A Pair Of Adult Memoirs

A Pair Of Adult Memoirs

Here For It
"I grew up a little ball of potential (but oblivious) gay energy
in a Baptist family from a black Baltimore neighborhood where there
were more abandoned houses than lived in ones. My parents sent me to
school in a rich suburb where most of my classmates were white. Every
moment from then on I was an other. The thing is, I felt it, but I
didn't realize it."
In every life situation R. Eric Thomas, author of Here For It,
felt like he was the outside looking in even though he was constantly
code-switching to blend, chameleon like, into a wide range of spaces
with differing demands. White environs would leave him feeling black,
while in black gatherings he'd feel not black enough. In straight
spaces he felt noticeably gay. He felt simultaneously too churchy for
secular places and too questioning for church. By the time he was an
adult he sometimes felt so alienated he had to talk himself out of
jumping off bridges and subway platforms.
"But through it all there was a constant tethering me to the
future: the library. The library is the place where I could borrow
first [Muppet] Grover's philosophical tome, then a couple of volumes
of Choose Your Own Adventures I could cheat at, and later a stack of
mysteries I could spoil for myself, all attempts to look for some
other way of understanding who I was."
Thomas is like those toys, the Weebles, that were briefly
popular when my children were little. He frequently wobbles but is
never down for the count. In Here For It he uses a unique blend of
candor and comedy to share his challenging life's journey. It's an
excellent read, especially for the many people who share the sense of
being outsiders looking in.
But you don't have to take my word for it. Library Journal
describes the book as "a laugh-out-loud memoir that is strongly
recommended for everyone."

More Than Enough
"Growing up, Oprah was my favorite imaginary auntie. She lived
inside the tv and I looked forward to visiting her every day at 4:00
p.m. sharp. For one hour, every Monday through Friday, I got to watch
a black woman command dominion over the world. As a little brown girl
in a big White world, that's a powerful thing to witness. Especially
in a culture where you do not see yourself positively reflected in the
media."
Award winning journalist Elaine Welteroth was born into a world
that celebrated white beauty and left her feeling less than. In her
first school assignment she was to cut out pictures from magazines to
make a family collage. The pictures didn't look like her or her
family. While her mother worked hard to help her feel pride in her
heritage, the outside world kept on eroding it.
Because of Welteroth many children of color can now see their
beauty reflected in the media. Creating a path for herself (since
none really existed) she rose in the magazine publishing business to
become editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue. In that role she embued the
magazine with a youth empowering intersectional social consciousness.
In her memoir, More Than Enough: Claiming Space For Who You Are,
Welteroth shares her ascent candidly, including her moments of
discouragement and indecision and some choices she deemed in
retrospect to be very bad. There were the bad match boyfriends she
hung onto too long. There were times her workaholic drive harmed her
physically and psychically. Her candor and vulnerability make this
fine book highly relatable and engaging.
I found that two chapters really stood out for me. Burning Out
describes the recurring toll a laser career focus took on Welteroth.
At one point she tells a close friend that all she ever does is work
but she wouldn't know what to do with free time if any came her way.
She can't remember the last time she read a book. She fears that
she's lost herself.
"I'd lost her in the day-to-day grind. In the process of
becoming the woman I always wanted to be, I forgot that it involved
becoming a whole person, not just the success story I had been trying
to write my whole life."
Welteroth starts Weight of the World off with a James Baldwin
quote. "To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious,
is to be in a rage almost all the time." In the chapter she juxtaposes
a national tragedy (how Philando Castile was shot to death with his
fiancée and their daughter in the car) with a personal incident. One
summer night her fiancé, Jonathan, took out the trash. A white man
totally freaked. Jonathan went into appeasement mode.
"The thought that in 2015 in New York City a young, professional
Black man (who, at the time, still wore the biggest, geekiest glasses)
was absolving some White bro for being terrified by his very existence
made my stomach turn and my blood boil. It still does today."
I got a lot out of reading the book. I bet you will too.
On a purrrsonal note, I'm having a great long weekend. Saturday
morning Eugene and I drove up to camp. On the way up he bought me
cute pajamas. It was sunny enough for us to chill outside on the
porch. I wrote the first draft of a paper and got in some reading.
After supper we watched a movie. Sunday we took a twisty way home,
stopping at flea markets and yard sales, finding some real treasures.
Today I'm enjoying not working. (Jules)
Nice pajamas. Got some big cats on them. My cousins. (Tobago).
A great big shout out goes out to our Eugene.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway



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