Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Can Afrominimalism be the answer to living with less?
In her enlightening book The Afrominimalist’s Guide to Living With Less, Christine Platt invites us to imagine a world in which we curate a life of intention free of clutter and chaos (but not the monochromatic, rigid guidelines often linked to the Euro-centric minimalism)
This week, Besties Angella and Leslie consider the question of whether embracing Afrominimalism could transform not just their living spaces, but their entire perspectives on their lives. They wonder if, as Platt suggests, downsizing may provide a path to deeper understanding and cultural empowerment and that by moving to smaller spaces that path may be made clearer.
Angella also gives us an update on an exciting house sitting opportunity that she is about to begin. She sees this trip as an opportunity to ‘date’ a new city in her quest to travel around and possibly relocate abroad.
The Afrominimalist's Guide to Living With Less by Christine Platt
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Hey Ang hey, les how you doing.
Speaker 2:Good. Well, here we are, another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn.
Speaker 1:I'm.
Speaker 2:Leslie and my bestie of nearly 50 years over there is Angela. Hi, I jumped in and did the introduction. Part of the introduction.
Speaker 1:You see what she does to me, and so let me see if I remember her side of it, exactly because now it throws you off right. Listen, I've got so many things to keep organized in my head. Anything I can take off the list I'm grateful for. So go ahead, Go ahead. What are we going?
Speaker 2:to talk about. I'm just smiling right now because I remember in our very first podcast, when I was so nervous, I said I'm Angela. And you looked at me like what did you just say? I'm like oh yeah, I'm not Angela, I'm Leslie. I'm going to try to find that that was a long time ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got to find it. I'm going to try to find that and have, if I can. I'm going to have it edited, that's on our blooper reels but anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 2:I'm turning it back over to you, pal.
Speaker 1:Hello, Welcome to a new episode of Black Boomer Busties from Brooklyn. My name is Angela and that's.
Speaker 1:Leslie my best friend of almost 50 years. We're going to have a big celebration at 50. We are two intellectually curious older Black women, and we started this podcast to share our journey of getting to know each other better, ourselves better, getting to know the world better, being very comfortable with our anger, being very comfortable with wanting to change some things that we see in the world that we believe needs changing, and we have some very interesting conversations and interesting guests. So what do you want the people to do? Leslie, wait, wait, before you do that. And today we're going to be talking about is kind of an extension of what we talked about last week.
Speaker 1:Last week, I talked about some drama that went on when I was downsizing from a large house to a smaller apartment, and Leslie's going through that experience now and she has some tools that hopefully will help her to go through the process, and so we're going to be talking about what is helping her other than me and me coming up to her home and helping her to go through her stuff. She also has another resource, and so that's what we're going to be talking about this week Awesome, all right. So okay, downsizing, downsizing, and actually, before even getting to the point where you have to downsize. We're going to be talking about consumerism and how all this stuff got accumulated in the first place, and I attended the Exodus Summit back in October with Stephanie Perry and Rashida Dow and they had one of the speakers oh thank you and they had one of the speakers is kind of the.
Speaker 1:I want to call her the queen of minimalism, but it's called Afro-minimalism and so since I knew my bestie was going through the thing, I got her a copy and she's been reading through it and she is going to share some of what she's learning around how we accumulate, like less what.
Speaker 2:What happened? So first I want to show everyone the book. It's called An Afro-Minimalist's Guide to Living with Less by Christine Platt, and it's really helpful. Shall I just go into a little bit of a summary about the book? Right?
Speaker 1:now, before you do that, I noticed you know I was looking at the cover and it is. It's cotton on the cover Significant.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it. There may be some significance in why she chose it, but what it triggered for me it triggered in a good way Is this person that I had heard about. His name is Julius Tillery. He's a young farmer, his family has been farming in North Carolina for generations and he has this company called Black Cotton and his desire is to change the narrative around cotton and what it means to African-Americans and kind of putting it on a spin like we do.
Speaker 1:We do that in owning our Black right, owning the fact that Black was looked at as a negative term and now we probably say that we're Black. So just kind of wanting to shift the narrative around how we think about cotton and seeing it as this sustainable product that can be produced by Black folks.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we'll put links to him. And Christine Platt put cotton on the cover. Actually she has a live cotton plant in her home, or a bowl of it, as a reminder of some of the passages that our enslaved ancestors have been and some of the things that they've actually touched years and years ago, but it's a reminder for her. So yeah yeah, we need to reframe some of those things that are and recall why they're meaningful to us as a cultural piece and as a people, rather than adopt some of the negative things that others have defined or put in place for us.
Speaker 1:And not kind of throw away the baby with the bathwater. You know, of course, there is great pain associated with cotton and it's in our language, you know the high cotton and just all of that stuff. I think I love when there is a shift in the way that we think about things and kind of the regaining power from things that have come about these things keeping families together, or the struggle together, or moving on through, you know, past a hard time.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of ways to think about things, right?
Speaker 1:right Including. It was through cotton that America became this powerful nation in the world. It was because of cotton and free labor, of course, and the discoveries around the cotton gin and things like that. Anyway, enough about that. It was on the cover, so it got all this stuff going, but tell us what's inside the book, how about that? It was on the cover, so it got all this stuff going, but tell us what's inside the book. How about that?
Speaker 2:So I haven't finished the book. I think I'm halfway through it and, man, have I underlined some things, or? Whatever Now this has come about for me. One I experienced it with my bestie over the last five years or so when she sold her large home and moved into a smaller setting. But I recently left a larger home and I'm living smaller and I'm also moving around a little bit, so I need a smaller footprint. And when I was packing up my home to move, where did all of this come from?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it looks different when it's when it goes into boxes and being spread out.
Speaker 2:It looks different. I always thought that I was. I've always been very organized.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, and I don't like a lot of tchotchkes and a lot not a lot of stuff. But I also am gadget girl, so I have every kitchen gadget. For every little thing, I have maybe a zester that works this way, then I have the other type of zester, then I have this, you know. So it's just like it's when I've really packed up things. It's well. I mean, I have been on the planet more than 60 years, so it is okay to accumulate things.
Speaker 1:But when?
Speaker 2:I looked at it all together, it really made me sad and it was embarrassing. Oh wow, it was. I was embarrassed. Embarrassed because I believe that I'm a socially conscious person. I look at myself as a humanitarian and I think, and I've traveled the world, so I do know what lack looks like. I have also, you know, been raised with not a lot of resources single parenting and I've been a single parent early on so.
Speaker 2:I also did not have the resources for all of this overabundance that I now quote unquote enjoy. It's now this albatross around my neck, and it's a reminder of this excess mentality, more and more because I can, over the years, and I'm ashamed of it now.
Speaker 1:You know, I kind of want to.
Speaker 2:I put things in storage, but I wish that I never had to go back in there. You know I don't want to look at it anymore go back in there. Oh wow, you know I don't want to look at it anymore, especially because I've been living for the last probably year or more with less on a smaller, much smaller scale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and.
Speaker 2:I've been doing okay.
Speaker 1:You've been doing.
Speaker 2:okay, I've been doing okay, without the every single type of mixer and this and every gadget, I just bake the cake cakes for Thanksgiving. And guess what? I stirred the batter by hand. No, you can do that, people do that. No, exactly, exactly. So why do I have one of these expensive KitchenAid mixers in every one of my homes?
Speaker 1:Why. You know, yeah, yeah, so I'm going through this reckoning.
Speaker 2:That's a little embarrassing, you know.
Speaker 1:Ouch, yeah, what is um? What did Christine talk about in terms of like, where, where she, where does she suggest this comes from? You spend a lot of your early time with education and struggling and striving.
Speaker 2:She too was a single parent early on and when you know she became professionally where she wanted to be and was making a salary, you know you always, as a single parent, have this feeling that you know I'm neglecting my children. You know it's this mindset that we have. You know the balance Am I giving my child enough while I'm striving for my own personal thing?
Speaker 2:So, she too felt that when I had the financial safety net and the good salary, now I can provide for this child and give her toys and make up for the things that I've lacked. I see, have gone to college and then postgraduate school and professional school, and what have you? You have this income that well, I've sacrificed for so long. As my mother would always say, you deserve it, and I grew up with the you deserve it mentality. Whether or not it put us back in, you know, gave us some financial difficulty.
Speaker 2:You know, if you want to have a luxury car, you deserve it, and if, whatever you have to do to get it, you know that's what you should do. I see, you know and I think it was also served with a large heaping of keeping up with the Joneses. You know, obviously you know that figures well in my professional life, so I can talk about that a little bit later.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know it later. Yeah, you know, before we started recording. Leslie, I forget what you said, but I'm like I. I I didn't. That wasn't my background, I didn't come from that background. I think much of what I accumulated was because I had three children and because, on and off, one or both parents lived with me. But I don't and you correct me if I'm wrong I don't kind of have this consumerism type bent. I think maybe it's because Is that? You telephone ringing? Yeah, but it's on silent. Do you hear it?
Speaker 2:Very well.
Speaker 1:What do you hear?
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, I picked it up off the table so it's not vibrating.
Speaker 1:But yeah, you said you did not have that consumerism gene. Right.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's an American thing.
Speaker 1:Terrorism, gene Right, maybe it's an American thing. Well, I'll say, the things that I had a lot of is because I'm a creative, so I would have a lot of fabric. I had a lot of yarn. I had a lot of things that I know that I could make something with Craft stuff. Craft stuff, I had closets and closets of that type of thing.
Speaker 2:That's how we bonded.
Speaker 1:That's how we bonded Over our craft stuff and sewing. It was more that and not maybe not throwing away everything that had lost its intended usefulness, because you know, I knew that there was something I could jerry-rig to make into that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've always been into the recycle, reuse which is great.
Speaker 1:You know, you actually got me into doing that. Yeah, but it's still accumulation, but it looked very, very different. So I don't know, maybe I don't know if it's an American thing necessarily, if it's an American thing necessarily, but it may be coming from a society where, you know, it was easy to get things. Get things that you want. I didn't come from a run-to-the-store kind of background.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I find that when I travel in other countries where they live on a much smaller, simpler scale, but they do fine and they have seemingly whatever they you know they need you know, you know I understand people in other cultures. When the shoe heel goes down, they take it to have the heel replaced, rather than toss it and buying another pair.
Speaker 1:Right, you know, so it is a different mentality.
Speaker 2:You know, I'll tell you two of the things that have been a problem for me is one having enough money to buy things, and I unlike some other people that I've heard about or read about, and unlike Christine, I didn't spend money that I didn't have, put money for savings, but also have enough money to buy whatever it is that I want. And when you have enough room to put things in storage. It's a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1:It's like what's the problem? I can put it in the basement, or I can you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but in thinking about that, I know you know for the last and maybe even the listeners know for the last few years I don't like Christmas season, right, and I realized that one of the reasons I'm so turned off against it is about because it's so purchase and consumer focused and I've said over the last people who know me know like I really don't want any gifts. You know not that I don't appreciate the thought behind it, but I'm blessed enough to say anything I want. I have.
Speaker 2:And everything that I need I have. So anything extra is just extra. And I'm really trying to tamp down on right, because I it's, it's, it's different, Like if you um, so you're going to have a martini glass.
Speaker 1:You even brought me martini glasses. Why?
Speaker 2:am I making martinis?
Speaker 1:They're pretty, but I know you like tequila, so you know that is true. So you know that's the thing, and I could see over the years, because you're doing this entertaining, it just starts to accumulate. Yeah, the stuff in the backyard and I was just looking, I have so many serving platters. Yes, that, and how many?
Speaker 2:cheese boards do you need, and I have wooden ones.
Speaker 1:I have marble ones.
Speaker 2:I have this and I have the cheese slices with the handles and it's like, for goodness sake, you know it really we can laugh about it.
Speaker 1:But as.
Speaker 2:I said in the last episode. I literally will need to get rid of 50% of the things that I own.
Speaker 1:Wow, and I need help to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I need help to do that, and I don't ever want to accumulate these kind of things, because what I've realized over the last year or so is that I want to be able to move around without the burden of lugging moving leave will become our children's problem.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I mean? And they may not want all the cheese slicers, right, they may have their own. It may not be of interest to them to have all of these.
Speaker 2:So it really becomes their issue. You know, unless we deal with it, and we don't want to leave that type of, we don't want to leave that for our children, no, no, yeah, it's not fair.
Speaker 1:Are you comfortable talking a little bit more about the? You use the term that you were embarrassed Like. Can you talk about that a little bit if you're comfortable? That?
Speaker 2:a little bit if you're comfortable. Well, I think that the reason why I'm embarrassed per se and I'm just going to put on my do not disturb because I'm getting some messages coming through the reason that I'm somewhat embarrassed is because I've seen the way other people and cultures live. As when I was doing medical missionary work, you know, I was going around the world to areas where people didn't have the resources, the health and medical resources that we have here and the things that they reuse, just in terms of medical equipment that we just toss, you know, and we toss it because the government agencies force us single use only.
Speaker 2:There's nothing wrong with it, you know, but it has to be a single use or it has to be handled in certain ways that in other places they can be safely reused, but we don't do that here. So, coming back, that transition from being in these places to the way that we use things, it's like come on, we can do better.
Speaker 1:You know we can do better.
Speaker 2:You know, if I open up my closet and I'm like, come on, les. You know I wear clothes to work for 10 minutes and then I wear scrubs all day long, do? I really need you know, and then I wear scrubs all day long.
Speaker 1:Do I really need you know? Yeah, Can I mention here the time you went to work with two different pair of boots, like ankle-high black boots that were so similar that you didn't notice that they were two different ones, that they were two different boots?
Speaker 2:Yes, and I was walking like this through the day. They were different heel heights. You see, we can laugh about it, but it really, you know, come on, I can do better, I can do better.
Speaker 1:So you've already asked me and I don't know if I officially committed to it, committed to helping me. Oh, you did already. You did, you were good at this.
Speaker 2:I want to mention one other thing. I think that this acquisition of stuff is the way that I, I, you know, and different cuts of beef, or whatever or you know, when they had to more make do and use things in multiple ways. Again, when you're able to physically afford some of these things, you and you have room for you think, why not? I mean we bought a what is it? A 84 inch, seven foot tall free refrigerator yeah, yeah, and you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:You had the freezer oh, but it was lovely. It was lovely because it opened up and it had a backlight and the inside was black and this Very nice, and it's like Les Very nice.
Speaker 1:Come on, it was very nice. You know, so, Les, but you also tend not to throw things away. Meaning like you give things away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I give, but I keep things a long time.
Speaker 1:Right. I mean, you have some things that are 30 years old.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Easily in your closet on rotation. And still yeah, yeah. So it's not all wasted, right, but it's some wasted.
Speaker 1:But it still shows a collection. Even though it's like a, it still shows and yeah yeah, because again it's like a Like wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where is this going and who's this is? And why and this is not what you want to carry into your I don't want to be an elderly woman with all of this stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay. So, when do you become elderly? I?
Speaker 2:got about 15 good years, okay, so let's start, we can go, let's just start, let's just start one by one.
Speaker 1:Hopefully it won't take us as long as it did to read through the Bible. Here's the other thing, though.
Speaker 2:Here's the other thing that is really moving me into minimizing in this way. I want to be surrounded by things that I love. You know, I'm very much into curating my spaces and the things that I set my eyes on every day. And the way that my home smells.
Speaker 1:I'm into candles and different scents.
Speaker 2:So I am feeling and textures and things like that. I want to curate spaces that I walk in and I love them like a sanctuary not just your bedroom, but every space. You know I use pots and cookware. That is beautiful. I love it. The tops are all. They're not scratched up you know, that's how I want to feel, across everything.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying that it doesn't have to be abundant in order to get that feeling.
Speaker 1:Got you.
Speaker 2:You know, and that's what I'm striving for Less is more, but everything that I have in my space, I want to love it.
Speaker 1:And purposeful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah you know, I collect art and it's the same thing. I mean I have too much art to put on walls, but that's why I can rotate them and all you know, because they're pieces that have represented where I've traveled in the world, what I felt like different times in my life, and I think they're beautiful, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Wow. Well, it's going to be a it's, it's going to be a thing and and you will be sharing it with us you are public, as Leslie says. You will be hearing about it. You will be seeing some shenanigans as we go through it. You'll probably see some tears as things come up, but we will take you on the journey with us when that happens?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so Probably in a few months. Yeah, yeah, I think so, probably in a few months. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah, we have to, because right now I'm paying for storage space. Yeah, so you know, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:We're going to nip that in the bud.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:So can I tell you that I got a house sit. I won't say where, but I got a house sit through Trusted House Sitters. It's a part of you know. I'm a diehard Exodus Summit Stephanie Perry fan. And so I am a part of the Trusted House Sitters group and I just booked my house sit for christmas. I will not be with my children. Um, they are going to be together, but without mom as I explore a little bit. And um, yeah, it just got confirmed before we started.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's nice, so I'm really excited about that, and now it's kind of like a nervous.
Speaker 1:it's a nervous excitement, Uh-huh. You put those two words together. I forget it.
Speaker 2:I don't know what you mean.
Speaker 1:Nerve-sided or something. It's that feeling, but it's a part of me moving abroad. Journey is understanding house sitting and using that when I go different places to save money and to make it possible to go more places, because and date cities and date cities. So. I'm going to be looking for house sitting and pet sitting as I travel around the world and find my next place.
Speaker 2:I'm jealous about you being able to be around pets. I miss my dog.
Speaker 1:Oh well, I haven't done it yet. Yeah, but you know, I would love to be able to foster, but you know.
Speaker 2:Listen Leslie or get another dog or something? No, I'm not.
Speaker 1:Do you not think that you're going to be coming with me on some of the house sits? You can't think that that's not. But I'm working. You know I got to, yeah, like I don't have time, you Working. You know I got to, yeah, like I don't have time. Right, you can. Ok, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in, you're in, absolutely All right. So here's the thing I'll go with you on house sits and you come with me and let's sit in this storage room and get stuff out. How about that? Let's a deal you will sign on the dotted line to PetSitHouseSit with me and then I will come up and take care of that. Anyway, all right, babe, good chatting with you.
Speaker 2:Okay, nice chatting with you too. Well, this has been another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn, brooklyn.
