Thursday Murmurings
Happy Thursday my loves!
(Firstly, little apology to the paid subscribers who are receiving this twice today - I accidentally managed to not send it to the rest of the subscriber list. Doh! My bad - won’t happen again.)
We kick off this week by celebrating the awesome Sha’Carri Richardson, the US sprinter who qualified for the Tokyo Olympics last week by running the 100m in an incredible 10.86 seconds.
Couple of points here: Firstly, this pic, of her pointing - this was as she was about 20m from the finish line and saw her time. She almost seemed to slow down to take it in and was STILL fast as hell. Some have hailed this pointing of the finger as cocky, but as many others have pointed out, if a male athlete had done it, it’d be a mark of his self-belief. In a post-race interview, Richardson said ‘I just want the world to know, I am THAT girl.’ I can do nothing but applaud. As the kids say, WE LOVE TO SEE IT.
And secondly - my God, the hair, the nails, the outfit, the swagger. We have ourselves a new Flo Jo. As a friend of mine pointed out, she needs all the cosmetic sponsorships because that hair and those lashes didn’t budge while she was flying down that track. We need these beauty secrets!
Another friend of mine posted a meme to her Instagram that said:
“A gentle reminder to love and cheer for Black girls with orange hair, long nails, tats and lashes even when they aren’t the fastest woman in the country.”
YES. YES. YES. YES. Support Black women, always.
Some things that caught my eye this week:
I’ve been seeing a lot of these kinds of articles lately - about the state of friendships post-pandemic. I guess since I moved countries during the pandemic and haven’t had the chance to make any friends yet in my new home, I am left with navigating long-distance friendships, which is what it is. Not ideal by any means, but we do what we can to stay connected. I am interested in how others have found the pandemic affected their friendships though - the writer of the linked article ended a couple of her friendships and struck up another with a relative stranger. How about you? Have you found your friendships have changed in Covid times?
Thanks to Murmuration reader, Erin, for sending this one in. As our parents age, it’s natural to want to squeeze all the information about their lives out of them as you can. We want to learn about who they were before us, know the stories of their youth, the behind the scenes bits we never knew. I really like this writer’s method of finding a way in with her parents and getting them really talking about the juicy moments in their lives. I’m inspired and will definitely be using this technique with my own ‘rents.
I found this piece, about dealing with hard feelings, to be really interesting. I’m often guilty of trying to just push through tough stuff and move on but the argument for sitting in it, is pretty compelling.
“‘By refusing to accept the misery that is part of climbing out of hell, you fall back into hell.’ The path out of hell is through misery. What’s that supposed to mean? It means that you have to start by ‘radically accepting’ where you are right now. Radical acceptance means that you don’t fight what you’re feeling in this moment. You feel sad? Feel sad. Don’t judge it, don’t push it away, don’t diminish it, and don’t try to control its passage. Turn toward the feeling rather than turning away from it.”
Have you been trying to make sense of the big ol’ Chimamanda Nhozi Adichie brouhaha online? Same babes, same. This piece gives you the cliffs notes on what’s been going down. I wasn’t aware of the hisory between these two writers and what’s been happening. The essay on Adichie’s website that set the internet ablaze last week seems to have been removed now. I read it and must say, the extract about cancel culture in particular made some very solid points.
What’s coming up next week?
In Monday’s edition of The Murmuration, I’m talking about my pursuit to get stronger and my battle with the weight rack.
“I set that rack on my shoulders and gave myself the ultimate of pep talks. I was out of breath and frankly, scared. To squat that weight was gonna require a monumental effort. Did I have it in me? And if not today, when? When would I opt to not back down, to not be scared of a possible failure? And is it even a failure if I attempt it and can’t finish? Isn’t the effort valiant enough to warrant it being a win?”
The Monday editions are $5 per month and $50 per year. Come join our little community and wade into the waters of some deeper stuff.
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Biggie with a cuddly toy version of Biggie? You didn’t even know you needed that, did you? You’re welcome.
Until next week, smile at strangers, spread good vibes, be nice to people.