Anticipating

4. Something Like Beautiful

One Single Mother's Story

by asha bandele

In her first non-fiction book, The Prisoner's Wife, asha bandele recounts how an well-educated, middle-class raised poet & journalist finds herself married to a man in prison. And not to a man who she was already involved with who then went to prison. A man she met in prison and married there. I loved that book. She told a beautiful story of love appearing where you don't expect it and a lot of women in similar situations connected to it.

Something Like Beautiful picks up her story as she gives birth to the couple's first child. She didn't make the decision to have a child with a partner who is incarcerated. bandele took into account that while her husband wasn't physically nearby to help raise a child with her, his contribution as a parent and his impending release would make it easier. She never considered herself a single parent like other women because Rashid, her husband, was thoroughly involved in every decision made as it relates to their daughter.

bandele is a poet, so the book is well written and the imagery surrounding the people, places, and emotions is beautiful. I won't ruin it for you if you plan to read it, but a major event happens that is skimmed over and I actually thought pages were missing from my ARC (advanced reader's copy). Over on Goodreads, I've read that others have had the same concerns over this missing chapter of her life.

3. The Legs Are The Last to Go

Aging, Acting, Marrying, & Other Things I Learned Along the Way

by Diahann Carroll

Haven't already written one during her Dynasty days, this book didn't feel like a standard memoir. It read more like a conversation between Ms. Carroll and the reader. She doesn't tell her story in a linear way, instead giving you little vignettes of her life and the resulting lessons.

Relationships are the center of her writing: relationships with men, her daughter and her parents. Her story of motherhood is one we have heard before in the entertainment industry, especially when you are breaking ground and busting through barriers. She more often than not chose her career commitments over her child, knowing that those decisions also are giving her child a better life. Ms. Carroll's father was a pastor at the famous Abyssinian Baptist church in Harlem and received adulation from female members of the congregation. Her mother coped with his infidelities by living through her daughter: showing up to her engagements and hanging out with Ms. Carroll's famous friends.

The most frustrating part for me to read were the tales of her marriages and courtships. From her affair with Sidney Poitier when they were both married to others to her union with Vic Damone, who was jealous of her success and used her to pay off his debt, she consistently ignored her gut feelings and plowed ahead with these men.

Funny, revealing, unapologetic and blunt, Diahann Carroll gives insight into the entertainment industry as only someone with her illustrious career can.

Where Y'All Been

In Dave Chappelle's Block Party (which I saw 3 times in the theatre and then watched everyday for a month straight on dvd) during The Fugees' Reunion, Lauryn Hill asks the audience, "Where y'all been?" As if it was the audience who left and she hadn't disappeared to have babies, go through intense Bible study and learn to play guitar.

I haven't gone anywhere, but I have retreated into my mind where, as a Cancer, I tend to spend a lot of time.

Last week a signed a lease to stay in this apartment another year, once again telling myself it will be the last. I stay because my rent is insanely cheap (I pay $200 less than market value, because of a tax credit program I'm eligible for). The management company has gotten much better over the years, but the quality of residents has declined. When I first moved in, it was families and students of the nearby Atlanta University Center (Morehouse, Spelman, Clark Atlanta, Morris Brown). They are still here, but there is also an added element of thugs slowly moving in. Last night the men in the apartment next to mine had a full-on brawl in the bedroom with furniture overturned and everything. Screaming things like "You don't know me! Bankhead, nigga! Westside, nigga! Recognize!!" Really. People say that in real life. I got out of bed and slept on the couch because, while they were fighting with their fists, you never know when someone will pull out a gun and sometimes bullets penetrate walls.
Also, 2 weeks ago there were several home invasions in one day in this apartment complex, including an apartment under mine. The crazy thing is I was home and didn't hear a thing! Atlanta is getting crazier and crazier, and I know I say it all the time, but I am ready to move on.
The financial issue is holding me back as I don't have money to move. So I got a lot to figure out.

On the work front, we are hanging in there. Retail is floundering right now and we are seeing less sales everyday. Our payroll hours are being cut and we are having to make do with less people and the people are having to make do with less hours. We are always waiting for the other shoe to drop and that can be stressful. On the plus side, I work with some amazing, smart, funny people and we spend the day laughing and keeping each other's spirit up. Need to start working on the resume though. I keep putting it off because I don't have the energy to make a lifetime of retail experience look appealing to another industry. And I have no idea what else I would like to do career wise.

Anyway, that's what I have been up to. Read a couple books. Crocheted a couple scarves. Ate some stuff that's not good for me. Watched a lot of tv. Talk to y'all soon.