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.

featured photo courtesy of The Emmys.

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.

Much Has Happened in My World This Year

I can’t believe December 2017 is already here. This year went by faster than I could have realized. Much has happened in my world.

It was my first year in my role as a full-time writer. Tremendous career successes and opportunities took place.

Beautiful moments arrived in my personal life. Experiencing new love and a new relationship and the adventure that comes in opening your life up to someone.

This purple bookbag was my constant companion as I traveled around the country this year.

Seeing a lot of America via work and personal travel. Atlanta. Detroit. Phoenix. Raleigh. Charleston. Richmond. Washington D.C. Crescent City. St. Augustine. Dallas/Ft. Worth. St. Petersburg. Denver. Ft. Collins. Dallas/Ft. Worth. Atlanta. Cleveland. Kent. Digging into writing assignments. Family visits. Weddings. Celebrating a close friend’s birthday. Seeing sister friends. Writing conferences with the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Conferences for my job.

Dealing with health challenges that I hoped were resolved but now are being revisited, entering a new journey to find sustainable healing.

Looking for more of myself in my spiritual life, seeing where I’ve loved the Lord but have missed special times with Him this year in His Word and in His presence through prayer, almost was on the verge of losing Him as my first love.

Surviving what could have a been a catastrophic natural disaster if Hurricane Irma would have kept her category 5 status as she hurled towards the Florida panhandle. That affected me, the stress of it all stuck to me. My heart and thoughts continue to be with those who experienced her full wrath and that of Hurricane Maria and continue to recover from the damage.

Figuring out my future and places I want to plant my feet by way of community and my spiritual growth. Wrestling with the tension of time sown in places and knowing when it’s time to move to new spaces that resonate more deeply with my heart and who God’s calling me to be.

Learning how deeply important time to myself as a socially extroverted introvert who gets her energy alone really is. Much of this year I’ve been in moments where I’ve had to give more of myself and be present more than I had adequate time to recharge. And it affected me. And I didn’t always show up as my best self because my energy reserves were depleted.

Much has happened in my world this year.

And God continues to be faithful.

He calls me to Himself, seeing my deep need for rest. 11 out of the last 12 months, I’ve either traveled someplace in the country or been engaged in a conference for my job here in Orlando.

God continues to tell me, “Mel, I want to give you rest.

Have you ever considered what it means to enter the rest of God? To truly, deeply, fully let the One who made you give you what you need, when you need it, exactly the way you need it, to restore your soul and bring peace to your body?

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. – Matthew 11:28-30, The Message

Rest is what God and I are focusing on now and will continue to focus on as the new year approaches.

I’m tired. So tired I haven’t written solely for myself since September. I haven’t written in this space here on my blog that I love and enjoy showing up in. I’ve been in places this year where I’ve been exhausted mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. And that exhaustion happened while I was doing good things, good work, digging in and being fruitful and seeking to thrive.

But I’m learning that like money and time, I, as a human being, am not an unlimited resource.

I’m learning I must choose how I engage in the world and how I show up in the places I’m called to. And what it will mean when I say “yes” and what will be required of me, by way of energy, intention, and presence. Whether that’s coffee with a friend, scheduling a medical appointment, getting ready for my next writing project or choosing to take a moment for self-care. And to use wisdom, time and perspective to help me as I make those decisions.

And the Lord continues to tell me, “Mel, I want to give you rest.” I’m letting Him do that. And choosing to enter into His rest.

I don’t know what your year has felt like or what the upcoming year of 2018 will bring you. But I want to encourage you to rest. To find your center not in the doing and in the busy, but in being and moving externally into the world around you from a foundation of rest. In the moments where life is calm and in the moments where it is chaotic, that foundation of rest in God will ground you.

Maybe it’s too hard for us as humans to admit we have limitations. But we do. They exist, they always have and we can’t shake them off.

I want to live with my limitations in mind so that I can live this life with an intention that is authentic, wise and deliberate.

And my best living comes from resting.

So, that’s what I’m gon’ do.

Words and Musings: Woman Narratives

I’ve been thinking about the lives we live and the ones we want. I’ve been thinking about the lives we have and the ones people tell us we need. I’ve been thinking about womanhood and wifehood and motherhood and careerhood and singlehood and where I am and who do I want to continue to be.

I think sometimes we believe this narrative about being women that goes like this: “When I get married and I have children, I’ll be a real woman. I’ll be complete. I’ll be living my very best life.”

I think that narrative is a deficient and a defective one. And here’s why: Life never comes in a complete, perfectly wrapped box with matching bow.

It never comes that way. EVER.

Things don’t move in a linear direction. Hiccups come. Road blocks surface.

Speed bumps slow you down. New paths open up that you didn’t even expect you’d be walking upon. Incredible opportunities arise that you couldn’t have created for yourself if you tried.

I just think we’ve got to free ourselves up from these narratives that say “this life is the better life, it’s the one you gotta have and until you do, you won’t really, truly, deeply be as happy and fulfilled as you could be.”

Instead, we need the narratives, as women, that say “THAT life is a good one, and THIS life is a good one too.”

My life and my woman-ness as a single is still LIFE. It’s still LIVING. Woman-ness as a married is still LIFE. It’s still LIVING. Woman-ness as a married and as a mother is still LIFE. It’s still LIVING. The latter two are not a better life or the very best possible life, they are just a DIFFERENT LIFE.

We need to shift the narrative from DIFFERENT = BETTER, and DIFFERENT = the PRIZE that you must pursue.

Perhaps, in this season of singleness what I’m learning is a gift, in and of itself: finding more of me, discovering what makes my heart beat, and growing more and more into the “whoness” that uniquely makes me the woman I’m continuing to become.

Women have got to learn how to free each other up in these narratives.

Lord willing, when marriage comes knocking at my door at the right time, I will answer and I will, by God’s grace, be ready for that very big adventure.

But you know what else I’m gonna do? I’m gonna speak into the hearts and souls of single women in my life and within my influence and I’m gonna tell them to keep pursuing the life that they have. Keep thriving, keep flourishing, keep growing in the beauty that you are. 

This life, right now, is your very best life.

Believe this.

Anything that will happen to you next is an EXPANSION on the very best life that you’re already living. Expansion. Not Completion. Expansion. Live out that expansion from the wholeness you already live from. There is depth and beauty and goodness and richness already at home in your soul.

Marriage doesn’t make your life a very best life. Motherhood doesn’t make your life a very best life. If it did, what would we say to the woman who never gets married? The woman who lost her new husband six months into their marriage? The widow burying the love her life after 50 years of partnership? What would we say to the woman who wants to get pregnant but cannot carry children in her womb? The mother who lost three babies in miscarriage? The mother who has adult children but is estranged from them?

What would say to them?

What would we say?

I hope we would say your life is beautiful and its very best because YOU are in it. You are using the gift of this life from God by living it every day. Your living makes this life its very best life.

If you need these words, let them cover you and remind you of what’s true. Selah.

My Mama Taught Me to Kick Butt & Take Names

“I don’t think it ever occurred to me before how much and how often women are praised for displaying traits that basically render them invisible. When I really think about it, I realize the culprit is the language generally used to praise women. Especially mothers.

She sacrificed everything for her children…She never thought about herself…She gave up everything for us…She worked tirelessly to make sure we had what we needed. She stood in the shadows, she was the wind beneath our wings. 

Greeting card companies are built on that idea.

Tell her how much all the little things she does all year long that seem to go unnoticed really mean to you.

With a $2.59 card.

Mother’s Day is built on that idea.

This is good, we’re told. It’s good how Mom diminishes and martyrs herself. The message is: mothers, you are such wonderful and good people because you make yourselves smaller, because you deny your own needs, because you toil tirelessly in the shadows and no one ever thanks or notices you…this all makes you AMAZING.

Yuck.

What the hell kind of message is that?

Would ANYONE praise a man for this?

Those are not behaviors anyone would hope to instill in their daughters, right?

Right?

I’m not saying MOTHERHOOD shouldn’t be praised. Motherhood should be praised. Motherhood is wonderful. I’m doing it. I think it’s great.

There are all kinds of ways and reasons that mothers can and should be praised. But for cultivating a sense of invisibility, martyrdom and tirelessly working unnoticed and unsung? Those are not reasons.

There are all kinds of ways and reasons that mothers can and should be praised. But for cultivating a sense of invisibility, martyrdom and tirelessly working unnoticed and unsung? Those are not reasons.

Praising women for standing in the shadows?

Wrong.

Where is the greeting card that praises the kinds of mothers I know? Or better yet, the kind of mother I was raised by?

I need a card that says: Happy Mother’s Day to the mom who taught me to be strong, to be powerful, to be independent, to be competitive, to be fiercely myself and fight for what I want.

Or Happy Birthday to a mother who taught me to argue when necessary, to raise my voice for my beliefs, to not back down when I know I am right.

Or, Mom, thanks for teach me to kick a** and take names at work. Get well soon.

Or simply Thank you Mom, for teaching me how to make money and feel good about doing it. Merry Christmas.

kick-butt3

Where are the greeting cards for the kind of mother I try to be? For the kind of mother I need my kids to see? For the kind of mother I want my daughters to one day be?

And if there is no greeting card, what is there?

There is me.

I have to be my own greeting card. And to do that, I have to at least be able to take a compliment.” – Shonda Rhimes, “Year of Yes.”

I would like to take this beautiful moment in time to honor my mama Gloria, who’s taught me to kick butt and take names in all aspects of my life:

Find your inner warrior: “Life may get you down Mel, but it never has to get you out.”

Dealing with challenging humans: “Who she THINK she IS? She ain’t no betta than you.”

Maintaining better health: “Did you take a cod liver oil pill? I keep telling you to do this.”

Being aware of one’s surroundings: “Mel, secure your pocketbook, lock your doors!”

Perspectives on social media: “I think I may want to get on Spacebook.” (Um, it’s Facebook woman).

Mama, I honor you on the day you entered this world and celebrate your birthday with many who love and thank God for you. You are a jewel – a hilarious, sometimes crazy, but always brilliant one! Happy birthday to the woman who’s been a real-life greeting card in my life, showing me what womanhood, personal excellence, and #blackgirlmagic looked like before that hashtag even came to be.

I love you mama.

You are my #1 she-roe.

Always your girl,

Melody Latrice