Notes on Loving Myself: Praise Song

This is my praise song: This is/These are the songs I sing to give praise. This is my timbrel and this is my harp. These are the hours I use my breath to give praise. I give praise in the morning, in the evening, in the midday I give praise a name, it names me back blessed, beloved. I sing praise, it calls me, says it needs more of me. I give it eagerly to learn what it means to be free in my body, I give praise because my body is an underutilized instrument I give praise because I am learning to use it every day. I give praise to God for beauty in my lifetime, beauty all around me to lay inside of to let inspire me.

I give praise for my Grandmothers: Granny and Grandma Joyce. Because when I was with them, what I had to say was valuable. Because they valued the voice of their youngest grandchild and I was nourished by their care for years. Because care looked like hours on end spent exploring the so-called junk in their room or watching America's Next Top Model, or American Idol, or reading storybooks my siblings marked up years ago, or remembering the song I wrote in bible study the night before a performance in front of my whole school. I give praise because remembering my grandmothers and the love and support that enabled me to say yes to a school-wide performance helps me remember that I've always been that bitch with a standard of excellence for myself and that was buttressed by My Dad's boundaries around school work time and weekends by his OBSESSION with my times tables by my mothers 4am alarms and home by 6:30pm averages.

I am over a week away from the launch of praise song. There is an event recap opened on my computer at the studio. Correction: There was and hopefully still is an event recap on my desktop at the studio. I started it and felt that it wasn't a grand enough retelling of a time that I was quite vulnerable in front of my 3 friends. but girlie remember that weekend recap I started and nearly completed all the way through? I remember what I wrote of it and I remember sitting up in the mezzanine watching Tina BITCH the lights and the fervor when she performed proud mary!. Aaleah these are the times I've been dreaming up! Go get that shit plan what I can and execute. Don't spend so much time planning that I miss out on life or miss the opportunity for execution. I love you Aaleah.