Today I visited @communalreadingcircle by way of @thirdwardblooms . It’s the vision come to life of my dearest friend-sister @lyrac_ . A space where we are encouraged to discuss the books we are reading and ways we are being. I shared this space with beautiful, real life people who still care, are still trying, still thinking, still growing. The life in the room was fresh and vibrant. Hope is in my heart. I’m overjoyed to have cultivated relationships that are leading to moments like this. I haven’t made a reel in a minute and I’m rusty but enjoy this song I’m loving and some moments from a sweet and moving Sunday.

I brought in the New Year on a farm in the Hill Country. I’ve never been to this particular place and the feelings of novelty and curiosity created an openness that welcomed new visions for the year ahead. Being able to get away meant leaving behind what’s familiar to me in a literal sense, while I embraced symbolic and spiritual endings by leaving behind the previous year. I took some time to thank the earth and speak to the water, asking it for the changes I want to embody. It all felt special and serene. I’m overjoyed to have planted this seed as the foundation of 2025. It’s still January so Happy New Year, you’ll win this one. 🤍

I have been musing over black hair a lot recently. Thinking about it’s inclination to be roped and locked and linked into styles. All of the patterns and techniques that black hair inspires through twists, braids, and coils. The strands are reinforced with themselves and stronger. These are strong styles. Move to the Carolina Herrera Resort Collection for 2024. I have been in love with this show and I’ve watched it a number of times now. It takes place in Rio De Janeiro. The music, the colors, the textures. The night show that got rained on and had no live audience. The pink catwalk. The barefoot models. It has all been a treat for me. But what was really yummy for my eyes was seeing the cornrows on some of the models. Most of them wore sleek, low buns but the girls who could, and would wear it best, were styled in braids straight to the back. I noted how this style does the same thing a sleek bun does in a fashion show: it reveals the model’s features and supports her face as a canvas to be designed and accessorized—but it caters specifically to textured hair. In the work place or in a formal setting, this style isn’t considered professional or graceful or effortless. Yet here it is on a high-fashion runway as breezy and beautiful as the wind in Brazil. This was a pleasant moment for me and fed my imagination for what my own hair can do via so many methods. I feel very much unstoppable but like let me just learn how to cornrow right quick and it’s OVA.