her ritual…

 

On January 15, 2010, my mother, Jearline Lee Langley, entered eternal rest.  My mother was an avid reader and a disciplined writer.  She wrote the old fashioned way, with pen and paper. She loved putting her thoughts and words on paper. As a little girl, I observed my mother’s discipline of writing at a distance.  And, I will forever cherish the journal she kept of me, her only girl, and my developmental stages. She took copious notes in Bible study; she wrote people all over the world who she met through a pen pal service; and she wrote about her love of God and her desire for everyone to accept Jesus as their personal Savior. Whenever someone gave her a gift, she wrote them a handwritten thank you note. She wrote to make sense of the fragmented pieces of her life as a mom and black woman, recording victories, challenges, defeats, trials, and her highs and lows. After her death, I found some of her writings in notebooks; others were folded and tucked away in her sock drawer.  My mother loved writing and always kept writing materials within arm’s reach. 

 

Over the years, I’ve adopted many of her writing practices.  Taking notes on note pads, writing my musings on scraps of paper, sometimes on napkins and on the back of receipts, or whatever is close by whenever I have a thought or an idea that I want to think about or attend to later.  When I was in undergraduate and graduate school, almost all of my papers were first handwritten on lined, notebook paper long before they saw the computer screen.  When I started writing my dissertation, I wrote almost all of it on legal notepads.  Maybe that’s why it took me so long to finish it. Anyway...I love seeing my handwriting on paper. 

 

I will never say that I am a great writer, but I love recording my streams of thought on paper and watching as they ripen into artistic expressions.  It wasn’t always that way.  But, my former therapist suggested I spend at least fifteen minutes every day writing.  She didn’t care what I wrote; she just suggested that I did it.  Over the years, I have fallen in love with the creative process of writing.  It has become a therapeutic practice, a rite that provides an outlet for putting some of my outlandish thoughts on paper, and, sometimes on tee shirts. Besides, it frees up the congested space in my mind.   

 

The launching of “the black girl girl" is a tribute to the life and legacy of my mom and her discipline of writing, on the sixth anniversary of her death.  The background of sunflowers is my way of remembering her every morning greeting to my brothers and me, “Good morning, Sunshine.” This greeting was her way of telling us that we brightened her day.  And, every day when I think of her, she brightens mine!