Cosmic Dream Portals and Black girl Communion

“We have to consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit because what was native has been stolen from us, the love of Black women for each other. But we can practice being gentle with ourselves by being gentle with each other. We can practice being gentle with each other by being gentle with that piece of ourselves that is hardest to hold...We can love her in the light as well as in the darkness, quiet her frenzy toward perfection and encourage her attentions toward fulfillment...” - Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider excerpt

…And perhaps it's easy for me to find magic, because I'm always open to it and somehow, subconsciously looking for it

And I can't stop thinking about the day the most serendipitous thing happened to me. Walking home from the beach, skin still salted and heart still open, I bumped into another beautiful soul whose energy felt like it was transporting me across timelines. And I haven’t stopped wondering if this, this feeling of transmuting is what people call quantum leaping or timeline jumping?  I wonder, because it feels like I unknowingly fell into a cosmic portal. Maybe this is what it feels like when life catapults you in a new direction? I felt it so clearly this time. The softness of a new timeline fading in and the freedom of letting go of an old one. And my god, I want to be free.

I am still in awe of the ways the stars will align and celestial paths will emerge seemingly out of nowhere. We didn’t even know we were looking for each other. Heart to heart. Soul to soul. It’s like the universe reminded me that it’ll never abandon the brave-hearted, soft-hearted, sweet-hearted, too-big-hearted black girls who are seemingly, unknowingly looking for some relief in a world that too often feels like it's collapsing in on us.

And then I met you, on a random Wednesday afternoon after making “a wrong turn.”  A clear reminder, that the universe has divine plans I can’t even begin to comprehend with my human mind. And I giggle at how right there in the middle of the street at 1 o’clock in the morning we made a dream portal at the crossroads of liberation talk, love talk, grown woman talk, joy talk, imagination talk, sisterhood talk, and just good ol’ life talk. Magnetic. Still feels ethereal to me how we conjured up other worlds and dimensions. Sharing space with you reminded me that in other lifetimes and timelines there is not only space for us, but the world is not collapsing, it is to the contrary-- expanding, growing, nurturing, and carving space for us. Capacious.

And I ask myself: why are you surprised? Why are you in shock when we do what we've always done: put each other back together, stitch each other at the open seams, hold each other with a tenderness that only Black women can, make love honey balms together that soothe the deepest pain, tend to each other with a gentleness the world doesn’t know how to have for black girls, but a tenderness that we’ve always had for each other. I guess this is a thank you-love letter to the woman with the magic eyes and sweet voice. Thank you for reminding me of the kind of beauty and solace that I’ve only felt in this kind of black sisterhood. Or maybe this is mere homage for the ways Black women have always had just the right salve for each other’s aches. 

From the depths of my heart, the heart that hasn’t stopped since we met, thank you, thank you for sharing space-time-love with me, and for crossing time, bending time, and undoing time in portal and dream with me.

And in the end of course it worked out this way–of course, it felt like magic, and of course; it feels unbelievable, and of course; it feels too good to be true, and of course, it doesn't make sense, because the god of black girls is too sublime for us to make sense of. Of course, it feels like just the right medicine for the ache that has just been sitting in my bones and wouldn't seem to go away; and of course, it feels like the antidote for a broken black girl heart. Of course, it felt like the luckiest day, because it is all of these things and more. This experience marked me, and I am forever grateful for the divine timing, and the way Divine (Dee)--her namesake reminded me that we always end up exactly where we need to be, with exactly who we need to be with. I won’t take the universe’s wisdom for granted again. Even when I can’t see it, I know now that miracles so beautiful, they make me want to weep are already unfolding--just for me...for us.

In sisterhood and love,

sun