June Lessons
Honoring my maternal grandmother's late-June birthday and my parents late-June wedding anniversary by sharing treasured wisdom from them and other elders.
“You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.”
Speaking by phone in my Great Migrations Library, I could feel Mom, Dad and Granny smiling down. Long before they became ancestors, each had separately tried to help their “impulsive, know-it-all, headstrong” daughter remember to pause, count to 10, take a deep breath and exhale slowly before speaking when I felt anxious, challenged or uncertain.
This week I could feel my grandmother’s approval after I corrected a label the interviewer planned to use in an upcoming story. “Please just refer to me as a writer, not as a food writer. No adjective needed before writer,” I said.
Sometimes I add photographs to my storytelling. Sometimes I mention a recipe. But when it comes to what I do and why, I’ve spent this year correcting past mistakes, adding proper citations and reclaiming my true focus.
Today, I’m a storyteller and researcher who writes columns and essays about family and cultural traditions…often with a Great Migration backdrop.
And Granny, Mom, Dad, because you understood this, your “take risks and follow your dreams” reminders continue supporting my daily work.
FOR THIS YEAR’S BIRTHDAY & ANNIVERSARY:
Take a deep breath and feel my deepest gratitude for your examples of patience, acceptance, memories and golden words.
Exhale slowly with these phrases you have shared, beginning with our family favorite:
“Everything happens as it should. What’s meant for you won’t miss you.”
“The older I get, the more I want to be authentically myself.”—Julianne Moore, actress
“Legacy is not leaving something for people. It’s leaving something in people.” – Peter Strople, international mentor
“To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.” —E.E. Cummings (1894-1962) writer, poet
“Take a day to heal from the lies you’ve told yourself and the ones that have been told to you.”—Maya Angelou (1928-2014) writer, poet
“The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.”—James Baldwin (1924-1987) writer
“The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.”— Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) diplomat, philosopher
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” —Helen Keller (1880-1968) writer, activist
“Smile at the obstacle, for it is a bridge.”—Greek mythology
Please join the chat to share your thoughts, including a few words about a favorite quote that may inspire you in the way Zora Neale Hurston’s “There are years that ask questions and years that answer,” inspires me.
Or make a comment here:
Sources:
African American Lives edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Oxford University Press, 2004).
Life Upon These Shores by Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011).
Richard Durham’s Destination Freedom edited by J. Fred McDonald (Praeger, 1989).
Inside the Other Side by Concetta Bertoldi (William Morrow, 2012).
The All-American Quote Book compiled by Michael Reagan and Bob Phillips (Harvest House, 1995).
Voices of Struggle; Voices of Pride compiled by John Beilenson and Heidi Jackson (Peter Pauper Press, 1992).
Late Bloomers by Brendan Gill (Artisan, 1996).
Ancestors, Hidden Hands, Healing Spirits “written through” Min. Ra Ifagbemi Babalawo (Athelia Henrietta Press, 1999).
The Best Advice in Six Words edited by Larry Smith (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2015).
Don’t forget to share a favorite quote.