Tickled with Anticipation

I spent some time not long ago looking at engagement rings, wedding gowns, honeymoon spots, and floral arrangements. Trying to put a face to the man I'll spend forever with and the kids we'll make and raise and love. Delving into careers that I would love to wake up to partake in daily. Imagining the home I'll help create. Spent some time attempting to look into the future and tried to figure out life now and how it'll affect life later. Consciously attempting to coordinate steps so that they only positively affect what's to come. Of course, the end result left me empty handed, but, the attempt was made.

I've always said that we get from life what we put into it. And that's the honest to God truth. Should you contribute nothing to this one life of yours, your harvest will return to you ill fruits and parch land. But, should you sow your land with grace and dedication, your harvest then will return to you the best things of this life. But not necessarily in a fashion or span of time that you may see fit.

I can tell you with the straightest face possible, I have no clue what life has in store. I don't know what to expect come next week or six months from now, let alone a year or more from now. Regardless of how much I "plan", life does it's own thing; I'm just a participant in its show, a pawn in its game, a squirrel trying to get a nut - to say the least.


I just want the best out of this life and I hope the same applies to you and those in your immediate circle. But in wanting the best out of this life, we have to make some pretty tough decisions, burn some bridges, tear out some chapters, cry plenty tears, and do some back turning. And we have to do all of this hoping on a wish and a prayer that the end result is a life that when we sit back and reflect, we can confidently and proudly say that we are happy and satisfied with the decisions made.


Though this may sound like some internal battle of good versus evil quipped with the past fighting the future, it's not. It's a woman playing with her own thoughts and hoping, wishing, and praying that her life from here on out is full of nothing but joyous surprises because after all, she is truly tickled with anticipation and can't wait to see what is on its way to her.

Ol' School Married Kind of Love

I remember I'd said to him in a serious voice and an even more serious facial expression, Divorce is not an option for me. I'm not marrying nan soul just to get divorced. You marry me, and you're in this for good - til death do us part. Needless to say, he looked at me as if I'd called him every foul word and name known to man. So be it. I meant it then and to this day, still do.

Marriage, is not a joke. Yet it is and continues to be made fun of. Marriage is treated as if it's something to do before you die. Something to try out like a pair of red bottoms. Test it out and toss it if you don't like it.

Bull-sugar-honey-iced-tea!

There's a special woman whom has taken the place as my Great-Grandmother because mine passed when I was two. This god-fearing woman, with a sharp tongue and fabulous sense of humor was married to her husband, until his death, for 63 years. They'd gotten married in Atlantic City, New Jersey at the local court, said their vows, and walked around the corner to eat dinner at her parents home. Simple. Old school. Classic. But most importantly, everlasting.

I'm 23 and by the time I was born, they had been married for a good 40 plus years already. They took their position and role as husband and wife seriously. They realized and understood that there's a reason that 'we' is spelled with no 'I'. There's a reason that couple is spelled with no 'I'. There's a reason that 'vows' are spelled with no 'I'.

I was reading and studying my Bible recently about marriage, and in it I found this passage: "...and that he said, 'That's why a man will leave his father and mother and will remain united with his wife, and the two will be one' So they are no longer two but one. Therefore, don't let anyone separate what God has joined together." Matthew 19:5-6 Perfect sense it made and makes. Oftentimes, we, both as individuals and couples, as items, allow for others and everyone else not only into our relationships but into our bedrooms, and subsequently, we allow for them to decide what does and doesn't happen in our relationships. We allow for them to curve our attitudes and emotions, how we feel about situations and about our partner. We, allow for them to be the third person in our relationships.

Some time ago, I had a conversation with one of my best friends about marriage. I'd made mention that I wasn't going to drop my last name - I'll just hyphenate. Calmly, she said to me, 'Why do that? Take your husband's last name and be happy, make it known you're married. Plus, you've been Clark your entire life and last time I checked, Clark wasn't married.' She made it clear to me that if marriage is supposed to and is designed and designated to be a union, it should be treated as such.

Marriage today is played with entirely too much. And society wonders, questions, why. Celebrities don marriage the same way they do purses and diamonds that cost more than what most of us make in a year. Statistics are spewed at us in heavy rotation of how marriage is failing and falling while divorce steadily increases, exponentially it seems. We hear friends talk about being single for life because there aren't enough good girls or bad boys; that they're tired of the same ol' love song. Tired of running the love gamut.

A friend of mine on Facebook whom my parents grew up with, also an on-air radio personality for Philadelphia's local WUSL Power 99FM, Uncle O, posted recently on his Facebook status that "Some of yall wonder why when u get married it dont seem like nothing has changed...one reason is you have to drop the maiden name[,] a hyphen in ur last name dont show ur new hubby that u are ONE[.] drop old habits and get new habits...Joint bank accounts same last name the whole nine...u guys become one but u still have separate lives. Just my opinion. I see a lot of hyphenated last names not good." Needless to say, a lot of women told him he was wrong, gave countless reasons as to why they've chosen or are choosing to hyphenate or not change their names when they do get married, and at the end of the day, made it clear that they didn't feel that changing last names was necessary. I for one, absolutely agree with him.

"Everyone wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die." Sounds like marriage to me. Everyone wants be loved unconditionally; wants their own piece of the pie, but doesn't want to take the necessary steps to get there. Doesn't want to do what's necessary on their part to make sure the entity remains intact.

No, I'm not married. Never been. But someday I will be. And I'm doing it once and one time only. And it will be til' death do us part, in sickness and in health, through good times and bad.

Marriage by far is not a two-way street that allows for us to be one, yet, walk in opposite directions - defeats the purpose. Instead, it's a one way street with two individuals from two different walks of life, walking, trekking, running, traveling, and experiencing this all together. At least it's supposed to be.

Many of us have become lazy and assume that once the engagement is agreed to, the ceremony and honeymoon take place, that no work is necessary. We feel that no work is needed and that things will just fall into place on its own accord. We assume that our partner knows we love them, and that there's no need to say I love you, I need you, I want you, I appreciate you. I admit, here and now, right here on this blog and in this piece, that's a mistake, a move, a decision, a habit, that's not worth making. It's not worth making assumptions that he knows you want and desire him. It's not worth thinking she knows you love her with every fiber of your body. Speak it into existence and let it be known. Speak it into existence and practice it, show it, prove it to be true. Love, as much as it is about itself and proving that it's real, it is also about knowing.

I remember freshman high school non-fiction with Ms. Litman and one of the first lessons was show, not tell. And for months, he asked, borderline begged me to show my love and not just tell it. Show it in simple kisses when I arrived home from work, or send a text message explaining just how much I not only loved, but missed and couldn't wait to see him, type of love. We'd been together for nearly three years at that point, and he was still asking me to do these simple, basic feats, but I, a fish as stubborn as a bull, silently refused. And I can say now with every womanly existence I have, it was an uneccessary refusal because love, is work. Point blank. No way around or away it. It's a 24/7, 7 days, 52 weeks, and 12 month job.

Love and relationships, including marriage is ongoing, nonstop work. And it seems to me, that we're either too afraid or too lazy to work for what we claim we want, need, and deserve - including our partners - whether married or not.

I vouch for old school married kind of loves. Trade in our platinum weddings for City Hall in Sunday's best and quaint celebrations with those who truly are happy for us. Trade in the contractual concept for the love contract, til' death do us part, for better or for worst. Trade in hyphenated names for family names, married names. Trade in 10 year relationships that turn into two year marriages and end in divorce, for everlasting togetherness. Trade in the girlfriend, homeboy, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, tweaker, hoochie, boyfriend and girlfriend #2, side jawn talk with husband and wife conversations in bed, together, late, and full of love. Let marriage be what it is supposed to be. Let marriage exemplify the best of love, and at times, the worst of it too.

I speak and write, I attempt to practice these very things, because love and marriage are one of a kind; they are simple and basic, they are fragile and easily break like 60 year bones. If it, whether the relationship, love, or marriage, is what you want, ladies and gents, men and women, lovers alike, I beg of you to work on it. Fix it. Struggle and hustle and bustle for it. No longer allow for irreconcilable differences to be the reason you end what at one point and time you wanted. No longer allow for your mother, father, sister, brother, aunt and uncle, cousins, nieces and nephews, friends, co-workers, strangers, groupies and hoochies alike, man on the street, the cat, dog, or goldfish in the bowl, be why you don't make it.

Yes, it's that deep.

I'm Truly Yours

Phyllis Hyman



Special thanks to Uncle O for allowing for his status to be used. Listen to him and Mikey Dredd, The Hot Boyz on Power 99 FM (98.9 FM) in Philadelphia from 6-10pm Monday-Friday

am's inspiration

I started this nearly 3 years ago and am JUST finishing. Nonetheless, it means more today than it did then. Hope you enjoy!

this reminds me of timeless novels named after the main character - simple titles. charlotte's web. selah's bed. song of Solomon. resurrecting mingus. sula. assata. you get the drift. but this isn't even about amity, more so for her and me and any other woman who may read this and understand the joys and pains. the frustrations of adulthood, livelihood, and trying to be and achieve something in life without much guidance. it's hard. and most days, it hurts.

the inspiration. the love. the passion. most of it has left me again so I can do me again and search and find me again. to look at me and change me again into a new me again. find a joyous me that has found a lot that I can say I love you in front of my mother type of again - again,

this is about the life of a girl turned lady who's still fighting to become the woman her mother so eagerly hopes shes trained and raised her to become. this is about the heart that has been through some things but keeps going. keeps searching. keeps trying. keeps praying humbly for change and honesty and consistent love.

I hope this inspires you to do more. to be more. to understand more. to want more and therefore, achieve more.

so am called my bluff without her even knowing it. I've been trying for a while to write something with the same umph my past writings had. something striking and poignant. but I failed to realize that words written with truth are poignant and prolific alone. they stand on their own like a persistent toddler who insists on learning to walk but to stand on its own. without help and guidance - only inspiration. even more so, I fought with myself to do this and still am because there's nothing I can find in the obvious, nothing that sits directly in front of me that screams pain and therefore begs for me to etch its existence and my memory of it on paper. It's said that writers write best when in pain. Or upset. Or angry. Yet, none of these apply to me.

when creativity takes a break, life happens because life has to go on and it has to get things done. accomplish a goal. teach lessons. change the lives of other people. it inspires. it sees and feels and tastes and hears and smells new things to inspire and build and create something new.

many, most, if not all of my writings have been mere exhibitions of what it was and felt like to be hurt and pained. to have been wronged and left to lick wounds that originally werent there - wounds that we tell ourselves shouldn't be there. but in all honesty, they need to exist and need to live in order for us to learn. I've learned this and still am learning that my body, heart included, is nothing less of an open, blank, plain picture, sitting silently and still, on an easel, waiting to be scribbled and written all over on, to be negated and loved, to be hurt and healed, to learn and be miseducated - to be painted on with blood stained hands and lips.

I know I'm a woman. I was born with a vagina. raised as a girl. grew breasts. learned about sex in-between my mother and I going to the movies to see Waiting to Exhale as a little girl and that night she sat me on her bed to have "the talk". as a woman now, but specifically as a girl then, and many of us, once as girls, we learned about our sexuality and sex organs in correlation with the difference from a "girls" privates and a "boys" privates. everything we know, we learned by accident. many of us, learned about sex far before our parents told us that god awful Birds & the Bees tale. many of us, learned that fire is hot and ice is cold not because someone repeatedly repeated it to us, but because we had to find out on our own.

for me, it's only recently, in the last few years that I've realized that I am a woman. that my struggles and pains, joys and triumphs, my dreams, are all shaped around and by the fact that I am a woman. I pray for my unborn children and their lives because I am a woman. I want to be loved by a man with the same mustard seed that and hopefulness that I have come to love my God and spirituality because I am a woman. I have experienced many and plenty of hardships and have been knocked down in life because I am a woman! a woman who loves herself. a woman who loves her femininity but doesn't lavish in it. Call is paralyzing if you'd like, but this is beauty and sensuality all wrapped in one.

with time and patience, I've learned and have come to understand that life is shaped by experiences. Experiences can happen to us and to those who we love forever and a day that shapes who we are and who we eventually become. I use to question the validity in such a thought, but with age comes a lot of things, more specifically wisdom and understanding; and there is truth in that thought. and this realization more times than not places uncertainty into my heart as I joyfully look forward to motherhood and a life as someones wife. joyfully look forward to a life of success and limitless possibilities. but to know that what I myself have and will continue to experience in this life will shape the lives of my children and my future generations, and even, may shape the ways to which they view me. that my pain and joy will mold the lens to which my husband and children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews will view me in this harsh world. so, I secretly pray away from others but publicly in the corners of my bedroom that the lens that I will someday be viewed with will be one of strength and respect. nothing more. or less.

there's something sacred I believe in realizing who an individual is to themselves. because, if I don't know or can't tell you who I am and what I mean to me, then I can't tell you anything else. if I can't tell you about self-love, self-understanding, self-empathy, self-compromise - SELF, ME, myself, and I, then I can't tell you anything else. if I can't tell you these simple things, if I can't tell you how much I love and adore myself, then I can't explain the depth of my love for another.