Finding Melodie

"Losing. Grieving. Mourning. Loving. Living."

  • Home
  • Finding Me
  • Blog
  • Books & Such
  • The Grievers
  • Bio
  • Contact Mel
  • Knowing God

The Incomparable Ms. Cicely Tyson

January 29, 2021 | Leave a Comment

The Incomparable Ms. Cicely Tyson

December 19, 1924 – January 28, 2021.

You were given 96 years on this earth. You lived them all with such great intention, grace, dignity, beauty, and power. I want to learn from you. So that I can live each of my years to come with this kind of intention. One of my earliest memories of you were glimpses of you in Roots, but watching The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman as a young Black teen girl is what deeply drew my heart to you. You became 110-year-old ex-enslaved Jane Pittman right before my eyes. You took and honored her story and you gave it to the rest of us, so we would know her. You brought people to life. The gift and function of story captured my heart very early in life and seeing that movie, seeing you act and tell and show one woman’s story so powerfully, sometimes with just the simple gesture of a movement on your face to inflect an emotion or what you didn’t say or do, to hold to the integrity of telling and showing a scene you were in, you did this with excellence. At the core of who we all are as humans, our stories are the connecting bond between us. Our humanity moves between us, through our stories. And you told stories, you gave them life time and time and time and time again, on the big screen, on the little screen, and on stage plays around the world. You are a forever example of #BlackQueenMagic for brown-skinned girls and women to glean from as we show up as our complete and full selves in this world, at the tables we’re invited to and the ones we build for ourselves. Thank you for holding and fighting for our honor, our dignity in the spaces you stepped into. Thank you for what you gave to us. Rest in peace and in the Lord’s great power. You are beloved.

“Throughout her career Tyson refused to play drug addicts, prostitutes or maids, roles she thought demeaning to Black women. But when a good part came along she grabbed hold of it with tenacity.” – Carmel Dagan, Variety Magazine

Featured Photo courtesy of The Emmys.

Filed Under: Being Human, Grieving, Living | Tagged With: black women, remembering

Grief: A Recent Lesson

January 28, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Grief: A Recent Lesson

My journey with grief, a recent lesson: Sometimes it’s a grief for a different season, a future season that we carry. A grief of “when that happens in the future, then I will grieve this more deeply.”

Sometimes it’s a grief that we carry in this moment. A grief that abides. Deeply. Now. Ever-present. A grief that sticks and clings, like honey on your fingers after you close the pouring lid.

And that kind of grief is okay too.

Featured Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash.

Filed Under: Grieving | Tagged With: grief, mindfulness, processing, reflecting

Keep Building Resilience Introverts

January 23, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Keep Building Resilience Introverts

Sending love to all the introverts who are building resilience in these pandemic times in the midst of heightened Zoom calls and other ways of working and living now that have become our norm.

Yesterday, I had six video meetings for work, including one that was a 2.5 hour class on African American theology, and would have had a seventh meeting if I hadn’t moved it to next week. My introverted self was pushed but I also built ‘muscle’ from those moments. And I found ways to help myself recover energy between meetings and during meetings, like turning my video camera off when needed, so I didn’t have to ‘be on’ visually, which gave me time to rest. I also closed my eyes during breaks and covered them with the palms of my hands to help my eyes rest and my mind rest with a darker environment.

Also sending a special holla to the Enneagram type 5 personalities like me, those “Inquisitive Thinkers” who have the least amount of energy available to offer to others out of all the other personalities.

I know what it takes to show up, manage your energy and make sure you got enough in the tank to finish out each day in front of you. Keep leaning into these times to grow and build more resilience and strength.

I was amazed yesterday at how God continued to sustain me…and in other moments, even though it seems I’m almost out of juice in my caboose. I read one Christian reflection about the type 5 personality and that when one is struggling or fearful because you’re at the end of your energy reserves and you have no more to give, to ask Jesus Christ, the One with unlimited resources to help you. He is faithful to give to you out of His abundant and unlimited supply and can pour back into you all that you need.

Selah on that.

Photo by Raquel Santana on Unsplash.

Featured Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash.

Filed Under: Living | Tagged With: discovery, growing, human, living

Seasons

December 29, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Seasons

Lissen: evidence that healing is taking place in your life is when you can see old messages from past loves and birthday cards written from former friends and smile. Genuinely smile at those words and remember those times and receive those words for what they were then even though the relationship ended or the friendship came to a close.

So much about life is seasonal. Why would our human connections be exempt from seasons too?

As a gardener, I experience the power of seasons in tangible ways because of what I plant, cultivate, and harvest. Some things grow year-round and continue growing. I have a rosemary Hercules bush that started out as a baby plant more than three years ago. It continues to GROW, year-round, pushing past all the elements of the seasons central Florida throws its way…hot, arm-pits-of-Hades summers and some unexpected, frost touching cold winters. It goes with these seasons and it keeps GROWING. It anchors its roots in deep and it lives and thrives in season with me.

Other plants grow for three to four months, bear their fruit and produce (or not cause plants be finicky sometimes too if they don’t have what they need even though you try to support them) and then they give up the ghost and that season is over. My watermelons and tomatoes be like this sometimes.

Seasonal. When it’s good, it’s so good. And when the season is up, it’s done.
It took me a while before I understood in my later 30s the cycles of seasons and what they actually are when it comes to people. Some are destined to journey with me through decades because God designed our journeys this way.

And some will only intersect with me for a season. That season could be three years or it could be three months. Even if I wanted them to be with me longer. I was given…a season. And then…change opened a new door. Hmmm, well now. Perspective is everything.

And…letting go of someone, be it a relationship romantically or a friendship that has run it’s course, sometimes means going forward so you can become who you need to be. Seasons show me this.

Filed Under: Relationships | Tagged With: relationships, seasons

Christmas Reflections

December 25, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Christmas Reflections

The mere fact that the birth of Jesus created the opportunity in time and space that those who would later believe in Him and place their faith in Him could and would be washed…pure as snow, as white as snow from their brokenness and their sin, is beyond a good thing. It’s heaven meeting earth in the most beautiful way. I am washed white as snow. No longer can the blemish of mistakes and willful error stain the soul, the conscious is forever freed from shame and guilt, even if the mind needs reminding that freedom is NOW. Jesus came to this earth to give LIFE. His birth ushered real LIFE into our world. How do you thank the Savior for such an indescribable gift?


With a surrendered life, lived in love to Him that tells others about His wondrous gift.

Featured Photo by Arnie Chou on Unsplash.

Filed Under: Being Human, God | Tagged With: living

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 14
  • Next Page »

Welcome to my blog! Thank you for joining me on this journey of Losing, Grieving, Mourning, Loving and Living. To learn more about me, visit my bio page and click here!

  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Subscribe

Sign Up Below To Receive Blog Updates In Your Inbox!

Hot Topics

acceptance beauty black culture blessings church community culture disappointment discovery empathy family fighting God grandmothers grief growing healing health history hope human laughter learning living loss melodie melodie quotes mourning music pain people perspective poetry processing questions relationships relationship with God rest seasons self awareness struggle suffering truth violence writing

Recent Posts

  • The Incomparable Ms. Cicely Tyson
  • Grief: A Recent Lesson
  • Keep Building Resilience Introverts
  • Seasons
  • Christmas Reflections

Categories

Pages

  • About
  • Bio
  • Blog
  • Books & Such
  • Contact Mel
  • Finding Me
  • For The Fatherless
  • Home
  • The Grievers

Tags & Such

acceptance beauty black culture blessings church community culture disappointment discovery empathy family fighting God grandmothers grief growing healing health history hope human laughter learning living loss melodie melodie quotes mourning music pain people perspective poetry processing questions relationships relationship with God rest seasons self awareness struggle suffering truth violence writing

Social

  • View FindingMelodie’s profile on Twitter
  • View findingmelodie’s profile on Instagram
  • View melodylatrice’s profile on Pinterest

What I Know To Be True

Just when you find that sweet spot in life, that comfortable place, that uncanny familiar, change comes in like a flaming bat out of hell and whirlwinds all your comfortable up. If you’re limited in your thinking you’ll fight it every way you can. But, if you’re ready to grow, you’ll embrace change like a new love and let it lead you to growth you could never dream of but always sensed you desperately needed.

What Do You Need to Find?

Twitterland

Tweets by @FindingMelodie

Conversations & Such

  • Beginnings
  • Being Human
  • Creative Me
  • Dating
  • Family
  • God
  • Grieving
  • History
  • Living
  • Losing
  • Loving
  • Melodie Quotes
  • Mourning
  • Randomnes
  • Relationships
  • Those Moments
  • Transitions

Copyright © 2021 · Finding Melodie · Design by Anjelica Dezel