Category Archives: Lifestyle

photography by Florence Ward

True friendships are priceless. To quote an old African proverb “A friend is a hand that is always holding yours, no matter how close or far apart you may be. A friend is someone who is always there and will always, always care. A  friend is a feeling of forever in the heart.”

Throughout my life there have been more than a handful of people I have been fortunate to call friends. I don’t see many of them as often as I should, and sometimes I miss making phone calls to say hello, or wish them happy birthday.  One friend just celebrated a very special birthday. While all birthdays are special, Alfredia (aka Fred) was born during Leap Year, so it is only once every four years she celebrates on the actual day she was born . . . and I forgot to call her!

Fred never misses a birthday call and is too laid back to wave a ‘How could you forget’ flag in my face, nonetheless, I still feel guilty!

Perhaps the guilt is because she always remembers my birthday, and we’ve been friends since pre-school. When she reads this post she’ll probably say, “Aw, girl, no worries, I know you were feelin me!”  Yeah, I’ll always be feeling you Fred, because childhood friends like you are one in a million.

We met in Sunday school during a time when lacy ankle socks and patent leather shoes accessorized our girly-girl outfits; which included bonnets and scratchy crinoline lined dresses!

After Sunday school, Fred and I would sit for the next hour of church service with our mothers. Scratchy dresses and hard wooden pews made it tough to sit still, but we did; smiling at each other whenever our moms weren’t looking, for fear of a slap on our leg if we got too wiggly. The minister would barely be finished with the benediction and last “amen” before we ran outside!

As a young girl, Fred had the thickest longest hair I had ever seen. I remember thinking how much pain she had to endure each morning when her mom twisted, pulled and braided all that hair into submission.

Over the years there have been many adventures and changes in our lives; we have shared giggles and exhilaration of new loves, and lots tears and tissues after painful heartbreaks.  As we entered our 20s and 30s, it was first marriages, the birth of our children and a devastating divorce. We have supported each other through serious sickness and lost of family and friends; we got through these times by sharing our grief and loving each other even more. When we get together, it doesn’t matter if months have passed between calls or visit, we are able to pick up where we left off, telling and re-telling the same funny stories.

All of my friends are strong, independent, loving people, and it’s comforting to know that if, and when tough times come, all I have to do is look over my shoulder and I’ll see faces of good friends, like Fred who have my back.

Happy belated birthday my friend.

photography by joelleim

I have been going back and forth about whether or not to post this blog under  “me” or an aka . . . So my profile and name have changed a few times, as well as the “look” of this blog.  An alias has advantages for obvious reasons. You don’t have to worry about filtering content and you say what you really feel; something I have always admired in people who are blunt.

As annoying as the trait of ‘being blunt’ may be, I prefer it to the opposite.  If asked, “Does this outfit look good on me?”  Most people really want to know the truth! So I have decided to be me and not hide behind an aka or alter ego persona. As my mother would say. “I’ve lived long enough to say whatever the hell I want to say and dare anyone to say anything to me about it!”

So out of the shadows I come. Hello world, here I am. Love me as I am or leave me be!!

Val

I stopped by Caribou Coffee this morning to treat myself to a cup of coffee and a muffin before heading to work. I hadn’t been there in a while so I perused the hanging menu list for something good to eat while waiting in line. While trying to decide between an apple fritter and a low fat berry muffin my eyes were drawn to a picture and headline on the Washington Post. On the front page was a very large picture of a full figured black woman with short natural blond hair wearing a sports bra and spandex work out pants! The headline read “Full of Love for Full Figures – followed by a sub-heading “Black women tend to outweigh white women but like their bodies more.”

Without thinking I snatched up the paper, folded it under my arm and ordered my breakfast thinking, “I can’t remember the last time I bought a newspaper but I have got to read this!”

I didn’t have time to read it when I first got to work, so I gave it to my co-worker to review while I finished up a morning assignment. A few minutes later I heard. “Oh Lord” following by a chuckle. She then came around the corner holding her chess (still laughing) and read out loud from the article.

“In the pre-dawn darkness, the gym doors closed and the black women started to move”. . . My eyes widened and my jaw dropped and I thought. “What the HELL, is this an article about fitness and health or National Geographic?  “Wait” she said, “There is more,” then read, “Her ample bosom strains against the top of her sequined half camisole.” “Oh my god,” I said, and we both threw our hands up in the air and laughed out loud! – “I don’t know if I can read the rest of this,” said my co-worker and she went back to her desk only to come back a few seconds later holding back her laughter as she read another quote from the article.  “She demonstrates hinge-kicks above her own head and sweat darkens the waistband that clings to the uber-roundness of her bottom!”  We both look at each other and shook our heads. I handed her a highlighter and said, ‘Please highlight those lines . . . this is unbelievable.”

Now mind you our outburst of laughter was not because we found the article funny, ha, ha . . . but FUNNY in the sense we were shocked by the descriptive narrative and the fact it was on the front page of the Washington Post!

We then handed the paper to a white female co-worker who responded the same way. “Oh My God, is this a sex or romance article?”  We all tried to see some relevance and agreed it was admirable that the woman featured in the article was proud of her full figure and taught an exercise class . . But that was the only positive factor about the article. The next question we all had was “Who wrote this?”

Lonnae O’Neal Parker was the byline above the article. When we looked at the bio we were surprised to see she was a woman of color with a Masters in Journalism and a regular feature writer for the Washington Post Magazine. I repeated the discovery out loud, still shaking my head, “A woman of color with a Masters in Journalism, whoa.”

If the intention of the article was to applaud full figured black women for having a more positive body image, it failed. Instead, the descriptive narrative of the article (as usual) focused on stereotypical imagery, highlighting how statistically different we are SUPPOSE to be as black women.

Val Bey