I have no words of inspiration & motivation today. It’s cloudy out, and on days like this, I always have this unshakable need to sit in quiet solitude & contemplate the meaning of life. Ok, to be honest, most days I have an unshakable need to sit in quiet solitude, but especially on days like today. Like, where is the sun?! I need it to survive. I could literally sit out in its rays all day long, and no, I do not care how dark I get. The blacker the better to be for really real.

But I have to confess, my mood is not entirely weather related. Sometimes God will ask me—not so much ask, but more like gently command me—to do deliver a message, and I be like, “No.” And then He be like, “B***ch, what I say?!” Ok, actually God would never call me a b***ch. It’s more like, “WITCH! What I say?!” Hahahahaha hehehehehe, sorry, I can’t help myself. Sometimes it’s just too easy. But seriously…

I’ll get orders and then if I don’t do it the first time, then the Universe will just keep sending the same memo but in different—often obnoxious, sometimes very funny—ways until it’s like, “OK! Alright already! Geez, Louise! Leave me alone. I’ll do it. I’ll frickin do it!” So I’m learning to just do what He says the first time around to avoid the hassle. The thing about me though is, I have no need nor desire to be showing my face online everyday (outside of poetic meditations) & yappin about this latest trending topic or that hot tea. What I know for sure is that that is not my calling. And when you know the power of the tongue and the power of your words, you won’t just be saying anything. I want to aways make sure I am intentional & purposeful when I deliver the good word, and that I do it in the way that aligns with my gifts. Because of my many talents, & the power of my pen, sometimes that message will be through song and other times it will be written.

15 years ago, when I was back in Pittsburgh working as a secretary in the graduate school of business, I wrote a letter to President Obama about student loan debt & how it was crippling the millennial generation and ostracizing us from achieving our American Dream, the dream that had been promised to us and afforded to the generations that came before us, particularly our Boomer parents and the like. I had graduated from Pitt 2 years prior in 2008 in the heart of the great recession in which the real estate bubble burst, markets were crashing, and most people who I graduated with were like, “F this. I’m going to grad school because wtf is the job market right now?” After my intern at the ACLU, though I loved it and felt like I had been groomed in a way to pursue the path of justice from a young age—campaigning, parading & politickin with senators & other elected officials, attending a girls in government camp (yes, I am a nerd if you didn’t know this already!), and shadowing law professionals in high school—I needed for once in my life to not live for the expectations of what other people wanted for me & pursue what I always wanted for myself. So I declined my professor’s offer to assist with securing me a position in law enforcement & phoned a friend in the benefits department to help with a job while I figured out my next move.

I loved Pittsburgh. I still do. But even then, much like now, I knew I was meant for something more. So I phoned my theatre professor and asked for her grad school recommendations and Rutgers landed top on her list for me, and that is where I set my sights. But not before I had a word with Mr. President and aired my grievances about the state of the economy and the added hardship these loans were having on my generation. How were we supposed to “get ahead” if we were systemically being kept from getting ahead? Several months later, to my shock & delight, I received a letter back from President Obama. Ok, it was obviously his office, but whatevs!! I got an official letter from the White House (na na na boo boo), acknowledging my millennial concerns and outlining the plan of action his administration was taking to address those concerns. And I was so honored because, even though I had forgotten I had written the letter until I received the response, it just goes to show the power of using your voice in whatever way you can, and making sure that you raise your concerns with your elected officials because they were elected by us to serve us and the greater good. OF ALL. And when they aren’t doing that, it becomes incumbent upon us to make sure that they know it, and for us to do something about it.

Outside of my healing journey and the stories that propelled me into this place in my life & entrepreneurship, I’m not one to share the intimate details of my personal life on social media. For me, my social media has become my opportunity to share my purpose, my business, my art, my mission. And while some have taken that as a personal slight and/or offense, all I can say is that the people that understand and get it, get it. But I bring all this up because I know that I am an amplifier, and that sometimes God will use me and my personal situation to address the things that are perpetuating in the lives of others and hindering them from living and pursuing their best life.

On a societal level, we want to act like student loan debt is a personal responsibility, and it is, of course, to the degree that we are the ones who personally took out the loans. But,—from personal firsthand experience— when you move 4 times in 4 years, and your school doesn’t have your updated address so therefore letters and notices aren’t making it to you (even though they have your email and could’ve corresponded that way), and by the time they finally do reach you it’s at FINAL NOTICE level with only 3 days to spare to prevent said loan from going to collections, and you contact them immediately and let them know what happened and they tell you the loan has already gone to collections and that this was just a courtesy letter, and now you aren’t able to argue your case, can’t access your transcripts in order to get a job in the field for which you are desperately trying to enter, and are subsequently relegated to being “overqualified” for jobs you apply for or end up in. Now, while that’s not an issue for you because you understand everybody gotta get it how they live, it is a problem for people who can’t hide the fact that they are bothered by your mere presence (and knowledge) and want to undermine, undercut, subvert and steal your ideas and pawn them off as their own so that you can’t “get ahead” of them at a job where they are clearly miserable, but would never say because it’s the only thing that gives them a sense of identity. Meanwhile, you are literally fighting legal battles no one knows about and have no judgement on the job you applied for and are happily working as long as you can get the job done and pay your bills. You not stuntin’ noBuddy, but they steady stuntin’ you. The quintessential catch 22. Damned if you don’t. Damned if you do.

So what do you do? Adapt. Evolve. And, as best you can, continue to push through. And please understand this is not a knock on my alma mater. I loved both universities I attended and am proud to be a graduate and claim them as the places that fostered my personal & educational growth. But this is a comment on the system itself that is, by design, keeping us in economic slavery so that we can’t even accomplish the things that we were “guaranteed.” How do we achieve our piece of the “American Dream” when what meager wages we have are garnished or our bank account is altogether stripped of every penny in order to pay back a “debt” to a school who won’t release the transcripts that will help you get in better position to repay that debt. Obviously I would like to pay it back. Obviously we would like this off our backs. How is any of this ok? How am I supposed to make it out and see the forest through the trees when everyone that’s further “ahead” keeps looking back to copy me? A witch like me is just tryna live. So again, I ask, when is something gonna give?

THE BEST FOR LAST

I went the beach and had a dance party in the sand. You know the water is my holy place, and yes, I am still on my dance challenge tip, but I have to take a couple days off in order to integrate the brain with the body. My dance teacher would always yell at me for being “all shoulders” and arching my back & stickin my booty out. Haha I can’t help it. It’s the former gymnast in me. But dancing is a fun way to relieve stress and get out of your head and into your body, even if you fuque it all the way up. What’s that saying? Dance like no one’s watching. Thas my #mood4evuhhhh Promise dis mah mood fa evuh & evuh! {Keep making great songs and I’ma keep quoting you, Girlfriend!}

Anyway, after I got home I had some strawberries. I washed & cleaned them and some of them were tart, but on average they were pretty mid. Then I get to the last one, not really thinking much of it, and I bite into it and it’s the sweetest, juiciest, delectably delightful thing, and it got me thinking about you & me, the love that God has for me. That’s you Sweet HaHt. It always has been, hasn’t it? He really went and saved the best, the sweetest, the kindest, most generous and gentlest, but not-gonna-take-no-shit-over-mines love for my ever-lasting love. And I love you for that. And I love that for US. All others gotta pay, but in God we trust. I mean, how could we not trust Him after this union? Pretttyyyy crazzyyyyy how it all came to be, but it makes absolute sense in our Cosmic Divinity. Definitely going down in history.

PYT

I would like to take this moment to congratulate Ms. Janet Jackson on receiving the Icon Award at this year’s AMAs!!! She has been an inspiration to so many artists and the WORLD! Her talent, career, and longevity is undeniable. Aging like fine wine with grace & dignity, the Muses are pleased and applaud you, My Pretty!

Speaking of Pretty—

I found this video that perfectly embodied my take on fashion as an art form that, unfortunately, a lot of people don’t embody. It’s like they think, “If I’m up on the latest trend and dressing in the latest styles, then that makes me fashionable,” and it’s like, no Sweet Heart, that makes your stylist fashionable. Mwahahahaha! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there’s some people who wear clothes and there’s others where the clothes wear them. And that’s the PretTEA, ok!?

WILD GEESE

Speaking of grad school, when I found the letter from President Obama, I also found my grad school semester evaluations, and my acting teacher would aways leave a poem with hers. This one was her favorite, and any time geese would fly overhead (our class was right by a stream) she would literally stop everything, close her eyes, and lift her head to the sky in reverence. Without fail. Every. single. time. Calmly, but dramatically. Lol. I told you man, actors are extra, but artists? Artists are extraterrestrial. But I love it! Every time I hear geese, I think of her and take a moment to pause & reflect. This one goes out to you, Debby!

WOOSAH WIND DOWN

Well My Pretties, that’s all she wrote for today. You could be anywhere in the world, but you’d rather be here with may <N’Sync voice> And I love you for it and shall continue to shine bright-lay. You make sure you do the same, ok?? We’ve only got one life to live so quam minimum credula postero, today let’s seize! Wishing you all a great rest of your week and weekend of good deeds. Stay blessed EveryBuddy, and God speed!

Love Always (& Besitos),

short & Sweet (Hearted), or, wild american geese

THE BEST FOR LAST

PYT

WILD GEESE

WOOSAH WIND DOWN

Family matters, or, she never shines alone

garden variety love, or, it is what you make it