Hey there,
I keep thinking about the day and the picture and how important it was to me.
A group of well-rested, well-fed, deeply cared for Black women sitting in the Texas heat on Juneteenth, smiling in front of an American flag.
Slightly disheveled, not because of forced labor but because of self imposed rest. In a country that has spent generations telling us, in every language it knows, that we do not deserve rest.
Welp.
The devil is a lie.
The luxury of rest and the power of creation are ours to claim.
And I intend to do my part.
Before anyone arrived, this space existed in my mind as a feeling. I could see the table. I could hear the sound. I could imagine the quiet that comes over a woman when she realizes she does not have to manage the room. I wanted beauty without performance. Care without spectacle. Rest without apology.
Then June 20 came, and the women came too.
More than once some of you implored me to sit down, and I understand why.
But making a fuss is how I show love.
When I take care of y’all, it feels like I get a chance to take care of my mother. I see her in all of us. So I make sure the food is right, the room feels good, the details are soft, and the day has somewhere gentle to land.
I make the kind of fuss I would make over her.
And maybe that is the exchange.
The fuss is how I show love.
The rest is how y’all love me back.
The first hava gathering happened, and the women felt something. Not because every detail announced itself. But because the space had been made with intention. The food, the sound, the breath, the conversation, the flowers, the table, the quiet, the laughter, and the way women softened when they realized nothing was being asked of them for a little while.
That matters.
It matters to be fed without having to earn it.
It matters to sit in a circle and be met with tenderness.
It matters to hear music and water and breath in a world that is always trying to rush us back into usefulness.
It matters to be seen in rest, not just in labor.
hava is not about escaping life. It is about creating places where Black women can return to themselves with beauty, ease, and good company. It is about reclaiming what was always ours: breath, softness, joy, rest, creation, and the right to gather in peace.
The next gathering is already taking shape.
This October, we go to the river.
More soon.
With breath,
hava
💛