HOW DID WE GET FROM THE PYRAMIDS TO THE PROJECTS ?!

FRIENDS ARE THE FAMILY U CHOOSE...>

I'm sitting on the couch in my best friend's living room in Minneapolis, MN. Her daughter TiTi is on the other side of the couch, feeding her baby brother S. Jr. for the first time in her life. My friend Rae is lounging on her chair to the other side of me, and Daddy, her HUSBAND is at work. There's a refrigerator full of food that I cooked, a freezer full of food I cooked, and more to come today - Roasted Chicken with Root Vegetables, and Lasagne with Turkey Sausage and homemade Garlic Bread. Also an Apple Pie will be baked today to go along with the massive Peach Cobbler already in the fridge and in the freezer.

When I first met Rae she was doing her first screening of her first big documentary film at her alma mater. I helped with the PR, not having seen the film or met Rae in person. When I first met TiTi she was still in diapers herself. Now she is so big and grown up, helping me in the kitchen with the homemade crust for the pies, asking me to wait until she gets home from her playdate before I start the Lasagne so she can help. She's doing an excellent job of feeding this beautiful little boy.

I notice there are fewer friends hanging around Rae's spot than last I was here. Now she's a married woman and she has a new infant. I hated to tell her what I know about that, but I said it anyway on the phone recently. A lot of females who say they are your friend or your "sister" or "sista" or that they have your back really are jealous of you and your accomplishments and your life, but they'll stick around through that. What they won't stick around through is a happy relationship, a beautiful union, a marriage, and a newborn Son. That's a little too much jealousy for most women to bear.

Ti's burping the baby. I'm more than impressed. He burped. He's impressive too, for a few-week old. She says it's good to be a big sister. I remember that feeling, and it was good.

Rae says it's strange to have a new little baby. But I can see from her face that she's happy, and that she's safe. She went through the hell, and now she has a real Love in her life, and things are right for her.

I talk a lot on here about my relations, and my relationships, and maybe more about men than I should. Shit most of my family has been in some kind of therapy, or on some kind of meds, or self-medicated with drugs, alchohol, or death of some kind. But I'm not the one. I'm a writer. I live, breathe, and observe. And what I'm seeing now is the truth. This is why we're here. Not just to procreate randomly/rapidly, definitely not to create more monkey business with babymamma/babydaddy drama...but to manifest the human family.

That's what's up.

Give thanks, everyday...

Nasira Miranda Jane
live from Minnesota

posted by WALASIA "MJ" SHABAZZ @ 12:34 PM