Thought about my daddy this morning. Not sure why he came to mind, but he’s always welcome.
This morning’s memory was of his goodbyes. He never said goodbye. I can’t recall a single time he actually used the word when departing. Whether we were separating for a couple of hours, or a couple of weeks, he always said the same thing: “So long!” He’d smile showing all his teeth, although the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. We’d wave, go our separate ways.
I always did a double take, as if somehow a second look would ensure so long really meant it was time to go, but only temporarily. Remembering it now makes me as sad as it did then.
I think I asked him once, about why he never said goodbye.
Perhaps he said he doesn’t like goodbye. As if goodbye were too formal or too final. So long implied a reunion was imminent. That it was so long until I see you again, but the seeing you again part was definitely going to happen.
It’s not often you’ll find me in front of a television, but this weekend I caught a few minutes of the Penn Relays. I was in for a treat. As a high school runner, I enjoy a good track meet and I immediately bond with a team or athlete, wringing my hands and/or cheering until a given event is over.
I tuned in just in time for the Women’s Sprint Medley Relay. For the uninitiated, each member of a relay team runs a specified distance, then passes the baton to the next member, who does the same. Sometimes all members of a relay run the same distance as in this brilliant world record win by the USA Women’s Olympic Team:
But for a medley, the legs vary, and you must employ different strategies depending on your distance. This particular race featured two 200s, a 400-meter and then the 800-meter anchor leg.
By the time Ajeé Wilson received the baton, she had a serious job to do. The final runner, she had 800 meters to run, and she was behind the leader by a good 15-20 meters.
You have to pace yourself on the 800. It’s two full laps around the track. If you start too fast, you’ll be completely out of gas by the final 200 meters. And if you go too slowly, hoping to keep some kick until the end, you’ll get too far behind to catch up. You’ve got to determine your pace and run your race.
I’d never seen Ajeé run so I didn’t know how it would go. She grabbed the baton and dashed off, then locked into a steady pace. I noted how comfortable she looked, as though that were her normal, speedy, yet measured stride. The problem was, she wasn’t making up any distance.
I was tense. This was my team and I wanted us to win! Was she going to dig a little and pick up the pace, or maintain this speed and distance and possibly never catch up?
Suddenly there she was, kicking on the final stretch. She closed the gap, walked down the front runner, and went on to win the race for her team. It was truly a magnificent run. There were lessons in its brilliance:
Don’t give up. There were time and distance left on the clock, and she didn’t sell herself short. Ajeé remained calm and composed. She ran through until the very end.
Be undeterred. After the second 200, the team was behind, and although they made up a little ground during the 400, it looked bleak. Regardless of the circumstances, Ajeé knew her pace and ran it. I can only assume she experienced a fair amount of physical and mental stress, but she kept focus and heart, and excelled.
I’m proud of the team and inspired by Ajeé’s talent and confidence under pressure. May we all be so graceful during life’s daily races.
I was clear about a decision yesterday. I revisited it today and realized, although a good decision, it’s one that would lead me on a familiar path instead of the new path I’ve claimed to be walking.
Always grateful for moments of reflection.
I’ve long gravitated toward interesting, yet shunned exciting in favor of practicality. Sam might say that’s my Venus in Capricorn. It serves me, yes. I lean on it too much, this taking the practical road thing I do.
Doing what makes sense rather than what ignites is safe. Today it also feels useless. Or maybe it’s outlived its usefulness.
I’m taking steps, but if I get to the crossroads and choose the path previously traveled by, how will I arrive at a new destination?
I didn’t get the chance yesterday, but I’m back to reading Pearl’s book today. It’s so great. What makes it great? The truth! It’s just life shouting out at you from the pages. Sometimes I recognize myself at various turning points. Sometimes I see where I want to be later in my journey. All the times I’m just enjoying truth line by line.
It’s funny. It’s emotional. It’s thoughtful. It’s lots of things. The reading of it thus far has changed my relationship to writing. Partially because she’s written many of my own thoughts and I can see, at least vicariously, where some of them end up over time. But mostly because it’s encouraging.
We know how things turn out later for her, and it’s this pushing, prodding, growing process we are privy to on the pages of her book. Growing is tough. She doesn’t shield us from that.
We need more of that.
February 4, 1980 I know we are not going to make it. I think he knows it, too.
I don’t want to feel crazy and unhappy. I want to be writing. I want to be myself and be clearheaded and strong and beautiful. I want to make myself as perfect as I can be. I want to make myself as wondrous as I can be. I want to be free.
From Things I Should Have Told My Daughter, by Pearl Cleage.
How many minutes per day are enough to set aside for your dreams when you have a full 25 hours of obligations?
Blue posed this question to me last week. I was between two appointments and missing Tananarive Due’s Octavia E. Butler Celebration of Arts & Activism at Spelman College. (#OctaviaButlerSpelman). I was disappointed, but thanks to social media, I caught some of the proceedings later via live stream.
Blue’s question was a good one. He offered a response: Maybe the secret is minimizing your obligation footprint.
But how?
In the past my approach has been to start with dreams instead of waiting to fit them in later. “Later” isn’t tangible. In fact, by definition, later is always some time other than the present. Starting with dreams means waking before sunrise to tackle priorities. Or it means designing the day with hard breaks for non-negotiables.
In general, obligations take up more space than they’re due. Portrayed as sprawling affairs, they cover time and consciousness they simply don’t deserve. They’re akin to shadow puppets. They play games with light, appearing bigger or smaller in response to our motivation and energy levels.
But let’s be real. Creative scheduling and clarity of purpose do not absolve us of obligations. And despite our best efforts, sometimes they pull rank, and demand healthy portions of our limited attention. But then, what happens to our dreams?
Time is a finite resource, and minimizing your obligation footprint can mean being more efficient, but it also means cutting away that which doesn’t truly move you forward.
I’ve spent the past couple of days cuddled up with Pearl Cleage’s latest. I’m underlining and starring key points, and alternating between laughing (or gasping) aloud and reading aloud as audience permits.
In the first section of the book she whines, schemes and strives to create time for things that are most important. Eventually, she quits a job that makes her unhappy so she can focus on living her life instead of lamenting about it.
Last May I came across Learning to Say No, an essay Pearl penned for Essence Magazine in 2004. In it, she said she was a recovering yes-woman:
I realized there was only one way to stop saying yes when I meant no, and that was to understand that I wasn’t just giving up an hour or two here, or a Saturday afternoon there, but the precious, irreplaceable moments of my life. And I decided to stop doing it.
She lights on a specific moment in her life and the circumstances of the essay dovetail with the journal entries detailing her resignation and new departure. She said no to obligations that didn’t serve her, so she could say yes to the priorities that would. We can learn to do that with the big issues of our lives, but it’s also good practice for vetting the energy vampires in our day-to-day. More wisdom from Pearl’s essay:
That night I came up with six questions that I hoped would help me reclaim my life. I call them The Big Six, and I offer them here for one simple reason: They work. Next time someone asks you a question that requires a yes or no answer, ask yourself the following:
What am I being asked to do?
Who is making the request?
Who will benefit from this activity?
What do I want to do?
What will happen if I say no?
What will happen if I say yes?
Wishing you the perfect balance of no, yes and joyful reclamation.
A dual history of bias and internalized oppression has kept most black women from publishing their memoirs or journals, Cleage adds, for fear of emotional and economic reprisals. “After slavery ended, black women continued to put forward the idea that we were good, sexually responsible women, going up against the racist stereotypes that came out of the madness of slavery,” Cleage says. “But there was still the fear of being too honest around white people. I don’t feel that’s a legitimate feeling for me. I’m going to tell the truth to whoever is in the room.”
When I read truth, I feel courageous and emboldened. Powerful. Magical. Writing the truth, however, is altogether different. But when I do, that’s when folks nod. Say, I felt that. I needed that. I never knew that. Amen.
From Joshunda: Cleage says she drew her inspiration for the book from the diaries of Anaïs Nin, which she found liberating and inspirational, much like the work of Walker and Shange.
Sounds familiar. Truth is hard to come by in the pages of books, although I must admit I wasn’t exactly searching for it as a younger woman. Discovering it, though, was quite a revelation. Filling. There was that magic, that power I didn’t know I sought. Reading it encouraged me to write it, yet in the beginning I found it hard to lay truths on the page. They were there, but buried. Hidden in metaphor and verse. Rarely plainspoken and clear.
It’s less hard now. But this doesn’t mean easy.
It’s also slow at times, truth-telling is. Because there’s this contextualizing you have to do. Background building. Setting the stage and what have you.
And then there’s the crafting. Are you conveying what you really mean to say? Who might be hurt? Who might feel misrepresented? Are you true to you?
I did not want to be the traitor, the teller of family secrets – and yet I wanted to be a writer. ~bell hooks
Once you’ve framed it and crafted it, then there’s the time set aside for doubting. Is it too much? Who are you to give voice to this experience? And on it goes.
Until finally you shout, or whisper, “Me, dammit! It’s my truth. I’m telling it!” And you press send or publish as the case may be, and try to move on to the next thing without agonizing so much on the last thing.
And perhaps over time it gets easier. I dunno.
I do know it’s always a digging in. A meditation. A labor of love. Truth-telling is.
It’s freeing for truth and for the one who told it.
It’s difficult. But perhaps no more difficult than any other act of love.
Happiness is neither a frivolity nor a luxury. It is a deep-seated yearning shared by all members of the human family. It should be denied to no one and available to all. ~Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Today is the International Day of Happiness! On June 28, 2012, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming March 20th the International Day of Happiness.
While acknowledging that happiness may have different meanings for different people, the UN chief said that all could agree that it means working to end conflict, poverty and other unfortunate conditions in which so many of human beings live.
The mega producer Pharrell teamed up with the UN to to help lift lift spirits and spread good cheer. Videos featuring his hit song, Happy, have been making the rounds in commemoration of the day. You may have seen the one above featuring the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences. Even Congressman John Lewis got in on the act. It’s not progressive policymaking, but it’s fun. And just for a few minutes, it brings us all a little closer to restoration, away from society’s overreliance on vengeance and punishment.
Today was International Happiness Day, and here in the northern hemisphere, it was the first day of spring. Although it was a gorgeous, sunshiny day in Atlanta, I know we aren’t quite out of winter’s grip just yet. We’re expecting a mild 72 degrees Saturday afternoon, with lows below freezing by early next week. Still, I’m encouraged by nice days. I know more are on the way soon.
Spring marks the beginning of running season for me. I’ve been keeping fit indoors with DVDs for weight lifting and cardio, but I’ve missed the fresh air and and scenic views of the Greenway runs. Even more than those things, I miss think time. Doing choreographed exercise is fun, but I truly enjoy the creative thinking, reflection and problem solving I accomplish while pounding the pavement.
As always, I have a couple of projects in the works, and the arrival of spring (any time really) is a good excuse time to pause and reflect on where I am, where I’d like to be, and what steps I want to take to close the gap.
It is important to remember that aging and growing old are not necessarily the same. ~Daisaku Ikeda
I cringe whenever my peers claim they’re getting old. Of course years pass and we physically age, but a lot of what they are claiming is more about mindset than time.
A friend argued that maybe those people are beaten down by life – they’re getting weary, not getting old. Perhaps.
My favorite models in life are my aunts and uncles. Three of them are active on social media and in real life. Here’s a picture:
Auntie Jessie, who will be 85 this year, called to wish me a happy birthday Wednesday. When we spoke around 9:30 p.m., she was just getting home after a full day, that started, of course, with yoga in the morning.
I’ve actually never heard her say I’m getting old. Years ago, she told me she knew she’d be around because longevity runs in our family. This was despite the fact that some of her siblings died at or near retirement age. She simply keeps living life to the fullest each day.
I logged into Facebook recently and noticed a conversation between two of my uncles. Live the life of your dreams starting now, wrote Uncle Grisby, age 78. Let the past be the past. Uncle Arnsel, 71, agreed, writing: I wouldn’t tamper with my life. I don’t want to miss out on what I have NOW!
I agree. There are many past choices I would not make today, but I chose them based on everything I knew about myself and life at that moment. Those choices were also my teachers, and the decisions I make today incorporate the learning of the past. To erase the lessons may erase the past hurts, but doing so would also erase the wisdom that comes in healing.
But what if you’re still suffering from past choices? What if getting old really just means your dreams are slipping away?
If you want to understand the causes that existed in the past, look at the results as they are manifested in the present. And if you want to understand what results will be manifested in the future, look at the causes that exist in the present. ~Nichiren
Nichiren implies here that not only are the lessons from the past contained in the present moment, but the power to change the present and create a new future are here as well. Youth does not spend its time looking backward, constantly lamenting what if? Youth looks forward, on to the next dream, a new goal, a different adventure.
What is youth? It is the inner strength not to stagnate or grow resistant to change but to stay open to new possibilities. It is the power of the spirit that refuses to succumb to complacency and strives ever forward. ~Daisaku Ikeda
Uncle Grisby was born on leap day, and yesterday he celebrated his 78th birthday. He shared this advice along with the following photo:
Start every day with a smile!!!
Here’s to growing older, while maintaining the spirit of youth.
I can’t recall if Cean or John or figured it out first. We were high school classmates, and for one reason or another Cean I think (or maybe John) saw my name written out: Nicole Collier. Doodling or something, he noted the co in Nicole and the Co in Collier. In that instant, the nickname Coco was born.
It didn’t catch on. Well not really, anyway. People have always called me whatever suited them: Nicole, Colie, Nicolette, Lette, Nicki, Nic, and so on. Cean called me Coco and John called me NiCocoButterBeanSoup. Maybe one or two others jumped on the Cocowagon. Everyone else stuck with whichever version of Nicole they liked.
I thought coco was cute in print, so I began to write it everywhere.
Somewhere in the middle of the AOL and Geocities explosion, when everyone’s website had animated .gifs and embedded music, I taught myself basic HTML and built the first version of cocostudio. It was black with turquoise and white letters. And yes, music was embedded (Joe Sample).
Fast forward to graduate school. I wanted to try my hand at my own domain. So in November of 1999, a month before I was due to graduate, I bought cocostudio.com. It served as a portfolio site as I interviewed for teaching jobs. It was yellow then, with cheerful colors.
Over the past 14 years it has been an electronic resume, a clearinghouse for photographs and clips, a calling card for freelancing, even a journal of sorts, before blogging became a thing. Many times I’ve archived everything and started from scratch – sometimes promising and postponing relaunches for up to two years at a stretch.
One of my “coming soon” promises. John designed this logo. You may see it again one day…
I think I’d been nearing the two-year mark this time around, but here we are. Too many times I’ve let perfect be the enemy of good. And honestly, I’ve often let it be the enemy of progress. But this year is about action, vibration, movement. Building.
Last night, Blue glanced over at the clock and smiled as he asked, “How do you feel in your last minute of being 39?” I laughed.
I felt great. I still do.
In my late 20s, I looked forward to turning 30. I was sad though, in those last few minutes. My mother had passed away a few months earlier, and I hadn’t considered greeting that milestone without her in my life. Despite my grief, I joyfully welcomed the new decade and all the excitement 30s held.
Blue’s brown sugar bourbon bundt.
It seems as though I merely blinked, yet here we are at the dawning of another decade. I’m not sure how one is “supposed” to look and feel at 40, but I truly believe another magical time is here. I have life lessons and accumulated wisdom on my side, along with the vitality and determination of youth.
I have big goals for the next 5 – 10 years. I’m not sure of action steps or how they will manifest, but I do know I’m completely invested in creating the life I want and enjoying every moment.
I still haven’t blogged about my theme for 2014 (I have one), but it, along with my 40s theme “building” involves deeper exploration of my identity. Who am I and what do I contribute to the world? In thinking about that, I wanted to reclaim cocostudio, which has been dormant for a couple of years.
I’m still working out the kinks, learning new widgets and playing with layouts and colors. You may notice a few changes in the coming weeks as I get settled in. As always, I welcome your feedback and comments, so please share your thoughts and repost your favorite entries when you’re moved to do so.
Welcome (or welcome back) to cocostudio.
Everything begins from now! When we live in the present moment with our entire being, our lives will shine with glory and success! ~Daisaku Ikeda
I always did a double take, as if somehow a second look would ensure so long really meant it was time to go, but only temporarily. Remembering it now makes me as sad as it did then.
February 4, 1980
