When It's Cold Outside Who Are You Holding... My "Coldest Winter Ever" Experience

It was raining in ATL the other day. And the wind wasn’t playing around. I decided to take a “day off” and lay in my bed all day to read Sistah Souljah’s “Coldest Winter Ever”. My cousin in Chicago had posted on her fb page that she was reading it so I told her I will tag along and read it too. It took two weeks to get a copy at my neighborhood library. When the librarian scanned it for me he said “wow you got a copy, this book is hard to come by, it’s always checked out.” That reassured me that I was in for a juicy read. So from 8am till 7am the next morning I couldn’t put the book down. Now don’t think I’m a bad mother. I did stop to make meals, read to the kids, give them a bath and use the restroom. LOL. I was glued to it. I’m not gonna lie, I was jumping on trains with Winter and even knew when she was acting a fool before she did. That book had me going through some thangs, not to mention the rain seemed to bring it on. I had to take breaks and even found myself crying, replaying my own drunk and high nights as a young woman. I’ve never been in any robberies, fights or drug exchanges but the energy of the happenings in the book sent me on my own experience retrievals. Adventures I had stored away started popping back up. Moments I realized had lessons and was merely divine interventions. That book did more for me than I had imagined. It made me look in the mirror and review my life, my recent seasons and how I am handling myself. Am I operating from loss? Fear? Or love? I noticed this morning Copper hid the book; I guess he figures that was enough of mommy reading for one day. 

    Souljah Interview on Donahue                 Sister Souljah's Website

My First Male Relationships... The Confucius Way

In college, I took an Intro to Eastern Traditions course. It turned out to be one of my favorites. One of the study topics was Confucianism. Confucius aka K’ung Fu Tzu was a Chinese philosopher, political analyst and teacher. A key principle of Confucianism is love for your immediate family then society (Hsiao). If every parent loves their child and every child loves their parent then society will always prosper. Confucius sets importance on 5 relationships and the role the individual plays in each. These relationships bind a society and if practiced will sustain society (Many people disagree with the top-down structure):

• King to subject
• Parent to Child
• Husband to Wife
• Older sibling to Younger sibling
• Friend to Friend

A meditation session prompted me to look at the first relationships I had with masculine energy in my life. This journey catapulted me into laughter, smiles and tears. I realized I missed my father and brother. I wrote a letter to both of them with hopes of reigniting our relationships. (I haven't lived with my brother since I was 11 yrs old and my father since I was 17 yrs old, I am now 28 yrs old). They both called me with excitement and love once they received their letters. There is power in reaching out to your family. It allowed me to relish in being someone’s baby girl and lil sis. I realized there still has to be a relationship with the first men in my life. In essence, I am made of them, shared my first words and took my first steps. I forgot about these relationships as I stepped into womanhood and unconsciously imposed this closeness responsibility on men that I dated. (I later did the same activity but verbally with my mother. You know us women like to talk. Hehe. It produced some soul stirring revelations for generational traits among the women in my family.)

By acknowledging my role as daughter to father and sister to brother, I believe it drew my dispersed family closer. Many of us can say “oh my family isn’t together” or “I don’t have a true home”. Well technology in the form of phones, letters and mail can bring our families closer. It’s more of a feeling in your heart than a physical place. 

You might say, "well I haven’t spoken to my brother in over blank years", or "I don’t know who my father is". Okay, well who are the first men that affected your life? Who had a masculine energy in your family that you respected?  Can you send them a letter? Or give them a call?

I know I have heard the stories of women with “men issues”. Well we all have other sex issues and family issues. This is not outside of us. I was prompted to solve mine and guess what, it helped. Don’t be bashful. Take joy in discovering hidden parts of you. I did.