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LaTonya Yvette: Weird InBetween Time
In this episode, I speak with LaTonya Yvette as we explore her daily rituals, motherhood, and the practice of writing. She opens up about the small moments that make a big impact on her craft, the role of fear in the creative process, and the profound influence her mother's legacy left on her.
What does it mean to write from a place of healing and connection? LaTonya's evolution from a lifestyle blogger to a published author provides a narrative that's as much about self-discovery as it is about the words on the page. Writing is more than a career for her; it's a journey through the landscapes of pain and triumph, a meditation that nurtures her soul and reaches out to touch her readers.
You can connect with LaTonya at https://www.instagram.com/latonyayvette/
Okay, so thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you agreeing to do this. So, first of all, what did you agree to do this?
Speaker 2:Why did I agree to do this? That's such a good question to start out with, I think, for me. I've done like a lot of podcast interviews over the years, but even it's a whole new year. I'm sort of even reforming my own way, as I see. You know, I see creativity in my own artistry, and so even looking at your other interviews, it reminded me of the questions I'm asking myself, Right? And so I think that the beautiful thing is A being in a place where you feel you've been there for, or you've been positioned for, a while, but at the same time, I'm also internally in my own transition, and so it's nice to be asked questions and to provide answers simultaneously for other people here, but also for myself. And then, of course, I was just in. I saw, like, the list of other artists that you've used. You know that you've talked to and I've also. You know I was in a crowd in June, and so that's still very close to my heart, so it's just felt. You know it felt, right, that's all, I'm just a gut-fixing too.
Speaker 2:It just felt, it felt right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's also what led me to your work. I was doing some research on Instagram and I came across your page and I was like, oh, it'd be great to reach out and connect. I also tried to go with my gut feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I don't know what I really want to take out of this is that I want to connect one to hear your story, to get an insider look into your background and why you're doing what you're doing and, yeah, to also like learn from your experience as much as possible. So that's why I reached out. So thank you for the honor. Welcome to Jutztis, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:If you're ready, I'm ready.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me, let's get into it, I'm ready.
Speaker 2:I'm always ready, nice.
Speaker 1:Nice, let's start off easy. Okay, oh okay, there's a high. Yeah, let's start off easy. So before we go on, can you introduce yourself and tell us where you're speaking from?
Speaker 2:So hi, I'm Latani Yvette. I'm a writer, a storyteller, a community builder, and I am born and mostly raised in Brooklyn, new York.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing, amazing. So where are you in your life right now? At which stage in your life are you now?
Speaker 2:You know, I was actually just listening to something the other day that was that was just talking about. You know, we have these sort of stages or phases where we're always different kinds of people. And so in January my daughter, you know, turned 13. I had her at 21. So a lot of my 20s my son who's 10, but a lot of my 20s was like in building this career, raising these young children, and now they're all much, you know they're, you know they're going throughout the city on their own and I'm still like in this youthful, you know, and I think we all have like for the rest of our lives, youthful phases, but I do feel like a sense of freedom and my own sense of youth, yeah, and so my 20s, like really building a career, and now I feel more in myself.
Speaker 2:So the phase, sort of the stage or phase stage that I'm in now creatively is much more of where I am, I think, spiritually, which is just again like honing in on being a writer and being a storyteller, but also doing things that feel quite spiritually aligned right, and so it's not about the hustle, as it once was, or about but getting the the thing or getting the next right thing, is actually just about being wherever I am at that moment and letting life, creativity or the story kind of speak to, to the process and whatever opportunities or stories or like art that comes from. That is is a blessing, in my opinion. So I've had the the challenge and the privilege of, I think, of being in my 30s and being like okay, well, this is where I am right now.
Speaker 1:Okay, you also speak about alignment. What does that look like? How do you know you're in alignment?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, my next book comes out in September and I think in that book I talk, speak a lot about meditation and like spiritual practices and for me, my sort of that book and sort of a bigger picture around like how I live my life every day with my work, yeah, and so that's like the alignment is like actually just you know that, like everything is actually where you're supposed to be at that moment you know and it's not like it's hard to you know, it's actually about being present in that moment.
Speaker 2:You know which? I have a like. I have a. I've had a hard time doing and maybe that's why I am so like oh, I'm in alignment right now. It's about being so deeply in, like yourself and in a practice that you trust whatever comes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know that whatever is next is the next right thing, and so anything this conversation is about being in alignment of where I'm at, you know, is not necessarily like super thought out, it's just more like like in your heart, in your body. Yeah, I wish I had more thought context beyond that, but it really is like the benefit of like being in my body right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I also feel the same, like I'm realizing more and more that when you remain present, you're able to identify opportunities a lot more, in the sense that you're in frequency, you're tuned in. When it's presented in front of you, you're able to see it clearly, because a little bit of this noise, that's where the distractions come in, that's where we tend to lose focus. Just being present and just being clear in the now is all that counts, I believe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that we're always. You know, there's a distraction every minute, right? There's a distraction every time, like a lot of what I talk about, and even the piece that I'm writing now is the creative act of like mothering and how actually I've been, you know, even though I was taking care of this because I was actually creating a world always right, that was sort of like a mix of all these worlds and they weren't the world that I knew.
Speaker 2:I was just like making it up, making it and like painting walls and raising them and building a community, and a lot of that was around like sort of tuning out the world outside.
Speaker 2:Right, even though I was like public person, I've tuned out what was outside and I think now, as I like retract a little bit but also think about my spirit, think about my aura, think about what I want to put in the world, think about the task which is it is our little bits of ourselves are actually pretty like seismic, you know what I mean. And so I think about that a lot, like what can I sort of, what am I responsible for and what can I change and what can I tilt a little bit within myself and within other people, and that a lot of that has to do with just tuning out the noise and I think that overlay into meditation, spirituality or whatever, which is all about just tuning out constantly, like we're constantly doing that every minute and then it kind of balloons out into these bigger practices, books or articles or whatever that, whatever that is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lately, for the past few days, I've been reflecting a lot on what tomorrow represents, or what tomorrow means to me. Right, what emotion comes up when I think of the word tomorrow? But before I answer that, I'm asking you the same question what emotion comes up when you think of the word tomorrow?
Speaker 2:Oh, you know immediately. It's so funny because I actually had this whole thing last night. Oh my God, it made me emotional. I'm like you know, that's such a good, such a beautiful question. I don't really got these things.
Speaker 2:When I was a kid and my grandmother inspired like a lot of my work. But when I was a kid, you know. So there's two thoughts, right. There's like they would say, like joy comes in the morning, right. And so tomorrow always meant there was like a new opportunity, a new avenue for joy, a new, you know, as we wake up. That's like that's a gift, right, and that's how beautiful and small it is.
Speaker 2:And then I think, you know, I see it always as an opportunity to, yeah, just restart. So when I think of tomorrow, to be quite honest, it always I always think of like a new opportunity, a better chance to do better, but I often just think of it as like a gift, Like if I'm able to wake up tomorrow and do the same thing or something similar or slightly better, or love people a little bit clearer or speak a little bit soundly or profoundly, then that's what I think about. When I think of tomorrow. It's like this oh, joy comes in the morning. It's like this idea that tomorrow is a new day. If today didn't go right, we possibly have tomorrow and that's a gift and we can do a little bit better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what? Yeah, and thank you for sharing that. That's so beautiful. But for me, the answer I came up with is like a flip side of that same coin that tomorrow is a blank check, but it's not guaranteed you're going to get a blank check tomorrow. Like you said, it's a gift. So the feeling for me is almost like me being neutral, to the sense that I'm not expecting to have tomorrow, so today I must give it like 110.
Speaker 1:Step on the pedal and just go for it. So that's the summary I came up with. When I wake up, I'm just so grateful Like, yes, I've got a blank check, let's make it happen, let's use it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so funny because, as I was thinking, while talking to you and saying that thing, I also kept on coming back to this moment of being like also, yeah, tomorrow's not promised, you know what I mean, but joy, so it's funny.
Speaker 2:There's this duality of constantly living in the fragility and thinking, oh, actually I might not have it, I only have today. And then at a moment, especially as I go to sleep or I'm winding down, I'm also thinking, oh wait, ok, if I get tomorrow, then joy will come in the morning and then I can start. So it's constantly being in this relationship with the present and also what's happening right now, at this very instant.
Speaker 2:And also what's happened, what could possibly happen if we are awarded that, and I think it allows this opportunity to approach our work in a unique way, right, because we're just thinking about it as it's morphing, not where it's going to be.
Speaker 1:We're not always reaching into the distance, always looking towards the future, but we're always aware of the fact that we also have to be present and enjoy the moment now. That joy that we want in the future, we can equally access it now. So, it's beautiful in that sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, for sure, and I think that that is even a gift to be in that space. I don't think that a lot of us, a lot of people, are not given that. So even to be there and to experience that is so beautiful and an opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about what your typical day looks like as a writer.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Each day is so different.
Speaker 1:Give me the breakdown.
Speaker 2:OK, ok, I'll give you the breakdown. I'm going to give you what it was as of December, right, because I think early November, because I think it's totally different now. Right, I spent three years working on this big project, which is my third book, and so what that required of me is different than maybe what I have an essay do later today. I can do that this afternoon, right, so I'm going to do that this afternoon. That's a different brain, that's a different creative self. So, tap in, tap out, right, but for book and projects which are more long form, they require a sense of, not even a sense. They require almost I don't want to use word militant, because that's not the way I approach it but so routine, like beyond routine, right.
Speaker 2:And so when I was writing my book, I would wake up at 5 o'clock 5 30 in the morning every day, right, monday through Friday, except for Saturdays, sunday, yeah, and a lot of that. There's a Toni Morrison quote that says she realized the only time she actually had to write was before her children. And so I read that a few years ago and I realized that A that's when my best writing was done. I wasn't touched, I wasn't anybody else, I wasn't somebody's girlfriend. I wasn't somebody, I didn't. I also do other work. I wasn't a consultant, I wasn't a creative person, I was just writing. I just got to be this unfiltered writer and so when I have these bigger projects, I wake up around 5, 5 30 in the morning, mostly every day, and make lemon water and sit at the computer and get it down usually for an hour, hour and a half and shower and get ready and get my kids out the door, and then I do a bunch of other work.
Speaker 2:That is not, as that is not sometimes as quite beautiful, but that inspires that work. So I always say part of my, a huge part of my writing, is living. A lot of my writing is informed by living, right by living.
Speaker 2:I experience, my experience, but by like speaking to people, by meeting people. I'm quite introverted, but I'm also super extroverted, or there's a part of me that's like extroverted, so I can strike. I take a lot of my inspirations to write around, being around other people in a very clear sense and in a way that observes them. You know. So I've always been like spending afternoons like at a museum or at a park. I spend a lot of time at the park. I spend like a lot of time getting coffee or walking or looking up like a tourist up in the sky. So a lot of my, a lot of my, you know, a lot of my writing is often informed by living, art and people. Like, I love being around people, I love listening to people and seeing how they move in the world and why they move the way that they move and why they create the way they create. And so there's always that right.
Speaker 2:There's this dysfunctional part that's very when there's a big project that's very steady and routine. And then there's also this part of me that requires the sense of, like you know, daily freedom and wondering to be able to show up the next morning in that, in that other self, so that I can write and these things, the things that I write are not even about the people that I meet or see or observe, but they just inspire me to think they might trigger something. They might, you know, they might the conversation might allow me to do some research, you know, and so it's all sort of one always informs the next, and so that's sort of my process. And then it's cooking food, which I don't really like to do, cleaning and definitely getting dressed every day. So those are part of that's usually my daily, you know. Or traveling, that's usually my day to day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when did you start your writing practice? When did you like get that entity as a writer?
Speaker 2:Again, I always say that, like you know, I spent. I was a kid and I used to just like. My brothers would read and my sister would read, and I would never read, I would just write, like literally write in journals all day long. But it was weird because I, like, would just come up from like my imagination. I wasn't even reading, and now, as an adult, I read to be able to write, right.
Speaker 2:So I've switched it a little bit. I used to just come up with something on my head. I first had a blog, so that's how I started. I had a blog for 10 years and so I was a lifestyle blog and that started in 2011. So that was, or so I did like some things here and there, but I think, you know, when I started publicly identifying as a writer and putting pieces out into the world and then also writing for magazines or things like that, that was it all kind of started in 2012, 2011. Yeah, 2012, 2011. Yeah, and then it all. Then I closed that blog in 2021 and just like full time started, you know, obviously was working on the book and writing other essays for magazines and other articles and honestly just thought about other things. You know ways that that other creative ways to exist while simultaneously being a writer.
Speaker 2:So it's been a while, it's been a minute.
Speaker 1:And is it easy to show up as a writer in the world?
Speaker 2:No, no, there's also this, like what's it? It's a Joan Diddy unquote, that's, like you know, sort of like. Writers are oftentimes like selling something out, like selling an experience out, you know, and I take that as my brain is constant, like you know, I have an easier time writing than I do articulately, right, and so for me, yeah, so I write very fast, I type very fast, quite fast, and so my brain is constantly thinking and seeing things and stories, right, and so being present is actually like very hard work, because I'm always like that's sort of like the anti-writer.
Speaker 2:That's what I really thought, you know, so I think that's why I'm also so obsessed, I think, the process with being present, but writing is not for the poor you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:And when we say that, I say it's not like you can you have to. You know it is an occupation right for the rich. It was right Because it doesn't pay you. You get lucky, you get. You know you get these deals whatever, but it doesn't pay you to live. You know what I mean. And so there are a lot of writers who are professors or teachers or creatives in other ways. You know there's it's a long, arduous process for hardly any money, but then you get like good deals. Right, You'll get a good book deal maybe if you're lucky, but those are very. You know it's not promised, it's also not a given. But if you're a writer, you are invested and you are in love and you are deeply moved by the process of writing. You are deeply, maybe you, maybe you are invested in the process of publishing. I love the connection that people have with my work.
Speaker 2:I get emotional when people come up to me and say that things have changed them right and so they don't know that, like I've spent X amount of years writing that thing, you know. But there is that sense that work is beyond me. Like I write it but it doesn't belong to me. Once someone reads it or touches it, right, it's whatever that they want to take. And if I can change something or if I can make a new thought happen for somebody else, if I can allow people to see the world differently not, you know, and I don't know like there's like I think you know I had the.
Speaker 2:I had my first book was part of, like Jay-Z's, like you know, hov exhibit, but I had done something with Brooklyn Public Library before that happened and one of the things they said or even another friend who works at the Met has said like you know, my first book was like, basically in all of these libraries around the United States. And you don't think of that when you're writing, right, you hope for things, that you hope people are reading stuff, you hope people feel things, but if you zoom out years down the line and you realize that there are thousands and thousands of people who are reading something and are feeling something from your work, then the money is like we all want you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like we all need money, but it's not part of it, right? So you're in writing, usually as a career, because you can't imagine doing anything else. I don't. That's it. That's where I am. You know my soul. I'm just gonna be writing here until I can't write no more, and then I'm gonna dictate it. I'm gonna try to have to say it out my mouth, you know.
Speaker 1:I know my kids write for me yeah. But, that's where my spirit is.
Speaker 2:That's what I was born to do.
Speaker 1:What does actual practice of writing do for you?
Speaker 2:It's a healer, you know, I like I've had a very I had like a difficult childhood, a difficult young adulthood, and it also allows me to make sense of the world, right, and so it allows me to make sense of the world, it allows me to think differently about people, the world, about myself.
Speaker 2:It allows me to process things and it allows me to synthesize, in a way I don't think I would, the art of living, right, each moment is sort of like writing. For me, it's sort of like a meditation, right. Like I think each moment would kind of pass me a little bit if I didn't, if I wasn't a writer, right? So I'm meditating every day, but I'm also writing every day, and so I have these practices bookended each day that allow me to be in like the day, to be in my life, to be in my body, and I think I've realized how fast time continues on, right, and I think about it oftentimes. I think also in relation to my children, possibly, like I kind of can see time right, because they are. Just, I don't feel like I look like I'm getting older I look, I feel the same.
Speaker 2:But if I look at, you know, my daughter, who's taller than me now, right, and like I'm like wait, but I didn't, I just didn't, I just do this 13 years ago, like I just I don't get that. And so it allows writing, allows me to process like time, it allows me to process something I cannot control. It allows me to be in my body and be in the world, you know, and it allows me to constantly I feel like constantly I'm healing and I'm synthesizing, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:It does, it does. But just add on to that, when you say you're healing, you're healing from what?
Speaker 2:Oh, you know, I think first of all, things are constantly happening, right. You know A I'm a black woman in the United States and so there's like a level of, I think, constant oppression that we talk about here as like black people in the United States. So that's like one separate thing, right. But then I talk about like my past. I always think about like our past lives, our past selves, our childhood or our young adulthood. You can have a tough childhood or young adulthood and you can heal from it in whatever way that you can, but there are things that'll, you know, it's sort of like a scab where something will scratch it and it's reopened a little bit right, and you're constantly having to do that work.
Speaker 2:I grew up with vitiligo, which is which you don't see now, but which is when you have like your melanin in your skin sort of like starts to go away, right, and so that happens in around like 10 through 12. And that changed sort of also how I saw beauty, how I saw people right, and that was like formative. That was my childhood, right, and then we moved around a lot, my, you know, we like it was just, it was a lot. It was just a lot of relational also difficulties. And you think, you know, surprisingly the vitiligo reversed mostly for the most part, and I became an adult, I became, I went to therapy, I continued to go therapy, I became a mother and you think those things go away, but they kind of don't right.
Speaker 2:They heal but there are. The thing with healing is that certain things can scratch, like sort of open that wound again or kind of get it, you know, scratch that scab again. And so when I say I'm constantly I'm writing and I'm often rehealing, it is just a practice of like readdressing some things that I realized I'm going to just probably have the rest of my life, and or it feels it's closed, but it feels slightly different because I've grown up or I've seen a different world, so it feels different. So writing allows me to deal with that stuff, which is, I think, then allows me to show up in the world, you know, and allow other people space to to maybe work or address their things.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You've had over 12 years of writing experience. You've had an active career that has lasted that long. If you were to look back and give an actual like just a three step what to do as an aspiring writer, what would it be and what would it look like?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's such a good question If I had to give a three step don't fuss. And so when I say don't fuss, meaning just don't fuss over the grand picture of it, there's so many people who feel like they have to go to this school, the next school. I dropped out of college, so a lot of my writing, Um, you know, I'm a self taught writer. My relationship to is just don't fuss over it. You can take classes, which we all should, but at some point. The next thing I would say practice makes progress. Every time you write over time, it gets better and better and better. There are plenty of people who read my writing. Now I was like, oh my gosh, I loved writing then, but I can tell you've grown.
Speaker 2:The way that I approach writing is completely different than like. I don't even like to read the things I wrote or how I wrote about stuff like in, you know, 2013, 14, 15, like I'm a totally different writer, and so practice makes progress.
Speaker 2:And then the third one is just keep showing up, which is kind of like practice makes progress and that keeps showing up in the sense of like. I believe that, like artistry, and then, in particular, writing is how we can find forms of our own forms of resistance. And so there are plenty of other writers Toni Morrison, audrey, lord, james Baldwin, like. The list can go on and on and on. You know where people have, you know, literally like resisted oppression or you know anything that they faced via writing and via being community, by writing. And so part of like keep showing up is be present and like what you're writing is doing not only for yourself, right, every single day, but also doing for people in your community. Because I do think that, like there are so many books, there's so many pieces and stories that I turn to as a way of like thriving, not even just surviving, it's a way to like thrive, right. I turn to words, I often turn to words, and so that's my three.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing. I actually, because it's something I also struggle with the idea of looking at a blank canvas or looking at like a page and putting words onto the page. Yeah, it's scary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we get so caught up in our fear. You know this, like Bell Hooks quote about, you know, fear being, you know, sort of a it's like a, you know, active. It keeps us separated. You know, it's also a form of like it doesn't allow us opportunity to come together. You know, and I say this too, like I'm struggling with the fear I have around my book, you know, and that thing is done. There is nothing I can do. It is happen, it's gone, it's going to be into the world and yet, like I have to show up now as like a person, and have to relate to this project that I wrote. You know, 2020, 2021, 22, I don't even hear. I don't even feel like that woman anymore, and yet, like I'm fearful of going back there to that project and feel for going back there to that girl, that woman. I'm fearful of people's.
Speaker 2:You know, because when you read, you take what you want from a piece, right, and you understand it the way that you need in that moment, and so it is so much of writing. So much of writing is just like dealing with fear, not only in the act of writing it, the act of editing it or letting someone edit it, the act of getting it, publishing it, the act of like all of it is, and I think the way that we sort of you know, get free and I say this as like my own liberation too, as far as, like, what writing allows for me, is by addressing that fear constantly, right, and so I'm like that's, that's I think that's also the work, like it's healing in this sense, that I'm always addressing, like this is how I'm going to get free. This is this is this is you know, this is it, this is it, this is it, because I'm just, I got to show up and I got to deal with that fear Every time, every single time, and that's what we're asking.
Speaker 1:Are you saying after 10 years if it hasn't been gone away?
Speaker 2:It changes, oh and more. It doesn't go away, it just changes, you know. So that helps.
Speaker 1:It changes into what.
Speaker 2:I think the relationship, like sort of, even what I'm talking about is so different than what I talked about before, right, and so now, like I'm thinking more about art and community and so I'm writing more about art and community, and so my fear with it is because I'm often examining things I don't quite know, okay, or I do know only a little bit, and so my fear is rooted in, like approaching anything new, but it's always there, even if you've done it for a while right.
Speaker 2:So, yes, I've done art of writing for a while, but the subject or the premise or the woman is like I'm not 21. I'm 34. Like that is different. That is, I've changed, right. And so as you change, as your writing grows, as you show up differently in the world every year or every season or every day, you know the fear changes and so you know, yeah, there are days where I don't feel it, but there's like there's not a time that I've ever published anything and I have not had like that, like like that, that, that like it's in your, it's just like a level of vulnerability.
Speaker 2:Okay that is like I think comes a little bit for me. It's like a little bit rooted in fear, like will they understand it? Will they get it? Will they read it? Will they misinterpret it? And then also the practice of like. After that fear is like oh, I have to let it go.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:That's it.
Speaker 1:That's so empowering. Yeah, that's so empowering, but yes, it's scary. It's scary.
Speaker 2:It's scary, but like you said, but you got to do it, that's just makes progress, you know yes, yeah, and there's no other way. Whatever is like binding you. You know, maybe there's nothing, but I think we all have something that's sort of binding us right, and so whatever is binding, you will get free while you're in practice of the.
Speaker 1:Thing.
Speaker 2:So you just get, you know, you just lean your progress. You just lean more into progress the more you practice. And so I Think it all, always, at least for me, writing always overlays into a sense of like personal, spiritual, spiritual, like practice, you know, because it's like Whatever I'm dealing with personally is coming out in that writing like I'm having, I'm in it. If I'm hitting a wall with writing chance, I'm hitting a wall within myself and I'm not dealing with, you know. And so that's where it's at for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even as you speak on that, I look back on my practice, what I do and the stories I'm sharing. I Was so conscious of, like, hearing my voice and even now my voice doesn't sound the best because I'm in pain and I can hear and I'm so conscious of it. But I've got this, the point of acceptance to say, yes, maybe seven out of ten times you can't pick it up, but maybe today's the day that you can pick it up and that's okay, you know yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 2:That's. That's beautiful, though, because, first of all, even if you listen back and maybe your one day will be out of the pain, you know, when you listen back it's just like that reflection of where you were at this moment in time. You know, and like that.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:I can't tell that you're in pain. You know with the voice, and so that's like, that's like, that's, that's yours. You know what I mean and thank you a for sharing that with me. But B it's also, it's the beauty in the practice.
Speaker 2:Practice, right cuz one day you're gonna look back and be like I was in a tough spot, I was not feeling it, and yeah, I Showed up number one, number two you can't even tell, like you know. But number three, oh, I feel better. Maybe later on, maybe, you know, later down the line You'll feel better and so, yeah, so that's, that's the process even this competition is helping.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you you know, because, like I, really really believe in showing up and connecting in this way, it's so refreshing to hear your story of resilience and how much you've just Continue to push through and to keep showing up and and with the work that you've done, you know.
Speaker 2:So impressive. That's your line too right now. Right, you gotta take it. You gotta please take it. Yeah, that's what you're doing. You're doing it, though You're doing it Isn't that beautiful.
Speaker 1:I'm trying, I'm trying, yeah, so. So I also want to ask to pick up this as well, like, yeah, the connection between words and reality, mmm, I said right now, how do you make that connection, mmm?
Speaker 2:Mmm, you know, I always say this is interesting too, because I think you know, like, by practice, by like, practice or function, I'm a writer, right, but I often say I'm a storyteller.
Speaker 2:And so by being a storyteller, that's my, that's my avenue of Connecting those worlds, right, the writing and the reality. I'm telling a story at every intersection, and but it allows me to tell a story differently, like. It allows me, yes, to tell story with the writing, but I can tell a story through a. You know, I picked up films, photography, which I'm not that great, I over, like the last few years, and so I can tell story that way. I can tell a story like on a wall that I've painted, you know. Or I can tell a story in like with an outfit, and so I I say that all to say that, like part of the function of writing, in the practice of writing, and also the, the life, like being a human and the real human is sort of connecting it so that it can be a story constantly, right, and so I always think of like okay.
Speaker 2:This is the creative act of creating story, is that meeting those worlds at all the time, meeting, finding the, the intersection of the reality and of the creativity, always, you know. And so that is the beauty I think of like calling myself a storyteller. To write is like, and just leaning into that more over the last, I would say over the last three years, it's like, oh, that's what I'm doing, I'm, I'm.
Speaker 1:I'm the intersection.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm a writer by practicing, you know, by function, but I'm practicing like stories, telling a story, you know. So that's where I'm at that, that's where that's, that's where they meet.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay. To add on to that, when you are speaking now is also like Wondering, like, what's your story? What's your story? What are you trying to tell us?
Speaker 2:Dude, I think I'm still figuring it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mm-hmm, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm changing, we change and I think that's the beauty of it all. The first few years of writing I was trying to, I think, show what it meant to be to be like a New Yorker and like a young parent and to like live in such a way. And Now the story I think I'm still figuring out, you know, because what I was or who I was a few years ago is different. Yeah, yeah, at a moment that's like she's not quite formed but she's almost there. Call me in like three months.
Speaker 2:But Kind of look at it like I'm soft molding, you know. I mean, it's interesting to be at somewhere where you've done, you've had this career or you've done something for such a long time and I feel very like personally in myself, very secure myself. But yeah, that's different than like how I want to be read or perceived or how I want you to understand me. Those are two different things and I think that I don't. You know, it's sort of like you can't. There's this line. It's like you can't, you can't tell the story before this, you can't write a story before is actually Lift out or while, while you're still the process of, process of healing right or why you're still like, why you're not done with it yet and so I'm not done with whoever.
Speaker 2:I am Right. Yeah, she's still forming a little bit, and once she's ready.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're becoming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know, I'm almost there. I can feel it. It's like almost Not quite, not quite yet. And so when I feel more like her, which I think will happen, maybe you know soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, yeah, and I think, intuitively, we all know that, as like creators, as like artists, we all instinctively know the feeling of you being a masterpiece and the work of art. Yeah, it's like you have this sense, yeah, like I am all that I am and you are the top of your, your field, but at the same time, you're also like finding your way through the process, trying to like make space. You know?
Speaker 2:that is literally it. Oh my god, that hurt, that touched. Yes, that is, that is. That is it? Yes, that's it. That's exactly it, that's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think you know it's hard when, also when people like are seeing you at the top of the, didn't you're like wait, no, no, no, no, I'm not like I was yeah, I was, but I'm, I'm there, but I'm not quite like. Hold on yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm still being molded, you know.
Speaker 2:I'm still, I'm soft, I'm soft. So, yeah, you know, and I think that's so, that's the sort of the in-between space of projects you know. I think that, like the, that's the weird space I'm in now to be. You know, books are weird. They're dinosaurs, in a sense that they're slow, they're slow, they're slow, and so there's all this in-between space and so I have, like, in eight months, for this person to form and for this, then she's supposed to show up at like on tour and be able to talk about this project that I worked on through, you know, two years ago and that, and who am I Before? I like I want to figure her out a little bit more before I show up in that.
Speaker 2:In that way, and releasing the book, you know, to the publishing house and having it be printed, and then being in a new year of myself and then having it come out, there's this window of like, formation and opportunity for me to be molded a little bit more. And I'm looking as uncomfortable as it is, I am present in it and I'm just like, okay, have your will. You know what I mean. Like, do what you gotta do. I'm showing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but I'm also here to tell you that you're not alone. Oh, thank you dude yeah you're not alone, so your strength gives me courage.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you. We're gonna feed off of each other's courage to then move forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, now, what I was also thinking about is how has, like, your relationship with your kids influenced your work and your role as a mother. How does it also show up in your work as well?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's so interesting. You know, I think I was actually on the phone with another writer, rebecca Walker, and two days ago and we were talking about this and she was saying how, you know, she's like watched me for so long, she felt like my world is expansive, and it was such a beautiful compliment and a lot of it related back to motherhood, right, and you know, because I had River, you know because I raised young children in my 20s, it allowed me to grow up with them, right, and so I had to like get creative, I had to like create, I needed to create a world that, like A I didn't like my mother was an amazing mother, but it was different. It was a totally different struggles like completely different world, completely different, you know, just everything. And so part of my work with my kids has been like and I also grew up with a very creative mother, right, so similar in many, many ways, right, but it's different. And I saw I've had different opportunities in my mother, and so a lot of the opportunities I've had is sort of built on the legacy of my mother, and so I was allowed to give my kids also a creative life and, I think, mothering them in my, you know, 20s allowed me to like build a world for myself and for them that I imagined and not necessarily that I saw right and that means like traveling the world. That meant, you know, I was very, very present for a lot of their school stuff, art stuff, programs, whatever, cause I just built a career that allowed me to like be there and that allowed me to be creative and make stuff.
Speaker 2:And, you know, maybe do like like design a room and then write about it, or get dressed and write about it and have thousands of people read it. Or, you know, find a space where, at least now I think that's where I'm kind of, you know, more at two like in a more authentic way is find a space where, like small or sustainable brands or whatever, can like work within, you know, work within communities that like ways that sort of there wasn't an architecture for that yet, you know. And so my whole life, you know, most of my life, has been now that in my 30s, like, a lot of my life has been in the South, like based on being creative while mothering, you know, and if anything, if the spot that I'm in now, if I think back to, like your other question, right, it's now that my kids are more free in the world. Like you know, my daughter, literally, is like outside now doing her own thing with her friends and like running around New York City.
Speaker 2:My creativity is different, right, because it's not I really created this world that they're living in, and it's a creative act every day. But I don't need to try so hard to create the world anymore, you know, and so for so long I like really created this world of people, of art, of color, of, you know, being present for them, like every time, and I don't need to do it anymore, and so it influenced so much of my work. So, so, so much of my work, and so now my work now within myself, is also finding and being in different aspects of it.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:That was a long one to answer to a short question.
Speaker 1:It's welcome. It's welcome. Let's talk about your book Woman of Color. What did you get the idea for that book and what is it about?
Speaker 2:So that first book is more about, you know, I that book whoo, I was trying to think about that book that came out in 2019, right. So that book, a lot of that book is stories sort of woven into like sort of pulled out from style or sort of the way that I used to like see things which were via clothes and the stories that these clothes or these pieces had, and like things like my name or things like what I wore this specific day and like what you know, just these stories around identity and that was, you know, wrapped up in, obviously like clothes, because former life as a stylist while writing. But that book is interesting, right, because it came out as a sort of like hybrid memoir type thing and I think it was more. It's harder, like there's a weird thing that also I do is like I kind of cut myself off from the book a little bit, even though it's still out in the world, so like I've been writing it so long. But I think it's definitely more of a guide for people, because there's so many people who are, you know, now having children, or now thinking about, you know, laws, or now thinking about dial or how it relates to them, or even thinking about culture or the world that they live in, and now they're sort of addressing some of the things that's better in that book.
Speaker 2:So I don't know the book what is? It is what it is. It's a beautiful. People love it and I loved working on it and it definitely was who I was then. I guess that's the only way to describe it. I'll then tickly describe it, you know. Yeah, I have to go reread it. I guess I probably don't want to do that.
Speaker 1:Do you ever do that? No?
Speaker 2:no, no, no, no, no. You remember a lot after you write it and put it out there, but I don't want to reread it. No, no thank you. No, thank you, Not for me.
Speaker 1:It's like me and I wanted to hear my voice.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's like you know what I mean. But people, it's interesting though, because I'm sure, right, Like people will talk to you about this, like your episodes or whatever, or you have to listen back to it and, like you know, like someone will talk to me about an essay in it and I'm just like I really don't want to have to go there and reread what I wrote. So right now, the task is getting up the energy to reread this new book because it was written. You know it's closer to me in time. But, yeah, Woman of Color, people love that book. People really do. People love it, and I'm thankful for that. I have a lot of like. I have a lot of gratitude for that. I have a lot of gratitude that people find themselves in it, because I found myself via writing it.
Speaker 1:Which of your books like really changed things for you.
Speaker 2:I think we shall see. You know, like, as far as career, you know, okay, so I'll say this this new book that's gonna come out in September is with Dial Press, which is with random house, which is a bigger publisher, right? So I'm not there, I don't quite. There's a level of support and beauty and like platform that I didn't have with Woman of Color, and so I think the way that the that book will live in the world and the way that it's you know, first of all, it like functionally let's just be for real like it paid me more than Woman of Color, right? So that's it. Like I was allowed to like give myself room as a writer in a way that I couldn't have been, because it was a different, through a different publishing house. So I'm thankful for that. I think I'm still I'm not quite sure, until it comes out, what it will do for me or what it has done. I think let's just speaking of, like the writing process Stand in my Bedot.
Speaker 2:The newest book changed me. It changed my thoughts about objects, it changed my thoughts about home, it changed my thoughts about my body, like I think that's when I say that I'm not not quite the woman that I like I'm not, I'm still in the process of being molded, and what I mean is cause I spent three years working on something that like fundamentally changed my thinking, like really like changed, like I have like just changed me, and so I am not in this weird. In between time I'm still figuring out who she is a little bit, who I am in a more present sense, because that book that's coming out changed my thoughts. A lot of the radicals that I went down, a lot of the things the history, the research, the processes, like just changed who I was.
Speaker 2:Like I find it hard to even have conversations that I used to have before that book. You know, it's just A, it's being with something for a long time, that long, quietly, that long, and I being isolated with it for that long. But then another way is just like it just changed my thoughts. I feel like I went back to school. So, if anything, that book, the new book, is probably the one that I think is having the most impact on me. Right, it's just changed who I am and it's not even after World Debt.
Speaker 2:So Well, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Can you tell us what the title will be?
Speaker 2:Stand in my Window Meditations on Home and how we Make it. So. Stand in my Window is there's a Lucille Cuffin poem that is titled like. It's one of the lines, like, if I stand in my window naked in my own house, like it's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful poem, and that really touched, that really impacted me, and Stand in my Window is just like a play off of it, but also off of the process of writing and a lot of the. You know I wrote the book in 2020 to 2022. Yeah, 2020 to 2022.
Speaker 2:And so Stand in my Window is an invitation, but it's also like a command and I think you know as obviously, like a black woman, as a writer, as a lover, as a creative thinker, I wanted to ask people and I wanted to invite them in, but I also wanted to like, dare them, you know, like what like and dare, even myself in the sort of the writing of that book. Like, what are you thinking? What are you thinking when you see, you know, this space, or what are you thinking? So there's a lot of questions and answers and meditations throughout that entire, throughout that whole book. You know rabbit holes and tunnels that I was weaving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you said that the poem is by who?
Speaker 2:Lucille Clifton.
Speaker 1:Okay, stand in my Window, Stand in my.
Speaker 2:Window yeah.
Speaker 1:But her, yeah, if you go to, Lucille Clifton.
Speaker 2:I think the title of the poem is If I Stand in my Window, or that's the first line of the poem.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay. So I mean, when you were speaking about that poem, there's one that reminds me of. It's called the invitation.
Speaker 2:Mm. Tell me about it.
Speaker 1:Do you know about that one?
Speaker 2:No, tell me, but maybe I do if you, if you tell me a line.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the poem is called Invitation by Oria Mountain Dreamer.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And it starts by saying it doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you would risk looking like a fool for love or your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you've touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and close from fear of feather pain. Ooh, that's like our entire conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's a very good one.
Speaker 2:It's good. It's so beautiful Wow.
Speaker 1:See like you're going.
Speaker 2:Yes, go ahead, please. We can like that's the beautiful. Please, please, I'm listening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to know if you can sit with my pain mine or your own without moving, to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own If you can dance with wildness and let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your, of your fingers and toes, without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic. Remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if your story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself, if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not the betrayal of your own soul, if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it is not pretty, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
Speaker 1:I want to know if you can live with failure, yours or mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the moon yes, it doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, worry and bruise to the bone. Do what needs to be done to feed the children. Oh my God, it doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you can truly like the company you keep in the empty moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm like crying, that's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's the book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what? Yeah? Why are you crying?
Speaker 2:Oh no, because those are the questions asking and those are the answers that I found in writing it. You know, it was the same questions, those same questions and that same duality of inviting and commanding. You know, and I was in the process while I was writing it, but what I realized in the bigger space was that I want people to do that same thing. You know that poem, literally, if there was a, it's so beautiful and if you know, like I want to know, I want to know, it's literally like stand in my window.
Speaker 2:Will you stand in my window with me? Is the same, it's the same thing. So it just touched me because I didn't have the words for the book until now. Yeah, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. And you see, that's, that's how, that's how it is. You know, you, you, you brought this in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you met me there.
Speaker 1:Just by being open to this conversation, you brought this in, you know. So yeah, we're grateful.
Speaker 2:I'm grateful, thank you. This is see where. This is what I talk about alignment right. We're everywhere we're supposed to be. We're only where we're supposed to be, and so I, like I needed this for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, glad I could check, that I could check. Oh, I still think I sound terrible.
Speaker 2:I hit my voice, no no, no, no, you sound fine. You sound totally fine. I hate the sound of my voice too. If it helps, just in general not even, not even pain or no pain. I just don't like it.
Speaker 1:So we're almost wrapping up. Do you have any last words for our listeners?
Speaker 2:Last words Just stay creative, stay curious. You know, always say it is how we make it, say creative, stay curious, that's how we make it. And then make it and I say that in air quotes is whatever, make it to today, get to tomorrow, make it as far as the arch of success, Make it home like, make it right. And so that's that's my last. If I had any last words.
Speaker 1:OK, ok, in closing.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:In your own words. What's your definition for love?
Speaker 2:Mm, such a big question, but also I love talking about love. So here we go. My definition of love is communication and honesty, within yourself and without the person. So I love that poem talking about betrayal. You know, if you have to betray yourself, it can't be love. So communication, seeing one another being mirrors, I think that's the best, that's actually the best way I describe it being a mirror for another person and having that person be for you and the level of In that like sort of in mirroring a level of true community and appreciation and because like I, you know, I see you, I want you know this book it's like you know, I want you to be free, you know, and sort of in my Angeles is like love liberates, right, and so always seeing someone's freedom and being able to mirror that for them, that's love.
Speaker 1:That's yeah. Amazing, amazing. Thank you so much for sharing.
Speaker 2:Thank you for allowing me to share.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed this.
Speaker 2:I did and I needed it so, more than even enjoying it was like I needed it. You know, I needed it, my soul needed it. How so? I'm in the molding season, you know, and there's questions, there's a lot of questions. So I think I needed to like feed, my soul needed to be fed. I think I like have done so much output that, like I'm actually realizing I'm a little bit of my, my, my cup is a little empty. So I'm like this, actually, this, this, this, this fed my cup. Right, this, my cup is not running over. So thank you. That's also the thing about being like creative, right, or being a parent, or being a community person, or whatever is like you put a lot out there and then you're like oh wait, wait, where's my where's? I can't, I'm empty now. So thank you for that, because I needed that.
Speaker 1:I'm grateful.
Speaker 2:I'm grateful, glad we could connect to make this happen.
Speaker 1:This. This has been a pleasure for me to hear and connect with you this way.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It has been such pleasure for me to thank you for taking the time. Okay, all right, okay, bye, bye, bye.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.