Bring your people with you.

home is knowing... knowing your mind, knowing your heart, knowing your courage.

About a year ago, I saw a video of Maya Angelou’s 1992 commencement speech at Spelman College. In that speech, she discussed how essential it is to know that “when you walk into that office, you bring everyone that has ever loved you with you.” Until hearing that quote, I could never put my finger on that feeling of luck I feel has carried me thus far. Yes—I’ve done the work to accomplish whatever goal I was attempting at the time, but I’ve always felt a… hand… an aura, around me that allows me the freedom to go and do as I please. With age, I’ve come to realize that it is neither luck, nor an aura, but it is community.

Some of my earliest memories are of my family, immediate and extended. Memorial Day weekend cookouts at Lonnie Miller Park, early morning sunrises on Jacksonville Beach followed by us filling the large dining room at the Golden Corral, all of us going to pick out Christmas trees on Black Friday and having a crab boil directly after at the white house or the yellow house. The most difficult concept to grasp about getting older is seeing your foundation become smaller right before your eyes. Within the last two years, my family has suffered three major losses. Their deaths weigh heavily on my chest each day. People who have loved and supported me, every version of me, gone in an instant. Traditions tarnished, holidays that don’t seem as warm. It would be so easy to sit in the despair—but looking at the remainder of your community with hope, and love, and finding the joy in everyone still actively around you, has provided me with a safety that I’ll never know the full value of.

I look not only to my blood family for this solace, but also my friends who have become family. As my time in Florida draws to a rapid close, it’s becoming harder and harder to imagine what my day to day will be like without my community in arms reach. I think back on the last few years of my life—the risks I’ve taken, the places I’ve lived and visited, the memories I’ve made—each of those things can be linked with a loved one who has carried me and supported me through my own bravado. The entirety of undergrad; being able to move to Charlotte with Kayla; moving back to Florida and bonding with Jade; working for a year with my girls all on the same unit (shout out to the CV baddies!); going to Texas with Marianna (and Sydney) and having the most unique experiences together. All these things now a part of the foundation of my very being, becoming distant memories to hold onto, because I’m (once again) daring myself to try something new. The only thing that brings me comfort during this transition? Knowing my village will always be with me wherever I choose to go.

My maternal grandfather passed away when my mother was only 19 years old. She always recalls a time after his passing when she was having a particularly difficult time. She remembers being back in her room at FAMU, in tears, and seeing a cardinal come to her windowsill. At that moment, she knew it was her father, and he was letting her know that he would always be with her, and that she would always be okay. My mother carries that encounter with her, and it is something she has passed along to myself and my siblings.

When I was worried about moving to Charlotte, I saw cardinals on the drive to my apartment search, and then in turn, once I’d picked the apartment that I was going to live in. When I’d decided to go back to school, I was so worried that I wasn’t making the right choice, and it wasn’t a good time—I would see cardinals damn near every time I walked out of my home. When I got word that my beloved aunt had passed away, and I was 14 hours away in Austin, I was greeted by a male and female cardinal outside of the door of my Airbnb (a symbol that my aunt is reunited with my grandfather, her brother). There are those who don’t believe in things like the symbolic nature of the cardinal (or the blue birds, or the butterfly), but I know my own truth. Through my darkest, most insecure times, I feel my ancestor’s guidance through the cardinal—and I cherish it each time I see them. I take the knowledge of the cardinal with me everywhere I go.

Transitioning into grad school with the knowledge that I’m prohibited from working, I’m one of three black people in my class, Erin is moving to Mexico, my family is 7 hours away, and that I have neither the time nor capital to travel to visit my best friends in their various corners of the US—terrifies me. There have been numerous times over the last six months where my mother, my therapist, and my friends have had to talk me off the proverbial ledge. I feel like this time of my life is so very different than any other time I decided to move with the wind—I can no longer solely look to myself for support. I’m having to learn how to navigate being alone, while simultaneously allowing myself to be open enough for my family’s support—and it has been tricky.  My community has lifted me up throughout my life, and I know that I’m blessed to be able to say that, as many have no external support. To my family, my best friends, and my ancestors: thank you, I love you. To the cardinals: I’ll be seeing you.  

And so, Dr. Angelou was right: bring your people with you. Has any achievement been accomplished without support? Sure—but we don’t roll like that over here. I used to think that leaning on others could be seen as a sign of weakness, like I didn’t deserve what I had because I didn’t do it all by myself. I now know that is a false narrative. I think of those that came before me--my great-great grandfather who was a slave; my great grandfather, a railroad worker; my grandmother, one of the first Black women to work at a newly integrated Vystar; my grandfather, who sold insurance door to door while undergoing cancer treatment; my mother and great-aunt and cousins that became amazing nurses—these people paved the way for me to have the audacity. So, with that audacity, I will go on… but I’m bringing them with me.

Here’s a link to Dr. Angelou’s speech at the Spelman commencement.

*also I listened to the last half of the soundtrack of ‘the Wiz’ on repeat while writing this… so if you want the full vibes, take a listen! (start at the ‘emerald city sequence’)