think that you know things and you think that you are supposed to have known these things and that you're supposed to have known how to interact with your friends and how to create healthy, emotional boundaries and how to be a healthy and clear communicator. You think, "I'm 24, isn't that something I'm supposed to have mastered by now?"

Amena:

Yeah, I've been doing that since I was 15, right? Did I?

Celita:

Right. But once I hit into my thirties I look back and realize, "I was young, we were young." Just to give ourselves an opportunity to look back and be like, "We still had a lot of life to experience and learn." Part of that, one thing I hadn't learned yet was just not to overwhelm your friend. After you were out of the picture, I had one really close friend left that I had a natural rhythm with and everything went on her and that was too much, it was way too much and it damaged us.

Celita:

Now you have Celita age 25, all of my closest friends that I had in college, no more, and I don't know how to emotionally regulate. I don't know how to live my life, I don't know what it looks like because my whole Atlanta time has been spent with y'all in some way, shape or form. I went through a lot of things, like on the interpersonal emotional side I entered into depression, really bad depression for the first time, I went to therapy for the first time, I had to learn to deal with that, I went into a recovery program for a myriad of different things we'll get into. That was happening on the rebuild yourself as a human side, then professionally and ministry wise I felt like I was in my prime. Some of the most exciting moments of my life were happening in parallel to me disconnecting with you guys and then trying to deal with my own healing. I then became a full-time employee of that church, which is what I always wanted to do, full-time ministry, let's do it-

Amena:

We had talked about it so much when we were in college, that was my dream to be in full-time ministry.

Celita:

Yes, we were looking up to the people that were doing that or the people that were teachers but also trying to do full-time ministry and being like, "No, we're actually going to get paid to do ministry, we're not going to have to do another job."

Celita:

Being excited that I had fulfilled that goal, it was also an IT position, now I'm actually using my degree and my spoken word career also began to really take off, like as my poems became more vulnerable, because we went to that open mic together, were we in college or was it post-college? It was a little post-college, we went to this open mic and Cola Rum, amazing spoken word-

Amena:

Oh no, that was in college, when we saw Cola, that was early in our college time, yes. Shout out to Cola Rum too.

Celita:

Oh my goodness, and we went to open mic and it was dark and smokey and hazy in there, we got on the stage and did our poems thinking we were killing it, he came up behind us and was like, "When you get up on this stage, let me tell you something. Y'all young in college aren't you? Y'all in college? Yeah, you ain't lived. When you get up on a stage, you bare your mother bleep soul and you all did not bear your soul."

Celita:

Hadn't learned it, but post friend breakup, emotional turmoil, depression, recovery, I knew how to bare my soul. My poems were off the chain at that point, I was getting bookings... First of all, I was being asked to speak at that church which when we started in college, no one had ever heard of it, which was now a 6,000 member mega church by this time, being on stage was a privilege and I'm honing my craft and speaking to four and five services a day, and then speaking at all these recovery institutions around Atlanta, because they heard my story and heard that I executed my story via poem, they wanted to hear it so I was being booked for that and then being booked for more of that large white ministry [crosstalk 00:08:15] other churches redacted-

Amena:

Although the more we talk, the more I think that I don't want to redact, but I will for now.

Celita:

I don't know, we'll think it through. Then other churches being booked at, and feeling what that's like, that was really cool. Then transitioning from the church while I was in my IT job, you realize something was changing, that's when it became clear... You had some notion years earlier do some other things but it was at that time that it was becoming clear to me that the leadership was not all that they had cut out to be, so I recognized that I needed to go.

Celita:

I had actually started getting my masters in professional counseling, because I was like, "Oh, I need to help people, I've been through a lot, I want to help other people transition through a lot and I'm going to quit this job. I don't have another job, I'm in school full-time, I'm just going to quit." I saved up all my money, paid off my credit card, paid off my car, had a friend of mine take over my lease at my apartment, partnered with another friend and said, "Can I sleep on your couch and I'm going to quit my job and I have an income," and she was like, "Yes, you can come live and sleep on this futon in my house." I severely lowered my financial imprint and got out of there, because it was becoming that unhealthy.

Celita:

But I'll just pause here to say, and this speaks to a way that you showed up for me later, part of the reason I was in recovery and part of the things that I was going to help other people deal with, with my counseling degree was dealing with your sexuality, dealing with how you interact with this world and your faith. At that time, I knew that I was attracted to women and also the message was, "That's wrong. I don't know what you need to do with that, but you cannot live that lifestyle."

Celita:

Here I was trying to navigate the fact that I knew what was inside of me but I couldn't execute it, but this was making me sad, clinically sad, and showing up in very unhealthy ways of my life and here I am going through all these programs, being asked to go to ex-gay ministry programs and work on that and fast that away and pray that away, write a spoken word poem about it. If I go back and listen to so many of my old poems in some way, shape or form, I was talking about this subject, but I was doing all that because I'm thinking, "I'm going to deny this part of myself and pursue my faith," but I recognized that there are younger people coming up after me who are same sex attracted, you cannot see my air quotes listeners but I'm putting up large air quotes, because I can't believe the language that we used.

Celita:

I feel like I need to be able to create a safe space for people who are Christian and queer and give them an opportunity to talk about how they're going to navigate their sexuality in their faith. That's why I became a counselor or was pursuing my degree to become a counselor.

Celita:

All of this is happening at one time, leaving the church and I had a friend who worked for Apple and got me a job at the local Apple store, just so I can pay my phone bill and gas in the midst of all of this. My career really took off from that, getting in the Apple store and becoming what they called an Apple genius and a certified Apple Mac technician, then opened the door for me to get a corporate IT Apple position. My professional career has really skyrocketed ever since that move, leaving the church, finally cutting my ties with that.

Celita:

I just want to clarify for anybody listening, when I say I'm talking about that physical building at that moment and not like the body of Christ, but that building at that moment, that environment became so unhealthy that it was the leaving that created so much freedom. From there, because I'm now out of this ministry that told me I couldn't date or didn't give a safe environment where I could date or didn't allow me to feel free to go out and meet people, now that I've left and am doing my thing, I'm thinking, "Oh, why don't I try online dating?" Because I've rejected my sexuality so I'm saying, "It's my responsibility to pursue heterosexuality in my faith but I'm also going to create a safe space for other people that want to pursue their queerness in their Christianity.

Celita:

I'm like, "I'm going to date a man," and I go online, I meet a guy who becomes my husband, I tell him everything, he knows everything, but this is part of that journey in that 13 year period, was all that transition away from that church, getting into a really good tech professional space, meeting my husband, getting married, having a baby, all of that is happening while you and I are not regularly communicating with each other. Buy my first house, all of that happens in my space. What's going on in your world?

Amena:

Y'all, this is why you don't bring your friends on your podcast, [crosstalk 00:13:44]. I'm over here in my my feelings just hearing you tell me this because some of it I knew tangentially because we still had so many mutual friends. There would be times that I might connect with them and that somehow they'd be like, "Yeah, I met up with Celita, and we..." and then I would be like, "Oh, she's working at Apple now, okay, that's cool." Or seeing on Facebook when you got married, getting to hear you fill in the blanks of what I was able to ascertain from a distance.

Amena:

On my side, after our friend breakup, while I was processing what to do that led up to our friend breakup, things were shaky with me at the church, because I got privy to some information because of other friends I had that went to church there and then had been going to church there much longer than me, I was privy to the back end of Disney World a little sooner. At first I was like, "I don't like what it's like back here, there's some things going on back here that ain't right," but I thought to myself, when I'm in the service or with other people in the community, this place is still helping people because the church we were going to was definitely drawing a lot of young Black folks, some who had grown up in traditional Black churches that had not been in church for a while, some who had never grown up in church or been around that and this was their first introduction to Jesus, to church, to anything. There seem to be a lot of good in that, the community seemed to be the saving grace for some people.

Amena:

I stayed even after discovering some things behind the scenes weren't right, I stayed because I was like, "Well, I can still do good in this little corner." I was working in the college ministry, I was the right hand person to the college ministry leader who was also a friend of ours that we had gone to school with too. I was like, "I'm just going to stay and just not go on Sundays and Wednesdays, I'll just stay and do only this college stuff," because I loved college students, I still do.

Amena:

I was in that weird place where I was disconnecting from the church, and I knew that we were all so invested in the church that I felt like as my friends, I wasn't sure if it was right or okay for me to tell y'all what I knew, because then if I told you what I knew, I knew that it would have tarnished your view of the leadership. I didn't know if that was my responsibility to tarnish it for you or if I needed to wait for you to see it yourself. Of course, the way a lot of us grew up in traditional Black church, you don't speak against the leadership, you even telling the truth about what a leader has done could still be misconstrued as you're gossiping or you're talking against the man of God or the woman of God, I grew up in that space.

Amena:

As I realized, some things were shitty under there, I didn't know who to talk to about it because I didn't know if it was good to tell you all, and that also made me feel lonely and made me feel like, "Well, how can I keep kicking it with them and if I know this." That was a part of my distance.

Amena:

I kept doing my college ministry stuff and then some other things went on behind the scenes that also happened in public spaces at the church and it was in those moments that I knew I was going to have to leave, and that I knew when I left I still wouldn't be able to tell my friends exactly why I was leaving and because the church we were going to was unhealthy, it meant that when you left, whatever your reasons, it was going to be construed to people that something was wrong with you, that you were living a life of sin, or you were going through something where you weren't trying to be close to God, you was trying to be rebellious, you was whatever.

Amena:

I knew that was going to happen and I knew that that meant, because I had watched other people leave our church and we were indirectly being told not to be connected to them, that it would be bad for us spiritually to be connected to them because they weren't trying to be in line with the church. I anticipated that was going to happen in my friendships too.

Amena:

Then I left, probably it had to be within the year that the friendship breakup happened. I left and it was a very hard time, I remember almost being like, "I don't know who I am and I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know how to have a relationship with God, without all these other people's voices and hands in it." We came from this Christian type tradition where it was like, you're supposed to be having quiet time every morning before you go to your job, you're supposed to wake up early and read your Bible and pray this prayer and make these notes in your journal, I don't say that to minimize the spiritual practice of folks, I say that to say it wasn't as important that moment be authentic always, it was really like, you needed to have this routine and after a while, I didn't even question, is that what I really want to do? Is that the only way? Do quiet time be in the Bible because I don't even remember that phrase.

Amena:

Being in there, sometimes people pray in the morning, sometimes they pray at night and sometimes they ask God to kill their enemies, I don't understand it. I feel like that first year I was wrecked, I was wrecked that I felt like I had to leave my friends and that I couldn't tell them why I left and that I couldn't even defend what they might be told about why I was leaving, I was wrecked about that. I was wrecked that I felt I had given some good years to the church and the ministry and I had missed out on a lot because of that, I had missed out on dating, I had missed out on a whole city of arts because my ass was too busy in church to actually experience the city.

Amena:

I also went to therapy for the first time during that time and dealt with all this. You'd be going to therapy for one thing, your therapist be like, "Also, we need to talk about this and this and this," you'd be like, "But I came here to talk about this," and she like, "We can talk about that, so we also talk about these things." It was like, "Let's talk about the church, let's also talk about your dad, let's also talk about..." It was a lot of healing, like what you were experiencing. I was out about in the world as a grown adult who could drink for the first time, that was also a thing in our church ministry thing, if you were in leadership, you weren't allowed to drink and really you weren't allowed to drink publicly or around other people-

Celita:

It's probably what it really was.

Amena:

Yeah. I remember being in conversation with people where they would name redacted pastor of the church and they would be like, "You wouldn't want to be at the club and pastor so-and-so see you there, you wouldn't want to be drinking wine at the restaurant and he see you there," and I never questioned, first of all, why he in the club? Second of all, why is it important if he see me? God literally be everywhere.

Amena:

A lot of it was me realizing that in our unhealthy church structure, the opinions of the people who were in leadership at the church had grown more important to me than actually what God had to say or what God thought about anything. That was a whole like, "What am I doing?" I remember going out to happy hour for the first time and being like, "Wow, everybody at the table is drinking but me, because I'm scared to have a drink." I remember being out with friends that I thought were Christians and they were drinking out of a pitcher of margaritas, and I remember being like, "This is terrible, I got here to eat dinner with y'all and there's a pitcher, not just one drink a pitcher on the table, this is wild."

Amena:

I feel like there was a lot of adjustment in my relationship with God and to church. I started going to a very well-known white church in the city after that, mostly because it was a place you could go and not have to be talking to anybody, you could go, sit in the back of the church or you could go watch it online, you only have to interact with folks. I was definitely going through a spiritual shift right there, that sent me on a tailspin.

Amena:

Professionally, I had decided that I was ready to work in my field too, and I couldn't see that becoming a full-time artist was going to happen. I thought, "Well, I need to work corporate and do this." I got my first corporate job writing for a big Fortune 500, discovered within six months that I hated it so bad, oh, I hated that job so bad, I've talked to y'all about that on the podcast before. I worked that job and really that job is what made me discover, I want to be an artist full time and that means I have to do some different things financially, went through that same thing that you did of like... Well, actually, I went through the same thing you did, but I didn't do the things you did. I went through the life, "I need to quit," so I just quit and got my Christmas bonus. I hoped that everything was going to open up and you know it didn't.

Amena:

I was dating for the first time and I had made this commitment that, of course the way we were raised up in church and all the normal sheets, I was trying not to have sex until I got married, dating as a grown woman and doing that, especially not dating dudes... Not necessarily that because you date dudes at the church means they going to, because they're not always... Y'all know what I mean, but I was dating guys from all over, from all different backgrounds and stuff. Even explaining to them that, was weird to them, they were just like, "Really? That's you? You're 27, still? That's you still?" And they're like, "Could it be me though? Could I be the first one?" I'd be like, "Yeah, you have to marry me," and they'd be like, "Oh, no, I'm good, but I'm going to go ahead and pay for dinner and I'm not going to see you again, [crosstalk 00:24:09]."

Amena:

Figuring out all the dating and for me getting more comfortable with the fact that I am also a sexual being that I have the opportunity to make these sexual choices because I want to, navigating all of that, the dating, quitting that job too soon, going broke, moving back in with another friend of a friend, then actually making a successful run of being a full-time artist once I got into my early thirties, then dating this man I really loved, and then being like, "This ain't going to work, me and you can't, no," and experiencing that first like, I'm like ridiculously in love with someone and I also have had my heartbroken, all of that helps you bare your soul to and then finally getting to Matt and being like, "Okay, now, this is the thing I'm looking for, here he is."

Amena:

Getting married in my early thirties and then us going into business together and experiencing Christian space together and all of that and which we'll get into in a minute, also experiencing thinking that having kids was going to be easy for us and discovering in the middle of the first few years of marriage that it wouldn't be right. On the friends side, I had maintained one friend from high school, very close friend from high school, then I was meeting all these people out on the art scene, so I gained those friends. I did have also the friends that I met traveling who were also speakers and stuff like that.

Amena:

Then we arrive to 2017, we're now in our late thirties at this point, you're in this sweet spot in your career, my career's going super great, although now I'm like, "Man, it could even be better, who knew about that?" And you are too though, now we're like, "I'm in the sweet spot," but I'm like, "Is this the sweet spot?"

Celita:

Right, we didn't know it was coming.

Amena:

Okay. It's late twenties, and when do you start your podcast? You start, "I'm Simply Artistic," is that 2017, 2016?

Celita:

I do start it in 2017 and I'd run it to 2019 and do it for two years, yeah.

Amena:

What was the idea behind it when you wanted to start the podcast?

Celita:

My mission for I'm Simply Artistic is to use psychology, creativity and technology to help others live healthier lives. At this point I've had a good spoken word career run, I was able to do the artist thing, yes, I was working full-time as an IT person with it, but it was like I was able to have both, to make decent money professionally and be a professional artist and get paid to do that. With the exploration of that spoken word ministry that you and I helped start and not having regular stages to put these spoken word poems out too that I know helped people, I was like, "Let me start a podcast where I can release my spoken word on the podcast so that it's there, it is always there, people can go back..."

Celita:

I did release one album, oh, my gosh, there's a Phantom spoken word album on Spotify, but it wasn't good, it was the first joint, no one's first phantom album is amazing. In lieu of not having an album, in lieu of not publishing a work, let this be my publishing, to put these on the podcast. In between me releasing the poem and breaking it down and talking about how it could help and encourage and support somebody, I'll do interviews. Then I started lining up all the artistic people in my life so that I could schedule you all for interviews for the podcast. By this time you and I had had maybe four or five genuine interactions over the years to where I thought I could probably reach out to Amena and ask if she would be a guest on my show, you were in my earlier ones.

Amena:

I will tell y'all, I feel like because we still had a lot of mutual friends and because we were both involved in poetry community, I would see you out and I always felt like even though I knew that you were pissed at me for how I did that breakup, I knew that you were pissed about that, but after being in therapy and going on my own healing journey, I really didn't feel defensive about the fact that you were pissed about it.

Celita:

You did not, you never came off as defensive.

Amena:

I really felt like, "Yeah, she's pissed off at you and understand if so." However her pissed off feelings come out this time interacting with her, you need to accept that-

Celita:

You just got to deal with it, you genuinely came with open-heart and arms every single time, you initiated conversation with me during that period.

Amena:

I felt like you were never like, "Don't talk to me," but in the first couple of interactions, you were definitely being very clear to me that this conversation is only going to last for so many minutes and it's only going to involve so many subjects and there's certain subjects that I'm never talking to you about, period. I was like, "And you got to respect that," because I feel like when you do have a friend breakup, you can't go back into that person's life. It's like, when you're close friends with someone, it's like emotionally, they're giving you the keys to their house, where they're saying like, "Hey, you can walk in. Other people can come in at the house saying clean, if I didn't feel good or whatever, but you could come in." When you break up with a friend, you can't take the house key, the locks has changed. Even if the locks ain't changed, you can't take the house key back to the door and just be like, "Boop, I'm here. I was in the neighborhood," because they're going to be looking at you like, My neighborhood? What?"

Amena:

Every time I would see Celita, I would always spend an extra few minutes just saying hey, we have a little couple of exchanges, then when I had the time and healing to realize how hurtful that breakup was to you, then I would try... Along my healing journey there were layers of things I was realizing. When layer one, when I would see you I would be like, "Also, I just wanted to let you know that..." and then I would realize layer two, so the next time we saw each other and we could talk like that, I would be like, "I know we're at the corner of somebody else's party, but I also wanted to let you know that I realize it's not okay to blah, blah, blah," and I didn't even realize I was doing that so many times.

Celita:

Yes. Before the ultimate apology, I received at least two or three many apologies in the small interactions that we were having. It always caught me off guard because you were initiating all of this, which is your responsibility too, which we'll discuss, but it was just like, we're at a slam competition and we might connect about something, not friend or heart-related, "Oh, did you see that score creep?" "What happened?" Then like, "That position added up a one." Then like hand on shoulder maybe, maybe a little pinch and look me in my eye and I'll know, I'm like, "A moment is about to happen. We are about to have a moment. You said it to me last time, I don't need it again." "I know we haven't talked in a while, but I just want you to know that I still see you, you're still my homie," something like that. "I'm sorry that things went down the way they did, but I just want you to know that I still see you, I still be paying attention and I'm proud of you."

Celita:

Stuff like that that you would say, and it'll be a quick moment and I would just be like, "Okay, holding the lump in my throat," no hug, I'm just going to walk away.

Amena:

Okay, no hug for you.

Celita:

Who's going to walk away, hugging is a big deal.

Amena:

So wild to think about that now, but yes y'all, I tried to... As I was figuring out like, "You could have done that better," then every time I would see you I'll be like, "I just want you to know, I know I could have done that better. I know that now that I realize I could have done it better doesn't mean that we got to go back today, but I just want you to know the vibes." The first couple of times you were like, "All right," then you would go get something to drink and be like, "Okay." But after the third time, I could tell you were like, "All right. Okay. So that mean we kicking about, okay."

Celita:

Right. Yeah, but I receive it.

Amena:

When you reached out to me about the podcast interview, I was excited that you were doing a podcast that I thought it was just a very dope idea and the lens from which you were doing your creative work, that made perfect sense. I was excited to get to be a part of that, I was really honored that you asked me and I was looking forward to the recording. You came here to the house and recorded and then after we...

Amena:

First of all, the recording, I do feel like when we use chemistry we're often talking about sexual chemistry between two people, which we know is a real thing, but I think we don't talk enough about friendship chemistry that can happen too because when we were in the recording, it just felt like it was filling up the room the fact that we had all this friendship chemistry between us and then when the recording was over, it was like, that was your first time being in my first house and being in my office and everything, we were chit chatting and that was the warmest our interactions had felt in a long time. I was like, "I wonder... Maybe we're going to... Okay." Not ever going to do that every Friday thing, but maybe a Friday sometime.

Amena:

From there, after we record the episode for your podcast, then we are approaching our college reunion coming up, right?

Celita:

Yes. Same month, the podcast was earlier in that month and later in that month was going to be our 15 year Spelman College reunion. We had such a nice and natural, there was nothing forced, nothing held back, laughed and cackled like we had been doing it for years, it was so natural whatever that you and I planned to do reunion together, to meet there and to hang out together and having our white dresses-

Amena:

Because this is Spelman tradition, y'all, that's the thing.

Celita:

Yeah. I was like, something is different here, this is different than these other little small little moments we've had over the past 13 years, there's something sustaining that feels like it's in motion at this time. Then we had scheduled for our cohort, our class of 2002, just our little small group of people to go out to dinner that night so I asked you, "Hey, after reunion, can I just come back to your place and hang out and change and then we'll go have dinner?"

Amena:

Y'all, here I go trying to have another emotional conversation with Celita, I just really... Maybe because I felt like it's different when we were meeting up at poetry events because there's all these people around, you can't really get into it, but also the interview for your podcast was the first time that I felt like I really think maybe there's still friendship here for us but I would love to move into that really respectfully and I wanted to know from you the vibes, if you felt like that, or if you were like, "No, it's cool with us, it's cool, but I'm good, I don't need us to do this thing that you're trying to do," even though I felt the vibes from you, I felt like maybe you were open to that and I was like, "I feel like a lot of healing has happened, a lot of time has gone by, maybe this could be a thing."

Amena:

Then I feel like we had the big conversation where for the first time we like, we're walking through with y'all we actually did that day much more in depth and Celita was much more blunt with me about how that moment actually felt for her, what she felt I did wrong in the way that I communicated that and the way I handled it, how it brought hurt to her, like you said to me, I wasn't supposed to have my wedding without you, I wasn't supposed to have my first child and my pregnancy and my baby shower without you, I get home with my baby and I'm looking around and I'm thankful for everybody in my life, but I'm looking around thinking, "It's not supposed to be that my kid doesn't know you, and doesn't know who you are, that's not how this was supposed to be." For me to have to hear you say it to me and take it because it was true.

Amena:

That day was good for me as the person that did the breakup in a not good way to have to hear how that actually transpired in your life, not just the moment that I said it, but all the other reverberations to come after that, and then having a little bit of a moment to get to know... I don't think we did all the, what you've been doing in 13 years, I don't think we did that, but it was like, here's where I'm at right now as a woman in my life, and I think you did the, here's where I'm at now, and we did talk that day to say, what does this mean to us as far as-

Celita:

Right, what does it look like going forward.

Amena:

Yeah. We both agreed, I don't think we need to set any, every three Tuesdays [crosstalk 00:38:11]. Nobody has time for that, but just, let's hang out and kick it as it feels organic to us and let's communicate in the ways that feel organic to us and let's see.

Amena:

That was May and I have to say that that year you came to my house for Thanksgiving, it was that year.

Celita:

It was that year, yeah, that same year.

Amena:

You came to my house for Thanksgiving, Maya was there for Thanksgiving and might've been another friend of ours, but I remember, normally I have a house full of people for Thanksgiving, but that was the first time, of course, that all of us had Thanksgiving together since college and twenties and everything. For me thinking about the fact that I had had a miscarriage a couple of years before around the time of Thanksgiving, and so sometimes the grief would be very overwhelming, sometimes I wouldn't want to see nobody, sometimes I want to see everybody, sometimes you don't know how you're going to feel till you get to Thanksgiving day or whatever.

Amena:

I remember looking around at my house and you and Maya being in my house and just thanking God, because there's a lot of layers of friends you'll have that you'll have reasons you appreciate them, but I realized in that moment, it is nice to have friends you have history with that knew you when your haircut was ugly or-

Celita:

We had that first natural, couldn't appreciate.

Amena:

Yeah. I knew you when you was wearing your jeans way too baggy for your body or whatever, you know what I'm saying?

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

Looking around and being like, we weren't even close enough at that time that any of you knew I'd had a miscarriage, but the comfort that it brought to me that y'all felt like home to me and that I felt like that was a gift to have you returning to my life at this time that I'm trying to grapple with this and figure this out, as well as having upheaval in my career, feeling like I wanted to leave Christian space at that point. To me the friendship returned at a time that I really needed it, what were those vibes like for you?

Celita:

Was that the Thanksgiving was also my birthday that landed on Thanksgiving?

Amena:

Oh my gosh, I think you're right, because we baked a pie, we baked an extra sweet potato pie, just for you.

Celita:

You look at how 2017 started and by the end of it, I'm celebrating my birthday with one of the closest people I've ever known in my whole life. Somebody I've done so much with and I've done a lot with a lot of people and I do involve with people in my life, but we were so concentrated in what we executed together. There has not been, and I don't know if there ever honestly will be anybody that I've ever done so much concentrated executed work with, and you were out of my life for so many years and then here we are in this moment kicking it like nothing happened, but also fully aware that something had happened and being completely different people in that moment than we were when things ended 13 years earlier.

Celita:

I really want to commend you because you really took the chance to put yourself out there, when I asked if you would be a guest on my show, graciously accepting, but then not only that, as we sat down to think about, what are we going to talk about on this episode, you trusting me with the real story behind TV sitcoms poem.

Amena:

Yeah. That was the first time I've ever said that publicly and I don't think on anyone else's show that I would have felt comfortable to say it, but because it was you and because I knew the lens from which you were wanting to do the show and how you were using that lens to do your poetic work, I honestly think that that had been anybody else's podcast I never would have said that, but I felt comfortable doing that because I was with you.

Celita:

That's crazy, we hadn't been talking, communicating, and here we are and you in that moment are saying, "I still see you as somebody that creates a comfortable enough environment for me to be my full self." In recognizing that, that's why I felt safe with whatever the next steps were for this new chapter of our friendship, because I was like, "Wow, I was literally trusted with that moment. We're still connected, we're still bonded after all this time." That really helped prepare my heart and my mind for when you did initiate the full apology later at a reunion where I was able to receive all of it number one, and also release all of the past. I sobbed, I don't know when's the last time I sobbed like that, just listening to you and giving you an opportunity to talk.

Celita:

It was such a release, it was like palate cleansing. Then from that moment on it was like, "We good." That was 2017, that was four years ago, the years have melted by, we never established how often we needed to talk or nothing like that, but we maintained a pretty consistent connection over this time, pretty genuine, and I've come to Thanksgiving every year since then.

Amena:

Multiple times and we love to see it. You said this when we were preparing for this episode and I love being able to close with talking about what we feel like this experience taught us or what we feel like we learned from having had close friendship when we were younger at this very developmental time, and then in what are the middle years when you're developing your career and some of your early relationships and for you this journey into motherhood, not having those years together but somehow some way returning back to each other at this time where we both had no idea how much we're going to need each other like-

Celita:

Showing up for each other.

Amena:

Yeah. Talk to me about that and talk to me about any other lessons you can think of that you feel like you've learned or that we've learned together through the process.

Celita:

Yeah. Well, first I'll just say, you talked about how having us at Thanksgiving was what you needed at that moment and not even realizing the degree that you needed it. Then I didn't know that within a year's time of that, I was going to really need my friends and the friends that I had made at college, us reconnecting in that moment, life was about to take some turns for me where I had no idea how important and vital you guys were about to become.

Celita:

Even after that, I had the opportunity to show up for you, which I'm just so grateful that we were able to reconnect right at that moment, but then I realized my marriage is ending, I'm about to get a divorce and you showing up for me in that moment was everything. You saying that, "I love you no matter what, I standby you no matter what, you'll never be judged by me," was what I needed. Because of our history, there's not another person I can think of that could've have showed up in quite the same way as the core friends that I had in you guys.

Celita:

Then after divorcing and now I'm facing single life again, it's just like, "How am I going to do this this time? How am I going to live my life and making the decision that I'm going to be my fully fabulous gay self? I'm going to do this. It is time, I'm ready." You fully standing by me in that as well, when I'm prepping my coming out video and you're texting me the night before like, "I just want to make it very clear, if anybody's in your comments and they say something crazy, I'm going to be right there, I'm going to [inaudible 00:46:34] immediately."

Amena:

Okay? Y'all already met my sister. My sister knew Celita was doing a coming out video, we both was in the comments, my sister was like, "I wish somebody would."

Celita:

If somebody go low, I'm going to hell.

Amena:

Y'all heard her say on this podcast, y'all heard my sister say it so you know.

Celita:

That's right, yes, I love Keda, oh my gosh. God's timing is perfect, because exactly what I needed and you were right there. We talked about so much in our friendship and what we've learned, but one thing that I think we both learned is just, friendships are built in the showing up moments, and it's still showing up moments that really show the authenticity and the depth of the relationship you have with the person, is your ability to show up and not just to show up but to show up when it is taboo, to show up when it is unpopular to show up, to show up when the Christian space that you came from pegs and puts their finger on the exact thing that you have to walk through, that that is the most abominable topics and you saying, "No, I've known you your whole life, I've watched you your whole life, I am not surprised, you do you, yes it's about time actually."

Celita:

Then another thing is, in re-evaluating our friendship and then also looking at how I've been able to navigate my friendships post our breakup, first of all, I learned to diversity, one person can't fill all the things, you going to have your cycling buddy over here, your spoken word buddy over here, your cooking buddy over here, your talk about a documentary or a song over here, all these different-

Amena:

People that work in your field or your industry over there, yeah.

Celita:

Right. That's okay, we don't have to be in each other's pockets for everything all the time. There is space in all of my friendships because you only satisfy one part of me and then there's another part I'm getting from somebody else and the part am getting from somebody else and learning and understanding those boundaries and that dynamic relationship has really helped to create healthy, long lasting friendships.

Celita:

The last thing that I remember talking to you about was, I was listening to this podcast called The Life Kit Podcast, and it talked about recognizing when your friendship is going to change, and a good healthy friendship is built on three key components, if you think of a equal lateral triangle where all sides are even, one side is consistency, one side is vulnerability and one side is positivity, those three things have to be balancing each other out in your friendship. Oftentimes when you feel like it's changing, it's because one of those is off-kilter, there's too much vulnerability and not enough positivity, or there's a lot of positivity but you aren't meeting consistently, you aren't seeing each other on any cadence, and a lot of times when a friendship has changed, it's one of those three aren't quite at the level that they're supposed to be.

Celita:

I can identify in us, we were in each other's pockets a lot, we had the consistency but lacking in vulnerability, lacking in positivity, that just creates an atmosphere where your friendship can't thrive. These are some of the things that I've learned and tried to apply in my adult relationships going forward.

Amena:

Yeah. I feel like one of the things I learned especially in this season of our friendship was showing up for you in the way you needed me to. I don't know if this is just a weird thing that was at our church culture thing, but I feel like sometimes there was this attempt to go overboard in the ways you were going to celebrate or show up for someone, we used to have very lavish birthdays, we were planning for everyone, if you were turning 25, then we got to do a surprise thing for you, and a scavenger hunt during the day that leads you to the venue where we're going... If that person loves those things, okay, but maybe you've done a big old thing and they would have rather a little small intimate thing. You would rather us go to Topgolf than go to the Mac counter and do... You don't want that?

Amena:

I do think earlier on it was like, we need to establish these friendship rules that work for everybody all the time and you'll have different seasons of your life, and we're all different people, what you might be doing for this friend, you might not do that for the other friend. I even remember after you opened up to me like, "Hey, I think my marriage is ending," and of course we had some times we would meet up and talk about that and then I decided to ask you like, "Sometimes do we be on your nerves that we talk about it, sometimes would you rather do something else?" You were like, "Actually I would, yes. Sometimes I would rather just go do something." I was like, "I got these free tickets to this random cartoon from this PR company I'm working with, you want to go see a random cartoon or something?" You were like, "I would love to see a random cartoon right now."

Celita:

We went to go see UglyDolls.

Amena:

Yeah. You were like, "I would love to do that and not have to talk about this all the time. I know you here if I want to talk about it," and even when you looked at me and said, "My marriage is ending and I'm pretty sure my marriage is over, it's women for me." I look back at you like, "Word up. I don't know you since you was 18 years old, I want my friend to be free, I don't care, word up."

Amena:

But to ask you how you want me to be here for you and not assume even though I love you and I'm close to you that I know, because I might not know. I feel like that's one lesson, I will say for those that are going to have to be a person that does a friend breakup, I feel like first of all if I could do that all over, I would have said the things that I said here, I would've said, "Here's where the rub is for me and here's what's going on with me. I want to kick it with you and I want to have this space over here. Is that cool with you?" Maybe Celita then would have been like, "Thank you, that's all I want to know what you doing, dog, fine, go to your salsa classes, I'm not going, but go to your salsa class. Whatever that is, have a good time, we can kick it at a different time when you're done doing that."

Amena:

Our friendship would have potentially been able to handle that, or if it couldn't have, then we would have known, "Well, then we do need to take this break," but it wouldn't have felt as abrupt and it wouldn't have felt as hurtful. It would have been hurtful to have to break up or have space anyways, but I don't think it would have felt as abrupt and hurtful as it did to you because then we're mutually deciding this is what we need to do.

Celita:

Giving the other person the opportunity to rise to the maturity level of the conversation that the two of you are having, maybe you can mutually decide, you never know where the other person is and whether they'll even be able to hear it, but finding the correct language is very crucial. Sometimes it is necessary to initiate a friendship breakup, I really think that had we gone on we probably would have created something that would have been even more devastating and that we couldn't have come back from, sometimes it is what it is, but being able to be honest with yourself about what is actually going on inside of me, why am I having these feelings and having the courage and the wisdom to articulate that to your friend is going to be crucial.

Celita:

Friendship breakups happen just like relationship breakups happen, it's a thing, but then also friendship rekindling can happen just like you can get back together with an ex, a friendship has that same amount of weight, if not more and requires that level of vulnerability and conversation and honesty.

Amena:

It's dope about friendship being different from romantic relationships in the sense that I feel like you're more likely to possibly have some friendships that would rekindle. You may date somebody and break up and discover, "Ah, we could get back together," but the percentages of, you might have some friendships that would be in that category would be higher because you'll be able to keep multiple friendships in your life. I do think a part of the reconnecting is not assuming the time commitment or the closeness, or whatever that was before the breakup, not assuming that it's going to return, the hope is you're going to create a new thing that's for, who the people are now and where you are now and giving each other that space and respecting if the trust has to be rebuilt, not assuming now you just get to know all the secrets and all this stuff going on, maybe that person ain't ready to talk to you about that, maybe they're going to take their time figuring out what to say to you and what feels comfortable.

Amena:

But if you're the person that did the breaking up, let them, and follow their lead on that, you're not the one who gets to decide. I feel like there's too many relationships situations where the person who does the hurting walks in like, "Okay, well, I said I'm sorry now and I'm ready for this to be over, I'm ready for you to not be dealing with these emotions now, we need to move on." It's always the person that did the hurtful shit that's like, "We need to move on," you don't get to decide. The person who got hurt, you did the hurting your job is to be like, "I'm sorry, I'm here now. What are the vibes?" If you're the one who got hurt in the process, then it's your job to decide how comfortable do you feel with the person, how slow do you want to go, how does the trust get rebuilt, but we are a testament that it's possible.

Amena:

I'm thankful that you came on the podcast and that we told these people a little bit of our business and we hope it helps y'all, but I'm thankful for you in my life, man, it's forever for us now, you're literally never going to get rid of me now. You might regret that a couple of times, you might be like, "Man, why did I have that conversation with her? Now she's always around here. [crosstalk 00:57:27]." Because I'll leave you the long one, I'll be like, "You know, but check in where you can. All right." I just love you girl.

Celita:

I love you too, Amena.

Amena:

I really appreciate you being open to us, unfolding some of this in a public space. You know where my heart is girl, always, I was never apart-

Celita:

Lets do that, color purple [crosstalk 00:57:54], Yes.

Amena:

[inaudible 00:57:56].

Amena:

Y'all, I love a happy ending, but you know what I love even more, a healthy beginning. Sometimes the relationships in our lives don't arrive at happy endings, although I'm so glad my friendship with Celita did, but even more than a happy ending, we were able to give a healthy new beginning to our friendship.

Amena:

Special shout out to my good friend, Celita Williams for joining me in this episode. You can follow Celita at 11locs on Instagram and you can follow her podcast and poetry at imsimplyartistic on Instagram. To learn more about her creative work, visit imsimplyartistic.com.

Amena:

I know friendships can be challenging, our friends can be the ones that hold us up when times are hard and sometimes our friendships can be a place that can break our hearts in the deepest of places. I hope listening in on this conversation with Celita and me is helping you to assess and evaluate your own friendships. Ask yourself this, do you have any friends in your life that you need to reach out to reconnect with, to see how they're doing, to have an honest conversation, to let them know you're thinking about them, to apologize to them and make things right when possible, how can you show up for your friends? Have you asked your friend lately how they would like you to show up for them or hold space for them? Lastly, how can you show up for yourself?

Amena:

My therapist reminded me a couple of years ago that I am my own best friend too. If you are a person who doles out all the care for your friends, how can you make sure you're showing that same care and gentleness to yourself? Thanks for listening.

Amena:

HER With Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 40

Amena:

Hey, y'all welcome back to this week's episode of HER With Amena Brown. And if you follow me on social media, I hope you do because you need to follow me, especially on Instagram, because I'm there more often than the rest of them at Amenabee if you don't. But if you do, you probably saw in my stories that I have been hinting to you all that I am going to be doing a bit of a series of episodes, even though they will not be in order so they'll just pop up here sometimes. But I'm doing a series of episodes on friendship, and this is one of those episodes. So I'm so excited to welcome spoken word poet, podcaster, IT geek and cyclist and my friend Celita Williams.

Celita:

So glad to be here.

Amena:

If you've been listening to the podcast, you probably recently heard my episode with my sister Makeda, which is the first time on this set of, what the podcast is now, that I've talked with a family member. And so Celita is my first guest. I've had other times where friends were on here, but never a time where it was a friend on to actually talk about our friendship. So if you enjoy episodes where you get a chance to get in my business, this is your time.

Amena:

So, we did not talk about this because I wanted to do something that felt more like conversations on the podcast this time, versus an interview. And we've had a very interesting journey in our friendship with each other. And we've talked a lot about how there's a lot about friendship as a grown adult.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

And how you handle those transitions or not. And we thought maybe us letting you all into some of that. Not all of it because some of that is for us.

Celita:

Not all of it.

Amena:

Yeah. So just so y'all know, some things are, in the film world they say some things are on the cutting floor, but some of that ain't your business. So some of that ain't going to be in here, but the parts that we can share publicly, I thought it would be interesting to share that. So I don't know, this feels like... I feel vulnerable a little bit.

Celita:

No, it's going to be... We're definitely going to maintain the integrity and privacy of our friendship, but I think we did both agree that what we are going to choose to share today will be vulnerable, it will be juicy. In some ways it'll be like, "what?" There's some good stuff in there. So, I'm feeling it.

Amena:

Okay.

Celita:

Really excited.

Amena:

Let's start with how we met. I'm honestly trying to think Celita if I remember the moment that we met, but I don't know that I can remember that as much as the time [crosstalk 00:03:00].

Celita:

Yeah. I don't remember our actual very first encounter. And I also wasn't like your initial primary friend at Spelman.

Amena:

That's true.

Celita:

You had a set of roommates that y'all were like peas in a pod first before you and I started connecting.

Amena:

That's true, actually. So we did go to college together. We went to Spelman College, shout out to all the Spelmanites.

Celita:

Spelmanites, 1998.

Amena:

Okay. And our dorms were right next to each other.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

And I think we originally met because we both got involved with redacted campus ministry.

Celita:

Who shall not be named at this time.

Amena:

Will not be named on this here podcast. But for those of you that are familiar with how college ministries works, a lot of them worked on a chapter basis. So it was a ministry that was national at the time but then had these like local chapters sometimes at one school, sometimes a couple of schools will come together and have a chapter. And so we were a part of a chapter at Spelman and we both were in the same year. We got into this ministry our first year.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

We both came from church backgrounds.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

Very involved in church.

Celita:

Very serious.

Amena:

Backgrounds. So can you tell me when you were leaving, you were from Baltimore.

Celita:

Right. I'm from Baltimore.

Amena:

When you were leaving Baltimore, were you being instructed like, "Hey, you need to get there to Atlanta. You need to find like a church home, some other Christians to be in community with." What were the vibes?

Celita:

So it was, "yes. Go and I hope you find some people and get connected," but the main vibe was you coming back here, like this is your church home. Whoever you meet and get connected with down there it's not the real thing. You need to come back. We need you serving here. We expect that you're going to grow up here. You're simply going there to go to school.

Amena:

Wow.

Celita:

There was a lot about us meeting and the ministry and the church that was attached to all of that, that really caught me off guard because I had no intention of trying to make a serious ministry life here in Atlanta.

Amena:

Yo, it is kind of interesting to hear you say that now, because going to Spelman, we were all coming from environments where we were in leadership there.

Celita:

Right. Yes.

Amena:

We were looked at as leaders where we came from. So Atlanta was fine for a lot of us, but a lot of us, it was that story of like, "yeah, but I'm going back home to be amazing. Those people are expecting me."

Celita:

Right. I'm a youth leader, youth ministry leader there.

Amena:

"I have to go back. I don't know what y'all are doing." My story was I left San Antonio, that was my hometown. So I left San Antonio with a list from my youth pastor-

Celita:

Oh, that's dope.

Amena:

Of churches that the pastors knew the pastors of my home church.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

So I had a list of three, the church I ended up going to, subsequently where Celita and I both ended up going to, was not on the list. Not because it was bad at the time, but it wasn't on the list because nobody knew about it. These churches that my pastors were recommending to me were very like established Black churches in Atlanta at that time. These would have been big name, Black preachers in the late nineties, they were encouraging me to go there. And they were like, "as soon as you get there, you need to get in some Christian community or you won't stay safe." Because everybody was like, "you going to Atlanta from San Antonio, you get ready to be turned out. If you don't try-"

Celita:

Oh, my goodness.

Amena:

"... stay holy and figure out this." So I don't even remember. Oh, okay. I won't name all their public names, but we have mutual friends that were Spelmannites that were older than us.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

And it was through a couple of them.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

And because they were so beautiful and their hair was so gorgeous and we were on campus struggling trying to figure out what we were going to do with our hair. I mean your salon choices in walking distance...

Celita:

Limited.

Amena:

Yeah. Very limited. And you don't know who to trust or anything. So meeting them, I think actually I complimented them on their hair and was like, "where do you get your hair done?" They were like, "in Marietta," those of you that live in Atlanta are like, "what!" Spelman's like in the middle of the city. So they were like, "we get our hair done in Marietta." And they were like, "we're a part of this ministry. We have prayer." Was it every day or was it once a week we were having prayer?

Celita:

Was morning prayer every morning?

Amena:

That sounds like-

Celita:

Wow. How come we don't remember?

Amena:

Like, what was that about?

Celita:

Was it every morning?

Amena:

Man.

Celita:

I feel like it was every morning at-

Amena:

At 7:00 AM.

Celita:

... 7:00 AM on the Steps of Sisters Chapel.

Amena:

How did you meet those people to know to go to morning prayer? Because, my mind feels like that's the first time I ever saw you.

Celita:

Okay. This is my first interaction with that particular ministry, was I saw signs around campus that they were doing a showing of No More Sheets by Juanita Bynum. Oh my goodness, the prophetess.

Amena:

No More Sheets okay.

Celita:

Yes. And growing up in Baltimore we had had a ladies night at the house where we watch No More Sheets and No More Sheets was everything. Everyone was talking about No More Sheets like, "Oh my gosh, she was amazing. No More Sheets that's how its supposed to be." So I was all about it. I was super religious. And so when I saw the signs for that, I was like, "oh, this has to be legit. I definitely need to partner with these people that are doing this movie showing" or whatever. And what's so crazy is I had met this little Morehouse man my very first week at school when it was just the freshmen Spelman and the freshmen Morehouse dudes there, and may have a little boyfriend and just before No More Sheets, I was hanging out with him doing all kinds of foolishness. Then I went to the No More Sheets night and that's when I met all of our other friends. Were you there?

Amena:

Yes.

Celita:

Were you there?

Amena:

So that must be where we met then.

Celita:

But I don't remember interacting with you.

Amena:

No.

Celita:

I definitely remember interacting with the older, like big sistery, eventually type Spelmanites that were there that were in the ministry that we wound up looking up to. And I remember one of them told her whole story about how she was with a boy and how she decided I'm not going to do this anymore. And I felt all convicted. And so at 2:00 AM in the morning after that event was over, I went back to that little boy for Morehouse, broke up with him.

Amena:

What?

Celita:

I kissed dating goodbye. It was completely committed to this ministry from here on out.

Amena:

Yo!

Celita:

I never dated again. I never dated until like years after graduating from college.

Amena:

Yo! Okay. So let me give context for those of you that are like, what is No More Sheets?

Celita:

Oh my gosh, please.

Amena:

There was a preacher, she's still a preacher today, but this was like her heyday in especially Black church [crosstalk 00:10:31] cultural circles Dr. Juanita Bynum, probably Reverend Dr. Reverend Dr. [crosstalk 00:10:36] evangelist other titles went over there. She was a big preacher if you've grown up in Black church.

Amena:

So I knew her name too from having grown up in Black church. I think she had come to our church before or part of conferences we did at our church or something. So I knew her name from that, but I had never seen No More Sheets. And No More Sheets for people that grew up in a Black church, No More Sheets had the same cultural push for us and black church that other people would say I Kissed Dating Goodbye had in white churches. I Kissed Dating Goodbye went even beyond white churches because my mama definitely sent me a copy of it twice. But No More Sheets was giving you this message like if you're a woman who's had a sexual past, this was a big part of how the term soul ties got introduced in Black church and wanting to bind them in this video.

Amena:

It's like you're watching a video of a sermon, but in a way, the way she preaches the sermon appears to me almost like a one-woman show because she has the sheets that she's using as props. It's very dramatic and she's telling her own story of her own sexual past and all these things that she experienced, that she needed God to help her. What we would have said in Black church term, to be delivered from. And that every time you have sex with these men that your soul-

Celita:

You're soul tying.

Amena:

... is inexplicably being tied to them until you learn the saving grace of Jesus. So imagine that it's a group of us all between 18 and 22 watching, but the larger number of us are first year students there. And some of our first encounter with this message. Some of our first encounter with this idea that we should have been waiting until we got married to have sex or that if we'd already had sex, there was this way that, and lots of air quotes here that y'all can't see, but there was this way that something could happen that would wipe the slate clean for you.

Amena:

So imagine you're hearing that message at 18 or 19 years old, especially if you've already grown up in a church environment and you're knowing these girls that are older than us, there are sophomores, juniors, seniors that have invited us to this screening. I'm thinking to myself, this is the Christian community they told me to find. These girls are like-

Celita:

This is right in line.

Amena:

Yeah. Right. So that night is when they tell us like, here are the other activities we do. Like we have morning prayer in the morning on the Steps of Sisters Chapel, which was our big chapel at Spelman. And they were like, "we do like movie nights and game nights. And we just kind of do life together vibes."

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

So that's what led me to morning prayer.

Celita:

And they were trying to push it and trying to not push the church that they were connected to because this ministry was a para-church ministry attached to a church that was in the area in Atlanta. And so eventually you would get out of them. Oh, and a lot of us go to this Wednesday night service at this church, if you want to carpool and go with us and so the story unravels.

Amena:

So it's important for you to have these dynamics of what... Celita and I are here, but there's a larger group. There's probably eight to 10 women really that were in both of our lives, in our orbit in some way, because we all met connected to this ministry that did to your point eventually lead to us going to this church. So I really wished that I could remember this initial moment that I got to have some conversation with you. But at some point we learned that we both were in choir in church growing up.

Celita:

Yes. Oh, my God.

Amena:

And that was like a huge commonality because we both grew up in traditional Black church, singing those choir songs from nineties. I think Pages of Life was just coming out that first year that we were in college. Am I right about that? Like '98, '99?

Celita:

Pages of Life came out, I was still in high school because that had Jesus all on it, right?

Amena:

Yes.

Celita:

But it laid good groundwork for our communication because we both knew. And we both followed Fred Hammond with all his subsequent albums that came out while we were in school, like Purpose by Design.

Amena:

Okay. I even went back because I didn't know anything really about Fred Hammond until Pages of Life. So I went back and bought the albums-

Celita:

The Inner Court.

Amena:

Yes, I went back and bought those albums because before Fred Hammond, I was very like Hezekiah Walker, John P. Kee. That was my gateway. And then you're singing in the youth choir, so that kept you up on Kirk Franklin and Tye Tribbett at the time, Donald Lawrence. So like I remember that being a very big part of the language of our early friendship.

Celita:

Yes, absolutely.

Amena:

I also remember there would be times that you would get sick after we all got involved in the organization together in the ministry. This part of it it's like, those of you that have been in non-profit spaces or in church spaces, it's like as you hear us telling this story, there are aspects of it later that you're like, "oh no, that wasn't a good thing at all." But the way that we were able to be community to each other, like I remember like the word getting passed around and we didn't even have cell phones then.

Amena:

I just remember some of the other girls that were sort of what would have been considered big sisters to us letting us know that first year that you would have these times that you would get sick and we would go to your room, and if we needed to bring food to you from the cafeteria. Like that part of something that we were learning, I think was a really beautiful thing. I think might've been how I figured out you knew choir music. Because I was in your dorm room trying to-

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

We were taking rotations when you would get sick like that.

Celita:

Pretty bad asthmatic basically is the core of that was, and I would say that as a ministry we ran hard. So you're talking about classes all day studying and then being fully committed to this ministry experience and staying up super late, making flyers or planning an event or something like that. My body was like uh uh.

Amena:

And being in the dorm the first time, being around all those new people. I feel like a lot of us were getting sick and your immune system even more so because your body was like, "I'm sorry, this is not the thing for me." So I feel like we just had a really good connection that I always loved during that time.

Celita:

I don't know when we started really like spending a lot of time communicating and talking, but I knew that we had a deep and genuine connection. I just remember challenges financially freshman year. And sometimes not being able to go to the cafeteria and get food yet and being able to make you a sandwich from the caf and bring it and not having the words, but being able to just sit with you while we had no idea when the financial aid was going to drop and how that next semester was going to look like. early, early moments of us showing up for each other. You definitely being a nurturer. You've definitely showed up in a nurturing way in my life from the very beginning and me just trying to be present.

Amena:

I think also the ministry that we were in was very leadership focused, I'm using the air quotes here, and in the sense of, they were wanting to build Black Christian leaders out of us.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

And so the more we got involved in the ministry then of course, every year some of the leadership were graduating. So then it meant like, oh, well we just had these seniors that have been holding this down all this time. Well, they've graduated, we'll now we're sophomores. So I feel like as we took on more responsibility in the ministry, then I also learned that we worked together really well. And our way that we could come together, like this is still true of you and I, that we could come together in a room and figure out how to get something done and it'll get finished, and it'll be dope, and it'll be creative, and it feel good, be organized boom. Then you get in a room and our two brains could get together and figure that out. And so I think after our first year, then by the time we got into sophomore year, I learned that you and I could do that. So by the time we got to our junior year, we were-

Celita:

We were peas in a pod.

Amena:

Yeah.

Celita:

And I think we knew that the ministry was grooming you to be president and junior year, you could only be president in your junior year.

Amena:

Oh, that's right.

Celita:

Do you remember that? Because your senior year, you were to mentor the new president while they served in their junior year. So sophomore year was like prime year for us. And you having to decide whether you were going to take on this mantle of being president of the ministry. And then ultimately I became vice-president and supported you. But Amena, I recently, I don't know how, why I still had these papers, but I've found printouts of some of our AOL chat conversations, because we would go home in the summer-

Amena:

No.

Celita:

... and our whole thing the whole summer was we have to plan the next year. We had carried that weight on our shoulders like it was the only thing that we needed to be doing. And we would spend hours on these AOL chat messages, planning, like the Bible studies, what lessons, what topics? The outings, what events were you going to do? How are we going to recruit? How are we going to get on campus early and get to these freshmen? Like, it was a whole thing.

Amena:

Oh my gosh, I forgot about that. I forgot that we were on AOL like that.

Celita:

Oh my goodness. And I still have my very first Yahoo inbox. I go back and I see messages that we sent to each other.

Amena:

I'm like, let me go back and figure out I think I-

Celita:

What were you using back then?

Amena:

I think I had a Yahoo too. I obviously had the AOL because I had started using AOL IM before we left for college.

Celita:

Okay.

Amena:

I had like gotten one of the CDs. Yeah, I'm sorry for y'all that didn't grow up like this. But you will get that CD ROM in the mail for free.

Celita:

For free.

Amena:

AOL would be like, "you get a 100 hours of internet." And I'd be like, "yes." I'd go on there and chat folks and find out what was going on at Spelman and Morehouse before we went to school.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

So I had AOL and then I think Yahoo became, what is Gmail now to everybody.

Celita:

Right.

Amena:

So I think a lot of us at that time switched over to having Yahoo emails. But girl, now that you're talking about it, I'm like, it's probably an archive of a bunch of stuff in that Yahoo email that I would be cringing and entertained to read. So I need to go back and do that.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

Of course, as I'm talking to you about it now, Celita, and thinking how involved our lives were in the ministry. There are parts of that, that as I got older, I wished that I had spent time doing other things like being involved in other organizations around campus.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

Whenever we go back for homecoming now, or especially early on when I first started going back after we graduated, I'd be looking around like, it appears that everyone else was kicking it together at other things and we weren't at that because I think the nature of the Christian organization we were in was very like, "you're at school to evangelize these people."

Celita:

When 10% of your campus for Christ. When a tithe of your campus.

Amena:

Come on outside. In a way to me I'll look back on that time of life and I'm like, I mean, we had fun together because we all we're friends, we enjoyed each other, but there was a lot of college life that we just didn't do because everything was about that.

Celita:

Everything was [crosstalk 00:23:04].

Amena:

Who can you to get to come to morning prayer? Who's in your class that you see struggling, or they're going through something? How can you be talking to them about Jesus, be talking to them about prayer or whatever. Like I remember seeing girls around campus and knowing they were going to the club and praying for them while I was walking around campus and being like, "I'm going to get them to come to our screening of Love & Basketball."

Amena:

Let me tell you, it was not a good movie to screen for y'all conservative Christian ministry is Love & Basketball because as soon as that Maxwell song comes on with the sex scene, you don't want it. You don't want it. Why do we do that? So I think that was a very all consuming, I guess what I'm trying to say, it was very all consuming I felt for our lives. But it's what built our friendships. So among us, I think there were only three people that had a car, right?

Celita:

Yeah. Well, as a freshmen you couldn't have one. So when we first came, we were very dependent on the older and of the older only three of them.

Amena:

[crosstalk 00:24:12] I feel like our whole time in college, among our circle of friends, there was a max of three cars at all times.

Celita:

The person that had one of the cars graduated, so we lost a car and then somebody-

Amena:

And then somebody would come back and be like, "I got a car now." So we did everything together. When we were having to go make copies of the flyers at Kinko's y'all.

Celita:

At Kinko's. 24 hours, middle of the night going to make copies of flyers and stuff. Oh my gosh.

Amena:

I mean...

Celita:

What were we doing?

Amena:

If somebody was going to Walmart, then it was five people are packed in a car. One person had to go to Walmart, but five of us have packed in the car. So I feel like you and I working together in the ministry, especially that junior year to me, really solidified our friendship because we had to spend so much time together working on that because we worked together so well. Like if either of us had decided to start a business, if I started a business where I would have needed your expertise I would have hired you right away.

Celita:

Right.

Amena:

Like we could have killed a business together me and you.

Celita:

We worked so well together.

Amena:

And then by the time we got to our senior year, I was actually just telling my sister, Jamie, about this. I remembered our senior year that our mutual friend Maya, because we ended up being sort of like a little tripod.

Celita:

Little trio.

Amena:

Okay. We'll tripod, triad, whatever other tri words, go there. So Maya and I were roommates, but you had a single right next door.

Celita:

Right next door.

Amena:

That was our senior year. And the air conditioning, Lord.

Celita:

Yes, the air conditioned dorm.

Amena:

And we left our doors open for each other. It was basically like other than the fact that we both went to sleep in our own beds at night, it was basically like we felt that we all had like an apartment together.

Celita:

Yeah, we were all together. I think that is important to note because even though you and I spent a lot of time together, we worked very well together. We did a lot of planning and execution together. I don't think we were each other's primary friends in those years.

Amena:

That's true.

Celita:

And this leads into how we transition after college. But I just remember from freshmen onto all of us becoming seniors ourselves, my closest friend was always older than me and always graduating. So every year I lost my closest friend, which in turn pushed me closer to you guys because you guys were actually moving with me right through the years. And so by the time senior year came, all the other older people had graduated, had moved out of state already and I was resting in my friendship with you and Maya. And for the listeners that don't know, my first name is Monica. So sometimes people will call us the three M's and it was Maya, Mena, Monica just hanging out together writing poems. We didn't even talk about that. Like [crosstalk 00:27:10].

Amena:

Man, that's right. I never though about that. When y'all hear me on the podcast talking you through my initial entry into poetry community in Atlanta it was Celita and Maya that were going to that first open mic with me. And we went to open mics over the years really. A lot of those open mics where we both were learning how to write and how to perform these were the three friends that were brave enough to go to those open mics with me, where we discover we weren't as great as we thought. And then we got better because we were there. So that was another part of what we got to do, which was one thing that we did outside of the purview of the ministry world, even though we totally thought we was going to those open mics as people say.

Celita:

We thought we were evangelizing. We were witnessing to the people.

Amena:

But I'm glad we went to that outside of our ministry world because that totally informed the work that all three of us are doing now. So we get to our senior year, the three of us living there, which gets us even closer to where, now we're like we're three peas in a pod.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

Okay.

Celita:

For sure.

Amena:

So then we graduate, this is 2002. I want y'all to know that Celita it's not that... I was about to say she got a real degree, but any degree from Spelman is a real degree, but I'm just saying Celita got the type of degree where like she could just get out of school and get a real job. Maya was a music major.

Celita:

I was computer science. Maya was music and economics.

Amena:

Oh, that's right and economics. That's right. And I was English.

Celita:

You were English eventually, but you started out trying to do a double thing because you didn't want to rest on being an English major.

Amena:

Yeah. I started off psych because I thought I was going to go to seminary and be a pastor. And then I was like, that doesn't seem like the thing. So then I was like, "okay, I'm going to do English with a minor in creative writing." But I had intention to be a writer, but Celita was one of the only ones of us that graduated. Celita and we had one other friend. Well, we had a couple of friends that majored in education.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

So basically Celita and them that had jobs.

Celita:

Actually Amena, so we graduated in May, 2002, but just prior to that in September, 2001 was 9/11.

Amena:

Was 9/11. That's right.

Celita:

And I had done IT internships all throughout the years. Shout out to INROADS if anybody knows about Inroads and-

Amena:

INROADS.

Celita:

... getting young, Black or leaders in corporate and community leadership. But I had a IT job all throughout school, every summer and through my senior year. While I was at school, I was working. 9/11 happened, every company went on a hiring freeze.

Amena:

Yeah, that's right.

Celita:

So I could not land... We were all having difficulty making that next step. I really wanted to work in IT and you and Maya were really trying to continue your education. And all three of us were like...

Amena:

Floundering, lots of flounders.

Celita:

My first job was Smoothie King.

Amena:

Okay. And also mine. Celita's the a reason why I got hired over there because I applied to grad school, three of those and didn't get in. And so Celita was like, "look, man, I got this job over here. I think they need some people. It won't be like 40 hours a week, but it would be some money."

Celita:

$9 an hour let's do it.

Amena:

And the church we we're going to... First of all, I should follow up and tell y'all redacted ministry that we were a part of the campus ministry part actually ended after our junior year.

Celita:

Oh, that's right.

Amena:

So our senior year was really the first time that any of us had a life that was free of having to do ministry on campus. But we all had joined the church where the pastor at the church that we went to at the time, he was the leader of that redacted ministry before like it no longer existed. So we all went from being a campus ministry together to being like, oh, well the campus ministry part's over, but we can still go to church together. And we really took the free time that we had from no longer doing campus ministry and just converted that over to church and just got-

Celita:

And all the things that they wanted us to do there.

Amena:

Very busy.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

It was a very busy time.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

So because of the way our church was structured, there was this unspoken expectation that if you were a married couple in the church, that you should buy a house that had way more rooms than you and your spouse needed or your kids to need it so that other people from the church could live with you.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

And we reaped the benefits of this possibly unhealthy thing-

Celita:

Oh, my gosh.

Amena:

... that was pressure on two couples in our church at the time. But we reap the benefits of it because all of us were living with married couples in their starter houses in their basements and their guests rooms or whatever, while we were trying to get our lives together and get on our feet. So that's why we were able to work at a place like Smoothie King, where we weren't going to get as many hours as we would have needed if we all would have been in apartments. At that point we couldn't really afford that. But these couples were allowing us to live with them for no cost or very little costs. So when you were like, "yo, I'm over here working at Smoothie King." So I went over there and worked with you. I was mad as hell, but I went over there and slapped them bananas into them rich kids smoothies after school.

Celita:

Oh, my gosh. It was the richest part of the city working at Smoothie King. So, there was a lot of dynamics happening there.

Amena:

So how long was it after we graduated before you got hired on someplace as a full-time thing?

Celita:

I think I was only at Smoothie King for like four months or something like that. It didn't last long. And somebody from the church was a controller or the accounts payable, whatever at Atlanta Medical Center-

Amena:

That's right.

Celita:

... and got me hired there. I started out as their front desk administrative person. And as we discussed, we're both very good natural leaders. So very quickly I was promoted to being the accounts payable supervisor-

Amena:

Wow.

Celita:

... of three other seasoned adult women that had been there for years.

Amena:

What?

Celita:

Yeah. But that was like my first post-college corporate job accounts payable supervisor. I worked there for two years and I got Maya a job there.

Amena:

Wow.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

You better give people jobs, Celita. First of all, we all be owing you money a little bit right now.

Celita:

It took a while before I landed my actual first IT job post-college was working for that church. And that came years.

Amena:

Years later.

Celita:

Years after, because I did the accounts payable thing, but you and I were like, we want to be artists. We want to be artists full time. I had gotten this degree, but there was a part of me that all this other artistic stuff had been unearthed during our time at Spelman. So I realized that I was a pretty decent spoken word artist. I realized I was a pretty decent dancer. I realized I was an amazing step team member. Like all of this artistic stuff, I was traveling the country doing this stuff. So I'm thinking I want to be a professional dancer. So I transitioned from there to working at a gymnastics academy.

Amena:

Wow.

Celita:

Because I was at this accounts payable place and I was getting tired of it. So I was calling a gymnastic place to see if they could teach me as an adult how to do back flips so I can incorporate that into my hip hop dance. So I called them asking, could I pay them to teach me how to do a back flip? And they said, instead, well, we don't have formal classes for adults, but if you work here, we can teach you whatever you want. So they offered me a job.

Amena:

Wow.

Celita:

Well, I'm trying to call them to see what could I pay them and they were like, "we'll pay you to work here. And then we'll teach you how to do a back flip."

Amena:

Stop.

Celita:

Because they were excited about the corporate experience and like, well, let's bring you in to do our administrative work Then I became their webmaster. And then I became a gymnastics coach and a hip hop dance coach.

Amena:

Wow.

Celita:

For that gym. And that was like my first four years out of college was that.

Amena:

Wow.

Celita:

Really trying because I had started hip hop dancing for local artists, like doing background dance for her, been in a couple of music videos. And I was like trying to do that.

Amena:

Yeah.

Celita:

Forget this computer science degree, that cost umpteenth amount of money, but then eventually an IT position opened up at that church because I was still in this mindset of full-time ministry committed to this church, committed to ministry, committed to this people that we got connected to after transitioning to Atlanta but I think that's where things start changing.

Amena:

Wow. Oh, it was kind of like, as you were saying that I was like, that's right. That's right. That's right, now I remember those things.

Celita:

It literally just came back to me too, like, wow. That's exactly what happened. So what was going on with you the first four years after college, what did that look like for you?

Amena:

Okay. So I worked at Smoothie King with you.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

And then you were like, "got a better job." So when you left, I think I stayed there for a couple more months and then someone who went to our church knew a woman that did event production and needed an assistant. And so I was so excited to go to do this interview with her. And it was actually right up the street from the Smoothie King where we work, that's where she lived at the time. And so it was so random, but I was like, I'm going to go to this. I don't even know what an event producer does, but it sounds good. I'm going to go meet with her. And she was paying so well that I worked for her part-time but it was almost like I doubled what I was making working for Smoothie King then.

Amena:

So I started working for her the fall after we graduated college and she had all these amazing contracts. We did events with like Jane Fonda, and Chris Tucker and Indie.Arie still to this day, next to what I'm doing now for a living in my own business that was my second favorite job right there out of college. I had so much fun working for her and I'm 22. There's a lot about how to interact with people in this professional, but lighthearted way that you have to do when you do event work that I just didn't know. And she totally taught me everything about how to interact with artists, and their management and rich people.

Amena:

She sent me to some rich people's houses that I just had to walk around there and act like I've been in these marble floors, but I never these marble floors in my whole life. So I worked for her almost a year and then all her contracts and stuff dried up. So I think after that... I feel like after that, maybe I went through like a little ego time where I was like, "I have an English degree from Spelman college. There is no need for me to have to make myself suffer with these penny, any jobs. I should have a job that's in my field."

Amena:

And a woman that went to church with us who worked in radio. She was like a mentor to me. And so everybody in church was like, "you would probably be good in radio. You ought to ask her for some advice." And I went to her and told her I shouldn't have to suffer these penny, any jobs with all this talent. And she was like, "you absolutely will suffer these penny any jobs if you want to see your dreams come true." [crosstalk 00:39:28] get your life together. She was like, "you better apply for every job that's out here and take whatever you get."

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

So when I took her advice, I ended up getting on with a temp agency. And so I worked temp jobs for a while. And like you, I was... I guess I should back up for a second and also tell y'all that redacted ministry that we were a part of also did work with a very large white Christian college organization. And so our ministry had a step team and we were the ministry that introduced to them spoken word and step.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

So the step team was traveling with them. And then because our church also was doing a college spoken word thing, we were also traveling with them as poets and doing events with them.

Celita:

All the time.

Amena:

Because we had had that exposure than other places were also inviting us to do different things. And so I was taking those invitations because I could, while I was working for two weeks while the receptionist was on vacation over here, but then I might have a month where I didn't have any temp jobs. And so I would just travel the road, whatever. And then I got a temp job at this commercial realty place in Newnan, which is south of Atlanta. And I worked there and then they were like, can we hire you on permanently? So that was the best job to have to me as I was also trying to do music journalism at that time I think.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

I think actually I was just getting that temp job right as things were about to start crumbling in a few ways. So I think that was my first four years after school. It was basically a lot of temporary jobs and stuff. And I think right around 24, 25 that started to tip over. I do remember when we had all graduated and I think the summer after we graduated, we all did summer camp at our church together. So even though we just graduated all of us dumped ourselves into that and did that.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

But once the fall came, I remember like driving around Atlanta by myself, going to work, picking up lunch or whatever, and I remember really missing y'all and feeling so disoriented.

Celita:

Yeah. I was just thinking the listeners are probably like, wait a minute why are you asking each other what were you doing right after college? How come you didn't know? Were you not hanging out with each other? And it was very different and hard. We each landed in one of those houses. We were each living with some couple and some completely different part of Atlanta. And everything's like 20, 30 minutes apart by car, on highway. So it wasn't like we weren't seeing each other every day like we used to, there was this whole thing that you and I were like talking about like, how do you maintain friendships post-college? Because people are different.

Celita:

I was not a phone person, so I wasn't going to be talking to y'all on the phone every day.It just not how I communicate. I needed to be in person and in proximity with you and we just did not have that. It was hard. And in some ways it became easier for me to connect with one of our other friends than it did for me to maintain my connection with you.

Amena:

Right.

Celita:

And I think part of that led into why, when I did actually see you, it was a lot. That probably really feeding into when we did connect because it was always around ministry stuff. It was always around work. It was always around execution and planning and putting on the next show or writing a new poem, memorizing it, or staking out a show. And our friendship did not have an opportunity to breathe, to build, to grow apart from all of that. It was only attached to the work.

Amena:

Yeah. I never thought about it like that, as you say it now but that was true. We had a very busy life. We never really stopped being busy because our college life was very busy with ministry stuff. And then we got out of college and jumped into church stuff. And so I feel like in a way there are certain parts of having been in church, like volunteering together, that kept some of what you get when you're in college that you're there in the dorm. There's nothing like how those friendships get built because the boundaries are nowhere.

Celita:

There's no boundaries.

Amena:

It's not like at five o'clock you're going to leave and be like, "oh, well, never see you." It's like, you live together, you work together, you go to class together, you work on a homework, you eat and food, whatever. So many of our activities. You're running errands together. We didn't really have a lot of time that we did anything alone. And so there were certain parts of coming out of that into like volunteering in the church and just giving that all of our time, that kept you feeling like you were really close to each other because you were together all the time, but there were a lot of other things happening in your life and inside of you as a person, it's also a very developmental time, I felt like, and we weren't getting as much opportunity to talk about that and what was happening there and what did all that mean?

Amena:

So I feel like one of the things we did that for me is what brought me to us breaking up as friends. We started instituting a Friday night where me, you and Maya would always hang out every Friday. We started doing that when we were like 23, 24 around that. Probably around 24 at that time, because with all the church stuff that we had going, mostly there was nothing to do on Friday nights. And so we would all just hang out and whatever we decided to do.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

But after we had done that for like a year, by the time we were getting close to turning 25, I was... First of all, by this time we're 20, 24, 25 years old. So we've known each other now six years of life.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

Almost seven years.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

So for me, because we were going to a school that was historically Black and all women, it was like, I spent all my time with women. And I think that for me partly was a realization like, I don't think I want to spend my Fridays with y'all. I think I wish I had a boyfriend.

Celita:

Yes.

Amena:

But I don't know how to say that in the church that we're going to, that's encouraging us not to date until we somehow meet someone we're going to marry. And I haven't figured out how I meet them.

Celita:

Right.

Amena:

To know I'm going to married them if we don't date.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

And I looked at all these dudes sitting here in the church and don't none of this seemed like it's lining up for me. It did for some of our friends, it lined up for some of them.

Celita:

For some of them.

Amena:

They looked in the church and saw their husbands or otherwise met somebody that was like, "I just need to marry you."

Celita:

Or were pursued by someone because that was part of the message of sitting back and waiting. And you do not go after him, he comes after you. And you just need to make sure your stuff is together. Like present well and be ready, but just sit and be ready. You have no initiation responsibilities in this at all.

Amena:

No.

Celita:

It worked out for some people and the thing is you would see it work out for someone else and think, "okay, this is possible. I think this might be possible. Let me do that." No.

Amena:

No. And really of our largest friend group I can think of as far as what would have been the women that were seniors, when we came in as freshmen to college, up to when we were seniors and the young women that were freshmen when we were leaving college, like if I were to look at that large age group is probably 15% of those people that either met their spouse in college or happened to meet their spouse at the church.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

The large percentage of us that was not the story.

Celita:

It was not the story. No.

Amena:

That happened. So I think for me, it was like for a time I enjoyed that reconnection that the three of us had, and I enjoyed that we had a standing time to do it.

Celita:

Yeah, to hang out.

Amena:

But then over time there were nights that I started to be like... Oh, because this was the other thing. A lot of those Hangouts would turn into like, well, whoever's house we're going to go hang out at, we should just spend the night there.

Celita:

We would just stay.

Amena:

And I also discovered, I don't really want to spend the night.

Celita:

And I don't want to spend a night at your place. And I don't want you spending the night at my place.

Amena:

I know. Because in my mind, I'm like, if I'm like 30, 40 minutes from where I live, I would like to drive there and get in my bed by myself. And if you live 30 or 45 minutes from here, I would like you to go home and do that. But we can hang out till like two or three in the morning. But when it gets to be two or three, when I say good night, I mean, like go to your house.

Celita:

I think it was something about trying to maintain, or that was all we knew was that rhythm of being in each other's space all the time and not having boundaries for where we lived and not having boundaries on our time and inviting other people into our orbit.

Amena:

Yeah.

Celita:

Like we understood our orbit to be what it was. And I think, well, I'll just say, I am a consummate introvert. I'm not like the most social person, huge social anxiety. We'll talk about how I've grown since then. But what I knew was, okay, I have these friends here, we did it. I'm good. I don't need to go out and open myself-

Amena:

Got it.

Celita:

... up to more people and make new friends. Why would I do that to myself? I don't want to do that. That's emotional toil. I want to rest here with you. And you're like, "but I'm meeting other people. I am getting to know people that don't know anything about you or this ministry or this word. I'm interested in other things." And they're in became some of the tension where it's like, "but I'm used to us."

Amena:

Right.

Celita:

And the idea of us could not hold up anymore. It didn't hold water. Life was outweighing how we have formatted our friendship to be executed. Like it wasn't realistic anymore.

Amena:

Yeah, when I got to the point that I was like, I don't know that I want to keep doing this every Friday. I also remember a couple of Valentine's days that our larger group of friends would get together and eat out at a restaurant. And I remember looking at everybody else around us being booed up. And I remember then being like, "I want to, man, I'm sick of this. I love y'all, but I want a man." And I think I started to wonder, because we were in a church that really wasn't helping us navigate the dating life of our twenties. They weren't helping us navigate a lot of things. But in particular, in this conversation, they weren't helping us navigate that part. And I wondered like, are we kicking it together like this because we really wish we did have some other connections that we don't have and we're sort of substituting that with each other.

Amena:

So I will say y'all, as we are having very honest moment on this episode that I instituted the friend breakup with both Celita and Maya. I went to them separately and I basically told them like... I think at first, before I got to, this friendship has to break up, I said out loud to one or both of you that I didn't want to keep doing the spend the night thing. And that I liked us hanging out on Fridays, but I didn't want to hang out every Friday. And when I said that y'all were like, "okay."

Amena:

But then I remember some Fridays happened after that and it was almost like I got what I was asking for. And I realized when I got around some of our other friends that y'all had gotten together with them and y'all did a whole thing on the Friday and you didn't invite me or didn't tell me about it. And it made sense why you didn't invite me or tell me about it because I literally just said out loud that, "I don't know if this is a thing I want to do all the time," but then the Fridays that I did get invited to became less and less and less. And there were other friends that got included in that and that became its own thing.

Amena:

So then I went through this process there of I asked for this and I got it, but why do I feel like crying because I'm not with them on Fridays. And I think for me that started what became a healthy thing in the long run that then I had to be like, I don't even know what I like to do on Fridays, because it was always about what we all tried to decide we all might like, so I did go on like an exploration of learning how to go places by myself. And figuring out things that I might like, trying out social functions and whatever. So I think I was sort of in the early process of that when... And I'm trying to think now as I'm talking to you, Celita what made me go from, I can't do this on Fridays to the friendship needs to break up?

Celita:

Yeah. I don't particularly remember Fridays, in any notable moments around Fridays in particular. I just remember that the communication became more distant and phone calls, because I was not a phone call initiator, but you might initiate a phone call to me and those became less and less. And I also remember talking to our other mutual friend Maya and realizing that the two of you had been connecting or talking or chatting way more than you and I had. And I was like, what is going on? Because I had maintained my connection with Maya. That was fine. It was consistent. But my connection with you was growing more and more and more like distant.

Celita:

And for me, this is devastating because again, my friend circle is very small and very intense. So to lose one is like you're losing a part of yourself. And I just remember pursuing you a little bit and coming to your place. And I'm like, "what is going on? What is it?" Because, I could feel. It's like the breakup happened without any real clear communication. It was just, I was meant to experience it while you distanced yourself.

Celita:

And there was just one moment where I came to the house where you were staying because I think I had to drop off a table or pick up something. I was dropping off something, some excuse to be there. And I was like, "what is it?" And I don't exactly remember your exact words, but it was just something like, "I need space. I can't do this anymore." And I was just like, "we're not going to hang out? We're not going to talk? We're not going to..." And you were like, "no." And I was like, "okay." And walked away, moved away, really put all my eggs in a basket with Maya, our other friend, and just hung onto that to dear life because now like what I had known to be the friendship circle that we had was gone.

Celita:

I think another aspect of that was what was happening with the church, our relationship with the church that we were attached to was changing for each of us in a different way. And that played a part. I'll let you communicate how large of a part it played.

Amena:

Yeah.

Celita:

I know it did play a part in our ability to connect because one of the things that was the medium that we use to connect our attachment to it was changing.

Amena:

Right.

Celita:

And when that shifted, it absolutely shifted us as well.

Amena:

Yeah. Yo, I feel a little teary talking to you about this.

Celita:

It was a rough time.

Amena:

I didn't expect to feel teary talking about it, but I think I feel teary in part because I just feel like it was such a shakeup for all of us in different ways at the time. And probably looking back on, it was a time that it would have been nice for us to have had each other, but because of the way all of the shakeup went down and all I can think to chalk it up to is just my own emotional immaturity at the moment. Not knowing how to say, "I want to kick it with you, but I'm trying to find myself. And I've had you in my life since I was 18. And I feel like I'm about to figure out maybe the kind of woman I am or who I want to be and I want to have the space to figure that out while we still kick it. And can we do that? And what would that look like?"

Amena:

If we were having that moment today, I feel like that's how I would have had that conversation. But like 24 year old me was just like, "I got to get out and I don't know, I just know [crosstalk 00:57:13] I can't be here." It was like, I didn't have a gray. I just had, it's all, it's nothing. And so I was like, I can't be the all that I think you would want from me or you would expect of me. So instead of trying to figure out what the middle could be, that would be workable for both of us, it's going to be nothing.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

And I think I came to that while I was having the rumblings that I was going to have to leave our church, but I don't think I knew that then when you and I had that conversation. And I think I was honestly still trying to figure out what to do about our friendship. And if I could think back to myself now, it's almost like, I think I felt like I need to say something. I can only imagine it I just was like, "what is the language of how you say this?" And I could not figure that out. And so I just got distant.

Amena:

And one thing about our friendship is you've always been very upfront. You've always been a very direct and clear communicator. And so when you called me on it like, "what you doing dawg? Like you don't be around not just physically, but emotionally you don't be around. So what's up with you." And when you call me out like that, then it sort of pushed me to have say, and because I didn't have any gray elements in that, all I could think was like, "I need some space, but I don't know how long."

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

And I don't know what space looks like so I'm just thinking, it must look like we don't talk, and it must look like we don't kick it.

Celita:

Yeah.

Amena:

But I do remember saying some things like, "but I still love you though. And I'm always going to..." And I could see on your face, you were, Ooh,.

Celita:

I was done.

Amena:

"What the hell is she talking about?"

Celita:

And I also knew that I was still heavily involved, heavily connected, heavily committed to that ministry in that church. And I knew that you had distanced yourself from that as well so one of the natural things I used for us to hang out was just being in proximity in that space I knew that was gone. So if there's no natural easy way of being in the same space and there's not going to be any intentional way of being in the same space, then you know, it was over.

Amena:

Yeah.

Celita:

It was over. And that was 24.

Amena:

Yeah.

Celita:

That was 2004.

Amena:

Y'all, this is probably one of the most emotional episodes I've ever recorded. So thankful for my friend Celita agreeing to come on and discuss with me how we navigated friendship post-college and what led to our friendship breakup in our twenties. In next week's episode, Celita and I discuss what happened in our lives during the time of our friendship breakup and what caused us to reconnect after so many years. You can follow Celita at 11locks on Instagram. That's at one, one locks on Instagram, and you can follow her podcast and poetry at I'm Simply Artistic on Instagram. To learn more about her work visit Imsimplyartistic.com.

Amena:

Normally, at the end of these episodes, I do a segment called Give Her A Crown but because of the subject of this episode, I want to do a different closing segment called Ask Yourself This, in your closest friendships is there something that isn't working for you that you need to be honest about? Have you felt distanced from a friend? And if so, what is causing you to feel distant? Does one of your friendships require a breakup? And if so, how can you handle the breakup with care, honesty, and gentleness towards the other person and yourself?

Amena:

Tune in next week to hear how Celita and I reconnect, heal and find a way forward to healthier friendship. Thanks for listening. HER With Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeart Radio. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 39

Amena Brown:

Hey y'all. This week I am so excited to bring you an episode from the HER archives in the before times. I'm talking with photographer and creative director at Tropico Photo, Michelle Norris. Michelle and I discussed navigating the tensions between creative work and business. Michelle shares why creating an aesthetic is important for anyone building a brand and why it's important to know and understand the worth of your work. Check it out.

Amena Brown:

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of HER With Amena Brown, and I'm Amena Brown. And let me tell you all something, my guest today, she's awesome for a couple of reasons. But mainly because it's our second time recording this interview. If you've been listening to my podcast, this has only happened once before. And she has been gracious enough to re-record, so shout out to that. I want to welcome photographer, creative director of Tropico Photo.

Michelle Norris:

Thank you.

Amena Brown:

I am welcoming Michelle Norris to the podcast.

Michelle Norris:

Hi Amena, I'm happy to be here again.

Amena Brown:

Michelle, this actually worked out super great, because we're getting to be in person and-

Michelle Norris:

We wanted to be face-to-face last time.

Amena Brown:

Yeah, so our schedules were like, so this worked out super great. You all, we're going to be talking about all the photography things. And I want you to know, first of all, you should just check out Tropico's work, because there's a lot of amazing work. And when I first met Michelle through Kristy Gomez, super shout out to Kristy Gomez.

Michelle Norris:

Thanks, Christy.

Amena Brown:

Because I was looking for a photographer to work with me on how all the photos were going to be for the release of my book, How to Fix a Broken Record, my author photo on the back. Michelle, you were the first professional photographer I ever worked with for a book photo, because my first book, Matt and I just went to downtown Decatur and hoped for the best.

Michelle Norris:

I mean, that's how most photography starts out. You cover the basics, and then over time, you want to get a little fancier with it.

Amena Brown:

Yeah, with someone who is a professional and knows the things. And so I reached out to Kristy and I was like, "I'm looking for a woman of color to take some photos and make them look dope." And she was like, "It's Michelle Norris that you need." And then I went to look at your work, and I was like, "It is Michelle Norris that I need." So the photo on the back of How to Fix a Broken Record is the work of Michelle Norris. And the photo on the back of How to Fix a Broken Record was also styled by Michelle Norris, because I literally was like, "Please take pictures of me. And also, I don't be knowing how to dress."

Michelle Norris:

But now you know.

Amena Brown:

I do know. We're going to talk about that a little bit too Michelle, because I wish you all could see this outfit that Michelle is wearing honestly. It's a casual weekend when we're recording this and it's very fun and chic what she's doing today. And I just want you all to know, that I gets my education.

Michelle Norris:

Thank you.

Amena Brown:

So we're going to talk about that, because I think one of the things I've loved about working with you and one of the things I love just about your work even that isn't pictures of me, is I love just the way you incorporate light and color and style, and there's such an artfulness to that and I really want to know more about that. So I want us to talk about that. But I'd like to start with an origin story first. Do you remember your first camera?

Michelle Norris:

My first camera actually was like many cameras because I was shooting with disposable cameras all the time. I guess it was in middle school when I started to get them and I just took photos of everything. It was kind of a collector's sort of a thing, I was doing where I was shooting with my disposable camera, pictures of my friends, pictures at school, around the house. And then I would get them all printed and I would put them up over my walls. So I wasn't showing them to anyone and didn't really have any end goal. But I definitely liked documenting my life in general. And then in high school, I got a DSLR eventually, but it was more of the same just like shooting around. I definitely didn't have a direction then.

Amena Brown:

Okay. And I want to also ask while we're asking origin questions, were you always interested in fashion and style also?

Michelle Norris:

Yeah, I definitely was. I think there was a lot going on when I was younger. So there's definite like long term honing that has happened, because I find that coming along with an interest in style, there was also a lot of fumbles, because if you dress really casually and maybe take less risk, it's really hard to go wrong. And I think that when I was younger, I was doing everything. There were times when my parents would literally tell me I couldn't leave the house in what I was wearing, because it was too many patterns. Not because it was revealing or anything, they were like, "That looks crazy."

Amena Brown:

"You can't put polka dots and stripes."

Michelle Norris:

And this specific, I think it was like a tie dye and plaid sort of a thing going on. And I was like, Mary Kate and Ashley were my style icons when I was younger, and my mom wouldn't take me to get their line that had come out at some Limited Too like, something like that, right? Like the fancy.

Amena Brown:

Come on and say Limited Too in this conversation today. Yes.

Michelle Norris:

And so instead, but she let me get their like Walmart line, but I literally was wearing a tank top at different points that just said, the words Mary Kate and Ashley. It wasn't like they had really designed it as much as it just said their names. So there was interest there, but it was definitely all over the place for a long time. But I've always really liked fashion and aesthetics, and that definitely factors into what I do now in a big way.

Amena Brown:

Well, and I think that's interesting, because not every professional photographer is good at style. I think it's really cool that you have both of those things. I mean, we know some people who are going to be really great at style, really great at aesthetics, and wouldn't be great at photography, and vice versa. So I think it's really dope that you get a chance to bring those two things together in your work, right?

Michelle Norris:

And it's really exciting because it just brings a whole another element to what we do. As the team, my husband, Forrest Aguar and I, as Tropico Photo. It really lets us pull together the aesthetic of all of our projects in a way that feels complete, and it's our voice from beginning to end. Because I have influence over art direction, and style and my own sense of personal style, it helps us to brand really strongly and have control over those portions that sometimes, a lot of commercial photographers will have a signature about their look. But you'll look at their portfolio and it's all over the place, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But for us, we bring a very specific style to everything that we do, which is helpful in a lot of ways because people know exactly what they're coming to us for.

Amena Brown:

Okay, can you talk a little bit about the importance of having aesthetic as a creative, because there's fears sometimes among us as creatives and whatever work we do that we should be more generalists, and not that it's bad to be a generalist. But I think we have these fears that what if set client or a set opportunity comes and they're like, "We only wanted these to be turquoise." And you're like, "Okay, well, cool. I can do turquoise," and they're like, "We want these to be metallic." And you're like, "Cool. I can do."

Amena Brown:

So I think we ended up in that mode without taking a bit of a creative step back to say, what's my aesthetic or the aesthetic of my company? So can you talk about why is that important or do you think it's important for creatives to have some of those ideas in mind versus feeling like they have to be generalists?

Michelle Norris:

Yeah. I think it's a big thing, especially in photography. Early on, a lot of people say, "Make sure you can do everything, so that you could get any type of job." And I think that that can serve you to a point. But at this moment in time that we're at, especially with things like Instagram being so pervasive, branding yourself is so important. And you're not going to be able to build a solid following, you're not going to be able to get all the jobs that you want if you don't have something special that you deliver in every project. Meaning that, specializing in creating your own brand, can help you stand out in a lot of ways.

Michelle Norris:

The fact is there are some jobs you might miss out on because people think you're too specialized, if you were more generalized, their jobs, you're going to miss out on because people think you don't have a specialty. So you have to let go of that fear and instead ask yourself, "How do I be the best at the area I'm pursuing?" And Tropico Photo is generalized in some ways. We don't specifically shoot one type of thing. I mean, we do still life, we do portraits, we do travel stuff. A lot of different things, but we bring the same style to all of them.

Michelle Norris:

There is a point when you have to be okay with having some flexibility, because there will be big clients that come to us with jobs that we see why they're asking us to do it. There might be parts that are out of our element or something that we wouldn't necessarily choose or if it was our own project, but you have to be willing to take those sorts of compromises without giving up too much, because we want all of our work to look like it was ours.

Amena Brown:

Talk to me about, I guess a part of me wants to say the tensions between being creative and being in business. But then, in other ways, I want to hear what are the pluses of that too. I mean, I think there are tensions there. But I think when I look at Tropico Photo as a business, it seems like that's a balance that your business strikes really well. You and Forrest are doing creative work.

Amena Brown:

I mean, I've seen some of the things you all have been doing for magazine covers and stuff, I'm like, "Oh, I would have never thought about doing that." But that also means there's this back end infrastructure of how the business part gets run, how the client intake process is, how you're pitching to clients, how you price, whatever it is that you're doing. So talk about some of the lessons that you've learned in your career, and that the two of you have learned in this business that you're doing together.

Michelle Norris:

Yeah, we feel really lucky to be in the area that we're in, because creative advertising is really thriving right now. Our style is very colorful and poppy, and has a very specific sense of lighting. And those are all things that are really popular in advertising right now, which is great. It's definitely leaning towards the art side, especially for advertising to younger people. That makes it really easy for us to feel fulfilled by the work we're doing, but then also being able to get paid for our work and become part of these bigger campaigns. The biggest plus is really that you get paid.

Amena Brown:

We love to get paid.

Michelle Norris:

Getting paid is the best part, but it's also great to be doing something that you love, and a lot of times we're given so much freedom with how we do that, and that's a really great thing. And then even the times when the job is more structured by the client, you still find ways to bring something special to it. With each job, we'll pitch different ideas that we think would be fun, and it starts to become an art form of its own. When we're driving down the highway, and I'm looking at different billboards, I really enjoy it, because I feel like I'm looking at art, I'm thinking about different choices that people made and the advertisements about the lighting, the colors, the way they posed people, just stuff that becomes really interesting to us because it is an art form.

Michelle Norris:

As far as the actual business side, that is a whole learning curve of its own. I mean, I think that has been the hardest part of running your own business is figuring out pricing over time, figuring out how to talk to new clients, the words that we want to be using, do you just tell people how much things cost upfront? There's so many things you just have to work out over time, and we finally now have it nailed down pretty well where depending on the size of the company reaching out, depending on if it's an agency or if it's the owner of a business, we approach it different ways.

Michelle Norris:

So now it becomes like the more experience that you have with it, the more able you are to look at someone and say, "Well, we're going to need all the details from their project to be able to give them an estimate. Or to look, if they're really a small business, we can give them a general day rate, and then say plus props or something like that." I mean, and then there's these huge jobs where you have to get a producer, and they bid it for you. There's so many different hoops to jump through and drops like that, that are 100% different than if a local client reaches out to us.

Michelle Norris:

So all of that takes time to figure out, but thankfully, Atlanta has been a pretty helpful community and the creatives here, I feel like view each other less as competition and are more like seeing all of us as the underdog and able to give advice and be helpful and even we've had people openly share their rates with us, and I think that kind of community is amazing to have and ideally how you want to approach talking to other creatives instead of viewing everybody as your competition.

Amena Brown:

Yeah, having more of a communal experience. I mean, even when I worked with you on unnamed project that, unfortunately was never released. But there was a bigger company here in Atlanta that was partnering with another organization, and they were interested in me doing this video project. And so I had reached out to you because they were very specific style requirements. It was the first video project I'd ever done where they were like, "Here's our mood board," and I nodded in the meeting like I knew what a mood board was.

Michelle Norris:

Right. You were like, "Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yes, exactly. Mood boards."

Amena Brown:

I was like, "Yeah, I have mood boards all over my house. I love a mood board."

Michelle Norris:

Exactly, show it to me.

Amena Brown:

I get out of the meeting and I'm like "Doo, doo, doo, doo."

Michelle Norris:

"What's a mood board?"

Amena Brown:

"Michelle, please come and help because they want some clothes to match a mood board." But for you, because this is even though you were helping me, you were just like, "As a side job, sometimes I help people look good."

Michelle Norris:

Right.

Amena Brown:

But you were like, "It's not my main job. But come on, girl, I'm going to take you to the mall."

Michelle Norris:

"Well, let's get them all."

Amena Brown:

"So I'm trying to help you look nice." But because this is the market I was in, it's such a major part of what your business does. When I said the words to you, you were like, "I understand this language. Let me see, let me look at it." And you were like, "I get it." And I think sometimes as creatives, when your business is growing, sometimes you do get to that point where you're like, "I'm in a room where some people are saying some things, and I don't know what they're talking about."

Michelle Norris:

And you start to learn that the language that they're using in advertising and the more corporate the company is, the language feels abstract to other people who aren't in that world. So I feel like it takes a lot of practice to be able to take that information, that mood board, those buzzwords that they're using and learn how to synthesize those, into what it actually means in real application, because we'll have people come and say, "We want it to be a citrus forward palette that really pops, but doesn't feel too young or kitschy." Things like that last-

Amena Brown:

I'm lost, I'm out.

Michelle Norris:

And you're like, I used to feel like, "What are you talking about?" And now I'm like, I think the best way is that you take it, and you just run with it. And you're like, "Okay, this is what that means to me," and throw things out there and I feel like you have to be unafraid to say, "Okay, let me make sure that I'm getting you here. So I'm thinking we're talking about bold colors, but they're rich and not too bright. And that we're talking about more sophisticated than what might be for a 20 year old or something."

Michelle Norris:

It's so confusing, but I think over time, it's really helpful to just practice bouncing ideas off other people to make sure that you get it because there used to be times when we would have a whole conversation on the phone, get off the phone, and I would be like, "What are we talking about?"

Amena Brown:

I don't know what we're talking about.

Michelle Norris:

And I don't know how to start now. I can't put together a deck, which is basically a creative pitch. I left that conversation having no idea what's going on, and now I feel a lot more unable to charge forward and ask questions if I don't know. And I think that people appreciate that, because they want to make sure that you're invested in on the same page too. And at the risk of sounding clueless, I think you're going to gain more in the end from making sure that you're connecting with them, rather than just feeling intimidated by this kind of advertising language. I mean, I guess that's what it is. But I'm like, "Where are these words coming from? Where did you get them?"

Amena Brown:

I was like, "What are you all talking about? I don't know."

Michelle Norris:

I'm like, "This isn't how people talk to each other about the way things look."

Amena Brown:

Even when I showed you the mood board from that project, I remember you using language about which of the colors were the primary ones, and then there were some that I probably would have said accent colors.

Michelle Norris:

They would be like accent colors.

Amena Brown:

And I was like, "She's also using some words that like, okay."

Michelle Norris:

Now the words are ingrained in my mind. And suddenly, I'm the advertising person. I'm like, I say this stuff now, it just comes out of my mouth.

Amena Brown:

But even working with you on that helped me to know for the next project I would do, that that was going to involve working with an ad agency or a creative agency, I felt like more equipped. After having that conversation with you, I was like, I'm talking to someone I'm familiar with. So I'm not in the meeting where you're supposed to appear you know all the things, I can look at you and be like, "What is this?"

Michelle Norris:

"What are you saying?" And it's nice too when you're working with another person like Forrest and I working together on something, we're able to get off the phone and be like, "Okay, so what I took from that is," and it's nice to have somebody bounce that off of because I honestly don't know how people put together creative decks and bid by themselves.

Michelle Norris:

Being in just like a bubble of your own mind and creativity, I'm like, that seems stressful to be like I know what direction... Because the other thing is, when people present you with this stuff, then you're supposed to process that and basically pick a direction and really commit to it and go for it and show them the way you think the project should look in finality.

Michelle Norris:

So you have to be really self assured about that and be like, "I'm picking the right thing. I feel good about this, and I'm sticking with it till the end now." So having another person as a partner on that kind of thing, I think really gives you have the support that you need to feel good about it.

Amena Brown:

Yeah, you have someone else to bounce that off of to create that sharpening almost, and not to feel so crazy, because when I've had projects where I was just alone, it was like, I was there by myself creating the things and then I have to pitch that or talk to the client or whoever about it. I was just, "I don't know."

Michelle Norris:

There's a moment when you could just look over and be like, "This is a good idea." Right?

Amena Brown:

Right.

Michelle Norris:

Before I show this to a room of people, I want to clarify that we think this looks good and make sense.

Amena Brown:

Yes, yes.

Michelle Norris:

I don't know how people do without that.

Amena Brown:

If you can have a person, even if it's not your business kind of person.

Michelle Norris:

Yeah, call your friend.

Amena Brown:

Just another person to be like, "Let me just let you see this and make sure I'm not crazy." I want to ask you along those lines, how do you deal with, I'm going to use the word rejection, because there may be a better word to describe this. But in the sense of in your business, you're pitching ideas, you're pitching your work or your ability to do this work. But it may be you pitching alongside however many other people are up for the job. And so some of those, you end up being the company that gets picked, and then some of those you were hoping you were going to get picked, and you don't. How do you balance not feeling like, "I give up on all of this?"

Michelle Norris:

Yeah, that's a hard question. I think it's because especially for big advertising jobs, you're always bidding against to other people, so they're like triple bids. So when they bring you this huge job and big budget, for you get all excited about it, you always have to know that there's usually two other people that they are giving the same amount of attention, who are also putting together pitches, who are on the phone with them, who are getting debriefed all about it because it gets really involved and it makes you feel like you're like, "Surely I'm going to get this job."

Michelle Norris:

But I would say, I mean, at this point, Tropico has been around for a little more than a couple of years. And we have been so lucky to be really successful during that time, and to be able to live off of our business and fully commit to it, which is amazing. But I would say that when we get approached for these big ad jobs, we probably only get 25% of them. I mean, there are so many times when we get contacted, and you make it to whatever point with in the process, and sometimes it's like weeks in and then you just don't hear anything back and you didn't get it. At this point, I feel relatively unattached until the contract is, not even till the contract is signed, until the deposit is paid.

Amena Brown:

Oh, a word today Michelle, a word about the deposit today.

Michelle Norris:

I mean, we started I feel like I sleep so much better at night ever, maybe it was a year ago, maybe a little longer that we started saying, we have to get a 50% deposit before we can lift a finger for the project. I can't be doing anything to prep for it without a deposit. And it's amazing, because A, it helps make your income steadier, because obviously as freelance, maybe doing all these jobs, and you're not going to get paid for any of them for 30 to 90 days sometimes. Well, so it helps stabilize because you're getting paid twice as often essentially, maybe not the full amount, but still it helps you pay your bills like a normal person.

Michelle Norris:

And then on top of that, it ensures that you're not going to get screwed over because otherwise, there's nothing between them. Once you started using time on prepping for a project, I mean those are like billable hours. And then if the project falls through, you don't really have any recourse. So we do a non-refundable of 50% deposit. And then if the project falls through on their end, people just eat that money because that's what was agreed to. But back to rejection is like, you have to think of it not as a rejection, just like a missed opportunity, because we're like, there's so many times when it's not going to come through.

Michelle Norris:

I mean this is hypothetical, but in general, I think even the most successful photographers are probably talking like a 50% success rate on these types of jobs, because the other two people you're bidding against, are also amazing photographers, and you end up knowing that something else is going to come around. And for us, it always has. Even if we only are getting a few huge jobs a year, that's still really fortunate and amazing, and those pay great. And then in between, we have so many other projects to be working on and exciting personal projects and smaller clients and chances to try new things.

Michelle Norris:

And so you just have to know that you're putting your best foot forward and you're being proactive and you are going to get really great jobs, and you might not get all of them. But you have me thinking about every single project you've ever been asked about. And at this point honestly, I completely forget about most of the projects that fall through. We're so busy talking to other people already, putting together decks, planning for shoots that, it's out of sight out of mind after it falls through because you start to have enough leads where you're busy anyway. So honestly, do you want every single job? Probably not. You would lose your mind.

Amena Brown:

You'll be so tired, so tired.

Michelle Norris:

Yeah, and then you end up being happy for some of the downtime that happens naturally, because we're able to travel, we're able to work on new personal work, projects that we just want to do for art on even thinking about how we want to progress our business in the future and being able to like, we just recently worked with a local designer to make a really cool mailer that's sort of like a little art scene, and that was something we really couldn't have done if we hadn't had the downtime for it. And then, we're going to be able to send that on to people that we're excited about working with and to agencies and reps and people like that and you really can't spend the time to do those things if you don't have some downtime. So I think you just have to think of it as, things come and go, opportunities show up and then disappear out of nowhere, and you can't get to invest in anything until it's a done deal.

Amena Brown:

You just spoke a word. There's a couple of words that were in there. I mean, the first thing is just turning on its head how we view rejection, as people who are creating or putting art in the world in some way, I think we can get super emotionally attached to the things that we make or put our personal value or worth into what people say, or think or accept or reject about what we make. And I love that you used that phrase missed opportunity, which is a lot lighter. And I feel like, I'm a lot more likely to be able to move on in my life from that versus rejection sounds like sack cloth and ashes and salt over my shoulders. And now I'm just like, "How will I ever make a thing again?"

Michelle Norris:

Right. I mean, the other thing is, I feel like I have sometimes gotten caught up with other people, other creatives looking at what they're doing and feeling really jealous and being like, "Oh, man, they got all these amazing jobs." And I just feel like, what are we doing that we're not. And then I think about the fact that we are getting really great jobs, it's just easy to look on to other people and compare. And then I also then am forced to step back and think for a minute about how, we are doing the job of our dreams, living the life of our dreams, making a good living, and never have to dread going to or doing work ever. What am I talking about? What am I complaining about? It's crazy. And it makes you realize that this comparison thing will just eat you alive no matter what.

Michelle Norris:

And to me, that's almost even more dangerous than just the frustration of being rejected, is looking on at what other people are doing and thinking about how like, "Well, I'm never going to be getting those types of jobs, I'm never this." And it's like, "Be thankful for what you have." And I mean, it sounds so simple, but it really is like being a working creative, is such a joy and also never having to dread doing your job. It's like every day. When people tell me that they are dreading going back to work or something like that, it makes me remember how lucky we are, because there's not a thing in my life that I wish I didn't have to do.

Amena Brown:

Wow, that's amazing.

Michelle Norris:

I mean, I guess if I got jury duty, and you're like "Well, not that."

Amena Brown:

Then you're like, "Maybe I'll do some sketches."

Michelle Norris:

Yeah, yeah. "Maybe I'll make this a fun thing, maybe get some work done."

Amena Brown:

I love that perspective though, just to look at it. First of all, what you said about the comparison factor, I think is so true, because everything about being a creative who's also an entrepreneur, is this constant ebb and flow that sometimes in your business, you'll be in the middle of this super busy time, all the stuff's going on. And then you will naturally like you said, have some time that it's just going to slow down. And inevitably, sometimes during that slow down time, is when you're scrolling Instagram, and like, "Look at you."

Michelle Norris:

"Amazing new campaign for you."

Amena Brown:

"You're working with that. That's nice, and I'm at my house now."

Michelle Norris:

"I'm fine. I'm in my pajamas right now and that's fun." I think also for freelance you really just can't get too emotionally tied to how much work you're currently doing, because there have literally been times when I've been like, if no one ever emails us for a job again, I couldn't be happier because we're so busy, and I just can't anymore. And then literally, it'd be two weeks later, and we're like, completely dead. And I'm refreshing my email and being like, anyone need anything?

Michelle Norris:

The more you get tired of that, you're never going to be happy because when you're busy, you're tired and then when you're not busy, instead of enjoying your downtime, you're just thinking about how you hope you get a job. Well it's like that's not how you want to live. So you have to be like, "Okay, I know I'm going to get jobs and want to be good with my money when I get them so that when I don't have jobs, I can just enjoy myself and go Rollerblade on the beltline with my dog."

Amena Brown:

A word.

Michelle Norris:

Isn't that what you want to be doing?

Amena Brown:

Yes. I mean different, because I don't do outside.

Michelle Norris:

You're like not that, but.

Amena Brown:

Or dogs, but same, but me and a donut probably. I'm taking a donut down the beltline, just with my sneakers on, but that's something I'm still learning in a lot of ways. It's the thing I have to remember when the slow time comes, there's always this moment of like, you starts to freak out and then just has to be like, last summer was slow like that for our business. And I just decided, you know what? I'm going to work a four day workweek, because we'd had a really crazy year prior personally and professionally.

Amena Brown:

And I was like, "You know what? This is a summer that I don't have a lot on my plate, I'm going to work four days a week and write the stuff that I've been wanting to write, and what other job that I would be working or worked in the past when I haven't able to go." Hey, you guys this whole summer, I'm only going to be here four days a week, don't ask for me, don't ask for me. Don't worry about where I'm at. I'm not available on those days."

Michelle Norris:

I won't be here.

Amena Brown:

Yeah, and I think the other thing you said too about the comparison factor is, sometimes when we're looking at other creatives, getting whatever that opportunity is, we know our own life. So we know the hard work we put in and the struggles we go through, we know all those things. So when great opportunities come to us, we're like, "I needed that opportunity. I'm so glad." But when we're looking at someone else's life from afar, we're not able to see all of the things back there, that helped that person.

Michelle Norris:

And I mean, you're seeing it on social media, where people are literally, it's just the highlights. It's just the big campaign that you worked on, it's just the magazine cover. I mean, I'm sure that there are people who look at our Instagram feed and are like, "Man, they're just always busy making something cool I guess, and blah, blah, blah." I think one thing though is, it's nice when I follow creatives on Instagram, who are transparent about the fact that everybody has slow times. And I guess I'm always assuming that people are just constantly jet setting and shooting and getting a new campaign and this and that and the other. But that's not necessarily true, and I think that needs to be acknowledged that being slow, it doesn't mean that your business is dying. There are seasons for everything and sometimes it just happens, the less people are contacting you right then. But there's nothing wrong with that.

Michelle Norris:

And you have to learn that being freelance doesn't mean that you're trying to work a 9:00 to 5:00. So if you don't have enough work to be working eight hours a day, five days a week, that doesn't mean anything. It's like having enough work to make enough money to live on and to live the type of life that you want. But if that took you eight days last month, good for you. You don't need to be sitting at your desk, waiting every weekday for an email, so that you'll have something to do. It's like go do something else, you don't have a 9:00 to 5:00.

Amena Brown:

I am going to rewind this and listen to it myself, whenever I'm starting to freak out. I'm going to be like "Michelle, tell me again, because I need it."

Michelle Norris:

Well, just because I've had moments like that where I was starting the day at 9:00 and then did all the things and was done at 1:30, and would be like, "I just feel so lazy to go just take a walk now and whatever." And it's like, why? This is the whole point of why you do this. And then there are times when we're literally working until midnight, and why am I forgetting about these times now because I want to take a walk in the middle of the day?

Amena Brown:

Because I'm holding myself to some paradigm that I don't even have to exist on. I was just thinking about this weekend, because as you know I'm married to a DJ. So in our business, it's like the weekend is a work time. So if he's DJing Friday and Saturday night, I may have an event to do or host during that time. So in a way, it's like Monday becomes our Saturday. Monday is the day that you're like going to the grocery store and cooking food for the week or whatever you're going to do. And so I had to stop holding myself even to the weekend, like the traditional weekend. I might not get that, it starts at Friday night until like Monday morning thing.

Michelle Norris:

And it's completely made up construct. And the whole idea is that you're living outside of the normal work schedule. So why this guilt and obsession with adhering to it at the same time? I feel like it took me a little while to realize that I was like, "I need to be working eight hours a day, five days a week." And then I was like, "Honestly, so many people that I know who go to their jobs are sitting on Facebook for like half of that time." So I'm like, "I don't even know that you need eight hours."

Amena Brown:

I know I do. Well, I don't know we have Facebook when I worked corporate because it was a while ago, but I know I did all sorts of things that were not my job during that eight hours.

Michelle Norris:

That's why I'm saying. What if you can get all of your work done in whatever length of time, more power to you. It's not about filling the time with you sitting at the computer. So I mean, and of course we work on weekends, I'm surrounded right now by props that I'm painting and cutting out, so it just depends. And then sometimes you'll have some of the week off and sometimes you get a whole weekend off and some of the week off and then sometimes you work 18 hours a day for two weeks.

Amena Brown:

Right, until the project gets done.

Michelle Norris:

Until it's done.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. Can you speak to the importance of creating work, not just for clients, because one of the things that you had talked about before that I'd love for you to speak to more, is with the work that you're doing with Tropico in your business you and Forrest. Obviously, part of your creativity is going towards, this is the thing the client is wanting or needs, how do we come around that with unique ideas or ideas that come from us, that we're trying to come up with these ideas that we know are unique to us, right?

Amena Brown:

But then also, I think sometimes we can forget to go back and just make stuff because it's fun. So talk about that part. Is that a part of your process as well. Do the two of you have times that you're like, "You know what? We're going to make some stuff that's not for anybody or anything, just because we want to because it's fun."

Michelle Norris:

Right. I think that in the beginning, we did that all the time. That's really how we built our portfolio, was just thinking of fun things that we'd like to shoot. Once we started getting really busy with client work, I felt like it did fall by the wayside at different points. We were intermittently making things, and one of our biggest times has been when we'll take a long trip, we do a lot of shooting, which is a great way to make work that's just for us. But we had the realization earlier this year, that we hadn't done a portfolio project. And I don't know, I mean maybe almost a year at that point. So we actually did one and I guess it was in February, it feels like forever ago. When is it now? It's April?

Amena Brown:

Right. I was like it's July. It feels like December.

Michelle Norris:

I'm like, I don't know. It's August? So we did a portfolio project in February called Big Sun, and it's not out yet. But we're so excited about it. It was such a huge undertaking, because it's one of those things that I was talking about earlier where you commit to an idea, and then you're like, I am now committed to it, and I have to go with a full force because I had been very inspired by these David Hockney pool paintings. And I was like, "I want to paint a huge psych wall with a painting that I paint, and then we're going to paint it huge. And then these girls are going to be on it."

Michelle Norris:

And so we had these three beautiful women of color together wearing a local designer, and we had so many people that helped us out with it and helped style and paint, and props and so many different parts that go into production, but it ended up just being a massive undertaking. I'm not a muralist. So I, for the first time ever being like, I'm going to translate, I'm not a painter either. So of course I do this design, and then literally a few days before we start the painting, I'm talking to Forrest and I'm like, "Is this so stupid?"

Amena Brown:

Let me get some confirmation on this decision that I'm making right here.

Michelle Norris:

I was like, "Before we spend all this money on this portfolio project," because the other thing is, right now the kind of portfolio work that's important to us, is not only stuff that excites us, but it's also going to show a new aspect of what we can do.

Amena Brown:

That's good.

Michelle Norris:

So for this, we were like, we really want to be shooting more people, we wanted to lean a little bit more fashion, but also art, stuff that we don't dabble in as much with our work currently, and this was exactly that. But I was like, I've never seen someone do something like this. So this like weird, painted, surrealist world the girls are in, is actually representational because it had a pool and buildings and stuff. You could tell what was going on. We had a diving board that's made out of a plank of wood that's into the fake pool. It's so much happening, and I was very worried it was going to be like the dumbest thing in the whole world, two days before when we had already done all this work, but it turned out so amazing.

Michelle Norris:

It is my favorite project we've ever done, and I can't wait to show people. But that's kind of the leap that you have to take of saying, "I have an idea, I'm going to stick with it now, and I'm just going to trust that it's going to be cool. And it ended up really turning out that way. But I think another stress on top was that, when you start getting into production that big, you really are spending a lot of money to make it. It's not free. And even though a lot of people are willingly volunteering their time, there's just concrete cost like this much paint and shoes that we can't return, they're going to get scuffed.

Michelle Norris:

Just the cost of props. Things add up a crazy amount, even when so many people are helping you out, and it's something that you need to account for and be willing to do because it's completely worthwhile. But you have to commit even more, because you're saying it's not going to be the kind of thing where if it turns out bad, there's no big deal. If it turns out bad, it was $3,000.

Amena Brown:

And I want all those dollars, I need them.

Michelle Norris:

And you're like $3,000 to look really bad, I guess. But it was amazing, and I'm excited for it. And I think that it kind of got me excited again about just making work for us and just showing what we can do and feeling super passionate about a project and interaction and not having anybody to report to about it.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. I mean, I just had another creative who gave me a talk that like a pep. I want to say it was a pep talk, but I mean kind of, but in your... A little bit, that's like a pep talk. She was giving me this talk as a creative, you should be willing to invest in yourself, invest in the direction you want to see your career go, because I was kind of standing at that fork in the road of like, "Well, I could put this money into this thing I want to make, and I'm a little scared thinking about putting that money into it."

Amena Brown:

And just hearing you share the story of this project that you were working on, it encourages me also along the lines of what she was trying to say like, as a creative, don't be afraid to put that investment into yourself, and to your business.

Michelle Norris:

And I think it's a little counterintuitive, because a lot of creatives work from the point. And I mean we do too in general, is to spend as little as you can, and try to make as much as you can without putting too much into a project like money wise. How to keep it really affordable. But then there's times when you just have to make the leap and be like, "I want this to be the best it can be, and there's money that needs to go back into the business, and that's how it works." And you realize that creatives are the only ones who don't think of it that way. Everybody else is like, "You have to spend money on your business to make money. That's how business works."

Michelle Norris:

But I think creatives skirt that a little bit and are like, "Oh, no. I just pay for materials, but then I try to keep it pretty low key." So it's funny though, because you never know the way that things are going to come back. After doing this project, it was so serendipitous. The project obviously isn't even out yet, and we had been posting behind the scenes on Instagram. Well, the creative directors that we know follow us from Atlanta Magazine, saw the behind the scenes, and then reached out literally less than a week later. And were like, "We want you guys to do something like this for the cover of next month's issue."

Michelle Norris:

So we shot that, and it literally was like an exact. It's rare when you make things that you see it come back to you so instantly and clearly and know where it came from. But this was one of those things where it was like, you did a portfolio project immediately and I got a job from said project that directly relates to it. And I was like, "Man, you never know, you really don't." And we shot it at the same studio, we did a big painting for it, it was really correlated to the project, which is awesome.

Michelle Norris:

It's oversimplified version of what portfolio work does for you, but it also is a good representation for, this is the idea. You make something for yourself that you're just excited about, and then even if this wasn't your intention, clients see that, they like it, and then they're going to come to you for that sort of work. And if they can't see that in your portfolio, then they're never going to think of you for it.

Amena Brown:

A word today Michelle, a word today. That's so inspiring. It's really inspiring me just to think about that and as I think finally I go through different stages where I'm writing and then I'm taking the writing for stage. So now, it's like, I'm back at the beginning of that cycle, which is getting ready to go into the writing, which I want to procrastinate and not do because, you know?

Michelle Norris:

It's the [inaudible 00:43:10]. Getting started on a new project is like that. Even if you like what you do, you're like, getting started is so hard.

Amena Brown:

I'm like, "No, are there dishes I can..."

Michelle Norris:

I know. Literally anything, house will be sparkling clean, before a project.

Amena Brown:

I was going to do when you said sit down and do this. But it's so interesting how sitting down to do that work in this nurturing way, for yourself as a creative and for your business, to me does bring this good energy to you. And sometimes it brings clients to you like in the story you just told.

Michelle Norris:

I really don't think there's any time when you exert creative energy, where it's for nothing. In some way or another, that ends up serving you. And whether it's as obvious as it was in this case, or whether it's something more subtle or even years later, I think that those things come back and they're a big deal. And there's not a time when you're like "Man, I wish I hadn't spent that time on that creative project." I don't think you should ever feel like that, you know?

Amena Brown:

Yeah. What tips would you give to people who are just starting in photography? They're maybe at the very beginning, getting out of school if they've decided to go to school for photography, or they're in the hobby phase, but contemplating if that hobby should turn into more of a side hustle, more of a business. What are some things you would say, just the things you've learned as a photographer, the things you've learned in your business that would be good for that photographer on the edge of maybe jumping more into this. What should they be thinking about?

Michelle Norris:

I think the biggest point and the thing I tell people most often, is actually what I brought up earlier about branding yourself because there's going to be a million people who can do headshots, who can shoot weddings, and even if those are the things you want to do, amazing. But figure out what it is that you can bring to that that makes you special, because you don't want to be competing for having the lowest rate. And if you don't have something special that you bring to it that people want you for, and know that only you can deliver, then you always will be competing to be cheaper than other people, which is the last thing that you want.

Michelle Norris:

And I think whenever you brand yourself, it makes you more able to say like, "This is why I can do this job in a way that's really special and amazing." Instead of having it to come for it from the direction of saying like, "Here's how much money I can save you." It's simultaneously not good for a business and also not really good for the way that you think about what you bring to a project. So I think branding yourself and figuring out what you can bring to the table that's special and that's consistent, and that's going to make you desirable specifically, is ultimately the most important part.

Michelle Norris:

Outside of that, I think that you really have to get your business stuff together. Figure out the things we were talking about, how you're going to charge for things, what questions you're going to ask clients when they talk to you, the kind of language that you use when you're talking to clients. You want to sound competent and friendly. But you also want to be firm about things like your rate and about how things need to be done especially, because it just garners you respect over time so people don't try to walk all over you, because as a creative, I think there's going to be a lot of times when people think they can demand things from you that they wouldn't from somebody else.

Michelle Norris:

I'm trying to think of a good example for this of a really practical job. If a lawyer tells you it's going to take them a certain amount of time to put together some paperwork, you're probably not going to be like, "Well, could you do it in a couple days instead?" Well, you're like, no, they just told you how they do it. And I think that with creative jobs, there's a lot of times when people just think that we're maybe making stuff up when you're like, "Well, our turnaround is 14 business days." People feel like, "That sounds really long, could it be shorter?" And you're like, "No, do you want it to be wack? If you would like the final product to be wack, then sure."

Amena Brown:

"Certainly tomorrow, we could give you something."

Michelle Norris:

"I could give them to you instantly." But yeah, it becomes this thing where and I don't think people are intending to push people around. But I think it's just the way that creative jobs are perceived. When people just asked you, if you can come down on your rate, if you can do things for free. Just stuff they wouldn't ask other people who have professions that are more clearly outlined, maybe. And I think finding your footing with that and feeling really confident about what you're going to say, is important. And the other thing is, just on a completely practical level, you're going to be able to do this stuff a lot better if you're not feeling panicked for money. So I would say-

Amena Brown:

Yeah, that's a good point.

Michelle Norris:

Because everyone's always like, "Go out and be firm, and blah, blah." But you're like, if you need the cash and this job is going to go away, if you can't do it for half, then you're going to do the job. So I think the idea is really that you want to get financially sound going into it. So even if you want to take it up as your side hustle and save up, a lot of people say that the standard is that you should have three months of living saved up for everything, so that if you don't get a job for two months, you're not going to be panicked, and that's going to let you be more selective about the kind of work that you want to get.

Michelle Norris:

It's going to let you be more selective about the kind of clients that you want to choose about what you put out there. And I think that there's a lot of flailing that happens when people first go freelance that maybe makes you make decisions that aren't going to look great for your business in the long term. And you're going to be able to think a lot more long term if you feel like you're not hard up for cash from the get go, which I feel like not enough people say. People are just like, "Go pursue your dream," and you're like, "With money."

Amena Brown:

Right, because otherwise, I'm going to be crying, and not have a place to live.

Michelle Norris:

Or you're going to get burnt out really fast, where you go into freelance, try it for two months, it's traumatizing because you thought you were going to get kicked out of your apartment. And then you're like, "I can't do freelance." You're like, "Well, that wasn't really a fair shot maybe," because at this point, freelance feels just like a real job to me. I mean, which is amazing to get jobs actively enough and get paid enough that you're like, you get a salary basically. So if you start from the right place, then you're going to be in better footing to pursue your long term goals, versus just having to take every single job now.

Amena Brown:

Michelle is telling you all the business because when I have creatives come up to me and ask me for advice on this and they're like, "I'm working this job, I hate so much," and I really want to fill in the blank with whatever creative thing they love. And typically one of the first things I say is I'm like, "I'm about to tell you something that's not sexy, and it's not going to feel like yeah, I'm doing my dream, but maybe don't quit yet-"

Michelle Norris:

You have to stay at the top for a minute.

Amena Brown:

"Until you save up this money, and then do your thing you've been doing on the side and act like that money doesn't exist, the money that you make from that and stack money and stack money and stack money, until when you do decide to leave your job, you're making the transition, versus you doing what I did which was, "I hate this corporate job, quit." So then I'm like, "Hey, world. I'm available for gig." And the world's like, "We can't hear you."

Michelle Norris:

"Bring it to me now."

Amena Brown:

Was like, "We can't hear you. Sorry, I don't know who you are yet." I'm like, "What? No one knows who I am. I'm here in my apartment. Come on. I'm available. Hello, hello." No, I had to learn that totally the hard way.

Michelle Norris:

I mean, I think that that is kind of part of it though, because Forrest and I each did assisting and he was a photography assistant, I was a stylist assistant for a while. And then I decided I didn't like styling by itself, and I was like, "This is not what I want to do." I and I hit this point. I guess it was a little over a couple years ago. Right before Christmas I was like, "I am not taking a single other assisting job in the new year." And I was like, "I'm only doing photography, I'm going to put my energy 100% in Tropico Photo and we are going to live off of this."

Michelle Norris:

I cannot say for a fact that I had three months saved up then, I think I probably almost definitely did not. But I feel like, we were really fortunate that we put that out into the world, we spent all this time working on the website, getting our great logo together, starting our Instagram, and we started to get jobs. It was just like, it happened, we put it out into the world, and that doesn't mean that that can't happen for whoever's doing it, I think it's probably a lot less traumatizing if you have money involved already.

Michelle Norris:

But another thing that that actually brings up is that, don't like half ass anything going in, treat it like you're a real, real business. Get a great website, don't start with some janky website, make it nice from the get. Get a great logo, pay a graphic designer to make a logo for you.

Amena Brown:

Pay a graphic designer people, I'm serious.

Michelle Norris:

That is very real. Pay them to make your cards. Just stuff that's like, a lot of people start DIY and it's just going to make you look unprofessional, because I think that was one thing we had going for us was what we were presenting from the get go, was what we still have now, as far as like website, as far as our logo, as the curation of our Instagram, just making sure that it looks all the way there. Don't start and then post a picture of your cat or something. Do it all the way when you do it.

Amena Brown:

Yes, like you're forecasting in a way.

Michelle Norris:

Exactly.

Amena Brown:

You're forecasting that you already won.

Michelle Norris:

So imagine if you're already a famous working photographer, that's what it needs to look like now. And I feel like that gets you so much further than when people tiptoe into stuff and they're like, "Here's a picture. Don't be posting your behind the scenes, stuff on your feed. Think about what you think looks really nice. Don't come at it from the point of like, "Well, I'm not like a professional photographer yet." And you're like, "If that's what you want, that's what you want it to look like that. That's what it is." So I feel like all of those things, hopefully will help you get going.

Amena Brown:

Michelle just gave you out of business in here. I hope you all were taking notes. I'm going to listen back and take notes too. Even though I don't take a picture because I have no visual gifts of any kind, so I always have to seek a professional on that. I'm like, "Someone please help me look nice. Please take this picture. I don't know where the lighting is. I just don't know anything."

Michelle Norris:

I mean, that's kind of the thing for anything though. Whatever creative field you're going to, is pay the people that do the stuff you don't do. I mean, we're always working with graphic designers. I mean, graphic designers are really the main people actually because we're like, even for videos, like the last project, the Big Sun project, we did a video on like, you got to pay your graphic designer friend to do the lettering for the title page and for the end and that, Just stuff, you need everything to look really nice.

Amena Brown:

Yeah, yeah. And to represent where you are headed, where you see yourself going. I think that's such a powerful point.

Michelle Norris:

That's the perfect way to say it is that you're going to go ahead and put forward where you want to be and don't make it look like you're unsure right now.

Amena Brown:

Yeah, yeah. Oh, so good. Michelle. I hope you were able to capture all the gems from this conversation with Michelle Norris, especially for those of you that work in creative fields. But no worries if you didn't because that's what the show notes are for. Check out Amena Brown.com/HER With Amena for the show notes from this, or any HER With Amena episodes, you can find out more about Michelle and Tropico Photo at tropicophoto.com, and you can follow on Instagram at Tropico Photo.

Amena Brown:

For this week's edition of Give Her A Crown, I'd like to shout out photographer Camille Seaman. Camille was born in 1969 to a Native American Shinnecock tribe father, and an African American mother. Her photographs have been published in National Geographic Magazine, Time Magazine, Newsweek, among many others. Camille Seamen strongly believes in capturing photographs that articulate that humans are not separate from nature.

Amena Brown:

In a BuzzFeed article, Camille said, "As a child, I knew I was different from the other children at school, but I could not articulate what that difference was. I was troubled when the textbooks we read spoke about natives in the past tense, always implying that we no longer existed. We are still here. When you see these portraits, you may find we no longer look like you think we ought to. But that doesn't mean we are not here. It's time for a new record of Native America." Photographer Camille Seaman, Give Her A Crown. HER With Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 38

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.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 37

Amena Brown:

Hey everybody, welcome back to this week's edition of HER with Amena Brown and I hope you all are into your summer vibes.

Amena Brown:

I know this is going to be a bit of a weird summer for many of us. I know I have folks listening from all over the world. I know all of you are not here in the States. Here in the States, we are still in a pandemic. The pandemic is not over here but this is the first time that this many people have been vaccinated so there is a little bit of a relaxing as far as some places that you can go if you are fully vaccinated and not have to wear your mask or only have to wear your mask in certain areas. So it's going to be a good summer y'all, but it might be a weird one where I definitely feel like I am having some social adjustments to make. I think I'm going to have to do a whole episode about pandemic re-entry but it is summer here. It is already blazing hot and humid at the time of this recording. So I look forward to sharing more with you all about what it has been like doing re-entry here in the States during the pandemic.

Amena Brown:

I am doing the episode that we're doing today because I recently did a Behind the Poetry on my poem Letter to My Hair and I believe it's in that episode that I made mention of having done a Behind the Poetry on Dear TV Sitcoms and my assistant and I were talking because my assistant is always the one making the show notes so amazing. Also shameless plug for the show notes for this podcast. Shameless plug, if you're listening and you're like, "Oh shoot. I didn't catch what book they said," or, "I can't remember what artist they brought up." That is where the show notes come in. You can go to amenabrown.com/herwithamena and all the show notes are there and there are little extras there from the conversation so that you don't have to remember all the things I might be talking to you all about or talking to guests about, and so when my assistant was working on the show notes for that episode, she was like, "Hey, I went back and looked through all the episodes and you don't have a Behind the Poetry episode on Dear TV Sitcoms," and I was like [gasps].

Amena Brown:

I figured out that I had done a Behind the Poetry on Dear TV Sitcoms because my friend Celita had a podcast called I'm Simply Artistic which you can still listen to and her podcast was very much centered on the voices of poets and she would have each poet pick a poem of theirs that had something to do with recovery or some element of recovery that played a big role in Celita's podcast and so I actually talked with her about Dear TV Sitcoms on her podcast and for the first time outside of talking to my family and friends actually shared the behind the scenes behind the scenes of what inspired me to write Dear TV Sitcoms. So it only feels right to actually come here, on my own podcast, and tell you all a little bit of the Behind the Poetry on Dear TV Sitcoms.

Amena Brown:

The recording that you're about to hear of this poem is from my last spoken word album, Amena Brown Live, and I think you've heard me talking about Amena Brown Live because I think one or two of the other poems that I've talked through on here was from this album and I think I talked to you all about how I was releasing that album in November of 2016, bless my heart, that's a terrible time. Just don't release albums or books around election time in general, but that particular election as we know now was a terrible time to release an album. But if you haven't heard Amena Brown Live, I don't often say this because I don't normally like to listen to my own voice over and over again, and I still haven't listened back through Amena Brown Live but I am so proud of it. It is the most me that I ever was in a spoken word album so if you haven't checked it out I hope you do wherever you like to stream your music. So let's take a listen to Dear TV Sitcoms from my last spoken word album, Amena Brown Live.

Amena Brown:

Dear TV Sitcoms, I am mad at you. You raised me wrong. Restricted me to your 22-minute plot, your seven and a half commercial breaks, your 45 second catchy theme songs, you made being an adult look so easy. Easy like getting dressed for work in the morning and coming right back after the commercial break because it turns out sitcoms don't have time for an eight hour workday. Easy, like working as a journalist and being able to afford to live alone, in New York, with a closet full of Manolo Blahniks. Easy, like raising five kids while you work as an attorney and your husband works as a doctor and you are somehow always home when the kids get home from school and you could afford to host celebrities and take amazing vacations. You made me believe that grown women are randomly wearing sexy panties every night. Like in real life our bras ain't raggedy. Like in real life we don't all keep a drawer of reliable granny panties.

Amena Brown:

You made love look so simple. Simple like two perfect strangers who met at the office. In the first season they're just friends but an episode or two later they are married with children. Like in real life, some of us don't find ourselves living single long after our attempts to create a modern family have turned up empty. That sometimes when girl meets world, these are the years where you wonder if you gon' find love before your girlfriends become the golden girls, you made me want to get aboard the love boat. You made me believe that marriage was all pillow talk and matching pajama sets. You had me all in my feelings. All Lucy and Desi, and Jim and Pam, and Kevin and Winnie, and Dwayne and Whitley, and Synclaire and Overton, and James and Florida, all like I'm in Natalie's with my boo like it's the last two minutes of New York Undercover, and I still hope to hear my husband say, "Sweetheart, this is how I met your mother."

Amena Brown:

You had all the answers to drugs and date rape and bullying and domestic violence. You told me just say no, no means no. The more you know, don't talk to strangers. You even tried to help my abandonment issues because when you said after these messages, you actually came right back.

Amena Brown:

But we don't all get to escape the hood of West Philadelphia. We don't all have a rich Uncle Phil or a rich Aunt Viv and for the record my loyalties always lie with the first Aunt Viv. Some of us watched our hood lives turn into good times. Couldn't imagine ourselves a college blur, a college girl till we saw ourselves in a different world and we liked Family Ties but we needed Family Matters to remind us how much Black families matter, that families like the Parkers and the Jeffersons and the Sanfords really do exist. While all these years later we still need real life hashtags to explain why Everybody Loves Raymond, but Everybody Hates Chris. You can't fix the world's problems in 22 minutes. Maybe that was never your goal.

Amena Brown:

Maybe all you want to do is reflect life back to us, that no matter how much we scroll or stream or binge watch our news feeds or use our thumbs more than our mouths to say what we really mean, we're all just hoping to find a norm. Hoping to walk into our favorite spot and hear them say our name like they did Norm. Maybe you did raise me right. You wrote the credits so I could get back to my real life. Create my own theme song. Find my own plot baby. All you wanted for any of us was to do the best we can with our own God-given time slot because (Singing) sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see. Our troubles are all the same. You wanna be where everybody knows your name.

Amena Brown:

Okay. Still still still, I just love that poem. I just love it and I feel really emotional just thinking about having done that at Eddie's Attic here in Atlanta and just being in front of a crowd, y'all. I haven't performed in front of a crowd in-person since the first week or so of March in 2020 so I don't know how the rest of my schedule is going to go so far. I have not been booked for any like truly in-person events. I have mostly been asked to do more of like livestreams or pre-recorded streams where you may go and record in-person but you're not in front of an audience so just hearing everyone's voices and applause and all that, I don't know what I'm going to do the first time I actually perform in front of an audience but be emotional and possibly freaked out.

Amena Brown:

So let's talk about Dear TV Sitcoms. Whenever we're doing a Behind the Poetry episode I'd like to start with what made me write the poem and this is a really interesting story to me and it was interesting to talk with Celita about it on her podcast because even in thinking about all the episodes I've done here that were Behind the Poetry episodes, it's not often that I write a poem and the inspiration for the poem doesn't actually show up in the piece itself and so I cannot remember the exact year that I wrote this poem but I feel like I'm vaguely remembering that the house where I live now, I don't think that my husband and I had lived in this house very long at the time so we had probably only been married probably less than five years. Couldn't have been more than five years at the time I'm writing this. I think I mentioned this in my 40AF episode. There's parts of this story that I feel comfortable to share with you all. There's parts of it that I'm just still in process and have not gotten ready to share publicly so I'm giving you like a little bit of a glimpse and you may be like, "Where's the rest of the story?" and it just ain't in here. It ain't in here because I'm just not ready to talk about all of that.

Amena Brown:

But I can tell you that we were at a point in our marriage where we were like, "Okay." We moved into this house, like it's time. We were going to go ahead and try to extend our family and I'm using that phrasing purposefully because for us having been a married couple now without children and as I've told you all having worked in very conservative and white Christian spaces, there can be a lot of other pressures put upon you because you're a couple without children. So I like to use phrases like we wanted to extend our family or add to our family because as the two of us, we are a family right. Even if you're listening to this and you don't have a spouse or you don't have a partner, if you are in your own household, you're a family and whoever else may become part of your chosen family. But our families don't begin when we decide to have children and I think that is an important note to make so hopefully there is somebody listening out there that's like, "Thank you," because it's something I always wanted to hear someone say.

Amena Brown:

So we were at the point where we were like, "We would love to add a child to our family," and so we had begun trying to get pregnant and around this time I had realized that for very sundry reasons that I may or may not discuss with you all later, we discovered that that was not going to be an easy journey for us and I immediately felt duped. I was like, "Why am I so mad about feeling duped about this, and why do I feel duped? What do I feel was the information that was given to me about this and where did it come from?"

Amena Brown:

I realized that part of that information came from TV sitcoms, and there is this typical scenario that happens in a sitcom when the female character either has a pregnancy scare or possibly finds out that she's actually pregnant. First of all, it's always some character who is utterly unaware of her period, and I have some friends who are like this. I have some friends who ... They just don't keep track of their periods. I have some friends who have conditions and other things going on that make their periods irregular. So even if they were tracking their periods, they just don't know when their period is going to come. But this character that's in this average sitcom gets pregnant plot, this character is always sort of scatterbrained in some way, that she just lost track of the days and has no idea where her period is at any given time. Which is totally not like me. I always know. I always know at least when my period should be. I can't tell you I always know where it is, I just know where it should be.

Amena Brown:

Okay, so she's unaware of where her period is and typically the episode begins with some sort of catalyst of something that makes her realize what day it is, and she's sitting in a meeting or she's finishing up a project or someone says, "No, that was last Thursday," or whatever, and she goes to her physical calendar. It's typically some sort of bindered up situation or maybe ... She's got the desk calendar, the one that's like real big, sitting flat on the desk, and she starts flipping through these pages, counting, making X's, whatever, and realizes inside herself, "Oh, my period's late."

Amena Brown:

Somehow, she turns to her best friend that she also works with and I just want to take a little pause right here and just say out of all the jobs I ever worked, I mean I worked with some people that I liked, but I never worked with someone that was my best friend. I never worked a job where I felt comfortable with the people that I worked with knowing these types of personal details. So a lot of times while this is happening, when she's going, "Oh no, I haven't seen my period. My period's late," her work best friend is there in her cubicle, typically in her office, right? Because that's another thing. When you're watching offices or workplaces, it's always the central characters that actually have an office to go to with a door. Where they can what? Have privacy, which in most of the jobs I worked, you didn't have. If you wanted privacy you need to do that in your car or on your way to work, you need to drive away from work and go park somewhere else and make your little phone calls. Because all you got is a cubicle for yourself and that's it.

Amena Brown:

She's sitting with her best friend that she also works with and her best friend says, "Oh my gosh. We have to go right now and buy a pregnancy test." They don't have to check in with anybody. They also don't have to delineate how long they're going to be gone. They just leave and we don't know where they're at. They leave, they go to wherever the place is where they gather with their friends. You know how all the sitcoms kind of have that if it's based on a group of friends, so they go there. They eat coffee. They drink lunch. Whatever. Yeah, I said it. They do all those things. They happen to go to some drug store that happens to be right there near their job, pick up this pregnancy test and where do they go to take the pregnancy test? A public bathroom. Why? When would you ever do that in a public bathroom but anyway they do, take said test. Somehow they also do this in a public room where they remain alone and no one really comes in the bathroom while they're in there and boom boom, boom, little central character finds out that she's pregnant.

Amena Brown:

She comes home, like Whitley in A Different World. Makes her husband a plate of baby carrots, baby corn, baby back ribs to announce that she's pregnant. Like that was sort of me doing the hodgepodge of all the different plots like this that I had seen in TV sitcoms and I realize I am so mad, I am so mad at like this life that I felt like I was sold as far as what I thought my life was going to be like, and in my real life I'm there realizing, "Oh no. Sitcoms had this all wrong. Nobody likes their co-workers that much. Nobody shares that much of their business with their co-workers," and I realized quickly, and unfortunately for me in a lot of ways that fertility for everyone will not be that easy or that simple.

Amena Brown:

So next question is what is the real life story behind writing the poem? Okay, so I have this realization, I'm super pissed about where I feel like TV sitcoms got it all wrong, but I realize at that point of where I am and my emotional journey about all this, I'm like, "I'm not really ready to bring that factor into a poem," and also, even though this moment is a thing that a lot of people experience, because a lot of people experience this area of their life not being easy for various reasons but I realized, "Okay, maybe I do have the beginning of an idea that doesn't have to be connected to pregnancy or fertility or anything like that," and I started to think about are there other things that TV sitcoms got wrong about what it was going to be like to be an adult in real life?

Amena Brown:

So I started tinkering with it as you all, having heard the poem with a lot of sort of these ideas of how to do word play with the titles of some of these sitcoms. I mean I definitely started out just making a list of a lot of the sitcoms that I loved. I mean I loved Perfect Strangers growing up, that was one of my favorites to watch. I was a late watcher to Sex in the City. I didn't actually watch it when it was originally on television but after I got married I went back and watched the whole thing. That's a whole other purity culture thing to talk to you all about later but I never felt comfortable watching it before I got married but probably because I wasn't having sex I guess. I don't know, I was ... And the city, bless my heart.

Amena Brown:

Anyways, so I was late watching that but I did watch it which was a very interesting sort of cultural phenomenon kind of thing to have watched. So I was thinking about what were the sitcoms that I watched as a child and how they influenced what I thought as an adult and then what were the sitcoms that I could just sort of trace my upbringing and say, "Oh yeah, I remember watching that when I was a kid. I remember watching that when I was in junior high. I remember I watched that in high school, in college," and so on, and then trying to think of a few of the more current sitcoms at the time of the writing.

Amena Brown:

So when I started going through all that, I was probably about a third of the way finished with the piece and at that time on our local poetry scene here in Atlanta. Of course we have wonderful open mics but at that time one of the things we were really wanting to add to the poetry scene is a place to workshop. So I love this and I'm actually thinking about seeing if some friends of mine that are poets will kind of come back together to do this. There's a lot of different types of writing workshops you can do but if I were to overgeneralize, there's sort of the type of writing workshop that you can do that you're starting with nothing. You come to the workshop with just an empty piece of paper, your empty journal, or whatever, and the person facilitating helps you begin a new idea. But one of my favorite types of writing workshops to do is where you take a poem that hasn't been finished, you've started the idea, maybe you're stuck, maybe you're trying to figure out which direction you want to go, and you get a chance to share that with other poets and have them help you workshop some ways to go forward.

Amena Brown:

So I think we were doing this maybe as a once a month thing and I remember the night that I shared what was the beginning of Dear TV Sitcoms, we were actually hosting it at our house and so I shared the beginning of it and got a lot of positive feedback, everybody felt like I was off to a good start, but where I was getting stuck is what's the point of all this? Once I sort of name drop and plot drop all of these different TV shows that people are familiar with, what is the point of that? Am I writing this poem just to be nostalgic so we could have like a, "Yeah, I remember back when the TV shows used to be like blah blah blah." Or, "Do I have some other point of something that I'm trying to say? If I'm mad at TV sitcoms, why am I mad? Then if I'm mad, how do I make a turn in some way in the piece?" So I really can't remember all the details of our conversation that night honestly but I remember one of the questions that one of the poets asked was about are all of the things that TV sitcoms put out there, especially in that 80s into the mid 90s era, were all of those things bad? Or were there some good things?

Amena Brown:

So I think there were a lot of ideas kind of swirling around. I mean I definitely thought about ... If I look at TV sitcoms not just as here are these terrible things that I feel like you didn't tell us and you lied and these stories you put out there are not how it works in real life. But when they ask that question, having to think about what are some really great things that TV sitcoms brought me, and of course that brought me to black sitcoms and the fact that I was really, really inspired to go to Spelman because I was watching A Different World as sort of a pre-teen or a young teen age. I mean I was growing up watching Living Single and seeing all of these young, Black, upwardly mobile characters and seeing how their relationships and romances and work lives played out and there were a lot of differences at that time in various layers of ways how Black TV sitcoms were different from white TV sitcoms that really sort of existed in this kind of bubble almost.

Amena Brown:

Like there's still some sitcoms I've never really watched all the way through. Like I never watched Friends all the way through because I thought it was odd that ... It was odd to me always that here was a cast of people living in New York City of all places and they just ... All these seasons like never? Just all white people. I mean I know they had a few kind of characters that were coming in and out I guess, but I was just like, "I don't know. I don't like that."

Amena Brown:

Kind of felt similarly about Seinfeld but growing up and thinking about what were those Black sitcoms that really gave me this window into myself, into other black folks that I knew, thinking about Girlfriends and Half & Half and Moesha. I mean some of these shows, I actually had so long of a list of sitcoms I didn't even have room to list them all, but even the ones I named inside of the poem thinking about watching Sanford and Son with my grandfather and what it meant to be looking at Redd Foxx who I always thought looked a little similar to my great-grandfather watching that show and just how hilarious it was and even the different ways that economics played out in some of the Black sitcoms and the roles education played and work and how some of them were sitcoms built around discussing certain issues and topics and sort of making the episode have a stepped up version of an after school special.

Amena Brown:

And some of them were more character-driven where it wasn't as much about this issue that we needed to talk about each episode but it was just focused on what happened to those characters and when they dated and when they broke up or whatever and so from that writing workshop time, I thought to myself, "Oh, I definitely want to include some conversation about that," because having watched Black TV sitcoms growing up was very impactful to me and even now seeing this wonderful resurgence here in the years since I wrote this poem that there have been so many other Black sitcoms to come out and just Black television shows in general, whether they're sitcoms or not, right?

Amena Brown:

I think also when I was trying to think about what's the point of writing about this, and I think I wanted to write about those tensions that I think a lot of us who were in Gen X and I do consider myself to be Gen X even though the years for who is millennial or not still kind of fluctuate and I think sometimes I see those years and according to those years I would be considered a millennial but for me I always culturally feel like I'm Gen X because I was raised as a latchkey kid. I was raised in that after school special era, even though I'm on social media and all those things, I didn't have an email address until I was probably ... I think maybe I had an AOL address when I was 15 and my first like for real super official email I was a college student. I didn't have my first cellphone until I was 22 years old. So there was a lot of that like went outside to play. Had Nintendo and those things but there was still a lot of that upbringing for me that was very centered around the TV screen more than it was a computer screen or a phone screen, right? Which has some similarities but brought out a difference in generation of those of us that were raised as kids in the 80s.

Amena Brown:

So I tried to swirl all those things and go back and think about how can I come back to this poem and finish it. So I think when I took all those things, then I went back and sort of the last part of the poem where you see this turn, right? That's one of the things I have loved about performing this piece is when it starts out and people hear that first line, "Dear TV Sitcoms, I'm mad at you," they're already like, "Oh yes. This is the thing I want to talk about," and all of those funny lines right there about marriage and The Love Boat and the nod to the Sex in the City and the Cosby show without saying the Cosby show, the vibes. Like dropping all of these things in there and then getting to that turning point of, "But here's where real life becomes different from what we're watching in the sitcom. Here's where there's no Uncle Phil, there's no Aunt Viv," but getting to sort of make that turn to say, "This is why Black TV sitcoms are important and Black TV sitcoms are a part of the fact that Black lives matter," and getting to talk about that and take that turn in the middle of this piece was and still is honestly one of my favorite things because when people haven't heard the poem, they don't expect it to take that turn.

Amena Brown:

That's one of the ways I love to use humor. I can't tell you all that I start out writing the poem and I know that's how it's going to turn because I just don't. But I love that because when I have a funny poem that sort of takes a serious turn in the middle, I love it because I think people become a bit more disarmed for hearing the truth and not hearing the truth in a defensive sort of posture when they've had the opportunity to laugh and remember some things that were good memories to them and so it's fun to me to open this poem with that and then people, they're like, "Oh. Hmm."

Amena Brown:

So what is the real life story behind performing this poem for the first time? Well this is interesting because this feels a little meta. My husband and I did a YouTube series on my YouTube channel many years ago called Behind the Poetry and the initial idea for this series was going to be my husband documenting me as I'm preparing to record Amena Brown Live. A part of that was I had gone through this period where I sort of had a repertoire of old poems and in those old poems, I had a lot of great ones. So for many years, I just performed those over and over.

Amena Brown:

Then I got to a point where I sort of got tired of hearing myself say those things over and over, so I wanted to start writing some new poems. So I was doing that. That's part of how Dear TV Sitcoms got written, and then after those poems got finished in the writing side and I realized, "Oh, now I have this deadline of this live recording," so it's different than studio recording because if I'm in the studio and I say a thing wrong or the recording didn't come out how we wanted, I can go back and record it as many times as I want. But going to do a live recording, the best case scenario is to hope that you get the best out of yourself that you can get that night so that you don't have a whole lot of other stuff to go back and do on the backend.

Amena Brown:

So originally the Behind the Poetry YouTube series which is still up, you'll find the links to this in the show notes, but originally it was supposed to be sort of like my Rocky moment. That's what I wanted, for those of you that are fans of the Rocky film series, whenever Rocky gets in like his training zone, and it's like that [singing], like you feel that coming. Like I was trying to do that, but for a poem.

Amena Brown:

So when the beginning of this series, which eventually kind of converts over away from just being prep for Amena Brown Live and actually converts over to retracing my poetry steps. So it would probably be really interesting to re-watch it now but the beginning parts of that, you watch me taking you through here's how I am working my way up to this recording. Here is how I am going to take Dear TV Sitcoms out to an open mic and I think my husband was with me this night that we went. I had two or three nights that I at least had to go out and try to work the poem and read it first and then try to memorize it. I think my husband captured me stumbling and unable to remember part of the poem and that's just part of the process, how I was getting the poems memorized. As I was prepping for Amena Brown Live and I wanted to get the kinks worked out of Dear TV Sitcoms because I wanted to close the show and the album with the piece and still to this day I close a lot of my sets with Dear TV Sitcoms because it's just a perfect place to end, where you can get everybody singing together and everything, it's so wonderful.

Amena Brown:

So one of the missteps that happened, which is always interesting to me when you're taking something you've written and preparing it for stage, which is why I wanted to work the poem and I didn't want the first time I was doing it to be at the night of this recording, is sometimes you write a line and you think you're going to get a response or reaction from the audience and you don't. And then sometimes you write a line that you thought was just regular and it's totally hilarious to the crowd. Or they totally respond, right?

Amena Brown:

So one of the first times I tried to do Dear TV Sitcoms off book, I got to the line about how my loyalties always lie with the first-time Viv, and this is one of the most wonderful things about this poem. Whenever I do this poem in front of a crowd that is full of Black folks, which is what happened, that's the crowd I was working the piece in front of, and when it got to that part, they were [yells]. Like it was so much noise and applause and I was shocked because I didn't know to expect that that line was going to get that uproarious of a reaction. So I think it totally threw me off and I probably forgot my lines or something.

Amena Brown:

The Cheers song at the end, still trying to find which section of that Cheers song to use, also feeling old when I started doing Dear TV Sitcoms in front of college audiences, and of course those of you that have been performing artists or speakers in front of college crowds know that it's a weird feeling because you're getting older but the students are staying the same age all the time. So going in front of college crowds and then being like, "Yeah, yeah, I kind of recognize the last song but like where is it from?" And just being like, "Oh my god." Just feeling very, very old. Very, very old right there.

Amena Brown:

But let me say, not just feeling old, but also feeling like, "Oh no. I don't want the children to be deprived of knowing what amazing theme songs were like." I could do a whole episode talking to y'all about that but I do feel like the art of the theme song is gone. Like that era that we were in right there of the 80s into the early 90s, I mean that Golden Girls theme song was so great, the Fresh Prince theme song was so great, freaking Growing Pains, Silver Spoons, there were just so many shows that had amazing theme songs but Cheers is one of my absolute favorites so ... It has so many wonderful little pieces in it. So I spent a little bit of time trying to figure that out. Sometimes I would start singing it and the goal on stage for me is to start singing that and then at least get the audience to join in, you want to go where everybody knows your name. Like get them to join in singing with me.

Amena Brown:

So there were a couple of times, the first few times that I tried it and I thought the audience was going to sing and they didn't. So then I was just left out there like, "Ooh, I stopped singing, because I thought y'all were going to sing and you didn't." The moment I was hoping for is to start singing and then sort of back up from the mic and exit stage as the audience is singing, but I had to learn how to finesse that moment and I had to learn the way to start singing and sort of do my hands to get the audience to kind of chime in with me earlier so that everybody's comfortable singing at the top of their lungs right up until the end there.

Amena Brown:

I think another thing that I was working through just as a poet at that moment is I was sort of coming out of having done a lot of slam competition. I competed in slam for at least a couple of years, it could have been a few years. I'm like how many years was that? So I think even after deciding that I didn't necessarily want to compete in slam, I still felt the parameters of slam. I still kept that around my work so when you're performing slam poetry, slam poetry has to be in most cases, there are different variations of this, but I did team slam.

Amena Brown:

So for team slams, they had to be three minutes. The poems had to be three minutes and so a lot of my poems are somewhere between two minutes and 30 and three minutes and when I was starting to work on this poem and realizing, "Oh, this poem is kind of three and a half minutes," and trying to figure out how do I feel about that? Do I need to shorten it? Then I just thought, "You know, I don't think I'm a slam poet. I love performing spoken word. I think I'm a spoken word poet. I think I'm a great storyteller and I'd like for my poems to do that kind of work." But I'm not a great slam poet and so this poem was one of the first times that I sort of let myself get outside of those parameters and I'm really glad I did because Dear TV Sitcoms turned out to be such a wonderful stage piece to have. It is still one of my favorite pieces to perform and the last question I always ask at the end of these episodes is how do I feel about the poem now and I just ... I love it so much.

Amena Brown:

For a long time, I feel like now, I mean I haven't performed in so long so who knows, but I feel like if I'm somewhere and somebody's like, "Do a poem for us," I feel like it would probably be this one because I've done this poem in front of so many varied audiences. Young, old, different cultures, different race, like all different parts of the country. Like in the city, in more rural areas, like in the Midwest, in the South, in the Northeast. I mean I have taken this poem so many places and in front of so many crowds and I love as a performer ...

Amena Brown:

I'll tell you all something that's kind of a twofold thought actually. I love as a performer having work that I can perform just about anywhere. Because I think it's cool to have work that you can do. Like I would think to myself like, "Could I take this poem if I were going to do this for a room full of elderly folks? Could I do this poem there? Yeah, I think I could. In front of a room full of college students? Yeah. High school students? Sure." I love having work like that. As a performer, it's a dope feeling to think that you've written something that so many people find themselves in it or find a piece of themselves in it or find interest in it.

Amena Brown:

I will say another lesson that I've learned though is sometimes it's also good to have poems or have work that you do that is for a specific audience, that isn't for everybody, and I think that's the lesson I had to learn. I don't think I knew that at the time that I was writing Dear TV Sitcoms but I know it now and I remember meeting this wonderful Black man poet in Chicago and we were talking about each other's work, we never met each other or heard of each other or anything, and he was telling me, he said, "I only write for Black people." He was like, "I'm not writing anything for white people." He was like, "I write for Black people." For me at the time, of course because I'm performing in white spaces all the time, it felt really weird for me to hear him say that at the time but now I totally understand now what he meant, that there are times that a writer writes and it isn't for everybody.

Amena Brown:

There are times that it is for a specific crowd or a specific group and it's okay to not take your work and make it for everyone. I think that's especially true for folks who have been marginalized, to have work that you're like, "Yo, this work, this is for the queer folks, and it's okay if it's for queer folks and if I'm not queer, it's okay for me to listen to it or watch the performance or whatever as long as I watch with the lens that it wasn't written for me, that I'm here as a guest and I don't have a say. I'm just here to get the honor of observing and I'm glad that that's a lesson I have too." So I love the both/and of that. I love having some pieces like when I did the Behind the Poetry episode on my poem Margaret, Margaret is another poem like Dear TV Sitcoms that I can take in front of almost any audience of women anywhere and do that poem and it goes, it flies every time.

Amena Brown:

I also love that in both of these poems, they are poems that are sort of in my mind written where they can apply in part to every person that's listening, but there are also parts of them that are distinctly black and distinctly Black girl or Black woman, you know? And I love having that in my work too and so I have some poems like this that I love to do in front of any audience and I have some other ones that they were written for Black women or they were written for Black folks and I love that young poet that I was talking to taught me that because I think that's good too, and I think it's good for us who are folks that consume art to remember that, that not all of the art was made for us or made for our commentary or made for us to understand or glean all these things from. That sometimes the artist is making that for somebody that isn't you and you're just getting the honor of getting to be a fly on the wall for that little bit of a moment that's allowed and to make sure as consumers that we honor that.

Amena Brown:

Thank you all so much for listening to my Behind the Poetry about Dear TV Sitcoms, one of my favorite and most fun poems to perform and I hope soon after this recording that I get a chance to get back out there and do some performances for you all. I want to do something a little different for this week's edition of Give Her a Crown. I want to give a crown to everyone listening who is going through a hard thing right now. That may also be a private thing. For all of you that may be going through something that totally went different than you expected or than you were raised to believe that it would. TV sitcoms don't have the corner market on how the stories of our lives get written. In real life sometimes, there might be happy beginnings instead of happy endings. Sometimes there are happy beginnings and shitty endings. Sometimes it just doesn't turn out how we might have hoped and that can be really, really hard.

Amena Brown:

So if you're listening, and you know what I mean, I want you to give yourself a crown. There can be a lot of beauty in the life we've got. Our lives can be wonderful, even if they don't wrap up clean like the end of a sitcom. So hey, you, give yourself a crown.

Amena Brown:

HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women's Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 36

Amena Brown:

Y'all, welcome back to HER with Amena Brown. And I know every time I be in here doing an episode, I tell y'all, I'm excited, but today. Today, really, really excited, so we want to welcome to the HER living room, New York Times' best selling author, USA today, best selling author, Wall Street Journal best selling author, Talia Hibbert. Please applaud in your living rooms. Please applaud, please applaud. Talia, thank you so much for joining the podcast today. I'm so happy to have you here.

Talia Hibbert:

Thank you for having me. I'm super excited.

Amena Brown:

Y'all, what y'all don't know is Talia is so patient, bless her kind heart today because there were a few things that I was trying to figure out how to do over here without my producer here. And I basically took Talia through some sort of customer service, tech support situation. She didn't ask for that when she came in here, she didn't ask for that type of thing. So, thank you Talia for your patience on that. Okay, first of all, Talia, let me start with this. I am new to the romance genre. I'm only a year into being a romance reader.

Talia Hibbert:

Aww, a romance baby.

Amena Brown:

Okay, and I want to give a special shout out to my assistant and my friend, Leigh, who reached out to you for this interview and who is really my gateway into this literature, okay? And I went through a particular time and sometimes when I'm talking to Women of Color on here, Talia, I have to remind myself that like we're recording and this is a public thing, because I almost went into like a girlfriend mode and was like, "Girl," and I was like, "You can't be talking about all that on this recording." So, we'll talk about that, the other underlying things at a different time, Talia. But once the summer came in, I had like other things in my personal life that were very hard. And on top of being in a pandemic, on top of being in the middle of a global uprising, I just had to do like moratorium on reading things and watching things that are in any way, super sad or traumatic right now. And it's not that those stories don't have their place or are not important. I just can't be engaging in that right now.

Amena Brown:

I can't do that. And so Leigh and I were talking about this and she was like, "Well, you want to start like reading some romance books." And so she gave me like list of authors, you were one of them. And over the past year, Talia, I just been all up in your ... What? Is it a bibliography? No, what is it called?

Talia Hibbert:

A back list? Is that what we're saying?

Amena Brown:

Okay, yes, because I was like, what's the author version of a discography? And I'm like, "It feels like it should be bibliography," but then we use that in research. So ...

Talia Hibbert:

I see where you're coming from though. It feels like that, that should be it.

Amena Brown:

Well, I've been all up through your things you've been writing, is basically what I'm trying to say. I've been all up through your things, Talia, and just enjoying the perfect imperfections of your characters. And I just love everything about it. So, I'm just so happy to have you here and for the people that are not already reading you, I hope they are encouraged to do this.

Talia Hibbert:

Thank you, really, thank you so much. That is very lovely.

Amena Brown:

I also have to tell you, Talia, you don't be knowing me girl, but I be following you on Twitter, and when you hit the New York times bestseller list, like I felt such a Black girl joy for you from afar, seeing you and your agent ... I mean are you still processing that moment? That had to feel like such a big moment, right?

Talia Hibbert:

Yeah, that really freaked me out, and it was very unexpected. And when people bring it up, I never bring it up because I'm like, "Did that happen? Or ..." When people bring it up, I'm like, "Who, me? Are you sure?"

Amena Brown:

Completely, especially, I think for a lot of us who are writers, there's a lot of joy that can come in general in your writing career, just people enjoying your work or seeing other readers come into your community space that way. I mean, that has its own joy and just making you feel like the hard work you do to write is worth it, but it ain't nothing wrong with having this type of moment either, where you're able to be like, "Yo, this is like a really respected list to make it on." And to see you make it to that, I was like, "I don't even know her, and I'm just here, and my Black girl joy's so happy for you."

Talia Hibbert:

Aww, Thank you. Yeah, it was fabulous. Actually, I use it around the house a lot whenever me and my boyfriend disagree on anything. I'm like, "Well, I am a New York Times best selling author, so maybe you should listen to what I have to say."

Amena Brown:

It's perfect leverage. I support this. Here's the thing I wanted to ask you. So, when I was in college, I was an English major. I actually thought that I was going to be a novelist because I loved Toni Morrison and Alice Walker's work in particular, so much growing up, that that was my purpose for majoring in English. It turned out for me that I ended up having more of a career in poetry than fiction writing. And so, that's sort of what took off from me. But there was one class that I was in for my English major, where we watched a documentary about Alice Walker. And she talked about her characters talking to her. Someone asked her, "How do you write these books?" And she said, "I really don't feel like I write them, I feel like the characters show up and they talk to me. They tell me what their story is." And I'm going to tell you right now, Talia, that I grew up in a strict in some regards, religious background.

Amena Brown:

So, when I first heard Alice Walker say that, I was like, "Oh, we rebuke that. That's not ... No, the characters ... mm-mm (negative). They not talk ... No, if you're not alive, you're not a human being, you're not talking, and I don't care." But then years later as a writer, I totally experienced that being true. Is that a true experience for you? Do you have moments or times where your characters have talked to you and told you how the plot was supposed to move forward?

Talia Hibbert:

I don't have characters talk to me directly, but I very much see them talking to each other or living out certain things. I see the things that I suppose you could say, they want me to see, or they want to show me, but when I am imagining things or when I'm in my head, it's like I, as the individual, don't really exist. I'm a TV screen or something.

Amena Brown:

Oh, I love that. And I could see almost in fiction writing, there can be this feeling that you're eavesdropping sort of on-

Talia Hibbert:

Yeah.

Amena Brown:

Other people's lives in this way, because I think sometimes people that don't write fiction, and I have not finished fiction, I've just dabbled in writing it, but for people that read fiction, that don't write fiction, I think there's sometimes this perception that you are, "The God" over what the people are doing in the story. And you don't always, as a writer, have control over how the story is going to end up, right? Are there times that you were like, "Here's this character, I bet they'll do this." And then you get to that moment and the character is doing a different thing than you expected? Does that ever happen?

Talia Hibbert:

All the time. A lot of the time, I have like a vague plan for key moments in the book. And then I'm trying to write the moment and I'm like this isn't working because they have somehow gone in a completely different direction. And I have to sit back and think about where they actually are and not where I wanted or planned for them to be, because the two paths diverged. That's very inconvenient.

Amena Brown:

Okay, super inconvenient, guys.Well, this is a HER Favorite Things episode, Talia. And I wanted to get a chance to talk to you about some of your favorite things. What's your favorite thing about writing romance?

Talia Hibbert:

My favorite thing about writing romance, gosh, there's so many. Overall, I would say it's just being able to write to people experiencing so many positive things and finding so much happiness in so many different ways. I love that in romance, the journeys, you know that you're always going to leave them better than you found them.

Amena Brown:

Oh, I love that. Also, can you share with us, Talia, what is your favorite cuss word or curse word? It depends on where people are from if they curse or they cuss, but either way, what's your favorite?

Talia Hibbert:

Well, here we say swear word, which has a lot less impact.

Amena Brown:

Oh, okay Your favorite swear word? Yes.

Talia Hibbert:

Actually, at home I absolutely wasn't allowed to swear ever, and I still don't in front of anyone from my family because I'd be in big trouble, but privately, my favorite would have to be bastard because I think it sounds really nice.

Amena Brown:

Oh yes. That's a good one. That's a good one. It's like when I see people in movies string it together, sometimes they string it together with other swear words, and I'm just like, "Oh yes, yes, we love to see that." And the end of it was bastard, yes. It's so great. See, my mama listens to this podcast, so I'm just gone whisper and be like, "Mom, just fast forward the next 30 seconds." Okay, but my favorite cuss word right now is shit.

Talia Hibbert:

Oh, it's snappy.

Amena Brown:

It's a nice exclamation if something happens, if you stub your toe, it's a great word. If you think someone is a liar, you can be like, "You're full of shit."

Talia Hibbert:

I don't know if you guys say this, here you can call someone a shit, or a little shit, do you do that? You're such a shit.

Amena Brown:

Oh, I like that one too. I'm going to incorporate that. Continue to fast-forward, Mom, continue to press the 30 seconds until you get to the next favorite thing, thank you so much, Mom. Thank you. Also, I want to ask you about your favorite celebrity crush. I really have two questions I want, I want to ask about this. So, let me start with a celebrity crush and then I have a second question. Who is your favorite celebrity crush? It could be right now, Talia, or if you have someone in the past that you're like, "That was my person when I was blah-blah-blah years old." Discuss.

Talia Hibbert:

Okay. So, right now my eternal celebrity crush is Rihanna. I would pay money to smell her. I heard she smells really good and I believe it. But then when I was younger, my celebrity crush was Lucy Lawless from Xena: Warrior Princess.

Amena Brown:

Oh, that's nice. Okay, this is the second question. The answer could still be the same regarding celebrity crush, but my friends and I used to have conversations about whether or not we were in a relationship, what celebrities were on our, "You could get it," list, okay? And let me tell you what qualifies for me as a, "You can get it." This is how I imagine it, Talia, that like I happen to be in a very nice hotel at the bar, and so-and-so sits next to me. So-and-so celebrity, and they have their hotel key under their hand, and they slide at my direction. Who are the people in the fantasy world of life? Who are the people that like sliding that key over, you would be like, "I will take that key and meet you upstairs?" Or it could be some people that you're like, "I'm at least thinking about that. Even if I'm like, 'No, not me,' but I'm going to think about it." Is the answer is still the same or are there other names you would put there?

Talia Hibbert:

I feel like a lot of the people who I have crushes on, if I actually met them, because I'm very awkward, I would be so intimidated. They could slide the key all day long, I'd be like, "What? What are you doing? What's happening?" And then I'd just be like ... I'd say something terribly awkward, and they'd be like, "Actually, I'm taking back my key." I'd be like, "Oh, do you want to play chess?" And they'd be like, "I'm leaving."

Amena Brown:

Maybe playing chess is a different version of, "You could get it," but okay. All right. I think for me, it was always André 3000.

Talia Hibbert:

Ooh, okay.

Amena Brown:

For some reason, I imagine myself in some sort of really nice Bohemian style hotel. And if André 3000, I mean, of course now we know that he's like going around the country, playing flute, different places.

Talia Hibbert:

So, it could happen.

Amena Brown:

And if he was there with his flute and he slides that hotel key? I feel my husband would understand on a level, I feel like he'd be like, "I mean ..."

Talia Hibbert:

Absolutely, you'd have to, right? Any reasonable person-

Amena Brown:

It's André 3000. What can I say? That's how I feel. I feel like there's some names we had to discuss, if this ever comes up, just know this is a thing. Idris Elba, okay? Idris Elba literally on that list as well. I mean ...

Talia Hibbert:

I'm off and on because sometimes when he doesn't have a bed or he has a shorter bed, he reminds me very much of my dad. So, it's a real shame.

Amena Brown:

That definitely ruins the vibes. That ruins the vibes because it's like, "I don't want to think about nobody's parents in this situation." And then sometimes, Talia, I get to where I'm like, even though it's totally in my fantasy world, when Idris Elba got married, I was like, "Man, I guess out of respect for his ... This whole thing is not really going to happen, but for some reason now," I'm like, "Man, I do follow her on Instagram, so ..." That doesn't mean anything. Okay, talk to me about what is a song, or if there are a few songs, songs that you put on that really get you motivated? If a song could be like a cup of coffee, if you're having like that groggy day, what are the songs you would put on to play?

Talia Hibbert:

So, one song that really gets me going, because it hypes up my mood, is Smooth by Santana because it's the kind of song that whatever mood I'm in, it makes me dance around but then when I'm done, I'm like, "You know what? Yeah, this day is fine, actually. It's not that bad. So, let me sit down and do some work."

Amena Brown:

I love it. I love it. I feel like Santana is always good for a thing like that. It just gets you in the good vibes, you know? That's a good one.

Talia Hibbert:

Yeah, immaculate vibes.

Amena Brown:

I've started a playlist privately and quietly, Talia. I am honing very good skills at making a playlist. This is a little thing I work on, on the side of just trying to be a good curator of the playlist. So, currently I'm working on a playlist called "Get On Up," which is supposed to be my, "Okay, let's play this music. The day's started." I think I have some Curtis Mayfield on there. I do have a couple of Outkast songs. There's a couple of those songs that I'm like, "Okay, this makes me be like, 'Here's my day that ...'" Jill Scott, Golden, when she comes in with the vocals and I'm like, "Yes, I'm going to wear my freedom too, around my chest." Yes, so I'm going to have to investigate this Santana song so, I can add more things-

Talia Hibbert:

Add it, maybe?

Amena Brown:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). What is one thing that you need when you write? I'm always curious to ask about this, Talia, because sometimes I guess this changes for me. So far, Talia, both of the books I've written were non-fiction. And so, I have never written a fiction book to know how the writing process might be different, but I know that I always am in need of like a dessert or a carb, something, because that brings comfort to me as I face my insecurities. That's what writing's like for me. But what are some things that are like, these are your favorite things to have when you are in the writing process?

Talia Hibbert:

So, for me, I used to play the Sims a lot when I was younger, and I feel like I'm a Sim in that all my need bars have to be green for me to properly do anything. So, I have to drink my water. I need to have had my breakfast, and I go to the loo. I need to be in a warm room, not too warm. I need peace. It doesn't have to be completely quiet, but it does have to be peaceful. And then I'm ready, and I can get it done.

Amena Brown:

Oh, I love that. I've also gotten into a candle sometimes, something about the vibes of lighting a candle sets that mood with me of like, here I am a writer.

Talia Hibbert:

Actually, I tried to do the candle thing, and then I was banned from using candles in my office because, through no fault of my own, the candle exploded. It was like one of those glass jar things, and it exploded, it as a very dramatic word, but it low-ley did explode. And everyone blamed me, and now I can't use candles without supervision.

Amena Brown:

I mean, this is making me be very thoughtful now because my husband literally has a candle, like one of those ... It's a big glass, in the big glass jar set up. And he lit it recently, and we were all ... Actually, my mom was over too. We were all here, sort of as a co-workers for the day. And the smoke detectors started going off and we're all like, "What's going on?" And he opens the door to his office, and that candle, that was never smoking at all before, it's like burned half way down, but now at whatever level it's at, it just smokes every time.

Talia Hibbert:

Oh my god.

Amena Brown:

So, he had to do all the waves underneath the smoke detector and puts the candle out. So, maybe you're saving us from allowing that candle to further explode.

Talia Hibbert:

Maybe, maybe.

Amena Brown:

This is a good warning. So, I'm going to try to stick to that. What is your favorite thing about being you?

Talia Hibbert:

I recently learned that not everyone has an audible, internal monologue, but I have a constant monologue and I like it. It's very comforting.

Amena Brown:

Oh, that's nice. Can you share with us any examples of what your inner monologue is discussing?

Talia Hibbert:

Say, when I get up in the morning and I kind of lie there and I'm thinking, "What am I going to do today? I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this." And then I get up and I'm thinking, "Okay, now I'm doing this. That looks good. I need to get toilet paper." It's just rambling.

Amena Brown:

It seems that your inner monologue is very giving and about some sufficiencies and productivity. I think that's a nice inner monologue to have. I like it.

Talia Hibbert:

It's fun, it's helpful.

Amena Brown:

I think that's a great thing to love about yourself. That's one of my favorite questions to get to ask in these interviews because there's so many things about ourselves that we could think of, that we want to change or whatever. But I think it's really wonderful to think about what's our favorite thing about being exactly who we are. I have commented recently to a couple of friends, Talia, that I have an inner customer service Amena. And this is partly due to before I was a performance poet and doing spoken word and all this, I worked a lot of customer service jobs. Some of it was on the phone. Some of it was in-person, but all of the tools that you learn doing customer service, about how to like deescalate a customer if they're really angry when they get on the phone with you, how not to say no to them? You don't say the literal word, no, even if you actually are telling them, no, you can't do this thing.

Amena Brown:

So, I didn't know that all those skills, all that time working on the phones, doing all, that was totally going to become a part of my inner voice, basically. So, I've been in some situations, Talia, especially in my work, where I've had to meet with people who ... I mean, I'm interviewing people all the time that I might really be fans of theirs. And somehow, it's like customer service Amena gets in there, and she's so composed. She handles herself so well.

Talia Hibbert:

That's so useful.

Amena Brown:

I think other Amena has fainted or something during those times.

Talia Hibbert:

She's left the chat.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. She's not available for the conversation. Customer service Amena, however, would like to speak to these things, would like to say these words. So, that is a good favorite thing to have about yourself, that you treasure your inner monologue. I love that so very much. Before I let you go, Talia, I want to talk a little bit more about your work in particular for people that may be listening, and bless your hearts if you're late to the Talia Hibbert train, but this is your time. This is a train stop right here, where you can get on this train, if you're late to it. I want to talk about, there's a lot of things that I love and having read your work Talia, I had never read a book that had a content warning until reading your work. Can you share what made you add that as a thing to your work?

Talia Hibbert:

Well, I have always read a lot of fan fiction, and it's really common in fan fic to have just a content note for all the ... Because in fan fic, you can get a little messy, messy content. So, it's really common, just as a courtesy to have that noted for anyone who needs to be aware. And I always found it really helpful and it just made so much sense to me. So, when it occurred to me that I could do it, and I saw some authors like Cole McCade, for example, does a great job of content warnings as well. I was like, "Yeah, I want to do that. I don't want to spring this on someone, if it is something that can bother them, that could ruin their day or their week or the book." It just seems nice.

Amena Brown:

It was very helpful to me. And I was like, "Why doesn't everyone do this?" Everyone, every genre, everything, because it is very challenging if particularly I think, if you're engaging in something because you want it to bring you some sense of joy or some sense of a happy ending or this happy experience and there's this ... In the middle of it for you, that maybe the writer is not going to have any way of knowing that this thing they've mentioned about grief or about a particular kind of violence or whatever the things are that come up, the writer's not going to have any way of knowing what would trigger anyone. But being able to have that warning, as a reader, is nice to be like, because there's some content warnings that I'm like, "All right, I can handle that, okay."

Talia Hibbert:

Yeah, exactly.

Amena Brown:

You know? And then sometimes you're like, "Not me."

Talia Hibbert:

Not today, maybe not ever. So sorry.

Amena Brown:

Can't do that, you know? So, just giving readers the choice, I thought that was so powerful and empowering in your work. For people who may just be encountering your work for the first time, what do you hope that they walk away from these characters, these stories, what do you hope they walk away with?

Talia Hibbert:

I hope they walk away with the knowledge that everyone deserves to be happy and everyone deserves to experience the mushy, perfect love, whatever kind of love you want, that maybe people write off as impossible or cliche or shallow. It's not bad to want good things for yourself. I hope that's what readers walk away with.

Amena Brown:

It's not bad to want good things for yourself. I think that's a perfect way to end our conversation, Talia. thank you so much for joining me, for taking the tour of my house that we didn't have planned at the beginning of this.

Talia Hibbert:

It was a delightful tour.

Amena Brown:

I thank you for doing that. And I just thank you for the work that you put out into the world and for the way that there are just certain ways your work is centered on the experiences of Black women, and writing these stories where Black women are experiencing joy, it's wonderful. So, thank you, Talia.

Talia Hibbert:

Well, thank you so much for all your kind words, and for a lovely chat.

Amena Brown:

If you're looking for a refreshing fun read, check out Talia Hibbert's latest book, the New York Times best selling, Act Your Age, Eve Brown available at your favorite bookseller. For more info on Talia, check out her website, TaliaHibbert.com and follow her on Instagram and Twitter at Talia Hibbert.

Amena Brown:

For this week's edition of Give Her A Crown, I want to shout out Gabby Rivera. Gabby is a Queer Puerto Rican writer, and it's the first Latina to write for Marvel Comics, penning the solo series, AMERICA about America Chavez, a portal punching, Queer, Latina, powerhouse. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Juliet Takes a Breath, the writer and creator of b.b. free, a comic series with BOOM! Studios, and the host of podcast Joy Revolution. I first saw Gabby speak at MAKERS in 2020, in the before times y'all, before the pandemic, we were all there, super close to each other, breathing each other's air. It was very wild.

Amena Brown:

Gabby shared how her experiences as a spoken word poet helped to pave the way for the career she has today, and I was riveted, and also just so inspired. Having had roots in the spoken word community, myself, it was just amazing to see all of the things that Gabby is doing. Not only in her creative work, but in her community. Gabby, thank you for uplifting the voices of Queer folks, for being a bad-ass, for pouring your community and your culture into your characters. Gabby Rivera, give her a crown.

Amena Brown:

HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions, as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network, in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 35

Amena Brown:

Hey y'all, this week in our, HER living room, I am talking with vocalist, musical consultant, professional voice coach and founder of Fruition Organized Music, Ametria Dock. This episode, which was recorded in the before times, Ametria and I were actually in the same room for this recording before the pandemic. Ametria shares the tough lessons she learned as a solo artist in the music industry and how those lessons propelled the trajectory of her career. She also shares what she's learned as a business founder and gives a mini masterclass on how to maintain vocal health. So all my speakers and singers out there, make sure you are taking a listen to that. Let's check it out.

Amena Brown:

Everybody, welcome back to another episode of HER with Amena Brown, and I'm Amena Brown, I'm your host here and I'm so excited. First of all, I'm excited because today's interview is an in-person interview and this doesn't happen all the time. Sometimes I'm interviewing people, we're just in different places, but today's guest is here in the studio with me. Recording artist, vocalist, musical consultant, professional voice coach for artists, such as Janelle Monáe, India.Arie, Anthony David, Avery Sunshine, Gramps Morgan and more. Founder of Fruition Organized Music. Let's welcome Ametria Dock to the podcast.

Ametria Dock:

Woo, woo. Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. I'm so glad to be here with you in person.

Amena Brown:

I know. This has been a few months coming this interview. I have been begging. Y'all, I have been begging Ametria to come on the podcast. I've been begging her to the point that I just emailed her and I was like, "I will crouch in the corner of a tour bus." I was like, "I will come in the 10 minutes between clients, whatever I can do to get this story," just because I really believe that you have such a wealth to offer-

Ametria Dock:

Thank you.

Amena Brown:

... the community of listeners here. So I'm so glad.

Ametria Dock:

You know it. She didn't have to beg me. I love her and I was honored to do this.

Amena Brown:

So we've been knowing of each other or about each other for years, I feel like.

Ametria Dock:

For years, actually.

Amena Brown:

We were kind of running in some of the same circles. I don't know if you knew I was a music journalist for a little while in Atlanta, before my poetry career... I was about to say took off, I'm like, "Did it?"

Ametria Dock:

It did. And you are.

Amena Brown:

Took off?

Ametria Dock:

You're there. So I partly knew you from shows, from covering different shows and being in some green rooms and different things, but we never had an opportunity to talk talk until the last couple of years. So I've been really excited about that. I knew Amena, I knew your work. I knew your voice. My best friend and I, we were at an event and you were speaking and we looked at each other and we were like, "Man, she is so powerful."

Ametria Dock:

We had to take a second listening to your words and how you... I think it was maybe a Black History Month celebration, maybe a women, and the way you described women and the words that you said, I was just like, "What? Who is she? How are you doing what you do?" And it was amazing to watch that. It was inspiring. That's what I'll say. It was inspiring to see you and to have all that Black girl magic. Yeah, yeah. Up there.

Amena Brown:

Woo. We need it.

Ametria Dock:

Yeah, we need it.

Amena Brown:

We need that Black girl magic.

Ametria Dock:

We need it.

Amena Brown:

And I have felt the same because I saw you for a while before I heard you sing. And I saw you sing in a sound check situation and your vocal sounded so good that it upset me. I don't know how else to describe it, but I was like, "I'm very angry about this at this time." And I've also heard you sing some background vocals, right? And in different people's shows, there comes a time where it's, here's the time where the background vocalist sing on their own. And I've been in a situation where I saw that and I was like, "What?"

Amena Brown:

Because some people that sing background, you're like, "We see that. That is where you ought to be. Thank you for using your gifts in the station that is best for the voice that you have. We appreciate that." But some background vocalists, you start to hear them sing and you're like, "Wait a minute, wait, I wasn't prepared." So I appreciate that. I have a lot of opportunities to hear that voice and it does wonders for my soul as well.

Amena Brown:

So I want to jump in to hearing a bit more of your story. And I am a person who grew up in at least, well, I guess I could say in both sides of my family, but in particular, on my dad's side of the family, a lot of musicians and singers and things. And so it's always interesting to me to hear people that have musical talent, where that is coming from. If you remember that being a thing in your family. I don't know that I have musical talent, but I became an artist, I think in part, because I grew up in a space where I was watching my dad play piano by ear and him and my stepmother directing the choir together and some of those things. So was that in your family? Your love for music? Talk about how singing became a thing that you love to do.

Ametria Dock:

How you just described it, is exactly what my family was like. So my father was a pastor. He started out playing piano organ in the church that we grew up in. I'm from Racine, Wisconsin. And so our church was like a family church and my dad had 10 brothers and sisters. All of my dad's brothers and sisters were musical. So some played keys, some played drums, some directed the choir, everybody was in the choir.

Ametria Dock:

So, funny, my grandmother was not much of a singer, but she would sing from time to time. So I don't really know where they got it from, but most of my aunts and uncles, my mom and my dad both were singers. So that was the start of my brother and I learning a lot of gospel songs. Our church, we were very involved in it. I can remember learning my first song, my dad and my mom, both coaching me through that as a little girl, five years old and I'm learning Jesus, You're The Center Of My Joy.

Amena Brown:

Ooh. Oh, come on Richard Smallwood.

Ametria Dock:

Yeah. And I mean, from the ad-libs to giving me freedom to find my way through the song. And that was my start and my platform was obviously in church singing in the children's choir. That was my start.

Amena Brown:

Wow. When you were talking about your grandmother, my dad's mom was not a singer that I remember either, but she always wanted all of us to sing whenever we got together. All the cousins, aunts and uncles, everybody. So in a way it was, even though it wasn't her thing or her gift, she was the person corralling all of us to have an experience.

Ametria Dock:

Same.

Amena Brown:

And then as a grownup in a musical family, then it's like, "Okay, who's going to be the tenor?" My aunts are like. "I got tenor." Who's alto and soprano? And working all the parts out, even as a family, right? That was your experience too.

Ametria Dock:

All day. Every Sunday, even when we would get... After church was over, we would all go over to my grandparent's house and it would turn into a concert. All of my cousins and it's 30, 40 of us, in each family, there are the singers or the musicians and so we would all get together and it just turned into a concert. And at every grandparent's house, there is a piano and the drummers, they figure out how to make buckets and turn it to drums.

Ametria Dock:

It was just good times. That was really my start and it was consistent. So that was helpful for me to go on this musical journey for myself and know that consistency is important to be able to be successful in this business. And I saw that every week. It was something that we were doing.

Amena Brown:

So from your family upbringing, from your church roots, you go on to go into a solo career as an artist. So was that something, even as a kid, that you saw for yourself or was it just these doors were opening and now you're like, "I'm here." How did the solo career come out of your family and church roots?

Ametria Dock:

I'm going to be completely honest, I was the little girl that had the dream of becoming an artist. I wasn't that. I think that I was very passionate about music and I wanted to do it in whatever way. I didn't have a specific plan like, "I want to do it like this." I just knew that I wanted to do music. I love creating music. I love writing music. I love collabing. As a kid and in high school, I started the gospel choir at my school. I was very involved in advanced chorus and all these different things.

Ametria Dock:

So being in school, I was always spearheading musical things in my school. And so I remember being in course in our advanced choir and we would have the practice rooms. And so a lot of the lowerclassmen would come in and say, "Can we go in the room and teach us these parts in the song and let's create something." And so I was always kind of putting things together and teaching people. And I loved that. That aspect of music. I wanted to do that too.

Ametria Dock:

So I loved doing solos. I did it all the time as a kid singing in church, I was leading songs. And so the opportunity came for me when a friend from church actually knew of a producer who was looking for an artist. At the time I was 15 getting ready to turn 16 and I was like, "What does that mean?" Be his artist, what would I do? She was like, "You do an album." And I was like, "Oh, okay."

Ametria Dock:

So it wasn't like I was prepping, I was not the girl doing talent shows and star search. I was just doing it in whatever way because I love to do it. And so that when that opportunity came, I talked to my parents and my parents were like, "Okay, do you want to go?" And I was like, "Yeah." Okay. What do I have to do? What does that mean? So going to the studio for the first time, I was 16 by then, we set up the meeting to meet him. And this part of the story is when it's almost like you put your foot on the gas and everything just went. And my life completely changed.

Ametria Dock:

We were on Christmas break and my friend took me to the studio and when I got there, I met the guy at the time, his name was Joe. And Joe was looking for an artist to produce. And he asked me, "Do you write songs?" And I had never written a full song by myself, but I had done some collaborations with other people in school. So he said, "Okay, okay. Well, don't say that you'd never written a song." And I said, "Well, what's getting ready to happen?" And he said, "Well, you're getting ready to meet an executive."

Amena Brown:

What?

Ametria Dock:

And I'm like, "Okay." So at the time this executive was managing 112.

Amena Brown:

Ooh, this story is...

Ametria Dock:

And so 112 comes into the studio.

Amena Brown:

What? I mean, for this era of time, for 112 to walk into the studio is-

Ametria Dock:

Blowing my mind.

Amena Brown:

... like a star is walking into the studio, right?

Ametria Dock:

Oh yeah. I'm completely blown away. I'm like, "Oh my goodness." I wasn't prepared for any of it. And so I'll just say this to start off with my story, everything up to this point in my life right now, everything is never planned. It's always, I'm thrown into a situation and I have to rise to the occasion. So in this situation starting out, it was that. Like, "Okay, I'm thinking I'm going to just meet this guy who was looking for an artist." And it turns into, no you're going to meet someone who has a big part in this industry, who's working with all kinds of artists at the time. And in the '90s that was the list of artists that he collabed and worked with. It was insane.

Ametria Dock:

So I'm like, "Oh God. So what am I supposed to do?" And he said, "Well, you're going to meet him and he's probably going to ask you to sing." So what was happening was I'm meeting this guy who had a connection with this guy who could possibly sign me to a label. So he was looking for an artist to show this guy, "Hey, I've got an artist, female artist, let me let you hear what she sounds like." But Joe had never even heard me sing. So when the moment came for me to sing, Joe was hearing me for the first time. So it was Joe, the executive, 112 standing in front of me.

Amena Brown:

To reflect, you're going into this meeting not knowing that you are also going to be expected to sing there. For all you know, you're going into a conversation, to talk with someone about whatever they're looking for. So this does turn into some audition showcase-type.

Ametria Dock:

Completely. A showcase, that's what it turned into. So I also didn't realize that he was looking for an R&B artist. I'm a kid who's grown up in the church. I don't know what type of music I want to make. So the song that I auditioned with is a gospel song because that's what I know. And so this is a R&B executive who's obviously has 112 on his roster and a host of other artists. And so, one, I'm not prepared for the type of song or the genre of music that I should be prepared for, but all I have is what I know and that's what I give. And so when I finished singing, he goes, "Do you have any songs that you've written?" And so Joe interrupts and says, "Yeah, we have some songs."

Ametria Dock:

And I'm just standing and I'm like, "Okay, wow." Again, I'm 16 years old. After the meeting, he told him, he said, "We'll send over what she's got." So when I said it was go time, it was go time. So immediately after that meeting, we went into the studio, Joe had a studio and we went to record. He said, "You're going to write today." So my adrenaline was going, I was excited because I'm about this music. And so you put me in a situation where I have to rise to the occasion with something that I'm passionate about and I go.

Ametria Dock:

And so I did. They brought another writer in that met us at the studio and we started writing and I wrote a song called, so funny, I Depend On You. And I was talking about God. I recorded it. I never put it on an album or anything like that. But that was the first demo song that I had ever recorded for myself.

Ametria Dock:

We started then setting up times for us to get in the studio and record. And we recorded over 25 songs. Yeah. And that was the beginning of a process of me finding my voice at the time of discovering what I liked musically, sounds that I liked. And really it was the influence of the producers that I was working with. And so, I like that or I like that, but I still didn't have a voice in it. And as I progressed, even in doing my own album, once I got signed and all of that, I'm just skipping over, I still didn't have my voice in that as well. So the process of that at such a young age, being in this industry and not really having an outlet, but just having people saying, "You're going to do this, you're going to do this. This is good. This is good. This is good."

Ametria Dock:

And so I'm going to trust that what you say, because you have Grammys or you have this and you have that. That, okay, well that must be good so let me do that. So yeah, I skipped over a lot, but that was the start of my musical journey and finding my voice and knowing what I like, what I don't like and figuring out if I want to be a performer, figuring out if I want to just create and if I want to teach and it started like that.

Amena Brown:

Okay. So take us to this pivot that happens in your career because you're on track with these influential people to launch this solo career. You get signed, the album gets completed, gets released. So at this point, you're at the point where a lot of artists are wanting to get to, wanting to get to that, "I'm signed, I've got some backing behind me. I've made this music. It's released." What was that like? And then describe for us the transition from, "Well, I didn't know I was going to end up on this recording track as a solo artist." But now that is transitioning to returning to really some of your roots you described from school, this collaboration, vocal coaching, vocal arranging. So give me, how did that pivot happen?

Ametria Dock:

The process of recording my album, being signed, working with the artists that were huge names in the R&B world. So I did a gospel album with all R&B artists that were producing my album. I was learning a lot about the music industry and a lot of that, even at 17, 18, I was going against it. It was just, "I don't know that I like that." I started, when you're a 18-year-old and not in the industry, you're starting to like have a voice like, "Oh, I don't like this. I don't like that." And so I was going against a lot, specifically with my management and the choices that they wanted me to make and the artists they wanted me to work with and the gigs they wanted me to take, I just stopped liking it altogether.

Ametria Dock:

I didn't stop liking making music and doing the music, but I didn't like, I won't say the work, but what was put in front of me to do as an artist, it didn't make sense to me. And so I didn't really know exactly, fully at the time what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn't want to do that. And it's funny because even talking about this, I remember sitting in the studio, I did two songs with Mary J. Blige and I remember her saying, "A lot is going to change as you go on this journey. A lot for you is going to change." And she said it in front of my managers.

Amena Brown:

Ooh. Come on, Mary and speak a word.

Ametria Dock:

At the time because she knew, she said, "A lot will change for you. You will find your voice in this process." She could see it in my eyes, we were in the green room before going into the studio, and funny enough at the time, while we were recording my album, they were filming behind the music for Mary. So there's parts of her behind the music where she's in the studio, vocal producing me and mentoring me because she produced those songs.

Ametria Dock:

She also took time to speak into me like, "Don't just settle for where you are. Things will change. You will find your voice." I felt like she felt me. It was a moment for me, this is exciting, but at the same time there was tension and she could see it and she could see that I was searching. And so the tension was always not being able to completely be myself. Given that opportunity, when you're in the industry and people are paying for things, when in reality you're paying for it all, okay. But that's a whole 'nother story.

Amena Brown:

The word today.

Ametria Dock:

You're paying for it all, you just don't know it fully. Having time to sit down, and I'll talk about this later when it comes down to the business, to really sit down and brainstorm about what you want. I didn't have time to do that. Everything was go. So I said, "Stop. I'm done." I was 19 turning 20, I think, or 20 turning 21. I can't remember because that whole time was just crazy for me. But I basically said, "Stop. I don't want to do this anymore." I was under contract and my managers at the time said, "You can't do that." And I said, "Well, I'm not going to do anything."

Ametria Dock:

And I got a job. I got a job that I didn't want to work at the time. I was doing sales. And "Well, you can't do shows. We'll sue you." And I said, "Okay." Because at that point I said, "I can't do this anymore. This is not what I want to do. You're not going to control me." At this point, I'm an adult I'm living on my own. And I wanted to find my voice. So saying stop was the only way that I saw out and the only way to let this contract run its course and to figure out what I wanted to do. So I stopped doing shows under the banner of Ametria, and I decided that I wanted to figure out what I love about this music, because I felt like it was being taken away from me.

Ametria Dock:

And so I went back to my roots and I went back to teaching and leading worship. And I found joy in that. I found joy in leading and teaching and vocal production going into the studio. So I started taking on some projects, doing vocal production for some artists, a lot of artists. And so that brought me back to this appreciation for creating and really finding my voice and what I love about music. And also being able to just be free in the music because music is the universal language. It connects us all. When you listen to something like it can give you joy.

Ametria Dock:

I wanted to get back to that. There was a time where I didn't want to listen to anything. I just became so jaded with music. And that was because of that process. So once I got into that, I started really writing down, what do I want to do? Do I want to write songs? Do I want to record another album and just go in a different direction? I went back and forth with recording another album, but I knew that I wanted to create, and then tell my story in some way, whether that's helping another person on their journey. And so that's really how that came into play.

Ametria Dock:

Vocal production, going into the studio with an artist is basically coaching them through a song, coaching them through giving ideas and things like that. That is my heart. I love that. And so coaching and helping a person to go beyond what they hear is how my company came into play. My work, it went before even coming up with a business plan. I was already in motion. My voice became loud and I could see myself and I could feel my heart and feel what was like in me.

Ametria Dock:

And so I was able to still sing. I was able to still write and able to still help others, which is something that I love to do. Coaching is probably the number one thing that I love doing. I love being on stage, but I love coming up with ideas and helping somebody to find their voice. I love that. Because my voice was taken away for awhile.

Amena Brown:

Ooh. It's just so many words that you spoke right there that are so powerful. I mean, first of all, the moment of being able to find the freedom and the courage to say stop. And I think that can be really, really tough for a lot of us because we get in whatever kind of treadmill we've gotten on now, of whatever people are telling us is the path we have to take to success. And sometimes we find ourselves doing that, whether it affects our health, whether it affects our creativity or whatever, we just stay on it. But we are really on a treadmill. We're not on a thing that's going someplace.

Amena Brown:

I was at a retreat not too long ago and Dr. Vicki Johnson was there sharing and she said something that was just really as reflected in the story you just told, she said, "Sometimes you have to let it fall apart." And you being able to say, "You know what? No. We're going to stop this." And then the second thing, when you said, "And I went and got a job." I was like, "We need to stop the recording right now. And we're going to have to stop this and do a whole seminar on just that phrase right there." Because when you're an artist or a creative or whatever it is that you're doing, when you've gotten in your mind that this is going to be the trajectory, this is how I'm going to make my money, I'm going to provide for my family, whatever. And having to come to a very practical place of, number one, I've realized, what y'all talking about, I'm not doing. And number two, I'm about to get a job.

Ametria Dock:

Go completely against what is in my heart to do. There was a phrase that he said to me, my manager, he said, "Basically, you can't make it without us."

Amena Brown:

Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

Ametria Dock:

And so that really brought me to a place of, only God is in control of everything that I do. There is no man that can tell me that I can't make it in what God has called me and ordained me to do and be. You will not have that power. You won't. And so whatever it takes for me, not to even prove him wrong, but I had to erase that out of my mind, like, "No." And I just had to get on my knees and come to a place. And so stop was it. Stop, stop. No, we're not doing this anymore. Because, no. I don't care how many ideas that you have or how many connections you have. I am done because that this is not it. And I could see that. And I was clear. And so, yeah, there's another way. And I had to figure that out.

Amena Brown:

And the humility to say, "I'm going to get a job while I figure that out." Those are hard things that I have to say when I'm talking to college students or people who are young on their artist's journey, is to say, yeah, sometimes you need to do the humble thing. You need to work as a janitor or work that customer service job or do whatever it is, wait tables, whatever it is you need to do-

Ametria Dock:

During your process. Yeah.

Amena Brown:

... do that while you're on your journey to figure it out. And all of that is becoming these different pieces and revelations to send you down the path that's really meant for you. So I'm loving this Mimi.

Ametria Dock:

Thank you.

Amena Brown:

Okay. I forgot tell y'all. Ametria, that's her government name. But every now and then people that know her call her Mimi. Don't you walk up if you don't know her. If you don't know her, just walk up and say, Ametria, you need to say the whole thing till she tell you it's okay. So anyhow, I'm loving this whole thing. So you go from signed recording artist, having released this album, having worked with the faves faves in that process.

Ametria Dock:

The '90s. Boyz II Men, Jodeci, Mary J. Blige, Jean from [inaudible 00:28:33], my girl, I love her so much. She was super instrumental in coaching me and just encouraging me so much. She was probably the top one out of that process who just spoke life into me. And I owe her to this day, I'm so grateful for her words and the time that I spent with her.

Ametria Dock:

I remember going into the studio and my boys having, and we'll talk about vocal health, but just having all kinds of complications with my boys being really sick. Erin Hall, giving me a hot toddy while I'm in the studio. Just going through the whole process. I'm a kid trying to figure this thing out. I don't know what to do. They've been in the game for a long time. And so that part of the process was helpful because I had firsthand help. I had people really walking me like, "This is what you got to do." And Wanya from Boyz II Men just calming me down in the studio while we're recording and just like, "You got this, you're amazing."

Ametria Dock:

Lalah Hathaway. I mean, I worked with a lot of amazing artists and this is another reason why coaching is giving back because it was given to me in so many different ways on this journey for me, musically, continuing that process on that. And even from being a kid and doing that in school, that feels right. It just feels like this is what God has called you to do, to serve others. I love serving others. I get joy out of that. So that process brought me to a place of finding my voice and finding what brought me joy. Then I'm going to turn the page because then I started to have, I called my company at the time, New Melody Voices. I don't even know where I got the name from, but it was a name.

Ametria Dock:

And I started just coaching different artists in the city around. Some artists would call me in to do background or to come in and do vocal production. And so I was in a flow of that and it was feeling good. And so then I decided, I was in the gospel scene, but working with R&B artists, I was like, "I want to branch out and just, I want to really dig deeper into this music industry and get more into this indie vibe thing going on in the city." Because honestly, I was traveling outside of Atlanta and doing more outside of Atlanta than being really in the musical culture here in Atlanta. So by this time I was about 21, 22, and I started going to Apache Café.

Amena Brown:

I want to thank you for bringing up Apache Café in this conversation.

Ametria Dock:

For sure. Apache has been instrumental in my life.

Amena Brown:

Let me give a little context for my people who are not from Atlanta or haven't lived in Atlanta a long time. Apache Café was just instrumental in the careers of so many artists, particularly certain artists who were at Apache in a certain era of time, in that maybe mid to late '90s into early-

Ametria Dock:

The Ying-Yang years. Yeah.

Amena Brown:

Ying-Yang. So there's a lot of artists that many of you may have heard of that really cut their chops on the Apache stage. So that's an important Atlanta music scene venue to bring up right now. Continue.

Ametria Dock:

Yeah. So I started going to Apache and for me it was a different environment for me because I was used to churches. I was used to mega churches and some theater-type places, depending on the type of event we were doing or whatever. But so this was a whole different vibe. So what I decided to do is go in and just observe, instead of, I knew it was an open mic on a Wednesday night and I could just get up there and sing, but for me, I wanted to observe, I want it to feel the energy of the room, hear the songs that were being sang, I just wanted to feel it first because I'm very cautious.

Ametria Dock:

And so I did that for a whole month. I just started going, bringing friends, getting plugged in, but not performing. And so finally, after a month I decided, okay, I had been working on some songs, like, "Okay, what would I sing? What would feel like me in here?" I'm a new me, what would I do?

Amena Brown:

Come on. I'm a new me. Ha. Yes. Yes.

Ametria Dock:

So I can't remember, I feel like I did Lauryn Hill, Killing Me Softly might've been one of the first songs that I sang, which was completely different for me from doing gospel music. So I got up and I did that and the response was really good and the energy was really good. And so when you sing and if people like what you do, then people want to come and talk to you. And so I started to connect with other producers, musicians and all that. And that was really cool.

Ametria Dock:

Fast forward. So I started doing that every week I would go. And I wouldn't sing every week, but it became, the host of the show was when I walked in the door, like, "You have to sing. I'm going to pull you up on the top of the list," or whatever. So it was fun. The live singing started to become like, "I'm back. Oh, I'm here. I'm hearing my voice now." Again, this is a new me, but I like this. I like what this feels like and this is different.

Ametria Dock:

And so one day I was outside getting ready to come in and a producer friend of mine was talking to a young lady and he goes, "Oh, I want you to meet this girl. She's a singer. You guys should meet." Atlanta and Apache and the music scene is all about connecting, networking. And so I think he was just like, "You guys should know each other." He said, "She sings background with India.Arie." And I said, "Oh, I love India.Arie. She's amazing." And so we connected and he asked me once again, "Sing something." He says, "Mimi-

Amena Brown:

Wait. You're not on stage now, you are outside of the venue at this point, just, sing something right now?

Ametria Dock:

Right now.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Ametria Dock:

"Sing something right now." So I'm like, "Okay." I have now started to learn how to be ye, all so ready at any point, because you never know. So I sing Love by Musiq Soulchild immediately. I don't wait. I just go. And so after I'm done singing, she's like, "Oh my God, you're amazing. Blah, blah, blah. We have to connect." Oh my goodness. So we exchanged numbers. And so the next day she calls me and she says, "Hey, I've got to show, I would love for you to come to the show. I would love for you to meet India. You're amazing. I would just love for you to meet her."

Ametria Dock:

And so I was like, "Oh, that would be cool." I'm just like, "Yeah, sure. I'll come and support you." Because I got a chance to also hear her that night and she's an amazing singer/songwriter. So I went the next day to her show. And when I went to her show, I'm going to give you some backstory, what I didn't know was the whole India.Arie band was there for her show, because they had been rehearsing for a whole week preparing for India.Arie's tour that she was getting ready to go on.

Ametria Dock:

And so the band was there. I didn't know that. India came in and was in a VIP section. I did not meet India that night, but I was there to support the girl that I had met. And so I heard her saying it was amazing. She said, "Oh, India had left." Afterwards she came to support her background singer and then she left. And so I was like, "It's okay. Maybe I'll meet her one day. It's okay. I was just here to support you. I'm glad we starting out a relationship, friendship whatever." And so she was like, "I'll give you a call." So the next day she calls me. I was at a gospel concert. Okay? Kim Burrell. I was at Kim Burrell's concert.

Amena Brown:

Come on. Kim Burrell?

Ametria Dock:

Yeah. One of my faves. Another one who's been instrumental in my life. But I'm at a Kim Burrell concert, I leave the Kim Burrell concert and I have a voicemail and it's the girl saying, "Hey, I would love for you to come over to Crossover Studios. We're rehearsing for the tour and I want you to meet India before we leave." And I was like, "What? Oh my God." So I called her back and she was like, "Come up here. We're ending the rehearsal, but you should come." So by this time, it's 12:00 midnight.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Ametria Dock:

So I drive over to Crossover Studios. And so when I walk in to Crossover, the entire band is standing in the hallway of Crossover. Have you been at Crossover before?

Amena Brown:

No.

Ametria Dock:

So Crossover Studios is where most artists are preparing for their tours or studio sessions. Basically you go in and you have a full concert in there. That space is a rehearsal space. And so I walk in, the band is there. Back history of what's happening before I come in, they're asking the other background singer begging him to come on tour. But he is getting ready to get married and he can't go.

Ametria Dock:

So they're in rehearsal. They had hired another person to take his spot, but they didn't gel well, but this was their last rehearsal, that night. It was a Sunday night. And so they're standing in the room begging the old background singer who had come just to say hi to everyone, "Come on and just do this last run. It's three months. We can just do it. We'll knock it out." And I walk in. I walk in the door, the girl says, "Hey, Ametria." And India turns around and says, "Sing something."

Amena Brown:

Again with the sing something.

Ametria Dock:

I told you. Just sing. I just start singing. Because when that happens, you don't have time and which is what I coach all my people. You have to be ready. And so I started singing a song and when I finished, no one says a word.

Amena Brown:

What?

Ametria Dock:

She turns around, she doesn't say anything. The music director says, "Come here." It's complete silent.

Amena Brown:

So you don't know what to take from that. You don't know what that means.

Ametria Dock:

I'm like, "What's happening?" He says, "Come here for a second." So he takes me into where they had just finished rehearsing, puts me on the mic and says, "Do you know this song?" And starts playing us one of her songs. I was like, "Yeah, I know it." "Sing it." Boom. I'm singing. "Do you know this song?" Boom. "Sing it." And I'm singing. Mind you, she's in the other room listening to me.

Amena Brown:

You can't even take.

Ametria Dock:

She's in the other room listening to me. So I did three or four songs that he was asking, "Do you know this? Do you know this? Do you know this?" He walks out of the room and he says, "What are you doing tomorrow?" I said, "I have to work and then I'm off at five." And he said, "Can you leave tomorrow?" I'm serious.

Amena Brown:

Because you were still working the job that you had taken?

Ametria Dock:

Yeah. I said, "Yes, I can leave tomorrow." "You're going to get paid this. We'll be back in Atlanta after a week, you can pack for the rest of the tour. We have a show here. So be back here at 10:30 in the morning tomorrow."

Amena Brown:

Ametria Dock. So you is driving home, the windows is down, you screaming out? Okay.

Ametria Dock:

That, I'm like, "What did I just subscribe to? What did I say that I can do?" I quit my job, obviously. The next day I was on a tour bus with India.Arie, Grammy Award winning, India.Arie, going on tour. And so I did not know the show, I just knew her songs. I mean, knowing their songs and knowing the show-

Amena Brown:

Are two different things.

Ametria Dock:

... that's two different languages. My first show, let me just say this, I get on stage and we're singing. We didn't rehearse anything because they don't rehearse in sound check. So I'm flowing based off of what I know of her record in the middle of the show, India turns to the audience and says, "Hey guys, this is my new background singer. And I just want her to sing a little something. Go."

Amena Brown:

For the third time.

Ametria Dock:

Do you hear what I'm saying? And I look at her and I said, "Okay." And I go. Being put in that situation was super eye-opening because I love to create. And so when you say I love to do something, first of all, there's prep that goes into that. And even to this day, I may seem like I can do it on the spot, but trust me, I have been working through all types of scenarios. So in that moment, I went back to my church roots. I know when I could walk in church and someone would say, "Oh, Ametria is here, come on up here and sing this song."

Ametria Dock:

I knew that I had to, right in that moment, you gotta go. It's do or die. So in that moment, that was, "Okay, I know what this feels like. Just go." That was the start of such an amazing journey. I started coaching India because of what she saw in me. And she will say to this day, and she says it, if Mimi can do it, I can do it. I would do things, our range is the same and so when I would hit higher notes and do different things and come up with different ways to do something, when I say, "How do you do what you do? Show me how to do that." And so our coaching sessions became, let me show you how to get from point A to point B. Let me show you how to approach this and do that. And so that's how I kind of started with her. I know that's a lot.

Amena Brown:

I didn't even make any tea for this interview and I feel like I have the tea right now and that's, wow. First of all, it just resonates with me in so many ways, just the power of what you're saying about being prepared for the doors that open, being prepared for the opportunities that come. And sometimes as creatives, as artists, as business people, whatever, we can spend so much time hustling to get to the opportunity that we might not even be ready.

Amena Brown:

I was thinking about all the moments that someone's been like, "Say a poem right now." And it's, "Okay, you got to say the poem right now." I was at unnamed person's house who is a influential celebrity and she invited me to her home. So I went and I'm thinking, I'm there just to kick it, just to chill. And I get there and see some faces that are famous and has talk with oneself about, "You're going to be cool. You're going to be cool. Everything's fine. You're going to be cool." And she walked right up to me and said, "We having a jam session. So I want you to do your poem next with a band," which is not even a thing that I normally do a lot of. But what I'm going to say?

Amena Brown:

I'm going to tell her, "That's not really normally my scene." Nope. You about to think right now about what poems you have that go with that. And just the importance of as a creator being ready, being prepared, and I can be a control freak. I'm working on it y'all. Okay? I'm working on it. God working on me.

Ametria Dock:

The same process.

Amena Brown:

But you can't be prepared for opportunities when you are expecting everything will arrive in this neatly pre-planned package. There you were right at that moment of, I could either get up and go to this job tomorrow, or I could get on this tour bus and have this opportunity. And if you had been like, "Oh guys, I'm going to need two weeks notice." That's was a window, you were only going to have that window that one time.

Ametria Dock:

That one time it was, "Okay, listen, what are you saying, God? Is this the moment? Okay, let's go." I mean, and it was a, "Can you leave tomorrow?" "Yes."

Amena Brown:

Yeah. Thinks about luggage. Thinks I have two outfits. Yes.

Ametria Dock:

Yes. Sure, We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. And I do like to plan things and I'll say this, as I've gotten older because of those impromptu moments, I now kind of know how to plan accordingly. And so I can be my spontaneous self like we talked about, I'm super spontaneous, but everything is kind of planned out. I'm thinking about all the ways in which it can go. So let me do this. Let me do this. Let me do this. Let me practice this. Let me work on this. Let me vibe to this a little bit. Let me vibe to that a little bit. And so I can be free to flow how I need to flow when the opportunity rises. I can go.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. Which is part of the preparation.

Ametria Dock:

Yes. Preparation is my number one word. I need self-care, take care of me. Let me do all the things that I need to do to be able to be my spontaneous, flowing, watery self, because I am so watery.

Amena Brown:

I'm here for all of the watery, listen. So talk to me about the things you've learned being a business founder, because as we're hearing the iterations of your story, you have the experience of being an artist. You have the experience of writing, of arranging, of coaching. And it's one thing to do those things and it's another thing to say, "This is going to be a business. This is going to be my business. I'm going to house these services I've been providing in various ways in a business." What are some of the things you learned when you made that transition then into now being a business owner?

Ametria Dock:

Time management. Sitting down and really brainstorming on, because I'm a creative, I'm so, I'll just say, all over the place when it comes down to creating, I can just jump into anything. I had to put on a business hat. And honestly, that was not my strength. It was my least favorite thing to do. Oh, I got to sit down and have structure? Oh, no. But I had to, in order for this to run smoothly.

Ametria Dock:

I had to sit down, I had to have a team of people that are stronger in the structure area that could take my creative self and that structure and blend it together and say, "These are the things." And having a team of people that I could trust and that could help take my ideas and put it down on a website and on paper and say, "These are the things, these are the services that you can offer. This is what you can and can't do." Because I'll do a million things, still I do a million things, but they helped to take care of myself because I will do everything.

Ametria Dock:

And so having these other services that I'm going to offer, and this is what I can't do. And the can't part, that's a whole 'nother episode. But yes, the can't part was very important for me. What I can and cannot do. And so even having a waiting list is hard for me, but that is a thing. It's a thing now, where I am within my company, I can't see everyone. I can't take on every project. I can't do it.

Ametria Dock:

And so being okay with that and being grateful that, wow, waiting list of people that want to get on my calendar. But taking time out for myself is very important for me to do this work, for me to run a business and run it smoothly, I need to. Because the conversations that you're having on a daily basis, seeing the clients and all of their things and taking on all of their things, a lot of times at the end of the day, I'm like, "Whoa, I got to take all of this off."

Ametria Dock:

There's eight different people I'm carrying all of their stuff, and this work, it's heavy sometimes. So just making sure to implement things for myself, to be able to be my best self every day to do this work. And sitting down and having hard conversations, which is very difficult, but I had to be a woman and do it. Okay, again, these are the things that I can do and the things that I can't do.

Ametria Dock:

The time management thing became a huge thing for me because I'm balancing, I'm a wife, I'm a mom, I'm a singer/songwriter, creative, worship leader, teacher, coach, confidant, I'm all these things. And so I had to figure out, okay, me first and then everything else comes after that. Then I can flow in that for everyone else. So yeah, as a business woman, just having some type of structure and having a team of people or someone that you can bounce ideas off of and that's really not going to agree with everything that you want to do. And that's so helpful, because it really helps you to see the bigger picture, because you're in your head. And so saying it out loud and someone saying, "Okay, no."

Amena Brown:

That part. Or someone saying, "That sounds great for next year." Listen.

Ametria Dock:

All the way for next year.

Amena Brown:

For next year. Super great. Not going to do that this year, though. With all this other stuff that you said you got to do. Just the power of you saying, can't. The power of, this what I do, this is what I can't do. That's been a big lesson for me as a businesswoman, is learning what my limitations are and getting comfortable with them. I think in the past I felt like I need to take on all the things and then somehow after I've taken on all those things, I'm just going to find some time in between to take care of myself.

Amena Brown:

And I'll build my limitations around all those things that people are asking of me and then being unhealthy and tired and irritable and all sorts of other sundry, unhealthy habits pulling up in life because of that. And this was the first year that I was like, "Oh, that? No. We're going to stop that. That right there, we're not doing for another two years. I can't do that. This one? No."

Amena Brown:

And it being humbling for me because I like to be a person that can complete the task another person wants me to do. Something like, "Oh, you've come to me and asked me about this. I want to not only do this for you, but I want to get it done for you. I want to make you a priority." Which means I'm whatever number after 100 on this list of things. And just the power of knowing, this is what I do and this stuff over here, I can't do that.

Ametria Dock:

You know what? I'll tell you this, going through what I went through, it made me stop and say... Because you know what I do? Someone's always calling for something and wanting something and I want to, like you said, complete the task. I want to do it for them. I want them to be happy, I want them to shine, I want whatever. But then I had to ask myself, "Well, put on paper. What do you want to do? What projects do you want to take on? What brings you joy?" And so that's something that I'm constantly saying to myself when I'm agreeing to do something. Is this something that brings me joy that brings glory to God and is a part of what his purpose and plan is for my life? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing? Because if it's not, then I'm going to have to say no to that.

Ametria Dock:

And so I didn't hear that back then. I didn't know that to be something that I needed to do. So sitting down and actually putting on paper, whether you journal, whether you, I don't know, get a poster board and write down whatever. Whatever it is that your creative process of seeing your vision for your work, you've got to do that. And that's been helpful for me for Fruition. What is Fruition Organized Music? What does that look like? Why did I name it that? What is the full vision of that? And so sitting down and brainstorming that with the team was, oh, so then when things come, oh that doesn't fit this.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. Does it fit? Yes.

Ametria Dock:

Yeah. So that doesn't fit this.

Amena Brown:

You told us the process of you coming to find your own voice. One of the things that I think is so powerful about what you do and why I wanted you to come on the podcast also is because now it's such a huge part of your work, helping other artists find their voice figuratively and also literally in the work that you do. What does that process look like as a vocal coach? How are you helping clients find their voice?

Amena Brown:

I've never worked with a vocal coach, probably should, as a person who be speaking for a living, but I've worked with a writing coach and that was my first experience with coaching. And I was actually a little offended when my publisher was like, "Yeah, and we've included here this money in the budget for you to work with a writing coach." And I was like, "I don't really need a writing coach. I've been writing since I was 12 years old. Nobody needs to coach me on what to do." I was immediately in my feelings with a attitude.

Amena Brown:

But once I started working with her, there were some ways that she pushed me and there were some ways that she questioned me and the choices I had made in the writing, in the things I left out of the story. Not even knowing me and knowing the full story, she would read something and go, "You have left out this. And why did you do that? Talk to me about why you did that. And then after we talk about why you did that, I want you to go back and put back in the part you left out." So that was my first experience with having someone coach me in my craft. And I'm so glad I didn't let my ego and my attitude keep me from what she really had to teach me. So talk us through what some of your process and how you take on working with a client.

Ametria Dock:

So let me say this, being an artist and walking through that process, I feel like prepared me. I feel like I've always been a vocal coach. My dad always called me the encourager. That was always a part of me. So before "Ametria, the artist" came into the picture Ametria, Mimi was that person. So it was natural for me to see the parts of someone and say, "Oh, I see this inside of you and I see that you're afraid to do this. Let me help you bring that out. And I want you to trust me and I'm going to point those things out, but I'm going to help you to come up with a plan to be able to do that which is inside of you, bring that out."

Ametria Dock:

And so that's coaching. If you ask any of my clients, the one thing that they would say when they're seeking out vocal coaching is, "I need someone to build my confidence. There's so many things that I know that I could do, but I don't know how to do them. Or I hear them in my head and I don't... The execution part." And so when you're looking for a vocal coach, it's not because... I mean, there are some people that are looking for a vocal coach to learn technique and how to sing. But a lot of my clients, especially those that are already established artists, which I have a lot of, are looking for someone that they can trust, that they trust vocally to be able to bounce ideas off of and bring out...

Ametria Dock:

So part of it, yes, is I trust Mimi to vocally... She's going to give me more ideas, more than what I hear, because I kind of stay... A lot of artists they stay in a box. This is what the audience loves about me, so I'm going to stay there. But really inside, I want to do this. And so one of my artists specifically Janelle Monáe, I remember one year, I think it was two years ago before this last record came out, at the top of the year we always do a, this is what I want to do for the year.

Ametria Dock:

And so this is where I am right now vocally, I want this record, I want my range, I want to go higher, I want to do some lower things in some of the songs and I want to really cultivate my lower register. And so when I am the fixer, you tell me I want to go high and I want to go low, I come up as a vocal coach with a plan, with vocal exercises that are going to mirror what it is that you're trying to do.

Ametria Dock:

And so specifically for her, this last tour, I ended up being on the whole tour because, one, she trusts me when I'm there to help her to execute what it is that she's trying to do. She's going to say, "Give me my notes. What did I do right? What did I do wrong?" And she knows that I'm going to say, "You could have been a little pitchy here, a little pitchy there." And she trusts me. But ultimately I'm going to show her how to do it the right way. And so they want that.

Ametria Dock:

Same thing with India. It's okay, after every performance, give me my notes. What do I need to do? What do I need to work on? So each album, I'm coming up with a different plan of action for them to execute because they're changing, they're evolving. Their sound, it's changing. And so that is fun for me because it's a part of creating this new sound for this artist. And it's also helping them to go outside of their box.

Ametria Dock:

Because again, you do what you know, and then a lot of times they don't have someone in the beginning stages of their careers, you're open to vibing with people. Once you get to a certain point, you're not having vibe sessions with other artists. So when you have a vocal coach who is an active singer, active artist, who loves that work, it's the best of both worlds, where, okay, I'm going to coach you. I'm going to tell you this is right, this is wrong and then I'm going to give you ideas of how to execute this. And so that's a lot of the work that I do.

Amena Brown:

It's two things that I really loved about that. I think one of them is such a great reminder to us as creatives and as artists, is to have an idea of where you want to go. That if you want to have someone who is a professional coach come alongside you and help push you even further than you might push yourself, you have to have an idea of where you want to go, so that this person can come alongside you and say, "Okay, I see that, where you want to go. Now I know how we get there." I loved that part.

Amena Brown:

And just the humility for all of us, of having to come to this place of going, "Yeah, I get comfortable. I get comfortable. I have a thing. I know I'm doing my thing. I did my thing. It worked, whatever. Or has worked in whatever sundry cities I've been in doing this." It's good for us in our creative process to come back to that place where there's something else we can learn and other places we can stretch ourselves that we never arrive at a place where it's, "I've learned all the things."

Ametria Dock:

Yeah. I've made it. I'm there. We're constantly changing and evolving and growing and you have to be open to criticism. You have to be open to learning something new. And specifically the artists that I work with, I have to say they really inspire me because they pushed the envelope with that. With India going and learning Hebrew and doing a whole album in Israel. Who does that? You're a solo artist who decides, oh, no. I mean, if I say I love music, I love music. And I want to explore different cultures and different things. And so even being a part of that process and watching that, and then going to Turkey and learning, working, just seeing that the sky is the limit and I am open to learning and growing in this thing that we call music.

Ametria Dock:

It never stops. So I enjoy that part. It never gets old. And now at this place, music, it just feels new, because I'm constantly learning and researching and collabing and talking with other creatives. And because again, I'll take on a project and it's, "Oh my goodness, I don't know a lot about this, but you trust me so let's dive into this. Let's figure this thing out." And it's blown my mind from blues to bluegrass. I mean, it's been such a journey working with different types of music styles and different genres and different artists. It's crazy.

Amena Brown:

People ask me questions about vocal health. I don't know why they ask me that because I don't have a lot of answers. And I have been learning in these later years, now performing for, oh gosh, over 20 years of life now. Just how your voice gets tired and the type of water that you should drink. I just learned over the last five years that if your voice, if you feel like you're getting to where it's a little laryngitis a little bit, you're losing your voice, that whispering is not helping you.

Ametria Dock:

Not at all.

Amena Brown:

Can you give just a few tips here for people who are singers, are speakers, are using their voices all the time? I think when we think about athletes, we think of how an athlete trains and what they do to help their muscles recover and all those things. We don't think a lot about that, most of us. You think about it-

Ametria Dock:

Every day.

Amena Brown:

... because you are amazing at this.

Ametria Dock:

Yeah. Thank you.

Amena Brown:

We are not thinking about it. We're just using it until it's worn out and tired and doing all sorts of things that aren't helping it. So what are some of those just beginning tips that people can do if they are involved in work that they use their voice a lot. What are things we can do to take care of our voice so that they can do the great work for us? Right? We know so many singers, I think of so many singers, I won't say their names right here, but I think of so many singers, who've been singing a long time, decades and decades.

Amena Brown:

And there are some singers that we listen to now and we're like, "Oh my gosh, how did this singer keep their voice sounding... " I mean, you can tell they're older than they were when they recorded this thing, but keep their voice sounding so good. And some singers go a period of time, even shorter than that, and you're like, "Oh, that voice you have is not the same as the one where you recorded this great record." Tell me some of those things.

Ametria Dock:

So vocal care and vocal health is the number one thing I start out with with my clients. And coming up with a formula for each person is important to me because it never fails, when I get a person and they get in their flow of whether they're working on an album or touring or something, I get the calls and the emails, "Oh my God, my voice is going out. Oh my God, I'm sick and I've got drainage, mucus, blah, blah, blah, blah." So the first thing is obviously and you can Google it a million times and you're going to see sleeping. Okay?

Amena Brown:

Wow. I was not expecting that was the first thing.

Ametria Dock:

Yes, it is. Then rest. Resting your body, laying down, resting, sleeping, not talking, because that's the only time that you're not talking. Laying down and getting physical rest, that you need it. Right? That's the first thing. Number two is going to be staying hydrated. You'll see different artists drinking different kinds of water. I like to drink alkaline, Essentia to be exact. You don't have to do that. I mean, drinking water. I know a lot of artists that don't drink water and choose to do other things like soda, which is just absurd. If you do anything where you're speaking and you're drinking soda, I don't know what to say.

Amena Brown:

That's basically Ametria's a version of booing you. If you're still doing that, you're getting booed. Okay.

Ametria Dock:

Now we can jump into different teas and there are so many different ways, some coaches will say, "Don't do teas that have bags because there are certain chemicals in the bags," and things like that. I like loose tea. I love Echinacea. I love Slippery Elm. And in some whole foods or different places, you can find these herbs that you can make teas out of. And those are great. I like Throat Coat, if we want to be simple.

Ametria Dock:

I love any type of tea that has Echinacea in it. Or that has Slippery Elm, specifically, is good for your voice. I love Manuka Honey. So as a vocalist, you need slip. You have this raspy, my voice is naturally raspy, so I don't eat honey anymore, but I used to. For health reasons, I can't do it, but honey is very good. A spoonful of honey is great or in your tea to take it down. I don't like sugar. No sugar. You want to get that out of your diet. Caffeine-

Amena Brown:

Can be hard.

Ametria Dock:

Yeah. It's rough. [crosstalk 01:08:30] It's rough out here.

Amena Brown:

It be hard though.

Ametria Dock:

It's rough. It's rough. But as a vocalist, you shouldn't. Okay? So we're just going to leave it like that. You should be caffeine free. The other thing, so here are my secrets and they're not going to be secrets anymore.

Amena Brown:

I love secrets.

Ametria Dock:

So I do a couple of things. So on tours or prepping for church, or just in general, a steam inhaler is your best friend. And if you don't have one, you need to have one. So you can get it on Amazon-

Amena Brown:

This is not a diffuser. That's not the same [crosstalk 01:09:05]. Thank you.

Ametria Dock:

Not a diffuser. It is a steam inhaler.

Amena Brown:

Not a humidifier.

Ametria Dock:

Not a humidifier. I will show you exactly. But I have one that is called MyPurMist. For a lot of my artists, they have them on the road. So you know when you get in the shower and you have that steam coming, it feels great. It's much like that for your voice. Goes right to it. Steam is amazing for your voice. So if you're speaking a lot, that's one thing that you, 15-minute treatment before you do what you do, 15 minutes after for that care.

Ametria Dock:

So that is one of the main things that we do. And then I'll tell you this, diet and exercise is key. So for speakers, singers, if you are eating foods that are mucus-forming foods, you're in trouble. I tell my pastor all the time, if you're clearing your throat, chances are you had a lot of mucus-forming foods the night before.

Amena Brown:

Can you just discuss real quick what's some examples of some foods that form mucus? Because I feel you about to say some things that's delicious.

Ametria Dock:

Yeah. Well let's just start with, don't eat pizza the night before your performance. Dairy. So seriously, dairy is breads. Honestly, to make it simple, if you have a performance veggies and a protein that is not fried-

Amena Brown:

Mm, because I was good on the protein again and then you said not fried.

Ametria Dock:

No fried foods. So basically a salad with fish or chicken, lean protein and some fruits and vegetables. And even with your fruit, you want to stay within the berries, and bananas can cause mucus if you like that sort of thing. For me in the morning, one of my breakfast things, I do chia seeds with almond milk and I put strawberries, a little bit of cinnamon, which is really good for breaking up mucus.

Ametria Dock:

I stay away from lemon. Lemon breaks mucus up, but lemon is also acidic. So I stay away from the more acidic fruits and I like strawberries, blackberries, blueberries. So I add that to my chia, oatmeal, if you want to call it that, it's just chia seeds and almond milk and some fruit. And it's really great. So yeah, it's helpful. And then again, a veggie and a protein.

Amena Brown:

Y'all, Ametria done got in all up in my situation. I was like, "I need to go downstairs right now. Start eliminating some things." Ooh, y'all, I could talk to Ametria for hours. And literally we did talk for hours even after this recording. For more information about Ametria and Fruition Organized Music, visit fruitionorganizedmusic.com. And of course you can get this link and the other links from our conversation in the show notes and the show notes are amenabrown.com/her with Amena, make sure you check those out. And the transcripts are there also.

Amena Brown:

For this week's edition of Give Her A Crown, I want to shout out Chef Carla Hall, and you may know Carla hall from Top Chef or The Chew or Good Morning America or Food Network, but y'all, I got to meet her in person. Okay, so Matt and I took a little road trip down to Savannah to celebrate my birthday. And while we were down there, we went to this bakery that I loved down there, which is also owned by a wonderful Black woman named Cheryl Day, and the bakery is called Back In The Day Bakery.

Amena Brown:

And I want to tell y'all a little small story that I feel I can share with you here in our living room space. It's a place where we can be honest and have vulnerability. And let me just tell y'all that, we have talked repeatedly here on this podcast that I don't like outside. And my skin likes to share that it doesn't like outside because when I stay in the sun for too long, I get heat rash. So I got heat rash the day before we were leaving Savannah. And the morning we were leaving, we were like, "We're going to stop by Back In The Day Bakery, we're going to go to Graveface Records and then head home."

Amena Brown:

But mind you, my sweet husband is taking one for the team and standing in the sun, in line because Back In The Day Bakery, like a lot of businesses right now, is limiting how many people can be inside of the space at one time. So only five people could be in there at one time. So that meant there was a pretty long line of people waiting to get inside. So Matt agreed to stand in the sun and stand in line. And I was standing way back so that I could stand in the shade. And as I'm standing in the shade, I look up and y'all, I see Carla Hall getting in line to get pastries from Back In The Day Bakery. And I'm like, "I'm pretty sure that's Carla Hall. I'm pretty sure that's her." I go to her Instagram and look at her face and look at this person and I'm like, "I'm pretty sure that's Carla Hall."

Amena Brown:

So then of course, because it literally was Carla Hall, she knows the owner of the bakery. So she gets to skip the line. If I had a bakery, I'd let her skip the line too. And it ended up that because she skipped the line and because of where my husband was already standing in line, when it was our turn to be one of the five, Carla and another friend of hers were still inside of the bakery.

Amena Brown:

And so they stopped to get a picture with the bakery owner, Cheryl and Carla, and y'all, I'm sure that I was basically standing there in a very classic Black auntie pose, hand on the collarbones, just face looking like it's crying, but no tears are there. And I asked her if I could also take a picture with her and y'all, she said yes. And she looked at me and she said, "Well, I'm fully vaxxed." And I was like, "I'm fully vaxxed." And we took our masks off and took a picture together. So you can check that out on my Instagram. My actual picture with Carla Hall.

Amena Brown:

But I want to give her a crown. First of all, thank you, Carla, for being so kind and taking a picture with me and being fully vaxxed as I am fully vaxxed. Also more than that, thank you for paving the way for so many Black women in food and in television. Carla Hall, give her a crown.

Amena Brown:

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.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 34

Amena Brown:

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to our HER Living Room. Today we are going behind the poetry.

Amena Brown:

I feel like I need to create something that has a wonderful echo right there. Don't worry. My wonderful producer and I will work on this for you all. I'm excited to talk about what we're going to do today, going behind the poetry, because we're going to be talking about my poem, Letter to my Hair, which is, I guess it's hard to say. I was about to say it's one of my favorites, but it's really hard to say. I have a lot of poems that are my favorites. But I think the story around this piece actually has been really emotional to me to think through. So I'm excited for you all to hear the piece and then to share with you some of the behind the scenes of how this poem got written.

Amena Brown:

The recording that you're about to hear is from one of my last live show recordings. This recording did not become an album necessarily, but we did take a lot of the wonderful footage that we got from this. Shout out to Fischbowl Productions and Eddie's Attic. I was recording this at Eddie's Attic. This recording was after my book, How to Fix a Broken Record, was released. So I was sort of bringing together the poems that were inherently a part of the book and telling some of the stories from the book in between the poems. So you are hearing me introduce this poem and you are hearing how today I would normally perform this piece, Letter to my Hair. Check it out.

Amena Brown:

I'm going to read y'all this poem. And a fun fact, last time I was here at Eddie's, I was recording my last album, Amena Brown Live. And this is the one poem that did not make the set that night because it's not really like a performance piece. It's more of a piece to read, but I can do what I want this evening. So I'm going to read this to y'all and there's going to be a couple of moments that I have to stop and give some historical context. So please follow along as well.

Amena Brown:

I first noticed you when I was about three. My friend's mom carved and twisted you into rows punctuated with tinfoil and beads. That was the first time I learned you could swing. I loved you then. Until grandma tried to get me pretty for church and you would not cooperate. I got to stop and make a note right here. First of all, my grandma's in this building. So I want to give some shout outs. My mama and my grandma are here. Y'all wave to the people. They are here. But because they're here and I'm up here, I'm telling. I want y'all to know that my grandma, when she would do your hair, she would say a thing. Some of y'all had a grandma or auntie say to you that your were tender headed. I'm now an adult who want to go back and question, am I tender headed or are you hard handed? Let's just ask the right questions. I'm trying to find out. I don't know.

Amena Brown:

So my grandma's trying to comb my hair, get it ready for church. And I'm crying and ouch, everything. She says to me, "You listen here. We going to get you pretty for church here because I done see many a little boy, a little girl cry. Your tears don't mean nothing to me." Yeah. That's a real grandma quote right there. Now, for those of you who are oldest kids, let me tell you how a younger sibling works. Okay? Here comes my sister 10 years later, grandma combing her hair. She there, ouch, crying. My grandma turn to my mom, "Jeanne, I just can't stand to see Keda cry." But I thought you have seen so many children cry. What is the difference in 10 years? I don't understand. Let's go back to the poem.

Amena Brown:

Until grandma tried to get me pretty for church and you would not cooperate so we greased you up. Branded you with a hot iron comb, you fought and hissed and finally submitted. You laid down, you let us have our way with you, decided to bend and curl like we instructed you and I felt sorry for you, maybe you felt sorry for me too. For tips of ears and back of necks sacrificed... Let me stop and make a note right here just so you have some historical context for this.

Amena Brown:

If you didn't get a perm, what you had was called a press and curl. If you wore your hair straight as a Black girl and you didn't get a perm, it was called a press and curl. Let me explain to you the situation. Somebody's going to be like, "This is real?" Yes. The comb is made of iron. This is an iron apparatus now, follow me. If your momma or your grandma or your auntie did your hair, they put that iron comb on the stove. Heated it up like you would a pot.

Amena Brown:

They put enough grease on you to make you slide down the street. And then they commenced to taking that iron thing and straightening your hair with it. Even these little ones, these ones right here, they would pick them up like this and run the comb through it. Now, my grandma's hairstylist was called Ms. Martha. I'm telling it. Ms. Martha be like, "Baby, that's just steam. Is it?" Because since I've been an adult, they have these things called a steam room, go with me. And when you in the steam room, it's relaxing. It like helps your breathing and everything. It's like a diffuser. "When did the steam burn you though, Ms. Martha? And how did this steam leave a mark? What!"

Amena Brown:

And then on top of that, when they're trying to get these little hairs, what do they tell you? "Hold your hair down baby." What! So, just imagine. You are sitting in the chair holding down one of the most vulnerable parts on your face while somebody brings an iron apparatus that they heat it up in an oven, put it this close to your skin. Continue.

Amena Brown:

For tips of ears and back of necks sacrificed, for innocent hairs singed, for pain tolerance learned, for curling iron forehead scars, for holding down my ear for the fear that I'd be burned, school started. And I began to resent you. See, back then, high side ponytails were in. I wanted you to behave the same as the strands of Tiffany or Debbie Gibson. But I realized I was neither brunette nor blonde, that you had no intentions of going along with this. I was angry with you.

Amena Brown:

Forced you against your will, pinning you down, holding you tight, tying you up until it hurt both of us and I cried because I was pretty sure I hated you. It seemed you were never what I wanted you to be. You would not lay, only stand. You would not blow in the wind, only lean against it. So I decided to get you fixed. For 20 years, I subjected you to concoctions that I hoped would teach you not to be yourself. To convince you for the rest of my life to just be like someone else. I hoped it would teach you that to be yourself isn't okay, isn't enough, that there was a norm and you need to conform, so you did.

Amena Brown:

Until I noticed you trying to push past who I'd made you into and for the first time in a long time I remembered you were beautiful. I realized I had wronged you. That maybe it was time to let you be, so I cut you loose. I let you grow. I learned your frequency. You didn't want to be branded, burned, subjected. You just wanted to be free. You wanted to teach me how to love because learning to love my curls would help me to love my bare face, brown skin, round curves, would help me to heal the kind of hurt that a grown woman carries from being a little girl. Loving you is teaching me to love that little girl and the grown woman she grew up to be. I am watching you grow, and as you grow, I do too. You remind me every day that we are both beautiful.

Amena Brown:

I don't often love watching footage of myself or listening to recordings of my own voice. If you're interested in watching the video of this, the link will be included in the show notes. But I actually watched the video of this to make sure I remembered what exactly I was doing before we posted the recording inside of this episode. This is one of my favorite ways to perform this piece. I love it so very much, so let's get into it. What is behind the poetry as it relates to my poem, Letter to my Hair? What made me write Letter to my Hair or the real life story behind writing Letter to my Hair, which is kind of interesting actually for me. Sometimes when I'm writing pieces, there could be a poem that I've written that there was a particular something that made me write it, but then the real life story behind the poem, that those two things may not be the same. But in this poem, they are the same.

Amena Brown:

What made me write the poem and my real life story behind it are the same. And that is basically my journey of embracing my natural hair. I went natural basically because I was broke. Since I was a kid, I've been getting perms and relaxers to straighten my hair. I just went broke in my late 20s to where I couldn't afford to get a perm and I had gone so long without getting a perm that my curls were starting to grow back. What would have been called new growth when I was wearing my hair with relaxer. And it was then that I decided I was going to go natural. I actually thought about myself that at some point in my life I would go natural. But that moment came to me sooner than I expected it to.

Amena Brown:

And so there I was, not having a lot of money. I'm trying to think how this gels with other behind the poetry or that time I episodes so far. I'm like I feel like it's gelling somewhere with me talking about the season of having written Here Breathing a little bit because some of the things I talked about in my book were about my natural hair journey. If you were listening to the episode where I talked about that time I quit my job, I think I went natural within maybe a year or two of quitting my job and becoming a full-time artist, which is probably what brought about the brokenness that caused me to realize I wanted to go natural.

Amena Brown:

So I think it was in that episode, that time I quit my job, I talked to you all about I quit my job, things didn't go great, I felt like this failure because I went through a breakup and went broke at the same time. And then I was telling you all in that episode that I went back to working a customer service job. And so that customer service job brought me enough money to now be able to get my hair done. And I decided, I think I'm just going to go natural now. Like I've already been through this really tough season, might as well get my waiting to exhale on, do a Bernadette and just go ahead and chop off this hair.

Amena Brown:

I found a salon here in Atlanta that specialized in curly hair or natural hair. Made an appointment there. I was assigned to a stylist. So I didn't pick the stylist. This was before Instagram. That's wild I think. I've been natural 12 years this year. This was before there was Instagram. Whereas now if you were looking for a stylist, that's how I found my current stylist that I have now. I found her because of Instagram. I find nail artists on Instagram. You get a chance to see what they're doing. But at this time there really wasn't that sort of place where you could go outside of maybe Yelp. And then Yelp was really about the salon itself.

Amena Brown:

I was assigned this wonderful and beautiful black woman named Giselle to style my hair that day. I should preface this by saying my hair before going natural was in more of like a Halle Berry shortcut, that shortcut that Halle Berry was so famous for in really the late '90s and maybe early 2000s. That was the kind of cut I had. And then over the years it would kind of progress to something that I could sort of throw. I don't know if y'all remember these from back in the day, they used to have these products called Bedhead and it was kind of like goopy the way the product felt, but you'd put it on your fingers and kind of spike your hair.

Amena Brown:

I could spike my hair, I could curl it, I could wear it slipped down, I had all the options. And so when I started to grow my hair out, the back of my hair basically went natural first because it was the shortest. And then I had these little strands of relaxed hair still sort of hanging on in the beginning. So I went to Giselle's chair on this day and she did an assessment on my hair and she was like, "Okay, here's the deal. Either you have to cut your relaxer off today and you're going to walk out of here with just your natural hair. Or," she was like, "I recommend that maybe you get braids or get a weave or some other protective style and let your hair grow out a little bit longer so that your hair is longer when you cut it." And I'm just, my scalp has never had a great relationship with braids. And so the thought of that just didn't feel like the right thing at the time. And so I told her I'm ready.

Amena Brown:

Now, I didn't know that this was called a big chop at the time. I didn't know a lot of the terminologies that are prevalent now in the natural hair community. And so she cut my hair and my hair was probably an inch long all around. I had the Teeny Weeny Afro, TWA as we call it in the natural hair community now, even though I didn't know that then. She dyed my hair a firecracker red. I'd never had my hair dyed before either. I walked out and I really felt free because I had felt so saddled to having a relaxer because that meant every six weeks or eight weeks, depending on how my hair grew, I was constantly having to go back to get my hair relaxed. And that was a lot of times something of a painful experience because my skin was sensitive or whatever. I mean, it's like you experience like a burning kind of product on your hair every couple of months.

Amena Brown:

And so the thought of not having to do that was very freeing, but it was also pretty scary to me because I really had never had a hairstyle where I'd had that short amount of hair and seeing that much of my face. And I remember I went to my customer service job that day because I worked at night. I think my shift actually started at 4:00 PM. So I worked 4:00 PM to 1:00 AM. And so I went to work and did not get the reception at my job that I hoped I was going to get. My coworker looked at me like, "What did you do? What's going on with you? Why would you do that to yourself? Why would you do that to your hair?" And I was like, "I'm trying to love myself." It was very emotional.

Amena Brown:

One of my friends, Asha, she's so wonderful. We knew each other from college. So I remember from college that she would have her hair and all these amazing corn row styles and stuff. So I was like, "Okay, she's going to know what to do." And on my work break, I was so freaked out that I called her and told her, "Oh my gosh, I cut my hair to go natural. Did I make the wrong decision?" And she was like, "You didn't make the wrong decision." She was like, "You totally made the right decision, but you're going to have to be patient and learn how to take care of your hair. Be patient while it grows, and different things."

Amena Brown:

Giselle had given me, "Here's the products you need to get." I think I actually left the salon with the products because the salon sold products. And so she gave me some suggestions, told me to buy this Jane Carter, it was a leave-in conditioner. Told me to buy the Jane Carter Leave-in Conditioner. I started out with a diva curl. They had some kind of curl product that I used. She just sent me home with all this stuff, told me what to buy from the salon and I bought it. And then she gave me like, "Here's some additional products you can consider." And I was like, okay.

Amena Brown:

I think by the time I was leaving work and it's like one in the morning, I think I realized that the weekend was coming up and I actually had a social function to go to. I had a party I was trying to go to. And you know how when you're going to an event and you're going to wear whatever your flyest outfit is and you've had your hair a certain way for so long, and so it doesn't occur to you to think about, is that going to look good with my hair? Is that going to look the same or different or better or worse? You don't think about it because in your mind's eye, even if you're not looking at yourself in the mirror, you have a vision of yourself. And that vision of yourself is that hairstyle that you've always had. It's not this new hairstyle, in my case, that I just cut my hair so short.

Amena Brown:

So I remember waking up and being super freaked out. I talked to one of my best friends, Adrienne. And Adrienne said, "Go to YouTube, Amena, and put natural hair in the search on YouTube." She was like, all these videos are going to pull up and that'll give you some suggestions on what to do. And I thought that was the silliest thing she ever told me because I didn't know a lot about YouTube at that time. And so I thought, why would I go to a place that has cat videos to find videos of natural hair stuff? But I did what she said because I woke up in the middle of the night feeling super anxious about this choice I'd made. Pulled up all these amazing videos. I mean, special shout out to all the Black women making natural hair content on YouTube because it really did save me that night.

Amena Brown:

I mean, back then Solange had just cut her hair short. And so she was doing these cool parts and cool like bejeweled accessories. So I was able to see an example of someone whose hair was closer to the length that I had. I was able to see women taking pictures and video of them getting their big chop, taking pictures of their hair growing over time so that I could see like, okay, I'm feeling nervous about this today, but in six months, in a year, I'm going to look at my hair and my hair is going to be even fuller and my Afro is going to be bigger, all these things.

Amena Brown:

And so that was really the beginning of my natural hair journey. I went natural at 29. I went natural a few months before my 30th birthday. I was so freaked out. But in the process of me having to sort of relearn this hair that I haven't seen in 20 years, because at 29 years old, I mean, I think I had just started getting perms when I was 10 or 11. So it had been close to 20 years of not caring for my hair. And I was a little girl then. So the way I would have styled my natural hair as a little girl or wanted my hair styled as a little girl was going to be really different from how I wanted to style it as a grown woman. And of course, when I was a little girl, my hair was much longer versus it being so short.

Amena Brown:

So as I was in this journey of realizing, man, just looking at my natural curl pattern, looking at the way my roots grew in, looking at the different parts of my hair that had different curl patterns even, and realizing that this journey of learning how do I take care of this hair, how do I style this hair, that all of that was also a part of the journey of me learning to love myself and be gentle with myself and be gentle with the process in which I was growing in the same way that I was learning to be gentle with my hair as my hair was growing.

Amena Brown:

So all of that swirling around is really what brought me to want to write Letter to my Hair because I felt like could I have written a poem just sort of talking about this journey in the third person, I could have, but the idea of really personifying my hair and thinking about all the negative thoughts I had about my hair before, the new and loving and positive thoughts I was having about my hair now and in that moment. And so that's the story behind how Letter to my Hair got written.

Amena Brown:

And originally, I had started writing Letter to my Hair and it wasn't finished. I got an opportunity to do a video project that never saw the light of day. And in order for me to do Letter to my Hair for that project, it required that the end of the poem was going to have to be according to the company or the organization that was asking me to do the video. And so when the whole video project tanked and it never saw the light of day, and I went back to revisit Letter to my Hair, which was really wonderful because then I got to decide what was the best ending for the piece actually. Not just what kind of branding needed to be in it, but what was really going to be the best way to end the story of the poem.

Amena Brown:

I finished the piece and then it becomes maybe summertime of 2016. I had already by this time gotten a book deal for How to Fix a Broken Record, but we knew that How to Fix a Broken Record wasn't going to come out until the fall of 2017. And so at that time I got the advice that I needed to put out something because it had been a long time since I put out a spoken word album and the book wasn't coming out for another year, year and a half. And so that was when the idea came up maybe I could do a live spoken word album.

Amena Brown:

If you didn't know, because I know I'm bad at telling this to you all, but I have somewhere between five and six, I may have lost some count there, spoken word albums. Most of them, prior to Amena Brown Live, were all done with music. My first album that I ever released, Live At Java Monkey, is me in front of a crowd at Java Monkey, which was a spoken word venue here. And then my husband and I got married. And my husband, as you know, is producing this very podcast that you're listening to, but also produced all of the music on all of my albums in between these two live ones.

Amena Brown:

After producing so many albums together that were poetry and music, I was really developing what my sets were going to look like even when my husband and I weren't performing together because not only was he making the music and I was writing the poetry, but we were also traveling together, performing shows together, which if you've been listening to the podcast, you may have heard me talking about this. And right around 2015, 2016, I was like, "I think I want to start trying out, what does it look like if I do a set of 30 minutes by myself or a set of an hour by myself? What would I be doing there? The Amena Brown Live was my first try at that. It is one of my favorite albums because I felt so much like myself and I felt so much like I was getting a chance to really choose what I wanted to be on the album, but getting to also interact with the audience, which y'all know I love.

Amena Brown:

So around this time I'm prepping for Amena Brown Live, which was released in November of 2016. Let me make a note right here. If you are a performing artist, just don't release projects near the election. This album got released near what was going to become one of the most contested and divided elections ever. And so I don't even know if the album really got the attention that it deserves, but we will include links to that in the show notes so that you can check out this album if you haven't already, because I'm really, really very proud of it. My husband's still did the production on that as well. So yes, you should check that out because it's one of my favorite things.

Amena Brown:

But I was in prep for Amena Brown Live, which meant I was looking through my poems, trying to think I didn't want there to be too many poems on Amena Brown Live that I'd already recorded. I really wanted to make it mostly new work or even if it wasn't new work, work that I, for whatever reason, hadn't recorded. I had Letter to my Hair on my list because I just loved the poem. It was very connected to my present world that I had wanted to share and for some reason... Well, I was about to say for some reason I never recorded it, but I know why, because I was mostly doing poetry in church settings at the time. And so in the types of settings we were in, there really wouldn't have been a good place for me to just break out doing Letter to my Hair. So I had mostly been holding it. I hadn't really been performing it a lot.

Amena Brown:

I started taking all the poems that I really hadn't had a chance to try out on stage and take them on stage to see which ones were actually going to make the album. And when I took Letter to my Hair to the open mic, it did fine, but I could tell it wasn't a showpiece. And that was actually kind of disappointing to me to be honest because I don't know what I expected, but when I went to read it, I don't know, my work that are my show pieces, like if you've been listening to this podcast and you've heard the Behind the Poetry on the Key of G, you've heard them Behind the Poetry on Dear TV Sitcoms, you've heard that Behind the Poetry on Margaret, those are show pieces in the sense of how they are all rated, how they're performed, how the rhythm is even inside the piece.

Amena Brown:

All of those things play a big role in what becomes a showpiece and what doesn't, and Letter to my Hair was a beautiful piece, but I wondered if it almost, I don't know, worked better on the page than it did on a stage. So I was disappointed, but oh well. So we moved ahead going ahead to record Amena Brown Live live at Eddie's Attic and went through all the production stuff, released that. And then somewhere around that time, it occurred to me that my husband and I had been wanting to make a video for Letter to my Hair. And I think I was going to try to do that in connection to the album when I thought it was going to be on the album.

Amena Brown:

And so we had filmed this B roll and the B roll was me walking into our guest bathroom, standing there in the mirror, my hair sectioned off with butterfly clips like I would normally do on wash day, and twisting my hair into two strand twists. And then coming back, I think we came back like the next day or a couple of days later and filmed a second set of B roll where I was untwisting my hair and sort of styling it to what I would wear out to hang out with friends or go on a date night with my husband or something. So we shot all that. And then I think the goal was for us to put other footage with it of me performing the piece. I can't remember where we would then go on that storytelling.

Amena Brown:

And then once all this stuff happened with Amena Brown Live and I realized this poem is not going to make the album, then I started to think, what if we just use the B roll? What if the B roll is the video? And so I went to my husband and said, what if I go in the booth and record a voiceover of this poem and we just put the voiceover over this B roll footage that you already filmed? And I want to give a special shout out to my husband because in the amount of time not only that we've been romantically together, but we were friends for a couple of years before we started dating, so we've been collaborating creatively a long time. And there are a few times during that that I have said an idea that I can tell he's looking back at me like, "Hmm, I'm not too sure, but I'm going to go with it. I'm going to go with it and we're just going to see what happens." And this was one of those moments.

Amena Brown:

So I went in the booth, recorded the vocal for a Letter to my Hair. He put music to the vocal and we added it to the video and we both sat there to watch it after he'd finished the edit. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is it. This is beautiful. I love it very much. Let's do it." Oh, actually, you know what y'all, I just remembered what one of our ideas originally was going to be is I think the original video for Letter to my Hair, it was going to feature young Black girls because so much of the piece, as you all have heard already, was talking about my young Black girl journey. And so I think I was about to reach out to different friends we knew that had young, Black daughters that would be interested in being featured in the video. I think we had a wonderful idea there but decided to go away from that and do this instead.

Amena Brown:

And then we put it up on Facebook and it was getting views like gang busters more than anything I'd ever posted. I could not believe it y'all, could not believe it. The video got posted four years ago and I think there are like 80,000 views or something. And comparatively to what it can mean for a video to go viral, 80,000 may not be a lot of use, but for me in what my videos were normally getting, that was the equivalent of having gone viral for me. And every now and then still someone will discover it and then they'll kind of do another round and there'll end up being some other people that get a chance to see it. So performing the piece for the first time ended up being disappointing because I discovered what the piece wasn't going to be on stage, but at the same time it led my husband and I to making this wonderful piece of art that really resonated with folks about their own journey with their natural hair, which I loved.

Amena Brown:

How do I feel about the poem today? What's interesting is even though Letter to my Hair did not turn out to be a showpiece, I think as I was discovering my stage voice of once my husband and I weren't performing together as much because he had other creative things he was working on and I was getting to a point with my work where I was like, I kind of want to try what it's like for me performing by myself without music, just me and the mic and the audience. And so what I learned about Letter to my Hair is that in the story of me telling what leads me to go natural and kind of setting up the poem, that in my sets, the stories I tell are just as important as the poems and that's not true for every poet. Some poets don't really tell stories in between. They mostly focus on the poetry.

Amena Brown:

I can equally do the storytelling and the poetry as far as time in my set. And honestly, sometimes I spend most of the set telling stories anchored by a few poems. Like in an hour, I could do six poems, but I have these stories to tell in between. And the story of Letter to my Hair is a wonderful story to tell. And as you heard in this rendition of the recording from Eddie's Attic, I love about this poem that I can stop the poem and do storytelling in the middle of it. And I only have one other poem that's like that, which is Margaret.

Amena Brown:

And if you listen to that episode, I don't know if I did this in the original recording, but when I perform Margaret now, Margaret has this section where I talk about MASH and I stop the poem and I check in the audience to see who in the audience actually played MASH and knows what the letter stand for. And we go through a whole interactive thing. And then I jump back into the poem. There's something so fun and so cool about doing that. And so Letter to my Hair and Margaret are the only poems that I do that with.

Amena Brown:

I'll tell you another thing that brings me joy about bringing Letter to my Hair to stage. Even though I still read it, I've never memorized it. It's not a poem that's very easy to memorize. But I still read it and I love doing that poem because Letter to my Hair, first of all, I wrote it for myself. And once I took it to stage, I know that poem is for Black women. And sometimes I'm in a crowd where it's mostly Black women and sometimes I'm in a crowd where it's mostly white and there are a small number of Black women. But if I choose to do Letter to my Hair, I am doing Letter to my Hair for the Black women in the room always. And that's a lot of fun because there are certain parts of Letter to my Hair, even in this recording that you all just heard, you hear me explaining certain things. But there are other things I don't explain.

Amena Brown:

I know that there are certain terms I'm using or certain little nuggets and Easter eggs that are in the poem and in the stories I'm telling that whenever I'm in a crowd, I can look at the Black women and see their eyes going, "Yes." Like they know exactly what I'm talking about. And that's been a beautiful thing about this poem that it is a connection between me and other Black women and the journey that we have had about our hair and the different things that over the centuries America has had to say about the hair of Black women and the power of us being able to let our hair, as it naturally grows, grow out and take up space and be big and be unruly if it wants to, finding the freedom in that.

Amena Brown:

But I will say this, the more I started doing Letter to my Hair on stage, and I would kind of go into a natural hair section of my set and I would catch the eyes sometimes of Black women in the crowd and I could see them kind of getting there. Sometimes it would be a little tense feeling of them wondering where am I about to go as it relates to natural hair. And sometimes natural hair can be like veganism in the sense that there are some times that people who are natural can sort of take it on, like they have to become natural hair evangelists. And some of you may have come across folks who are vegan and they feel like they have to become vegan evangelists, which basically to them means if they go vegan, then the whole world should be vegan and there are no options for anyone else. Everyone should be vegan. And natural hair can be like that sometimes where people feel like, well, I've gone natural and natural is the best for everybody in, whatever that means.

Amena Brown:

But one of the things that occurred to me as I was trying this poem out on stage and the storytelling to go with it and realizing like there's tension there sometimes, I was watching it on the faces of Black women and them feeling like, well, I don't wear my hair natural or I don't want to wear my hair natural. Will I be judged for that? Or what is she about to say. Is that going to sort of cut me out of this moment or cut me out of this conversation?

Amena Brown:

And so I started adding this Black woman hair PSA whenever I would go into this natural hair section and I would say, "Just for the record, Black women can wear their hair however they want to. I chose to wear my hair natural and I love it, but a Black woman can have no hair. She can have a wig, a weave. She can have braids. She can have a fade. She can have an Afro. She can have locks. She can literally do with her hair whatever she wants to," because as Black women, there are so many people and things and institutions that are trying to tell us how to be Black women. And sometimes that includes our hair. Trying to tell us, well, in order to be, air quotes, a true Black woman or a real Black woman or whatever that is, you need to wear your hair like this. You need to speak like this. You need to dress like this. You need to act like this.

Amena Brown:

And so I wanted to make this PSA to say, "Hey, I'm sharing this story about my natural hair because it was a beautiful journey for me and it's the best thing for me and it's the best thing for my hair. But what I want for all Black women is freedom and liberation for us. And even in the things as it relates to our hair, I want us to be free where we can wear whatever we want to. We can do whatever we want to do with our hair. We don't have to answer to anybody about it."

Amena Brown:

So I would do this Black woman PSA and I would close it with the phrase, "And this is why you never tell a Black girl how to Black girl, because there are so ways to be a Black girl," which I really do believe is true. And as a side note, that is what led to one of my latest poems, Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl, which is available on my Instagram and Facebook as well. So you will get the links to that in the show notes. So don't forget to check that out.

Amena Brown:

Here is how I learned to incorporate Letter to my Hair on stage. But let me tell you another amazing thing that came from Letter to my Hair. Letter to my Hair video comes out in 2016. You've heard me talking on this podcast, if you've been listening for a while, about a lot of the tensions I experienced having worked in white evangelical space, which was a very, very conservative space to work in. And so when 2019 came in and I think I was talking about this during the Here Breathing episode, 2019 came in, it was like I realized I needed to leave white evangelical space and go where? I think that was the part I was like, I don't know where I go. I know I need to leave there because my work is getting broader than the spaces where I will really be given full freedom to really share there.

Amena Brown:

So I was feeling kind of stuck in 2019. I just knew I needed to get out, but I didn't know what that meant or where to go next. And maybe I was talking about some of this in my 40 AF episode as well, which if you haven't checked that out, I hope you do because I was telling like all the business. But I think I talked about this in that episode too, that I was 38, about to turn 39 in 2019. I was thinking to myself, I'm about to make a whole career change, how do I know I will even be well received or how do I know there's a future for me outside of the space that I've been in.

Amena Brown:

Here's what gets fascinating. I get an email in my inbox from my website. Someone had gone to my website, filled out the contact form and then it comes to me in an email and it basically said, "Hi, we're looking to get in touch with Amena. We are working with a Black celebrity client." It was from a creative agency. "We're working with a Black celebrity client. We're wanting a poetic voiceover and we want to see if Amena would be interested in writing it." I immediately thought it was a scam. Immediately thought it was a scam.

Amena Brown:

And I want to say, if you are a freelancer, an entrepreneur, a creative, an artist, in any way if you fall in any of those categories, I almost want you to pause this episode right now and go check and make sure that when you fill out the form on your website, that the emails actually come to you because you wouldn't believe how many creatives have websites up, have cute little forms where the links are broken or it's going to some spam and you're missing all sorts of opportunities. So if you need to pause this and go do that, or just keep listening and go check on it, go check on it right now because you don't want some money or some amazing opportunities to be sitting in some spam box somewhere and you need it. Okay. Continue.

Amena Brown:

I don't even have a manager at this point. I have my assistant, Leigh, just she and I. But I did have someone that was consulting me trying to help me sort of get my career to this next level. She was an artist manager, but she hadn't agreed to manage me. She's totally my manager now though. And so I reached out to her and said, "Can you be my manager for 20 minutes and find out if this is legit?" She was like, "I got it. Let me check into it." She writes me back and she was like, "This is definitely legitimate." And she was like, "They're asking for writing samples from you."

Amena Brown:

And so I do not submit Letter to my Hair for some reason. I don't think I did. I submitted three pieces that to me were showpieces because I still wasn't sure what this whole thing was going to turn out to be about or if it was actually going to be real. And I wasn't sure if it was going to be a thing where they're going to want me to write a voiceover or where they might want me to also be on camera too. So I submit three poems to them, the text of the pieces. And I also submit the links because I'm still kind of questioning if this is legit or not.

Amena Brown:

And I think I felt like if I choose three poems that the videos are already out and then I turn around and see on a commercial somewhere some snippets of something that I wrote, then I'll... I'm sure if you're a lawyer listening that you're like, no, that's not how that works. But in my mind it felt like this is protecting me in some way. So I submit those things and Celeste forwarded them on to the creative agency and then we waited. We didn't hear back for awhile. And so I was like, man, they probably went another direction. I'm thinking maybe they're getting the writing samples from me and six other poets, who knows.

Amena Brown:

A couple of days later, I know you're all like, a couple of days isn't a long time. But when you're waiting to hear back, a couple of days feels like forever. So a couple of days later, Celeste hits me back and she's like, "Hey, I'm emailing you this NDA," which if you're not familiar, an NDA is a non-disclosure agreement. When you sign an NDA, you're basically saying you're agreeing to keep this project, the names involved, the details involved, you're agreeing to keep all this under wraps until we tell you you can talk about it. And so she was like, "I need you to sign this NDA because the Black celebrity client wants to talk to you on the phone. But they can't talk to you on the phone and they can't tell us who the client is until you sign this NDA."

Amena Brown:

At the time y'all, I had a gig in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and my family is from North Carolina. My mom and grandma are with me on the trip. So even though it is a gig of mine that is causing us to travel, my grandma is really the star and I am really her road manager because everyone is excited that we're driving to North Carolina, they're going to get to see her. She has two sons and their wives and kids and everything. Plus other extended family. Like my grandma is the matriarch of our family.

Amena Brown:

So it's the three of us in the car. I have to pull over to a Starbucks and sign the NDA. And then after I sign the NDA, Celeste calls me and she says, "Do you want to know who it is?" And I said, "I do." And she was like, "Do you have a guess?" And I was like, "Is it Oprah?" She was like, "No." I was like, "Is it Beyonce?" She was like, "It's not." I was like, "Is it Michelle Obama." And she was like, "It's not." And I was like, "Okay." She was like, "It is Tracee Ellis Ross." And y'all, I'm not going to lie. My mom and grandma in the car, I shut the car door and I literally ran around the front of Starbucks and I'm pretty sure I yelled a cuss word like my mom and my grandma couldn't hear it in the car.

Amena Brown:

I'm so excited because I'm just, like many people are, a big fan of Tracee Ellis Ross, a big fan of her work, everything. Then by the time we get into Winston-Salem, and I get in the bed and realize tomorrow I'm supposed to get on a phone call and talk to Tracee Ellis Ross. So I get on the phone the next day. I get on the phone in my car because other members of our family had come to visit my grandma and I'm under an NDA now so I can't just be in the hotel room where we were staying talking willy nilly. I take the call in the car, get on the phone with Tracee and some members of the creative agency's team, as well as members of Tracee's team too.

Amena Brown:

We all got on the call and start talking about what I can now tell you is Pattern Beauty. Hearing from Tracee, just her vision for Pattern and hearing from her how this had been germinating in her for so long and that she wanted a part of the brand to have beautiful language around the story of our hair, the story of Black hair and all of that. And so we talked about the logistics of that and talked about what my normal process is when I do this type of work. We had all those conversations. And then she said, "Can you come to New York?" And I just said yes, because why would I not say yes? And then she told the other people on the phone, she was like, "Okay, everybody, can you help me figure out when in my schedule Amena and I can meet. If she can meet me in New York, when we can meet."

Amena Brown:

Right at the end of the call, Tracee says, "Amena, I should've started with this." But she said, "Your work is truthful, it's soulful, it's full of joy and it's full of lightness and that is why I wanted to work with you on this project." And I'm sure we said some other words y'all, I'm sure we said some other things and pleasantries and hung up the phone, but I wrote those words on a post-it that I still have up in my office because Tracee had no idea how much my creative person needed to hear her say those words. Because I think as I grew as a performing artist, as I was finding my voice as a poetry performer, as a storyteller, I was realizing that in this space where I was, which was in white Christian spaces, there really wasn't a place for somebody like me doing what I was trying to do.

Amena Brown:

Most of the events were really centered around a time for preaching and a time for singing about God. Anything in between those two things, you were either considered to be a novelty or you needed to find a way to sort of be like those two things in whatever art you were doing. So if you were doing rap music, then you needed to figure out either how to be preaching in your rap or you needed to figure out how to do worship singing stuff, content in your raps. And it was the same for me as a poet. But the more I was discovering that I loved to make people laugh on stage, that I loved for it to be entertaining, that entertaining wasn't a bad thing.

Amena Brown:

Some of you who may have grown up in religious environments have grown up being taught that entertainment is sort of a bad thing, that that's not a spiritual thing. But I believe to have joy, to be able to laugh or even to be able to do a piece of art where people can feel like their pain or their hard times of life are understood or are heard or known, I mean, that is so powerful too. And so I was starting to just feel like I don't know if my work has a place here and where does my work have a place? And when Tracee said those words to me, I just thought to myself, that's what I want my work to be doing. Here is this creative artist person that I look up to whose work I love and respect who is saying to me that she can see that my work is doing the thing that I have always been hoping it would do.

Amena Brown:

And it was like even though those words were coming from Tracee, for me they were also coming from God as this reminder that it's not that you are too much or that you are wrong for wanting to really... I can only describe it to y'all as if as a creative person or just maybe even general as a person, it's like if we imagine ourselves with wings, it's like you want to be in environments where you can spread to your full wingspan, where you're not sort of keeping your wings in this cage in a way. And her words to me were also God's reminder to me that if you are a bird who flies, you have a whole sky out here for you. That you're not having to contain yourself to anyone else's boxes or cages or whatever.

Amena Brown:

A few weeks after this call, I go to New York and I take all these words from different calls at this point that Tracee and I had had, and she had sort of given me her vision for Pattern. The wording around that that she'd been working on. And then she left it to me to say, "Okay, now you go and write and tell me what comes out of it. We'll meet in New York." So I finish up, I meet with her, we sit down and she has a copy of it and I have a copy of it. I asked her, "Do you want to read it? Should I read it? Do you want to just read it to ourselves?" And she was like, "You read it and then let me read it." I read it out loud and she looked at me and she was like, "This is amazing." She was like, "This is so good." And then she read it and we worked through it and collaborated and just chiseled at the piece.

Amena Brown:

She gave me some suggestions to write. I went home and wrote some more, well, home in New York, actually at my friend's place that I was staying with. Went back to meet with Tracee a second time with the changes and revisions, suggestions that she'd given me. She was like, "This is it. The piece is finished." And that piece was the manifesta for Pattern, the Pattern Manifesta, which was the poetic piece that got released when Pattern first launched in the fall of 2019.

Amena Brown:

At the end of that meeting, that second meeting after Tracee looked at me and said, "I don't have any more changes. This is beautiful. I want it just like it is. This is great." I looked at her and I said my mushy words. I told her I was going to say my mushy words, that this opportunity had meant more to me than I could really express to her, that I appreciated her just taking the chance to give me this opportunity when she didn't know me, she hadn't heard of me from anything.

Amena Brown:

So many of my friends, they knew I was having this meeting, they knew the project was out there. They did not know it was Tracee Ellis Ross and they did not know it was Pattern Beauty at the time. But they had been saying to me, "Hey, before you leave, ask whoever this person is that you won't tell us who it is." They were like, "Ask them how they found you, how did they choose you?" And I forgot to ask Tracee before we ended our last meeting because that day she was having back-to-back meetings with so many folks that were working on the launch for Pattern. So as I was coming in to meet with her, she was ending one meeting. And as I was leaving, she was meeting with someone else.

Amena Brown:

And so I remember walking out to the lobby of the creative agency's office where we were meeting and a woman who was actually my initial contact, the one who initially emailed into my website, she was there to walk me out and I asked her, I said, "Hey, I never did ask you, how did y'all find me? What made you choose me?" And she said, "Oh, we were looking on YouTube." There was a particular phrase regarding natural hair that they were searching. She said, "When we searched it, it was your video that came up." She looked at me and she said, "It was supposed to be you."

Amena Brown:

Y'all know I grew up in church and y'all know I grew up Pentecostal church. So you talking about somebody ugly crying like Sofia from The Color Purple walking through New York. After thinking about so many things y'all, thinking about how I felt so insecure about my YouTube channel because the views were so low and I thought to myself, even though I didn't send a Letter to my Hair to them, apparently they had already seen that. I sent them some other videos. And when I sent them and I looked at the views, I thought, if they're looking at me next to other poets, they're never going to choose me for this opportunity based on my YouTube channel views being so low.

Amena Brown:

And thinking about how lost I was feeling career-wise at that moment and not being sure of what was next for me, not being sure of if there was a place for me, and this moment with Pattern being such a great encouragement to me that there was a place for the work that I was doing, that there was a big world out here, a big sky for my wings, a big place for me to take flight, that there were a lot of opportunities to come, that I didn't have to be stuck in a space that really was not going to give me the kind of freedom I wanted for myself.

Amena Brown:

All of that comes full circle because I don't know that I would have gotten that opportunity if I had never written a Letter to my Hair, if my husband and I had never filmed the B roll in our guest bathroom. Like when y'all go back to watch this video, yes, that is in our real house in our guest bathroom we're filming that. And that this video we filmed in our house not only encouraged a lot of people who watched it but also brought me other amazing opportunities like this one. I'm still a Poetic Partner for Pattern today and have had the chance to collaborate with Tracee and collaborate with the Pattern team on so many other poetic pieces that we've worked on together over the past couple of years.

Amena Brown:

So, I just want to give a shout out to, first of all, anyone here that is on your natural hair journey if you're listening. Wherever you are on the journey, it can be a really beautiful one and it can be an opportunity to continue to love your hair, continue to love yourself. And for all my Black women listening, wear your hair however you want to. Take up all the space you want to take up, wear it big, wear it long, wear different wigs, every day make it a different color if you want. There are so many ways to Black girl, which means the way that you Black girl is beautiful too, the way that I Black girl is beautiful too.

Amena Brown:

And I also wanted to just give a special shout out for the moments where we're going through a time in life where we do feel lost or we do feel like we don't know what the direction is. The direction can come from some really unexpected places. But if that's you and you're listening now, I am wanting and hoping for that direction for you and for you to be able to be open-handed even if that direction arrives to you from a very, very unexpected place.

Amena Brown:

For this week's edition of Give Her A Crown, I want to shout out Felicia Leatherwood. There are many, many, many amazing natural hairstylists and Felicia is one of my favorites. She's best known for styling Issa Rae's natural hair, as well as many of the cast of the HBO TV show Insecure. She is also the inventor of the Felicia Leatherwood Detangler Brush, which is one of my favorite natural hair tools to use y'all. When Felicia first started styling Issa's hair, Issa's hair was short and Felicia came up with so many inventive styles that gave me hope for my little Afro after I started my natural hair journey with my own big chop. Felicia Leatherwood, thank you for your creativity, your inventiveness for caring about style, for caring about health, for caring about Black hair. Felicia Leatherwood, give her a crown.

Amena Brown:

HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions, as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network, in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 33

Amena Brown:

That time I met India.Arie. That time I went on a really bad date. That time I was directed by Robert Townsend. That time I got mono on Thanksgiving. That time I went on a really bad Christmas tour. That time I ...

Amena Brown:

Hey y'all. Welcome back to HER with Amena Brown. And I feel like this episode, last episode, and possibly the next two episodes all just feel like a series of me telling y'all my business. So hey, if that's what you come to this podcast for, if you come here because you wanted to know my business, then you have entered here at a good time. Because apparently, something in my spirit is bringing up episode ideas that mean I need to come in here and tell you all my business.

Amena Brown:

But truthfully, that's what the HER living room is for. Right? That's how I come to the living room with my girlfriends. I arrive at their houses of course in the Before Times, but now slowly but surely as I'm now fully vaccinated and my friends are getting fully vaccinated, we're able to get back to having our in-person living room, which is so wonderful.

Amena Brown:

And we just show up. If you dress cute, okay. If you not, okay. If you just in your sweatpants, and your dirty sneakers, and you got half a thing of hummus, and I got a third of a bell pepper, then we bring what we got to the table, to the couch. To wherever we are, we light a candle and we start talking. So that's what I hope these episodes are like for you all. So thank you for listening.

Amena Brown:

Today, we are talking about that time I went to therapy. And specifically, I'm talking today about the first time I ever went to therapy. I was talking with someone recently that has never been to therapy. And it sort of made me go back in my own journey of thinking about what it was that led me to actually go to therapy, what that experience was like. So maybe you're listening and you've never been to therapy, and you've kind of been thinking about going. And I'm hoping that things I say don't discourage you. I'm hoping the things I say encourage you to go to therapy.

Amena Brown:

So I went to therapy for the first time when I was 25 years old. And I'll tell you the interesting story of what led to me going to therapy. So if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you have heard me tell you the story of how I got hired to work in corporate America at 25 years old. And I thought that was going to be super amazing because it was the first time that I was getting paid to be a writer. And I discovered within six months of being there, that I hated that job.

Amena Brown:

So around this time in my life, there were a lot of things swirling. I was working what felt like my first real job. It wasn't quite my first real job. I'd had some real jobs before this one, but this was what felt like my first grown-up job, where I went and bought my first suits to wear to work.

Amena Brown:

Around this time, I had also left a church for the first time. And any of you that grew up in church or they may have attended church may have had this experience, which is a terrible one. I'm not going to lie about it. I had started going to a church when I first moved to Atlanta for college, and attended that church all through college and right up into my mid twenties.

Amena Brown:

And at the early parts of that, it was what felt like a wonderful and beautiful experience. It was a church full of so many young people, and it had so much energy. We were all wanting to be a part of this movement for God type of things.

Amena Brown:

And then things over time just got more, and more, and more unhealthy with the leadership there, to the point that it caused me and a lot of other people that were going to the church to have to leave it.

Amena Brown:

And this is all happening around the same time. I think I left the church. Within a few months, I got this new job. So I'm just kind of out of my element really. I am very much a church girl. I'm sure if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you have gotten those vibes. I grew up in church most of my life.

Amena Brown:

So at this time in my mid twenties, this is the first time that I'm just not really attending church. I just decided to take a complete break from church because prior to that, I had been very busy in church. I mean, I was almost at church to the point that that could have been another job or another part-time job that I had in addition to my regular job. So I just took a break. It was my first time since I was 12 or 13 years old that I didn't attend church, that I wasn't in leadership at church, that I didn't have church meetings to go to. So I think I'm giving you all of this to tell you what was swirling around at the time that I actually start going to therapy.

Amena Brown:

Another thing that I realized at this moment is that I really want to start dating. And I didn't really date in high school. I think I went on one date in high school, and that was not including prom. I didn't date at all in college. So by the time I got to be 24, 25, especially when I started working this job, that was my first time being around other people who were my same age and hearing their dating stories, their dating exploits, and realizing that I was not having that experience at all. And I felt very inexperienced as far as dating was concerned. Right? So I'm like, "Okay, here I am. I'm a grown woman."

Amena Brown:

I had been going to a church that was very patriarchal, right? So it was basically like as a single woman at the church at the time, if I had decided to date someone, I needed to bring this man I was dating to my college ministry leader. And he had to approve. And then I was supposed to bring this man I was dating to another leader of the church and then to the pastor. And if they all three of these men said that it was okay for me to date this man, then I could date him.

Amena Brown:

And what that robbed me of that I didn't realize at the time is it robbed me of my own ability to discern for myself. My own ability to discern is this man a safe man to be around? Is this man someone who wants to be committed to me or even wants to be in a relationship? Like before I take you through all this whatever, what do I feel about it? What do I think about it? When I go in my own spirituality and talk to God, what am I feeling is the right thing for me to do to move forward?

Amena Brown:

So giving you all of this to say I am feeling very much fish out of water in this moment. I'm working what feels like my first grown job. I'm out of my church bubble, right? And as I'm meeting people at work and other places, I'm starting to go out and have social activities with people that I don't go to church with. And I know to some of you, this just sounds completely strange.

Amena Brown:

But I want to express to you how much of a bubble church had been for me, that church was not just the place where I was practicing my religion or being encouraged in my faith. It was also pretty much the center of my social life. Right? So at the moment that I'm leaving this church environment, I'm not just having to walk away from a place that I thought was going to be good for my faith. I'm also walking away from my social life as well. So I am just out with people I work with, out with friends I've met online, at happy hours, when I was coming from a church where we weren't even allowed to drink. Right?

Amena Brown:

So I'm starting to meet some guys and just almost feeling very stunted inside myself. Feeling like my age is 25, but my reaction to dating men is as if I'm 14 dating a boy for the first time. And I was trying. I was trying. I was going on different dates. Sometimes they were going well, most times they weren't. I was very uncomfortable, even with the thought of sitting across the table at coffee or at dinner with a man that I found attractive.

Amena Brown:

And to give you some context, I had also been raised as a child in church environments that basically sort of gave you two extremes. That you either were in my case, having a guy that was more like a brother to you, or you were getting married. It was sort of like there was no middle ground. There was no conversation about how you casually date someone. It was basically like you do these two things. And if you don't do it this way, it's dangerous, or it's sinful, or all of those types of thoughts. So I really had no middle ground, no nuance as it related to dating, but I wanted to date. And I wanted to be in a good and healthy relationship with a man. I really did.

Amena Brown:

So I would go out on dates and have crushes. And the job where I was working, there were three other women that were hired in that same position in the company. So we all four of us kind of became two peas in a pod. We felt like we were like the United Colors of Benetton. There was one other Black woman, there was a Korean woman, and then there was a white woman. There was four of us. We would hang out. None of us were married, but each of us at different stages between some of us having been in very committed dating relationships for a long time and some of us still out there casually dating.

Amena Brown:

And there was one coworker in particular of the four of us, the other Black woman. She and I, our cubicles were closest to each other. And I can't remember exactly the circumstances y'all, but I remember I'd met a guy, and we were just starting to talk on the phone. And it was just making me very nervous talking to him. And I was coming in her cube a lot to talk to her about it, and processing, and processing, and processing, and over-processing, and couldn't figure out what to do about this, what to do about that. And this is not the first dating situation she's heard me kind of try to process.

Amena Brown:

And I just remember one afternoon she looked at me and she said, "You know what? I don't really think I can help you figure this out. I think what you need is to go to therapy." And I remember sitting in her cubicle sitting across from her. I remember my face just feeling hot because I felt embarrassed. Because I couldn't tell what it was I'd said to her that made her feel like I needed to go to therapy. And I was somewhere between feeling embarrassed and insulted, and really thankful and helped.

Amena Brown:

I talked to her a little bit longer. And then I went right to my cubicle and started Googling options of therapists to find. And I looked up a couple of them.I think after work. I called a couple of the ones that I'd picked out. I remember I talked to a man, I talked to a woman. And the woman, she was an older white woman. And I don't know, I just felt the most comfortable with her. So I made my first therapy appointment with her after we talked on the phone for maybe 10 or 15 minutes. She had a very soothing voice. And I don't know, it just felt safe and right to me.

Amena Brown:

So I made an appointment with her. And one of the things that she asked for before my first appointment is she asked me to write her a letter. And in the letter, she wanted me to write what were the areas of my life where I hoped to grow during therapy.

Amena Brown:

And I remember getting home. I was in my apartment, my first apartment all by myself. Didn't have any roommates, or housemates, or anything. So I was really proud of that little apartment. I was proud of my little faux granite countertops in there. And I remember being in that apartment. And I think y'all, I think I actually, I'm trying to remember did I hand write that letter? I think I may have handwritten that letter. And I remember handwriting it and crying while I was handwriting it. Because just sitting down to think about what are areas I hope to experience healing in. What are areas that have been painful to me that I really haven't had time or the tools to process? And it just all started coming out at once. Everything about the church, about God, about my parents' divorce, about things that I was processing from my family of origin. I just wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote. And then I think, this is so old school now y'all. I could have typed it up, but for some reason, I think I hand wrote it. I actually think I hand wrote it and she either asked me to send a copy to her, or I scanned it and sent the copy to her that way. Now I'm just like, "Why wouldn't you just email this?"

Amena Brown:

But anyways, I sent all that to her. And I can't even remember actually all of what we talked about in that first session. But I remember being nervous about it because it is a very weird feeling to just start talking about such intimate things with a stranger. But I made this commitment to myself to come and see her every other week. That was the schedule. And honestly, I was at what I now know was such a pivotal time in my development, because there was so much of my life that had been built around church, and around what church had told me, that I had to be as a woman, as a young woman, as a Black woman, there were a lot of layers to that. And she was helping me work through a lot of that very early on.

Amena Brown:

And when I think back on it, the idea that you would have a friend that would look at you and say, "I think you need to go to therapy." It's like depending on where you are, your first instinct could be to be defensive. To be like, "Why? Why would you say that about me? What's wrong with me?" I mean, any of you that are fans of Insecure ... and if you're not, I hope you watch it. But there is a scene between two characters, between Issa and Molly in one of the seasons where Issa is trying to convince Molly that she needs to go to therapy, and Molly doesn't take it very well at first. And when I watched that scene, I totally felt her on that. And the coworker that had this moment with me, we've lost touch outside of seeing her on Facebook every now and then. But I am so thankful that she had the courage to say that to me, because it really did change my life for the better. Because I don't know if I ever would have pushed myself to do it. But when she said it, even though I felt embarrassed, I also felt like she wasn't telling a lie. I felt like it was true.

Amena Brown:

So you may have a friend in your life that you are close to. You're watching them go through some hard things. You're watching them struggle. You're watching them maybe have some unhealthy patterns. And it can be the most loving thing to suggest to someone therapy. And it can be the most loving thing you can do for yourself to submit to the process of therapy. But it can also be hard. I think you have to prepare yourself if you are talking to a friend or a family member and you suggest to them therapy. Not everyone is going to respond with, "Thank you so much. I have always longed for someone to tell me that I have problems enough that I need to see a professional." But that's the thing, right? I think sometimes, we have this stigma about therapy like, "Well I'm 'normal,' or I'm fine. Therapy is for those people that are going through this, or those people that have this diagnosis or whatever."

Amena Brown:

And therapy is for those people, but therapy is for you too even when you may feel like your life is going pretty well overall. You may feel almost guilty like, "Why should I go to therapy and complain about my life?" Or whatever. But therapy is not about that I learned. It's really about giving yourself the space and time to heal. And sometimes honestly, we go through things or we experience things in our upbringing or in different times of our life. And they are very hard things. They're very traumatic things, but they become normal to us.

Amena Brown:

So we don't think about it like, "I may be able to go to therapy based on my relationship with this person." Or, "Maybe I should go to therapy and process this thing that happened when I was a kid," because that was just your family growing up, or that was just what happened. You don't always see yourself in the same way that someone else can see you from the outside looking in.

Amena Brown:

So it was totally a very humbling and somewhat embarrassing moment that led me to therapy. But, I'm glad that I went ahead and took that initiative and looked into it for myself.

Amena Brown:

How did I grow from therapy? I think one of the things, actually, my first therapist, I saw her every other week for a year and a half. So she walked me through a lot of life. I mean, we were obviously having to deal with a lot of things from the past because it was my first therapy session at 25 years old. And then once we had talked about a lot of sort of these pent-up things that I really hadn't had a healthy way to process before with a professional, then I was able to kind of let her in on things that were going on in my life. Men I was dating or decisions I was trying to make about my career and different things like that.

Amena Brown:

And I think one of the things that therapy helped me to do was therapy helped me to find my voice. I am a classic oldest kid. I am very much a person that can lean towards people pleasing. And going to therapy helped me to really separate myself and my desires from the expectations and feelings of other people. And that was really, really hard. I remember a lot of our sessions were about me saying to my therapist, "Well, here's the conversation I had. Or here's what they said. And I don't want to make them feel angry. I don't want to make them feel hurt. I don't want to make them feel like I don't care. So even though I don't want to do this, or even though this isn't the best thing for me, I'm going to do that because I don't want this person to feel like that."

Amena Brown:

And I remember the first time my therapist said, "But you realize that you don't make anyone feel anything, right?" She was like, "You realize that people feel their feelings and make their own choices. That you deciding to do something that's healthy for you, it's not you making someone angry, because you doing what's healthy for you doesn't meet their expectation." She was like, "It's them choosing to be angry that you holding up your healthy boundary means you're not doing what they expected of you, or what they selfishly wanted from you."

Amena Brown:

And I will tell y'all that sometimes, I've now had quite a few therapists over the years. And I'll tell you that sometimes, my initial gut response to the things my therapist says in session is super skeptical. That I basically end up being like, "Yeah girl, I hear what you're saying. But I'm not sure if you actually went to the proper school for this. I feel like maybe they didn't give you the education that you needed, because I thought you were supposed to come in here and just tell me what I want to hear, not challenge me to grow and stuff. I'm not sure that's what I signed up for here."

Amena Brown:

So I have definitely been the person that enters a therapy session, a therapist starts kicking the truth to me. And then I'll be like, "Okay girl. Well, I don't think you really understand what it's like to be me." And then by the end of the session, I'm like, "You were right, the first thing that you said. Because my feelings, they are hurt." That's totally me. Starts off super, super skeptical, super like, "you don't know." And then 30 minutes later when she's trying to tell me it's about time for us to end the session, crying my eyes out because the first thing she said was actually true.

Amena Brown:

So I feel like therapy helped me in that way, even though it's challenging, right? To hear someone saying those things to you. Therapy helped me to learn how to say no. Saying no, it still can be hard for me sometimes. But back then, it was very, very hard for me to say no. Especially if there were people that I really loved and cared about. I would rather say no to myself and say yes to them. And it's therapy that helped me begin the rhythm of learning that sometimes I need to say yes to myself. And that saying yes to myself, even if it means no to other people, is one of the healthiest things I can do.

Amena Brown:

And I was not coming into therapy with that kind of rhythm. I basically felt like I needed, especially if people are important to me or I value their thoughts or opinions, I need to really do what they say. They probably know better than me.

Amena Brown:

And I'm not saying you shouldn't have people in your life that are wise, can advise you, can give you feedback on things. But I think going to therapy is what really taught me to make sure that in the process of me gaining wisdom and advice from other people, that I'm not silencing the wisdom that's inside of me. That no one else knows me better than I know myself. And of course in my spirituality, it's like only person know me better than myself is God. There's no human being that's going to know me better than I know myself. And if I honor my own voice and my own feelings and desires, that's me being loving towards myself. That's me being kind and gentle to myself.

Amena Brown:

I'll also say one of the things that therapy helped me with is giving me the tools on what it means to have to have hard conversations. And I think because I was growing up in a home without my dad, I was growing up coming from divorced parents. I think that brought up a lot of fears of doing something that would make the people that love me leave me. I think that was a thought under there, but I didn't realize that until I was sitting there in therapy.

Amena Brown:

So I would avoid conflict. Because I would feel like if we have conflict, then the result of us having conflict will be you're going to leave. And therapy taught me it's okay to have those kinds of hard conversations with people you love. And the people who love you, the people who really want the best for you, they're going to dig in on those hard conversations with you. Because they don't want to leave. They want you to be well. They want you to have what you need and want. And they want to have what they need and want in the relationship, or friendship, or family relationship, whatever it is. Or even work relationships too.

Amena Brown:

I think therapy helped me to realize I can speak up for myself. I can assert myself. If something happens and I don't like it or if I'm in a relationship or a situation and someone is treating me in a way that I don't like, that I am empowered to say, "I don't like it. I don't want this. This doesn't feel good to me. Here's what I'd rather do instead." And it took me being in therapy to get to the point where I could do those things and not feel bad about it or not feel like I was being demanding.

Amena Brown:

I think that was my thing. It was almost like asserting my own boundaries, just healthy boundaries felt like being demanding to me. When in actuality, it wasn't being demanding at all. It was just asking for what I deserve as another human being. You know?

Amena Brown:

Since this time after I had that initial therapy session, I have gone on to have other therapists since. And I just kind of ebb and flow out of that. I go through some seasons where I'm in therapy on a much more consistent basis. I go through some seasons where I would go to therapy once a month. I go through some seasons where I didn't go to therapy at all. I've done in-person therapy, I've done online therapy. So I've had a lot of different experiences. I have had some funny ones though. And sometimes when funny things happen to me, it's like I can't tell if those things happen to me because I have that ignorant part of my brain that people who are comedians or who perform on stage have or what. But I did participate in online therapy for a while. And those of you that have been listening to this podcast know that I actually returned back to therapy into 2017, beginning of 2018. I actually talk a little bit about it in the previous episode of my 40AF story. But I also talked about this at length in my Behind the Poetry episode on Here Breathing.

Amena Brown:

And at this time, I want to talk a little bit too about therapy being expensive. I've definitely had some seasons of life where I really wanted to be in therapy, felt like I needed it. But I just couldn't afford it. And in that way, it is important to acknowledge that therapy, I will say it shouldn't be a luxury. Because we need therapists in our life the same way we need access to healthcare and being able to make sure our bodies are cared for. We need that for our mental state, our mental health as well.

Amena Brown:

But I'd gone through seasons like that where I really needed a therapist, but I couldn't afford to have one. When I first started therapy, I was working in corporate America. I was living alone. I was really making more money than I needed to live at that time. So going to therapy every other week or if I wanted to go every week, I could afford to do it at that time. And then when I quit working corporate and started doing writing and performing full time, there would be seasons I could, and then there would be seasons I couldn't afford therapy. And that's also a hard thing too. That's the thing that I hope changes. And we're seeing some ways that there are organizations and different ways that we're trying to make therapy truly accessible to all, because we can all look at our own lives and think of things that we need to talk about it. We need a professional to help us process through this.

Amena Brown:

And we all know other people that we wish they had therapy that was accessible to them to help them heal through some of their own things. But one of my funniest therapy experiences, I was doing online therapy, one of these services where you sign up. And you're able to either do phone calls or video calls with your therapist. But you can also write to them or text to them. Right?

Amena Brown:

So I had signed up for one of these, and it was a little different than the way they are now. Back then, the price point was actually saving me money. I could afford it more easily than I could have afforded just the therapy sessions one-on-one.

Amena Brown:

So I'd signed up for this. And at this point and ever since, I've been very determined that my therapist should be a Black woman, especially after having worked in all white spaces or predominantly white spaces, I've realized I need a therapist that I can talk to about how white supremacy affects me, talk to about how I'm processing being a Black woman. Having my hair, being in my body and my skin in the world. And there's just been something very healing to me to be talking about that with another Black woman who understands a lot in her own way of what it's like to walk in the world this way.

Amena Brown:

So I had my first assigned therapist that was assigned to me through this online service. And she really helped me actually. If you listen to the last episode, I was telling this story about grief. And she was really one of the first people to alert me that a lot of what I was experiencing when my mental health was not in a good place was because I had a lot of unprocessed grief. And she was the first therapist to really name that for me and help me to start thinking through that.

Amena Brown:

But the downside to her is whenever we had our sessions, she was always busy doing a little bit of something else. Like one of our sessions, someone rang the doorbell to give her a package. But I'm hearing the whole thing. So apparently of course, she's doing her sessions from home. So I'm hearing her, "Who is that at the door? Who is that? I was not expecting anybody." While I'm spilling my guts here. So I'm listening to her open the door, talk to the delivery person, sign whatever.

Amena Brown:

So I was like, "Okay, she's at home. She can't control if the package got delivered. I'm going to try to move on and try another session." So the next session that I tried y'all, I'm going to try to demonstrate for y'all what it sounded like. So I'm spilling my guts about whatever. And in the background, I want y'all to know that I hear something that sounds like this. [humming music]. I hear that in the background y'all while I'm trying to share my feelings. Okay?

Amena Brown:

So after a while, I kind of get quiet just because I don't know what's going on. And she finally says, "I'm sorry. I'm babysitting my grandson, and he normally doesn't keep this type of noise." And at that moment I was like okay, this lady seems very sweet. But she could not be my therapist. You cannot be babysitting your grandson while having therapy with me while I'm trying to tell you about all my woes and whatever's going on with me. Girl, I can't. I can't deal with this. No. So I did have some very comical times of experiencing various therapists for sure.

Amena Brown:

But one thing that I also will say that therapy has taught me over the years is it's wonderful to have just a great support system overall. You need that too. And I have to say I'm just very thankful, very blessed to have a wonderful and supportive spouse. I have a wonderful, supportive family. I have great friends in my life. My community is wonderful.

Amena Brown:

And there are times that you're going to go through something, experience something, have something resurface, that your friends, or your family, or your spouse may not have the capacity to really help you in the way that you need help. And that's what my coworker was trying to tell me. I think she was trying to say, "Girl, I can process this with you in the cubicle. We can talk it over girl, but you're reaching beyond what I have the expertise to help you with." And even though it can feel strange going to this stranger to talk to them about these really deep and personal things, it's also nice to talk to someone that doesn't have any skin in the game, right? If you're going there to talk about some stuff you're going through, you might have people in your life that love you, but they have strong opinions about what they think you ought to do about this. Or they have strong opinions about why they think you ended up in this situation.

Amena Brown:

And when you go into your therapist, especially if your therapist is healthy, and professional, and doing the things that they should do, you're going to somebody who has no skin in the game if you buy the house or not. They have no skin in the game if you break up with that person or not. They have no skin in the game if you have kids, if you don't have kids, if you get married, if you don't get married. They don't have skin in the game on that. They are there to be a sounding board for you to help you continue on in your healing process. And I learned that from being in therapy too.

Amena Brown:

What would be my tips for anyone going to therapy for the first time? So if you're listening. And maybe you've been on the fence, maybe you've talked to some other folks about their experiences going to therapy, but you've never been yourself. What would be my tips for going to therapy for the first time?

Amena Brown:

I think one of the most daunting things about going to therapy for the first time or even if you've been to therapy before and you're no longer seeing your previous therapist and you need a new therapist. I think one of the most daunting things is finding a therapist that works for you. And it can just feel like you have 1,000 options. Where do you begin? Where do you start? How do you you know? Do you just sign up and just go pay somebody? And what if you don't like them? Or what if you feel like they're not the best fit for you or whatever? So my first tip that I would say is first of all, make a commitment to yourself to find a therapist. And give yourself some patience that it may take you some time to find someone.

Amena Brown:

I remember when I was looking for a gynecologist. I know we're not talking about that on this episode, but I'm just using this as an example. I realized a couple of years ago, I really need to have ... I know some of y'all like this is basic, but I'm explaining to you how we can have these types of appointments or things that we need, and we just kind of keep pushing it back, and eventually just have to decide, "Okay, this is what I need to do now."

Amena Brown:

So I remember when I was like okay, I've been to a family practitioner doctor. I've had some surgeries, I've done this, I've done that. Certain other parts of the body have been looked at. But hey, I need a gynecologist. And there's a lot of factors of what I want to find in a gynecologist. So I just had to make it my part-time job for a week or two that I would spend a certain amount of time just looking through our insurance website to see who was in network, and then go into their websites and cross-reference with Yelp. I know, it's a lot. But this is what I do so I can be sure about it. Okay?

Amena Brown:

So when it comes to finding a therapist, I think it's okay that it may take you time to find someone that you're a good fit with. And thankfully, there are a lot more resources out there. There are lots and lots of resources. But I'm just going to name some that I know of, and that have been helpful to me. And maybe these will even give you ideas of other things that you may be able to search and find. And don't worry about remembering all of this. These links will be in the show notes on amenabrown.com/herwithamena so that you can check out all these links.

Amena Brown:

One of the places I found one of my first therapists was on the Psychology Today website. And they do have this database there where therapists and counselors can register to be listed there. You can search by their specialty. So you may be looking for a family counselor. You may be looking for a therapist for a teenager in your life. You may be looking for someone that specializes in trauma-informed therapy. You may be looking for someone that specializes in divorce, right? Or specializes in working with folks who are in the LGBTQ+ community, right? There are all sorts of different things you can search there, according to what your comfort level is, according to what you know you're looking for. So Psychology Today can be a really great resource for that.

Amena Brown:

I want to give a big, big shout out to Therapy for Black Girls. This is actually where I found my current therapist is on Therapy for Black Girls. So they do have a database. Black women if you're listening and you're looking for therapists that are really specialized in being able to give this type of care to Black women, that has been a very helpful site for me. And honestly, just scrolling through there and seeing the beautiful faces of other Black women, just even that by itself was so wonderful.

Amena Brown:

And I would also check out Therapy for Latinx. You can check out their website as well as their Instagram. They can be a great beginning place to find folks who are going to be really educated and thoughtful about giving this type of care to the Latinx community as well.

Amena Brown:

And these are just a couple of things I'm listing. I know that there are probably even more resources out there. But these are good places to start and give you some ideas of other things you can Google, right? You may find some other places that would give you information like this.

Amena Brown:

Also want to give a shout out to Open Path Collective. A friend of mine also hipped me to this. Because as I was saying earlier therapy can be cost prohibitive for some folks, I'm shouting out Open Path Collective because they do also have a database of therapists on their site who have agreed to take on a certain number of clients at a discounted rate. You may also have local places where you live that are taking clients, but are taking them at a sliding scale based on income.

Amena Brown:

So we have a lot more work to do to make therapy accessible, but there are some ways that you can get the help that you need. Even if you're at a place where money is not really a thing that you have to give to this. So it may require a little bit of searching. And if you find that you're in a space inside yourself where even the Googling, the looking is difficult for you, this could be something where if you have a close friend or family member that would be willing to sit with you maybe while you're searching, or they might be able to pull up their phone too and look for some things. It's okay to ask for help when you need it. And it's okay to ask for the kind of support that you need as well.

Amena Brown:

The other tip that I would give if it's your first time going into therapy is I would say that it's okay to do some therapists interviews. I know the first times I went to different websites of therapists and I would just get really nervous. What if I click on this and I pay this money for this session, and then I don't really gel with the therapist?

Amena Brown:

So one of the things that I did the last couple of times I was looking for a therapist is once I found them, I would go to their website. And a lot of therapists already have these types of requests on their site where you can request just an informational interview. It's not a therapy session. It's not a mini therapy session or anything like that. They're not giving you any sort of counselor therapy in this interview call that you have. It's typically free of charge. And it gives you an opportunity to ask them some questions, and gives them an opportunity to get to know you a little bit, to get to know what is bringing you to want therapy.

Amena Brown:

So that's been really helpful for me. Because normally if I walk away from that conversation feeling like, "I don't know," then that normally means that person's probably not the best fit for me. But even if you go to a therapist website and they don't have any free conversations or consultations that are normally pretty short, 15 or 30 minutes, you can also write in and request and say, "I'm in the process of looking for a therapist. I would like to schedule an informational interview with you."

Amena Brown:

And in that interview, what would typically happen is you would bring your questions that you have. Questions like maybe you want to know how they typically begin their work with new clients. Maybe you want to know what you can expect from a session. Maybe you want to know if there is certain prep that you should do before a session. Maybe you want to know what their education is, or what their background is, what they specialize in, the types of patients or types of clients that they typically see. Depending on what your needs are, you may want to know are they in the type of field where they can prescribe medication to you if you need that or not? Those are important things to differentiate as well. If you are in need of a psychologist or if you are in need of a psychiatrist, right?

Amena Brown:

So it's just about you knowing what your needs are, but there are a lot of professionals that are interested in you feeling comfortable and getting a chance to get your own questions answered rather. And also, they can get some answers from you. Get to know a little bit about you, get to know a little bit about what your expectations are, what your needs and wants might be at the moment.

Amena Brown:

So don't be afraid to do that. That's sort of a no-cost way for you to kind of get a vibe for who you might like to actually have as your therapist. And that has brought me a lot of peace of mind and helped me to decide between a couple of therapists.

Amena Brown:

Lastly, what encouragement would I want to give you regarding therapy, especially if this is your first time? Or it could be your first time in a long time. And I think therapy can be scary. I think it's scary because we are thinking about how it's going to feel to sort of drudge up some of the things that therapy may bring up. It can be scary because of the unknown factor. Here we are talking to this person that we're just now meeting about stuff that we wouldn't even talk to a lot of people that we know about.

Amena Brown:

It can be scary. And I think there is a lot of unknown in the healing process. But my biggest encouragement to you is therapy, it's one of the best things that you can do to pour back into yourself. And I want to specifically speak to those of you that are listening right now that are the people that give out to everyone else. You're the person that other people come to for advice. You're the one that drops everything to go help out this or that family member.

Amena Brown:

And when you commit to that hour or so of that therapy session, it's one way that you're communicating to yourself that I am worth giving this time to myself. I'm worth allowing myself to heal, and to process things, even if they're painful. And it can be hard to face our pain. There's nothing easy about that. There's nothing fun about that. But if facing your pain and facing the hard things that have happened to you or the hard things that you may have done in your life, whatever is that you have to face. It can be hard to face it. But on the other side of facing it, and beginning to process it, and getting the tools for how to walk through your life, you'll find that you are a healthier person on the other side of it. You'll find that your heart is more open to love and to be loved. And that love starts with you. It starts with how you love yourself. You giving that kindness to yourself. You giving the same energy that you may give to other people. You returning that energy to yourself also.

Amena Brown:

So will it be scary? Could it be hard at times going through the healing process? Absolutely. But is it worth it? It is absolutely worth it. And the tough thing, but also the important thing I think to remember is none of us as human beings are ever going to be fully done with issues to deal with. That's just a part of our humanity. We're always going to have something that we're healing from, you know?

Amena Brown:

So therapy and whatever other things you have in your life that can help you in healthy ways to process your life, to process the pain, but also to process the joy, and process the good things that happens too. I think it's important to have that space. It's good. And it can be really helpful to remember that. So that way, you're not putting pressure on yourself like you've got to complete this plan that's going to be 33 steps. And at the end of the 33 steps, you'll be done with this. There'll be some things in life you may never be done with it. But you'll find yourself incrementally growing, becoming more whole, experiencing more peace, sleeping better at night and so on. So even though there's been a lot of shame and stigma to therapy, there's been some shame and stigma attached to medication, and certain diagnoses, and all those things. I want to be a part of us removing that shame, and that you should do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself. Whether it's therapy, or medication, or exploring different types of therapy. You have a lot of options. But if you're hearing me, then you're on the fence about this. I hope you feel encouraged to do what you can to take care of yourself, because we want you here. And we want you here healthy, and whole, and being kind and loving to yourself.

Amena Brown:

That's that time I went to therapy. And y'all, I'm still going. I'm still going to be going. I'm not going to be done with therapy the rest of my life. I will still be going. And if that's something you need in your life right now, I hope you will too.

Amena Brown:

For this week's edition of give her a crown, I want to shout out Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes. Dr. Chanequa is a clinical psychologist, public theologian, and ecumenical minister whose work focuses upon healing the legacies of racial and gender oppression. She's the author of I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation and Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength. You should read both of these books, because they are necessary. But I want to talk a little bit about Too Heavy a Yoke.

Amena Brown:

I've talked here on this podcast about just some of the health challenges I have having been someone that was diagnosed with fibroids around 10 years ago. And I spoke in last episode, my 40AF story telling you all a little bit about what that moment of my life was like having to have a very invasive and complicated fibroid removal surgery. And I had a long recovery. And during that recovery, I read three books. I read Edna Lewis's cookbook/memoir The Taste of Country Cooking. I read Sisters Of The Yam by bell hooks, and I read Dr. Chanequa's book Too Heavy a Yoke.

Amena Brown:

And I just have a lot of feelings about Too Heavy a Yoke, because it really started a journey with me of understanding that it's not that it's bad for me to be strong as a Black woman. It's that as a Black woman, I will enter so many spaces that people expect me to be 'strong' through things and take certain things that I don't need to take. And that it's okay for me to be also weak sometimes. It's okay for me to not have the answers. It's okay for me to make sure that I'm not doing other people's work for them. Whether that's their emotional work, their vocational work, their work as it relates to racism and white supremacy.

Amena Brown:

Too Heavy a Yoke really got me to a place of really reevaluating my life. And after reading that book, I made a lot of different choices. I said no to a lot of people and a lot of things in an effort to remind myself that being a Black woman doesn't mean I need to be some sort of superhero. It means I need to be human, and beautiful, and flawed, and that I want to be healthy. And that I want to be here living as long as I can be, but it will be detrimental to my health if I feel like I have to be strong for everybody.

Amena Brown:

So if you're a Black woman listening, this is a book you need in your library, Too Heavy a Yoke. And if you are working with Black women, you are serving or walking alongside Black women in any capacity, I really, really recommend this book because it is very wonderful and very important.

Amena Brown:

I want to thank you, Dr. Chanequa for caping for Black women the way you do. For reminding us that we can be healthy and whole, that we deserve healing, rest, love, and restoration. Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes. Give her a crown.

Amena Brown:

That time I met India.Arie. That time I went on a really bad date. That time I was directed by Robert Townsend. That time I got mono on Thanksgiving. That time I went on a really bad Christmas tour. That time I ...

Amena Brown:

HER With Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 32

Amena Brown:

Hey, you all. This is the week of my birthday. So probably as you're listening to this, I am somewhere celebrating. Because that's what I do. I have only had one year in my adult life so far that I can think of that I worked on my birthday. And if you have not listened to my episode here called That Time I Quit My Job, you should go back and listen to that. Because I think in that episode, I share a bit of the story of why I was working on my birthday. But normally, I treat my birthday as a holiday. Outside of that year, I take the day off. I don't like to work on that day. I actually was supposed to work on my birthday last year. And then of course, ended up not working because the event got rescheduled and I was home.

Amena Brown:

So this episode is my #40AF episode. And if you've been listening to the podcast, you have probably listened to my interview with Kristy Gomez, where she told me the story of what her experience was like as she turned 40 and what her 40s have been like. And as I was turning 40, I longed for stories like this to hear from women, to hear from Black women, and Women of Color in particular. And so I thought it would be fitting the week of my birthday to share what my 40AF story is since I turned 40 last year during the pandemic. So, normally when I do these episodes, I am wanting to organize this around a few questions.

Amena Brown:

I want to talk about what my 30s were like, I want to talk about what did I think my life would be like when I turned 40, what my life was actually like when I turned 40, what has been the theme of my 40 so far, and if I could give advice to a woman about to turn 40, what I would tell her. So these are the questions that Kristy and I talked about, and I wanted to answer them as well. And you will hear more episodes here of me interviewing other Women of Color about their 40AF stories. And if you have a 40AF story you want to tell me, I would love for you to comment on socials.

Amena Brown:

I want to thank each of you for your comments. I see you commenting on social media, I see you sharing the episodes in your Instagram stories and on Twitter, just know that it means the world to me. Because I'm talking to all of you, but I don't get to see all of you and interact with all of you, at least not yet. Eventually, we will be having HER with Amena Brown live events when it's safe to do so. And we can all get together. In person, I'll get a chance to see you. But in the meantime, getting to see you talking about this in your Story. Some of you have been DMing me, seeing your comments, just know it means the world to me. I try as best I can to respond to all of you. Sometimes I'm not able to. But know if you didn't hear from me, please charge it to my head or me being in the bed laying down somewhere. Not that I am not appreciative. So thank you so, so much for that. So I'd love to hear your 40AF stories, too.

Amena Brown:

What were my 30s like? I got married when I was 31. And if I would really start the story at the beginning of my 30s, and I wrote about some of this in both of my books, actually. But I can probably give you a more raw version of that. You're on the podcast. So when I was turning 30, I turned 30 in New York City with my best friend Adrienne. And we both thought that we were never going to get married. Like dating had just not been going super great for either of us. And we were just like, this is it. We're going to be nuns, but we're going to be cool nuns. We're going to be like the cool aunt with all the memorabilia from the places we've traveled. That was sort of the vibe of me coming into my 30s. Unbeknownst to me, I actually already knew the man that I was going to marry. And so I got engaged on my 31st birthday and then we got married three and a half months later.

Amena Brown:

So I think the initial part of my early 30s was just adjusting to married life. At the time that my husband and I got married, I was still performing on the road in mostly white Christian environments. And my husband was a youth pastor at a church a little bit south of Atlanta. So I think we spent those first few years of marriage just trying to get adjusted to what both of our jobs would require from us. We started pretty quickly traveling together and performing together. And so I definitely think part of my 30s was adjusting to that in the early parts. And then us finding a wonderful rhythm together of how we could do this thing on stage together. We were recording albums together. I know I'm very terrible at telling you all I have albums. But if you've ever heard any of my poetry albums, all of the music that you hear there is my husband's creation.

Amena Brown:

So we had a really great opportunity in my 30s for us to get a chance to create a lot together, which was wonderful. I think I spent a lot of my 30s working, to be honest. I feel like I had a lot of like hectic hustle kind of schedule. And in a lot of ways, because 95% of my work was event based and was travel based. So it wasn't just event based, I was very rarely doing events in my home city of Atlanta, it was almost always travel. And the thing about travel that I've actually really been reflecting on a lot since the pandemic, because for the most part, I haven't been traveling for work during the pandemic, I think there were a couple of times we had to do like some shoots and different things like that. That we had to like go somewhere in driving distance, shoot for the day, come home, masks and all the everything, sanitizer, Lysol, everything. But other than that, I haven't been traveling at all and haven't taken a flight since March of 2020.

Amena Brown:

So I feel like my 30s was mostly very hectic, very on other people's schedules all the time. Just traveling to this city, to that city. I remember Easter weekend was always a very busy weekend because of the market that I was in at the time. So sometimes I would get booked to perform poetry at like a Good Friday service at a church on one side of the country, do that service, go to bed and then get up either in the middle of the night or super early the next morning, take like the super early flight, or take a red eye where I flew overnight to get into the other city to do sound checks, rehearsals with another church and then perform at what felt like a thousand services on Easter. I mean, it was typically somewhere between five and seven services but it was like a lot of services. And so that was my life.

Amena Brown:

I was excited in my 30s to be at a point where I could do this full time, and I was making pretty good money at the time doing that. I think the other thing about it, though, is my schedule really didn't have like any sort of middle ground. It was very all or nothing kind of experience. So I was either so busy and had so many dates that came in that I was just like, I don't even know how we going to make it to the end of whatever this run is. And then there would be these seasons that would come in the middle of the year where nothing had come in. We would sometimes have a whole three months in the summer where we had no gigs. And so we would go from feeling like super tired, super busy doing all the things to sort of having this lurch of nothing coming in financially and also not as much to do. And that would totally freak us out, especially the first couple of years that we were married.

Amena Brown:

And then after a while we tried to sort of take advantage of that time when it came because inevitably it always did. Sometimes in the summer, sometimes around the holidays, sometimes at the beginning of the year. You never knew when it was going to come but you knew you were going to have some months where you weren't traveling. And so the goal of all of that hustling, hopefully, was that you were sort of stacking the money so that when the slow times came, you could afford to just chill out or go on a vacation or be with your family or see your friends or work on other creative projects that you wanted to finish. So that feast or famine part I remember being very challenging for me in my 30s.

Amena Brown:

I will say I experienced a landmark event in 2017 that sort of shifted me into my late 30s and changed a lot of what was going to become my 40s too. So this is something that I've talked about kind of vaguely in some other things. I've written about this vaguely a little bit in a book before and talked about a little bit here. But for this episode, I wanted to share a little bit more about that in case there any of you that may be dealing with this too. But in my early 30s I found out that I had fibroids. And if you're not familiar with fibroids, fibroids are benign tumors that can occur in the uterus. And I found out I had them in my early 30s. I didn't really know anything about that.

Amena Brown:

I had sort of a very quick conversation with my gynecologist at the time because I was just finding out about that right before I got married. And so she was like, well, you should go on your honeymoon, enjoy your honeymoon, but when you come back, we need to talk about it. And so I ended up having to have surgery to remove my fibroids in 2017. And by that time, my fibroids had gotten so large. Like when I look at pictures of myself from this era of time, and if any of you saw me at events around that sort of 2015, 2016, 2017 timeframe, I had to dress to basically hide how large my fibroids were. So the surgery was very intense. It is very intense, very invasive procedure, very hard on the body.

Amena Brown:

I'm also as much as I can be into sort of holistic and more natural ways to heal the body. And so I had also done those things. And those things have been helpful to a point, but I still arrived at this point of needing to have surgery for the sake of my health. And that moment right there, like getting home from the hospital, having complications, having to go back into the hospital, and then having probably what was supposed to be six to eight weeks of recovery, but ended up really being 8 to 10 weeks of recovery. And when I say 8 to 10 weeks of recovery, I mean, like you can't drive during that time, you can't exercise, you can't lift anything above a very small number of pounds. So I had a lot of time to think about my life and process.

Amena Brown:

How did I get here? How did this happen? What are the changes I need to make in my life to try to not end up here again. And one of the things I discovered is I was actually living a very stressful life. Actually, I remember my mother-in-law sitting me down when we were all together as a family. But she sat me down just she and I and she looked at me and she said, "I'm really worried about you. You seem like you are a very, very stressed." And at the time, that she said it to me, this was before I had surgery, I was really frustrated about the conversation because I was thinking to myself, like, yeah, I am an entrepreneur. I'm a performing artist. My husband and I own this business together. Like yeah, like I live a stressful life. There's nothing about this, that is an easy thing in any way.

Amena Brown:

But after I had the surgery and had time to really reflect on the question that she was asking me, I thought to myself on a scale of 1 to 10, prior to having surgery, how stressed would I have said I was? And I thought to myself, I think I would have said I was somewhere between an eight and a nine. And the body is not really made for you to live at that level of stress for the long term. The body is made for us to survive stresses that are going to come to us in life. We're not going to have a life that completely has no stress. We'll have stress sometimes. But the body isn't really made to survive that level of stress for a long period.

Amena Brown:

And then what happens over time, if you live a high stress life like that, like if you're listening to me right now, and your stress level is somewhere between an 8 and 10 all the time, what happens is it becomes normal to you, and then it actually registers to you like it's a four. But it's really a 9 or a 10 for some of us. And so I realized in that recovery time that when my mother-in-law had asked me that question, I was actually a lot more stressed out than I even knew I was because it was so normal to me. So I spent that recovery time. This was the year that I turned 37. So I spent that recovery time thinking to myself, what are the things in my life that are causing me stress? And the main thing that came up was work. It was the work I was doing, there was something in there that was causing me stress.

Amena Brown:

So one of the changes that I had to make is I had to start saying no to things that were not necessary. So there were some volunteer things that I was doing at that time, and I just had to say no to those things. I had to go back to some people and say, hey, I know I made this commitment to you and said that I could do this or that. But I can't do it now because this is what I have to do for my health. Which is very humbling for me because I'm very much a doer. I'm very much a person who would almost like drag herself to keep her word, which is in part a good quality to have, but you want to also be able to keep your word to yourself. And your word to yourself is that you're going to take care of yourself, you'll be gentle with yourself, you'll be looking out for you too. And if you're dragging yourself through whatever to keep your word to people. But in the process of that you're not keeping your word to yourself, then it's not fair to you, right?

Amena Brown:

So I had to start saying no to those things. One of the other things that I realized was a stressor for me is how I was traveling for work. When you're traveling for a living, and I can really only speak to when you're traveling for a living as a speaker or performing artists, sometimes there's a little tension, especially I'll say, for the market I was traveling in at the time, which was a Christian environment or a church environment, might be an even better description for that. There's sometimes were some tensions between what the people that were planning the event expected from you, and what you could actually deliver or wanted to deliver.

Amena Brown:

So sometimes, let's say, if I was booked to perform at a church event on a Saturday morning. What I had been doing before having surgery, is if I was going to perform there on a Saturday morning, and the cheapest flight for me to get there was at 6:00 a.m., then I would take that 6:00 a.m. flight, even though I wasn't paying for the flight. But I would take the 6:00 a.m. flight, which meant I was getting up at probably 3:00 a.m. in order to leave my house and get to the airport and get there on time, do all that, get through traffic, if there's traffic, whatever. And I'm getting there into whatever city at, could be anywhere from 7:30 to 9:00 or 10:00, depending on how far I had to fly.

Amena Brown:

And I'm getting there just in time to leave the airport, run right to soundcheck, eat a quick little late breakfast, get to the hotel, maybe change clothes, freshen up, speak. And then depending on the engagement, if I had to speak more than once that day or whatever, but pretty much after I finished talking, I would fly out go home. Well, I realized that a part of the problem was I needed to stop doing those 6:00 a.m. flights, if I didn't have to. I had to request from whoever it was that was booking me to come in the night before, so that I could get in at 7:00 p.m. the night before. Get to the hotel, drink some water, get some really good sleep so that I'd be fresh to do what it was they asked me to do that next morning.

Amena Brown:

But sometimes what happened is I would get booked to do an event. And even if I would request to come in the night before, the people planning the event might think I was just at my hotel chilling. That I have time to go to dinner with these people or I have time to attend this social function, which isn't technically a part of what I've been booked to go there to do. But they just think it could be a cool idea if I could hang out with so and so or if I could come to whatever session it was. And I also think for people who maybe don't do road life, I think sometimes people that were planning events thought that the road life was very lonely or thought that our lives as people who did road life were very lonely.

Amena Brown:

So they would say things like, yeah, when you fly in you should just come to one of the sessions, you can just relax. You don't have to do anything, you could just let us pour into you. I would always kind of chuckle a little bit because I was like, yeah, road life itself can be lonely, but my life is not lonely. I actually have like wonderful people in my life. I have wonderful community in my life. So this is not a space where I come to relax. I go on a vacation to relax or I go to my best friend's house and relax. I go to my mama house and relax. I don't come to this space where it's mostly strangers and people I'm just needing to relax, I came here to work.

Amena Brown:

So me not coming to this dinner or me not coming to the whatever social function is attached to this event is actually for me to be better and fresher doing what it is you actually asked me to do at the event. So I had to start saying no in some of those moments, and letting myself not be worried about if that was awkward for the other person I'm talking to, and saying those things up front when people would request me for events that I am going to come in the night before. I will not be at the such and such activities. But I will be there on time for soundcheck and I will be there on time from my time to be on stage. And a lot of times, because you all can probably tell if you all going to listen to this podcast, a lot of times I stayed for a long time after I would perform because I actually loved talking to people at the event when I could.

Amena Brown:

I loved like doing book signings, I mean, all things that we did willy-nilly before the pandemic. But I would stay, I would do book signings and just talk to people if they wanted to talk after the events, I loved that part, just getting to connect with the audience. Just really deciding and doing a better job deciding what is actually necessary. And if it's not necessary, then maybe we don't need to do it. And I think the last thing that I had to assess in that recovery time was what about this space I'm working in, what is actually stressing me out. Because I can plan for the logistics in trying to improve some of those aspects. But I also really was at the beginning, in my late 30s, of discovering that it wasn't just the logistics of the work I was doing, it was actually the space where I was working that was causing me high amounts of stress. And that was stressful for a couple of reasons.

Amena Brown:

I think one of the reasons it was stressful on just a basic level is being a Black woman in a predominantly white space is just stressful. Period. Whether it's church space, whether it's nonprofit, whether it's corporate, being the only black woman in that space is stressful. And really, for a lot of us as women of color, being whoever we are, in predominantly white spaces, has typically high levels of stress for us, even more stressed and sometimes we know or acknowledge in the moment. So that was definitely a part of the foundation of why it was stressful.

Amena Brown:

I think also, I was beginning to realize that, in particular, the industry that I was in which at that time was predominantly white, Christian, and predominantly very conservative too, theologically and politically in some ways, was also getting stressful for me, because I was discovering there were things that were important to them or things that they believed in that I didn't. And I wanted more creative space. I wanted more inclusive space. And I realized I was longing for something that was never going to happen inside of that space. And so it was stressful to reenter there, because I was being asked maybe to speak about something that I don't believe or speak on something, and then what I have to say about it doesn't match the beliefs of the people there that have started the event or started the organization or whatever it was.

Amena Brown:

And just realizing that my voice, I felt like my voice was growing and becoming in a lot of beautiful ways. And that in those ways, that voice wasn't welcome in its fullness in these spaces. So I feel like my 30s was this journey to this halt, right here at having the surgery. And after that surgery, that caused a great shift that was sort of leading me right there into what the beginning of my 40s was going to be.

Amena Brown:

What did I think my life would be like when I turned 40? Well, I didn't think we were going to be in a pandemic. Let's start with that. I did not think that, I don't know how many of us thought that. But I didn't think that because my birthday is in May. So I think a lot of us were thinking in the beginning like, we'll be on lockdown for maybe two weeks, maybe four weeks, things will be back to normal, right? And like over a year later, we're still not back to normal. When I think about what I thought my life was going to be like when I turned 40 I think about two things. Maybe just one thing, really, but probably two things, honestly.

Amena Brown:

One of them is that I thought that I was going to be the mother of like an elementary school kid by the time I was 40. That's what I thought. I always had that in my mind. I thought I was going to spend my 30s child rearing, basically. And then by the time I got into my 40s I'd be dealing with like an elementary school kid or transitioning into like middle school and the beginning of high school kid. And when I got into my late 30s and I started kind of settling in with me when I turned 38 like, you might turn 40 and you might not have kids. And what does that mean? And that sort of dovetails to me how I approached turning 30.

Amena Brown:

So in my 20s, my person that I wanted to please or that I wanted to approve of me was my 30-year-old self. And there were so many decisions and adventures and I'm sure mistakes that I made, that I was thinking in my mind, I wonder if my 30-year-old self is going to be proud of this. Or I think my 30-year-old self is going to be super proud of me that I made this choice, that I didn't do this or that I did do that. And so then by the time I got to 30, I was like, yeah, I'm in there, except the fact that I'm not married. And I thought I was going to be married by the time I was 30. So here we are. But I already had such a sense of adventure that my 30s, even though I felt like, man, I wish I would have gotten married by then. But I was also like, well, I haven't, and I may not get married.

Amena Brown:

So if I don't get married, then what do I want my life to be about because my life is about more than the relationship that I'm in. And even though ironically, I ended up getting married within a year, a year-ish of that birthday, I think having that mentality helped me enter marriage with this greater sense of adventure and not feeling like because my husband and I were getting married, that that's my identity now is only to be his wife. But instead, I was sort of able to enter that phase of life like, I'm married to this man that I love. I actually love keeping company with him. I love hanging out with him, whether we go to Walmart, or we go across the world somewhere. Like, I actually really enjoy him as a person.

Amena Brown:

So it's not that my whole identity has to be built on that. It's that I had a wonderful life before we got married. And now I'm married to him, being married to him adds to my already wonderful life. That was sort of how I entered being married. So when I realized in my late 30s, was sort of that same moment of like, okay, I've been envisioning. But for me, I'll say it wasn't the age this time. I sort of had in my head like, what would Amena who becomes a mom want me to do in this moment? Or like, would Amena that's going to become a mom be proud of me? And I remember I was working through this in therapy in my late 30s. And just reimagining with my therapist, what if I don't have kids? What will my life be like? And sort of coming back to that remembrance that whether or not I have kids, my life is wonderful.

Amena Brown:

And that was sort of what I had to come to in my 30s. Whether or not I get married, or even at that moment find whoever my person is, even date somebody really, honestly. But that's for another episode. Whatever that is my life was wonderful before I married my husband. It wasn't that marrying my husband is what made my miserable life wonderful. It was that marrying him made an already wonderful life even more wonderful, right? So I think my therapist and I were working through that, and I just started feeling it come up in my late 30s. And started working through what's the adventure that can be there for you in your 40s to experience versus you walking into this decade thinking about the things you thought you would have experienced? Or thought you would have air "achieved" by this time?

Amena Brown:

So I thought my 40s was going to be about, I won't say boring. I don't think I thought that. But I thought my 40s was going to be pretty routine, I thought it was going to be without actually a lot of adventure, because I thought probably going to have some kids by then, probably going to be going to PTA meetings, or if they do extracurricular activities, probably going to be spending my time doing that. Going to be organizing what we do with our business and our travels around their schedules. And realizing as I was getting close to that birthday, that that wasn't going to be the case. I have not talked publicly a lot about what that journey has been for us behind the scenes. I know that you all hear me talking a lot, and that probably makes it seem like I am not a very private person.

Amena Brown:

And those of you that have been following my career for a while, you see me perform and stuff, I'm not sure that I seem like a private person, but I am really a very private person about my personal life and things like that. I'm an introvert at the end of the day. So there are parts of my life that are good and wonderful and beautiful that I just love to keep to myself. And there are parts of my life that have been terribly hard that I did share with folks, but they were folks that we are very, very close to. They weren't things that I shared publicly. So I'm not ready to share some of all this journey right here, but one day, maybe I will. And this will probably be the place that I will come back here and be like, okay, remember, episode 32? Well, if you haven't listened to it, go back listen to that, because now I have more tea to share.

Amena Brown:

But I'm not ready honestly to share some of the tea that goes with that. But that is what I thought my 40s were going to be. And in my late 30s, I definitely felt myself freaking out that I was realizing turning 40 wasn't going to look like I thought it was going to look. What was my life actually like when I turned 40? Well, it was a pandemic. Okay. It was a whole pandemic out here. So Matt and I, Matt's my husband, Matt and I had originally planned ... I had my dream dream since I've been an adult, really, has been that on my 40th birthday, I wanted to go to Italy. So originally, that was the plan, Matt and I were going to do that.

Amena Brown:

I don't know if any of you all have this experience. But I am one of those people that sometimes I get like a gut feeling, a gumption, a premonition, a something. I get a feeling to do something or not to do something. And I got a feeling prior to the pandemic that we shouldn't go to Italy. And so we talked about it. Because we were just at the point where it was like getting to be time to like book flights and find hotels and do all that. And I just told Matt, "I don't know. I don't feel like we're supposed to go." So we didn't. Had no idea that even if we had booked all that stuff, we would have still been grounded here, unable to travel.

Amena Brown:

So then when I realized, okay, well, I'm not going to go to Italy. My next plan was to go to my mojo city, which if you all have been listening to the podcast, you know I talked about that in my HER Favorite Things episode, that my mojo city is New York. And so I was like, well, for some reason, I don't feel good about traveling internationally. Maybe I'll travel domestically. And then of course, the pandemic happened, so did not get to go to New York, either. So my actual birthday, I cried. Not on my birthday, though. But in the weeks leading up to my birthday, I had to like shed some like disappointed tears, because I realized it was really hard to think of ways to celebrate without having a restaurant to go eat at or a party that you could safely plan and be with the people that love you or a place you could go travel.

Amena Brown:

I had to just sit down one day and just talk to Matt and cry my eyes out about feeling so disappointed about that. And then once I cried my eyes out, I was able to reimagine like what my birthday could be like. And I think that maybe is my rhythm, really. It's like, I need to cry. I need to process the sorrow, the grief, the disappointment. And then when I process that it sort of opens my brain to reimagine what can we do with what we have, right? So I tried to think about if it weren't a pandemic, and I couldn't travel, what would I do for my birthday? And I was like, well, I would have gotten a pedicure, a manicure, I would have gotten a spa facial. I would have eaten at one of my favorite restaurants. I would have dressed up. I would have put my makeup on. I would have did my hair. All those things.

Amena Brown:

And so I did a lot of research you all, and I learned how to give myself a very luxurious pedicure, manicure facial. I just spent the weeks before my birthday like ordering various things. We just like use some of the budget that we had planned to use for the trip. And I just ordered my little tools I needed to really do my luxe manicure, pedicure, facial. And so the night or a day really before my birthday, that's what I did. And then the day of my birthday, honestly, was a really wonderful birthday. And I think in part, I was just determined to celebrate. Because in the years between surgery and this birthday, like I had just been through a whole lot. So I was just grateful to be here to celebrate that I'm here that I'm well. I just felt like there was a lot of life to celebrate and I wanted to do that.

Amena Brown:

My therapist had said something to me. She said, "Sometimes when hard things have happened to you, what ends up happening is you kind of mark time based on these hard things that have happened." And she was like, "So you end up being like this is the first Christmas that, this is the second Christmas that, this is the first birthday since blah, blah, blah." And she was like, "It's understandable to do that for a time." But she was like, "I don't want you to lose out on celebrating yourself because every birthday, anniversary, holiday or whatever is the mark of how much time has passed since a bad thing happened to you." She was like, "I think it's okay for you to say this is my birthday." And that's a chance to like, celebrate me and celebrate what I've survived and that I'm still here. Your anniversary with your husband, that's a time to celebrate this relationship that you love and where you feel loved. And so that was very much the energy around my birthday.

Amena Brown:

When I think about what my life was actually like, I have to tell you all that the year, this year so far, because I'm turning 41 this year, so this year of being 40 has been professionally, probably the best year of my career, you all. I mean, only like a few months after turning 40, I got a podcast deal with Seneca Women and iHeart, which is how you are listening to this right now. And I also signed a deal with Olay to be one of the faces of their Face Anything campaign. I'm one of nine women who are featured in the campaign, all brilliant and amazing women. And to have had these two big opportunities come to me after I turned 40, I feel like in my faith context, that felt like a big reminder from God that, yeah, my life in my 40s turned out to be very different than I imagined. But that didn't mean it couldn't be great and a surprise and wonderful.

Amena Brown:

I remember when I was doing the shoot for Olay, we did the shoot for my portion of the Face Anything campaign, which was part commercial and part print ads as well. And I did the shoot here in Atlanta with a wonderful team that was working with Olay. And I remember getting to the shoot, and I had to do all the wardrobe stuff, try on all these different outfits. And the outfit that ended up fitting me the best was this dress that I would never have walked in a store and bought, okay, never would have bought this dress. It was white. It was fitting like all my curves and everything. Like it almost fit me to the point that I think I would have been too self-conscious to wear it. But I put it on and it fit me like a glove.

Amena Brown:

I just went home after like a very long day of shooting. We probably were shooting almost 12 hours between video and photography. And I remember getting home and just thinking to myself, girl, you just did things that models do at 40 years old with your 40-year-old curves, with your 40-year-old belly, and I'm so proud of it. I'm so proud of it. Like, my year of turning 40 turned out to be so wonderful and so different than I expected. I can't say it's better than I expected, because I don't know what that other life would have been like if I would have had that life. But I think when we think about our life, and we think about these things that we hope our life is going to be, we only have like an A or a B. We only have like an either/or. Either my life's going to be this or my life's going to be terrible, right?

Amena Brown:

We don't always have in our minds like, well, maybe my life won't be that. But it could still be great or wonderful, or this amazing experience. And that's really what I experienced. Like, my life is not this thing that I imagined it was going to be when I turned 40. But it's dope. It's dope. My next question is what has been the theme of my 40 so far? And the first thought that came to my mind, the first thing that I hear in my mind is I hear India Arie singing the Serenity Prayer. And if any of you are India.Arie fans, this is actually on a track called Loving on her album Testimony:Volume, 1 Life & Relationship. And she's singing those words at the beginning of a Serenity Prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. If you haven't heard her singing in this, you have to listen to it.

Amena Brown:

But hearing her sing, it's like I don't know what she was feeling when she sang it, but it just sounded like she poured all of this life experience into when she sang that. She was pouring like the joy and the sorrow and the good times and the hard times all into that. And if I could put a theme on my 40 so far, it is that balance. I think in my 30s I was definitely a person that felt like my hard work could fix it. My hustle could change it. Me praying harder would make this certain thing or that certain thing different. Me reading my Bible more minutes or more hours or more pages or whatever it was would make this or that different. And that's not to say that I don't believe that prayer is powerful.

Amena Brown:

But I believe sometimes I would sort of enter the space of prayer as my way of controlling things, which is kind of a weird way to enter prayer. But sometimes I know I've done that maybe you have to. And I feel like the years leading up to turning 40 have taught me that sometimes there is some really hard stuff that happens, and you can't pray it all away, and you can't fix it. There were some spaces where I was working, and I wanted them to be anti-racist, and I wanted them to be inclusive of the LGBTQ community, I wanted them to be inclusive spaces for everybody. And it didn't matter how many conversations I had, those spaces were not going to change. And so I had to accept that that is not going to change.

Amena Brown:

And then there were some things that I did have to have the courage to change. Like when I was telling you all like learning how to say no, and not feeling like I have to please people all the time, even in professional situations. Especially, beyond what the contract says, but another talk for another time. But those are things that I can have the courage to change. To change the way I work, to live a life that is of a decreased stress level. And then I love the last part of that, which is the wisdom to know the difference. That there's just going to come up both of those in life. Just going to be some things that happen and I can't change it. And there'll be some things that I can put in the work to make them different or make them better. But I believe this decade of my 40s is bringing me the wisdom to know the difference.

Amena Brown:

If I could give advice to a woman about to turn 40, what would I tell her? I would tell her or you, if you're listening, and you're about to turn 40, or if you're in your late 30s, And you're like, oh man, what's happening here. I would say, first of all, when you think about your 40th birthday, do something that you actually love, and be around the people that you actually love and that make you feel loved. I don't feel like any birthday you should force yourself to do things because that's what your family members want, or because that's what your friends said they'd like to do. But especially on these birthdays that end in zero, or sometimes for some people, even the ones that end in five, really think about what do you like to do.

Amena Brown:

And if you have family members that are determined to plan a surprise party for you, for example, and you hate surprise parties, just go ahead and say to them, look them in the eyes for real and be like, I actually wanted to go to a hotel by myself. And I love you. And I want us to have dinner or breakfast or whatever after I have my time by myself, but I want that time by myself. I was even talking to one of my really, really good friends when she turned 40. And she and her husband have a little boy. And she was like, I don't know. I think I just want to spend my birthday with like my husband and my son. And I was like, that's beautiful too. Just do something that you love. Plan to do that.

Amena Brown:

Within whatever you can afford to do, or like in my case, we're in the middle of a pandemic, so I had a lot of limitations. But I spent that birthday with my favorite person, which is my husband. My husband put this wonderful video together of all these people I love singing happy birthday to me and I FaceTimed with people that I loved. I mean, even in that moment, I let myself be loved on. And I think you should rein in your 40th like that as much as you can. And not because it's like bad luck if you don't or because that's the rest of your year or the rest of your decade. I don't really put a lot of stock in that. But I do think there's a lot of good energy to doing something for yourself.

Amena Brown:

And the other thing I would say, if you're about to turn 40, I would say you know release yourself from the expectations that society puts upon us about what any of our ages have to look like. I think there is a lot of pressure on women because of the patriarchy, honestly. But there's a lot of pressure about your relationship status, about what your uterus is or isn't doing. For those of us that have uteruses. You know what I mean? I think there's a lot of pressure about what we're doing relationship wise, what we're doing about having children. And depending on what environments you're in, if there's more value placed upon that than your actual satisfaction with your life, or the fullness of your life, that if you're in a relationship with someone who loves you, that's dope.

Amena Brown:

If you have children, and they're in your family, you're loving them, you're raising them, that's dope. And those things are dope inside of your whole life. That those things themselves are not the only thing that define you. That you get to build your life upon whatever you decide to build it on. But I hope that you build it in the fullness of what that means, whoever you are and however you are. And I guess the last thing I would say is, don't be afraid of being surprised of some things that are unexpected happening to you. Sometimes some of the things that are unexpected are the worst, they are terrible, okay. Like, one day I'll come back and regale you all with some of those stories that have greeted me in my late 30s and early 40s.

Amena Brown:

But you'll also have some unexpected blessings and I think it's good to have room for those. I think it's good to be open to that process as well. And aging, even though we have been taught by so many things and whatever from other people, aging is beautiful. It's a beautiful process. It's you coming into your skin more, it's you knowing who you are more, it's you being willing to still learn, even after you've learned all these other things. It's beautiful. It's not something that we have to fear. It's a part of becoming who you are. And that's what you want in your life. You don't want to become what somebody else expected of you. You don't want to become smaller than you actually are. You want to be the full badass you. That's what I'd say.

Amena Brown:

Anyways, I wanted to thank you all for listening. Normally, at the end of these episodes, I have an outro, a segment of sorts that I do to give a crown to another Woman of Color. I want to take this time to give a crown to you if you're listening. In general, and especially those of you that are in your 40s and beyond, or maybe approaching your 40s, I want you to give yourself a crown, whatever that looks like for you. I want you to say some good words to yourself today. I want you to think about what may be your expectations about the next decade of your life that's approaching.

Amena Brown:

I don't want you to think about all of the things that you haven't done or all of the "expectations" that you haven't met. I want you to think about what have you accomplished or even beyond that, like who are you that you're proud of, and how can you celebrate her today? So whoever you are listening, you deserve it. Give yourself a crown. HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions, as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 31

Amena Brown:

Hey y'all. Welcome back to the HER living room. I'm your host, Amena Brown, and this is HER with Amena Brown. I hope y'all are enjoying a little bit of springtime, and if you are able to, I hope you are on your way to getting vaccinated. By the time you hear this episode, I will be fully vaccinated, which basically means I will be hugging all over my mom, grandma, and sister.

Amena Brown:

I experienced such a sense of relief when the vaccine was available to me, and I realized there's still a lot about the past year that I'm recovering from in a lot of ways. Many of us have experienced grief in various ways over this past year. Some of us have lost loved ones, some of us lost jobs, lost relationships, experienced the collective grief of the hard things that were happening in our country and in the world.

Amena Brown:

My therapist told me that grief has to be processed. Grief is best not stuffed down or ignored. Grief may pop up at what seem like some of the most inopportune times, but if we take time to let grief sit with us, we can process it and walk through it at whatever pace we can.

Amena Brown:

In this week's episode from the HER archives, which was recorded in the before times, I'm talking with author, educator, Poetry Slam Champion, and one of my favorite poets, Theresa Davis. Listen in as Theresa shares with me how we can use writing to process grief and the helpful ways we can walk alongside someone who is grieving. Check it out.

Amena Brown:

Welcome back. I am so excited. We are having author, poet, educator, Poetry Slam Champion. She has written two books of poetry, After This We Go Dark and Drowned: A Mermaid's Manifesto, both published by Sibling Rivalry Press. Welcome, Theresa Davis.

Amena Brown:

Oh my gosh, y'all. First of all, I have literally 17,000 things that I could be talking to Theresa about, so I'm going to try and not do that and just pick at least 15,000 of them and save the other 2,000 for later. But I just want y'all to know, first of all, I've lived here in Atlanta 20 years and Theresa Davis has been a pillar of our poetry community. I feel like here in Atlanta, but I think in general, you are a pillar in the poetry community nationwide, because this is how I get poetry street cred. When I go places and they'll be like, "Oh, you live in Atlanta? What other poets you know there?" I'll be like, "I know Theresa." They'll be like, "Oh, okay." Then they accept me.

Amena Brown:

So not only is Theresa just an amazing performance poet herself, she's also a fabulous host. I actually hosted a couple of bouts with Theresa at the National Poetry Slam competition when it was here in Decatur, and I always tell this story in front of her. She's rolling her eyes, tired of hearing it probably. But she's hosting and I was supposed to be keeping track of some numbers or some something on the side, and I'm taking notes like, "Okay, after introduce this poet, then says these things," I mean, it was just ... She is just a master of her craft.

Theresa Davis:

Thank you.

Amena Brown:

So Theresa, thank you for being here. I always start out wanting to ask an origin story question. You became someone who works with words, who helps other people find their words too. When you look at young Theresa, would you say you would expect this is what you were going to become? Or when you look at your young self, was your young self on a totally different road or path?

Theresa Davis:

Well, my young self was raised by two poets, and being raised by creatives it's always interesting times when there's not enough money or the contracts are not coming. You take a mysterious camping trip that lasts a week because they don't want you to ask why the light's not working right now, or, "Do we have water?" So they got real creative of hiding the fact that we were living on poets' salaries, which you can hear the word po' in that word, poetry. You can hear it loud sometimes-

Amena Brown:

Thank you for making that connection.

Theresa Davis:

Sometimes it's loud. So I definitely did not see myself being a poet. I avoided it at all costs. And when you're the daughter of artists who do a lot of community organizing and are part of a lot of festivals and activist-type things, you sometimes find yourself being the kid who has to memorize a poem to perform at said rally or wherever they're doing. So I was that kid a lot. I didn't resent it as much as I was just like, "Again?" So when I found myself as an adult actually doing poetry after my dad died and being introduced for the first year and a half that I performed at open mics or whatever event would invite me, and being introduced as Alice Lovelace's daughter, I felt like I really came into myself. The first time she was introduced as Theresa Davis's mother, I was like, "Pop a collar, you have arrived."

Amena Brown:

Come on, pop a collar.

Theresa Davis:

"Now you can be you. You've earned your voice." So yeah, I definitely did not see myself being a poet. I did want to do journalism real hard for a while there. I wanted to be an investigative reporter, a mix between Daphne of Scooby-Doo and April from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, just be all up in people's grills and finding out the stuff, the dirt, the lowdown. When I got into college, I was like, "Okay, no. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to do something else, but I don't know what it is." And then I stumbled into, "Oh wait, you're a writer. Who knew? Your parents probably did." But it's okay. We're all on the same page now.

Amena Brown:

That's right. I love it. I wanted to have Theresa to come on and be a guest and just share some things with us because one of the things that I love about your work is that it's very visceral for me of an experience. It's visceral for a lot of us, all of us who are sitting in the audience, when you share these stories from your life. And sometimes it's visceral because I'm just laughing my head off about it, and sometimes it's visceral because you write about being in love so well, and sometimes it's visceral because it just makes us cry. I think there have been times the crowd has cried with you, that the piece also even though you may have shared it many times before that it's still is a visceral experience to you.

Amena Brown:

And I think that is such a credit to you as a performing artist, because I think sometimes there can be this thing where you're going on stage, you're hitting the autopilot, you've done the thing, but there's something else to really be present in the work and precedent how the work may still affect you or may affect you differently even than it did when you were originally writing the thing.

Amena Brown:

And so part of what I wanted Theresa to share with us, is how we process grief. And that's not all of your work, but that's something that has come up in quite a few of your pieces, how we can take all the grief that gets stuck inside and the page is a place where we can put it that.

Theresa Davis:

Grief is not always about physically losing somebody or a person. It can also be losing an idea or having something shift so completely that what you believe is no longer a real thing. That's something also that I think comes out in some of my work, like you have these ideas of what a thing is supposed to be. I could write about being in love probably because I'm so bad at it, but that wanting to be a part of something that's not for you. I know for me it's one of my super bad habits is trying to fix something that I didn't break and they getting so caught up in like, "I know this can work if I could fix this one thing, but I didn't break it and this gorilla glue ain't doing nothing." I had a thing that happened to me and we went to this competition in Dallas called DIPS, the Dallas Invitation Poetry Slam, where the prize was a giant bowl of guacamole in this beautiful silver bowl, and it was the best damn guacamole I've ever had in my life.

Amena Brown:

I was about to say, where does one go to do this?

Theresa Davis:

I know, it doesn't happen anymore. But it was one of those things where I went and we did this workshop. Back then I held back a lot because I didn't want to be the poet who burst into tears every time she opens her mouth or write about sad stuff all the time, and the workshop we did, I decided that I was going to allow myself to be as vulnerable as I could stand. I could be very vulnerable in my work when I talked about my job, because I love my job. I was teacher, I love being a teacher, my kids, I love being a mom, I have not damaged them in any serious way that hopefully they will have great jobs later and could pay for that. I try really hard to like be present in their lives. If I'm telling you to show up for opportunities then you have to show up for yourself. You know what I mean?

Amena Brown:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Theresa Davis:

I wrote Breathing Lessons in that workshop, and this is a poem that is quite old, but it still resonates with me and it hits me differently depending on when I do it. Sometimes I'm not terribly emotional at all, but I'm still connected to the work, and then other times it floors me from out of nowhere. And I think it's because I realized I still have that loss of innocence, that wanting to be with a person but not understanding how to do that in a way where you're still yourself. Losing yourself inside somebody else's never a good thing. Sometimes we don't understand that it's not a good thing until we actually done it and have to climb back into our own skins and be like, "Oh, that was icky. Let me get it out of my body." I think that being able to be present in the work is still me processing it out of my body, but actually understanding that this was a part of who I am.

Theresa Davis:

I come across a lot of people who are ashamed of earlier work and they'll say things like, "Well, I've grown and I don't write like that anymore." I'm like, "But you can't deny that that wasn't who you were." To do that I think does a disservice to yourself. If you can't look at what you've done in the past and where you are now and see the growth in it, you become in danger of disconnecting from your work. I value words, I value other people's time. If you're going to take the time to come and hear me say words, I feel like it's my job as an artist and someone who is proud of their work and someone who enjoy sharing, because I believe sharing our stories connects us. We get past our differences in like, "This is...", or whatever. We figure out where we connect, where we overlap and when my story bumps up against your story and I want to have a conversation about that.

Theresa Davis:

So this poem, Breathing Lessons, is about me being in love with a woman and not understanding what this meant. I did this poem at a showcase at nationals in Boston, and it was a very first poem and the finals two hour show, at the end of the show this couple walks up to me, this man and this woman, white man and white woman, I am not white. I don't know if you know me? And the man comes to me and he says, "I need you to talk to my wife." And I say, "Why?" And he says, "She was in a relationship with a woman when she was in college, and she never had closure with that relationship. And I really feel like she needs to get that closure because I feel like it's holding up our relationship. I love her and I know she loves me, but I just wanted her to hug you or talk to you or whatever." And his wife is still in tears. She's been crying through the entire show from that one poem.

Theresa Davis:

For me, that's connecting. I am in Boston and a random white dude connects with my story and is so secure in his marriage that he wants his wife to have the closure that she never got, because the whole problem was about closure, about wanting that closure and understanding who you are now, I suppose who you were when you were 19 and star eyes and all these other things. The fact that the poem can be as old as the poem is, and still resonate with people as strongly as it still does, I think a lot of that has to do with allowing myself to be vulnerable, allowing myself to tell that story and feel safe in my words, even if the room may not be safe.

Theresa Davis:

I feel like authenticity and genuineness comes across through the voice. The voice is the most powerful instrument in the world. As an educator, I learned real early that the BS in your voice can be heard louder than the authenticity or genuineness of it. So I try to be as authentic and safe in myself as I can. But I think it's really important to take care of yourself. When I work in workshops, we get into prompts or things that may go places you're not ready to go. Writers who are listening, I'm sure we've all written that thing where we started going down that road, we were like, "Oh-oh, oh-oh, wait, wait. That's scab. That's a scab. You pick it, you pick it, you pick it a scab. Oh no. Now blood, okay. Okay. You got to be fine." You go there and you're like, "Oh my God, I can't stop. But this hurts." But that's part of the healing I also believe.

Theresa Davis:

I always tell people when I'm working at workshops, I'm like, "Don't go as deep or be as shallow as you want, protect yourself first." Sometimes this will take you places you may not be ready to go yet, "Don't go in that deep, if you can't swim very well." Feel free to step back from it. Take it in another direction if you can or change the topic and maybe come back to that later, when you're ready to actually say what your heart is pushing your pen to say. So it's always interesting and I love it. I love it, I work with a lot of young people now and it makes me feel empowered to help empower them to share their words and share their work.

Amena Brown:

How did you learn how to process this in your words, even the places where you may have written things that didn't show up on stage? I know we all have those pieces that you like, "I have to write this and maybe no one's ever going to see this." And then sometimes you do write it and get to a point where you're like, "Oh, okay. It would help me and help some other people for me to share this." But was that something being a child of two poets that you feel like you learned that way? Or how did you learn that process for yourself?

Theresa Davis:

So I come from a family that was very close. We always sat down and had dinner together. Saturday night was family night, game night, whatever, we had songs that dictated how that Saturday was going to go, you wake up and you're listening to Elton John screaming real loud, you know you are cleaning the entire house all the way down to the baseboards. You hear Stevie Wonder playing, you might be going to the drive in later, we don't even know.

Theresa Davis:

So a lot of those things dictated our days and our moving through, but we also talked a lot. Being able to say, "Okay, how was school this week?" Or, "What's going on with you?" And knowing that the person who's asking the question genuinely wants to hear the answer and wants to have a conversation with you, not necessarily parade about, You should not that," but not make you feel shame about it, even if it's silly, not to belittle you or make you feel like your voices is not a part of the conversation. And I think as we grow and as technology and all these things that happen that distract us from actual social interactions, as far as we social media it. I think the art of conversation and talking to somebody is becoming this weird space where people don't know how to talk to people, they don't know how to ask questions, they don't know how to ask for help even sometimes, because we think things are bigger than us in that, "Oh, my thing is so little, nobody's going to care about this."

Theresa Davis:

I never felt that in my household, I never felt like I couldn't tell my mom something. There were definitely some stuff I did not tell my mom-

Amena Brown:

But that's different from feeling like you couldn't tell her.

Theresa Davis:

Right. That's totally different. When I write, I try to get it out of my body first and then organize it in a way that makes sense. I believe that all poets are storytellers and if I'm going to tell my story and be authentically true to myself, the challenge for me then becomes, "What is the metaphor that's going to help me connect to other people? Have other people relate to what I'm saying."

Theresa Davis:

Some of my poem is seriously queer, some of my poem is super Black. Some of my poetry is like, "Oh my God, I'm a mom and I love my kids. Don't you wish you was my kid?" It's that tricky space. I have poems that while the subject matter may be like, "I don't agree with that," but the premise you can't deny. I think one of the poems that I wrote that, other than Breathing Lessons, that definitely bridge that divide was like like, because everybody in the world has like liked somebody. And you may have an issue with me like liking a girl, but you have like liked somebody before and you can't deny that. We've all had, even if it was us or our children or a child of a friend, we've all seen that person who thought they was in love with somebody and then it did not go well, and then they're sad, because they thought they was in love and they was in like like or whatever.

Theresa Davis:

So we've all seen that, we've all experienced that on some level. That became the connector of me being able to connect with people who may not be able to connect directly with the first part of my story, but they could definitely get into the concept of what I'm saying. Sometimes it happens by accident, but there's sometimes I really work on crafting the poem so that it is definitely doing what I want it to do, it is truthful to my feelings or my experience and it's relatable.

Theresa Davis:

I think the poem that I worked on the hardest to get the metaphor right was Copse, knowing that the play on words are there C-O-P-S-E, which is a small group of trees and C-O-P-S, which is cops, as a persona poem where the poem was actually being told from the perspective of a wooden floor, and it's about murdering Black boys. And that's how connected when you connect with... Yeah. I feel like I love what I do, I love fleshing out my own stories, I love figuring out where our stories meet, be your friend or a perfect stranger, and I think that as a writer and as an artist, I'm always growing. So I'm always trying new things and sometimes they don't work so well, but that doesn't stop me from trying them. Hopefully I'm fostering that in my own kids and the young people that I interact with and some of the older people that I interact with.

Amena Brown:

I love the both end of your approach, that the first part of it is to honor your own story and to protect yourself first. But that is the advice you would give to a student writing or anybody writing. I think that's so powerful because I think sometimes there can be this idea that as artists, or as creative people, it's our job to believe for everyone, it's our job to take our vulnerabilities and just-

Theresa Davis:

Some of the scabs need to just stay on. Yeah.

Amena Brown:

Right. It might not be healthy for me to share some of that, and then I may not be in the right space either to be that vulnerable. And so I think sometimes we can lean that way as artists to feel like, "Man, I got to get out here and share this thing that may not be ready instead of letting it be what it's going to be on the page, whether that was meant for public consumption or not, and almost having to let the piece tell you," that's been my experience. The piece has to tell me, "I want people to hear this," then I have to go through like, "Am I really ready to take this out here?"

Amena Brown:

(music interlude)

Theresa Davis:

When I lost my dad, a lot of things changed. Our last conversation where he yelled at me and is a man who did not yell. We would have conversations and the police would show up because we were all very excited about what we were saying. It's a Black household, everybody got to be heard, so we talk loud, everything's louder. And he was furious with me, I didn't know I was clinically depressed back then, but I was super depressed. I was over 300 pounds, I was basically working and then sequestering myself in the house and dealing with the kids, but they could see that I was sad. Everybody saw I was sad. And he yelled at me and he said, "Stop trying to disappear, I can see your ass." That's how he said it, I know I'm not supposed to cuss, but that's what he said.

Amena Brown:

Sometimes you got to get a cuss word out and we welcome them.

Theresa Davis:

So he had that conversation with me and he had a similar conversation with each of my siblings during that week, and then he had a massive stroke and I had to take him off life support. So it was one of those things to where I was like, "Oh, wait a minute. He accused me of disappearing," and I had to toss that in my head about what does that mean and understand eventually that you could show up in your life every day and still not be there, every day and not be there. And I was doing that. I was killing the teaching game. My students love me, I had a waiting list for my class. My children were thriving, but I was so deeply not happy.

Theresa Davis:

We had a memorial service for him and I decided like in that moment, what am I teaching my kids for real, for real, even though I'm awesome teaching in classroom, can they also see all this other weight that I'm holding on to? And that my teaching my daughters, that complacency in a relationship is okay, what am I teaching them? We did our memorial service for my dad, I took a couple of days off work, I asked for a divorce and I moved. And within a couple of months I lost 150 pounds. I didn't do anything different, I still ate because I like food, I still did my jobs, I didn't add no exercise regimen in there because I have very particular ways I like to exercise and most of them are explicit.

Theresa Davis:

But I lost 150 pounds like nothing. Even that realizing how much weight I was holding onto that wasn't mine. And I started going to Java Monkey, I shared my first poem at Java Monkey and realized that that was a space where I felt like, "Oh, I can share this stuff and they're not going to blow smoke at me and be like, "Oh, that was amazing." Somebody will be like, "Oh wait, I was confused," and get honest feedback." And so that became my ritual, to go every Sunday and to have a new piece to share every Sunday. And I did that for about a year, steadily I was there every Sunday. And then of course life gets in the way, your kids are like, "I got a birthday party I want to go to," you're like, "But poems. Okay child, I'll take you to the birthday party. Do I have to chaperone? Dang it."

Theresa Davis:

Okay. Things started happening and I was there, but not every single Sunday. My first poem I read there and my loyalty and my believing in what that space does, the person who started it felt comfortable and safe handing me this baby that he has had for 15 years. I'm grateful for this community. This community has done a lot for me. I try and I don't always succeed, but I try to uplift and be present as much as I can. I do realize that everybody in my scene is considerably younger than me. Sometimes my old 53 year old brain wants to say, "Really? That's ridiculous, and can we be a grownup?" And that's not always the right thing to say, so I shut up. I don't say anything. I just make me look confused. I don't know. I can't see my face.

Theresa Davis:

I realized the last time I was on the team, I was like, "I have children older than everybody on my team." That's crazy to me. So some things are like, "I can't relate to that." You know why? Because I'm way older. It's a really interesting space I find myself in because I can't relate to a lot of things. My friends will say things and conversations and I'd be like, "Okay. Note to self don't do it right now. But you need to... what does that mean? IRL? Oh, in real life. Okay. We shortening everything now. All right. I don't know all of them. Someone told me I was a WCW and I was like, "I don't even know what this means." "Woman Crush Wednesday." "Oh, okay." Now I feel ridiculously old and a little less stupider because now I know what it means, until y'all change it to something else then I'm like, "I just now learned what that was now. Now I got to learn another thing?"

Amena Brown:

I finally learn, on fleek and then somebody turned that around. [crosstalk 00:26:12]. I don't know. What's going on? And I think too when you were talking about the transition from becoming a person that attended the open mic and then becomes a person who reads, performs at the open mic and now being a host, that's one of the things. I don't remember asking anybody because how could I have asked to know, but it does take a lot of holding space hosting an open mic, because you have this really mixed list of people. You've got some people walking up who think they're amazing and they're not, so you have to hold space for how they're going to feel when they finish that poem they thought was so awesome and only two people clapped, because it was very strange and weird. And then you have people who are fresh off a breakup, crying, and there they are at that mic sharing their story and you have to hold this space for them, as well as you've had to also be like, "What we not going to hold space for, is this ignorance."

Theresa Davis:

Right. Yeah. Keep your misogyny to yourself and your sexism and all. And so every once in a while, Sunday was interesting. I've never had to clap somebody off the stage.

Amena Brown:

What?

Theresa Davis:

Yeah. "I thought I was real clear you got three to five minutes. This is not a TED Talk, this is not an infomercial, this is,"-

Amena Brown:

And you're not the feature.

Theresa Davis:

"And you're not the feature. I got a full list and I want everybody to get in." The guy, we started off and I thought he was going to stop, but then he didn't. And there were a couple of times where I was like... When he started creeping towards eight minutes, I was like, "I don't want to clap him." Somebody who send the tape I was like, "I don't want to have to clap. I have to clap him off. It's my first time doing this, I've never had to do this. Okay." And I stood up and started clapping, looked at the audience threatening me like, "Y'all better clap too."

Amena Brown:

Clap right now.

Theresa Davis:

So they all got in there, started clapping and he was cool about it. But always my fear is that that person who's not cool about it, and now we have a whole nother thing-

Amena Brown:

To have to deal with.

Theresa Davis:

Yeah.

Amena Brown:

It is this tender balance of always wanting people to feel welcome, but having to hold that space in a certain way, for respect for people's time and respect for the space and all sorts of those things. So let me ask you about this, you also are still in spaces where you're teaching students?

Theresa Davis:

I am. Yeah.

Amena Brown:

And there's one poem you have and I know I don't remember the title of it right now, but always there's this moment in the middle of the piece where you're describing to us, how you are helping the students write and there's a couple of phrases and questions that they throw back at you as they're writing, that every time I hear you do the piece, it almost sounded like one of those terrible knock-knock jokes, like whoever said, how many bullets does it take-

Theresa Davis:

Take to kill a Black body.

Amena Brown:

Every time you get to that part and I'm sitting down watching Theresa tell this story. I was not in the room with the students having to answer that question. And then a lot of ways, I think what's beautiful about your work is yes, you have your work that you write that you perform and you also have this part of the work you do that you're helping other people find their voice and find their process. What are the things you say when you're going into this room of students, getting them to start processing ideas and thoughts and feelings and current events through writing? How do you get students started on this and to your point, a whole different generation of students from what it was like for you or for me growing up?

Theresa Davis:

Yes. Whenever I go into classrooms, I always start with the bio poem. I get them to do a poem about them so that they understand that there is no wrong or right, that your story is your story. You know you better than I know you. Maybe you have something in common with some of the kids in this room that you didn't know. Every time I've done this, there's at least four or five kids who are like, "I didn't know that I liked that too." So now you have the potential to make friends. I work primarily with middle school aged kids.

Amena Brown:

Wow. I didn't realize that.

Theresa Davis:

Yeah. Middle school is that area where it gets... I have a couple more high schools this year, and I like working with high schoolers too, but then it's a whole different challenge because it's like, "Okay, language for the sake of language, there are better words. This is not just a forum for you to say all the swear words in front of a teacher and not get in trouble this time. That's not what this is, and we're actually going to do some work." But when the young people, we start off with a bio poem and a lot of them are afraid to talk in front of people. They aren't asked questions directly a lot of the times, a lot of things are assumed about them or answers are assumed. So I have these kids they'll start talking and they interrupt themselves like they're waiting for me to... Because this is the part when I started saying this, that my teacher goes, "Boy, sit down," and I don't, and then am like, "I'm not going to interrupt you. I'm actually interested in what you want to say."

Theresa Davis:

And so I think that that helps a lot. A lot of times where they share that first poem about themselves and I asked real questions like, "Tell me three things that you fear. What do you fear?" Sometimes I get weird answers like, "I fear old people. The wrinkles make me feel like they going to suck me in." I'm like, okay, that's funny. Write it down." "I needed to know that. I'm going to be old people one day. I do not want to terrify you. "I have a fear of sharks." And I'm like, "Oh, you swim in the ocean a lot?" They're like, "I've never been in the ocean." Okay. Doesn't have to be irrational fear, but that's your truth. They share that first piece and then they're pretty generally open to like, "Okay, what are we doing next?" Because they do like talking about themselves and they don't get a lot of opportunities to do that.

Theresa Davis:

Of course as I go through my sessions, I usually do 10 sessions and then we do a culminating event and I always tell them like, "These tools that I'm giving you can actually apply to other parts of your education. As you matriculate, you're going to be expected to speak in front of people. This is one of these things that I'm teaching you. And this format right here, this can be used to open a book report, this could be used to open any science report, any report in school that you're going to have to do. You could do a bio poem for that person. You do a report about Rosa Parks, write Rosa Parks bio poem, and get some extra credit."

Theresa Davis:

And also I have the joy of being the new person in the room. I don't know if you know me, but I'm pretty shiny most of the time, with the rings and the hair and the kids are like, "Oh my God," I have the most fun in the classrooms where I walk in and the teacher's like, "We know they're really particular, it's going to take them a minute to warm up to you," and I'm like, "Oh, okay, I'm good. Just fine." And then 10 minutes later, I got some 11 year old telling me they entire life story. And I'm like, "Whoa, you've warmed up quickly." The adults are probably more weary of me than the kids. Kids are like, "Who is that? I want to talk to her."

Amena Brown:

Right. I want to tell her everything.

Theresa Davis:

"I want to tell her everything my whole life." I did a workshop with fourth graders and they want me back this year.

Amena Brown:

Fourth grade, wow.

Theresa Davis:

Yeah. It was fun. And one of the teachers wanted to buy my book. So I brought her a copy of my book and a fourth grader was like, "I want to buy your book." And I was like, "Well, unfortunately my book is not appropriate for your age." She was like, "But should be working with kids though." I was like, "Well yeah, I do be working with kids though." And she was like, "So you don't have a book of poems for kids?" And I was like, "No." She was like, "If you did Ms. Theresa, you would have all my allowance."

Amena Brown:

Come on, first of all with the allowance and the claps.

Theresa Davis:

She clapped me down. I'd never been clapped down by 11 old. She wasn't even 11, she was fourth grade, she's like nine. She said, But you don't want my allowance money?" I was like, "No, I do. And I'm going to write that book. I expect all. You want to know how much allowance you get?"

Amena Brown:

Every dollar of your allowance.

Theresa Davis:

"That's how much my book is going to cost. How much is your allowance?" And she's like, "I get five." So yeah, I'm feeling five. "I'm going to write a book and it's going to cost five dollars and you're going to bring me your allowance. It's great. And working with the kids also sets me up in my heart, so I can work and process adults a little bit better. I think working with that age group is what really helped me have a healthy attitude about competition. When you talking to a room full of people who are excellent at side eye and ignoring you, it makes you work for it. They're random, some days they love you, some days they can't stand the air you're breathing right now, wish you would stop, but it's always a good time.

Theresa Davis:

I've had very few bad experiences and if I do usually comes from the administrator or the school itself. But I always have a great time with the kids, that's one of the things that brings me joy.

Amena Brown:

I love it. And I love how there's almost this ecosystem in your work where there are these very communal aspects to it, but that also feeds back into the things that you write and how you process everything. So I love that for people who might be walking alongside someone who is grieving and you and I talked about before we started recording, just how, and I think you've mentioned this too, since we've been talking, grief shows up in a lot of ways for a lot of reasons, and sometimes it is a loss of a place where we thought we had our identity built on that, now we're like, "Okay, if am not that, who am I now?"

Amena Brown:

And sometimes it can be loss of a job or a position, something in our career, it can be a relationship, it could be losing someone who's passed on, there's all these different ways we can experience the grief, the crisis of faith, so to speak. I'm thinking specifically about that because I remember that being a place of grief for me in my twenties like, "It is some things, y'all had told me that's not right and I'm upset," and I was having that. There could be some grief involved in that too.

Amena Brown:

So I want to ask you, what would be the stuff you'd say to people who maybe they're not in the grief themselves, but they're watching a person that they love, that they work with, walk through this? And I think a lot of times, I don't know if that's American, we don't have like something for how we handle grief.

Theresa Davis:

Yeah. I think we do a lot of things to distract ourselves from grief. I know I have been guilty of it and I'm pretty sure everybody has been guilty of some form of it, where distract by getting into these situations that you know are not going to work well, just so that you have that in the arsenal or you distract yourself by avoiding it.

Amena Brown:

Right. That's one of my favorites.

Theresa Davis:

Be it in some other vice or some other person or some other thing. I've been grieving my dad, he's been gone for 14 years now. And I don't know if there's a look that I get on my face when I think about him, and I think about all the things that he is missing out on and all the things that my kids are missing out on, and every once in a while my son he'll see it and he'll say, "Tell me a cheeky story." Because he was four when my dad passed, so he has no memory of his grandfather, whereas my daughters have all these stories and he's grieving also, he doesn't have those stories, he doesn't have those moments.

Amena Brown:

That has to be it's own grief.

Theresa Davis:

So that's a different grief and I think what we send to do humans, is we try to make it all about one thing. So the loss of my father, it's not just me grieving that he is no longer here, it is that, but it's not only that. It's also knowing that my son won't have those stories, that my nephews don't have this legacy that my daughters have. And that my daughters feel the same way that you didn't get this. So these are layers of grief, and they're not all the same thing that we tend to try to make it the same thing.

Theresa Davis:

I know losing my dad has created other things that I've lost, I lost some trust. Survivor's guilt is real and being the oldest is real, and when your family is in turmoil and you are present and you're trying to be there for them and your mom makes a decision but can't utter it out of her mouth, when you have this man that you love and you have to say, "Take them off life support," and know you cannot harvest his organs, he's in Rastafarian, and if he's not all together, he can't get Zion.

Theresa Davis:

Not realizing down the line how that decision was going to affect me in different ways. So my abandonment issues are way layered and weird. I don't know how to fix it exactly, I know I'm not intentionally doing these things, but in the back of my head it's like, "Mm-hmm (affirmative), people leave in different ways." So I think when you're walking with somebody who is dealing with grief, I think you have to sometimes walk with them and not say anything. Just being there, listen, you don't necessarily have to comment. Sometimes people just want to say a thing and not necessarily have a discussion about it. What you don't do is say things like, "That was 14 years ago, and I can't believe you're still dealing with that," that kind of stuff. Because that'll get a poem written about you that you will not like-

Amena Brown:

Listen, that is one of the powers of being a poet right there.

Theresa Davis:

Hello, you want to clap back with words? I got ya. That's what you have to make sure that you don't do. And asking people if they're okay and being prepared for the answers. I did a human experiment about a year ago, where I caught myself and I think we all do it, say about, "How you doing?" And you're like, "Oh, I'm good," and you're really not.

Theresa Davis:

So I said for a week, I'm going to be brutally honest in how I feel. And I scared a lot of people and that made me feel uncomfortable. I didn't like making them feel that way. I think my most brutal answer was I had a really rough week. A person I dated was killed in a car accident coming back from a festival and I was not in a good head space.

Theresa Davis:

And one of my friends was like, "Are you okay?" I was like, "Actually no. I think about at a four. I only thought briefly about driving into oncoming traffic, just briefly, was just a minute. I think I'm better now." And they were like, "What the hell did you just say to me? Do I need to call it?" "No, no." My thing is, if I'm saying it, I'm not doing it, so we good, but that's where I am right now. And if I burst into tears at any random moment, don't be afraid. I'm not trying to scare you. I'm not fine, but I will be fine. I think that that honesty is terrifying, but I only did it for a week. I literally made somebody burst into tears on the spot, and I was like, "That was not my goal." I think I was secretly doing research for this poem that I was going to write and Nate wrote it before me.

Amena Brown:

Dang it Nate.

Theresa Davis:

I know asking people how they do it and tell them the real answer and then freaking out. But some things we don't want to know, we think we want to know, but we don't want to know. And us as human beings, especially those of us who are nurturers, you don't want to make your stuff, other people's stuff, you don't want to take them through it. So, "How you doing?" "I'm great."

Amena Brown:

You don't want to impose.

Theresa Davis:

Yeah. And I think me and Karen have a thing, I just say, "Everything's great. Everything's wonderful." But in this tone that is clearly not.

Amena Brown:

I think my ends up being, "Everything's fine. Everything is fine. Everything is fine." It's a repeat of that. I think I have some people in my life that are like, "Oh no. If she said everything is fine that many times, ain't nothing fine."

Theresa Davis:

Right. That's cold. Not quite an SOS, but it's like pay attention.

Amena Brown:

Totally that. I'm sure one day one of us or a bunch of us will sit down and write more about the things that the poetry community has taught us about life. And I feel like being in the poetry community has taught me better how to hold space with people, and that sometimes that does mean asking how they're doing and looking them in the eyes and waiting there to see what they say. And it might mean I got to put my hand on a shoulder or just stand there if they don't want to be touched in that moment.

Theresa Davis:

Or take a seat because it's going to go a minute.

Amena Brown:

Yes. But it has taught me more to hold that space, and that that's okay for us to hold that space for each other and we need to. Y'all, thank Theresa Davis. This is the part where normally Matt puts some applause right here for me, because this is the part where am like, "Y'all give it up for Theresa," but I always forget nobody here but me and her. So I'm giving it up for Theresa Davis. Thank you for joining the podcast, for sharing your story and your work process with us. You know I love me some you, and I'm just so excited to be able to share you with the podcast community. So thank you.

Theresa Davis:

Yay. Thank you. Thank you.

Amena Brown:

Y'all, I love me some Theresa Davis. In the before times, Theresa was the host of one of Atlanta's most thriving open mic poetry events, Java Speaks. During the pandemic, Theresa has continued to host Java Speaks as a virtual open mic held every Sunday. She is also the literary events director at the ArtsXchange and art space that empowers artists, social justice activists, and creative entrepreneurs to engage communities with innovative artistic learning experiences and cultural exchange. You can follow Theresa on Instagram @shepiratpoet, and you can follow Java Speaks on Instagram @javaspeaks. To learn more about the ArtsXchange, you can visit artsxchange.org, that's A-R-T-S-X-C-H-A-N-G-E.org.

Amena Brown:

For this week's edition of Give Her A Crown, I want to shout out Lakota writer, actor, and comedian, Jana Schmieding. I am knee deep in watching Jana's new sitcom, Rutherford Falls, on Peacock, and if you haven't watched it, you need to. Jana is also the host of the Woman of Size podcast, where she interviews people about weight stigma, marginalization and speaks about the ills of the beauty industrial complex. Jana, thank you for the ways you use your platform to speak about your own journey and invite others to share their journey toward fat acceptance and the ways you uplift native women in your creative work. Jana Schmieding, Give Her A Crown.

Amena Brown:

HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 30

Amena Brown:

Welcome back to this week's episode of HER with Amena Brown, and I am all in my southern girl feelings today because we're talking about southern hip hop today with Assistant Professor of English and African Diaspora Studies at Kennesaw State University. Writer, researcher, daughter of the Black American south, author of Chronicling Stankonia: The Rise Of The Hip-Hop South, let's welcome Dr. Regina Bradley to the HER living room.

Amena Brown:

What's going down? I take all the applause. All of it. Okay. I'm giving it to you because there should be thousands of people here with us that would have been clapping. They're listening but since they can't clap for us right now I'm here using these two hands to help that. Let me [crosstalk 00:01:25].

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Well, you know what they say, where two or three are gathered.

Amena Brown:

Okay. Okay. And we're here and my husband and producer, he here. That's three of us. There's two, three of us. Right here. That's it.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

That's it.

Amena Brown:

You all, I'm so excited to have Dr. Regina Bradley here, in our HER living room because I have been following her on Twitter for a long time... I cannot remember who it was, it was another Black woman a couple years ago that was like, you all need to go follow... told a bunch of us to follow you. That's was when I started following you a couple of years a go and then when I saw you-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

What?

Amena Brown:

... talking about your book, Chronicling Stankonia, I was like, I am in desperate need of having her on this podcast. So thank you for agreeing to this. Okay. So I need to start with some basic facts and just let me tell you I have grown up mostly in the South. I moved around aa lot as a kid but I basically lived between Texas and the South. And Texas people listening... Texas is not the South and we love you. Okay? We love you.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Oh, don't start? We starting off early with violence.

Amena Brown:

Well, you're Texas. Texas is its own place. If you all live there you all know what I mean because I went to high school in Texas. Junior high and high school actually. And it has southern things but it's own place. Okay. So I lived in Texas and then just different parts of the South and Georgia obviously. I've been here over 20 years now, but my people are from North Carolina.

Amena Brown:

So when I moved from Atlanta for college, I had a friend that went to Clark Atlanta, that was from where you grew up in Georgia. Now I pronounce that Albany when I first saw it. I was like oh, okay, you're from Albany, Georgia and he was like, "That's not where I'm from." He was like, I'm from Albany, is how-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Albany.

Amena Brown:

... That's how he told me to say it. Can you discuss why it's important to make sure we don't pronounce Albany, New York the same as Albany Georgia? Just discuss for the people.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

I mean, I'm just saying your red clay, your water, your blues ain't like ours, you know what I'm saying? So Albany-

Amena Brown:

[crosstalk 00:03:42].

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... Albany is very northeastern. You know what I'm saying? It's our sister city but I mean, I just get excited when I be like, fool where you from? Shit I'm from Albany I'm like, all right. South side raised over here.

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

And it's just different. It's just different. I feel like the ancestors live in your voice when you say Albany. You know what I'm saying?

Amena Brown:

Come on.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Through the struggle, through the triumph, the chili dogs all of it.

Amena Brown:

I need everything about this. Can you also explain to people because I feel like for a lot of people that have either never been to Georgia or aren't familiar with the state for a lot of people Atlanta is Georgia and that's everything. But Atlanta is not Georgia. There are just many other cities, communities and other layers of southern culture going on outside of the city of Atlanta. So can you talk about what's the difference between growing up in Albany versus what it is like to be in Atlanta.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

First of all, Atlanta might as well be its own state within the state because the perimeter is it's own thing. It's contained in it's own physical space. It literally has 285 to surround it. The circumference of the city but once you go OTP, outside the perimeter, you know what I mean? That's when you get "real Georgia". You know what I mean?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

It's interesting because Atlanta for folks like me who grew up outside of the perimeter it's like how folks think about New York. You know what I mean? When you want to get away from home and you want to be successful, you got to Atlanta.

Amena Brown:

That's right. That's right.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

You know what I mean? It's close enough to home. If something goes down, you can be like, all right I'm just going to hop off 75 and come back but it's big enough that folks are like, Oh, you live in Atlanta and folks don't judge you. You know what I'm saying? I'm in Atlanta. Right? But it's important because this is something I kind of talk about in the book too, is that the South isn't a monolith and what that means is, how I came up in Georgia is different than somebody in Mississippi or Alabama.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

But even within the state how I came up in southwest Georgia which is... I mean, Albany is... the Benny is a small city so to speak but it isn't nowhere near Atlanta size. It's small-time rural Georgia so fields and shit close on Sunday at four o'clock. You know what I'm saying? Everything close for church. You know what I'm saying?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

It's different than Atlanta as this urban hub. You know what I'm saying? So, it's important to kind of recognize that because it translates one way in the A doesn't mean it's going to translate the same way in the Benny, or in Waycross or in Savannah.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

So, I mean, it's just important to let folks have their own flavor and do their own thing but unfortunately because Atlanta is so internationally known, that's what folks gravitate towards. You know what I mean? Like you don't hear nobody be like, I'm going to vacation to Osila. No offense to people from Osila.

Amena Brown:

Right, right.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... or Titi.

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Do you know what I mean? I'm just saying. That's not at the top of the list. It's no, I'm going to vacation to Atlanta. You know what I'm saying? So it's important to kind of recognize everybody has their own flavor even within the state. All that to say, the Benny is definitely different than A. We the little A.

Amena Brown:

Yes. Yes.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

We the little A.

Amena Brown:

The little A.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

[crosstalk 00:07:06] with the little A.

Amena Brown:

We love to see that. Okay. First of all, it touches me that you have written this book and you all that are listening, that are just about to go the your bookseller and buy five copies of this book. This book is so important-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

[crosstalk 00:07:26] indie.

Amena Brown:

Okay. Please and buy indie while you at it. I'm telling you favorite bookseller, but your favorite bookseller should be indie, so work on that, do that and buy five copies at the time. But what I love about this book is it's a read for people who are hip hop connoisseurs, who enjoy hip hop culture and music but that it's also something that can be used as a textbook. Right? That there could be people studying this in a classroom. So, I want to talk about the first time that you can remember hearing Outkast's music and I'll tell you what my first time was.

Amena Brown:

I know that I was in high school and there was a little concrete bench of some kind, that was in sort of the courtyard of our school where everybody hung out. And I had a friend Chris who also rapped on the side, as many of us did at this era of time, and I remember him freaking out about having heard this verse that opens with, "It's the MI crooked letter."

Amena Brown:

And as he was saying the words to us, he sang the words to us. I hadn't even heard the song myself actually first. He said the words to us because we were all studying hip hop a lot, trying to rap. This is before I realized rap wasn't going to be for me and I need to become a poet but I was still trying at this time. And so because he mentioned it to us then we all had to go home and try to see how we could find this music and listen to it. It still touches me when I hear their music today hearing how distinctly southern their voices were, on that music. So what was your first time? Your first memory of hearing this music from Outkast?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

The Martin episode, the Player's Ball. That was my very first memory of hearing Outkast and it was right at the end. So I was like, Oh, yeah. Well, I still feel like I was kind of I'm young. It was right before bedtime so to speak. You know what I'm saying? It was like, Okay, you get this last minute of Martin, and then it's time for you to go to bed.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

But my first for real, for real time, legit, what you're talking about is definitely on Goodie Mob's Black Ice, because I talk about that in the book too. But it was just like, friends, Romans, countrymen, and then lyrics were "it was a beautiful day up in the neighborhood." I was like what neighborhood we going to? Why's it so beautiful? You know what I'm saying?

Amena Brown:

Okay. Okay. Tell me everything. I want to know everything-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

[crosstalk 00:10:04] I remember classmates and friends just randomly throwing out Outkast lyrics going down the hall to class. You know what I'm saying? It was like for me coming from northern Virginia where Outkast was only a word in the dictionary at the time. I don't remember listening to Outkast like that when I was in Northern Virginia. I was in Alexandria Fort Belvoir because military brat.

Amena Brown:

Right. Same for me.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

So when I come South, in my mind I'm thinking everybody listen to the same kind of hip hop, you know what I'm saying? So I'm like, all right so if I'm listening to Bad Boy and Busta Rhymes and Wu-Tang and all of the folks who are on the radio and the DMV. Well of course that's what they're listening to in small ass, rural ass, southwest Georgia. And then I get down there and I try to connect, my classmate is like, shawty. No. That isn't who we listening to. For real.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

I remember this one dude, he was asking what happened to my little mix tapes, because you know that was the currency. You know what I mean? You could pass and they would share mix tapes. And dude was like, shawty what this deal? Who this? You aren't listening to nobody I know. He was just naming off all of these southern folks UGK, 8Ball & MJG, Three 6 Mafia, you know what I'm saying? And I'm just kind of like, I'm the new kid so that gave me at least some kind of advantage. But then they were like, she isn't even listening to our music.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

That just put me in a whole different hole so to speak so I had to dig myself up out the hole. So of course I'm listening to at the time it was Hot 106.1, it isn't there any more. Also 96.3 which is still there and I'm taking notes and making new mix tapes because I'm like, if I die now there's no coming back from the social death when I start high school. Enjoying southern rap became a life or death situation for a freshman. An incoming freshman from high school, you know what I'm saying? Who can't write about nothing so I just remember how my mixed tapes changed over time. It was like, okay so I remember one I got from D.C. I think it had Wyclef Jean on there, there was Bad Boy on there. And then it like abruptly cuts off to Tear Da Club Up Three 6 Mafia andMaster P, you know what I'm saying? And I'm like you can kind of tell this is when your girl transitioned.

Amena Brown:

Right. I mean one of the things that I really love about just this era of hip hop especially those first couple albums of Outkast, is that hip hop had so much of a regional element then. I remember being in Texas and I grew up in San Antonio, Texas because my parents were in the military too. So that's what moved us to San Antonio, but being in a city like that where a lot of people were kind of in and out It was a very transient place.

Amena Brown:

It was sort of like we didn't really know our hip hop identity all the way because we didn't have an MCs from there then but we did have DJ Screw, from that area around southern Texas time. So I remember living there and there being a very specific Texas sort of hip hop sound. And then when I moved to Atlanta for college, I moved here for college in 98, so that was the year that Aquemini came out, and if you were driving by anybody's dorm rooms, apartments, everybody's windows open playing that record.

Amena Brown:

And I think that was really the first time that I got to experience what a cultural shift a group like Outkast was bringing. I mean still Rosa Parks as a song. Its still a life changing situation with me, just the middle of that song with this fiddle-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

The hoe-down.

Amena Brown:

... hoe-down. Just the nerve to put that in the middle of a hip hop song, I was like whatever this is I really need this. So I love to hear about that because I think for us trying to be rappers, those of us who tried in the late 90s, we were emulating New York because-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Right.

Amena Brown:

... at the time where it was like that's the sound you need to have or keep. Then to start hearing what the South was doing with hip hop gave you all this other stuff you could be doing with how you rap, with how you produce, all of that.

Amena Brown:

So okay, the other thing I want to ask you about is, were people talking about Kilo Ali when you were growing... can you discuss Kilo Ali with me because when I moved here, to Atlanta Georgia and I would ask people as you did back then, one of your first questions... you brought this up, one of your first questions to people is like, well, what rap you listening to? Who's your favorite rapper? People that are born and raised Atlanta were like Kilo Ali, and I was like, who is that?

Amena Brown:

I didn't know anything about Kilo at all. If people who are born and raised here, not people who moved here to get a job, people who were born and raised here they were children here, they were like, it's Kilo Ali for me. Can you discuss the importance of Kilo in the southern hip hop conversation?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Oh, yeah. I mean Kilo Ali was one of the earliest introductions to hip hop sound originating in Atlanta. I mean, that's the best way to put it. You know what I'm saying? So when he comes out with Cocaine in 1990.

Amena Brown:

Okay, okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

You know what I mean? Before we had trap music we had Kilo Ali. You know what I'm saying? My first introduction to Kilo Ali was Baby, Baby. You know what I'm saying? Like, I need your L-O-V-E, Baby, Baby, I was like oh, okay. Then I heard boom in my car, you know what I'm saying? Show Me Love, all of these things. He is an architect for Atlanta sound. You know what I mean?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Obviously you can't talk about Atlanta without Organized Noize, right? But you also can't talk about Atlanta without Kilo Ali, Raheem The Dream. You know what I'm saying? These folks who are taking what they found going on in Atlanta and how they grew up in these communities in Atlanta and pulling it on wax in ways that folks who were really checking for. You know what I'm saying? I get it. You know what I mean? If you really from the A, you're like Kilo is going to be on the top of your list, in minimum in your top three. At minimum. You know what I'm saying? So, I get it. I get it.

Amena Brown:

That was my moment of moving here to Georgia and having to get educated when the people were like, it's Kilo Ali and I think at the moment Regina, I didn't even want to be like I don't know who that is. I was just like oh, word. Has to go home and figure out-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Right. You don't want to be called out. You was like, but then you'd get back to the room and be like, okay hold up, let me-

Amena Brown:

What are they talking about? Let me go listen.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... there was no streaming back then-

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... so you had to literally had to sit down at the radio and be like, okay, I'm ready.

Amena Brown:

Let me wait until they drop this Kilo so I can know what they talking about.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

You knew they knew were going to drop it around nine o'clock because in Albany they had the Dirty South hour, like the BOOM Shake hour. You know-

Amena Brown:

Okay, okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... what I mean? So that was from 9:00 to 10:00. So Kilo Ali is going to show up at least one time in the mix. You know what I mean? And if that's your one thing you better use the hell out of it and be like, I know what you're t- and you better know it verbatim.

Amena Brown:

Okay. You got to be ready next time you can't just be out here-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

[crosstalk 00:18:10] be ready to go.

Amena Brown:

... you can't be out here not knowing. Okay, you brought up what is a very important question among hip hop heads, we normally trade, what would we say are our top five MCs. I want to narrow that question and ask you what do you feel are five southern hip hop quintessential songs.

Amena Brown:

If you could think of five southern hip hop songs that you feel like these are essential to the canon. If you're entering the conversation you need to at least know these. What would you say are-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

[crosstalk 00:18:49]

Amena Brown:

... those top five songs? Its hard to name five.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

I'll do it like this. I hate this question. I-

Amena Brown:

You just.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... can't stand this question-

Amena Brown:

You'll just give me several.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... because I feel like it changes every time somebody ask me this question. Okay, today I feel like UGK Pocket Full of Stones is important, Three 6 Mafia Tear Da Club Up is important. Elevators by Outkast is important.

Amena Brown:

Yes.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Just want to make sure I hit all the areas so to speak. Back That Ass Up.

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

It's canonical. Its not a lie. I guess back I'm from Georgia and Atlanta has such an influence on me I'm going back to Atlanta with this one but I feel like Cool Breeze Watch For The Hook is so important. But also put Three 6 Mafia's Late Night Tip in that conversation because gangster blues goes all the way off. But those are the ones are mainly kind of my today, today.

Amena Brown:

Okay. That's right. That's fair.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

So if your audience is like, Dr. Bradley you disappoint me I'm like, listen this changes every time somebody ask me this question but today that's who I'm going with. That's who-

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... I'm going with today.

Amena Brown:

I respect these choices right here because I feel like you gave us a good amount of breadth. You gave us some places to go and you brought up Gangsta Boo I was like, okay when we done with this interview I'm going to have to go revisit that.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

For real. I listen to her. She laid the game quite flat on late night shows. I'm kind of just like oh, wow. But I mean regardless of what they, Back That Ass Up is pretty much going to be on my top.

Amena Brown:

Okay. Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

It changed my life. It changed my life because I was at the little homecoming dance, you know what I'm saying? And we're still wilding about Pa, okay. But then folks are dancing and then all of a sudden DJ drops out the little music. You know what I mean?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

He's doing his little talking thing boom, boom, boom, and then all of a sudden you hear the beginning of Back That Ass Up and folks are just looking at each other like, what? What? And we were like, play that back-

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... one more time.

Amena Brown:

Okay. Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

And I couldn't really do nothing because it was high school, right? But when it played it in college, I had my cup. I had my little solo cup, you know what I'm saying? I had my little secret drink in there. And you'll be making your final rounds and be like all right I'm going to see you all, whoot-whoot and then you hear it come on and you like, you know what? I've got one more in me.

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

I got one more dance in me. I got one more dance in me, you know what I'm saying? So it's called forever and I am 37 now and I ain't got no Meghan the Stallion knees, you know what I'm saying?

Amena Brown:

It's not.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... but I'm going to give you a Meghan the Stallion effort whenever I hear.

Amena Brown:

This is what I respect. Well, this is what we need, a Meghan the Stallion effort. Okay I'll try.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Effort. I'm going to give you the effort. I'm going to give you effort. Now my husband might have to pick me up, which he's had to do in the past, Mr. Bradley but I'm going to pretend it's back 98, 99 and I'm going to pretend we're taking over for the 2000s like I still got 16, 17, 20-year old knees, you know what I mean? I'm going to give you the effort, that's the one song you will always get the effort out of Regina is, Back That Ass Up.

Amena Brown:

This is what I aspire to is the Meghan the Stallion effort. That's all I have. I also-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

That's all I got.

Amena Brown:

... I want to echo your sentiment about Back That Ass Up because the last time I went to my college reunion I graduated from Spelman so we were doing the Spelman warhouse tailgate which is wild.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Warhouse.

Amena Brown:

It's wild time. Okay. So the last time I went out there they had a DJ on the Spelman side and there's always a few older alumni who are there, that are 20, some of them 30 years older than us. So when the DJ on their side drops Brick House all decorum is over.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

That window.

Amena Brown:

Its done. There's just hips and booty all over the place and my girlfriend looked at me when were at homecoming the last time before the pandemic, she turned to me and she said, you know that in several-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

That's going to [crosstalk 00:23:12].

Amena Brown:

... years this is us, to Back That Ass Up. That's exactly what she said.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

You know what is another song is too, because I feel that. I feel that and this pangea is messing us up-

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... all because I miss homecoming. There's no more homecoming like HBCU homecoming. You know what I mean? I took my daughter to Virginia State homecoming in 2019, right? And she was looking at me crazy because I didn't go to Virginia State. My cousin went to Virginia State so it was like I didn't really know nobody but because I knew my cousin of course, and then I'm also Greek, you know what I'm saying? So it was like I got the float.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

And my daughter was like, mom do you know these people? I'm like, no, and that's the point.

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

That's the point, we can turn up. We can turn up so I agree with you. I'm going to be 50, 60 years old and somebody going to be like, what you know about this? And then its going to be these younger folks will come up in there and we're going to push the younger folks out the way and be like move this is not for you. But also like Knuck If You Buck to the conversation.

Amena Brown:

I will speak a word today about Knuck If You Buck.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Because I'm an aka-er, so I see the younger students kind of run out there, I see the young alphas run out there. And in our age group I'm like, move, move out the way. Move that isn't for you. You all are in this whistle, alphas, I be ready to fight. I'll be like where'd the whistle come from? There's no whistle but anyway Back That Ass Up and Knuck If You Buck that's going to be our Brick House at homecoming 2030, 2035.

Amena Brown:

I'm so glad that you brought up Knuck If You Buck. Now that I'm talking to you about this Regina I feel like I need a strong southern canonical playlist of hip hop and Knuck If You Buck has to be in there. I mean there is just so many-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

It's got to be in there.

Amena Brown:

... elements about that song, it's aggression in the best way. The Knuck If You Buck line, that little line it just brings so much joy to me.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

But it also erases any kind of like you were saying about the prestige. I have a Ph.D. I'm a college professor but when I hear that come on I go way back to being in college not giving a damn.

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

I'm just like, all right. You know what I mean? And it's the same thing with that. It doesn't compute. It doesn't compute. Oh, you're supposed to be Dr. Bradley when this is on. No, no, I'm not Dr. Bradley when this is on, I'm Gina May when this is on. And-

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... we don't necessarily see eye-to-eye all the time. So I'm just going to put that out there.

Amena Brown:

I also have to submit that for me having grown up between Texas and then as an adult moving to Georgia, that booty music is also... southern booty music is a thing that I honestly feel like if I were in the Vatican and for some reason Scrub The Ground were to play, for some reason in that space, I'm out.

Amena Brown:

I have to first of all, bend down enough to get my hands on my knees. That's the first thing I have to do and I feel like I don't care if I'm wearing a blazer and I was at some work function. It's your fault you dropped Scrub The Ground. That's not on me, that's a choice you made and I have to do what has to be done when Scrub The Ground gets dropped. That's it.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

I feel the same way about scrub The Ground. I really do. That is all. Treat the Vatican like a pool party. You know what I'm saying? [crosstalk 00:27:21] I'll be like, Pope I'm sorry sir. I'm sorry but somebody decided.

Amena Brown:

And now this is a ritual I have to do.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Again Meghan The Stallion effort because I can't get down there like I used to. However, we gone try it.

Amena Brown:

I am going to try it.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

We are going to try it.

Amena Brown:

I can at least get as far as my hands being on my knees and shout out to corn bread and biscuits because I got some extra booty more than I had 20 years ago so I bring that into this moment. That's about where I have got to really stay in that zone.

Amena Brown:

I can't literally scrub the ground. I had to just accept that's the case. You're going to try. You're just going to graze the ground maybe or hover the ground but you're going to try the effort. The effort.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

I love it.

Amena Brown:

Okay, lets talk about Chronicling Stankonia. There's a couple of things I want to talk to you about right here. One of the things I want to ask you about is your experience going into academia and really focusing here on not just Black culture but southern Black culture.

Amena Brown:

What has that journey been like? Because I feel like there's been some conversation among my friends who are in academia about the amount of people who are teaching Black studies that are not Black and who are not really living in this culture acquainted with it. What was your journey like in going into academia and deciding I want to represent my people, represent the people I'm from, represent our language, represent our music? What was that like?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

So just non-Black folks doing Black studies and stuff like that. I don't have a problem with it as long as you remember you're a guest in this space. That's when we get ready to throw hands that you have some folks out here that are like well, I can... like some folks are like, I can lyrically do this and this.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Or I can give you all the facts about this particular thing. I'm like but you forget that you are guest in this space. You know what I'm saying? But I mean, it's interesting man because actually I tell folks I've been writing Chronicling Stankonia since I touched down in Albany back in 1998 I feel like. You know what I mean?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Because I've been part of the culture. The culture has been part of me, but it wasn't until I graduate school I went to Indiana University for graduate school, for my master's, and then I went to Florida State for my PhD but going to the Midwest was a wake up call for me in realizing how southern I had truly become. You know what I'm saying?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

So I was taking a grad seminar with Dr. Porshia Molsbe, who is the OG. You don't talk about Black popular music unless you reference doctor Molsbe. Right? And we got to the section on hip hop and it was great reading and folks knew what they were talking about but I felt isolated from the conversation because who they were talking about I wasn't really listening to like that, you know what I'm saying?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

And I asked her about it and she was like, well, what are you going to do about it? And I'm like, at the time. So I keep going through the studies and I go into the English program. Of course when you think hip hop studies you don't necessarily think English but I want to shout out my dissertation advisor doctor David Ickert because I was trying to go in one direction. I think I said I wanted to do my dissertation on Black women and the church and faith in the South. And he was like, okay. Right?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

But then I took his seminar class because you got to take multiple types of seminars and I wanted to African Americanist so I took his African American literature seminar, in my final paper in the class was on TI.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Which actually part of that paper in is in the chapter in the book on TI Like I said I've been writing this thing and I will never forget he had class and went and then he called me into his office and he was like, you need to be writing about hip hop. I'm like, I didn't know that was a thing. He was like, well we have to make it a thing.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

So my dissertation was about just hip hop in general but it wasn't until I couldn't find a job, I was adjuncting, I was desperate. I'm like you know what? I'm going to write about what I love which is the South and southern rap and then that's when the doors started opening so to speak. You know what I'm saying?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

When I went to Harvard on fellowship it was to work on this book because I was like, I'm writing about Outkast. When I got my job I used a draft from a chapter of this book. You know what I'm saying? So it was like southern hip hop opened doors for me when me trying the check of the bullet points of being a "traditional academic" you know what I'm saying? Were closing doors and slamming doors in my face. So when folks ask me about my connections to Outkast, I mean, I love them because they're brilliant. They're genius, you know what I mean?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

But the other part of it too is I feel like me and my work physically and culturally and spiritually embody that idea of being outcasted. I never fit to the academy the way folks have. As a Black woman professor for a lot of my students I'm the first Black woman professor they've had. Some students have told me I'm their first Black teacher period, you know what I mean?

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

So its like I'm consistently in this place of being outcasted but if I'm going to be outcasted I'm going the utilize it to my advantage. You know what I'm saying? So just being able to just speak through that and then coming out with Chronicling Stankonia, you know what I'm saying? I'm still kind of in shock that its out.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

I feel like I've been working on it for so long, I got contracted for the book in 2015 and its coming out six years later, you know what I mean? And I was trying the find all the ways to talk myself out of being crunk about it. I was like, okay maybe its too short, or maybe it's too academic, or maybe I didn't do this. You know what I mean?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

All these things but then I'm kind of just like well, shit's out there now. It's kind of like well, it's out there now and I've just been very fortunate to have, you have the folks who want to talk out beside of their neck, the thumb thugs, you know what I mean? But for the most part, hearing folks be like, you know what? this is the first time I've actually seen myself in a study about hip hop because I'm southern.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Makes me feel like it was worth it. Makes me feel like what I did in the book was accessible enough that it's academic but also it touches those folks who I grew up with. So all I can say... hope it answered your question. It was needed. I was sick about hearing about New York and everybody and those folks trying to use New York to validate what's going on in the South and I'm like, that's lazy. You know what I mean? I didn't want a lazy analysis of the South in hip hop. So hopefully Chronicling Stankonia isn't a lazy analysis, you know what I'm saying?

Amena Brown:

Was not a lazy analysis to me. I want to ask you about why is it important in particular for southern hip hop to be studied from an academic lens? I'm curious about that because I did an interview on a podcast a couple of years ago and the host asked me do I consider myself a southern poet?

Amena Brown:

And no one had ever asked me that but then when I looked back through my work, I mean, when you grow up in the South, when your family roots are here even when you're not intending to write from that lens, you just do. There were just certain things that were showing up in the work about the soil and the dirt and some of the food and the trees and some of those things, even in a random love poem somewhere, there's that tree that you remember from your grandmother's yard, or whatever that is and there's all those different elements that make up what it means to be from the South and then in particular the other layer of what it means to be Black and southern.

Amena Brown:

I love that that's a part of your bio that you are a daughter of the Black American South which I think is important. Why do you think its important for southern hip hop to be studied from an academic lens?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Well, because they try to make it seem like hip hop is universal and in a way it is but how hip hop is applied to the culture is not universal. And that's what I want to make sure that the book comes across saying is that hip hop is great. I'm not taking away anything that has happened with hip hop in New York. I know that New York is the Mecca for hip hop but just because it happens in New York doesn't mean it's going to take root and blossom in the same way in Georgia soil, in Alabama soil, in Mississippi soil the way that it does in the boroughs, you know what I'm saying?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

But then I also just was like I said earlier I was just tired of hip hop studies being centered in this bi-coastal idea. That hip hop only exists on coasts and I'm like, what about everywhere else? In the same vein I'm like the way that I write about the South I'm hoping... and that's where the end of the book comes in. I'm like, I'm hoping this opens up the door.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Come to the table and eat. You know what I'm saying? I can't talk about Mississippi or Texas the way that somebody from there can. You know what I'm saying? Its important and then also there's other different regional manifestations of hip hop culture. You know what I'm saying? I want to know about the Midwest. How is it in Ohio or Detroit? And what's that look like and how does that pop off? You know what I'm saying?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

I want to read from those perspectives and then put all of that in conversation, you know what I mean? But unfortunately right now it's like this is the thing with the academy, is the academy is so slow it's always playing catch up, you know what I mean? Outside of the academy 30 years seems like a long time because we're knocking on the 30th anniversary of Tricia Rose's Black Noice, right? In the academy that's still hella young. That's almost infantile. You know what I'm saying? It's like oh, okay if you think about the long history with the academy means scholastic inquiry and then you have hip hop.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Hip hop's still extremely young in the academy but to do southern hip hop that means we're still in the womb so to speak.

Amena Brown:

Right.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

You know what I'm saying? So I'm hoping that this book will open up doors and open up more conversation to critically engage the South and also to recognize the stigmas and the biases that are associated just with the region itself. It's not necessarily just for the culture but from the region itself. The South makes people uncomfortable especially folks what aren't routed or invested in the South.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

It's the scapegoat. It's the boogieman. You know what I'm saying? Because there's that anxiety about it, then there's an assumption that the culture reflects those stigmas and those anxieties. You know what I'm saying? And then I'm like well, that might be part of it but that's not the totality of it.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Of course you're going to have racial violence and racial trauma in the South but that's not the totality of what it means to be southern and Black is to be victimized and try the find a way to escape. That's what was missing in conversations scholastically is that folks would rather pick up a Richard Wright or an Alice Walker and focus on the trauma and I'm like what about the joy?

Amena Brown:

Yes.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

The joy's what gets you through the trauma.

Amena Brown:

Come on Regina.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

What about the joy? What about the music? What about the culture? What about the idea that Black folks in the South... community is so important. You know what I'm saying? When people ask you who your people live.

Amena Brown:

Really?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

That is so often than active. Well, one if you come from a big family they want to make sure that you aren't dating nobody in the family. But also it's giving folks an idea about where you're from. You know what I mean?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

It used to get on my nerves when I was younger if I was dating a dude and I brought him home to my grandparents and my grandad would come... so my grandad was a man of very few words, you know what I mean? He would literally be like, hey, how are you doing? He would judge you on your handshake or not, you know what I'm saying? And then the next immediate question is, well, who your people with?

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

My grandparents are educators so they probably knew your people especially if you was from Albany, you know what I mean? But it was also like, let me see where I can put you at so that I can see if you're worthy enough to date my granddaughter but also, if you're worth a grain of salt period.

Amena Brown:

Right, right.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

You know what I'm saying? So I'll be like, all of those nuances, all of those sensibilities are often overlooked or not even recognized in a larger conversation about hip hop culture in general and I wanted to use those to frame why southern hip hop stands apart and why we need to study it. Also why I'm not the only one who needs to study it.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

There's this whole highlighter thing that's going on in the academy. You know what I mean? And I'm like I don't want to be the only one. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of pressure-

Amena Brown:

Right.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... because that means you need to know everything. That's impossible, you know what I'm saying? I want to be one of the ones... you know what I mean? So I'm hoping that Chronicling Stankonia opens the door. There are a shit ton of new younger scholars who are still in graduate school, who are just getting started, who are brilliant who are thinking about the South and southernness and how it relates to hip hop and just music. I'm like just use me as the stepping stone. Don't use me as the gatekeeper. You know what I'm saying?

Amena Brown:

[crosstalk 00:41:08].

Dr. Regina Bradely:

I don't want to be no gatekeeper. That's too much work. You've got to bitter to be a gate keeper. I mean, where's [crosstalk 00:41:18]? You didn't do this. The only way I be like, you didn't do this, if you're legit or just was lazy with it. Then I'll be like, come on folk this is... if you're out here legitimately breaking new ground, I don't got nothing to say. I be like, oh okay. But if you lazy then okay, I might be a little bit of a gatekeeper. I'm not a gatekeeper, I feel like I'm a bouncer at a club. I don't want-

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... to be gatekeeper I feel like I want to be the bouncer at the club. I'm going to be like, let me see how you get in.

Amena Brown:

Let me look at you and your friends before you get in.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

[crosstalk 00:41:49]. Who are your friends? Are they on the list?

Amena Brown:

That's what we need is a bouncer honey. That's what we need is a culture bouncer, Regina. Yes.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Bouncer. I don't need no gatekeeper just give me bouncer. You know what I'm saying?

Amena Brown:

I live please. I think this is one of the reasons... and you all listening, this is one of the reasons that I think your work is so important because-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Thank you.

Amena Brown:

... I think its important for us to be able to look at I think there lots of layers to this. Especially when I got to that last section of your book, when you're expounding upon this phrase that, many of us in the South were just so exhilarated to hear that the South still has something to say. You added that still into that-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

[crosstalk 00:42:40].

Amena Brown:

... phrase, that many of us remember watching on that award show, right? It was Andre 3000 saying, "The South got something to say." And I just felt like, we do. And getting to the end of your book and you saying, "And that's still true. The South still has something to say."

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Still has something to say.

Amena Brown:

Getting to the end of your book and reading that it made me hope for two things Regina. It made me hope that yes, that we will see more books like yours. That we will see more of this kind of academic intellectual analysis of this music and this art. As a hip hop culture fan, I want to see more MCs able to return to where they're from, and let their voices sound like that and let the slang of whatever that area is sound like that.

Amena Brown:

I would love to see that return to hip hop even more too because I think that was beautiful for those of us that were growing up in the 90s. That was beautiful for us to hear that Snoop doesn't sound the same as 8Ball and MJG sound as Method Man sounds as crucial conflict sounded. Everybody had this different way they approached it because they felt like they had to take their city or region on their back and carry it into their music.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

Right.

Amena Brown:

And just reading your analysis and your storytelling here I was like man I hope we see a return of that too.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

I think the initial challenge which is something I'm not equipped to write about. This is why I'm saying I'm trying to kick the door open for these folks coming up behind me is that, we're in the era of the digital South now. You know what I'm saying? It's not just physically restricted to what's going on regionally.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

I mean, the region is accessible by everybody, you know what I'm saying? From the explosion of trap to international hip hop genre to folks from New York borrowing and some folks straight up stealing from the South. You know what I'm saying? I think that all of that is important in how we renegotiate what regional identity means to the culture. But I will say that, the way that folks represent it from where they were from, the hyper locality, you know what I'm saying? Of region in 90s and early 2000s isn't necessary because we got social media. You know what I'm saying?

Dr. Regina Bradely:

It's not like we have to wait to her an album to understand the super local drops that people give in their music. Now it's kind of like, all right let me go to Google Earth. Let me go on Tik Tok. Let me see what it actually looks like, where that active imagining spaces where the way the imagination takes root is different, because of social media. You know what I'm saying? And I'm not the one to write about that because I didn't grow up in a social media era of southern rap. You know what-

Amena Brown:

Right.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

... I mean? So that's somebody else's project. It isn't my project. I will tell you quick, I'll be like, look, I can't talk about some of these younger folks man. My cut off date is 2008 when I started my PhD.

Amena Brown:

Come on [crosstalk 00:45:45].

Dr. Regina Bradely:

PhD program. I mean, listen don't be out here having me looking a hot mess, you know what I'm saying? Ass out, because, I'm going to look at you like, No, I can't. Some of the newer folks and I'd be like I listen to them is passing but I'm not going to be able to give you an analysis like I could give you an analysis about Outkast. You know what I mean?

Amena Brown:

Right.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

That's somebody else's career. That's somebody else's work and I ain't trying to take that because I can't do it. Know your limits, know your boundaries.

Amena Brown:

Okay. Okay. And that's how you open the door for others because you're like this is my stuff that I'm going to do. You going to come along-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

This is my area.

Amena Brown:

... [crosstalk 00:46:21] stuff to do. Okay. I get it. Regina thank you so much for joining me on the podcast-

Dr. Regina Bradely:

It was fun. Thank you [crosstalk 00:46:28].

Amena Brown:

... for talking to us about all this southern hip hop. I hope you all were taking all the notes so that you all can number one, buy a few copies of this book because five is a good number. You could go to your favorite independent bookseller, buy five of them. You got one then you got four that you could give to somebody. It's like a gift.

Amena Brown:

Okay. Work on that, and then you could listen to this music. So while you reading the book you can be educated. But Regina thank you for this work you are doing for shining a light on the South and on hip hop culture here for even just hearing your voice and the southernness in your voice and in the writing in your book. That gives a lot of joy to those of us who are from down here. So thank you so much.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

That means that I did my job. The South still has something to say and I just hope that folks realize that we're talking to each other. You know what I'm saying? And that's what's equally important. This one thing I was very clear about is I knew I had to write somewhat academically but I didn't want it to be the totality of what I was saying.

Dr. Regina Bradely:

And it seems like I struck a good enough balance that we could have conversation like this. You know what I mean? Because these are the type of conversation that I want to have about the work. You know what I mean? So thank you for the opportunity to chop it up with you and laugh. I mean, all that's part of southern hip hop too. So just thank you for the opportunity as well.

Amena Brown:

Thank you again so much to Dr. Regina Bradley for joining me in bringing intellectual conversation about southern hip hop to the table. I'm just sorry that she and I could not have had biscuits which probably would have been one of our southern dishes of choice, had we literally been in the HER living room together.

Amena Brown:

You can learn more about Dr. Bradley's work at her website redclayscholar.com. You can also follow regina on twitter @redclayscholar. And if you forget all this stuff that I just said remember you can go to amenabrown.com/herwithamena. The show notes are there with links to some of this music as well as links to check out more of Dr. Regina Bradley's work. And if you aren't following me on social media on Twitter, on Instagram @amenabee you should. Go follow. Let's be friends.

Amena Brown:

For this week's edition of Give Her a Crown and in honor of our conversation in this episode about southern hip hop I want to shut out one of my favorite rappers from the South Grammy Award winning hip hop artist Rapsody. Born and raised in North Carolina, Rapsody's rap career has been on the rise for many years.

Amena Brown:

Right now my favorite album of hers is her latest album Eve and my favorite song from the album is Whoopi where she raps over a sample of one of my favorite jazz songs, Watermelon Man by Herbie Hancock. Each of the songs on Eve are named for a Black woman hero of Rapsody's. You should definitely give this a listen. Rapsody, thank you for bringing your southernness, your storytelling and for honoring hip hop culture through your music. Rapsody, give her a crown.

Amena Brown:

HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen from Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 29

Amena Brown:

Welcome y'all back to another episode of HER With Amena Brown. And those of you that have been listening to the podcast for a while, you know that I always talk about how when we are gathered here listening to the podcast, we are in our HER living room. But in my house, my living room is actually an open room that opens into the kitchen. And with today's guest, I feel like we're in our HER living room and we are also adjacent to the kitchen. So, I'm so excited to have all of the conversation. Palestinian author and writer, whose work has won awards from James Beard in PR and the Guild of Food Writers, I want you to welcome author of The Palestinian Table, and her latest book, The Arabesque Table, Reem Kassis.

Reem Kassis:

Thank you, Amena.

Amena Brown:

Oh, my gosh, Reem. First of all, let me tell y'all that are listening here that Reem and I have a mutual friend who has regaled me with your amazingness for a long time, Reem, actually. Our friend, Lyric, shout out to Lyric, she is a fantastic culture and food journalist, a photographer, writer. She's amazing. And she and I also just love to talk food.

Reem Kassis:

She and I love to eat food.

Amena Brown:

Okay. It's like a bonding in our friendship that we're just always discussing what we're eating. And so, she had told me about you and your work a while ago, and then when she reached out, like, "Hey, Reem's book is coming out." And as soon as she started talking, I was like, "Yes, whatever you're about to say, yes. Do I want to interview Reem? Yes.

Reem Kassis:

She knows the most amazing people, and she told me about you as well. She's been talking about you for a while, and she's like, "I have this friend, do you want to be on her podcast?" And I was like, "Absolutely. I mean, I don't even need to know anything else. If you recommend her, it's 100%. So, I guess we were both on the same page there.

Amena Brown:

Completely meant to be. And I'm just, y'all, first of all, I have to tell you, podcasting is, it's a limited situation because there's no way for Reem and I to talk and show you how beautiful Reem's books are. I mean, gorgeous. Okay. It is a wonderful combination of this writing, and the recipes are there, and the images are just gorgeous. So, even having looked at the images, I'm like, I really wish that it was not a pandemic, that I could be in the kitchen with you, Reem. I also want to just speak out here and to the listeners that I know there are executives who work in television listening to this podcast, and you need to go ahead and make a TV show of Reem Kassis. So, I'm just talking out here, and I need you to do it, and mainly selfishly so that I can be a guest.

Reem Kassis:

So I can finally cook for you in person.

Amena Brown:

Okay. I'm going to be there messing up everything, eating all of it. I want to talk about some of the themes in your work, and I just really identified with a lot of those themes, and I want to talk also about your latest book, because I want people to get a chance to hear a bit about the inspiration behind it. I really identify with the fact that you wrote your first book, and then you were like, "That might be it."

Reem Kassis:

Yeah, pretty much.

Amena Brown:

You were like, "I don't know if this is coming back." So, I want to start with that. Can you talk about what was your journey into book writing? Did you see yourself ever getting into that? Were you, I'm using the air quotes here, dragged, kicking and screaming? Were there other people in your life that were like, "Reem, we would love for you to write more, share these stories more"? I mean, how did that become a part of the food journey, the writing?

Reem Kassis:

It's interesting because, for those who don't know me, my background was not in writing or in food at all. I did grow up in a literary family, if you will. My grandfather was a children's author, and he was very well recognized back home. So, those always felt like big shoes to fill. I loved reading, I loved writing, but it was not something I thought I would pursue professionally. And then I went to undergrad in the U.S., I got my MBA, I worked in consulting, and it wasn't until my first daughter was born, and I was on maternity leave for a year because London's amazing like that, and that's where we were living at the time, that I started working on this book.

Reem Kassis:

And it actually didn't start out as a book, it started out as my desire to put together my family's recipes and stories in a medium that she could have with her wherever she went in the world. And I think when I saw them all come together, I realized, "Okay, these are my family's recipes, they're stories, but taken together as a whole, they could be the story of any Palestinian family. And it's a story that is most often not heard and very different to the one we're used to, and I felt a sense of responsibility to share that with the world. And that's how that first book came to be in a very simplistic way.

Reem Kassis:

Obviously, the journey was a lot messier than it sounds in hindsight, but that's why I always said I thought it would be my first and last book because it wasn't something that I jumped into with the idea that I'm going to turn this into a career. And then once the book came out, obviously, I did interviews, and podcasts, and people would ask questions like, "What is the difference between Palestinian cuisine and Lebanese or Syrian?" And I started digging into this whole idea of food history, and I was shocked at what I realized, which is that the lens through which we look at cuisine is very distorted because it only looks back in the range of 100 to 200 years. But cuisine is so much older than that. The very idea of national cuisine is a relatively recent construct.

Reem Kassis:

So, with this new book, I wanted to grasp in a way or showcase what a modern Arab table looks like. What do we eat at home today as Palestinians who live abroad, who have access to certain ingredients but not others, who have friends from one part of the world and another? And at the same time, I realized, if I want to show that with integrity, I have to trace the history of these dishes. And that's where the idea for this book came from and how it evolved into the one that you see today.

Amena Brown:

Reem, you voiced just now something that really meant a lot to me in your work, that you didn't want your writing to be disconnected from history. And I just think that's so powerful. And I mean, also, I am a person that's very inspired by old things, but I think a part of it is because, to me, it feels hard to make or write or capture, if I'm not also aware, or bringing into this space. This is not a new thing we're doing. Even if we are here now, where there are these types of appliances or these ways our homes may be set up now, we are doing a thing that has historically been done as well. And I love that connection.

Reem Kassis:

I mean, cuisine in general, I mean, it's also, it runs so deep. And if you look at its past, it is very cross-cultural, it is very integrated, right? You learn from other people. Your circumstances, occupations, wars, empires, they influence it. So, knowing your history and cherishing it is not mutually exclusive with evolving and changing. And I guess that was the point I was trying to get across because you see so many people who will cook a certain dish and either attribute it to one cuisine or completely forget to attribute it to a certain cuisine as if recognizing the history detract from the beauty of what we have today. And I think it's the opposite.

Reem Kassis:

Seeing how much something has changed, and understanding its rich past makes us appreciate it all the more, even if that pass is not always a pleasant one, which, in many cases, it's not.

Amena Brown:

Right, right. I think the other thing that I want to talk to you about also in the idea of how, especially when we're talking about food, and we can't talk about culture without talking about food, and then we can't talk about food without talking about culture, I mean, they're just so interconnected that way, but when we're talking about food and culture interlinked together, I think in particular, and I don't know if this is an American thing, a West thing, a colonization thing. I just don't know. But I'm going to bring it up here because I'm interested to hear your thoughts about this. Even for me, I love to cook, but I'm a home cook. I love to say, "I might make ugly food, but it still tastes amazing." I don't really plate.

Reem Kassis:

I don't either.

Amena Brown:

I'm just like, "Here is everything. It's delicious. I don't know what it looks like, but it's here."

Reem Kassis:

Tastes good.

Amena Brown:

Exactly. And as I've grown as a home cook, and sometimes have desire to cook things from other countries or other cultures, I've noticed how it can sometimes take a little more digging to get to the writers and chefs that are actually native to that culture, or are native to that country where you're actually getting to hear from them how we make this, what is the history of this? That there are other sites, I won't name their names here, but other sites that exist there, that you're like, "Oh, I'm going to find this particular dish." And then you get there, and it's somebody, wherever they live, in the middle of wherever, and they're like, "Here's how I make this."

Amena Brown:

And then when you actually read that from a writer that's writing about what they ate of this in their family of origin home, or growing up in their mother, aunt's, grandmother's kitchen, and I think that is also really integral to your work and why I am so glad your voice exists, because we want to hear about this from you. We don't want to hear about it from someone who, this is not home, this is not family to them. Why do you think that's important for writers like yourself to share these stories from your own upbringing, your own cultural experience?

Reem Kassis:

I think it's a couple of things. I mean, for starters, you can't divorce food from culture, because so much of it is dependent on the context. So many of the dishes that I will talk about, it's not just a sum of the ingredients and the way that the dish tastes or it looks like, it's also what it signifies. What occasions is it eaten on? What history does it tell? How did it change over time? There are dishes now, which I talk about in the book, made with rice. But traditionally, my grandfather tells me, they were so poor that rice was something reserved for the wealthy. They only ate bulgur grains.

Reem Kassis:

And someone coming from outside the culture trying to tell you a certain story about a dish, he might cover or she might cover just the way that dish is cooked today, and forget all that history that brought it to the point that we're seeing. But also, other than that, I mean, what I notice sometimes is, you look at a certain dish, and you can bring 10 Palestinians, and each of us will tell you, "Oh, no, no, no, this is the way it's supposed to be made. And this is the way my mother makes it." And they're all right. There's nothing wrong with them. I always say this, especially about maqluba, which is considered one of the national dishes of Palestine, there are probably as many versions of it as there are families in the country, which is totally okay in my mind.

Reem Kassis:

And then I struggle sometimes, I think, "Well, what about if someone wants to convey that dish to the Western world, and that person is not Palestinian? Is that wrong? Or is that right?" I wish the answer was clear-cut black and white, it's wrong, it's right. I think if you're someone who has immersed yourself in that culture, if you are a non-Palestinian who has lived in the country, lived amongst its people, understood that culture, and you're doing it justice, I don't have a problem with that. Some people will disagree with me and they'll say, "No, you have absolutely no right." But then you start drawing a line where there's no creativity, and there's no interaction. And cuisine was not meant to be that way. It never was.

Reem Kassis:

The issue I have is when someone gives you a dish that does not, A, recognize the origin, is not even remotely close to what the people in the country eat. And then once you bring in the issue of profit, who's benefiting from it? And I'm not just talking financially, I'm talking publicity-wise, who's getting the recognition for it? If you're getting it at the expense of the people who have provided you with this, then we start to have an issue.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. Oof, that's such a great point. And even for people that might, to use the example you gave there, for people who might be non-Palestinian, that may want to share this such-and-such recipe, it's like, if you were immersed in the culture, if you have been immersed in a culture that isn't your own, then the hope would be that you even walk into whatever that page or writing space is with this sense of honor, which, to what you were talking about in your own writing process, that is still connected to history, that is still connected to the culture in which the food is rooted, which I think is so powerful and so beautiful.

Amena Brown:

I also want to talk about home, because that is this theme that comes up a lot in your work, and it's also a topic that fascinates me because I was a kid that moved around a lot growing up, and then before the pandemic anyway, I was traveling mostly, became a performing artist that traveled a lot. So, my sense of home is very... I mean, sometimes I look at it and think like it's fractured on some levels because it wasn't like I grew up in this home from being born until I got out of high school or something, and then went into my adulthood and made that place home, it was sort of like, all these different places became home to me. But I'm always interested in how we talk about home because there are so many different ways to define that, that sometimes that is a very specific place.

Amena Brown:

Like, I was actually talking with my sister the other day about how home is very specifically for me in my mother's house. And it's like, wherever my mother's house is, if it's down the street, if it's-

Reem Kassis:

That's home.

Amena Brown:

Wherever she is in her house, when I step across the threshold, I am at home. When you think of home, what are, could be one place for you, could be specific places, but what are the specific concrete places you think, "Oh, that feels like home to me"?

Reem Kassis:

It's interesting you say it's where your mom is, because for me, it's a combination of location, as well as people. My mother used to always say, "For me, home is where my kids are." My grandmother used to say the same thing. She would say, "Holidays are when my kids are together." So, there's a sense of home is where the people that you love and care most for are. With that said, I noticed, I live outside Philadelphia now with my husband and two daughters who I care about more than anything in the world, but I constantly feel uprooted. I don't feel home. And I think, in large part, and I talk to my husband about this all the time, I say like, "Where are the roots? Where is the family, the history that ties me to this place?" And it's not here.

Reem Kassis:

And if I go back to my paternal or maternal grandparents' villages, I grew up in Jerusalem. So, I didn't grow up in those villages. But I go there, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, her mother, everyone is rooted to that place. Everyone knows everyone. You are born and you die in that place. And I used to look at that, like, "Oh, my God, I want to get out. I want to see the world. This is so claustrophobic." And now that I've left and I've seen everything, I realize how much value there is in being in a place that can be traced so far back that gives you a sense of place and meaning.

Reem Kassis:

So, for me, the places that really mean home are the people. It's obviously my parents, my brother, and my husband, my kids, but when I'm back home in Jerusalem in particular, it's where I grew up, so, in the old city, that's associated with so many pleasant memories for me that it screams home when I go there, but then also the villages that my grandparents are from. They're very different. It's very rural, it's very communal, it's changed over the years. But when I'm there, I feel a sense of belonging that I don't always feel in other places. But then the flip side of that is having lived so long outside, I also feel like an outsider when I go home.

Reem Kassis:

And I'm constantly straddling this divide and it's not an easy place to live in. People look from the outside and think, "Oh, it's glamorous. You live in one place, you travel to another." But it's actually, it's almost a burden on some days.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. On a level, I'll say, I get that, not as much having the international elements of that, but having grown up visiting where my parents both grew up in North Carolina, that that was home for them. But because my grandmother was there, it felt like home to me. But of my mom's siblings, I think we moved around the most, my mom and my sister and I. So, we were always rotating around that. And there were times where we would come home and be with our, what would, I guess, be like second cousins. By the time, you get to like your second and third cousins. We had enough family in North Carolina that that's what it was like there. And feeling like, "Oh, my voice sounds very different."

Reem Kassis:

Right? The accent. Yes.

Amena Brown:

Right? From their voices. And I remember the town that my grandmother was from, and my parents both are from that same place, where they would go for fun to like this particular skating rink. And I was living in bigger cities with my mom by that time, where it's kind of like, "Oh, that's all you have, is this little skating rink? Oh." But to my cousins, it's like, that skating rink's everything, because that's where everybody of a certain age is going to have fun on a weekend. And those different aspects are so interesting to how we find home, hearing you talk about that, just this duality there of like, there is something about the air there, and the soil there that feels home to me.

Reem Kassis:

Absolutely.

Amena Brown:

But there is this element of like, "But this is not where I grew up, or I really went to school." Maybe one year, I went to school there living with my grandmother, but otherwise. I want to also ask, as we're talking about home, I want to talk about the kitchen. And I'm riveted by how there is this generation of womanhood in your writing, Reem, that it is you as a mother, to your daughters, the things that you want them to know, but it is you remembering yourself as a young girl in these kitchen moments with your mother, and your grandmothers, and so on. Can you talk about, what's the scene like in the kitchen with the other women in your family? Obviously, it's the place where like, is the food getting prepared? Is the food getting cooked? It is. Are other womanhood lessons happening there in the kitchen? And what were some of those that you remember, or that you experience now even with your own children?

Reem Kassis:

The experience is very different because I like to have my girls in the kitchen, and I like teaching them and talking to them. For my mother's generation and my grandmother's generation, it was, "Get out of the kitchen."

Amena Brown:

Really?

Reem Kassis:

My grandmother was not that way with my mother, but my mother was that way with me because she looked at my generation as the one that was going to get out of the kitchen and was going to do something. So, if I tried to cook, it was, "Li, go study. This is not your thing." When I mentioned that I was thinking to write a cookbook or do something with food, my mother's response was, "Who goes and gets an MBA to end up in the kitchen?" Of course, she backtracks and says she never said that, or she said it, she didn't mean it that way. And it's a point we talk about all the time. And I mention this in the book, it wasn't just her, it was everyone in society back then. Someone telling my father, "Why send her to the U.S. for university? She is going to end up in the kitchen anyway."

Reem Kassis:

So, there was that element of it. But as most kids will tell you, whatever you're not supposed to do, you want to do. And so, I wanted to be in the kitchen. I wanted to see what they were cooking. It's also where you heard all the gossip, right? Because that's where the women are, so, that's where you learn about things you're not necessarily supposed to learn at certain ages. I remember my grandmother had this, I guess you would call it a pantry these days, but it was a room above her fridge. You had to climb on a ladder to get to it. And my cousins and I would hide in there. And of course, we'd listen in on to everything that the women were saying. And other times, we'd run in and out of the kitchen, we'd try to help out, but the women would shoo us and whatnot.

Reem Kassis:

But once you get older, they start relying on you a bit more and you start to learn some of the tips and tricks. Although, for me, most of the learning was visual and auditory. I wasn't actually helping out in the kitchen. I think the first time I cooked, I was an undergrad, and I wanted to make maqluba in my dorm kitchen. I don't even know how I pulled it off, but it was long before Zoom and FaceTime, and my mother goes at one point, "It's cheaper for me to get a ticket and come cook it for you than to pay your long-distance phone bills. Stop calling to ask how to make it." But I learned along the way.

Reem Kassis:

I mean, it's something that, there's this concept in Arabic called nafas, which it means, it's similar to breath or air, but in the context of cooking, it talks about something that a cook will impart into the food part of their spirit, their love, their generosity. And I feel if someone has that, their food will turn out very good, even if you don't have that much experience, and obviously, you hone it through time and through cooking.

Amena Brown:

Hmm, I love that. I love that there was that little nook to hide in.

Reem Kassis:

And listen, now that I think about it.

Amena Brown:

Because it was like when you were a little girl and the women in the family are gathering, I mean, it just feels like that's a place to be. They're going to be in there talking about all sorts of stuff that is going on.

Reem Kassis:

Oh, yes. Everything. Who did what? And who in the village? And what the latest gossip is. And it was a simple time, but fascinating nonetheless.

Amena Brown:

Okay, Reem, you shared a little bit about this before, but can you talk about what the experience was like for you making the career shift that led to where you are now as an author? I just found that part of your story, I found it so fascinating, but I also think there are a lot of people listening that are in this kind of in-between place before that shift happens. So, can you talk about, what was the shift where... I feel like in your story, there's sort of this like, "Before time, before this, that was really different." And then, how did you find yourself finding, in a way, it seemed from your story, and you can tell me if I'm describing this accurately, but it seems like you were finding your way back as you were finding your way forward. So, what was that change like? Were you afraid when you felt the change coming?

Reem Kassis:

Absolutely. I'm still afraid, if we're being honest. And that's one thing I want to preface my answer with, which people will look at someone who has transitioned and is "on the other side," or has accomplished something, and they'll think, "Oh, it looks easy." Or, "Oh, it looks great." But it's a struggle, and it's still is for a lot of reasons which I'll get into. But like I told you, I left Jerusalem wanting to prove to anyone who thought otherwise that a woman's place was not in the kitchen, that she could achieve professional success in other domains, that you could be in a male's world and do well. And I was on that track. I mean, I did my undergrad at Penn, I did my MBA at Wharton straight out of undergrad, which is very uncommon. I worked at McKinsey.

Reem Kassis:

So, I ticked every single box, and then I think it hit me at some point soon after I started working in consulting that, "Here I am ticking all these boxes, but they're somebody else's boxes, not mine. This isn't what makes me happy." And I was lucky enough for I was able to leave and transition to something else, but it was very scary when I first started out because there was no guarantee that it was going to work out. I was also, by the time that I decided to make this transition, I was married, and the issue of financially supporting myself on my own wasn't a big thing. And people don't talk about this, but taking a risk like this, it requires either a willingness to really tie in, bootstrap your life, or you're going to have to find a way to make ends meet if you're financially dependent or not financially independent.

Reem Kassis:

So, that was one part of it, which is something that needs to be talked about. How do you allow someone who wants to pursue their creative arts, to be able to make a living? And I get really angry when I think about this, that why is it that someone who's producing, let's just call it widgets, or a tech app, or whatnot, is able to go out there and raise insane amounts of money, but someone who is producing art, which is what I would argue makes life worth living, maybe it doesn't move the economy or boost it, but it's what gives our life meaning and purpose, why is that not valued in the same monetary terms?

Reem Kassis:

And when I say to you it's still difficult for me today, this is one of the issues where I look at people I went to school with, who remained in those careers, who've made partner at those firms, which I could've already been at that point had I stayed. And obviously, as a food writer, you're not in that same bracket when it comes financially. And I think I judge myself based on those things because I was conditioned to do that. For five years, I was in an environment that equated success with money. And it's hard to transition to a point where you equate success with something else with contribution. And that's what I think. I think what's helped me is thinking, "In 50 years, or in 100 years, when I'm not here, will there still be a part of me that's remembered, that's recognized?"

Reem Kassis:

And I think when you contribute something to society in any kind of art, whether it's books, performance art, painting, and music, those are things that can last forever. Not that the other work is not important, but I felt there were a hundred people who could do the job I was doing professionally, but not that many people who could be the same mother to my kids, and also produce for my people and my community the thing that I signed my hands up. Sorry, that was heavy, and a lot.

Amena Brown:

No, it didn't feel heavy to me, Reem, but it feels powerful, and it feels very honest, because I think when we're having conversations about, insert buzzwords here, about dreams, about passions, about calling, about what that looks like in our vocations, it has been really important to me, and particularly on this podcast, because women of color are here sharing their own stories and experiences, and I'm sharing some of mine too, that we have some honest talks about what that actually looks like. I worked in corporate for a while doing communications for a big Fortune 500, and I was so excited like for the first time to be getting paid, at that time, what felt like paid so well to be writing, and then six months in was like, "Wow, I hate this. I hate this."

Amena Brown:

And then quitting and going broke. I did an episode walking through people like, people see you at the book signing or they see your name on whatever the articles and different awards are, they see your name there, and they're like, "Oh, goodness." And you're like, "Well, behind the scenes, what that really means."

Reem Kassis:

"This is what it looks like."

Amena Brown:

"Some struggles were had. Even the day before set award was received, I was actually-

Reem Kassis:

Yes, exactly.

Amena Brown:

... doing these things." So, I think and hope that it's helpful for people to hear. It's not to say, don't pursue this thing that you feel passionate about that may not have this equation to how it's going to be, air quotes, how other people might define success. It's not to say, don't pursue those things or look to make these shifts. It's to say, there's rough and tumble along the journey. Right?

Reem Kassis:

There's rough and tumble in every path you decide to take. And I think it's recognizing that there is not a single career path in this world that you will take that will be smooth sailing the whole way through.

Amena Brown:

Yeah.

Reem Kassis:

Yeah, okay, I have my name on books, and I go to book signings and whatnot, but you know what I do at home? I wash the dishes, and I have to. All day long, that's what I do. I'm cleaning up my stove when I forget a pot and it boils. This is what day-to-day life looks like. It's not the glamorous book signings. And then when you're in corporate America or the corporate world anywhere, I was working 16-hour days. And I remember, like you were saying, thinking, "Oh, my God, I'm getting paid so well, I can afford anything I want to buy now." But suddenly, all those things I thought I wanted to buy, the designer clothes and handbags and shoes, I had no desire to even wear them, and just my life felt so meaningless at that point that that stuff could not fill whatever gap I was feeling.

Reem Kassis:

And if there's one thing I've noticed is, it's when you start doing something that thinks of someone else more than you, or something that gives back, you find a sense of meaning much more than when you're pursuing things that are purely hedonistic, just for your own satisfaction.

Amena Brown:

I love you brought up the word meaning. I think that's important when we're thinking about what do we want to do in the world, in our communities? And I think it is about, is it meaningful? And of course, I get it, not everything we do is going to be meaningful. Even in my current writer event life, I mean, I'm sure, for all of us that are in creative space, I mean, there are all sorts of gigs and different things that you take something so they can pay the bills. You do that. But I think it's good for us to think about, "What are the things in my life, whether it's my vocation or not, that I want to do because it's meaningful, because it means something to me, or because I think it would mean something to my people or to my community?" I think that's so important.

Amena Brown:

Reem, let's talk about The Arabesque Table. Okay? What was the writing process like for The Arabesque Table? And I'm just going to tell you, I've never written a cookbook or anything with recipes in it, so, I don't know that part, but I have written two books, and it's a wild time for me. It's like, I feel like I start out eating a lot of carbohydrates, because I'm just like, "Oh, why would I do this to myself?" It's a lot of stress. There's a lot of beautiful ideas I had when I was sketching out the book, and then I get to actually writing it, and it doesn't sound like that at all.

Reem Kassis:

It's just so much better in your head than when you put it on paper. I know.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. So, talk to me, what was your writing process like? After you've envisioned The Arabesque Table, what was it like when you actually had to sit down and do the writing?

Reem Kassis:

Here's the funny thing, The Arabesque Table was not the book I initially envisioned, and I'm so glad it wasn't. A lot of the things I'm telling you about the history and how much of it, I integrated in the book, and also the idea of positioning it as Arab versus middle Eastern, that came throughout the writing process. So, in a way, not knowing what you're doing sometimes is a blessing.

Amena Brown:

Okay. That's encouraging everyone. Remember, sometimes not knowing what you're doing can be a blessing. I'm going to take that home with me, Reem. Okay. Yes.

Reem Kassis:

I only say telling myself that. But the day-to-day process, look, it was a little bit harder than the first one for a couple of reasons. One was, the first book was taking recipes I'd grown up with and I knew, and just testing them, making sure they work, and getting exact ingredients for them. Here, it was developing a lot of recipes, guessing what might or might not work, and sometimes having to test it multiple times, all while cooking with kids who are four and six. With the first book, they were a newborn and two years old. They ate whatever I told them to eat, or they had milk and they were fine. Whereas now, it was constant complaints, and on top of recipe testing, you're cooking things that the kids will eat, but that was most of my day, and then my nights were transcribing all those recipes. And then the actual meat, I kept to the very end.

Reem Kassis:

So, that's when all the chapter intros, the introduction, that's when it all came together. And then, the introduction to the book did not happen until I was supposed to go home to Jerusalem in March for my photo shoot. And two days before, they issued a blanket quarantine, had to cancel our flights. We didn't even know if the book could come out when it was scheduled to. And I felt so much during that time, anger, frustration, and I was able to write the introduction through those feelings. And it's not the introduction I would have imagined at all, but somehow, it came out something so much better than I could have envisioned. So, another hopefully useful thing is sometimes just accept those feelings, live through them. Something beautiful can come out of it on the other side, if you will.

Reem Kassis:

But the writing mostly happened yet towards the tail end of it, and a lot of the writing happened when I was back home in Jerusalem. So, it's interesting, the recipes were tested abroad in the U.S., but then the more narrative part was written back home. And being able to see it from both angles or both sides, I guess, made the book what it was. It's modern, it's contemporary, it's cross-cultural, but it's also going far back in history.

Amena Brown:

Would you say location matters to your writing process? Did it do something different to you being home in Jerusalem writing and just being there, the air, the feeling of being there, and then being here in the U.S. writing, does that add a different something to your writing process?

Reem Kassis:

I think so. I mean, it's hard to scientifically explain how the writing process works. There're so many elements. It's like cooking. Why is it that if I cook a dish when I'm angry, it tastes one way, and if I'm happy, it tastes another way? And if I'm doing it in this kitchen, it's like this, and in another kitchen, it's like that? And I think writing is similar. It's not that being there changes the way I write, but the thoughts I have, the emotions I experience are different, and that comes through in the writing. And yes, smelling the air probably reminds me of certain memories when I was young that might not have been triggered in my mind had I been writing it in my apartment. So, in that sense, yes, absolutely, it does.

Amena Brown:

I was reading through a couple of the recipes in this book, and there's all this funny talk on the internet right now about when you go to like a blog to read a recipe, you're just like, "Pass, scroll, scroll, scroll."

Reem Kassis:

"Scroll, scroll. And now jump to the recipe."

Amena Brown:

"I don't want to read this, I just want to get to the recipe." But in reading your book, both are, I mean, in many blogs, they're also equally important, okay, but in your book, they are equally important. I mean, you had one of the recipes that I was reading through was for a certain type of salad, and in your intro, you were writing about, where does the idea for salad come from? What are the actual roots of that in ancient food? And you were giving us that context, and then you were like, "Here's why I'm doing what I'm doing with this recipe now for this sort of modern context."

Amena Brown:

Can you talk about, you've told us already how it's important to connect history to like what you're writing, can you talk about the process of these recipes and these stories and history that's going along there? What was that like? And what do you hope readers gain from getting to have those layers in this book?

Reem Kassis:

I think the book has about 130 or 125 recipes in it, I started out with over 200.

Amena Brown:

Whew.

Reem Kassis:

So, the process involved a lot of elimination, and people always ask, "How did you figure out which recipes you were going to keep in?" And I think the headnotes you alluded to were part of the reason certain recipes stayed and certain recipes went. It's, you have 250 pages, Amena. There's a limit to how much history you can convey. So, I guess what I picked and chose were the stories that charted that journey from past to present. So, rather than having five recipes whose headnotes talk about the origins of salad, I will pick one which explains how it's from Roman times, and salad is the Latin word for salt, and that's how vegetables are seasoned, and so on and so forth. I think a lot of it was trying to figure out, "How do I tell this story? Which snippets of information can showcase the specific points I wanted to get across?"

Reem Kassis:

And those points were a lot of the origins that certain foods we think belong to are actually completely inaccurate. Things like tomatoes. People think Italian food, they think pasta with tomato sauce, or even Arabic cuisine, they think tomato stews. Tomatoes didn't make their way to our part of the world till the 19th century.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Reem Kassis:

And they're a result of the Colombian exchange or inquisition into the Americas. Same with other ingredients, chilies, they're not native to India or to Thailand. Coco is not native to Switzerland or Belgium. And it's fascinating to see the history of ingredients and crops, and that's why the book is broken up by ingredients because those are the ones that really show you the shift in the history of cuisine.

Amena Brown:

Why call the book The Arabesque Table? I want to ask on both words here, on Arabesque and table, why are both of these words important to the journey of this book?

Reem Kassis:

I think Arabesque is the most important word in that title. The table was similar to the first book. It was this idea that this is where you serve a meal, everyone's welcome at the table. It was the same publisher, so, it was a nice way to maintain the consistency. But Arabesque was very, very important, and I fought hard to get that title on the book because I wanted it to come across that this was not just another "Middle Eastern cookbook." And I also had an issue with the term, Middle East, because Middle East is a European, a Western imperialistic view of our part of the world in relation to the Easternmost colony of the British Empire, which was India. So, India is to the far East, Europe is Europe, and we're in the middle between the two, so, it became the Middle East. But it doesn't mean anything.

Reem Kassis:

And a lot of terms in the social sciences don't mean something concrete, but people use them. And in the culinary world, people use Middle East because it's essentially evocative and it eludes to certain things and certain dishes in your mind, but accurately, what combines and unites the food of our region is the acculturation under Arab culture and Islamic rule. So, I very much wanted the book to be Arab cuisine, and I wanted that to come into the title. With that said, to call it The Arab Table would also not be accurate. And here I am preaching about telling the truth and acknowledging the history. A lot of the recipes in this book are the result of cross-cultural interaction. They take inspiration from other cultures from travels. They're a modern way of eating, and arabesque alludes to the fact that it's Arab, but it's not 100% Arab.

Reem Kassis:

And then there's one other reason which I don't talk about in the book because, again, limited word space, but arabesque is a dance move in ballet, where you have one foot on the ground with a hand reaching forward and your other leg up in the air. And it felt to me, this was kind of a symbol of how you're rooted and you're grounded in history but you're still reaching towards the future trying to move forward, but it doesn't have to be either, or you can do both at the same time.

Amena Brown:

Ooh, that's imagery at the end right there. I mean, the whole thing that you shared there, I hope everyone listening is really hearing Reem and learning on this, because when we are here, for those of you that are listening that are in the West, you're in the States or in other parts of the West, there is so much of how we are being told to view other cultures, other nations, other parts of the world, that are not actually accurate to what it means to be there, to be from there. And so, I love that correction of being able to say, "Let's not say Middle Eastern, let's say arabesque." I also just love how the E-S-Q-U-E, I mean...

Reem Kassis:

Sounds so sophisticated, if you will.

Amena Brown:

It does a thing at the end.

Reem Kassis:

Very like, I don't know, it sounds like the banquets that they used to have in the past. And they really were very elaborate.

Amena Brown:

Oh, I love that. Reem, what would you say? People who are listening, they are needing to get this book. Just know that the outro is coming, and I'm going to be in the book. Everybody better take all their money. I'm going to be in there just like really giving everyone the information. But what do you hope that readers receive from The Arabesque Table as they... I mean, I would think, a book like The Arabesque Table, some people will read it cover to cover, some people might read through those beginning portions where you're setting the scene here, and then there'll be going in and out looking through the different recipes, deciding what they want to cook. Right? Everyone will have different ways that they approach reading the book. But what do you hope people are getting from it as they're engaging with it?

Reem Kassis:

You know how we talked about the concept of home before on the show? And I wrote about this in The Palestinian Table as well, I think what unites Arab cultures across the board is the sense of home and the sense of generosity, where, if somebody knocks on your door a minute before you set the table, you will always have an extra plate and enough to feed them. And I cannot obviously invite every single reader into my home, but what I hope that they get while reading through this book is the sense of generosity, the sense of welcomeness, that you are welcome into this cuisine. You are welcome not only to enjoy it, but to try it and to experiment yourself with it, adapt it to suit your tastes. You're not committing a crime by doing that.

Reem Kassis:

It's better to enjoy it and learn about its history, and then adapt it to yours so that you can continue to eat from it. And then the other thing that, less on the emotional side, I hope they realize just how many misconceptions we have about food and its origins, and how important these conversations are to be having, and that we need to look at food through a much longer and deeper lens than the one that we've been looking at it, this one.

Amena Brown:

Reem, thank you so much for being a guest in our HER living room, but I feel like we've entered into the HER kitchen a little bit. And so, I just want you to know, Reem, I am dreaming up a time when the pandemic is over, that someone would just, first of all, pay you lots of money to do this on TV. And then, secondly, I'm dreaming that they would pay me at least a medium to large amount to be on TV with you for one of those episodes.

Reem Kassis:

I would just be happy if you didn't come to my house and eat at my table. So, that would be good enough for me.

Amena Brown:

Yes. We're going to do that, Reem. Thank you so much for joining me.

Reem Kassis:

Thank you, Amena.

Amena Brown:

This has been awesome. I'm so glad we got to gather in the living room and around the table with Reem Kassis. Make sure you get her latest book, The Arabesque Table, at your favorite bookseller, and you can also follow Reem on Instagram at Reem Kassis, that's at R-E-E-M K-A-S-S-I-S.

Amena Brown:

For this week's edition of Give Her a Crown, I want to shout-out Chef Edna Lewis. I found my way to Edna Lewis when I was in the process of healing a body broken by major surgery and weeks of recovery, a friend came to my house and made me biscuits from Edna Lewis's recipe, shout-out to my friend, Andy, and they were so much better than the hockey puck of a biscuit I tried to make myself.

Amena Brown:

I started reading Edna Lewis's, The Taste of Country Cooking. I was transported to Freetown, Virginia, to the farm and the hearth kitchens of Black women who cooked, and planted, and reaped, and sowed according to the season. Over the years, I have cooked my way through Edna Lewis's book. It has returned me to my Southern roots. She reminds me of the women I come from. Chef Edna Lewis is one of the four mothers of Southern food and soul food. Chef Edna passed away in 2006, but her recipes and her storytelling will be passed on for years to come. Chef Edna Lewis, give her a crown.

Amena Brown:

HER With Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 28

Amena Brown:

Welcome to another episode of HER with Amena Brown. I feel like today is one of those days where I'm in my feelings a little bit, and I'm going to tell you all it's good energy. It's like good things are happening. I know I could be feeling this way because, at the time of this recording, we are the day after the inauguration. And do we have a long way to go? Yes, we do here in the States, we have a long way to go. But are we at least slightly less stressed that we have a different administration right now? Yes, we are slightly less stressed.

Amena Brown:

So I'm just going to tell you, it's a lot of things to be worried about. But let's just take in a little bit of good energy right now. Let's just take in a little bit of breath of fresh air right now. Listen, we have a guest in our HER living room today. I want to welcome award-winning Webby-nominated writer best known for the satirical Twitter account Honest Toddler and her debut novel Confessions of a Domestic Failure, her newest book, Dear God: Honest Prayers to a God Who Listens is out now. Welcome to the HER living room, Bunmi Laditan.

Bunmi Laditan:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Amena. It is an honor to be here. Thank you for having me.

Amena Brown:

So Bunmi, we need to have a little talk right now. And the talk is going to be about Black Twitter. I want to start with that because Black Twitter is such a blessing. It brings a lot of blessing and also a lot of mess to my life. And the mess is also a blessing. Because sometimes the mess is like the distraction that I didn't know I needed. It's like people get wrapped up in some story. And I'm like, "Yes, I want to get on here and find out why this is trending, why this word right here is trending."

Amena Brown:

But I'm going to tell you a subset of Black Twitter that's very important, is Black girl Twitter. That's like a subset of Black Twitter of which Bunmi and I are a part. And I feel like there's an additional subset based on your industry. So I feel like people who are in the writer, author, speaker, blogger, creative vibes like that, there is a subset of Black girl Twitter that's like that. And I feel like that's how Bunmi and I are connected. It's like a lot of our mutual friends are also Black girl writer, Black girl author, doing those things.

Amena Brown:

So I feel like we're getting to, you know how when you go to a Black cookout or something like that. And then you could sit at the table with somebody while you eat ribs or whatever you do when you're there. And so you and I are sitting at that picnic table today. Black Twitter is a big old, it's like if a cookout and a block party had a baby that's what Black Twitter is online.

Amena Brown:

So Bunmi, you and I are getting to just grab our own little picnic table out in the park. And while other people are doing the Electric Slide, we're just here getting to have a little conversation. So thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Bunmi Laditan:

Thank you. So I pictured that whole thing, we have our cups, we have our drinks, and we're just going underneath this little [inaudible 00:03:33].

Amena Brown:

Sitting out there. And for my friends that have kids, there's always like... We don't have any kids. So if I'm sitting at a thing like that, and I'm with a friend who has children, there's also a mix of like "And then, girl, I said hold on. I said don't eat that anymore. I told you no more, no. No, go play. Anyway, girl. So then I said." So I feel like that would be happening. Would that be happening? Would that be your vibe?

Bunmi Laditan:

Yes. Okay. So, before I do anything, trying to better myself in my life, trying to have a career and connect with people, I have a press conference with my children wherein I warn/bribe/threaten them. And I did that today. But we might get a little bit because they still don't listen. So I might get the youngest one who feels personally attacked when I'm trying to do things come in here.

Bunmi Laditan:

And at that point, you will hear me be like, "What should I say? What did I say?" You might hear a little bit of that voice come out. It's important to know that that's not me. It's just this voice that comes out.

Amena Brown:

I appreciate the differentiation and I need to ask a clarification question regarding this press conference. Because my husband and I joke all the time that my mom had a talk she would give not even before we went somewhere, but right before we went inside. So we're driving there, we're listening to whatever music, but if she puts you in a shopping cart, or... My sister is younger than me, so she put her in a shopping cart, and I'm there, right before we go in the store, it's like a little moment right there. And it's the same moment that happens if we were going to someone's house. We were never... I feel like the car would have been a good time. But for some reason... Maybe she wanted it like, first of mind when you went in there.

Amena Brown:

So it be right before she rung the doorbell, we're all standing there at the door. And it's like this look. And she would say the same three sentences, "Don't touch nothing. Don't break nothing. Don't embarrass me." And then she would ring the doorbell. And in two seconds, that person's like, "Oh, hey, welcome to so and so's birthday party." And my sister and I, are there just looking like afraid to do anything at all.

Amena Brown:

So when you have this press conference with your kids, where it's not that you're going someplace, but it's that you got a thing you got to do, what are the expectations? What are you saying to them when you have the meeting?

Bunmi Laditan:

I'm letting them know, "Do you like being in a home? Do you like having four walls? Because that cost money. Do you like the food we have?" That costs money. So the different thing, so mommy has a job, mommy is a person. I know it might be a shock to everybody in this home but mommy actually has things going on other than snack time, and lunchtime, dinnertime. So sometimes I'm going to work, sometimes I'm going to talk to people.

Bunmi Laditan:

And when I'm going to do those things, I need you to do the things that I told you to do. In this case, it's multiplication drills on YouTube, which I feel like is school. So I need you guys to do that. And when you're done with that, I said they can go on their devices, but I am unavailable. I'm here, but I'm not here. This is a long-distance relationship for one hour. And I specify a time, I need one hour. And I say that over and over again. And I let them know.

Bunmi Laditan:

An important part of the talk is to let them know that if they crossed that line, eventually you will be off the phone. There is going to be after the party, we are going to reunite. And depending on how this time goes, that changes how the reuniting will go. And what will happen after that, because they know nothing's going to happen while I'm talking to you here. And this is being recorded. But after, how do you want that to be? What face do you want to see? What do you want to happen or not happen?

Amena Brown:

I need this so bad.

Bunmi Laditan:

A little scary but not too scary, I feel.

Amena Brown:

I need this so bad because I appreciate you bringing up the reuniting parts because it was like my mom could go from like, "Don't embarrass me" to that person opening the door. And she's like, "Hey, we're so happy to see..." It was like another somebody is there when she's in a space where other people are there. And there's only so far she intends to go having to get with you in that public space because that falls under the category of embarrassing her. But when those people aren't around-

Bunmi Laditan:

Yes. When the witnesses have left.

Amena Brown:

... you're going to have a time where you got to be there with her alone. It was like whatever that is, I don't want it.

Bunmi Laditan:

You don't want it.

Amena Brown:

I don't want it.

Bunmi Laditan:

You don't need it.

Amena Brown:

Mm-mm (negative).

Bunmi Laditan:

You don't need it. Because you know you can go so far when there are other people around. Because you know even your mom has limits what she's willing to do in public. But when you're home, and it's just you and her, you don't want that-

Amena Brown:

No, whatever it is-

Bunmi Laditan:

You don't want it.

Amena Brown:

... whatever it is-

Bunmi Laditan:

Nobody wants that.

Amena Brown:

No. She had a couple of times where I felt like she also would just say things like, "And if you don't do this thing I'm saying." And then it was like she would just get quiet right there. I don't even have the fill-in-the-blank of exactly what happens. I just feel like whatever that is, I don't want it. But I was the oldest kid. So I was very like, "She said this. I don't want that. So I'm not going to do that."

Amena Brown:

Then my sister came along and my sister was like, "Mom, when you say these things to me, it's really not helpful for effective communication between the two of us. And I feel like there might be some other ways that you can maybe communicate to me your desires about what you want my behavior to be, but this way that you're communicating it's not effective for us. So what's another way we can find?" And I'm staring at her like-

Bunmi Laditan:

Shocked.

Amena Brown:

... "Why are you talking to her like that? Why are you living?"

Bunmi Laditan:

Scared. Yes, that's a second-born thing. See, that is a second born, specifically a second-born daughter. I have a theory because I have an older daughter and then I have a middle daughter. The first daughter is like, "These are the rules. I don't want to break them. I'm afraid of consequences." Second born is like, "Okay, so we're coworkers, we're equals. I think we should come up with the rules together. Because none of these are working for me. I'm going to be honest with you. None of these are working for me. And I'm not afraid of any of these consequences. So, I don't know. Can I have a snack? I don't know. I don't know." That's how the second borns come in. And the first ones were just shocked. Like, "I can do this?" But they can't because they weren't-

Amena Brown:

No.

Bunmi Laditan:

... that's not even inside of them, they can, but they're shocked.

Amena Brown:

Complete shock. Even to this day, I still look at my sister sometimes she's talking to my mom like, "We grown." And I still be looking like, "Wow, yeah, this is a conversation you all have? This is allowed?" So now it's almost like I'm looking at my mom like, "This is allowed? This is allowed because it wasn't allowed when you were raising me." You was on your, "No, this is what we're doing." My sister comes along, "Now you want to have a conversation? Now you want dialogue?" I had no dialogue, it was a monologue, was soliloquy. Get out of here."

Bunmi Laditan:

All of a sudden you're talking to kids. Okay.

Amena Brown:

Please, who even knew?

Bunmi Laditan:

But it's not personal. It's just because the second borns come out wild, they come out different and we're caught off guard. Because things don't affect them in the same way.

Amena Brown:

Right.

Bunmi Laditan:

No, I can give my oldest one a look. And she will be shaking inside. Just a look. My second born will give me a look back. And? Give me a look back.

Amena Brown:

We got problem? We got problem here?

Bunmi Laditan:

You have to think of something new.

Amena Brown:

Please. Oh my gosh, you all.

Bunmi Laditan:

Wait, I have to escalate. She causes me to escalate.

Amena Brown:

No. First of all, not a child with a personality that makes you have to escalate because it's like you normally reserve that word for when you're in a customer service situation. And you're like, "Somebody's got to call the manager." But now you're like, "This is my child. And you're making me escalate. And I'm the manager."

Bunmi Laditan:

I'm the manager. And then you have to act crazy because you can't... the Battle of the wills. I don't know if this is good parenting or not. Someone told me once you have to win every fight until there's three... I don't know if that was good parenting advice or not. But I took it. I just took it.

Bunmi Laditan:

One time, my second born, so she just was like kept going. And I had this flash to those moments of those morning shows. We had the out-of-control team. That's where it comes from. I was like, "I'm not going to be that mom on that show with the out-of-control talking to me [crosstalk 00:12:35] in whatever way." And so she won't do her homework, I said, "Start it now, I'm going to throw your iPad out of the window into the snow." It was on the second story. I said, "Start it now or this iPad's going out the window." I don't know, I'd snapped, I'd lost it. So guess where that iPad went? Because she wanted to challenge me. It went out the window.

Amena Brown:

What?

Bunmi Laditan:

All kids were shocked. But did she do her homework? Yes. My oldest one was horrified. She's like [gaps], but it got quiet. She did her homework. I went out later, I got it. Luckily, it still worked. It turned itself off. It was so cold or whatever. But it worked, with a waterproof case, didn't [laughs]

Amena Brown:

Come on waterproof case.

Bunmi Laditan:

But it was different after that, because I think she realized, "Okay, this lady is truly crazy." Because to children, the iPad is life. It is their second parent. It is all of this thing. So when I threw it out the window, it was almost like I feel like a pet out the window, like a dog out the window. So maybe they saw themselves going out the window. I don't know. But it worked. And after that our relationship totally, some people would say it broke, but I will say it changed, where she respected me more. Or she's afraid. I don't know. Either way, it worked. The homework got done.

Amena Brown:

I'm just saying, so any of you parents listening, if you need to sacrifice that iPad at one time-

Bunmi Laditan:

One time.

Amena Brown:

... kids don't even understand, they don't even understand how buildings work. I don't care if you toss it out the window and the window is on the same level as the house. We don't care. If you need to sacrifice that iPad for the people, you do what you need to do, parents, you do what you need to do to make it.

Bunmi Laditan:

I'm glad you said for the people because it's not just about me. These kids will grow up. The kids on Maury, they grow up. I don't know what they're doing in the world not respecting people. I did this for all of us. [crosstalk 00:14:29] for everybody. This was not just for me. This is for you. This was for the whole world. This is for humanity.

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Bunmi Laditan:

I threw the iPad out the window for humanity.

Amena Brown:

For humanity as a service to the world is what we're talking about, people.

Bunmi Laditan:

Yes.

Amena Brown:

Yes. Bunmi, I'm just... When I tell you all this was not even what we planned to talk about. But I needed this conversation. This is a HER Favorite Things episode and talking to Bunmi is also one my favorite things. I'm sure, maybe one day Bunmi and I will record an after-dark episode of HER with Amena Brown.

Bunmi Laditan:

Yes.

Amena Brown:

I need to really figure this out because I have a few people that I interview on this podcast that I'm like, "There are other things that we could have super inappropriate conversation about that wouldn't maybe work for this setting, but I need to find a place that you have to have a password to log into it and be like, but if you want to listen to me and Bunmi talk about this on the after dark version of HER, you can listen to us talk about that. Okay, please."

Amena Brown:

So, this is HER Favorite Things episode. And I want to start by asking you what is your favorite Black girl hairstyle? This is all of Black girl life. This could be growing up, it could be currently. What's a favorite that you have?

Bunmi Laditan:

Well, I have locks right now. But my all-time favorite style for me or to see on any other Black girl, braids. Braids with like kanekalon. I see things that I never say it, I'm talking about braids with synthetic 2B or 1B hair. And just like the individuals. Not super small because anytime I see someone with the micro braids, I always have to imagine them trying to take them down and it ruins it for me. Even if it looks good, I feel like I'm part of that takedown process. I don't know why. But just individual shiny braids, I love them.

Amena Brown:

I'm not going to lie, I just went back and rewatched Poetic Justice. And seeing Janet Jackson and Regina King's braids, there was a scene where Janet was... I don't remember if she was just, you know how they had a lot of scenes where she was reflecting and then her poetry voice was the voiceover. She pulled one of the braids up and lit that lighter. When I tell you, I think I left my body for a second. I had a Black girl out-of-body experience.

Amena Brown:

As soon as I heard the click of the lighter, I was like, "Oh, sis. Come on and burn the end of that braid. Yes."

Bunmi Laditan:

Get it done. I was more like a dipper myself, to dip them, and just that feeling of your braids freshly done and a little wet. The back's a little wet or whatever, it doesn't matter. And just going home, your braids are done for the next however months you're going to try to keep those in. I was really a five, six-month person no matter what. I was like a really, I'm going to extend this type raggedy person. When I was [inaudible 00:17:41] even now. It just felt so good.

Bunmi Laditan:

And whenever I see someone just rocking those braids, I feel so proud. I feel so nostalgic. Yeah, I just feel so happy. I feel so happy because there were so many styles that I feel like especially as a child that made you not be able to do things. It can't get wet, I can't do this, and braids, you could do anything. You could do anything. Put up in a ponytail and go live my life. And so, just makes me feel free and just happy.

Amena Brown:

That's such a good point. I never thought about the ways that our hairstyles, some of our Black girl hairstyles felt like they were limiting us. But braid ended that. Even my mom's frustration of like, "We got to go to church or we got to go wherever we're going to go and now. I got to do your hair." But when it's braided, it's like everyone's free from that. You can swim, you can go to the waterpark, you can do whatever, sweat, you can do whatever it is and not be worried.

Amena Brown:

And this is a great segue to my next Favorite Things question. I want to talk about some particular braids that really gave me the life is when Beyonce released Formation. And she was in that car that was doing the circles in the parking lot. And those long braids that now are called lemonade braids. If you go to get your hair braided-

Bunmi Laditan:

I didn't even know that.

Amena Brown:

Okay, they are now called lemonade braid. So I don't know what they were before. But they ain't that. When you Google now, it's like, do you want these lemonade braids? And she was leaning out of the window of that car and those braids were cascading down. I was like, "This is a life I want to live." I was like I-

Bunmi Laditan:

I know.

Amena Brown:

It was everything. This leads me to my next thing. Do you have a favorite Beyonce song and I want to preface this okay. I don't want to preface this by saying okay, not every Black girl likes Beyonce. I don't know that many. But not every Black girl likes Beyonce. Nor does every Black girl have to like Beyonce. So if I asked this question and you're like, "Not really my thing." We'll put another artist name there but talk to me. Do you have a favorite Beyonce song and if so, what is it?

Bunmi Laditan:

I do. And I know you mean not every Black girl has to like Beyonce. But even if for whatever reason something happened and a Black girl doesn't like Beyonce, something happened, that's so condescending, but whatever. Let's say she has a reason. Let's say she has a valid reason. Her influence is so undeniable and so Black and so... I don't know. It's so undeniable and her artistry transcends waste and transcends even her gender. Her artistry, her genius. I'll stop, but it's... Yeah, okay. Listen. It's Listen, the song is Listen.

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Bunmi Laditan:

I'm not going to sing it. I'm not going to make a fool out of myself today.

Amena Brown:

We are here at a microphone. If you need to get that going, Bunmi, you just let me know. I might have a little background vocal if you need it.

Bunmi Laditan:

You will come in on background? So that's-

Amena Brown:

I might come in. So just let me know if that's what we need. But yes, Listen. What about it makes you love it?

Bunmi Laditan:

Oh, my goodness, I feel like it's my anthem. I would play that song a lot when I was going through a big breakup. A divorce actually, is not a big breakup. But it made me think of just all the times in my life when I let other people speak for me and define me and being defined as a wife or being defined as so and so's, my parent's child, being defined as a student or defined as someone from this part of town, even being defined by in religious settings.

Bunmi Laditan:

And those times in life, especially when I was going through my divorce, just no, I'm me, I'm ready for my voice to be heard. I'm ready to say the things that I've been wanting to say that have been in my heart that I was afraid to say because I would lose the approval of this person or this person. And I just love where she says, "It's my time to be heard." And the way the song just builds and she sings stronger, and stronger and stronger. I just love that song so much. I love that song.

Amena Brown:

Bunmi, thank you for bringing that song up. Because I'm like, now you're making me like, I need to do a real listen on that song.

Bunmi Laditan:

Yes. Just asking people to listen, they're asking this person really to listen. I just love it.

Amena Brown:

I get that now. Not that I'm a Beyonce historian. Although if there's a job like that, let me know. But, even in thinking the things that... we don't know a lot about Beyonce's actual life, which I respect to but the things we know a little bit about that time in her life, I think that was around that time of Dream Girls, around the time that she was separating from her dad as a manager and starting to really carve her own path, which even at that time, I could not have imagined how broad and amazing her career was going to get.

Amena Brown:

But thinking about the subject matter of that song, and how much that song meant to her at that moment in her life, that's actually very inspiring to think about that we're all going to go through some times like that, where it's like, "Okay, I got to step out of whatever people are thinking I should be. I got to step out of that and let my full self be heard." And now thinking about all the work she created after that, it's beautiful to see artistically that. So that's really poignant.

Bunmi Laditan:

It's amazing because when she says, "I'm not at home in my own home." just talking about... because that's how I felt so often, especially growing up, I didn't feel at home a lot of the time. I couldn't relax in the way that I wanted to a lot of the time. And even in early marriage, I fell into this role. I am wife now and I lost myself in so many things. And just that song just emerging from all of these their comforts, yes, but they're also keeping you shackled, keeping you in this tight little box.

Bunmi Laditan:

And yes, it's a true thing of what she did after she was brave. And I didn't even realized that it came out at the time that she split with her dad as manager, but now it's even braver because after that she skyrocketed. And she'd already skyrocketed. But then she exploded in what she created and the visual, it's insane.

Bunmi Laditan:

If I have 100th of the bravery that she showed in her career. People need to understand, being an artist is scary. It's scary. So she is brave to do all the things she has done. She's brave. And if I have one 100th of her braveries, I can do stuff. I can do stuff that I want to do not just that people tell me I should do, but I really want to do.

Amena Brown:

Yeah. Beyonce, thank you. We know you're listening to the podcast. So thank you.

Bunmi Laditan:

Thank you for tuning in. Thank you.

Amena Brown:

We appreciate this so much. Anytime you want to come, you're welcome, Beyonce anytime. Even Blue Ivy, she would make a great guest too. So, okay. Tell me do you have right now because I'm sure this changes all the time. Do you right now have a favorite phrase that you love to say?

Bunmi Laditan:

I like to say "teamwork makes the dream work" to my kids. I know it's so annoying when I say it, but I can't stop. Because I always say in the context of like, "We need to clean the house together. We need to do this laundry. We'd fold it and put it away, or we need to all chip in, teamwork makes the dream work." And so I go, "Teamwork makes the dream work."

Amena Brown:

Yes, we love a call and response, Bunmi. We love to see that.

Bunmi Laditan:

I love it. But it really is true in life. You can't do a lot by yourself. And I have to... I've been a reckless in life. I keep to myself, I disappear for a while. And I've started to learn how you really do need to depend on people and lean on people and network with people not just for the purpose of networking, but to get to know people and know what makes them keep going and exchange ideas. So I'm trying to get better at that.

Amena Brown:

Teamwork makes the dream work, honey, I love that. What's your favorite way to spend time alone? If you have a few hours alone, what's the dream of things you would be doing?

Bunmi Laditan:

Well, first, I love being alone. It's my favorite [laughs] state of anything. This is a horrible thing to say during pandemic but if everyone did die tomorrow, I mean die because I don't want to look at a bunch of bodies. If everyone disappeared, I'd be okay. It would be a little bit freaky because I don't know how to work the electricity plants and the water purification plants. But I will figure it out. Because I do like quiet... that's weird. But what was even the question? I don't remember.

Amena Brown:

If you had a few hours alone, what are your favorite things to do when you're alone? How do you want to spend the time?

Bunmi Laditan:

I'm back on track. I just want to say I have ADHD and it's unmedicated. So that's why [laughs]

Amena Brown:

I'm tracking.

Bunmi Laditan:

I love to go on drives by myself and listen to music. I love it.

Amena Brown:

I love that. Oh, going on a drive. I love that.

Bunmi Laditan:

It's so fun.

Amena Brown:

It does feel like you're unto yourself but you're also watching the other cars go by. I have had some wonderful alone time on a road trip or something. I live in Atlanta. So in the before times, I would have to go back and forth to Nashville for business stuff. And it's about four or four and a half hour drive and you could fly but something about that four, four and a half hours. I get that. It's like all the podcasts and whatever album.

Bunmi Laditan:

Audiobooks.

Amena Brown:

I love them.

Bunmi Laditan:

I love audiobooks. I love them. They're just art sometimes, when you get a really good reader, someone's voice and they just know how to do that acting and they can do the male voice and female voice and little kid voices. Those are hard. Some people nail it. So just listening to audiobooks and driving music. Yeah, podcast, anything, just like feeling the world fly by and you're in your own little pod with your snacks. Maybe with your mocha, come on, like, come on. With your food.

Amena Brown:

Come on, as soon as you said snacks I was like, "Sign me up for that." Because that's the best part about a road trip is like, every time I take a road trip, I got to make a trip specifically for the snacks. I don't know, it's a cross between discovering I had some allergies to things in my 30s and maybe just becoming a bougie person but some of the snacks I need are not going to be at the gas station in random town that I'm driving by. "I need my organic popcorn, but I need the butter to maybe be vegan butter." There's a lot of things that are going on in my snack situation but I'm always like, "Let me go to Whole Foods and achieve these organic dark chocolate-covered almonds." Yes.

Bunmi Laditan:

Fancy. I miss Trader Joe's because I'm in Canada now. I miss Trader Joe's. Whole Foods is always... I didn't understand how they did their pricing. I felt like they were robbing me [crosstalk 00:30:01].

Amena Brown:

I think that might still be the case, actually. I think that's an accurate description.

Bunmi Laditan:

Because there were two times when I got to the register, and I wanted to put things back because I didn't have enough. This is like 10 years ago, and I'm like, "They did something." You know when you look at your receipt to see where they were wrong, and like there was nothing, it was all legitimate, and you just have to kind of sit with yourself.

Amena Brown:

This is still happening to me going to Whole Foods because now it's like, they have a little Prime members thing. If you're a member of Amazon Prime, you're supposed to scan that. And then there's certain things you're supposed to get a discount on. And one of the last times I went up in there, I don't think my husband was with me. I think I was alone because I made her check twice. And I normally wouldn't have done that if he was there because I would be like, "I want to embarrass you." You know what I mean? But I was alone. And I was like, "Did this scan?" She was like, "Yes, ma'am, is scanned." And I was like, "Well, why?" I was pointing to the receipt like why is it? And I tried scanning it again like, is it going to change? She was like, "No, this is just what it is." And I was like, "This ain't right."

Bunmi Laditan:

I need this to change.

Amena Brown:

Please. What are you going to do about it? This isn't right, what are you planning to do about it? But I do feel like Trader Joe's and honorable mention for Sprouts, I feel like those two places are a snack haven situation and they have very... I feel like you can go to Whole Foods and there's just general brands or whatever that are there. But I feel like with Trader Joe's there are particular cookies and particular chips, popcorn, things that you can only get when you go to Trader Joe's. Am I right about that?

Bunmi Laditan:

You're right. It's been 10 years for me and I still think about Trader Joe's at least three times a week because they will have unique things. They're always trying to delight people. I'm here sounding like a commercial. I need to have access to the store.

Amena Brown:

Trader Joe's executives, we know you're listening. So Bunmi's book is coming out but she's also available. She's also available for sponsorship. So Trader Joe's executives we're paging you to aisle five, please get in touch with Bunmi.

Bunmi Laditan:

Yes, I'll come. I'll visit.

Amena Brown:

I love that. Yes. Okay.

Bunmi Laditan:

[crosstalk 00:32:23] one of their Hawaiian t-shirts and everything. I love Trader Joe's. Just send me snacks, pay me in snacks. That's all I want. Pay me on all of your new releases.

Amena Brown:

I am accepting of this. Even you saying pay me in snacks, I know we're just really meeting each other like "in real life" because we're here on the recording, but I'm just going to step out there and have a vulnerable moment and tell you that I wouldn't mind if someone could pay me in hoagies. I'm a sandwich lover and I'm out here in these streets like, if the city of Philadelphia, in particular, wanted to pay me in hoagies for something, it's acceptable. There's really not a lot of other things that I would be like, "I don't want to be paid in beer or pay me in bottles of wine." Who cares? Pay me in hoagies and we can work out something.

Bunmi Laditan:

I understand because I would be... Will it to be paid in burritos, Carne asada specifically with salsa verde? I have to have salsa verde on the side, not the red salsa.

Amena Brown:

Okay.

Bunmi Laditan:

I could be paid in that, no problem.

Amena Brown:

It's important to know one's requirements for things because there are actually very few moments that I would be like instead of money this, but there are a few food items that I'd be like, if I'm at the negotiating table, and they're like, "Turns out we don't have money, but we have." I feel like there's a few foods right there that'd be like, "Slap me the contract."

Bunmi Laditan:

Yeah, let's do it. You did your research, and I'm here to say let's do it.

Amena Brown:

I feel like I'm Monique GIF. I would like to see it.

Bunmi Laditan:

I would like to see it.

Amena Brown:

[inaudible 00:34:10] Oh, they have cheesesteaks? I would like to see it. I would like to see the contract for that, please. Okay, tell me about this. What's your favorite trash TV to watch?

Bunmi Laditan:

Oh, my gosh. My favorite trashed. Well, I'm one of those people who I don't watch a lot of TV because I don't have channels here. They do exist in Canada, but I don't have large channels but in terms of what I do watch to zone out, it's YouTube. And it's so dumb. This qualifies as trash TV because I like to watch, it's very specific, Korean cafe owners prepare drinks.

Amena Brown:

Yes.

Bunmi Laditan:

It is a problem. Sometimes it doesn't make any sense. I'm probably never going to go to Korea. I don't even go to cafes that much because I don't like my shirt looks... I don't like the color, it looks better I tried it by accident once. But I love to see them. So you'll have this Korean young lady, all she does is prepare drinks and prepare cake and cupcake. And I can watch that for hours.

Amena Brown:

Wow.

Bunmi Laditan:

Yeah. And the captions are in broken English. That just makes it better for me. So she repairs all kinds of drinks, it's called Bless Roll. She prepares all kinds of drinks. Like, oh my gosh, like kiwi, kiwi smoothies. She makes with ice cream drink. She makes Americanos. And I'm just sitting there just watching transfixed. I could watch that for three to four hours.

Amena Brown:

Wow. This is a whole corner of YouTube that I-

Bunmi Laditan:

It's a corner.

Amena Brown:

... know nothing about. I'm like-

Bunmi Laditan:

Lost.

Amena Brown:

... people are making videos of that process. And I could see how it would be interesting to watch because you feel like you're a little involved in this stranger's day. you're getting a little peek into their process.

Bunmi Laditan:

Yes. I feel like I own a café, kind of. Do I not?

Amena Brown:

Obviously.

Bunmi Laditan:

I feel like, after all these hours, we own a cafe, me and her. We both own a cafe. I feel, honestly, I could own a cafe at this point because I've watched so many hours. I know how to do it. I know where the ice goes on the cup. I know how to pour the Americano after you put in the water. So I feel that I could do this, that we can make this work for me if you ever would like a partner to do this.

Bunmi Laditan:

I love the part where she cuts the different cakes. There's a rainbow cake. It's just all the names, Oreo cake. There's vanilla cake. I make the kids watch it too, and they're just like, "Why are we doing this?" On a Saturday.

Amena Brown:

Okay. And because you already have a strong press release with the kids. I love how you can just go ahead and begin with like, do you like having a home? You can just start right there. That beginning line... As a writer, I'm into the opening line and that opening lines, do you like having a home? I feel like your kids will get used to that. And then after a while, you just say that. You don't even make it to the rest of the press conference. And they're just like, "We're going to finish watching this lady cut up this cake because apparently-"

Bunmi Laditan:

Yes. We do that on Saturday. Because we were just watching some videos and I said, "Oh, I have an idea for a video," because the kids want to watch try not to laugh challenge and all these videos. And Generation Z humor is weird. I don't understand. I don't even laugh at the same things they laugh at. They just see like a cartoon frog going across the screen saying, "Ye" and they laugh. I don't understand it.

Bunmi Laditan:

So I said, Oh, I have an idea. Let's watch this cafe." And then it was like, "Why are we doing this?" But I'm like, "Look at her. Look how she's putting the sprinkles on the ice cream. That's cool, right?" She's like, "No." But I love it. I love it.

Amena Brown:

You all, I'm going to have to see if Bunmi will send us a link to one of her favorites so that we can include it in the show notes because I'm super curious. And I'm also a person who sometimes has trouble sleeping because my brain is an administrator a little bit. So I'll wake up sometimes like 3:00 am or 4:00 am because my brain's like, "Let's think about some things we forgot to do today. Let's wake up at 4:00 am and let's think about that. Remember the conversation you had and you were feeling awkward afterwards? Let's take this time to overthink about why that was awkward."

Amena Brown:

So sometimes I need something methodical almost to just watch to get my brain to stop looping about whatever that is. And this sounds like the perfect thing because it's not traumatic or a lot of drama. You're just like, "Here's a woman there in the café, she's cutting up the different cakes. We love to see this task. What? Completed. Wow."

Bunmi Laditan:

Making a pomegranate latte and putting it in the to-go box for Uber courier. It's amazing.

Amena Brown:

How did you even know I needed this, Bunmi? You brought it up. I need this now. I need this.

Bunmi Laditan:

I know. Yes. It's the best for 4:00 a.m. It's so relaxing. You can even keep the sound off. I don't even have the sound on half the time. I'll have rain sounds or something going on. And just watching this cafe. And she'll describe which cake is her favorite. They're still eating Christmas cake for whatever reason. Maybe that's part of the culture. But it's like Christmas cake decorating with reindeer.

Amena Brown:

Wow. You all, if you all don't go to YouTube and check this out, I'm going to make it my business to find out about this, Bunmi. Okay, let me ask you about this. What is your favorite spiritual practice? And I preface this by saying, I feel like there's so much I love about the ways you write about your journey and spirituality, and the honesty with which you write, which I think is very central to your book.

Amena Brown:

And I think if you had said the phrase spiritual practice to me, seven years ago, I would have been like, "No, we rebuke that. That's not a thing. No, we're rebuking that. That's not a thing that we're doing now." But I feel like in my journey, and for me having the context of being in Christian faith, I feel like my Christian faith has been stretched in a lot of ways.

Bunmi Laditan:

Yes.

Amena Brown:

It's been broadened way beyond even what I believed as a child, what I believed when I first entered adulthood even, and thinking about there are these different ways to have spiritual practice that may not have to be so regimented, or I don't know, I'm still processing a lot of that. So I was curious to hear your thoughts about that. Do you have a favorite spiritual practice that really grounds you?

Bunmi Laditan:

Yeah. I know exactly what you mean by seven years ago, you would have said, No, because three years ago, four years ago, I would have said the same thing. I would have imagined someone saying, "Oh, this is..." And there's nothing wrong with devotionals at all. I have some devotionals. But I would have imagined somebody with their devotional notebook doing their perfect thing. And to me, it would have sounded so boring and constrained. But they're not. I am not saying that they are, I'm just saying how I would have reacted to it.

Bunmi Laditan:

But my favorite spiritual practice, it's going to sound strange, but I think it's making myself a cup of tea right now. Because I've been so hard on myself most of my life. Most people, you can think the worst of yourself and think, "Oh, I messed up on this." You look at your worst moments, highlight reel, and I do that and then being a mom is giving. And if you're not careful, you'll just give to the bone marrow and just collapse.

Bunmi Laditan:

So I love drinking tea. And I have a lot of different teas. I'm not fancy about tea. I like Celestial Seasonings, but like store-brand. I don't care what kind of tea it is, it doesn't have a strong taste anyway, it's just tea. It doesn't cost a lot. And so I like fixing myself a cup of tea with honey. I do this multiple times a day. And just like holding it. And to me, drinking tea is a weight that, not that I prove I have value to myself. But yes, that I matter in this home too.

Bunmi Laditan:

And I'm doing something kind, something that I love, something that feels like a hug for me. And not just, it helps ground me, it helps me feel human. And so many things can take you out of that feeling human, just like a lot of the time we're doing things, we got to do things. But tea is really something or maybe for some people is coffee, just makes me stop. And just exhale. And so that I think is my favorite.

Bunmi Laditan:

And I also like praying in bed at night, just praying. When I say praying, I don't know what people imagine. But for me, I just talk to God about, "So thanks for just getting me through this day. And there's another one coming tomorrow. But I know you'll see me through it. So almost as if I have a friend sitting on the edge of my bed, who's been waiting for me than just who is there. So I can just unload everything. So those are my two favorite spiritual practices.

Amena Brown:

I love that, Bunmi. And I think this is also a good place for me to ask you to tell my listeners more about your book, because I think this is a great segue because your book is full of very honest prayers.

Bunmi Laditan:

Thank you.

Amena Brown:

And you can tell me if this is true about your book, I'll tell you the vibes that I was getting. I feel like people who may feel like they're on the fringes of faith sometimes, who they may read other things and feel like, "That's not me, that doesn't fit me, that's not my thing." I feel like they may find themselves in the way that you've written this book because it is written in this very open-handed way for people.

Amena Brown:

So if somebody is listening, and they're not too sure maybe how they feel about prayer or about what that could look like, what would you say to them about what your book is like, or the inspiration behind writing it?

Bunmi Laditan:

Oh, thank you for saying all of that. I feel like I wrote this book as I was living it and as I was because I just recently I would say I started praying and talking to God and then came to faith in Jesus. That's all really recent for me. Past two, three years, it's been a journey because even when I believe something, I can believe it, but then I have to feel it too.

Amena Brown:

True.

Bunmi Laditan:

And I can wrap my whole self around it. And so, I wrote this book as I was learning to trust God. I wrote this book as I was learning to trust in His goodness because that's a whole another thing.

Amena Brown:

Sure.

Bunmi Laditan:

Depending on what you've been through in life, and maybe even the religious people or churches or whatever you've been to, you can have pain in what it means even believe in God. So I was learning to pray, I was learning to talk to him, and to trust him, to trust that he wants good things for me, and for anyone. And as I was doing this, I felt him teaching me too, and teaching me so gently, which is the only way I think you can really teach, just teaching me so gently.

Bunmi Laditan:

And really, I think the most important part was that he was revealing himself as a father to me, a loving father because it's one thing to think of a God who's in charge and has power. But why would we really want to communicate with this all-powerful being? He's powerful. Maybe we communicate to get stuff. But him as a loving father, this loving deity who cares about his children, I wanted to talk to, because it comforted me, he comforted me, he comforts me, and he loves me.

Bunmi Laditan:

And so it goes from... that took it from this religion to this really real relationship. So I wrote it from the person at the beginning of a relationship who's not even sure that they're safe but knows that they want to be there.

Amena Brown:

That's powerful, Bunmi. That's powerful.

Bunmi Laditan:

Oh, thank you.

Amena Brown:

And I think other things that Bunmi and I can talk about on our next episode. And especially when I'm on this podcast, people who've been listening a while know that I grew up Christian, I'm still Christian, even as the bounds of that are different for me now. But I love to talk about spirituality on this podcast because I think whether people find that in a particular religion, or whatever their journey is there, we're all yearning for something that feeds our soul. That reminds us that we're human, that we're here, that it's important that we're here.

Amena Brown:

And as a person who is a Christian, I love for there to be things that are available to people who may not feel like they're the most devout anything, they may not feel like they're the one that has all the theology information. They just may be curious. Or they may be in a place where they have questions, and they want to be able to know what they do with those questions or whatever. And so I think it's great that you're writing things that are creating that space for people.

Amena Brown:

So Bunmi, I could just talk to you about 1,000 things, you all understand. But we're going now, but it doesn't mean there wasn't another two hours of things that we could have talked about, okay? Because-

Bunmi Laditan:

I know. This flew by. Because I could talk to you about so many things for a long time, you're fun to talk to.

Amena Brown:

So we're going to do that offline. You all can't be a part of it. But Bunmi and I will talk in a off-the-record and say the words that we couldn't say on here, But Bunmi, thank you so much for joining me in the HER living room.

Bunmi Laditan:

Thank you.

Amena Brown:

You all, I hope you enjoyed getting to hear from Bunmi. And if you don't have it already, make sure you go to your favorite bookseller and get a copy of Dear God: Honest Prayers to a God Who Listens. Make sure you do that. Thanks, Bunmi for joining me.

Amena Brown:

I hope you all got as much joy from my conversation with Bunmi as I did. You can follow Bunmi on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at HonestToddler and you can check out her website that's bunmiladitan.com. That's B-U-N-M-I L-A-D-I-T-A-N bunmiladitan.com. Make sure you grab a copy of her latest book, Dear God: Honest Prayers to a God Who Listens from your favorite bookseller. Do it now, do it today, get a bunch of copies.

Amena Brown:

For this week's edition of Give Her a Crown, I want to shout out Dr. Renita Weems. Dr. Weems is a biblical scholar, academic administrator, writer, ordained minister, and a public intellectual whose scholarly insights center modern faith, biblical texts, and the role of spirituality in our everyday lives.

Amena Brown:

I made a decision last year that for a while I would focus my reading on Christian spirituality and texts written by black women only. And this journey led me to Dr. Weems' book Listening For God: A Ministers Journey Through Silence And Doubt. Her book arrived to me right on time as I was shuffling through my own doubts and questions.

Amena Brown:

And I wanted to read to you all one of my favorite quotes from the book. "If God was going to speak to me, "God would just have to do it amidst the clutter of family, the noise of pots and pans, the din of a hungry toddler screaming from the backseat during rush hour traffic, and the hassles of the workplace. Women have for centuries been made to feel guilty. Because in our ongoing struggle to balance solitude and intimacy, we found ourselves often for reasons not always of our doing, having to give up the former for the sake of the latter.

Amena Brown:

While I agree completely with those who argue that solitude and quiet are necessary conditions for replenishing the soul and the psyche, and that prayer thrives on stillness before God, the greatest challenge for me as a minister and a mother, was to stop always blaming myself and feeling guilty. The lesson was learning how to hear God in different ways, and in different places, which in my case, meant in the noisiness of my life, and in the seasons of divine silence when God seemed withdrawn, and distant."

Amena Brown:

You all, to all of you listening, whether you have a spiritual practice, or religion, or religious background, or if you do not ascribe to any particular religion or spiritual practice, I just want you to know that this podcast, our HER living room, is a welcome and worn couch. It's a wide table, where we can bring our doubts, our prayers, our laughter, our questions, our cuss words, our breath, and be present in the silence or the noise of wherever we are. I hope you can take a deep breath today and feel your lungs filled with gratitude, the same way that mine do whenever I'm here speaking to you.

Amena Brown:

Thank you, Dr. Renita Weems, for inviting us to consider our spirituality differently, for inviting us not to a life of guilt and shame, but to a life of freedom, of questions, of doubts, as we explore our own spirituality. Dr. Renita Weems, give her a crown.

Amena Brown:

HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions, as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network, in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.

Transcript: HER With Amena Brown episode 27

Amena Brown:

That time I met India.Arie ... That I went on a really bad date ... That time I was directed by Robert Townsend ... That time I got mono on Thanksgiving ... That time I went on a really bad Christmas tour ... That time I ...

Amena Brown:

Yes, folks. This is a That Time I episode, and these stories are always really fun for me to share with you all. Thank you to those of you that have been leaving me comments on social media. Just know that it brings so much joy and life to me. I hope that we are getting closer and closer to a time that I can tour the country and meet many of you. But until then, I thank you for your comments, and I thank you for your reviews.

Amena Brown:

Someone's Memaw did a review on Apple Podcasts recently and I was like, "Yes." So Doris, if you are listening, thank you for tuning in, being a part of our HER living room today. I'm talking about that time I met a celebrity and I want to start with one of my favorite music artists of all time, hands down, India.Arie. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you have heard me talk about India's music. I talk about her in other episodes with other people.

Amena Brown:

I'm almost certain, if I haven't already done it, that I need to give her a crown. I want to give her many crowns. If you're not familiar with India.Arie, part of me wants to tell you to press pause and go listen to her music right now. And then I feel torn. Well, listen to this and listen to her music. But either way, listen to her music, okay? I have loved India.Arie's music since first hearing her. She is one of the few artists who I own all of her albums, not just streamed them, owned them, either bought them on CD or bought them and downloaded them when that first became a thing. That's how long I've been following her music.

Amena Brown:

So this story that I'm telling you, we are entering the life of Amena when I was about 22 years old. This was my second job outside of college, which caused me to meet India at this point. My first job out of college I worked for Smoothie King. My second job out of college, which ironically the Smoothie King where I worked as my first job, and I want to shout out my friend, Saleda, who is the reason I got that job because she was working there after we both graduated from Spelman. She knew that I was just feeling very aimless at the moment because I had applied to grad school.

Amena Brown:

You may have heard me tell the story on this podcast. I can't remember now. But I had applied to grad school because I really wanted to be a writer, but I just didn't know what to do with myself in the in-between time. I didn't really see myself being a person that would do well in a corporate setting. So I just thought grad school because I thought that would at least buy me some time. My goal at the time when I was graduating from Spelman was to get a master's of fine arts in poetry. I graduated college in 2002, so we were the class that was graduating the year of 9/11.

Amena Brown:

I want to talk about that a little bit because I think when we think about what it means to go into the job market and what the economy's like, and I like to bring up that reflection because I know that there are Millennials listening that remember either leaving high school to go into the workplace or leaving college to go into the workplace and going into the workplace in a time where the economy was not in a very stable place. I also want to voice that for people that are graduating right now during this time that we're in a pandemic.

Amena Brown:

Both of these moments are similar to what it was like for those of us that were sort of coming out of college, going into the workforce right at this time that the economy was in a very unstable place. So I applied to grad school. I applied to three schools and did not get into any of them. So my friend, Saleda, took a good kind of pity on me and was like, "Hey, I got this job at this smoothie place. Why don't you come up here and work?" So I worked at the smoothie place for a while.

Amena Brown:

And then another friend of mine that I went to church with, she called me and she said, "Hey, I worked with this woman in the past who is an event producer. She's looking for an assistant, and I thought about you." She connected us. The wild thing is, y'all, life is so crazy. The Smoothie King where I was working was literally up the street from this woman's house who became one of my favorite bosses that I've ever worked for. I will tell you, I worked a lot of careers in my life before I got to this one of doing my art and working in media arts entertainment world full-time.

Amena Brown:

But next to this job, the job that I worked for my old boss, Pam, working as an assistant to her being an event producer, that was my second favorite job next to the job that I do now, talking to y'all and performing poetry. I remember talking to Pam on the phone. We did an initial phone interview. She worked out of her home. So she invited me to come to her home where she could do a little bit more thorough interview of me. She had a very up-North accent. So I didn't really know what to expect. But when she opened the door, this beautiful Black woman, I mean I was already sold on the job.

Amena Brown:

But when she opened the door and I saw that she was this beautiful Black woman, I was like, "Ah, yes. This is everything I want in my life." So her office in her home was upstairs. We did the interview. I found out I got the job. Okay. So now, part of what Pam's business did in event production is a lot of the events she did were for these big nonprofits. She would help them coordinate these big fundraiser events, these fundraiser galas that were very expensive per plate and then would raise all this money towards these different nonprofits that she worked with.

Amena Brown:

One of these events booked India.Arie to perform at the event. I was super excited. I don't think I'd had that many other interactions with people who were famous or celebrities or well-known, outside of one time in college. I co-facilitated actually with another Spelman student, Thelathia, hey girl, who's now Dr. Thelathia. But Thelathia and I co-facilitated a conversation with Pearl Cleage and Sonia Sanchez. I remember that was the first time that in my adult life I can remember being that close to someone who didn't know me at all, but I knew them. I knew their work.

Amena Brown:

I had so much respect for them. I remember Sonia Sanchez and Pearl Cleage both being very down-to-earth and asking us these very ordinary, everyday questions about school and how we were feeling about our classes. They were rock stars to me. I mean writers are rock stars to me still. So this moment, imagine I'm only probably a couple years later from having had that moment with Sonia Sanchez and Pearl Cleage. Now, here I am, oh my gosh, India.Arie got booked for this event. Okay. I already am in love with her music, but also have to be professional.

Amena Brown:

So we get to the night of the gala. All the preparations are together. We were at this large venue in Atlanta. It's my job as Pam's assistant to basically check on all of the talent, make sure everybody has what they need, and kind of running interference between whatever tasks need to be done and checking back in with Pam, making sure Pam's good, if there's anything she needs me to get for her as my boss. So she was like, "Go check on India. Make sure she has everything she needs. If there's anything that she needs, get it."

Amena Brown:

So I go down to where the greenrooms were in this venue. This is when I find out that India's rider told us that she is vegan, but no vegan food was provided for her because the catering was just your average catering. It was like pasta with cheese sauce. I think the only vegan thing that was there may have been a pan of string beans, and that might have had butter on it, to be honest. I don't think I went down to India's dressing room myself. I don't think I went there myself because we had some other volunteers working. So I think one of the volunteers came back up to tell me.

Amena Brown:

I remember going outside of this venue with one of the members of the steering committee. We had gotten a restaurant suggestion from India because she was like, "I have to eat before I perform." Every performer's different. I get so nervous before I perform that I can't eat. But I have some friends who are like India. They have to eat before they perform. So she had told us about this Indian restaurant that she loved that had wonderful vegan food. Bless our entire hearts, the steering committee member and I commandeered a limousine out front of this venue, didn't belong to us.

Amena Brown:

But they were all just sitting out there waiting for their different people to take them home after the event. So we begged this driver to drive us several blocks away so that we could pick up this food, get it back, get India fed so she could perform. So we were running in our heels. We get in this limousine. The driver agrees to take us. We get out. We order. We're just picking as many dishes as we can because we want to make sure there's enough food, not only for India but for her band members that are there, any other singers who are there with her, whoever she brought with her.

Amena Brown:

This is food for all of them to get fed now since nothing is there that they can eat. Get the food, hustle back. Run in our heels to make sure the food gets there. Then I have a moment to breathe. At this time, I think I had met India and introduced myself to her, let her know that I was Pam's assistant, let her know if there's anything she needed. But I was being super professional, y'all. It's kind of like there are two Amenas inside of me, honestly. There is an Amena that is very professional and very full of customer service all the time.

Amena Brown:

And then there's the other Amena who just could faint at the sight of someone who just she finds very impressive. But in these professional moments, customer service Amena, she gets the job done. I totally talked to India, had this very professional moment. She nodded. She was professional. It was all good. So the event goes on. India performs. She's wonderful as usual. At the end of the event, Pam walks up to me with this Swarovski crystal award. She hands it to me and she says, "Why don't you go and give this to India?"

Amena Brown:

Pam didn't say to me, "This is your time to tell her you're a big fan." But Pam knew I was a big fan. There was some kind of knowing in her eyes when she handed it to me that I was like, "What if I never see India again? What if this is my one moment?" So I go to give India this award and tell her we just really thank her and appreciate her for agreeing to be part of the event. She's so kind and so excited to get the award because of how it was made. She told me that she loves crystals. So she was very excited to get this Swarovski crystal award.

Amena Brown:

So right as she was gushing over the award, I was like, "This is my time." So I just told her, "India, thank you so much for being a part of this event. Also, I really love your music and I listen to it all the time. Also, one of my favorite songs is Strength, Courage & Wisdom. I listen to Strength, Courage & Wisdom when I get on the treadmill. I'm on the treadmill." Y'all, as I'm describing to her that I listen to her music while I'm on the treadmill, I start doing this running motion, like I'm trying to demonstrate to her with my body what I do on the treadmill.

Amena Brown:

I'm like, "I get on the treadmill and I'm like (singing)." All of this I'm telling you I did in front of India.Arie, okay? She was very kind and very gracious. She chuckled. She said thank you. I just shuffled myself away before I did anything else. That is what happened the time that I met India.Arie. Just thinking back on that, I'm like, "Oh my gosh. My little 22-year-old self and just not even knowing how to handle this whole situation." This felt like my first real job. I mean Smoothie King is a real job too. But this felt like my first real job in the sense of having had all these responsibilities that I needed to do.

Amena Brown:

There were things that Pam was handing to me. It was like, "You have to do this. If you don't do this, it doesn't get done." To think that I got a chance to meet India.Arie in the process at 22 years old was pretty cool to me. So shout out to India.Arie for being just a wonderful and kind person to me even though I was very awkward with her. But shout out to Strength, Courage & Wisdom because it is a really dope song.

Amena Brown:

Okay. My next That Time I Met A Celebrity story is about Brené Brown. I don't know if Brené Brown would consider herself a celebrity, but I'm just using celebrity as a term to mean famous people, people whose names you know before you meet them. You know them. You know their work. You know something about them. I think at the time that I actually met Brené Brown in person, I think I had just started reading maybe it was The Gifts of Imperfection that I was reading. Somebody had recommended it to me because I am a recovering perfectionist myself.

Amena Brown:

I just remember being on a very healing journey at the time. So I was reading the book and I was kind of tweeting some things about the book. I do not remember exactly what I was tweeting. But I remember I was tweeting with someone about the book. I said to them, "I know, right?" I was saying to them basically Brené Brown's like my cousin probably because I mean if her name's Brené Brown and my name's Amena Brown, surely we're cousins. Brené responded to my tweet basically agreeing that we were cousins. That made me feel like, "Oh my gosh. Now we're going to get to go to the same family reunion. This is going to be amazing."

Amena Brown:

Let me tell you something. It is wild how social media, there's sort of two meetings that happen because when someone famous or someone that you really respect their work or know of their work, know of them and this moment of even them liking your tweet or even them responding to you on Twitter or on social media, that is its own meeting. If the story had stopped there, I felt so amazing that she responded to me. So fast forward several months later, I was booked for a leadership event in Atlanta and Brené Brown was also speaking there.

Amena Brown:

I was performing poetry there and she was speaking there. We were all, well, I didn't know that she was. I was staying in the Host Hotel and she was also staying in the Host Hotel. But of course, I didn't know that because, to pull back the veil on what events used to be like in the before times, it really depended on the speaker if they were even staying the night sometimes, depended on the speaker if they wanted to be in the Host Hotel. So you weren't always guaranteed that even if you were on the bill with insert these people that you think are amazing, it didn't mean you could go down the hall and know they were in the same hotel that you were in.

Amena Brown:

So my husband and I were getting ready to leave the hotel. When the elevator door opened up, came to our floor and opened up, there was Brené standing in the elevator. You know how your mind is doing this spy move a little bit where your mind is looking at a face and scrolling through why that face feels familiar to you even though you don't know that person personally? My brain did the ... and was like, "Oh my gosh. That's Brené Brown." Y'all, when I tell you Brené was chilling that day, no makeup, she had on an athleisure kind of set on with the jacket with the zipper and the pants to match.

Amena Brown:

She had her sneakers on. She was holding a Chick-fil-A cup, the largest one. I respected the fact that it was the largest one. For some reason I was like, "That's right, girl. You drink all that sweet tea or whatever it is that's in there." I reacted before I had a chance to think. So as soon as my mind recognized this is Brené Brown, I said, "Oh my gosh. You're my cousin." So then I'm looking at Brené's face as maybe her face in her mind is also doing the spy ... and certainly is like, "When I go to my Brown family reunion, I don't remember anyone looking like you there." I don't know.

Amena Brown:

I could tell her face was like, "Who is this woman and why does she think that we're cousins?" So then I tried to cut it before it got super weird, before it got additionally super weird anyways. I was like, "Remember on Twitter?" I explained to her the whole Twitter chain of events. And then she was like, "Oh yes. No, I do remember that. Yes. Yes. Hi. How are you?" We did a little exchange. We chit chat. I was like, "Yes. I am also performing poetry at this event where you're going to be speaking. So I hope I see you there. Have a great day."

Amena Brown:

Let me tell y'all something else about when I run into celebrities out in the wild, meaning when I run into them and it's not their event or their concert or their show or they're not in their professional moment. I just looked at her. She looked good. But I looked at her and just knew she was not in her professional gear. She was chilling, and I felt like it would be wrong in that moment to have asked her for a photo because I just felt like she's relaxed. She's chilling. I don't want to bother her. She's in her regular life zone right now. So I didn't ask for her picture, y'all.

Amena Brown:

I just enjoyed the moment for myself. Honestly, I think I was hoping that at the event where we were both booked, I was hoping that I would see her the next day or later that day in the greenroom or something. And then she would be in her garb she was going to wear onstage. We'd both have our makeup on, and we'd take a picture together. But to pull back the veil on how events used to be in the before times, you also didn't know if everyone who was booked for an event would actually be in the same greenroom at some of these events. It's kind of interesting to think about that now because I'm like, maybe that was particular to this event.

Amena Brown:

But anyways, it was basically like there was a general greenroom where most people hung out. But there were certain, more high-profile speakers that had their own greenrooms. That's understandable because of people like me that were probably going to be bothering those people while they're trying to prep for their talk or whatever. So Brené was totally on the premises. I watched her talk, and it was fantastic. But I saw her nowhere in the greenroom. So the only picture I have from this moment, y'all, I'm going to have to post this on my social media so y'all can see it.

Amena Brown:

The only picture I have of this moment is me next to the TV screen where Brené was speaking. So shout out to Brené Brown for being very kind to a stranger basically yelling at her in an elevator that we're cousins. I still feel like we're cousins some kind of way, Brené. I know that it might be a while before there's a big family reunion, but I'm still feeling like there's some biscuits or something that can be shared among the family, Brené. Let's work it out.

Amena Brown:

My last celebrity story is about that time I met Common. I know that if you've been listening to this podcast for a while that it may feel like I have lived a lot of lives in one life. Haven't we all though? But I feel like I have in a certain way because I just have had certain things I was doing at a certain time in life that gave me access to certain types of events. And then once I stopped doing whatever that thing was, then you just move on. You don't have access to that.

Amena Brown:

Before I became a poet professionally, I was still a poet but I wasn't doing poetry as my vocation. I actually thought that I was going to try and make a career of being an arts journalist. I had started trying my hand when I was around probably 25. I started trying my hand at writing about music. A part of this I will say, to be very honest, was a hustle to get free concert tickets. A friend of mine named Larry, he had a newsletter that I mean it was probably really not just ... I feel like now when we say newsletter we mean e-newsletter. We mean different things.

Amena Brown:

But he had something that it was on a mailing list, but it was actually more like a small media outlet inside of his newsletter. So he would ask different ones of us if we wanted to write for different sections of it. If I remember right, I think it was called ATL Lowdown at the time. ATL Lowdown had been looking for some writers interested in writing about music. Larry was basically like, "Yeah, just make this your own. Look for shows you can cover and albums you can review." So I just started writing to different promoters and concerts and saying, "Hey, I'm writing for ATL Lowdown and wanted to know if I could have one free ticket or two free tickets to such-and-such show."

Amena Brown:

Resoundingly, most of those people answered yes. They were like, "We'll add you to the media list. Here's where you can go." Maybe if the artist was sort of doing group interviews where you could kind of get a question in or sometimes the artist would allow different media outlets to come into their greenroom before they perform. It was wild. I interviewed all sorts of people like this. Common was coming to town as a part of John Legend's tour, y'all. So I want you to imagine that John Legend was headlining. This was when John Legend's album, Get Lifted, had come out.

Amena Brown:

John Legend was headlining. Common was performing before him. And then before Common, Rahzel was performing. Rahzel is a phenomenal beatbox artist. I think I tried actually to get to John Legend and Common, reached out to their publicist and got to their publicist. She did write back to let me know she received my email. But then after that, I stopped hearing, which kind of made me feel like the outlet I'm writing for might not be big enough. I can't remember by this time if I was doing this for ATL Lowdown.

Amena Brown:

But over time, after I started writing for ATL Lowdown, then I really started to think I wanted to take journalism seriously, especially because I was having a lot of fun trying to find words to describe the musical experience. My favorite thing was to write about what the live show of an artist was like and give people who may not have been there this window into what it was like and to try to describe for people who were there what the experience was. So after I realized I loved that, then I started reading up on how to pitch different article ideas.

Amena Brown:

Before I knew it, I was a freelance journalist writing about arts and culture in Atlanta and really trying to focus as much as I could on what then would have been soul and hip hop. So Common definitely fit into that vibe. So I don't remember if it was for ATL Lowdown or another publication, but a part of it was if you wanted to pitch a publication, you would sometimes have to do a little bit of the legwork first. So I couldn't necessarily go to them and say, "Hey, I want to do an interview with Common." I would have to go through the process to see if I could get Common to say okay to the interview.

Amena Brown:

And then if he said okay, then I might be able to go back to the publication and say, "Well, I've got this interview with Common scheduled," and maybe they'd be interested to take on this idea. I also at the time ran my own blog. So sometimes I would write to publications and if they didn't take the idea or the pitch that I had, then I would still approach the publicist, the promoter, whoever, and see if I could land the interview. Worst case scenario would be that I put it on my blog. So I'm really wanting to land this interview with Common because it just feels so important.

Amena Brown:

He was one of the bigger name artists at that time that I had ever approached for an interview. Anyway, I try all I can, but it's very apparent that my little publication that I'm trying to get this interview in is not important for an artist like Common. I think I need to stop here and give even a little more context to what my thoughts were as I go into the concert because I think I went ahead and bought ... I'm trying to remember if I bought the tickets to the show or if I got free tickets to the show but didn't land the interview. I can't remember that part.

Amena Brown:

But I want to rewind a little bit to tell you another thought. Before this, there was one time, this never happened again, it was one year in Atlanta where VIBE Magazine, which was founded by Quincy Jones, had a VIBE Music Fest in Atlanta. I think I also covered VIBE Music Fest. I remember that that is part of how I got introduced to John Legend actually because, at that time, Common and John Legend were under Kanye West's label. Y'all, I'm trying to think about the timing. I think this is before Kanye's debut album even dropped. The singles were out, but I don't think the album had come out yet.

Amena Brown:

This was my second time seeing Kanye live. Kanye, John Legend, and Common performed their set together. I need to just admit to y'all something. I try, like I'm sure a lot of us try, not to be a judgey person. But when it comes to groupie culture and those things, I do think I judged. I was just like, "I just could never see myself being a groupie that's trying to chase down these men who are artists and find their hotel rooms. I don't know. I don't see myself being that person." I'm not going to lie to y'all that something about seeing the three of them performing was the first time that I contemplated becoming a groupie.

Amena Brown:

I don't know if it was the power of what that music sounded like at the time, that it just riveted me at VIBE Music Fest. But I remember feeling like I understand how people become groupies now. It makes complete sense to me. Even if I don't become one, I can understand. So keep that in mind. Here I am probably maybe a year later now that John Legend's album is out. I mean I watched John Legend perform twice with Kanye West before any of us really knew who he was at all. It's so crazy to think of that now.

Amena Brown:

So here I am at this concert. Rahzel performed. Common performed. I'm talking about Common put on a show. Do you understand? Common rapped. He freestyled. He was break dancing. I mean it was like outside of deejaying and graffiti, he was doing all the facets of hip hop, what it felt like. He put on such a good show that I was like, "Oh my gosh. He just gave John Legend a run for his money right now. John Legend has to come out and really bang out this show." That's how good of a show Common put on.

Amena Brown:

The concert was at Atlanta's venue called The Tabernacle. If any of you live in cities where there is a House of Blues, The Tabernacle in Atlanta is probably the closest we get to what would be the House of Blues in Atlanta. In between each set, the artists, I don't know if John Legend did this, but I think Rahzel and Common both at the end of their performances, they went out to their merch table, to their merch area. If you wanted to buy merch or have them sign things or just greet them or whatever, you could do that while you were waiting for John Legend to come onstage.

Amena Brown:

So I decided I really didn't have anything that I wanted to buy. I'm not even sure, y'all, honestly, that I had money to buy anything. Because the reason why I was trying to get all these tickets for free or for very low cost was because I was also broke at the time. So being an arts journalist was part me discovering this thing I was very passionate about, but also part a wonderful hustle because I didn't have money to go see a lot of these shows. So being able to promise to blog about it or write about it for a publication and that being my way to get into this concert or this music festival for free was working out wonderfully for my social life.

Amena Brown:

I had even figured out with one of my girlfriends, Camille, who is a photographer, she and I would sometimes write in and get two tickets so that I would get one as the writer and she would get one as the photographer. She would take enough pictures to get me a shot to give to the publication and I would write the article, and she and I would have a fun night. We would just go watch whoever's show it was. So I go in line because I don't know. I think what I had in my head was that I wanted to introduce myself to Common, tell him that I had tried to get this interview, and I don't know what I thought was going to happen from there.

Amena Brown:

I'm wondering if maybe in my mind I'm hoping if I say this to him that he'll be like, "If you can do a quick interview, I can do it right now." I was just prepared for whatever he might say. But I really was getting in line for a professional moment because I wanted this interview, whether I was going to get it after the show or whether I was just introducing myself so that the next time he was in town my name might be more familiar to his publicist. I don't know. All I'm telling y'all is I had forgotten all my groupie thoughts that I'd had at the previous show.

Amena Brown:

I was like, "I'm going to go up here so I can try my best to land this interview." So I get to the front. Common is wearing a yellow Polo kind of shirt. He had a Kangol to match. Y'all, I got up to the front of the line and I looked in his eyes. It was like everything professional that I could have had in my mind left me in that moment. I think there's a commercial that's like what I'm about to describe to you where the feelings that I had inside myself. I think this is actually a commercial tactic that's been used a few times where two people, they meet.

Amena Brown:

They look in each other's eyes. It's almost like instead of you seeing your life flash before you, what your life was in the past, they are seeing their future together flash before them. So I looked so deep into Common's eyes, y'all, that I just got transfixed on these freckles that he has on his face. He has like a dotting of freckles across his face. I was not seeing a past together. I can't all the way tell y'all that it a future together. The only thing I can think to tell y'all is that I looked in his eyes and realized this is the type of man that would turn you all the way out.

Amena Brown:

That is the exact thought that came to my mind. I realized when I looked in eyes and that's what I saw. Even though for a lot of us that grew up listening to hip hop, especially grew up listening to hip hop in the '90s, you have this perception of rappers who were considered to be conscious. So Common would have fallen in that category. Mos Def would have fallen in that category. These were rappers that called women queen in their rhymes and different things. They weren't gangster rappers. They weren't really rapping about gangsta life or drugs. They were rapping about the community.

Amena Brown:

They were rapping about Black history and Black present and Black future. They were rapping about those things. So Common was in the category of rappers that did that. I feel like because of that, especially around this time, there were a lot of assumptions about what's a conscious rapper like. Common's vibes were very different from LL Cool J. LL Cool J had a very outwardly sexy vibe. That was a part of his music. Well, at that time, Common didn't really have a lot of that going on in his music. But y'all, when I looked in his eyes, I felt those vibes.

Amena Brown:

It was like I felt two feelings. One, I felt like this is the kind of man that would really turn you out. But also, I felt that you are not prepared for that turning out. You're not prepared for that. All of this happened very quickly in my mind. It took my breath away how good-looking he was when I got that close to him. The only thing that finally came out of my mouth to say is I did finally, professional Amena, I got to give it to her. I got to give her the kudos right here because other Amena has fainted, has started thinking thoughts about wishing that she had a pair of breakaway panties. Do y'all know what I'm talking about?

Amena Brown:

When I played basketball and volleyball in high school for my little Christian school because that's the only place I ever played sports because it was very easy to get to state when you went to Christian school. Anyway, we used to have breakaway pants that you wore to the game. And then when it was time to play, you could basically pull those pants off from the waist because they were all snaps. And then you were wearing your basketball shorts that you were actually going to play in. I enjoyed those breakaway pants.

Amena Brown:

But other Amena was thinking that she wished she had a pair of breakaway panties. If she would have had a pair of breakaway panties, she would have just pulled at the waist and, I don't know, think about handing these panties to Common. I don't know where my mind was headed there. But I'm telling you where other Amena was, why she couldn't think of nothing else to say. She had a lot of other thoughts going through her head. Professional Amena stood up there and was like, "Hey, Common. I really wanted to get this interview with you, reached out to your publicist, and never heard anything back."

Amena Brown:

Common took a pause for a minute. And then he looked at me in my eyes, y'all, and he said, "That's okay. We'll see each other again, won't we?" I don't know if you've ever experienced the feeling of your body feeling like it is going to spontaneously combust from the inside out. That is exactly what I was feeling at the end of this conversation. Is this a thing that Common probably says to everyone who's in line at his merch table? Probably. Did I care about that at the time? No. He might as well have been asking me to marry him as far as 25-year-old Amena was concerned.

Amena Brown:

So that, listeners, is about that time I met Common and almost got turned out, but then didn't because I realized I was just not ready for that kind of thing. I want to thank y'all for listening to the embarrassing things that I've said, thought, and done when meeting celebrities. Bless my heart. I'm interested to hear your stories. I hope you slide in my DMs and tell me some of the shenanigans you've experienced in meeting celebrities. This is not even all of my celebrity stories. So I might come back and do another episode of That Time I Met A Celebrity, Volume Two.

Amena Brown:

For this week's Give Her A Crown, I want to shout out Chloé Zhao, who recently was the first Asian woman and second woman ever to win a Golden Globe for best director. In her book, Year of Yes, Shonda Rhimes talks about the experience of being first ever and only. I simultaneously wish for a world where talented directors like Chloé Zhao no longer have to be the first Asian women to receive these types of accolades, and I want to give Chloé Zhao the honor that her work deserves, for what it means to be an Asian woman and a woman of color paving the way for so many marginalized voices that will come behind her.

Amena Brown:

I recently watched Chloé's film, Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand as a woman who loses everything in the Great Recession and embarks on a journey through the American west as a van-dwelling nomad. I gravitate to films that explore the themes of home, and I loved the cinematography and the storytelling and the characters in this film so much. Check this out, as well as Chloé's other feature films, Songs My Brother Taught Me and The Rider. Chloé, thank you for telling stories that reconnect us to the land, that reconnect us to each other, for the path you are paving for other Asian women and other women of color. Chloé Zhao, give her a crown.

Amena Brown:

That time I met India.Arie ... That time I went on a really bad date ... That time I was directed by Robert Townsend ... That time I got mono on Thanksgiving ... That time I went on a really bad Christmas tour.

Amena Brown:

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 iHeart Radio. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast.