Thankful Thursday: Written and Spoken Words

“For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12:33-37

Today, I have so many things to be Thankful for until I was totally confused about what I should write about. I thought about summer, fresh vegetables, love, digital devices, where I live, Jesus, lunch, my biking groups, my mother, but I saw this quote on Facebook:

and, I knew that I had to write about how much I love words. Whoever wrote this quote is a master with words, and this quote touched my heart and made me want to take my relationships to a whole 'nother level. (Words do have the power to transform.) 

My love for words began when my mother use to take my siblings and I to the BookMobile, for those who do not know, a BookMobile is a library that is on a bus and it normally travels to places that do not have a libraries so that the people can have access to books that they can borrow. (Yes, I grew up in a town that did not have a public library.)

This bus looks a lot like the bus that use to come
to my hometown!

I would get enough books from the BookMobile to last for two weeks and could not wait for the BookMobile to return so that I could borrow more books. As a kid, I fell in love with the Flowers in the Attic series by V.C. Andrews, and I loved those romance novels by Bertice Small. I remember spending boring Saturdays reading a good book, and I would soon forget that I was bored; I would be in the attic with the children from Flowers in the Attic, and I would travel the world with the women in Bertice Small novels. (Oh, the places you can go with words.)

Once I became a high school teacher of literature, I really started to pay closer attention to words: "Why would a writer use this word instead of that word?" etc. I can take a passage and analyze the words forever, because words are loaded with meaning and most authors use words purposefully. (I just love words.)


I must admit that I have so many words stored in my brain, on my phone, on sticky notes, underlined in books. I have a quote that can match almost any situation, and I use them mostly to inspire me and anyone else who may need a word of encouragement.  (I am a quote junkie.) 


Asha Bandele and Zora Neale Hurston use words to write about love like no other.. Randall Robinson takes words and makes really heavy topics read like mystery novels.. Toni Morrison takes words and can seriously confuse the reader by telling the same story from many perspectives in the same book.. Tananarive Due uses words that can make a reader not able to sleep for quite a long time.. Langston Hughes uses words that makes the reader marvel..and I hope that I use words to inspire.........

People, I can't live without words!

Today, and everyday, I am Thankful, Thankful, soooo very Thankful for written and spoken words.

Let me leave you with a poem titled "Words" by Anne Sexton:

Be careful of words, 
even the miraculous ones. 
For the miraculous we do our best, 
sometimes they swarm like insects
and leave not a sting but a kiss.
They can be as good as fingers.
They can be as trusty as the rock
you stick your bottom on.
But they can be both daisies and bruises.


Yet I am in love with words.
They are doves falling out of the ceiling.
They are six holy oranges sitting in my lap.
They are the trees, the legs of summer,
and the sun, its passionate face.


Yet often they fail me.
I have so much I want to say,
so many stories, images, proverbs, etc.
But the words aren't good enough,
the wrong ones kiss me.
Sometimes I fly like an eagle
but with the wings of a wren.


But I try to take care
and be gentle to them.
Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
things to repair.

Happy Thankful Thursday "My People."

Something Like Beautiful by asha bandele

The gifted writer asha bandele!

1 Corinthians 13:13:And now these three remain: faith, hope and

love. But the greatest of these is love.

I am a true sucker for love. I love great love stories; they really make my heart glad. But, I am learning that love does not always have the type of ending that we think it should. Love takes all types of shapes and forms. There are people who love each other, but really can't stand to be around each other for long, there are people who love each other, but for whatever reason or reasons, they just can't be together. But one thing that I know for sure is that self love is really the greatest love of all, and it does conquer all. Once we really love and accept ourselves, it becomes so much easier to love and accept others with our whole heart. Love is soooo good.

With that being said, asha bandele sho' nuff knows how to write a good love story. She puts words together in a way that makes her books seem urgent, it seems as if she is trying to tell the entire story in one breathe, while the reader anxiously sits and listens and hate for that one breathe to end.

The first book that I read by asha bandele was The Prisoner's Wife, and all I can say about this book is that it is a love story like no love story that I have ever read. It is written in a fashion that makes the reader want to really support this love, really want this love to overcome every obstacle, and really have a happy ending. (Those fairy tales have surely messed a lot of us up.) I met asha at the Essence Festival in New Orleans, and I ran up to her and said, "What happened to you and Rashid?" I really wanted this story to have a happy ending like Cinderella's!

With The Prisoner's Wife, asha had me hooked with the first paragraph:

"This is a love story like every love story I had always known, like no story I could ever have imagined. It's everything beautiful--bright colors, candle-scented rooms, orange silk, and lavender amethyst. It's everything grotesque, disfigured. It's long twisting wounds, open and unhealed, nerves pricked raw, exposed."

After this first paragraph to emphasize that this IS a love story, asha continues to repeat "This is a love story," and she uses many, many analogies to describe this love such as "it's an Alvin Ailey dance," and if you have ever seen the Ailey Ailey dance troupe, you know exactly what she is talking. If you have not seen the Alvin Ailey troupe, please go and see them and see how tragically, beautifully those dancers dance. Tragically beautiful because while they are dancing no one is smiling, the audience is really looking in disbelief and wondering how can anyone move his body like that. But, once the dance is over, the entire audience breathes and smiles with relief because the tragically beautiful dances ends without one flaw that is noticeable to the audience.

When I finished reading The Prisoner's Wife, all I could do was shake my head and say my, my, my......... I really wanted more. And, almost twelve years later, asha has given us more of that love story with Something Like Beautiful.

With Something Like Beautiful, asha picks up where The Prisoner's Wife left off. Asha, and Rashid, her prisoner husband, has had a daughter, and asha must deal with the fact that she and Rashid will more than likely never be together. This book is her journey to deal with being in love with a man who may never get out of prison, being a single mom, being adopted, being molested as a child, alcohol abuse, physical and emotional abuse from a lover, depression, and in this midst of all of these struggles, finding herself and realizing that "And if it did, if all of this happened on my watch and if it is not simply my cross to bear, but a cross that I allowed and that I willingly offered to carry alone, I want to say I'm sorry." 

Asha tells this story just as beautifully as she told the first part of this story in The Prisoner's Wife. This girl really knows how to tell a story.

Asha and I are around the same age, and reading her story, I could really identify with asha going on a journey to be present everyday in her life, because that is just where I am. Once I turned 40, this huge light bulb came on in my life, and I was able to see my life clearly because of this new light. (Thank God for Light.) I made a conscious decision to show up wherever I am on any given day in any given moment, because I want to be present in my life and in the lifes of the people whom I care about. 

Asha pretty much sums up how I feel and many other women feel who are on this incredible journey called life. Women who are determined to ride this thing out for all that it is worth. Here is what she says in a conversation with her sister:

"But I want to claim my life now, for all that it has been and all that it has not been..... This is my life... I want to have it and have it fully, no matter what that means."

These two books by asha bandele are works of art..... and all I can do is wave my hand!

Read these books PLEASE, and let's have a conversation!!!!!