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I usually write in the morning. It’s my best time for thinking. But the past few weeks my mornings have been preoccupied with work. I have been in grant writing mode since the start of March. It’s has been a painful and bittersweet journey to get back into. The last time I went on this journey was about a year ago and well, I failed. So to get back on it again is full of trepidation. But still I continue. When your mind is as chaotic as mind, grant writing can truly become an obsession. Ta-Nehisi Coates in the Beautiful Struggle noted how when he obsessed, he wanted only what he wanted and gave no attention to other matters. Grant writing is like that for me, a beautiful struggle that keeps me transfixed whenever I begin. Someone asked awhile back to a catalogue my grant writing process. How do I begin and how do I end?

Grantwriting is like a beautiful struggle!

For starters the beginning is full of doubts. I try to find any reason not to write a grant, not to put myself through the process, not to even think that I may have any idea and that the idea may indeed be valuable. In the beginning, I dread the grant writing process. But then slowly it’s like I am bitten by a bug. A grant bug. I look for the deadlines. If it’s 2-3 months away, then it’s potentially doable. But more doubts creep in. Who are co-conspirators? Is it worth bringing them along? What will they add? Why even bother? There are more doubts in the way of starting any grant journey. They key is to wrestle through it with different folks until the bug bite becomes an itch that simply won’t go away. The more you scratch, the more the ideas start to make sense until you plunge headfirst, into a grant writing abyss that takes you on an never ending journey towards many unknown. I am currently on that journey. They doubts are still intense but the people I keep meeting across this journey are the fuel I need. Take for example today. I was in a room full of black scholars. All seven of us have one degree or the other and we came in all shades of brown skin so divine, that it makes you want to join Beyonce and say just how beautiful we are when we come together for our people. I have no idea where this particular grant journey is taking me. I am also prepared to fail. That’s another part of my process that I share with every one I encounter from the beginning. We may fail but I would still rather go in this journey with you. It’s is a journey after all and like I always say, I am glad I have a plan. Surrounding myself with the right people, learning from them, adapting or changing the course of the grant where necessary all while nurturing that which makes us unique is the reason I absolutely love grant writing. I keep diving head first to as it’s it’s a journey from the head to the soul for me and with the right people, i am prepared to fail. But what if we are transformative. That then is the start of an endless journey, once that the destination is still unknown. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything else (singing Brown Skin Girls)…

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Blue skies on a clear day. Trees, confident ones too, standing tall next to the sun. All glorious, all majestic, is the sun, blazing, on a glorious day where the blues skies are clear. I imagine these words whenever I see this picture painted by my daughter. It was from her girls scout meeting this past weekend with her troop. The last time our family met in person with her troop was over a year ago and today seeing this painting personifies the hope for me. Hope for a future free from a pandemic like the assurance that there will always be days where the skies are blue. I also imagine there will come a day where mask wearing isn’t the norm and social distancing is no longer in vogue. The CDC began to usher in such a day this week with their latest mandate that folks who are fully vaccinated can meet without masks with other folks that are equally vaccinated. It’s the kind of relief we have all been waiting for, hoping for, like blues skies on a clear day.

Blue skies on a clear day by Lotanna Ezepue.

Amidst the pain and toils of such a pandemic that spared no one, hoping for a day when the skies are blue, and the sun blazing, with trees standing confident and tall, is like my hope for a pandemic free life. One that I’m praying will come to fruition but just in the US but in India and Brazil and every where where the virus continues to tighten its grip. Such a day is possible. One can only hope it would arrive soon with every one doing their part to ensure that everyone they know is vaccinated. We all need to be vaccinated as it’s for the public’s good. I imagine that a day too will come when the vaccines are not just for those in high income countries but for people anywhere for one one is free unless we are all free. Where the skies are truly blue and trees truly confident may seem impossible even for a pandemic. But we can only dream and for today, I pray this too comes to pass. Keep blue skies and confident trees in mind for a post-pandemic phase where all of us are vaccinated and the pain and suffering and deaths end.

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There is something about motherhood that keeps me in awe every single time. It’s that journey between being pregnant and welcoming new life. My people call it a journey and they are quick to remind you to say nothing until you go on the journey and return safe and sound. I take this journey very seriously. Which is why you would hardly see pregnancy photos of myself plastered anywhere. Not everyone makes it through the journey. I get it and I value that too. So to go on the journey and come to the other side safe and sound, is the most awe inspiring moment ever.

Our latest

Today, another great woman I know went on that journey and brought forth this little bundle of joy. There are no words. Seeing the picture above evoked memories of my experience. I remember the first nights vividly, of wondering how I would take care of the baby. They are so tiny in the beginning and so fragile that the idea of becoming my responsibility can be so daunting. But still, we persevere. To be a woman, to be a mother is no small feat. I am reminded about this everytime I hear another story of another successful journey of another woman. Those who never make the journey too, keep me alert. I know that fear all too. Every pregnant woman comes across it too and not make it makes me just as equally speechless. There is power in womanhood, in motherhood and it’s a gift I will always cherish. So when my family grew larger today, when we literally welcomed new life today, when we told another powerful woman I know that we thank God for the journey mercies, it dawned on me once more that there is power in being and becoming a mother. Something I will always celebrate and cherish for the privilege this aspect of my life entails. So in honor of our latest arrival, keep knowing the sterling power of mothers. We are awe inspiring every single time we bring new life to this earth. We are awe inspiring just as we are. It is by no means a easy task but you are still there and for that, I celebrate you mothers for all you do.

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One of the key micronutrients for plants essential for stabilizing cell walls and membranes is calcium. It also acts as a second messenger helping plants sense and physiologically respond to environmental cues. So a soil’s calcium content is crucial for plants and their survival. Enter flowering dogwoods, a key source of calcium.

Flowering Dogwoods.

One of gems along the street by our home is an array of flowering dogwoods. Spring seems to be their time to shine. And they do with their bright pink colors dominating the sidewalk. Flowering dogwoods are best known for their high calcium content. Their foliage, twigs, and fruit are high in calcium and contains amounts that are above those needed for adequate skeletal growth by other species in the environment including birds and deers. But it’s their ability to improve soil content that I want to dwell on today. Flowering dogwood are known as soil improvers due to their calcium pumping technique. When their leaves litter, not only are they a rich and important source of calcium for soils, but they decompose more rapidly than other species making its calcium content more readily available to the soil below. Yet regardless of it abundance, only about 16% of its calcium content are sequestered to the soil and other species. The rest are retained within flowering dogwoods. The only way soils can tap into 84% of its calcium content is when the leaf litters around it. Let this sink in for a moment. For soils to access the rich intracelluar content of a flowering dogwood, the tree has to shed its leaves. Otherwise the calcium content remains within flowering dogwood. Which is why for me and today’s keep, motherhood for those who work and care for others is like a flowering dogwood.

The past few days of my life have been busy with me delving into a grant-writing full time. For the past seven years, most of my grant writing occurs during the Spring semester and my process is like the story of a flowering dogwood. On the surface, I’m just as pink as can be, truly bright and radiating with ideas that are as splendid as a flowering dogwood. Something about Spring season makes me feel alive and full of ideas hence grant writing. But can I be honest? No matter how much I write, my grants only get 16% of my time. Like flowering dogwood, despite being abundant with ideas or calcium in their case, none of that will come into fruition unless reviewers understand our 84% potential.

Most mothers in academia and elsewhere maybe relate. We give our all, often a small portion of our existence, yet we are only fully vindicated when others see or know for themselves the full breath and merit of our potential. Nothing in my grant will say how I wrote this while homeschooling or being a mother to four children. Nothing will shed light on all the multitasking it takes to write grants. Nothing will even highlight all the meetings, all the phone calls, all the assistance, all the sleepless nights it takes to put just one grant together. This is why I can honestly say I consider gender greatly when I review grants. For to be a mother, to put in just a fraction of your existence into any grant, is a tremendous feat alone. I’m not saying or asking for grant reviewers to be partial to mothers or women, but when the statistics shows that most successful grants are by men, flowering dogwoods should come to mind.

Of course men are successful, they can put in 84% of their best foot forward while women actually give 16%. Take a look at the graph below from a paper I usually share at the start for my grant writing course. Men remain in funding pools at rates higher than women overtime. The funding longevity for women are low, with women holding fewer grants in general, submitting fewer applications and successfully renewing grants. Let me repeat this again for emphasis, flowering dogwoods and their potential should truly come to mind here. Of course the statistics are worse for researchers of color but that’s another post for another day. Our resilience is out of this world, not only as a mother, but as a black woman in academia. I usually joke but maybe it’s isn’t a joke, but if only I had a space to go away and just write my grants, maybe a weekend getaway or sorts with no kids crying or no after school games to schedule, then every grant would get my 84% just like soils get the full calcium content of flowering dogwoods when their leaves litter.

For now, 16% will do. That’s the lesson I am keeping from flowering dogwood. To still do my part to improve the public’s health, even if all I can give is 16%. It’s for this reason I ask you to keep working mothers like flowering dogwood in mind. We can give 84% if only conditions are right. But rarely are conditions ever right, so what you see from us is only 16% of our potential. And when that 16% thrives, when you come across a working mother who makes the most out of her 16%, get out of her way and watch as she blossoms like a flowering dogwood.

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We had a quiet earth day today. Maybe it’s the emotions from the week, the guilty verdicts, and accountability for a black life that mattered. Maybe it’s a mother plea for her son, gone too soon. Maybe it’s the fact that we find ourselves here again this time for a 16 year old girl. Maybe it’s just the thought of what can we really do anyways. Maybe it’s the longing for days when all this madness ends. It’s equally hard to have concerns for the planet when our hearts are restless and our lives in peril. But I want to stay hopeful for what is life without hope. So in figuring how to make the most of today, I took a closer look at the bald cypress tree in front of our house. This tree is truly one of the oddest trees I have ever seen and it’s oddness starts with its seeds. Apparently these seeds are consumed by all sorts of birds and it’s an important source of food particular during the winter months. Something about how they adapt gave me hope at time when hope seems so far away. Bald cypress tree is known for being rough and adaptable and they produce seeds that helps others survive and thrive. That after all is what Earth Day is all about. That we learn about how plants and trees do their part to help us thrive and for today that’s all I’m keep.

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Yesterday was emotional. For once in a long time, accountability was given for humanity. George Floyd may have had a big heart, but it didn’t mean that those with small hearts prevail. And because of his big heart, something has got to give. Something has got to happen so that his death, even the justice given for what all our eyes saw, reverberates for generations to come. Generations will learn about George Floyd. Generations will hear what happened to him for 9 minutes and 26 seconds. Generations will know about the bouquet of humanity that saw a human being who deserved to live. Generations will learn their names, including the child who asked those sworn to protect us to get off him. Generations will learn how people marched, how people asked for justice for what just is, what eyes see every day. Generations too will be appalled about how a black man was murdered in broad day light with no impunity for humanity. Generations will see the pain in the eyes of black people who wonder everyday whether it’s out turn, our homes, our communities, our lives. Generations will never forget George Floyd. People may fear what they don’t understand, fear what looks different, fear even black skins, but that does not give you the right to murder us, to hate us, even when you can’t conquer us. They couldn’t conquer George Floyd because he lives and forever he will because of the accountability that began yesterday. You can hate us now, but because of George Floyd and the bouquet of humanity that stood by him, we will keep fighting for justice even from your hate and pray your small heart finds the love it needs.

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The four top stories on NPR this morning were on gun violence. Three of them were on police violence on minority lives, black lives, black men, a teen, Adam, who was only 13 and in 7th grade. Despite what they say, his last acts where his hands up in the air. Then in an instance he too became a name we add to the air. A familiar stance. We have been here before too and once again we say his name not for fame but because his life, like the lives of all God’s children mattered despite the trauma another mother, another family, another community encounters.

There is a virus that is spreading as fast as wildfire. The name is racism and the victims are minorities, black lives, black men, black boys in the hands of those sworn to protect them. It sickens me as a black mother. It keeps me hypervigilant even though my black boys are only babies. I see their smiles this morning, all three of them. I listen to their empty banter about food on the floor and whether it’s still safe to pick it up and eat. I watch as they play with each other, while eating and shudder for what tomorrow holds, whether their future would be whole. It’s the same helpless, restless thoughts that continues to consume and frighten every black mother I know raising black boys in America today. This virus has left all of us vulnerable, all of us helpless, all of us restless, all of us ready to become resilient, and all of us in desperate search of ways to usher healing from this vicarious racial trauma that inflicts its trauma in our lives in a continuous manner. Healing is the only thing that we want. Not because we can bring an end to exposures from racism or racial traumas but because we can and want to take ownership of the future we want for our children. One where they will be free to be and live as children, as boys, and men, with black lives that matter. Its an ambitious ask. I know. But we have to become bold for this transformative healing. It’s may also seem trivial our hope for healing but it’s the only thing that seems to matter so no mother feels a hole for their child who deserves to be whole. It’s my ask for today. Keep demanding for healing from this trauma for us by us.

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Many and wide scale efforts have been made to address some of the most intractable health disparities of our time. Still and even in the presence of evidence, many people do not have access to these evidence-based practices. How far research evidence can make an impact is an open question, one that I am prepared to answer, not necessarily with new ideas, but with disseminating existing evidence-based ones that work. Granted, they say it can take 17 years to get evidence-based practice to people who them. 17 years, while my people die and perish for tools that actually exist. We don’t have 17 years to wait. Rather, turning what works for those in need of healing is a very serious matter. Take racism for example, we don’t have 17 years to address the continuous exposure to racial trauma caused by this ism that continues to torment and destroy our spirit every day. We don’t have 17 years to wait for yet another bright idea that may never get to people in need of healing. We don’t have 17 years for even research, only solutions that usher in healing today, tomorrow in a manner grounded in sustainability. We simple don’t have 17 years to heal our differences.

Communities of color will adopt these ideas if you show them the evidence. Many of them already use these ideas but are in need of evidence-based strategies to understand for example, how they work, whether they are using them correctly or how to increase engagement or how to make them last. That’s where researchers like me come in. I am passionate about making what already works, work. I am passionate about creating platforms so people in need of healing with evidence-based strategies can use them now. We are not guaranteed tomorrow. For all we know, the future will include more racism and exposures to racial violence that literally kill our children. Our best hope, our best guide through this continuous oppression that seems to have no end in sight is to reach for light, insist on its presence with tools that are destined to usher healing from day 1.

To be forming such a group with like-minded scholars passionate about doing this work is my greatest joy. I really don’t know where this will take me but for my community, for my children, for black and minority youth in the US, my spirit is restless. I also refuse to sleep until something gives. It’s now my greatest calling, to use the gifts I never knew I had to make sense of ways to usher healing until. The more I dig with my professional life, the more I do the thing which keeps me alive, and hopeful. That thing called storytelling and grantwriting. The more I hone in on this skill, irrespective of whether i succeed or fail, the more I realize we already have tools that work, evidence-based ones too. I am on a mission to bring it to the people that need it the most, to make space so it lasts. Until then, keep penning a way through healing our differences.

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What are the things you wish to change for yourself? What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What hurt, or pain, or emotions do you swallow day by day? What sickens you, even kills you, still in silence? These words from Audre Lorde’s essay on transforming silence into action are my daily source for life. I highly recommend every woman to read this transformative essay by Audre Lorde. It literally changed my life after an ugly, painful experience I faced last year. It helped me transform my silence into action. It also helped me face my fears even at the risk of being annihilated. I can gladly testify that it helped me understand fully that many people are not suppose to journey with you through life and though that may come with fears of it own when the journey ends, because of this essay, I am prepared to face my fears.

So can I be the face of your fears. Look at me. I am woman. A black woman. A black woman and a mother. A black woman, a mother, and a researcher. A black woman, a mother, a researcher, a grant writer. A black woman, a mother, a researcher, a grant writer, and a story teller. I am me, through it all, fearful or not. I am also a warrior, too, with so many scars. I am willing to do my part, to share them so you change your ways and become the warrior that you are destined to be. Can I work with you to transform your silience into language and action? It would be my greatest joy to journey with you on this journey we both find ourselves so you to find your way to breaking all the many silences you have. This sharp awareness, to the full possibilities of journeys we take, whether in fear or in light, is the keep I am sending out to the world today. Break your silence, transform them and face your fears. When your do, you will live a deeper life, one full of power and awe of the possibilities that flow within you.

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How do we heal when lives are cut too soon?Remain calm when lives seem forever doomed? When do we start to usher healing, insist on its presence, demand its existence? Is it when we plead for our lives? Is it when we say we are afraid or when you remind us that we should be? Is it when we wear uniforms or drive cars with visible forms? Is it when we serve our countries or expect our countries to serve us? Will that ever happen? To hear the tears in his voice, the fears through the noise. To hear another mother plead for a son gone to soon is becoming insane in a country where guns are used too soon. So when will all this end so healing can begin.

I yearn for the days, we mend. Days our ways bend towards justice and our dignity towards freedom. Humanity demands that we stay hopeful for such a day when you and I do not have to be hyper vigilant as we gather once more for yet another vigil for a life gone to soon. When will healing arise in this place, in this space, for a people committed to ways that are more than just what is. I ask because I’m tired. Drained, emotionally, worn out. All this never ending pain, always seems to end in vain. If it’s not the needless deaths from a pandemic that we could have controlled, then it’s the endless deaths from a violent pandemic we fail to control. What about our children? How do we protect them from all this and at the same time remind them that they are our better days, our brighter future, even though we expect them to keep their guard up and remain vigilant.

I don’t have any answers but I want healing so deep that it can only be love. Love for you, love for me, love for humanity that sees a human in things, like when a child holds a toy, or some teens blast their music or like when our hands are held up or we cry and say that we can’t breathe. This love is the necessary air we all need from the weight of this continuous racial violence which continues to suffocate though we breathe. There is a Black ant crawling on my floor. It’s see the shadow from my hand and darts away as fast as it can to the nearest space for safety. I imagine lives like this ant. Nothing can protect you when hands are raised up high to destroy you. You who belong to a people, a place, a space, a community.

You are also worth fighting for, no matter what they say or do to diminish your worth. You are more than deserving of every breath that is in service of your humanity. You are a life force worth celebrating whether they see it or not and every encounter does not deserve to end in a count that should never be. No encounter should include another life gone too soon. No gaze of us, whether when we seem aimless, should end as if we are nameless. We are not. Is this healing possible? They may think we chant aimlessly. But even their aim is lessened when we chant even louder that Black Lives Matter. It’s a simple three letter word that reverberates this need for healing. Something that we demand for today, tomorrow and so long as we have breathe. Healing is the justice we seek to keep for a world that refuses to just see. This one is for Daunte. Give him justice.

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I am on a mission to experience joy in my journey through life. To that, I am learning what makes me feel whole. Bell Hooks’s Sisters of Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery is leading the way too. From her, I learnt that I am moved by passion. It’s in everything I do these days. Reading and learning about myself, using words to shape my life, my own way, my hurdles and my hopes, makes me hungry for opportunities about the life-force inside of me. Passion has also helped me break free from the clutches of others. More than ever, I am reclaiming my life, reclaiming my dreams, reclaiming my peace and telling my story along the way. My sense of self is becoming more in union with those I call my community. For them and only them, I am moved by passion.

My journey through life keeps unfolding!

I am also moved by two things storytelling and grantwriting. I didn’t realize how both helped me love and live my life on my own terms. But they do. With stories, I am able to counter the narratives you may have of me. With stories I insert myself into herstory (her and story) so that myself has the final say on what they, you, anyone, say about me. With stories I am free to be me. When minds are decolonized, anything is possible. Nothing I say about myself can be used in contempt against me. Its my tools after all, sharpened in my hands. Just as knowing what you do is equally important with claiming your space in academia, it is so true that none of this will ever make sense, if you don’t understand your why, your reason for being, your core. So in meeting the challenge to create a space where I flourish, I am passionate about writing grants. It helps me understand my core a lot better. It is also storytelling at its finest. For to convince strangers to give you money, requires a very beautiful story worth telling over and over again. And when you have that story, once your iron out it’s kinks and make sense of its arc, it’s constraints, it’s opportunities, you will find out that it’s all connected to the core, the why, the reason for being. It’s an endless journey, this journey, my journey.

The ability to combine my pleasure for storytelling and grantwriting is the forth dimension to my life. Some may know me as a mother. I value this life immensely. Others may know me as a wife. I equally love this role with my partner in crime, my fiercest critic who is ready to tell me as it is, even when it hurts. Some truths about oneself are different when they come from those who love you. Others may know me as a professor, a researcher. I remain grateful for the opportunity to serve in this capacity. But few know me as a storyteller and a grant writer . It’s my best asset, my greatest secret, my strength and place of safety. In my stories and my grants, I am most alive whether I succeed or fail. I learn so much about my possibilities just because I tried. It’s this dimension that I intend to spend time honing. A movement is coming. One that will expand this experience of joy, the experience of companionship, one story at a time, one grant at a time, all of which I have learnt from this journey through life. It will be led by women for women and I will be part of it. Putting this movement together will be the greatest joy of my life. For know, keep this journey, my journey, our journey in mind.

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Pandemic hair. It’s a thing. And for many people, it’s personal. Full of stories. Some that are cringe worthy. Some that are truly part of this moment we find ourselves in, even grounded in the need for an anti-racist lens. My family has it own story too. Early in the pandemic, around this time last year, my daughter had the grand idea that cutting her own hair would be fun. So she did what most kids her age do, grabbed a scissor and trimmed the front of her hair. We have since spent a year trying our best to get the front grow back out and it has. My own story is well messy. I basically gave up on my own hair. Not only did I not regularly shampoo or even condition my hair, if I am being honest, I simply didn’t care for it. I figured if I was going to be home anyways why bother. So I pat my hair into 3 and gave myself 3 braids, a stocking cap and a wig. I spent the year falling in love with all sorts of wigs and pretended I didn’t have actual hair. Fast forward to yesterday. A moment of reckoning. I faced my hair for the first time in a year.

My pandemic hair!

My hair must have been disappointed in me as I was disappointed in me as well. I booked an appointment at the Paul Mitchell school for my daughter and myself. We both needed a proper iron work and a hair cut. Something about going to this school brings a smile to my face always. Maybe it’s because of the many young women of color that I come across as students. Many just starting their journey through figuring life on their own terms. Others, in need of something else, something different, for themselves, their families, and on their time. I met one such brilliant young woman yesterday. Not only does she work as a mail-carrier, gets up 4am in the morning everyday by the way for her regular job, she also manages to find the time to come to school all while not being home to her seven year old son, her crown, her reason for being. Her support system is excellent though, especially with one of her aunt who promised to give her shop to her once she gets her license. I asked why not something else, why hair. She emphatically restated why not hair. She loves doing hair, has always loved to do hair, just needs the license now to set herself up for the future on her own time. I was proud. It’s for women like her that I gladly patronize the school.

My phenomenal black hairstylist for the day!

So we set out to do magic to my hair. I apologized profusely as I knew she would be so disappointed in me. I was disappointed in myself too. She used the best Paul Mitchell products on my hair, and spent close to 30 minutes removing so many tangles. It’s like I was receiving a new birth. Untangling myself from the tensions and stress caused by the pandemic all from a hair therapy. She intuitively knew what my hair needed and my soul was full. By the time she was through with my hair, what I felt was dead to me, came alive for the first time in over a year. If my hair could speak, it would say a vote of thanks to her for a job well done. I wish this is where the story ended. But it isn’t.

Her magic hours (yes hours) later!

My daughter’s experience was something else. This was the first time at the school and well, it didn’t go as planned. For starters it began with some that, well never handled black hair before. It went downhill from there. I didn’t mind at first because the teacher in me felt the need to give her a chance to learn. She didn’t seize the opportunity. It’s been said that black people are forever willing to give others a chance but others never really try. So I’m learning now to trust people to be and see them for who they are. Those willing to try will show themselves for who they are too. My daughter’s learner didn’t. It took close to 4 people to try to get my daughter the treatment she deserved and when all else failed, my own learner came to the rescue once she finished my hair.

Sis tried to teach fellow learner!

Being anti-racist has signs that imitate actions. These signs are a representation of who we are and they society we want to live in. These signs are also the basis and the process of how we choose to evolve as a group. They are inseparable from ourselves and if we choose to live in an anti-racist world, trying is not an option. I learnt that yesterday at a hair school of all places. It’s my keep for today. We don’t need those willing to try. We need people ready to stand in the gaps to demand an end to racism in all forms and manner and especially from the hair follicles down to the soles of our feet. I made the mistake of trying yesterday to be open. It cost my daughter unnecessary stress that we black people endure only to find strength in ourselves. I’m done doing that. I will still return to the school but I know who I’m booking with next time. No use pretending we are all in this together. Some of us have life goals worth celebrating at the school and for them I’ll be back. Keep an anti-racist lens even with black hair.

When Sis took over!