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Since I began blogging, in April of 2018, I have always had a title prior to my actual content. I looked.....I even stared (there is a difference) at the title section, then I tabbed down to where you type the actual content.  

At this moment, I have no idea what I'm going to write. Another first. 

I do know that I have been promising to blog for months. I have even written dates and made promises, and you "liked” or “loved" the posts on social media. Then. Nothing. I had nothing. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I always have something to say. A story brewing. An incident. Past or present. And as a woman said to me in 2019, "Well, you know you love to talk,” which isn't quite true. It also hurt my feelings. Can you tell?

This is the reality. I love to tell a story......which sometimes comes out in the most irritating, rapid-gunfire, incessant way. I see what she means, I guess. 

My first audience was my baby sister, Yvette. I would come home from school and tell her everything that went on, but I always put a spin on it that made her sit patiently and listen. Or I would read books—sometimes boring, historical books—that I made come alive. 

As adults, one day she said, "I always loved listening to your stories," and I beamed. By the way, if she is ever telling you a story, run. They are long and drawn-out and sometimes, you forget what she was even talking about. But she does have a beautiful way of telling a story with her voice. She is a singer extraordinaire. Moral of the story: if she has a pianist with her, you are safe. 

Each time I told you I was going to blog, I meant it. I even had an idea that I jotted down. I had a thought about something I found interesting. Then, life......

You would think that in a time where social interaction is limited and people are somewhat sequestered, that I would find myself with all the time in the world to share. That was not the issue.

The truth is, the outside world has crept in and stolen my writing ability. My wit. My quips. My penmanship. It is almost like I do not know where to begin, and if I started, you would be reading a novel. But the novel would have so many chapters and no fluidity and no rhyme or reason. 

It would be romance, horror, fiction, non-fiction......based on my life and also based on my dreams; yes, like this sentence, it would be all over the place. 

So I have no blog. I have the recent passing of Chadwick Boseman, who played T'Challa......the superhero of black children and others. I have Jacob Blake, Breonna Taylor.....George Floyd......I have people, including myself and my youngest, who ran for 2.23 miles to honor Ahmaud Arbery.

I have Emmett Till who was 14 when he was lynched and Tamir Rice who was 12 ……I have Sandra Bland......I have Trayvon Martin.....I have friends I went to high school with who support a man and slogan that is aimed at making "America great again". 

I wish I had an old rotary phone. I would painstakingly put my finger in the hole and swing it around 7 times and when they answered, I would ask:

Which great do you desire to go back to? When my forefathers worked your fields? When my mother's, mother's mother breastfed your mother's, mother's, mother's children. When you hosed my people like dogs or spit on my people at the lunch counter? Or was it during the middle passage where my people were forcibly transported and made the final journey to Charleston, South Carolina? Interestingly enough, I went there in 2019 and ate shrimp & grits and thought of none of this. 

This is all I have. Minus the title.