Author: Claudia L. Shivers

I read a quote that said that life is about the journey, not the destination.  I skimmed over it without acknowledging its importance because I was still so caught up in getting to all of my destinations.  At 46, I got it. 

At 23, my belief system was that complete independence, and not asking for help were the best ways to navigate life.  I gave every part of myself, while never replacing what I had sacrificed.  At 33, I made some modifications, but for the most part, I maintained that efficient system of self-destruction.   At 43, I realized that having a crisis advocate in my life was mandatory. 

At 46, I have learned that healthy, interdependent relationships a non-negotiable.  I know that sums up one of those 7 Habits, but I don’t know Stephen Covey, and I am not just taking his word at face value.  My interdependence has sustained me and moved me into growth.  Now I observe catastrophe and crisis from the sideline rather than being the main attraction.

When my mom was 46, I was 26.  I have no recollection of that time.  I remember being 26.  I remember she was alive.  I do not remember her being 46, and more importantly 46 and present.  She was always my mom.  Once the perfect specimen of love in my eyes, she had fallen from maternal grace and become a mere mortal when she ran my dad away from our family.  That was a sin punishable by a lifetime of harsh, unreasonable judgement, outrageous expectations, and absolutely no understanding. 

I offer this entry as an act of gratitude to my mother for allowing herself to be vulnerable enough to engage in her version of love with my dad so that I exist today.

With every page I have written a layer of trauma has been shed.  I have been a trauma amphibian, a chaos chameleon.  I have been cold blooded because that was what was required.  I have changed colors and shed my decaying epidermis as life has demanded.  It was just hours ago, as I was learning the difference in a Mexican coffee bean and an Ethiopian one, that the following moment reintroduced itself to me. 

I was pregnant for the fourth time.  The relationship wasn’t a real one.  We met on a community college detour from the dreams of our former lives.  We had agreed to enter into a fun, commitment free, zero stress, physical relationship.  Forethought escaping us, and fertility chasing us, there I was, full with a heavenly blessing and earthly motivation growing in my womb.

June 18, 1998, I called my godmother to ask her if she would pick up my three children, ages 6 and younger, because I was in labor with sunshine number four.  She did.  Not much conversation, she just wanted to know what time I was picking them up the next day.  There was no emotion, no words of wisdom, and I did not expect it.  I was just grateful that she had agreed to come get my precious cargo because I had no other options.  My three sockless, highly intelligent souls left as they were instructed, but not without some questions.  We have always had open communication because it was just us, the terror squad. 

As they left, I got into my white 1985 Ford Mustang and drove myself to Lexington Memorial Hospital.  I checked myself in telling the staff that someone would be there with me shortly.  I felt the weight of telling that necessary lie, while also knowing that if I told the truth the security of my family could be in danger.  If not in danger, at least questioned, highly scrutinized and closely monitored by individuals and agencies who did not know me or my children, and whose only concern was “what was right” according to policies written by inexperienced people for a population extremely experienced in the dance of statistical poverty and non-traditional family make-up.  So, “yes, someone is on their way.  Oh, yes, my mom because my daughter’s father was unavailable.”  After the staff had been adequately assured, I was checked into the maternity ward.

I had been in labor since the previous day.  I waited as long as possible to head to the hospital so that my children would have to spend as little time away from me as possible.  At 4:00 pm, on June 18^th I told the nurses that I would be having the baby soon.  The doctor came in, he was young and new.  He put his gloves on and examined my cervical dilation.  “Ok, we’re getting close.  We’ll have us a baby about 4:30.”  Poor, naïve man.  I had a family to protect.  I did not have 30 more minutes.  You see, the hospital allowed you to leave 24 hours after giving birth, so the earlier I welcomed Andréa into the world, the sooner we could both go back home.  I spoke up.  “Doc, it’s going to be 4:15”.  He disregarded my prophesy and took off his gloves.  He reassured the nurses, “It will be 4:30”.  What no one knew was that I had been quietly pushing with all of my recent contractions.  I learned that the quickest way to stop contractions was to give my body what it wanted, the allowance another beautiful soul to enter the world. 

About 4:10 pm the nurses called for that very confident, book smart obstetrician.  He had relied on what his medical texts had taught him without acknowledging there was an actual person in front him, a woman, a young, scared-brave, mother.  One’s humanness was a variable that changed medical text from reliable to more of a guide for general expectations.  In the words of Kevin Hart, “He was gone learn today.”.  At 4:15 pm he came running into the delivery room still putting his gloves on, just in time to keep Andréa from hitting the floor.  That sight just tickled me.

Hours later someone on staff brought my traditional steak dinner, as well as the one for my mom, or whoever they still thought was going to arrive shortly.  I ate both of them.  Two steak dinners, and a breakfast later I was preparing to leave.  I filled out all of the appropriate paperwork and by the afternoon of June 19^th I was getting into a wheelchair with my bundle of responsibility, to be rolled to the lobby to wait for my mom to retrieve me.  Again, I lied enough to get the nurse to roll me to the exit area and leave me unattended. 

When I could no longer see her, I stood up and walked Andréa and myself to my car.  We stopped at the grocery store and bought pampers, food, the necessities, and went to gather the remainder of our band.  I got us home safely with just a few more battle scars.

I had, in those ten months prior, been impregnated with purpose, carried the weight of a higher calling and emerged with a new life.  Oh wait, that sounded familiar.

Sometimes the smallest events trigger my muscle memory.  Sitting in a cube at a Federal Prison Camp, I was filled with purpose and weight, I emerged with a new life.  There were days when I wanted to cry, but my sorrow was second to my passion for freedom and justice.  There had to be a way to remedy mass incarceration, broken homes, and poverty.  I was going to figure out a few solutions. 

I write, I tell my story, because I need to be seen, as a human, a person, a woman, a mother.  I need being seen to be the new normal.  I need you to see me so that you will then see all of humankind that same way.  As always, thank you for listening.

Prison prayers sounded more like Torey Lanez and Bryson Tiller that morning. “Keep in Touch”. God please let somebody keep in touch with me. Let my name be called at mail call. Dear God, please don’t let me be forgotten. I learned what so many others before me had already accepted. After about six months, “out of sight, out of mind” became more than just a cliché. Most relationships, no matter their nature, had about a half year shelf life when someone was incarcerated. Of course, friends and family mean well, but the shock would wear off and your absence was the new normal. At this point, I had been down about eight months and had to work hard to stay encouraged.

Since the announcement and implementation of a full lockdown on April 1st, I had stopped rising quickly to meet the day with gratitude and optimism. I would just lay there, in that twin metal bunk bed, with my eyes closed for a moment repeating my mantra of a prayer silently. “God, please let them call my name today. Please let them say I am going home soon. You know I can’t make it eight more months.” Every day was the same and I was running out of the fuel of gratitude to sustain me.

I would lie quietly just to prolong the reality that inevitably flooded my consciousness. Fluorescent lights, someone trying to steal my cereal, back pain from inappropriate accommodations, something would remind me of my location soon enough. When my mom passed, I used to have this feeling as the sun came into my bedroom window and crossed my closed eyelids. I could see the bright yellows and reds that filled my soul with comfort and relief. For just a second, I lived in the paradise version of my life. In that place, that cerebral Garden of Eden, I was still in the last place I stood before the newest tragedy fell on me. Suddenly, as if I had been shaken by an invisible messenger, I was awakened. As my eyes popped open, I realized that, again, for the 200th day, that this was still not Eden. I was still in hell with no ice water and no escape plan. I prayed for more sleep, but slumber and freedom were on the run from me like fugitive slaves. They ducked and dodged me, as they ran through streams and puddles so that I would lose their scent. I was in a great chase and did not even have a pair of good running shoes, just those busted Reebok Classics that Ms. V gave me when I first got there.

Dear Reader,

This is where I leave you to write more. As opposed to just making blog posts, I am working on a gourmet piece of non-fiction. I will now use this blog to serve you appetizers as I work to prepare a delicious work of written culinary satisfaction. My goal is to produce a meal that touches all of your senses as you work to digest it. My desire is that you savor every bite of information, so that it feeds your soul and you can then share an intellectual meal with someone else.

This is where I am your spa director. I plan to massage you to awakeness and you float effortlessly into a being who heals and helps, and chooses to never pass judgement again.

This is where I am your tour guide. You have already bought your ticket, so you might as well sit back and enjoy the journey. We are going to travel to places you have been many times before, but this time I will give you a new set of glasses so that you can see through a different lense.

Thank you Reader. I offer my sincerest gratitude for you agreeing to trust me and be a kind receiver of my vulnerability.

Sincerely and Respectfully,

Claudia

Dear Reader,

Thank you for waiting for this entry. I hope you enjoy.

Claudia

Cloud Chasing

I want to experience love with someone who makes me see poetry while we touch. I want to speak in the tongues of Rumi. My new spiritual ritual, he is. I want to feel a heat at the base of my spine. That heat will rise to my naval and run down my thick, chocolate colored thighs. Put on repeat, that flame will rise to my chest and pulse with my heart emitting an energy so powerful it will kiss my teeth and I will spew the light of passion. Mental explosions of purposes will fill my head space and my feet will move toward justice. My steps guided by him lightly holding my hand as a reminder he is always with me. My steps lead me to heaven, my head in the clouds. Unconscious ingestion of sweet, warm ethereal precipitation. It is in my mouth. It is my skin. It is in my nose. I want to live here, with my head in the clouds.

My head is in the clouds and my Boo got me. He is on his Psalms 23 vibe. He knows how I am. He knows that I serve myself, the Universe, him, better this way. Deep breath in, clouds fill my pores. I am moist. Lying back, I close my eyes and blink in the clouds. Deep breath out, I release the pain of generations from my tear ducts. Holding my head back just a little more, parting my lips and exposing my tongue, I drink in the future. I feel it rolling through to my fertile places and I give birth to hope, song, and joy. My head is in the clouds.

He is always there, surrounding me with his sunlight to all at once inhibiting me from drowning, but letting me live in the waters of all that has been beautiful since time was not time. If this is what the Creator felt, I know why the Universe was brought forth. Celestial orgasms bring forth esoteric back spasms. Life is inevitable. My head is in the clouds.

My lover cleans my wounds of vulnerability so they do not get infected. He is my healing.

Dear Lover, I am waiting for you. I am the pretty one over here making drinks with her head in the clouds. I may have missed you before because I was cloud chasing, chasing clouds, and the rain was loud. Dear Lover…

I am a lover of words.
Words, I am your lover.
“I wake from my slumber
Miss how you put your love on me” -Daniel Caeser
Love make words to me.
Words, I want to have your baby.
Baby words will grow into paragraphs
Words, make love to me so I can have lots of little paragraphs.
I’m gone tach those paragraphs to be revolutionary
Revolutionary paragraphs turn the world around
Revolutionary paragraphs, revolutionary words
Words, I wanna be your lover.

Words, I love you
I am your lover.
I want to hear all the ways you roll off tongues
Words, I don’t want to miss not one of you.
I missed you, Words, and you broke out in riots.
I miss you words.
Don’t leave me.

I am a lover of words.
Words, I am your lover.

“If you’re not careful the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing” – Malcolm X

Y’all, for the past week I have been trying to write something about the countless incidents in America that the media has shown us of police officers murdering Black people. I was angry, but I had not articulated it before. I thought I had it last night though, especially after watching Trevor Noah. He’s black and I was black, so he knew what I was thinking, right? I was ready to hit submit and post it to this page, but my writing just felt incomplete.

If you have read anything else from me, you know that I take my art seriously. I will not waste your time nor my platform to offer a piece of regurgitated, shallow, false narration. I refuse to do the work of the puppet master. My work serves to represent for Basquiat and Sister Badu and they wouldn’t go out like that. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I couldn’t feel it rolling down my eyes and I didn’t make the blog cry, so I hadn’t delivered a message from my parents. Universal Love and Courageous Perseverance were my genetic donors, but Unrelenting Ego and White Noise kept trying to adopt me.

I slept on it. All that being woke wore me out anyway. As I rested, Venus descended into my bedroom and hovered eloquently over my back. Using only her breath, she moved my beautifully twisted hair away from my ears. I think she was allergic to something because she sneezed, and I was awakened. The sneeze left the wetness of love on the side of my face and it rolled into my eyes. Since I was up now, I decided to grab my cellular device to see what joys the world of social media held for me. At first, my vision was blurry from that esoteric moisture, so I had to put on my rose-colored glasses to read. There was a message. “Sister, do not forget who you are. The media will have you…”, well y’all know the rest. The deliverer was not Brother Malcolm, but Brother George, one of my social media friends, and fellow artist. His art was tattoos, but when you spoke the language of the ancestors it the results were always the same.

As I read the note meant only for me, I choked a little. Godmother had infected my system with the antidote to my ignorance and I was alerted to what was missing. There was no love, no acknowledgement of my connection to humanity. My deepest truths were not in the content of my written confessions.
Originally, I asserted that I had been in a constant state of fear for my son because he was a Black man in America. In my initial scribblings, I explored how my concern was more for my one son than my four daughters. I spoke of Maurice as a victim and my passion project, and myself as his only savior and protector. All of that was bullshit, total malarkey, mere recitations from my oppressors. All the information I had neatly placed on paper was from the curriculum of the College of Self-Destruction, and not what the soul of me knew to be true. There was no connection from my heart to the pen and thus no translation into humanity for me to share.

I have always carried with me the knowledge of who I am. I am Isis, wife, mother, and sister who can not be defeated. The goddess who took her broken brother, patiently picked up all the pieces of him, and made him whole again. My brother, Osiris, was a king in Egypt and when he descended into the pits of the underworld of Any Ghetto, America, he ruled that with brutal, graceful dominance. It was not my purpose on this planet to accept a place at the soles of defeat, but to always exemplify and glorify love. I was my brother’s keeper. I used my wings, not to fly above others in the winds of sorrow and self-pity, but to scout for the broken and help put them back together again. My people just needed time to rejuvenate themselves. My love taught Horus to service humanity with passion and adoration.

I was not afraid until the media told me I was. Warriors have not ever wrapped themselves in the weak coverings of doubt and fear because that was a sure path to destruction. Maurice was not an example of the racist practices of a sick nation. Maurice was not a movement. Maurice was himself, just as we all are. He was not to be protected because he is endangered, but to be empowered to rebuke aggressors. “There’ a war going on outside, no man is safe from…” -Prodigy of Mobb Deep. I have always wanted justice and peace and have always moved to those ends. My son, my daughters, your sons, your daughters all need to be taught to swim in the vast oceans of abundance that have been left to us by our ancestors. I have sought to understand and then, and only then, to be understood. I was not afraid. I will do no harm, but I will take no shit.

I submit myself to you in peace and love,

Claudia

“If this world were mine,
I would place at your feet
All that I own
You been so good to me…” Luther Vandross

Dear Net,

I wanted to write you a letter of appreciation for your companionship on this journey we call life.

I apologize for not being here when Jef died. That was tragic. He was a terrible husband, and a lost father, but a wonderful friend. The conflict you must have felt as you fought the incongruent emotions of grief from the loss of your best friend, and the comforting feeling of not having one more argument about the destructive nature of alcoholism must have straddled you with burden. I knew what you felt without your formal acknowledgement because I was your big sister. My responsibility was to instinctively know what you felt and to speak light into your empty spaces.

I wanted to tell you that I had always been blessed by your willingness to drop all of your commitments and be the VP of Operations at Claudia Shivers Central, where the job description said only that you be able to cover my children with unconditional love for an undefined period of time and with no monetary gain. Neither of us knew what love without conditions looked like, but I was determined to figure it out, and you were determined to follow my lead and, as a result, be a brilliant aunt. You mostly strived to be different than the examples we had seen from ours who sat idly by as we were homeless at the ages of fifteen and sixteen. You loved my babies so much that you bought a chair just so they could write on it. Ultimately teaching them that no matter what they did they were always welcomed wherever you resided. You loved them with an energy that proved to be its own antidote to the harm you endured from years of abuse from your own parents. You loved them with a passion that has passed through them and into their children so that a four year old’s remedy to anxiety is not to yell, or strike someone, but to take a minute to take deep breaths until she finds her center. Thank you for that.

I wanted to thank you for not calling the refs for each time I pulled you off the bench and put you into my game. This time it is coffee. Last time it was prison. One time it was breast cancer. Hey, do you remember when you had plans on coming down to go with me to my oncology appointment, but then we had to plan an impromptu wedding in 48 hours? What was my child thinking? We had a wedding on Sunday or Monday and went to see the doctor on Tuesday. You the realest.

I always felt guilty about that time you got raped. I tried so hard to protect you from all the predators that visited our house to see our mom, but that one got by me. Maybe because we were on our own then and I thought we had escaped any immediate threats. That memory still haunts my subconscious though. I know I was only seventeen and you were a year younger, but I should have seen it coming. Whenever I have seen you in tears that memory returns to me. I should have done better.

I missed you, Net, when I was in prison. I missed calling you throughout the day and forgetting what I called for and staying on the phone anyway. I missed hearing Jef in the background trying to interrupt us just because he wanted attention. I missed that you didn’t really care about many social issues because you just wanted to hug trees and write poetry. There were so many social issues in prison chile, it was exhausting. I missed telling jokes about everyone we knew and everyone we wanted to know. I missed friending people on Facebook with you just because their page was funny. I just missed you when I was in prison. A lot.

Thank you for coming to visit though. You took a couple of buses and caught a ride with the kids and slept in a house with strangers so that we could sit together and laugh at people we knew and people we wanted to know. You did not care that you had to ride for twenty-one hours just to visit for 8. Thank you for that.

My dearest little sister, thank you for riding and always being down like fo’ flat tires. Thank you for not bringing up old shit. Thank you for having faith in faith and not in fact. Fact told you that two little Black girls from a small town in North Carolina with an alcoholic mom and a philandering dad were only ever going to be two little Black girls. Faith told you that the Creator of all that is divine would not send us here without a purpose. Thank you for believing in my coffee dreams. I have seen where this is headed. Thank you for being a social entrepreneur and opening a Black owned bank, the North Carolina Bank of Gratitude and Trust, Inc. You gave me my first credit card and it could not be paid off in cash, but only in service to others. I still have that account in good standing.

Thank you for rocking with me for 40 plus. I look forward to 40 more.

With all love and gratefulness,

Sis

My dear Brittany, my dear Chevara,

You have helped me sing, my song of freedom, when all I thought I had, were sad, sad songs.  Thank you Brother Bob Marley for that.  I’ll take it from here. 

On August 26^th of last year, I pulled up to a federal prison camp to surrender myself, or self-surrender.  Before I got out of the car, I made a few phone calls, one to Chevara.  Her gift to me as I relinquished my right to be free was the opportunity to use my voice.  She encouraged, damn near insisted, that I write her letters so that my story could be heard. I embraced that present and the harder I squeezed, the more it oozed self-reflection, love and opportunity.

At times reflecting on myself looked a lot like my lack of acceptance of another inmate.  Sometimes it sounded like the voice of a Baltimore drug dealer speaking with a tongue laced with venom.  “Who the fuck are you Claudia?!”  Who was I?  Who am I?  I didn’t know, but I did remember Chevara’s gift.  I ran to get to my pen and my notebook and began to write. 

I had several mis-starts. “Hey Girl!”  No, that sounds like we’re teenagers. “What’s good Che?” Nah, I don’t call her that.  It sounds kinda fake. Finally, I settle on, “Hey babe.  I’m here doing well, and I think I’m losing my mind.”  I go on and on from there, giving examples of the disappearance of my intellect.  Other ramblings of other things and ending with the conclusions I had come up with since the commencement of that correspondence.  All ways and at all times she was a vessel of acceptance.  She accepted my letters from the Postman.  She accepted my reflection as the work I had to do for myself.  She replied with a simple, short, intense email.  “I’ve received your letter.  Your penmanship is beautiful.  I cried as I read it.  I love you.”

With so much time in isolation all I could do was take another look into my mental mirror, but this time with my friend’s words as my rose colored lenses. That mirror slowly began to show me an image I had been missing since I was a very young child.  All this time I had been wearing the dollar store shades which caused my eyes to deteriorate and my ability to see my beautiful self began to fade. The words of my mother, “You are an evil child,” played in my head so many times before that email. I never questioned her because her tone was low and intentional. Anyway, mommy said it, so it must be true.

Loving, caring Claudia made her final exit when her daddy left.  In a pain-filled tantrum, Minnie Lou Clodfelter Shivers looked her directly in her eyes and spoke matter-of-factly.  “I only had you to keep your dad and you couldn’t even do that.”  With that, the Daughter of Innocence was transformed into the Mother of Self-Destruction and now sat in isolation in West Virginia.

Remembering those words, I again got out my pen, my notebook, and wrote an urgent message to Chevara.  “Hey babe.  I am here, doing well.  I am just afraid that if I love gang affiliated Angie you all won’t love me when I get back.”  She emailed yet another volcanic response, “I love you beautiful spirit.”  The email was hot.  It burned my useless, protective layer of self-doubt to ash and produced fertile soil.  My love was able to grow. 

On July 7^th of this year, I went to my cube and regifted Chevara’s gift to me.  I got out my pen and my notebook and scribed a note to my Bunkie and Kelsie, my two PBF’s (Prison Best Friends).  “As long as I can speak, you will always have a voice.”

As friends do, all of mine kept their promises.  They welcomed me home on July 8^th with enthusiastic caution.  They checked on me and brought me the resources I needed.  Chevara brought Brittany.  Brittany told me I looked like Rakim and handed me a microphone.  Now I am a microphone fiend.  You can witness my addiction to sharing my story for the healing of others and using my voice to bring attention to issues that make us feel ashamed, by going to The Winters Group website and watching the podcast on “The Inclusion Solution”.  My sisters honored me by helping me sing my song of freedom, my redemption song, because that’s all I ever had.

It was so weird. I had no idea I was even sleep and all of a sudden I was rudely brought to rise from the strong heaving of my chest and the pain in my temple. The aching was sharp, hard, and abrupt. I had been in the throws of a nightmare. Where are the Geto Boys when you need them?

I will describe it as accurately possible without having a master hypnotist around.

I was walking around at the park with my brother when I saw some of the women I had been bidding with for the past ten and a half months. I almost didn’t recognize them because Neka had on make-up and Summers-Grace had on skin-tight pants. (She was always talking about what she gone do to some man somewhere so I guess that’s why she was there). I don’t remember who all I saw, but there were at least eight of them. I said, “Dang, all of y’all got out at the same time?” They responded with terms I had become familiar with in camp. We laughed and chopped it up for a little bit. I got comfortable.
Right then my ankle monitor began vibrating non-stop. I immediately took off running looking for the nearest phone so that I could call and report to the halfway house. I needed to reassure them that I was not trying to be deviant in any way. Before I could find a phone, a Black man came out of nowhere. He was driving a golf cart. “Ms. Shivers, get in and go with me.” I walked so slowly towards him it was like I was trying to obey him and run for my freedom at the same time. “Where are we going? I was just trying to call you.” He ignored my question and called some White man on his walkie talkie. “I got her. Where do you want me to take her?” The voice responded, “Bring her in.”
Starts hyperventilating… “No, you don’t have to take me. I was just going home. I won’t come back out.” The pangs in my chest got worse. Tears flooded my face. He did not even look at me. He just faced forward. “I have no choice,” he said. Me: “Where are y’all taking me?” “I don’t know. You’re just gonna be doing the tour.” He meant I would not have an official designation. For the next seven months I would be going from camp to camp not knowing where I would be, or how long I would be there.

Oh my God, I cannot do this. I barely did the last bid. I had to plead louder because he could not possibly be picking up what I was putting down. “I can’t do it. I can’t go back.” I fell to my knees when I saw the White man. “I can’t. Just give me one more chance. I won’t come back outside. Please. Please.”
And just like that I was back at home in my bed, face buried in my tear-soaked pillow. Head pounding like there were worries trying to escape from right behind my eyes. Chest feeling like it was recovering from an anime intense blow. I was still trying to catch my breath.
I sat up trying to get my bearings. It was midnight so I chose not to call anyone. Anyway, I don’t know that I would have made sense. I did send a couple of texts, though. One to remind myself to journal about this dream. My friend was always busy so I knew she would not respond, but would honor my spirit by keeping the text in case I needed it again. The second one to the night owl who was usually good for saying something that distracts me from my current situation.

I still stayed up though. For the past month I have been staying up until I see the sun rise just so I would not have time to dream. I sleep in the daytime. I fell for all of that “get some rest” nonsense this week. I had not graduated from college, but now I had graduated from conscious to subconscious panic attacks. The School of Hard Knocks made sure I got that degree. I should have just stayed up.

Recovery came in the form of Andrea, one of my daughters, coming in from work. “Andrea, will you bring me some Advil?” My salvation, they will relieve the pain, but I’m still staying up.
Picks up phone, starts “I’m Home” playlist because somewhere between Sinead Harnett and H.E.R. I will find my way back. “Cause I feel so comfortable with you,” H.E.R. “Taste of your lips is still fresh,” Sinead.

Now a song is coming from inside of me. Well, more like melodic words that remind me who I am.
“Silent nights
In silent fights
Single woman
Single Mom
Dodging one more
Single bomb.
It’s cool.
The fire makes my skin glow.
The ashes make my hair grow.
That boom sounded
Kinda ill though.
Self-taught
Self-reliant
Small things
To a giant.
Somebody hand me my crown.”

“I fell in love with you, girl I miss us.”  I’m singing along with Torey Lanez and Bryson Tiller and making “Keep In Touch” a love song to myself.  Self, taking yourself for granted will no longer be tolerated.  This is the last day you create a world of doubt as a safe haven from beauty and success.  This is the last day you demand more of you than just simply learning to have gratitude for your presence in the world.

All week I have been trying to come up with something deep and reflective to share with you all.  I felt it was my responsibility.  I needed to send you evidence that I am still worthy of your attention, positive attention… 

…I got nothing. 

I have been working on learning to enjoy my journey, but this is the part that always gives me the most trouble.  I spent many nights away at camp thinking about how I was going to practice patience and gratitude when I got home.  I prayed, “God give me one more chance.  I will get it right this time.”  But what if I don’t?  I prayed this prayer several times before.  Once when I totaled that Acura back in 2006 with four of my five children in the car and again in 2014 when I found out I had breast cancer. 

Every morning since July 9, 2020 I sit up in my bed with the intention of keeping my promise to God.  I make a to do list and start ticking away at it.  Find a way to make money that supports my family and speaks to my passion.  Check.  Enroll in school and classes to make sure I am highly qualified and prepared for new opportunities as they come to me.  Check.  Spend time with the kids, check on my friends, the list goes on and I update it once a week.  I never added self-care to the list.  I have not practiced enough gratitude and now I feel my patience leaving me. 

Now that I have written the previous paragraph I realize that what is holding me back from the level of success I deserve is my refusal to accept that there is a time to sow and a time to reap.  I have to remind myself constantly to have gratitude for being able to turn the soil and plant the seeds.  Today I am grateful for having the seeds to sow, the land to plant it in, and the strength to be able to do it. 

I read something on social media once.  It was, “Fate whispers to the warrior, ‘You can’t handle the storm.’  The warrior whispers back, ‘I am the storm.’”  For some reason that hit my spirit just the right way. As they say, that meme hit different when you going through something. 

Fate is defined as “the development of events beyond a person’s control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power.”  Since I looked up that definition, I got the definition of storm as well.  “A tumultuous reaction; an uproar or controversy”.  Hell, I might as well leave the definition of warrior here while I am at it, just to be thorough.  Warrior is defined as “a brave or experienced soldier or fighter.” 

My analysis, fate has no business whispering to me.  Fate does not even exist.  All that exists is what happens in truth and love and the fruit that grows from their union.  The storm, well, I am that.  The beautiful, tumultuous, necessary uproar that makes magical change happen.  Warrior, there was never any question about that.  I am brave. I am experienced. I am a fighter. 

What you have read are entries to a journal I no longer use because I have a platform now.  There was no particular purpose.  It is a mental cleansing so that mental and emotional toxins do not overwhelm my body and skew the intention of my work. 

Thank you for listening.  Thank you for the love.  Leave a message if you need me. I will be in the mirror having a meeting with someone that I love, but have neglected for a long time.

(Presses play, closes eyes, takes a deep breath and just listens. “I fell in love with you, I fell in love. Girl, I miss us.  Nah, I won’t front, got me so sprung.  ‘Cause you, you’re one of one…”)

Dear Love,

When you called me this morning Teyana Taylor began to sing to me.  “Wake Up Love” she said as your warm, calm tone filled my ears.  Ahhh, there it is, that security that my soul has felt since our first conversation.  I felt the protection in your voice, and it comforted me as I focused on hearing you with my intellect and not my insecurities.  You called me pretty early so I knew it was something important.  You even vibrated my smart watch to make sure I answered.  “Hello” I said more out of habit than of consciousness. 

I listened intently as you prepared me for the damage fear had left for me in the comments section as I slept.  I hadn’t been resting well and so in a fog of sleep deprivation, I listened.  I listened.  I listened.  I listened.  I listened and out of curiosity, went to social media to see what was so impressionable that it called you to action.

I first read the preface you had written to me.  You started your post by acknowledging the purity in my purpose.  You told everybody that I offered “simply reflections” and expected “no response”.  You told everybody, every single one of those 4,012 friends and however many friends they had, that I only asked that you acknowledge me.  My writing was my therapy, your ear a sanctuary for my pain, my thoughts, my story. 

Fear sat there like Huey Newton in that Black Panther poster, holding a spear in one hand and a gun in the other.  Fear was right there under your words, and it smiled me.  It had been expecting me.  I was welcomed with open arms.  A feeling of darkness washed over me and I felt the familiarity of lack and self-doubt.  Fear hugged me with a stench of resentment and a strength that did not allow me to fall as my legs became weak.  I would only become a shell of myself believing that my vulnerability was my tormentor rather than my salvation.  I read the words that fear left for me.  Fear called me a liar, told me that I was not deserving of you or the table that you had prepared for me in the presence of mine enemies.

And as you do Love, you made an observation and spoke to my soul.    You sang me the words that Sister Michelle Obama had written for me to read when I was away at camp.   “Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result.  It is vulnerability that breeds with self-doubt and then is escalated, often deliberately, by fear.”.  Equipped with the blessing of that remembrance you called me back.  I realized that my self-doubt had gotten on those automatic steps on its way up to meet with fear so that the fate of failure could finally take me out. 

A tear fell, “Love, I am afraid,” I cried. 

You kissed my forehead, my mind opened.  You touched my ear with your tongue, and removed the barrier of toxic wax that allowed only destructive sounds to enter.  You rubbed my lips with your words, “repeat after me,” you said.  “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.  Herein lies the peace of God.”  It was “A Course in Miracles”.  You embraced my reconstructed breasts and my heart became armored with the protection of my ancestors.  A warrior’s heart.  You knelt and massaged my feet.  “Your walk by faith will be long.  It will be hard.  No matter what, I will always be with you,” you said.

Love is God.  God is Love.  God called me this morning.  Herein lies the peace of love.  I am at peace and know my purpose.  I love this peace.  I became Puffy and remixed my sister’s words from “Becoming”.  Success is a feeling long before it is an actual result.  It is vulnerability that breeds with self-confidence, and then is escalated, often deliberately by Love.

Love, thank you for calling me this morning.  Thank you for waking me up Love.

With absolute sincerity and infinite gratitude,

Claudia L. Shivers