Lately, I’ve been thinking about the word migration.

We often think of migration as a journey from one place to another, a country left behind, a new city, a border crossed. It’s the story we tell about the beginning of a new life.

But the older I get, the more I wonder if that’s too simple.

How long does a migration actually last? Does it end the day you arrive somewhere new? Or does it continue long after you’ve unpacked your suitcase in the traditions you keep, the language you refuse to forget, the food you cook, and the stories you pass from one generation to the next?

When I think about my family, migration is the word that explains almost everything.

My mother’s migration from Haiti to Brooklyn gave our family a new beginning. But lately I’ve started wondering if migration isn’t something that happens only once. Maybe it begins again every time we’re asked to find home in a new way.

A few weeks ago, I took my niece and nephew back to the Flatbush I knew as a little girl. I wanted to package up my childhood into a few photographs—something they could carry with them as they grow older. It’s something I wish I’d inherited from the generation before me.

But soo much of our story got lost in our migration. Neighborhoods change. Families spread out. The people who remember the beginning don’t stay with us forever.

We spent the afternoon walking through the neighborhood where their grandmother raised me. I showed them the house we lived in, the stores I remembered, the places where birthdays were celebrated, and where I learned to ride my bike. We stopped outside Cookies, where my mother bought our school uniforms every August. I pointed out the calling card stores where people lined up to buy a few minutes to call family in Haiti.

Every block reminded me of another story to talk about.

I don’t know how much of it they’ll remember. They’re still young. But somewhere during that walk, I realized I wasn’t showing them my childhood.

I was trying to pass it on while realizing I come from a very sacred place.

After my mother died, I began thinking differently about memory.

Losing a parent isn’t just losing the person. You also lose the family historian, the person who knows why your family ended up where it did, who remembers the names behind old photographs, the stories attached to ordinary places, and the details no one ever thinks to write down.

There are questions I know to ask now that I can never ask her.

I’ve started to wonder if that’s another kind of migration. An emotional migration for me.

When you lose someone who anchored your understanding of home, you’re asked to find your way again. You begin searching for pieces of them in places, traditions, photographs, recipes, and stories. You return to where your journey began because you’re trying to understand more of yourself without them.

Maybe that’s why I wanted to take my niece and nephew back to Flatbush.

Growing up, I never thought of Flatbush as a neighborhood shaped by migration. It was simply home. The place knew me before I knew myself.

It wasn’t until I got older that I realized almost everyone around me had a similar story. My friends’ families came from Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana, Barbados, Grenada, and Haiti. Everyone had a version of “back home.”

Migration wasn’t something we discussed. It was simply the backdrop of everyday life for us.

It was the calling card stores where people bought a few precious minutes with family thousands of miles away. It was the barrels packed with clothes, medicine, cereal, and school supplies before they were shipped back home. It was late August trips to Cookies, where Caribbean parents bought school uniforms that looked just like the ones children wore in the islands.

It was hearing English, Kreyòl, and Patois in the same conversation. It was adults who could never tell a story without eventually saying, “Back home.” Or getting threatened to be sent there.

As a child, I assumed this was what every neighborhood looked like.

Only later did I realize these weren’t just childhood memories.

They were the everyday rituals of migration.

Looking back, I think that’s what made Flatbush so special.

It wasn’t just a neighborhood where Caribbean families lived. It was a place where people rebuilt their lives together. They arrived carrying memories of one home while creating another. They brought recipes, languages, music, faith, and traditions with them, and over time those things became part of the neighborhood itself.

When I think about my childhood now, I realize migration shaped it in ways I couldn’t see then. It shaped the food we ate, the conversations I overheard, the people who surrounded me, and my understanding of what home could be and the people who feel like home.

My story in Brooklyn begins with my mother’s migration from Haiti. Before I understood what courage it took to leave one country for another, I was already living inside the life she built because she did.

Looking back, I realize Flatbush wasn’t just where I grew up. It was where my family’s American story began.

Thankful for the journey my mother and her siblings took before me. I’m honored to hold and pass down it down.

Subscribe now

Maya Angelou spent years in silence after suffering an abuse so profound that language itself seemed to fail her. I have often wondered whether it was not merely speech she lost, but a language she had not yet finished building. Before she became a writer, she was a listener. Before she found her voice, she wandered through the voices of others. Books and poetry became companions. Writers became architects of an inner vocabulary. And when at last the language within her was strong enough to bear the weight of her experience, she began to write. The world halted and listened.

I have come to believe that every artist possesses such a language long before they possess a medium. The painter sees before she paints. The musician hears before he plays. The writer feels before she writes. Art is simply the outward form of an inward language that has finally found its stance.

The journey of the writer is therefore metaphysical before it is literary. It begins not on the page but in perception. A writer lives simultaneously above and beneath the surface of life. She participates in the world while simultaneously observing it. She experiences and interprets in the same breath. Long before she produces a sentence, she is already translating existence.

I suspect that writers are born before they ever touch a pen. They are born the moment they become conscious of the distance between experience and language. They recognize, as Korzybski understood, that reality exceeds every description we give it. Words point toward life but never fully contain it. The writer’s task is not to capture reality but to approach it, circling closer and closer through language while knowing the thing itself always remains beyond language.

So one can argue the writer is faced with the challenge of interpreting an objective world through subjective language. Perhaps one can even argue the writer carries the burden of translating what cannot be fully translated.

Given the centrality of social media, we are often left dealing with fragments of consciousness and personality rather than whole selves. We encounter one another in pieces: a photograph here, an opinion there, a carefully curated moment suspended in time. The modern soul appears scattered across a thousand surfaces, each revealing something true while never revealing the whole of someone. As the algorithm shifts, they move on.

As the Tao Te Ching warns: “The five colors make man’s eyes blind, the five notes make his ears deaf, the five tastes injure his palate.” In a world saturated with image, sound, and expression, perception itself begins to overload. What was once meant to deepen experience begins instead to fragment it. While that technique worked for Picasso’s voice and paintbrush, I’m struggling to understand if our lives should function as such.

Like Angelou, I began in silence. As a little girl I carried on endless conversations with myself. My emotions arrived before their names. My experiences outran my vocabulary. Something was forming within me, but I could not yet articulate it. The language existed in fragments sensations, intuitions, half-formed observations waiting for expression.

Even now I do not think of myself as a writer by profession so much as by nature. Writing is simply the art through which I speak my native tongue. It’s the lens I absorb the world through. Everyone possesses such a language. Some express it through music, others through movement, business, teaching, or design. Mine happens to emerge through sentences and the intersection of philosophies. There is a peculiar satisfaction in arranging words until they generate a feeling larger than the words themselves. When it works, language ceases to be communication and becomes transmission.

In my search for a voice, I studied the writers I admired with almost religious devotion: Miller, Baldwin, Angelou, Danticat, Lorde, Korzybski. I was not searching for a style to imitate but for clues about my own language and about myself.

Angelou taught me that pain could be transformed into art without losing its emotional weight. Baldwin taught me to distrust certainty and interrogate everything, including myself. Danticat affirmed the legitimacy of my Haitian-American gaze and showed me that cultural inheritance could become your own literary device. Lorde taught me that no experience is too small, too private, or too ordinary to deserve written expression. Each writer handed me a different instrument. Yet none could give me a voice. But each helped me hear my own more clearly.

I desired deeply the ability to flow and outpour my words and language, as I suspect all writers do. For a long time I believed my voice was something I would eventually discover hidden in the pages of another writer. I searched for it in their sentences, their rhythms, their philosophies, their ways of seeing. I imitated what I admired, hoping that if I followed the path closely enough it would lead me back to myself. Instead, it led me to exhaustion. I found myself crowded by voices, fluent in everyone else’s language and uncertain of my own. It was only when I stopped trying to sound like the writers I loved that I began to hear something distinct beneath the noise. I had to divorce myself from admiration and follow the quieter pressure of my own voice.

My voice is like a child turned loose into the Brooklyn streets after years of staring through the window. It wants everything. It wants to touch, taste, question, overturn, laugh, and wander. It is as sharp and witty as it is intellectual, suspicious of grand truths and fascinated by the absurd bullshit of everyday life. Yet beneath its curiosity is an aspiration toward courage. I have often admired the quiet resolve of Anita Hill, the willingness to speak when silence would have been easier, to trust one’s own experience in the face of doubt and opposition. If my voice is still evolving, it is because I am still learning that kind of bravery: the bravery required not only to understand the world, but to speak it clearly, and eventually to speak oneself.

So as folks gather and follow to listen, I understand now that a voice is never only personal- it is something that enters the world, gathers others, and continues to evolve in the space between speaking and being heard.

That, perhaps, is the real function of literature. We read not to borrow another person’s language indefinitely, but to discover the shape of our own. The books we love become mirrors. The writers we admire become guides. And eventually, if we are fortunate, we stop asking how they wrote and begin asking what only we can say. What is my perspective?

To Baldwin and his class of writers and intellectuals, Lorraine was known as “Sweet Lorraine,” brilliant and gone too soon. But to little Bonnie, she was my portal to the world. My portal to curiosity. To understanding people, resistance, Black literature, contemporary drama, and honestly the entire world around me. What started as a punishment book from my mother one evening somehow turned into me spending years trying to understand Lorraine Hansberry. She is the cornerstone of my appreciation for Black American Women and their Art.

Her interviews and articles sent me down rabbit holes. Sean O’Casey. Shadow of a Gunman. The Irish experience and its overlaps with Black resistance. The jazz bands in Dublin and their obsession with the blues. I became deeply curious with the kinship between Daniel O’Connell and Frederick Douglass and the sacred thread between Black Americans, the Irish, and even the Jamaicans linguistically. One thing about Lorraine, she made me realize history is all connected.

Then came Bill Branch, Alice Childress, Langston Hughes, August Wilson. I read all of their works trying to understand how she was able to see Black people soo clearly and softly. The way she wrote us wasn’t performance.

Young, Gifted and Black led me to A Raisin in the Sun, where I completely lost myself in Beneatha. Even the criticism of her character in 1959 fascinated me. That led me toward E. Franklin Frazier and Black Bourgeoisie, which awakened my curiosity to understand the Black American migration. How proximity to the sharecropper system in the South reigns a difference from families with multiple generations of urban living up North. Lorraine had a way of making me realize that even within Blackness, there were entirely different inheritances, different relationships to survival, colonialism, class, movement, and identity. As a first-generation Caribbean American I was fascinated with how she distilled and defended the black experience consistently and soo eloquently.

At the height of her artistic perception, we lost her.

I love a lot of Black artists, but Lorraine sits differently for me. She’s the backbone of the kind of art I’m drawn to. Art that challenges. Art that interrogates. Art that refuses to flatten Black life into performance alone. The way she conjugated resistance, intellect, politics, and Blackness through art feels like something we’ve drifted away from. In our art, in our intellectual understanding, and even in our institutions.

And more than anything, her response to criticism still feels painfully current. To deflect from oppression, they’ll convince you that speaking too deeply about your condition somehow diminishes the art itself. Black physical expression has always been easier for the world to consume than Black cerebral expression.

My Sweet Lorraine sent me on a journey.

And somewhere in all of it, I learned life is really one long dramatic play called “Colonialism” and somehow we’ve all been casted in it.

Broadway reflects American life. And American life still struggles to accept Negroes in full equality. - Lorraine

I think we’re all searching for something that’s sitting right under our nose or shit, inside of it.

We chase things to validate our place in this world.
Something to affirm our choices.
An outfit to make us feel good.
A designer bag to elevate a nobody’s perception of us.
An invite to a beautiful, “branded exclusive” room that makes us feel like an influencer, wait sorry I mean important lol.

But if you’re honest, it’s all hallow. The kind you only notice when the music fades, when you’re alone again, when there’s nothing left to perform for. Because the truth is, none of it actually brings you closer to what you’re searching for. If anything, it pulls you further away.

It buries it.

I know this because I’ve lived it.
I’ve been in the rooms. The parties. The spaces that look like arrival.
And still felt how empty it all was. One pony show.

Just…a room of strivers

Like standing in a beautifully decorated house that no one actually lives in.

It isn’t until you’re stripped of everything you think defines you
that you begin to see clearly.Not when you have more but when you have less. And listen I hate excess stuff.

Less noise.
Less performance.
Less need to prove.

That’s when you start to feel the thing you were searching for all along. The good stuff.

But there’s a pre-requisite, you have to let go.

Let go of the desire to be seen as special.
Let go of needing a title, a label, a certain kind of recognition.
Let go of shaping aesthetic for approval.

You have to become okay, like deeply okay being who you are
without anyone clapping for it. And that’s not a light ask.

Yesterday, I ran across a restaurant to open the door for an elderly man with a cane. Everyone else was wrapped up in their cocktails—too distracted to notice the world around them. And thats okay my cocktail was done anyway lol.

In that moment, I thought about my mother. Out in the world, vulnerable, hoping someone would show her kindness.

He looked at me, smiled, and said in his Italian accent:
“Thank you. Your family did a very good job with you.”

And it made something very clear to me, the only perceptions that matter
are the ones held by the people who truly see you.

The children watching who you’re becoming.
The elders who made you and understand what it took to become it.

Everything else is noise. - And Boy do I fucking hate noise. Turn that shit down.

Moral of the story - Fuck em, they’re all losers and jealous of you.

Bonnie :-)

Love is the greatest subjectivity of our lives each of us touching it, none of us holding it the same.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about love lately. How I’ve come to define it, how I like to receive it, and how I carry it each day.

The media and propaganda tries to sell us “love” as a pipeline to capitalism. Something to acquire, measure, and exchange. But when I think about when I truly came to understand love in its purest form, it wasn’t in something I was sold through “romance.”

It was standing next to death.

It met me at the intersection of life and loss, and forced me to understand what love really is at the deepest point of my pain.

My journey with my mother—watching her transition from the fully functioning woman I had always known, to a patient in hospice taught me everything about love: what it is, how it feels, who it is, and how it shows up with care, faith, and tenderness in the depths of sadness.

Love is what emerges when life removes the function and utility someone once brought to your life. Love is what keeps you bonded.

I think we place too much utility on love. We classify it by function—what someone can do for us, how they show up, and what they provide.

But what does it look like to love without filters? Are we capable of loving, caring, nurturing without receiving anything in return? Do we have the capacity to love through deep pain, or to show up even through immense fear?

That experience taught me more about love than any romantic relationship I’ve had so far.

Everything I once knew about my mother her capabilities, the roles she played in my life slowly disappeared. All the ways I associated her with love were no longer able to be communicated back to me in the same way.

She became someone for me to love, and I became the one to show up for her.

I didn’t have much at 17, but every Friday when I got paid, I brought her something small—her favorite ice cream, stuffed manicotti from the Italian restaurant on Prince Street, or sweet cantaloupe from the market on my way to see her in hospice.

Some days I stayed a little longer. I’d do her hair, listen to Whitney Houston, visit her friends around the building.

There came a point when she could no longer see, and I still remember her voice asking, “Is that Bonnie that just walked in?” She felt me always.

And when her words started to fade, when she could no longer string sentences together, her presence, her spirit, was how she let me know she felt me there.

During the most painful experience of our lives together, love carried us. It taught me how to show up consistently. It fueled me each day with faith and perseverance.

So when I think about love today, how I define it, how I give it, and how I want to receive it—I think about that time. Because I don’t think we truly understand or appreciate love until it is standing next to death, until it is no longer tied to function, role, or return.

At 17, watching my mother slip away from everything I once knew her to be, love became my greatest teacher. And now, I find myself hoping to experience and provide love like that—a love without function, without filter, just presence.

Perhaps a love that shows up in the depths of my sadness, not just in joy. A love that doesn’t overstimulate me with performed romance, but instead lives in consistent quiet gestures - the kind that exist in the crevices of life.

Like my favorite cantaloupe or stuffed manicotti.

Small things that say: I’m thinking of you. I’m here.

A love that lets you know if there is ever a day you can no longer see, I’m still right here.

I’ve been carrying grief for more than half my life.

I lost both of my parents by the time I was 18, and if I’m honest… I don’t really know what life feels like without it.But I’ve come to understand that carrying deep grief has also given me.deep gratitude… and a deep empathy for the people around me.

Recently, a friend told me she’s never really heard me talk about my grief out loud before.And it made me pause.

Because the truth is… I don’t think I ever wanted to project my pain onto anyone else.I’ve always just been someone who holds it. But I think I’m entering a season now where grief is starting to show up in my peers’ lives more “naturally.”

People are learning the language of it… in real time online… with each other. And it’s interesting to witness… because that just wasn’t my experience.

Grief didn’t knock on my door.
It was a storm that came in and turned my life upside down.

It took everything I thought I knew about myself…
and left me with a language no one around me understood.

So I learned to carry it quietly.
I learned to sit with it… alone.
I learned to speak it… to myself.

And for a long time, that’s where it lived.

But now I’m starting to realize…
maybe the reason I had to learn it that way…

is so when it finds someone else…
they don’t have to feel as alone as I did.

February

Closing out February has never felt like an ending for me. It feels like the start of something.

The month carries too much history to pass quietly — my birthday, my mother’s birthday, Carnival, and the anniversary of her passing. Every year it arrives like an emotional orbit, pulling everything into one concentrated space.

Whatever February brings, I feel it deeply and in extremes.

Some years it’s grief.
Some years it’s a reflection.
Some years it’s a heaviness I can’t quite name.

But this year, at 34, I made a decision. I chose joy in the extreme. Joy to the point of overstimulation. Not because the sadness has disappeared, but because I’ve learned that joy and grief live side by side in my life. February is where they meet.

For as long as I can remember, this month has felt sacred. As a child it meant birthday candles and the thrill of discovering my mother and I shared the same birthday. It meant the smell of construction paper hearts and Carnival music filling the house.

By 18, it became the month I buried her.

February holds the widest margins of my heart — celebration and loss occupying the same space.

Turning 34 has made me think about origin. About who I am, where I’m from, and what parts of that little girl still live inside me.

Of everything I’ve experienced — what remains?

And of what remains, what am I still able to feel?

That feels more important than anything.

The Island of Flatbush

To tell my origin story is to begin here: I am first-generation, born on the “Island of Flatbush,” by way of Haiti.

Growing up in Brooklyn, especially in Flatbush and Crown Heights, means growing up inside the Caribbean diaspora. It is one of the largest Caribbean communities in the world. Haitian, Jamaican, Trinidadian, Guyanese, Bajan, Lucian, Grenadian to name a few — different accents, different spices, slightly different ways of cooking rice. But a shared understanding of migration, sacrifice, and ambition.

My childhood was shaped by that feeling — culture, discipline, music, survival, and community. I was raised not just by my mother, but by Caribbean women in the diaspora. Women who corrected me, fed me, braided my hair, taught me how to carry myself. Women who had crossed oceans to build something better for their children.

Tradeoffs

My family migrated from Haiti in the 70s, chasing education and freedom, trying to find footing in a country that doesn’t make belonging simple. Migration and life in America is often romanticized, but it is layered with tradeoffs. Some families arrive and never quite feel at home again. In pursuit of opportunity, you leave behind language, traditions, memories — sometimes even children. You are constantly negotiating assimilation, identity, and survival.

I learned that lesson on a cold, rainy night when the door to my childhood home never opened again.

My mother turned the keys with hope that maybe it was jammed. Maybe eviction had not arrived.

But it had.

That night she climbed through the window of our home and threw our school uniforms out in plastic bags. I stood outside catching them as rain hit my face at the same time the bags did.

I didn’t have the language for it then, but that was the first time I said goodbye to a version of myself — my room, my bed, my routine, the small certainties that shape a child’s identity.

That night we migrated again.

We leaned into the Caribbean diaspora community for help. My mother made a tradeoff that many immigrant mothers make — she let go of her house and, for a time, let go of her children.

Trinidad

The next morning, I started a new life in Trinidadian home.

A family friend took my brother and I, my sister went somewhere else. All I had were my school uniforms, my bookbag, and a crossword puzzle book. I was enrolled in a primary school run by a Trinidadian family, and my world shifted slowly but quickly.

Those years became formative. I learned to play pan. I fell in love with soca. I dreamed about Carnival. I learned how to cook and pelt waist. For a time, Trinidadian culture was the only culture I knew that taught me how to function when I was learning who I was.

Soca and calypso were the soundtrack to my childhood during those years. They hugged me when I had nowhere to go, when my mom needed help. It was an invigorating environment filled with culture and music, yet the underbelly was pain and longing — longing to be with my mom again.

When I told classmates I was Haitian, they were always confused — there were no other Haitians around me. My identity became layered: my mother is Haitian, but I live with Trinis. I saw her for a few hours weekly as she worked to rebuild her life in New York.

Those years reshaped me.

Eventually my mom came and got us and we moved again. Once again I said goodbye to a home that held a piece of my identity.

The Last Migration

Then a few years later the largest earthquake of my life hit. She was gone and she took a version of me with her.

At 34, I’m trying to understand what’s left to carry forward.

Before my mother passed I had already practiced saying goodbye to parts of myself. So when she left, it felt like the end of a very long migration that may have begun long before me. It was the final departure — the last version of home I could return to.

There are parts of my life I remember like an old movie — vivid but distant. I’ve let go and started over so many times I sometimes don’t know where the beginnings and endings are. It can feel like an alternate universe with no portal back.

The bridge collapsed somewhere along the way. And both sides of that bridge live inside February — in my body, in my nervous system, in my heart.

So this year, I’m choosing to keep walking forward. I don’t fully know toward what. But I know this: home, for me, is no longer just a place. It’s a feeling. It’s the people and traditions who have known me on both sides of that bridge. It’s the sounds and rhythms that still light me up.

On that rainy night, when my mother had nowhere left to put her children, Trinidad opened her door.

That was the first time I learned that home can be given to you by people who don’t share your blood, but share your culture and values. That home can meet you in the middle of loss and say, “You can stay here.”

Trinidad culture didn’t just house me. It shaped me. It held me. It gave me music when I felt displaced. It gave me language for joy when my life felt uncertain. It taught me how to move my body again when grief had made it heavy.

So when I think about my origin, what’s left of me at 34 and what I carry forward — I carry Haiti. I carry Brooklyn. And I carry Trinidad.

Because on the night everything fell apart, Trinidad became a home for me.

Whenever I feel lost, unsettled, or uninspired—I return to the stories and characters that remind me of who I am and what I know deep in my body. I return to women who make me feel less like an anomaly in this world. Less like I am speaking a language no one else understands.

I’ve always struggled to find myself reflected in the people around me. Role models, in the traditional sense, never quite landed. I don’t easily recognize myself in proximity; I recognize myself in myth. In story. In women who survive what breaks others. Especially without my parents in this world anymore, it has felt necessary—essential—to find myself in another dimension.

This past weekend, I found myself in tears once again while watching The Woman King. As I always do.

Everything about Viola Davis, the character she embodies as General Nanisca, and the Agojie warriors undoes me every time. The beauty of sisterhood forged through pain and discipline. The power of motherhood expressed not through tenderness, but through protection. And most of all, the pain and rage that live forever in a woman when something is taken from her by force.

To speak plainly—when she is raped.

There is something deeply healing about watching an army of women who have transformed their pain into protection for a larger good.

What struck me wasn’t the spectacle of war, nor the controversy surrounding historical accuracy or Dahomey’s involvement in the slave trade. What stayed with me was something symbolic and far more intimate: the understanding that pain is not always meant to be healed from. Sometimes, it is meant to be carried, channeled, and commanded.

Many criticized the film for what it omitted. But to me, the story was never simply about history. It felt as though Gina Prince-Bythewood was telling another narrative entirely, one about the journey a woman takes after she is raped, and the sisterhood required to survive it. The pain she is forced to suppress when she cannot fight back. The way she hardens, not out of bitterness, but out of necessity. How that pain is transformed into strength, then strategy, then protection.

So to minimize this movie as just a story of “Black women empowerment” is a clear signal of how much we underscore the experience and pain abused women carry.

It was a story about what happens after violence.
The rage that never fully leaves.
The instinct to protect.
The way a woman learns to nurture, teach, and lead while carrying something unspeakable beneath the surface, until she is ready to reclaim herself entirely.

Some Lessons this film reminds me of

The Uneven Distribution of Softness

For a long time, I wondered why some women are granted ease while others are forged in fire. Why softness seems to arrive without effort for some, while hardship becomes the native language of others. If I’m honest, I don’t think I’ve ever felt soft in my life—and I’m beginning to believe I wasn’t born to.

I don’t say this to center sadness or express dissatisfaction with my life. I say it because I am starting to understand my assignment. I was not born to be delicate. I was born to be a warrior.

I used to ask myself what sin I committed to deserve a life that felt so heavy. But the film offered me a different truth: some women are not meant to be fragile. Some women are meant to be dangerous in defense.

Not because they are cruel.
Not because they are hardened beyond repair.
But because the world required them to become capable—capable of standing between harm and the people they love.

Some women are meant to be the hunters, not the prey.

Sisterhood as a Sacred Agreement

What I witnessed among the Agojie was not closeness—it was covenant. Inside the palace, there was no “I.” There was only we. A culture I know intimately.

These women were not bound by likeness or tenderness, but by duty to one another. By the understanding that survival depended on precision and trust. Their sisterhood was not performative or confessional. It was forged in discipline and sealed by commitment.

They did not need to be fully understood by one another.
They needed to be reliable.
They needed to be willing to fight for each other.

There is a kind of sisterhood that does not ask for softness. It asks for loyalty. For commitment. It asks you to stand firm when fear and danger arrives. To hold the line and roll out even when your body is tired and your spirit is heavy.

That is the sisterhood I recognized.
It reminds me of my own. My line sisters—my Gamma Kappa Chapter, my Delta Sigma Theta.

Pain That Knows Its Assignment

General Nanisca does not treat her pain as an interruption to her leadership. She treats it as a compass. As vision.

Her grief is not hidden. Her rage is not reckless. Her restraint is not weakness. Everything she carries has been organized into purpose. Pain, when disciplined and harnessed, will protect.

Watching her, I felt something vulnerable surface—an understanding I have seen reflected time and again in Black women, both on and off camera. She carries the responsibility of knowing her pain must become protection, or it will become destruction. That there is no room for collapse when others depend on your steadiness.

She did not soften to survive.
She sharpened.
Shoulders back. Chin up.

Walking Toward the Fire

What stayed with me most was how Nanisca never waited for her battles to arrive. She moved toward them.

There was no illusion that danger would pass on its own. No belief that silence would keep her safe. She chose confrontation deliberately. She also made it very clear to her warriors that the danger will indeed attack them.

I recognized myself in that. I’ve never been someone who waits for harm to knock. I meet it head-on—not because I want to fight, but because I know what happens when you don’t.

Some of us are not built to brace for impact.
We are built to intercept it. I’m an eldest daughter and a big sister, it will always be my responsibility to get in front.

No matter how strong a woman becomes, no matter how disciplined or hardened she appears, there comes a moment when she must confront her greatest battle and free herself.

For some women, that battle takes many forms.
In this case, it is facing the man who took something from Nanisca.
But it can also mean turning toward the memory they built walls around in order to survive.

General Nanisca shows us that eventually, the young girl who was raped and tortured, the woman who learned to harden, to lead, to protect becomes ready to fight on her own terms. Not as a victim. Not as a child hiding behind armor. But as a woman who has outgrown the walls she once built and needed. The armor no longer imprisons her. It frees her.

I cried this past weekend because I know this feeling very intimately. I see straight through General Nanisca. She is the woman who has held the line for so long it feels almost unimaginable to think she might ever need someone to hold it for her.

And yet finally, eventually someone does and she allows her to. Her fearless daughter, Nawi.

And that to me is the pinnacle of womanhood.

Outside of the film, Viola Davis often says that the day a woman is raped, a part of her dies. I believe that. But I also believe this: something else is born in its place. Not immediately. Not gently. But deliberately.

A warrior does not erase her pain.
She integrates it.
She learns when to protect, when to advance, and when to reclaim herself fully.

These are the women I look up to in my dimension.

Subscribe now

Growing up, there really wasn’t anyone in the world I wanted to be like or emulate—except my mother and Sade. I loved Whitney, of course, but growing up in the ’90s, she made it… complicated for us to imagine ourselves in her image, if you know what I mean.

When I think of Sade, I find myself wondering who she really is. Since the internet became a thing, I’ve searched endlessly for interviews, fragments, anything that might let me know her more deeply but it’s as if she doesn’t exist. We know the origins of Sade as a band, the mechanics of the music, but she herself has always remained an enigma. If people think Beyoncé keeps her life private, I don’t even have language for the way Sade disappears.

And yet, she has been a part of my life and identity for as long as I can remember.

I grew up seeing her cassettes and CDs scattered around my mother’s house, too young to understand who she was—only that she was Sade, and my mommy loved Sade. Her music felt like comfort before I had words for it: a warm cup of coffee, a soft blanket, something that held you without asking questions.

Watching my mother dance to other kinds of music was joyful, but Sade did something different to her. With Sade, she didn’t dance—she sat. She rocked slowly. She became still. She was present with the music, and more importantly, present with herself. That’s what Sade does. She opens a window into your soul.

I love how she treats pain and joy with such balance. Her lyrics touch pain without spelling it out, creating space for you to pour your own story into the song. It isn’t just music—it’s art. And to me, art is the ability to invite someone fully into your inner world.

To love Sade, you have to make room for forgiveness in your heart. You have to make peace with your pain. You have to accept that life hurts—that it’s messy, uneven, sometimes tender, sometimes cruel. Love doesn’t always last. Friendships end. But forgiveness, love, and your own inner peace are what carry you through.

Maybe that’s why each Sade album feels less like a collection of songs and more like a chapter of emotional survival. Each one meets me where I am, teaching me something different about softness, strength, longing, and release. As I’ve grown, I’ve realized her albums didn’t just soundtrack my life—they helped shape the woman I became.

Each album means something special and different to me.

Diamond Life (1984)

When I think of Diamond Life, I think of my childhood and the pinnacle of my mother’s womanhood combined. My mother was about my age then—vibing to this album while climbing the heights of her success, her confidence, her femininity.

This was Sade’s breakthrough: 4× platinum, over 7 million copies sold worldwide. Honestly if this album doesn’t do something to you, are you okay?

“When Am I Going to Make a Living” still makes me want to jump out a window and go accomplish anything. Literally writing this to the song at 5am. I remember hearing it as a child and feeling that urgency before I even understood it.

“Smooth Operator” reminds me of my mother as a woman in New York City—slick suits, movement, travel, giving powerful-attorney energy. To this day, I emulate that style.

And “Cherry Pie”—I don’t really believe in favorite Sade songs, but if I had to curate a top five, this would absolutely be on it.

Diamond Life makes me feel like a woman. Inspired. Powerful. Sexy. It’s my barometer—the feeling I’m always trying to get back to.

Promise (1985)

When I think about Promise, I think about those chapters of life where you’re still figuring out who you are. Along the way, you encounter friends, experiences, and relationships that may no longer be in your life—but they served a very specific purpose in your becoming.

This album reminds me that wanting deeply is not a flaw. It’s part of being alive. Part of growing.

Highlights for me:

• “Never As Good As the First Time”

• “The Sweetest Taboo”

• “Maureen”

Stronger Than Pride (1988)

This is the album that teaches you how to metabolize heartbreak.

It teaches you how to choose yourself even in the wake of pain. How not to let ego take the wheel. How to remain peaceful, calm, and centered when disappointment could easily harden you.

It taught me that pride can be survival—and that self-respect is sometimes the only thing that remains when love fails. Most importantly, no matter how discouraging life becomes, you must keep looking.

Songs that anchor me:

• “Paradise”

• “Keep Looking”

• “Clean Heart”

Love Deluxe (1992)

This album was born the year I was—call me The Kiss of Life.

Of all Sade’s albums, this one feels the most sensual and the most vulnerable, especially following Stronger Than Pride. Love Deluxe cracks you open. It’s the kind of love you’ve never felt before. The kind of vulnerability you didn’t yet know how to access.

This album met me there and taught me that feeling deeply is not weakness—it’s honesty.

​​Standouts:

• “No Ordinary Love”

• “Kiss of Life”

• “Bulletproof Soul”

Lovers Rock (2000)

After a long hiatus, Sade returns with a reggae-infused album—interestingly, one without a single saxophone instrumental.

When I think of Lovers Rock, I think of healing. Forgiveness. Exhaling. Returning to yourself. This is my Tulum album. My self-love album.

It reminds me what it means to truly love, to truly forgive, and to let love be the compass through pain. This album has kept me gentle, peaceful, and centered through some of my hardest seasons.

Songs that feel like home:

• “By Your Side”

• “Flow”

• “Lovers Rock”

• “It’s Only Love That Gets You Through”

Soldier of Love (2010)

And then there is Soldier of Love—the woman I am now.

This album carries strength without armor, resilience without rage. It belongs to someone who has been to war with love and life and returned with clarity. It taught me that peace is not passive—it is earned. It is a choice.

Sade never told stories in a way that explained everything. She reflected on pain without spelling it out or projecting for that matter, leaving space for you to pour your own life into her music. That, to me, is art—the ability to invite someone fully into your inner world.

She remains an enigma to the world. But somehow, she has always known me.

And maybe now that I think about it—
maybe I know her more than I realize.

Here’s a link to the songs I listed.

​​​​Bonnie

Whenever I come across some perspectives , I notice how pissed off I get. And as I continue to grow, climb, and elevate in my own life - I notice how deeply dangerous our own people can be to each other. Typically I would keep these thoughts to myself in small pockets amongst friends, but that’s not helpful either. So hey, what would the historic leaders of our yesterday do? Write about it….

This week on the list of things that pissed me off, it was a woman on Tiktok expressing that “Black suburban girls should not date Black boys from systemically broken homes.” She framed it as protection as black suburban girls should not bear the emotional labor that comes with black boys from systemically broken homes. As wisdom. As concern for Black girls’ futures.

Her definition for “systemically broken home” is defined as low socioeconomic status (not specific), food insecurity, rough neighborhood, emotionally unstable home. To fully paint the picture, she’s a doctoral student and was wearing a Vineyard sweater along with her Howard cap while providing this perspective. If you scroll through all of her videos, she typically wears clothing that signals class such as her sorority para, her HBCU, the vineyard para etc. I mean like OFTEN.

Now while I don’t deny that compatibility issues can exist especially when people come from very different experiences — what she failed to acknowledge is that every part of her argument was rooted in classism disguised under emotional incompatibility.

There was no room in her perspective for possibility of subjectivity and nuance. No consideration for the fact that a Black boy from her definition of “broken system” could have done the work to heal. Or perhaps acknowledge how wide the spectrum is when you look at the term “broken system” Maybe this boy earned an incredible scholarship. Could be emotionally grounded, ambitious, and deeply aligned in values. However he doesn’t come from an upper-middle-class “suburban'“ home, so he’s ruled out.

At the same time, she centered only the “Black suburban girl,” operating under the flawed assumption that suburban automatically means middle or upper middle class. As if all Black suburban girls share the same access, stability, or financial security.

But they don’t.

There are Black girls in suburbs living paycheck to paycheck. Black girls navigating emotional instability quietly behind manicured lawns. Black girls in cities with more financial security than their suburban counterparts. Entire categories of Black girls were simply erased from her concern.

Which made me wonder: are you truly concerned about all Black girls?
Or just the ones who come from your class, your proximity to power, your version of success? The ones whose mamas wear Vineyard sweaters and Howard caps in August?

What bothered me most was how confidently this was framed as care. As if narrowing Black girls’ options is somehow protective. As if love should be curated along class lines to avoid discomfort or risk.

And that’s when it became clear — this wasn’t really about safety for all Black girls. It was about preservation.

• Preserving class boundaries.

• Preserving social sameness.

• Preserving distance from anything that feels too close to poor.

Jack and Jill dating Jack and Jill. Families aligning with families who share the same institutions, networks, and markers of respectability. That’s not about emotional health that’s about status maintenance. Please name it that and not anything else. Let’s also be a little honest here, aren’t those the grounds marriage was founded upon anyway?

What makes this especially troubling is who often holds these perspectives. How covert these perspectives live in our own spaces, disguised as elevation for ALL Black people however they’re only concerned with some.

Unfortunately these are the same Black people at the helm of our prestigious institutions. The ones who proudly champion HBCUs for all, Divine Nine organizations, and legacy Black spaces — while simultaneously holding beliefs that contradict the very history those institutions were built on. Institutions created because Black people from “broken systems” were excluded everywhere else.

You can’t celebrate Black struggle as legacy and then turn around and treat it as contamination in real life.

And I want to be clear about where I’m coming from, because this isn’t personal resentment speaking. It’s clarity, its intellectual challenge, someone holding up a mirror to our people.

I’m a Black woman. A member of Delta Sigma Theta. I have two master’s degrees and was raised by a Black attorney who moved through elite spaces. I know what access affords. I know how status protects. And because I know that world, I also know how dangerous it is to confuse circumstance with character, or background with destiny.

And precisely because of that, I can see how dangerous this way of thinking is.

Because I’ve also seen how much brilliance, resilience, and love comes from people who did not start with the same advantages. I know firsthand that class background is not a reliable measure of emotional intelligence, values, or capacity for partnership. It is certainly a variable — I will not fully rule it out. I have not even touched upon how narrow and flawed her thinking is from a global perspective, but I’ll stay focused and tight.

Upper middle–class Black communities can be deeply tribal, and we don’t talk about that enough. We critique exclusion everywhere else but struggle to confront it and be forward about how it shows up in our own spaces — especially when it’s dressed up as guidance and “protection of Black girls.” However, only special groups are deserving of that protection.

I want healthy, loving, aligned relationships for all Black girls. I want discernment. I want standards. But we can want all of that without reinforcing hierarchies that separate us from one another. We can talk about compatibility without turning class into character traits.

Black girls do not need to be protected from complexity. Many of us already live inside it. What we don’t need is classism repackaged as care. Black love has never been built on isolation. And that’s what really pissed me off this week.

Anyhow this tension isn’t new. We’ve always debated whether Black survival and upward mobility requires accommodation, separation, or transformation from Booker T. Washington to Du Bois, Garvey to Malcolm X.

What’s clear is that class-based exclusion has never been liberation.

Where do we go from here?

Subscribe now

Sorry I’m late to your inbox! I’m soo sick and still trying to recover. Yup, I’ve been sick all holiday weekend… but we shall prevail. I just got back from urgent care and I’m clear from covid, bronchitis, and strep so the show can go on. That Baby Bonnie really took me down, those babies and their germs.

Stuffy nose and stuffy brain made it tough for me to get flowing to write all day. Today I was going back and forth on what my foggy brain can offer. Like really Bonnie? You don’t even have anything to offer yourself today except Mucinex and nasal spray… and honestly, that’s good enough. Let’s try not to focus on perfection today.

Perfection used to run my life—my schedule, my image, my choices. But lately I’m learning the beauty of “good enough” and existing exactly as you are.
A “good enough” workout before your body takes on the day.
A “good enough” day where nothing spectacular happened.
A “good enough” effort when life is giving the bare minimum.

There is so much peace in letting life be ordinary and allowing yourself to show up just as you are and not allowing perfection to be the enemy of good.

A few months ago on her In My Opinion podcast, Michelle Obama said most people in life have a very hard time navigating “the middle”—the quiet middle where there’s no major accomplishment, where no one is clapping for you, where you’re not falling behind… you’re just living. Existing in the person you’ve chosen to become.

That resonated deeply with me as I think about my own location and learning to get comfortable being in the middle. I’m realizing it’s okay for some seasons to feel extremely quiet… like “the middle” or like an “off season.”

It’s all about how you frame it in your mind.
It’s not that you’re having a rough season—you just aren’t in season right now.
You aren’t winning, but you aren’t losing either.
Matter of fact, you aren’t even playing.
You are preparing. You are recovering. You are laying the foundation for your next season.

If you’re in that off-season of your life, then I recommend you lean into this time to dwell, to contemplate, to rest, to process, to strategize, and to begin quietly building for what’s next. Every season of your life is serving you—even the ones that feel slow, uneventful, or confusing. Especially those ones.

The off-season is where strength is restored.
It’s where clarity returns.
It’s where you let the old parts of yourself soften so the new parts have room to grow.

Not every chapter requires a highlight reel; some chapters are meant to be private, steady, grounding.

So if this week finds you in the middle… if you feel a little off, a little tired, a little unsure, it’s that time of the year —take a breath. Let “good enough” be more than enough. Trust that quiet doesn’t mean you’re behind; it just means you’re being prepared.

And as I sit here, nose stuffed, brain foggy, smelling Vicks… I’m reminding myself of the same truth I’m offering you:

We don’t have to bloom every day.
Some days, we root.

Until next week,
With love,
Bonnie 🌿

Subscribe now

Bonnie’s Basket

Books I’m recommending this week

• The Surrender Experiment — Michael A. Singer
  A reminder to loosen our grip on life and trust the flow that’s already unfolding for us.

• A Return to Love — Marianne Williamson
  A guide for coming home to yourself, practicing softness, and choosing love over fear.

• The Greatest Salesman in the World — Og Mandino
  A spiritual blueprint for discipline, intention, and building a life rooted in purpose.

What I’m Listening To

• My Soft Landing Playlist - The Journey Within
  Songs for grounding, breathing, and resetting your nervous system. South African music is the sound of my soul. It soothes me and brings me so much peace. I hope it can for you as well

Words to Hold Close

• “You don’t have to move mountains today. Some days, surviving is a miracle.”

• “Rest is a strategy, not surrender.”

• “Quiet seasons grow loud futures.”

A Gentle Reminder
You are allowed to be a little undone and still deeply worthy. Softness is still strength.

xx

Bonnie

Happy Monday, Beautiful People ✨

Thank you, truly, for being here. I’m so grateful for your kind notes and the quiet encouragement many of you have already shared. I’m excited to begin building this little corner of the world with you. Contrary to what my presence might suggest, I’m actually a deep, cozy loner. Being in the front of the room always feels unfamiliar. I can transform quickly, but historically I’ve always been a quiet, solitary bee.

This morning, I read a line that stopped me:
“Fear is just excitement without breath.”

So this week, let’s practice breathing into the things that scare us — and watch them transform into something that propels us. Are you taking one step closer toward something you’ve been hesitating to try? I launched this newsletter last week, it’s your turn now to do something. :-)

Speaking of fear, I’m currently reading The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. He explores how we often limit ourselves — not because the world holds us back, but because we hold ourselves back. Hidden fears creep in, disguised as self-doubt, procrastination, or even comfort.

Hendricks introduces the concept of the Four Zones of Existence:

The Zone of Incompetence — tasks we’re not good at and need to STOP.

The Zone of Competence — things we can do, but anyone could do them.

The Zone of Excellence — the work we excel at, often where we feel safe.

The Zone of Genius — the rare zone where our unique gifts, passion, and purpose collide. The things people can rarely do better than you.

Most of us hover in the Zone of Excellence because it’s comfortable, familiar. But real growth happens when we push past fear into our Zone of Genius — that space where time disappears, where your gifts flow naturally, and where your passions can finally meet purpose. Ask yourself: Am I staying in my Zone of Excellence because it feels safe? Have I truly tried to leap into my Genius zone?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about origins — where we come from, the experiences that shape us, the fears we carry and how they inform the zones we occupy today. Before we can land anywhere new, it helps to ask ourselves:

Where am I coming from?

What stories shaped me?

Which fears keep me suspended, still “in the air,” locked in my Zone of Excellence?

Understanding your origin story isn’t just for reflection. It’s like a compass — pointing you toward the fears you need to face and the gifts you’ve been neglecting.

This Week’s Wisdom ✨
Joe Dispenza reminds us that real change comes from feeling differently, not just thinking differently. When you intentionally cultivate feelings like joy, love, or gratitude, you signal to your mind and body that your best life is already here — and you begin to attract it. This week try operating like you’re already in your best life. Perhaps try embodying the feelings associated with your Zone of Genius. See what happens.

Some More Reading…

There are books you stumble upon, and then there are books that somehow find you.
The Seat of the Soul is that book for me. When I think about the handful of books that have genuinely shifted my mindset and changed the way I move through the world, this one always comes to mind

If you’re on a self-awakening journey and trying to understand yourself, your patterns, and the deeper meaning behind your experiences, I can’t recommend this enough. With the new year approaching its a perfect time to recalibrate your mindset.

Products I’m Using…

This time of year, I take my skin very seriously. Since the sun isn’t here to give me my summer glow, I’m doing my best to stay moisturized, dewy, and youthful. Here are my top two hydrating serums — both incredible, but living on very different ends of the price spectrum:

L’Oréal Collagen Serum — $10
Lightweight, hydrating, and crazy effective for the price. A perfect everyday boost if you’re keeping things budget-friendly.

L’Occitane Immortelle Reset — $130
A luxury serum that feels like a warm hug for your skin. Deeply moisturizing, skin-plumping, and worth the splurge if you want that extra glow. I got in in PR but I promise its worth it.

The Soft Landing Soundtrack

Here’s a vibey playlist to get you through this week. Whether you’re easing into your workday, traveling home this week, dancing around your living room, journaling, or cleaning your home - I hope the vibe gives you exactly what you need.

Until next time, may you land softly into the week ahead.
With love,
Bonnie

Subscribe now

It has lived with me for so long that it no longer feels like a visitor — it feels like a room inside my home. A quiet one. A sacred one. The kind of room you pass by every day and sometimes pause to sit in, not out of sadness, but out of honor. I’ve long accepted that it will never leave, so learning to live with it is how I’ve moved ahead.

For years, I treated grief like something I needed to outrun, silence, or survive - a terrible feeling that arrived without warning and consistently eroded my joy. But somewhere along the way, I learned that grief can be something softer. Something meaningful. Something that doesn’t just wound, but shapes, deepens, and tenderizes.

I’ve carried losses that rearranged my life. Losses that matured me before my time. Losses that pushed me out of girlhood and into eldest-daughter womanhood — responsible, steady, holding the world together while quietly yearning for someone to hold me.

And yet, even in the heaviness, grief has offered me unexpected wisdom, softness, grace, compassion, depth, gratitude, and a tenderness I wouldn’t trade.

This is for anyone tired of pretending they’re okay.
For anyone living with an ache that doesn’t disappear.
For anyone ready to stop suppressing their sorrow and start living with it — gently, honestly, beautifully.

Grief doesn’t have to be a storm you hide from.

The Grief That Shaped Me

I have lived with loss for so long that grief eventually became my friend.

I grew up grieving a father — learning early what it means to love someone who exists mostly in memory. And then, in college, I lost my mother, and everything I understood about myself collapsed with her. I didn’t just lose a person; I lost a life, a home, a sense of who I was before my world cracked open.

Sometimes I think that’s why I’ve always understood Simba when he ran so far and so fast after Mufasa died — because when the love that shaped you disappears, home disappears with it. You’re forced into the wilderness to relearn yourself with a hollow space in your chest. You do your best to find joy in the small corners of life, to let the tears come when they need to, but mostly you push the ache aside because your survival demands it.

There is grief that softens you immediately — the kind that lets you feel, cry, right away, and become tender.
And then there is grief that shatters everything — the kind that forces you to harden first, live through reconstruction, and discover your softness years later when the dust finally settles.

It’s taken me fifteen years to clear the debris and sit fully with my sadness.

The Room I Built for Grief

Over time, I learned that grief doesn’t disappear — it just changes shape. It becomes a place inside you.

For me, grief is an empty room in my heart that only I can enter. And instead of leaving the room cold, hollow, and abandoned, I chose to decorate it. To place softness where there was once shock. To hang beautiful memories on the walls like framed portraits. To let its windows open and let light in.

Grief doesn’t have to be a stranger lurking outside your door.
You also don’t have to keep that door locked.

Invite it in. Give it space. Let it sit beside you sometimes.

When you stop fighting grief’s presence, you make room for the beauty of what remains — the profound reminder that love didn’t end. The relationship didn’t vanish. It simply transformed into sacred memories you now carry forward.

How to Make Grief Beautiful

Here are some ways grief can become a softer, more livable part of your life — not an enemy, but a room you lovingly tend.

1. Fill the space with small rituals.

I believe grief responds to routine.

Make a playlist and intentionally listen to it when you want to invite your grief in. Dance to the songs they loved. Cook the dish they taught you. Let the ordinary become sacred.

For me, waking up early is a ritual tied to my mother. My entire morning routine keeps her presence alive. In her final months, I woke up at 5am every day to go to the hospital before school — dropping off breakfast, the newspaper, refreshing her iPod. At the time, that routine felt brutal. Now, I would give anything for one more morning.

If you ever wonder why I’m a morning person — this is why.

2. Have conversations with your grief.

Write letters. Journal. Return to them over the years and witness your evolution.

Each year, I write my mom a letter — updates on my life, my dreams, and update her the other knucklehead kids she had lol. Some years I cry, not from pain but from gratitude. Grief shows me how far I’ve come.

3. Weave them into your daily life.

Place tiny symbols of their memory:
a photo on a shelf,
a keepsake in your wallet,
a trinket in your car for safety

Let their presence meet you in the quiet corners of your day.

My mom loved sitting on the sofa, zoning out after cleaning the house. Some days, in my own quiet home, I look over at the sofa and imagine her there. Not as a ghost — but as warmth.

4. Let joy, laughter, and grief coexist.

Find people who carry grief deeply. Some days you’ll cry together; other days you’ll laugh at the absurdity of life.

Some of my funniest memories come from dark-humor moments with my siblings — memories that should break us, but somehow they make us laugh until we snort.

Because grief isn’t only tears.
Some days you can laugh at the pain.

5. Allow yourself to change.

One of the most beautiful parts of grief is noticing the moments that no longer sting the way they once did. Grief moves as you move. It shifts, softens, reappears elsewhere.

My mother and I shared the same birthday. For years I never celebrated — I cried through the day. Over time, that wound softened. But when I began purchasing my first home, grief returned like a weighted barbell on my back.

I grieved losing my childhood home all over again.
I grieved that she wouldn’t be at my closing.
I grieved the house I would have gifted her if she were still here.

That process wrecked me.
But that home represents the one I’ve been rebuilding inside myself for fifteen years. I rebuilt after the storm, and now I can sit in my sadness.

If You’re Living With Grief

You are not broken.
You are not failing.
You are simply learning to live with a love that has changed form.

Grief doesn’t leave — but it can become beautiful and funny.
It can shape you, soften you, deepen you.
It can remind you, again and again, that you loved deeply and were loved deeply.

And that is the most sacred thing of all.

May your grief find a Soft Landing

Bonnie xx

When I think about where we are as a society in relation to social media, the pendulum has swung way too far in one direction. It’s actually stuck — and we need to shift it back to what it was meant to be. Beneath the OOTDs and GRWMs and behind the large follower counts lives a deep sadness among many. We’re growing more distant as capitalism colonizes what was once a tool to bring us close. We observe instead of engage. We compare without fully understanding.

From what I’ve seen, we’re all just looking for a place to truly be ourselves, or figure out who we are again. Instagram feels hollow now because capitalism has overtaken the “social” in social media. And so we pretend to love TikTok because it allows us to show up as we are — unpolished, imperfect, emotional, real. It lets us exist without being “judged,” some even cry without being deemed strange… But the thing about TikTok is… it doesn’t talk back. You throw your feelings into a vortex — and thank God they’re out — but then what?

I always hope the people crying out on TikTok have someone real to cry to. Someone to remind them they are going to be okay.

Words need a listener. Stories need a home.

Reading someone’s lived experience allows you to be in conversation with them — to relate, to understand, to feel closer. That is the gift of writing.

To be a writer is to accept the possibility that no one in the world may ever read your work — and still, you write. Books, essays, paragraphs, notes in your phone that may never see the light of day. You write because writing is, at its core, a conversation with yourself. And then, someday, people begin to read those conversations. They carry pieces of you with them, and you leave those stories to be found after you part.

Silence as a Compass

Writing demands a deep internal silence — honestly, borderline isolation. The kind of quiet where your thoughts can pour from your heart, travel up to your brain, and translate onto paper as words. The internet can’t offer that. What we’re really craving is a place to be ourselves, yes — but also a place to be still, a place to quiet the noise.

The greatest thinkers and writers of our time understood that silence was their most valuable commodity. Henry Miller often tucked himself away and blocked out all distractions. Morrison rose at 4 a.m. to move her pen before the world woke. Baldwin escaped to France just to hear himself clearly, while Hansberry retreated to Croton to be with her thoughts. And Ellison wrote that the art of writing requires disappearing deep into yourself — becoming almost ghostlike to the outside world.

In that silence, something opens.

Welcome to My Quiet World

Welcome to my silent world, my peaceful oasis, my calm center. As you might notice, I keep a very clean space physically, and I try to do the same internally. Calm, clear, centered with my ego tucked away is how I remain at peace. Easily overstimulated by sound, I specialize in curating quiet places to think, exist, and heal. Without that, I’m unable to hear myself, thus unable to write and express.

Where We Begin

I’ve always been a show, don’t tell, write, don’t speak person — for reasons we’ll unpack along the way. But to give you a baseline, to understand anything about me, you must understand where I’ve journeyed from, how long I’ve been on that road, and all the people I’ve carried with me.

Whenever I imagine telling the story of my life, I see a familiar scene: a protagonist leaving a remote village in Africa in search of an education, a new world, a job in the city, or simply manhood, because why would it be a woman? He travels a long, uncertain road with few resources. He meets challenges, overcomes them, evolves — and eventually returns home, accomplished, to show his mother the man he’s become.

I resonate with that journey — until the moment he returns home.

Unlike him, I cannot go back. There is no village to return to, no mother to run into the arms of and say, “Look, I did it.” When I left, I packed up and carried my entire world with me. We moved forward together. There is no “returning” in my world — no looking back, eyes forward.

My Path

Born into an immigrant family, I am the first daughter in my line. An honor, a duty, a role of high regard and heavy responsibility. I learned early there wasn’t much room for mistakes. Being the first daughter meant I was born into responsibility long before I had language for it. There are roles we choose, and roles that choose us — mine was the quiet understanding that I would walk first, carry much, hunt, protect, translate, build, and dig a way.

My life was never a straight line. It was a crossing — between Haiti and America, childhood and adulthood, duty and desire, survival and becoming. And like many first-generation children, I developed the instinct to keep walking without the possibility of ever looking back.

But the thing about walking forward without a place to return to is this — eventually, the road becomes both your journey and home.

You become your own village.
You become your own mother.
You become your home.

That’s why writing feels sacred to me. It’s the one place where I can finally set my bags down on the path. Where I don’t have to translate. Where every version of me — the child, the woman, the leader, the lover, the dreamer — can sit in the same room.

A Space to Touch the Ground

For so long, my life felt like an unending migration toward some undefined version of success — a constant flight with no landing strip. And maybe that’s why I created this space. Because even the strongest among us — the first daughters, the immigrants, the quiet leaders, the ones who journey without rest — deserve somewhere to “touch grass.”

So on this journey, I invite you to walk with me as I take you through the pages of my story.

We can talk about what it means to live with immense grief and to sometimes feel like a refugee in a world without my parents. I can finally tell the story of that season when I lost everything I understood “home” to be — and then rebuilt myself brick by brick.

We can share stories about starting over after a storm, about sisterhood, about heartbreak, about the courage and pain it takes to choose yourself again over and over.

We can even talk about how humiliating it feels to testify about being sexually abused in front of a jury, only to be torn apart in cross-examination by a man who cared more about a win than the truth… All in the name of Justice.

For those who’ve been here a while, we can finally talk about why I abruptly closed the curtains to my life while going through that sensitive time. Hiding, protecting, proving — and the quiet work of trying to remember myself afterward.

And most pressing, we can talk about the swelling anxiety so many of us women in our 30s feel — the weight of building careers, creating families, nurturing dreams, and outrunning a clock the world swears is ticking louder every day.

Bringing the Threads Together

I’ve shared so much of my life with you all in fragments — images, moments, and reels with no voiceover. I showed the world pieces of the journey, but never the whole narrative in my own words. In short, I’ve been there.

I think I’m ready now.
Ready to bring the threads together.
Ready to give voice to both the beautiful and the sad.
Ready to offer the full story — not for sympathy or spectacle, but because the road I’m walking might illuminate something on yours.

So here’s to the road ahead and behind me — yours and mine. And if there’s one thing my journey has shown me, it’s this:

“On a long, quiet road alone, the sunrise always finds you.” - Maya Angelou

Welcome to Your Soft Landing. Put your seatbelts on.

Bonnie

Subscribe now

A few days ago I sat on a panel and was asked “What is your hope for the next generation”

I paused for a moment trying to think of some poignant and eloquent statement. It was themed Black History so I felt like I had to close out with an over architected statement that no one can understand but myself. Lol

Nothing special came to mind so I responded simply, “My hope is that children everywhere are able to dream without circumstance, I hope that children can live through their imagination instead of trying to survive for the day. You see when you live through your dreams life has no limits, but when you live through your circumstance you feel and see limitations.

Growing up I enjoyed reading Nikki Giovanni’s poems, they were soo fun and easy to comprehend. My favorite to this day is “Dreams”

“In my younger years

before I learned

that black people could not dream

I wanted to be a Raelet”

Imagine if Nikki became a singer and not a writer, what if she kept dreaming. I’m glad she still became a sweet inspiration, my sweet inspiration.

I dream of writing, writing, and writing some more

Let me paint this picture for you, I was 20 just lost my mother, my home, trying to put myself through school, working minimum wage jobs, with no damn clue if I was doing it right. How in the world was I supposed to process and agree that I am Lucky to be going through what I was experiencing.

He said “just trust me, keep up everything you are doing now and you will understand exactly what life was doing for you.”

At the time I was not ready to understand it but in my late 20s it started to make some sense to me. I had to grow up really quick but it gave me a head start experiencing monumental life adversity. Now at 29 I’m grateful for all of the loss, ambiguity, and heartbreak I had to experience to arrive at my spiritual and social location in life. It’s like an accounting journal entry, life allowed me to pre-pay and front load my obstacles early to grant me the stamina and endurance for the long road ahead.

There’s a silver lining everywhere, you just have to be intentional about finding it. In the midst of adversity and pure frustration its actually annoying to find a silver lining. I learned that expensing energy being upset vs finding a silver lining in each situation can bring you more peace and even joy. Let’s just say I try to practice this 90% of the time, the other 10% my sister has to listen to me vent. Use your energy on big problems, not the small stuff. “Don’t sweat the small stuff”

Sometimes you might be “Lucky to be Unlucky”

My dream is that you find a silver lining in whatever you might be experiencing today.

I started this game to distract my mind when I would walk to the hospital visiting my mom. At the time she was being held at Bellevue hospital and the only train I could take there was the 6 train, which left about 10 Avenue blocks to walk. On this walk I would drown my mind and heart in fear of the unknown. Fear of what my mom would look like, what the doctor might tell me about her cancer, what I might feel like walking in that hospital. I felt sick to my stomach each time I had to take that daunting walk alone and worry about my reality.

So one day I said lets play a game to keep your mind off of this. You take two steps and cross into the next box…. It worked. It became my little thing to distract me from thinking miserable and fearful thoughts. It was a way to distract my little brain as I focused on other things like my college applications, my to-do list, homework etc. Instead of thinking horrible thoughts on my way to see her I was able to walk in a little less cloudy in my mind.

I no longer walk that route but whenever I’m heading somewhere and feeling nervous I just Count The Cracks….(1-2-1…1-2-2…1-2-3)

My dream is that you find the thing that distract you from thinking bad thoughts

Social Liberation has been an intentional objective of mine during the later end of my 20s. When I turned 27 I promised myself that I would romanticize my life individually and not depend on anyone to explore the world around me. During that period I noticed that I was questioning my spiritual independence therefore it became very necessary for me to go on an individual journey.

To say the least…It has been one of the most inspiring journeys I’ve ever taken myself on and I encourage every woman to try it out. Married, single, or in a relationship - pack your bags and go explore an unknown place completely alone.

Within the past three years I’ve spent a month alone in Arizona, I’ve spent quite some time alone in Tulum, did a tough mudder alone, went on beautiful dates, saw plays, went on long bike rides, attended conferences, concerts, work travel, and dared myself to do as many things alone as possible. At first glance it sounds and looks fun, but I’d be lying if I didn’t acknowledge how uncomfortable and scary it felt at first.

Along the journey I had to dig deep inside ask myself why was I afraid? I came to the conclusion that women aren’t socialized to aspire to the highest level of individualism. Many of our accomplishments and happiness is often attributed to the things we do within a marriage or who we marry. Also in the words of Ta-nahesi we also have to remember that “our body can be taken away at anytime.” It’s unfortunate we must journey this world with an deep fear, however I promise you that there is an innate reflex in your body, you have to learn how to tap into and trust. - Learning yourself is knowing when you feel unsafe, its being able to read the energy around you, and trust that you can get yourself out of dangerous situations.

When I feel afraid I think about the sense of courage and individualism people like Assata, Mandela, Angelou, Davis, Marley, and Baldwin needed to go on their journeys to create the legacy we collectively aspire to. When I’m afraid to travel I’m reminded of the countless countries Angelou took herself to and the amount of villages she stayed in without knowing anyone. I think about the courage Mandela had to escape South Africa and live in hiding. I smile when I think about woman like Assata who’s entire life is the meaning of Bravery and Fierce.

During this journey I learned the difference between individualism and being single. Solo travel and experiences are often associated with being single vs having a strong sense of individualism. I hope my experience distills that myth, you can be in a partnership and enjoy solo experiences.

My dream is for every woman to dream of visiting wild places individually despite their marital status.

For Holidays I did not have money to buy her presents, I also did not have my dad around who can supplement some funds to buy her something nice. I wanted her to have something under the tree.

The night before Christmas I would stay up and use leftover wrapping paper to wrap up things she had around the house, a vase, a book, a sweater - If I could wrap the sofa I probably would’ve. -

Christmas morning became a little mystery game for us. Although she knew it was something from around the house, there was joy in her eyes when she saw her gifts wrapped up.

The emotional distance between seeing a gift with your name on it and the act of tearing it apart is where Gratitude lives.

My dream for you is that you feel thought of in every space you exist.

There’s this sense of joy I get in my morning routine around 7am. It’s when all of the school buses and children are on the road. The moment before we transition from guardians to the “performed” roles we play in the world. During that time the children are in control and we move to the beat of their routine and desires. If you want to see your boss at their weakness, ask them about their parenting routine in the morning.

Traffic stops for the school bus, emails are on halt for the morning walk to school, the roles reverse and the grownups are doing ANYTHING they say for the sake of getting the day started. I call it Little Human Domination. On one block you see a happy child excited for the day, the next block you see a crying human with a scarf dragging on the ground, across the street there’s a child eating a donut bigger than her face, and somewhere in between a child convinced their dad to ride a bike to school. LOL - It’s beautiful chaos.

During this time the world is moving fast yet slow, the streets are more alert as the little humans take over the world. More importantly you get to witness the most beautiful transaction of humanity, parents leaving their children in the hands of the world. My heart flutters when I see parents put their child on the school bus and watch it move until it is out of sight, or when I wait outside an extra 30 seconds just in case Jaden runs back outside the school to give me another hug. If you live in NYC you might see a child riding the train alone reading or doing their homework. It’s all hands on deck watching over the little humans.

It’s in those moments where I find joy, a sense of commitment to all of the children around me. It’s a reminder that as an adult we all have a duty to the children around us. It is your duty to protect all children in your sight, to feed a child who might be in need, and if you are from the islands you might have to remind them how to carry themselves.

My dream for you is that you see the world through the life of a child. I dream of a world where children feel protected in every space they walk into, it’s all of our jobs to be more alert when we see a child. It takes a village.