Light worker

This girl. I mean. I love this photo of her, taken by her husband in August during their honeymoon in Greece, two weeks after they were married. That radiant smile is all for him; he definitely sees her light. We all bask in my daughter’s light. At my cousin’s memorial service on Saturday, I whispered to her, “Sit next to me, sweetheart. I’m sorry it’s you, I know it’s a lot to be the one whose energy people find most calming, but right in this moment, I’d welcome that superpower.” She didn’t say a word, just turned that high beam smile on me and hugged me. Then took the seat beside me. 

Now she is free

Yesterday we laid our cousin Pearl to rest. Those of you who have been here for a while might remember Pearl, my Aunt Winnie's daughter, who struggled her whole teenage and adult life with addiction. Pearl isn't her real name. She breathed her last breath this past summer, having never escaped the snare of drugs and alcohol. Her health and mobility got really bad toward the end, so that when the hospital called to say she was gone, my sadness was leavened with relief. I thought, Now she is free.

The Virginia cousins, including Pearl’s son, now a decorated military man, arrived Friday night for Saturday’s service. Pearl's ashes sat on a table at the front of the church in a beautiful urn our cousin Winsome picked out. Pearl's son was raised with his aunt and uncle and their two boys in Fairfax, Virginia, and now he was back in the city of his birth to say farewell to his mother. All the New York cousins were there, too, for the service at our little country church in Harlem. We held the repast afterward in a community room where we live, and we all sensed that wherever she was, Pearl could feel our love, simpler now than it had been in life, pure. We all celebrated that she had been here with us, never mind that her years had been so troubled, that she sorely tested some of us sometimes. She was still ours. And now she has shuffled off this mortal coil, having had the experiences and learned the lessons she likely came here to master, what do we know of this, after all, and now—I feel this deeply—she is at peace. 

My son and daughter were with their cousin, Pearl's son, above center, and with others of the younger generation of cousins, below.

Last night, when everyone else had gone home, and our Virginia family were on the road back to Fairfax, our daughter said to her dad and me, "The only problem with having a big family, and loving lots and lots of people, is that it means there's a lot of loss in your future." I remember when this realization came to me, too, some years ago. It's still better to love, I decided then, and that’s what I told my girl. As for loss, I added, I just get there when I get there, and I don't keep score.

Random Friday

I'm yearning to go here, to my Jamaican homeland, to the waters I grew up in, and today, I am booking flights for the man and I to do just that shortly after Christmas. My Aunt Grace used to say, don't wait to plan a trip and book your flights and accommodations, because the anticipation of it can be just as delicious as being there, and it lasts longer.

I wanted to repost this tweet from Senator Mazie Hirono a while back, but I was pledged to keep the fact that I was collaborating with the new Justice confidential until her book came out. Now I can finally archive this post that made my heart sing back when Hawaii Democrat Mazie Hirono first tweeted it. Mazie Hirono is a member of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, and so she met one-on-one with our Justice in the run up to her confirmation hearings, which is when this photo was taken. How lucky am I, to have had the chance to work with two such extraordinary women on writing their memoirs. The power and the goodness and the glory in that room!

Is this not a beautiful street of brownstones? It's in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a neighborhood teeming with literary folk who call New York City home. My daughter and her love will soon be moving there. I know so many people from my magazine and book worlds who live near to their new place. This one is a block in one direction, that one lives three blocks in another direction, another one is two blocks south. To welcome the newlyweds to the neighborhood, my Park Slope comrades have been texting me recommendations for hole-in-the-wall eateries with sublime food, nearby farmer's markets, and other cool stuff that I'm supposed to share with them. I think the young uns landed well, and I'm just thankful the owners of the brownstone they're moving into were less focused on what they could get for their rental apartment, and more concerned with who they might get to live there. I think they chose well, too.

Back in my own hood, my living room rug has just about given up the ghost, with visible spills and stains on the light colored carpet where people habitually sit. I've been perusing rug sites for a new floor layer, and I keep coming back to that carpet there. It's from Ruggable, ergo washable, and something about the pink and the blue and the nod to old elegance charms me. What do you think of it? Don't spare me. Tell me true. As my daughter likes to say "I'd appreciate your perspective, even though I might not listen to you."

That's my son when he was here on Monday evening to go to the gym with his dad. I was on FaceTime with my daughter and he was energetically waving hello to his new brother in law while teasingly ignoring his sister. Oh, siblings. 

I was a fat child

In case you think I'm speaking in hyperbole, there I am, with my brother and our baby cousin back in the day. This rotund image of myself has never left me, even in my twenties, when, according to photos from that time, I appeared to be "normal" sized. Then I had my kids and ballooned up again, and bless my darling husband, he never seemed fazed by any of it, he always just saw me. Now I am trying to make peace with another difficult self-conception, my aging face and penguin like gait—it's all kicking up afresh for me because in two weeks I will fly to Los Angeles to begin interviews for my next book. My subject is a young woman in her thirties, in peak physical condition, born that way really, with the speed and power of an elite athlete, and yet she chose me to be her collaborator. I need to remind myself of that. She didn't choose me based on my physical appearance, disagreeable as I seem to find it. She chose me based on an indefinable rapport we were able to tap into when we met over Zoom, based on an instinct that we could work together with mutual trust, that she could feel safe baring her heart and I would hold it gently, carefully, and I will. So why am I so very focused on the showing up aspect of my upcoming trip, the moment I walk in and imagine her thinking how fat I am, how old, how ungainly in movement, and her wondering if she made the right choice after all. Oh, I know this is supremely silly and self-absorbed of me. Besides, we have a contract, so she'll have to persevere through that moment, and I know we will get past it to do the work, and maybe after a while, like my husband, she will only see me. I need to remember that there is true human connection beyond the physical self, and may my new subject and I find the grace of that on this journey we are about to embark on together.

Happy anniversary to these two!

 

Two years ago today, my son married his beloved beside a lake in the Connecticut woods. Happy second anniversary my loves. I’m so glad we are family.

At her brother's wedding, my daughter congratulated herself on winning the sister in law lottery. We all won the new family member lottery for sure!

 

A few more wedding memories, because I don't take for granted that both my children are with partners they love, who love them, and who we love, too. I wish this for them, for our family, for a lifetime. 

 

Married people

We attended a birthday party for my son in law’s aunt yesterday; she was turning 75. For some reason, it was among his large extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins doing the electric slide on the dance floor that it finally came home to me that he and my daughter are now well and truly married. We’ve been included in their family gatherings upstate for some years now, but this was the first one where my daughter was no longer the girlfriend, but the wife, an official member of their clan. And by extension we were too. 

My girl and her love have been house hunting all month, as their current lease ends on September 30, and the rent on their one-bedroom apartment will go up exorbitantly. “We’re paying for all these building amenities that we’re always too busy to use,” my daughter said. They’ve decided they are over shiny new apartment complexes with roof decks, gyms, media spaces, and event rooms. They want something older, simpler, with flaws that lend character, like a floor-through in a pre-war brownstone. Well, they may have found exactly that, a two-bedroom garden apartment in the Brooklyn neighborhood where they were hoping to land. 

Competition for apartments in the city being as fierce as it is—with bidding wars on rent pushing some places out of reach of mere mortals—my two reached out to the listing agent and preemptively submitted an application as soon as they saw the posting. They arranged to view the space yesterday morning before driving upstate with us. They did worry that the agent and owners might invite a bidding situation, thereby pricing them out of the running. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. While we were at the party, the owners, who occupy the brownstone’s upper floors with their sons, texted to ask if my daughter and her husband would come by to meet with them today as a step toward offering them a lease. 

This afternoon’s meeting apparently went well. The owners are a lovely French Canadian expat couple, and he works in finance like my son in law, and she works in marketing like my daughter. It’s not quite a done deal yet, but it looks promising. The apartment is not appreciably larger than my daughter's current place, but it's charming in an old world way, with an extra bedroom, whitewashed brick walls, an updated kitchen and bathroom, good natural light, and a private back patio that looks onto a garden—a rare thing in the city. It's also on a great brownstone street in Park Slope, for substantially less rent than they've been paying. I'm praying their new situation turns out to be harmonious in every way.

My daughter told me something the other day that I rather enjoyed. I had observed, not for the first time, that she and her love seem to manage big, complicated tasks with little conflict. She said, “Did I ever tell you about our ministries?” No, I responded, intrigued. “Well,” she said, “we each have our ministries. I am the minister of travel and Noel is the minister of finance. I was the minister of wedding planning and now he is the minister of moving. It doesn’t mean either of us is doing any of these things alone, but there is a definite project lead!” She gave a delighted little clap as she finished, which made me laugh and laugh.  

Update: They got the place! They sign the new lease tomorrow.

Just because (more wedding pics)

This morning, because it made me happy, I was looking through photos of my daughter's wedding again, and decided to share some of the ones we got later, from the wedding photographer and others, in this place where I put everything I want to be able to find again easily. That photo up top is one of my top two faves, along with the mood shot I shared in a previous post. Here are some other snaps of that charmed evening in Brooklyn, when my daughter was betrothed, and I gained another son.

 

My son walked me down the aisle first.

 

Then my husband and daughter appeared and my eyes were a fountain.

 

The look on my husband's face says everything.

 

Welcome to the family, son.

 

My son and his wife watched the first dance, remembering their own two years ago.

 The grade school lifers were out in force.

 

My daughter's godmother made the beautiful cake.

 

Let's take a moment for the breathtaking flowers and table settings.

 

The wedding was at Brooklyn Winery, which offered to have the bride and groom seal their vows in a box with a personalized labeled wine, to be opened, and read and sipped, on their first anniversary.

 

 

The dance floor was rocking all night!

Number one on the list!

I'm grateful to have been a part of this work, which my subject and I collaborated on in the deepest sense of the word. She gave her all, and then some. I'm grateful, too, for a publishing team full of grace, with every person involved operating from a place of love. But the credit for this bestselling berth goes most fully and completely to the Justice, who is having a magnificent book tour, and who is being enthusiastically received by book-buying audiences everywhere. People understand so clearly the historic nature of her appointment, indeed of her very being. The photo of the street mural depicting our Justice and her hero, Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to be appointed to the federal bench, was taken by Jamia Wilson, the book's wonderful editor.

Men talking and people reading

My lovely husband and son were deep in conversation when I looked up from scrolling on my phone and snapped that picture. Our boy comes over on Monday nights to serve as a personal trainer for his dad. He’s a good son. He cares about us, and shows it in concrete ways.  Also, for my own record, I’m saving here my favorite reader review of Lovely One on Amazon. The big dog, the New York Times Bestseller list, comes out tomorrow afternoon and trends suggest we have a good chance of making it. But whatever happens tomorrow, the book is currently the number-one-selling title in indie bookstores this week, and that’s golden, because independent booksellers are the people who will sell your book with their whole hearts. 

The light she brings

I'm still thrumming with excitement from the book launch event on Tuesday evening. It took place at the historic Apollo theater, a fitting venue to welcome to the world the intimately told and inspiring story of a history making woman, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. To have been chosen as the co-writer for the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States was truly the privilege of a lifetime. In terms of the book team, the entire project, beginning to end, could not have been more charmed. Everyone involved in bringing this story to the page was operating from a place of love, because that is the tone set by the Justice, and it was also our great good fortune that, after being courted by publishers everywhere, she chose this particular team. I loved every single person whose effort touched the book, from the publisher and the editor to the capable assistant editor who wrangled all the production details once the manuscript was written and formally accepted. 

The Justice wrote wonderful acknowledgements of our work together, thanking me as well as every other person who played a part in making the book. I won't name names here because this blog is mainly a place where I write to make sense of my own shifting self and record the highlights of my life and the doings of my loves. But if you want to know the names of those who made this book happen, turn to the acknowledgements. Truly, this entire endeavor was a labor of love that took a village, and what a village it was!

At the launch event at the Apollo Theater on Tuesday evening, broadcast journalist and CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King sat with Justice Jackson for a ninety minute conversation about the book before a sold-out theater. At one point, the Justice even broke into song, and darned if the whole audience didn't spontaneously sing along! Goosebumps! It was so clear how well loved she is. As Gayle King said to the audience at one point, "You know, I asked [a woman backstage] why we love her so, and she said, 'It's because she stood in her agency.'" 

When she first walked out onto the stage, the entire audience sprang to their feet and the applause was enthusiastic and sustained. This happened again several times during the event, which felt like it went by in a flash, leaving us wanting more. Afterward, the guests of the Justice remained in our seats while the theater was cleared, and then we were ushered backstage to greet our Supreme and take pictures. There were so many of her Harvard College cohorts there, as well as high school friends, and former law clerks and people from all eras of her life, because it appears that the Justice never loses a friend. One of her Harvard roommates, a woman I'd interviewed for the book, texted me the next morning. "The light inside her!" she wrote. "Now everyone gets to see it!!!"

I could go on and on, but instead I'll just share a few photos from Tuesday evening and hope that you'll pick up the book and discover who this remarkable human is for yourself. 

Greeting the woman of the hour

The Dream Team

The editor at right, the agent, and me with the Justice's husband, a top surgeon in his field, who steals hearts everywhere because it is enchanting to witness how completely he loves, believes in, and champions his accomplished wife, his big heart on his sleeve.

The man and me—oh it was a night!

The book is launched! (plus an update on pub day)

 

Our Justice—a nuanced thinker, a dazzling intellect, and a deeply kind soul. It has been so gratifying to take this literary journey with her over the past year. 

Update on September 3: During a segment with the Justice on Hoda and Jenna this morning, Jenna commented that Justice Jackson's memoir is about making history, but it is also a love story. I felt that. 

Also today, there was this review by McArthur Genius Award winning author Jacqueline Woodson in Elle—I especially love how she ends the piece:

Then she leans back and looks at me, and there is that smile again. Like so many other people across this country, I know her. She is the person we hope we are—feet firmly planted, clear-eyed, honest, engaged, and here because she deeply believes in a better world.

Even as I write this, weeks after our first meeting, I remain shaken. Once again, a gift has arrived in this country—brown-skinned, brilliant, and beautiful. Morally sound and truly believing in liberty and justice for all.

My final questions aren’t for the justice. They are for the rest of us: What will we do with this gift? Who will we become?