This year has been hard, and I can tell you exactly where I was or who told me when I heard about Kobe. I wasn’t expecting that, and I wasn’t expecting this either; those are only two examples of far too many losses that people have gone through this year. We aren’t exactly promised a whole lot in our lives and unfortunately, 2020 hasn’t been the kindest to many of you. I can’t tell you what the future brings, and I am hopeful that something good is coming for us, but I am also hopeful that we can realize sometimes the good has to be whatever we make happen for ourselves.
Month: August 2020
Bookworms– A Song of Wraiths and Ruins
For young adult readers, I think this book is a good one to pick up— especially for young black readers who have been missing representation for far too long. As a fantasy novel, I think this was a solid debut for Brown and though I had some qualms with it, I’ve been reading a bit like a writer and a reader so of course, I get picky. She set the scene and really found her rhythm with steady writing for the most part; I think this book has a place on a lot of people’s shelves as a set up for a solid duology and I’m interested to see where this next book goes.
Firefighters and Fieldworkers– Aiding California’s Essential Workers
Right now, California is on fire. I will be telling you some of what’s happening, but even more so, I’m sharing resources. Not only are these resources about where to find more information on staying up to date consistently as time goes on, but they’re also going to tell more about how to assist two kinds of people: those who are working to fight the fires and those who are working in the fields to keep us fed so we don’t have to.
Pouring from an Empty Cup
You can’t pour water for anyone else or quench your own thirst if your cup is already empty. With a global pandemic that has been draining as people try to isolate, work, study, navigate friendships, protest, adjust to change, and do so much more in, we’ve all been doing a lot. This pandemic has been a bit like turning up the heat and unfortunately, a lot of people didn’t adjust how much water they were drinking every day or how much they attended to themselves and their own needs throughout it.
Poetry Place– Black Body And Free Tianna
My poem today exemplifies that there is a different kind of weight that comes with how we each live our lives and as a Black woman who fights for those around me, I understand that there are burdens to the way I care for others. People of color so commonly have to build the spaces we want to be a part of because they almost never exist the way we need them to until we put in the work to create them; right now, Tianna is being penalized before those spaces in SLO and beyond can truly begin to exist.
Shooting for the Stars
The Crew Dragon's return this past week is something so outside of my realm that even though I don’t know a whole lot about it, it’s still pretty exciting and maybe you’re asking yourself why. Well, it’s because this was the final test flight of the final crew Dragon, and not only was this a major opportunity to watch history happen, but it was largely emblematic of where we’re all at in our lives. I mean, just look at one of the people who was in that launch.
kwilliamsbooks 