The Summer of Life Lived

Welcome back loves!

I have been gone for such a long time and I have missed you all dearly. I am starting (and this time finishing) a new series on my blog entitled, "The Summer of Life Lived." I'll be taking you all with me on all of my summer adventures as I travel, try new veggie restaurants, and attend cool events. You all can expect a new blog post EACH WEEK.
I promise :)

The first segments of Life Lived is a recap of my amazing pescatarian lunch from Poor Calvin's this afternoon. 

I met my mom and two of my amazing god mother sistergirlfriends for a lunch date at 11:30. During this time, the lunch crowd had not yet arrived, the FREE parking was relatively empty, and the ambiance was beautiful.

The menu, which was moderately affordable, was packed with Asian-inspired dishes. I decided on the Lobster Fried Rice. I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED. I also ordered the "home made" Raspberry Tea with a hint of the home made Lemonade.

My meal was absolutely delicious. Although the service grew a little slow, Poor Calvin's is definitely Naturallykbiggie certified!

I encourage you all to try this amazing restaurant located at
510 Piedmont Ave NE Atlanta, Ga. 30308

American Pie

How to raise a black boy

Or how to raise dying things

Or how to grow oak trees from concrete

Or how to turn 50 cents into three meals

Or how the streets make meals out of brown skin

Or how brown skin settles into pavement by morning

Or how we all felt his dreams spill beneath or footsteps

Or how the system blames us for the mess they made

Or how the street corners feel like an auction block

Or how they sold us this American Dream

Or how they cut us this American Pie

Or how no one left a slice for boys with mahogany skin

Or how no one taught they mommas to love life back into breathless things

Or how no one told they mommas they was birthing tombstones

Or how they carve tombstones from our baby’s test scores

Or how to pass a test you never knew was coming

Or how to fail a test you never knew was there

Or how to walk out of handcuffs made for your wrists

Or how to not love your hood

Or how to not dap your kin

Or how to not do what it takes to make ends meet

Or how to solve a 400 word puzzle with five pieces

Or how to color inside the lines when you ain’t got no crayons

Or how to play free at recess

Or how to walk home from third grade 50 years old

Or how to be born a thug, a killer, a shaken bottle of angry man

Or how to not be angry, man

Or how to see black mommas weeping over walking dead babies

Or how to not see no momma at all

Or how they call the closest thing to Home a project

Or how they tear the project down and build a Starbucks can’t nobody afford to drink at

Or how to make it out the hood they keep such a tight lid on

Or how to sleep and make gun shots your alarm clock

Or how they sell us guns, but don’t sell us books

Or how to beautiful and brilliant in Black bodies

Or how to be more than Black bodies

Or how to be living and growing and thriving things

Or how to avoid unfortunate things

Or how to die as quietly as you have lived

Or how to not live at all

Or how they sold us this American Dream

Or how they cut us this American Pie

Or how no one left a slice for boys with mahogany skin

MLK Day of Observance with Dr. Marc Lamont Hill

I wish, I truly wish, I could journal this experience up into a single blog post for you guys, but that is not at all possible. The fact that I am able and courageous enough to continue to struggle for freedom. The fact that I am able to use my voice as power in this movement. The fact that so many lives were changed, doubts were affirmed, and spirits were renewed. I have no words for that type of love.

Me, being the nerd that I am, had a journal and pen ready to scribble down all of the tokens Dr. Hill left us with. Read and be renewed.

On the media:
"They want us there, not to fix it, but to talk about it."

"You control how people think about the news just by writing a headline. You set the table for how the world consumes a story."

"I don't think about the debate as a space to change minds. I think about the dialogue as a space to change minds."

"We don't trust our own institutions to tell us the news."

On the Black Freedom Struggle:
"This commencement is birthed out of struggle. Every year that we do it, there are people that believe that this work is less necessary."

"The Black National Anthem is a song that emerges out of struggle. And in the midst of that struggle we never said lift black voices, lift marginalized voices. We said Lift EVERY Voice and Sing."

"This tradition ain't about being in front. That's not about freedom. That's not about justice. That's about you."

On the structure of whiteness and power"
"You need the entire infrastructure of over policing for Ferguson to exist."

"White misery is a lot less tolerable in the U.S. We literally had to whiten the face of poverty to make it real."

"The construct of whiteness, itself, is power."

On the American Contradiction: 
"There's a bunch of people who are good at weddings and bad at marriage. America is terrible at marriage."

"At the same time that the state is shrinking, the war is expanding."

"We build first class jails and second class schools."

"I don't have time to worry about poverty because I'm worried about the environment. I can't worry about education because I'm worried about prison. As if there's not a school to prison pipeline."

"They say Negros can't read and write but make it illegal to teach Negros to read and write. They say we're lazy, but make us slaves. They say we're incompetent, but we raise your children."

"It wasn't a speech about dreams, It was a speech about broken promises."

On poverty:
"The suburbanization of poverty."

"People say, 'They died in a zip code that doesn't matter.'"

"People work every day and the months just last longer than the money."

"Living in a poor neighborhood shouldn't mean you get a poor school."

Final Tokens:
"Dr. King wouldn't be endorsing candidates. He'd be prophesying to them."

"To listen to others is to see the inherent humanity of all voices. Begin the work of listening."

"The nation is stronger when our coalition is connected."

"We come out of a tradition of people who put their very bodies on the line."

"If we are going to do this work, we have to choose to be brave."

"Marches, protests, sit-ins are the light of accountability."

"Is there anybody who believes in humanity in its entirety?"

2016 IS MY YEAR!

Happy New Year Folks!

I don't know if you can tell through this text, but I am SO excited to be back with you!
WE ARE ONE YEAR OLD!!!! Turn up for us guys. I want to take this space and tell you all how grateful I am for your unyielding love and support over the past year. I never would have imagined my blog to grow into what it has become. To know that my personal story + journey has impacted and inspired so many of you all, makes my world smile. You all keep me going, even when I doubt my magic!

So it's 2016 and I am declaring this, MY YEAR. I feel an infinite amount of love and light going into this year. I sat back the other day and wrote + reflected on 2015. The past year was a difficult one for me. I didn't feel grounded in my life,  my passion, or the people on this journey with me. I was kind of doing things that I didn't necessarily love or agree with, just because "the norm" was more stable than walking out on a branch and hoping not to fall. I was lost y'all, for real.

Towards the end of the year I realized that the most important decision I will ever make in life is the strength to choose myself. LIFE IS SHORT, and I know we hear that all the time. But truly, life is short and precious. I found myself always waiting on the weekend, or summer, or the right people, or the funds, or a little less fear or whatever. There was always some excuse as to why I didn't do what I WANTED TO DO. I was trying to save myself from myself.

Not anymore.

2016 is my year.
I will fill it with love,
and journal entries,
and random events,
and travel tickets,
and the laughs of friends,
and the warmth of family,
and lovely cities,
and my studies,
and my dreams,
and my poems,
and all of my magic,
each and every day.

I am intentional about my growth, this year. I am intentional about my happiness.
It is up for you to decide on joy, you know?
Life gets hard. We loose ourselves. We loose our jobs. Pain comes. Loss hurts. Complacency is easy.
But what is life if you don't wake up every single day, deciding that if you die tomorrow, you will know that you lived a beautiful and full life...that you gave this world all you've got, that you left it more beautiful than you found it.

That's the kind of life I want to live. I don't really know how it will happen, but I am deciding that it will. I am choosing me today. I am choosing me in 2016.

Get out there y'all.
Travel alone.
Write a book.
Tell someone you love them.
Tell yourself.
Buy the car, the shoes, the chocolate.
Sleep in,
Or wake early to see the sun rise.
Find yourself.
GET FREE, EVERY DAY YOU CAN.


"We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Stay Happy, Stay Healthy
~Naturallykbiggie

What Will I Tell My Daughter Who Is Black?

When I conceive, grow,
and love a black baby into this earth
and she is born 60 years old
and the doctor asks why her spine
is already growing into submission.
When the nurse asks,
why at her 3 month check up
her eyes are already bleeding the color of sorrow.
When she is sucking supple nipples,
and takes just enough to almost nourish her.
Being sure to swallow in consideration
of her great, great grandmother,
who never tasted the breasts of her own mother
because they were too busy being shoved into the mouths
of white babies,
and white men.
When she is never her age.
Always 10 going on 15,
15 going on 30,
30 going on "too old to still be mad at the things that happened"
but too black and woman to forget.
When her eyes and fists anger at the blow
and she comes home
tornado of mad woman whisking down Hambrick Lane.
When she burst through the door
with 400 years of confusion on her back,
and she is heavy and angry, and broken, and thin,
and angry, and almost not here before my eyes,
ripping through the rooms
and falling onto her knees and asking me,
"How mamma? How did I learn this type of pain?"
What will I tell her?

Full Body Skin Care Routine

Hi loves! I'm back with a new blog post. Today's post is all about SELF-CARE. With the chaos of finals finally coming to an end, I decided ya girl deserves a bit of self-care. I want to share my full body skin routine with you all. Remember, always take a breath or a moment. Step back. Step aside. Show yourself some grace, whether it is in a chapter in your favorite book, a trip to the mall with great friends, or a night of self-care in your bathroom. You deserve it, love!

FACE-TIME:

1. African Black Soap: 
Twice a day, I cleanse my face with African Black Soap. I got mine from a local African shop in Atlanta, but different brands are sold all over the city!

2. Moisture, Moisture:
In the mornings, I moisturize with Nuetrogena Naturals Multi-vitamin Nourishing Moisturizer. I apply a tiny bit and follow up with a dab of Shea Butter on top
*dabs*
Shea Butter doesn't work for everyone's skin so be careful and try a little bit at a time.
At night, I apply the Nuetrogena Naturals Night Creme

3. Scrub a Dub Dub:
Once a week, I do a facial scrub to get rid of all the dead skin and stress that college brings! My favorite, because of its price, is St. Ives Blemish Control. You can find this at ANY drug store for the low.

4. Detox Day:
On Sundays, I like to do a facial mask to detox and deep clean my pores. I have been using Queen Helen's Mint Julep Masque for about 5 years. Although the packaging says leave on for about 10 minutes, I usually get carried away and keep it on for a strong 30 minutes. Hey, I deserve it!

GLISTEN ALL OVER:

1. Cleanse:
My favorite hair and body products are Shea Moisture. I usually wash with whichever soap of theirs I can get my hands on. I'm currently using the Olive and Green Tea Shea Butter Soap.
(I've researched and found out they are no longer a black owned brand. If you guys know any similar brands with all natural products that are Black owned, please let me know!)

2. For Sistah Girl:
Dove Sensitive Skin Soap

3. Exfoliate:
Once a week, I like to do a body scrub. I usually find whichever cheap, all natural alternative that is readily available. I'm using Alba Botanical's Hawaiian Body Scrub and it is MAGICAL!

4. Skin Like Silk:
I like to moisturize my skin while it is still damp from the shower. In the winter, because you know...we get a little crusty, I mix a bit of Shea Butter and Coconut Oil in my hands and massage into my skin.

I hope you all enjoyed these tips. Comment below, how you take a moment to self-care.
I love you guys so much + I truly appreciate each and everyone of you for reading my blog. We're coming up on our one year anniversary. I'll be doing a Holiday/I'm a year old blogger giveaway towards the end of the month so stay tuned on how to win!

Stay Happy, Stay Healthy.
~Naturallykbiggie

If You Could See The Light That Shines

  

If you could see the light that shines

The one that glows from fingertips

Seeps into shea buttered skin

And lives even in the cascading of tears

You would know of God’s magic

Of how careful he is with the crafting of miracles

Of how miracle and your name must be the same thing

Must breathe the same air

Must wish upon the same stars night after night

If you could see the stars

The galaxies

The universe in your smile

You would know not much of darkness

You would acknowledge the dim at times

But be assured of the sun's rise in the morning

In the morning

You would kiss your own skin “good day”

Lips would separate the ocean of your magic

If you could smell the magic

The kind that leaks beyond your footsteps

Lingering in all the hearts of all you’ve touched

You would touch like poets upon pens

Upon pads

Upon epiphanies

You would love like the Nile, herself

Move like the bends of her river bank stretched upon your back

You would gift yourself

To yourself

For yourself

You would love

You would love

My God, you would love

If you could see the light that shines