Do you live with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?

If so, I'm sorry. Getting the correct diagnosis in 2009, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), was at once a relief, a new beginning, and the first step in an arduous journey. I understand; you're not alone.

I bought a PTSD bunny (bun) from Plushie Dreadfuls, on a day when I was in the depths. By the time it arrived a few weeks later, I’d resurfaced; with renewed clarity, the bunny that had looked like a friend now seemed unfamiliar, a stranger.

Now, I'm selling the PTSD bun! 🐰  ​

Plushie Dreadfuls used to offer free worldwide shipping on orders over $60. Tariffs on goods coming from Canada and China ended that for customers in the U.S. ​

I posted an image on Instagram of the work that "Podcast for Bicycles" inspired and tagged Nikki Giovanni in it. I recall searching for her website, an email address, to which I could send it more directly. I cannot remember if these intentions materialized outside of my thoughts; a post-COVID memory, plus exhaustion, and always, always having something going on has meant some details fall away rather than stick. But the minutiae that matter -- the guitar lick I can't wait to add to a song, the words a character in my novel demands I write down,  where I placed the bag of materials for my next collage -- become implanted deeply and as pristinely as the lyrics to any song by the Eurythmics, Thompson Twins, INXS, or Duran Duran that I grew up singing along to as a child, on repeat. 

The reasons Giovanni's words live as clouds in our living room hutch, and the luminous connection between her and an author I know personally, are equally seared.

In the way that life can create uncanny linkages, Soma, Nikki Giovanni, and I formed an unexpected chain.

I knew nothing of Soma's love of poetry or Giovanni's work; I do not recall sharing with her that I was reared alongside the yellowing pages of Giovanni's books.  I cannot think of a time that Soma and I discussed poetry at all. But we -- she and I, plus Giovanni -- were somehow connected: three women of letters (and color) at various stages of success and renown.

​Giovanni was fond of Soma's writing and gave it dream-worthy praise:

My admiration of Soma, and all women artists who create despite the demands of motherhood, family, and a demanding work life, ripples and inspires. 

I am not sure if my stepson, a 10-year-old white boy, will remember the spectacular feeling that hung in the air on Christmas morning in 2024.  I explained the connection between Off the Books and Soma, Nikki Giovanni and me, and Soma and Giovanni with fingers crossed that his Piscean brain was recording even a wisp of the magic and meaning. Did he understand why these women mattered to me? How their creations helped form and even me? That through soul-driven creations we all are connected? And that Giovanni's spirit lives on despite her body's passing? 

The essence of his Uncle Mike and Papa  -- Nico and his beloved Nana, Gertie, his lifelong feline guardian -- flickers in light year, like stars, he must know.  
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I have not had the chance to read Off the Books yet. I am teaching again, as an Associate Lecturer, while awaiting final edits on the nonfiction tome I have been working since 2020 for ABRAMS Press: COURT QUEENS: A History of the WNBA & the Power of Persevering Women. Why a book originally intended for a 2022 release is still working its way through the publisher's clogged bowels is a story of injury that will be told. 

​I grew up shelving books on  bookcases   built by  my father. They stood, floor to ceiling,  on either side of the fireplace, which had  above it a mantle crafted by the same man: a veteran of two tours in the Vietnam War, working out his demons by sawing, carving, and hammering wood into the shape of his will.  Making beauty to escape his psyche's torment. My father bought an encyclopedia set, which filled an entire row on the left of the fireplace.  I  repeatedly reached for D and H, to  learn about breeds of dogs  and horses, respectively.  M was my gateway into the  life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The bookcase on the right of the fireplace was filled with paperbacks, including  children's chapter books, issues of Readers' Digest,  and books for grownups my parents had acquired but that I had never seen them read. 

Black & White: Stories of American Life, an anthology including works by Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Joyce Carol Oates, Flannery O'Connor, and William Faulkner    (Washington Square Press, 1971), and The Woman and the Men: Poems by Nikki Giovanni (William Morrow and Company, 1975), were  staples of my childhood -- their tattered spines making up a literal literary background. I grew into a writing-obsessed being -- earning Bachelor's degrees in Spanish and Journalism, a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing,  and spending my professional life working in  multiple disciplines.  My parents a few years ago  downsized into a smaller home from the one in which they raised three girls.

​Black & White: Stories of American Life and The Women  and the Men   were  treasures my  mother passed on to me.