Category: The Journey
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Keep everything!
If anything I do, in the way of writing grants or whatever I write, isn’t about lasting, or sustainability or the community or villages I belong too, then it’s a waste of time. These days I want to indulge myself in open conversations that allows the collective ‘we’ to dream, which is to say, sustainability,…
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Keep dreams of lasting this Spring!
The idea of lasting is like electricity. The switch turns on, and I am fully charged. My mind becomes a tunnel threatening to force me to burrow deeply. Eyes are bright, like the sharpest blue of spring sun. Head focused as if on a edge of a cliff. As if waiting to meet another head…
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Keep speaking love!
And when I speak of love, I speak of you. I speak of how you emptied yourself in me, one fine Friday evening and nine months later, we birthed a queen so powerful like the amazons of Dahomey, Queens of Nimo. I speak of our boys, all three of them with beauty so numberless, wisdom…
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Keep dreaming about sustainability!
I have been speaking about sustainability for a long time. I woke up to to a phone call this morning that asked if I could speak on it to a group in less than 30 minutes. I said yes ( because I have been thinking about this topic for a long time) and proceeded to…
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Keep dancing for the dead!
The first dance takes your breath away. All the deceased left behind, dance in a line with pictures of him on their hands. They dance and cry, disturbing the air, till your feet and eyes get used to it. Solid grounds are no longer at ease. Minds wonder too, who will mourn the deceased? Death…
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Keep evenings with family!
What’s so nice about our home in the evening is that everybody is there. Dad in his blue scrubs, sitting on a chair. A child on every chair and grandma too. Rice on the table with fried plantains and fish stew. All of us, smiling, as we eat, hoping the night lingers as we sit,…
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Keep words that leave you breathless!
Words that flow, like eyes that see the bluest moon, leave me breathless. Lavishly they give meaning, a justice that endures. Where they begin, clear and steady, leaves a wide range of emotions that is ushering these words I write in praise. I see windows within my soul open up with these words. These are…
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Keep your stories!
A womb tells the beginning of your story. Life forgets it’s continuity. Yet, if your stories, instead of theirs, your life, instead of their own. All your gains, instead of defeat. Your pain too, instead of deceit. If your lillies bloomed in any way. Your roses only registered thorns. Your days are as days. Your…
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Keep this knowing so deep, black mothers!
I have spent the past 2 days sinking into Toni Morrison’s knowing so deep essay. It’s my go to essay when I try to understand my place in this world. The wisdom, accuracy, relevance of her words are worthy of being kept every single day. If black women are to survive, if we are to…
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Keep black mothers, keep black sons! For Tyre!
I think about us today. Black mothers wherever you are. I think about the thoughts we have for our children. The fear we have too. I think about what tomorrow may bring. What today brings. I want to say it will be better. It may not be. I want to tell you to dry your…
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Keep breaking your silence!
I spent 2 hours early in the year, learning, absorbing, and exchanging wellness, healing from what it means to be black and woman in academia. Many of us have been battered. The weights of all we carry chokes and continues to choke. But the power of our narrative, the gifts we offer and the knowledge…
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Keep remembering your name!
It was at this very hour, nearly 14 years ago, that my father transitioned to become an ancestor. I always remember this day with love. For I was indeed lucky to have known love from my father. I am very much his legacy and I pray that through me, his name will become synonymous with…
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Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor 