I’ve watched the Judy Blume documentary, Judy Blume Forever, twice. The second time was so my mom could watch it while visiting us.
Judy Blume is now 85 & runs a bookstore in Key West. In the documentary, she reflects back to the 1980s when panicked white people tried to ban books and how it’s happening now. Author Jason Reynolds is featured in the documentary and points out that what books are being banned tells us a lot about what’s going on in our society.
If you are paying attention, you should be terrified.
This week, a Florida school “restricted”access to the poem Amanda Gorman read at President Biden’s inauguration. The school district denied the book was banned or removed but acknowledged moving it so elementary school students had limited access to it. All this because of a complaint by one parent.
Also this week, Target began pulling a lot of their pride gear so I’m glad I snagged my disco ball cup before they began pulling things. Because imagine the damage a fun colored cup could do?
Anyway. In one of Judy’s books, the title of which escapes me (I didn’t read it), she wrote that a character said the F word and her agent cautioned the reaction of readers & book clubs (specifically saying that book clubs wouldn’t select her book). She thought about this and mentioned it to her son that day who said, “Mom. You’re Judy Blume.”
Recently, I purchased a new necklace and the back of the charm says “remember who the fuck you are.”
I love that Judy Blume’s son reminded her who she was. It’s easy to fail to take the time to figure out who you are or to lose sight of who you are. Life, in the form of relationships, jobs, errands (the list goes on), can grab you by the arm and pull you away from who you are. Tasks that should be simple, such as maintaining your homeowners insurance policy, require what adds up to be hours of work. Hours you could spend feeding your soul - because let me assure you, spending time with your insurance company is not nurturing your soul. We all need someone or something to remind us who the fuck we are.
Let’s say you know who you are - and I hope you do. I hope you’ve taken the time to do the work and dig deep. I hope you read banned books that made you think. And perhaps think differently than people in your life who were telling you how to think.
The other night, I woke up and it felt as though my heart was hammering in my chest and I couldn’t fall back to sleep. My dog, Georgie, must have sensed something was wrong and he Army crawled from the foot of the bed to between Andrea and myself and I fell back to sleep petting his velvet soft head and listening to Tyson’s loud, rumbling purr coming from atop Andrea’s head.
After years of reading banned books, therapy, and writing to silence the noise in my head, I know who I am - flaws and all. I may drift but I don’t lose sight of the shore.
I recently remembered I hate wearing heels. So I am not wear heels again. If I’m invited to something where I have to wear heels, I’m going to think long and hard about going. Only fun shoes for now. Flat, fun shoes. I am going to donate those gd shoes along with all sweaters and winter clothing I moved to Virginia and should have left behind in Massachusetts. Apparently, after a life of living north, I’m not a north person. I wouldn’t have known this had I not tried - not too far south (dumpster fire). Richmond south with its warm weather and people.
I am also exhausted by people who don’t know how to be a friend. It’s exhausting. It takes two minutes to ask someone how their day is going. Gonna let those people bob in the water. They need to find their own shore.
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