Lying in Fire’s Truth: Because of Anansi
I am a spider.
No. More than that.
I am a spider braver and wiser than your griot.
He told me this himself at dawn.
Listening to Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon While Taking My Braids Aloose
There was something very honest about listening to a Black woman tell a story about Black people while I was doing a very Black thing. It felt very central, ancestral. Toni Morrison’s voice was softer, more delicate than I expected it to be. But there was also something raw and coarse about it, in a very familiar way. If you listen closely, you discover that there’s something buried in her voice, like there’s a thick lump of molasses caught in her throat, like she’s swallowing back what’s not quite sadness, not quite rage, but more like the awe of both of them. Listening to her felt natural and intimate, like my kinky hair roots, the story unraveling like my braids.
“What inspired you to write 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 ?”
Happy New Year, everyone! I hope that 2021 has been treating you all well so far. There’s a lot of work to be done, but I have full faith that this will be a year of transition, progress, and healing. With this new beginning, I can’t help but reflect on my writing journey. I often find it hard to believe that The We and the They has been out in the world for five months already. It’s been an honor engaging with you all as we’ve explored different aspects of the story together. Though I am beginning to shift my focus toward other writing projects (more to come on that! 🤓✍🏽), The We and the They will always be, not the beginning, but a beginning of me seeing myself as a writer. It’s not a linear process in the slightest, but that’s what makes it all the more rewarding.