Trees offer a reminder of the importance of finding balance in life – standing tall, resilient and beautiful on your own, yet being planted close enough to a neighbor, friend or loved one to send encouragement, share special moments and extend some love.
This week, may you succeed with both. Enjoy your time alone and make room to dance with others.
For it is in spending time with you that you discover how you’re meant to uniquely impact the world. And it is in doing life together, with likeminded souls on a positive trajectory, that we rise. Embrace life’s duality and enjoy this season of your journey.
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Around this time a year ago, I was slowly beginning to reclaim my time, after experiencing daily headaches for most of 2022.
Can I tell you how grateful I am at this juncture to read, write, travel, have fun and chillax at my own pace, through God’s grace?
So as I prep for some exciting opportunities this fall – and yes – some of them include writing projects – I don’t take for granted that each day and each experience is a gift.
People say I stay busy, but trust me – I “stay resting” and meditating, too, and it has helped me continue to grow and glow.
Wherever you find yourself on your life’s journey in this season, listen to your heart, your spirit and your body.
Press your way when called for,
Rest your way when called for,
and understand that both are necessary and helpful.
And when those seasons of doing and dancing and planning return, never forget what you’ve been through, because it makes where you’re going all the more special.
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Can you believe there’s just over 4 months left in 2023? Make the most of this day, this week and the seasons ahead.
You matter and so does what you choose to embrace.
Lean into what feeds your soul and forgive yesterday’s troubles.
Choose joy and focus forward.
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My meditation and writing time one morning last week yielded this gem for the main character in the fiction I’m writing, and I have to share, because it’s a word for us, too:
Sometimes we have to give up who we once were, or how we’ve always done something, in order to embrace who we’re meant to be in THIS season. What worked for you a decade ago, or maybe even a year ago, was for that stage, age or chapter.
Stacy Hawkins Adams
So keep learning and leading and loving. Get excited about your present, and for what’s to come, because now you get a chance to write your next chapters with the clarity, confidence and intention that will be relevant for what the world needs now, and for the purpose and peace that are your birthright.
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I write fiction and nonfiction to empower women, but I care just as deeply about advocating for children. So when my award-winning author friend Kwame Alexander invited me and others to accompany him to the Motherland to foster literacy in a couple of rural villages (and fit in a safari), this was one of those quick “yes” moments – Kenya, here I come!
We visited from June 30 – July 8, and I am still basking in the afterglow of having traveled with 20 amazing writers, librarians and teachers (and their children or partners) who care about reading, writing and the transformative power of education.
I was thrilled to read to these preschool students in Wamunyu, Kenya
I traveled with award-winning authors Kwame Alexander (right) and Jerry Craft (left)
Our U.S. group of authors, teachers, librarians, and the friends and family who accompanied us to Kenya.
It was an honor to nurture these gifts in the several hundred school children our group met through the nonprofit Kenya Connect, which serves students and families in 60-plus rural schools, and to meet with librarians and teachers to brainstorm next-level ways to engage these young learners and parents.
My takeaways from this trip?
There are many! I’m still processing the life lessons, and my creative juices are flowing, but here are a few immediate nuggets:
1. Be present in each moment.
Getting an opportunity to dance with village women one day and members of the Maasai tribe on another;
inspire schoolchildren,
sign and giveaway copies of my books,
wake up to the sounds of hippos and elephants grazing near my glammed-up tent, see those and numerous other animals in their natural habitat (including a leopard and cheetah and hundreds of zebra migrating to Maasai Mara) while bonding with my amazing fellow travelers? Priceless and Unforgettable.
2 Don’t postpone joy.
When you can, say yes to opportunities and experiences and delight yourself in something new. You may not be able to travel the globe, yet there are other ways you can expand your mind, give back and grow.
3. Find inspiration all around you.
The proverbial icing on this experience for me was sitting at dinner one evening listening to Kwame and his dear friend and fellow New York Times bestselling author Jerry Craft trade ideas based on our adventures, while I independently brainstormed new threads for my novel-in-progress.
These two authors and the other writers in our group offered one another helpful doses of motivation to keep going, dream bigger and celebrate our stories as well as those of the people we encountered.
Ultimately, the sharing and educating that occurred during this trip were mutually enriching. May we Americans have left our friends in Africa as full of the hope and appreciation for collaboration that they gifted to us.
I loved reading to these attentive students!
This sweet girl clung to me and the delight was mutual!
I gifted a copy of my women’s fiction novel The Someday List to Nada!
Esther, the librarian for Kenya Connect, was delighted to receive a copy of Watercolored Pearls.
I bought many baskets from village women in rural Kenya, including the one made by Elizabeth, which she is holding.
Preparing to leave Nairobi for the Massai Mara desert.
Some of my travel companions and I preparing for Day 2 of our safari.
One of the many animals we saw close up!
Seeing the animals, like this elephant, in their natural habitat, was breathtaking.
One of the Massai tribe women, who sold me jewelry.
We all took turns posing in this beautiful tree!
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I hadn’t intended to stay away from this blog for so long, but here we are, in mid-March, with many of us preparing to spring our clocks forward in honor of the U.S.’s Daylight Savings Time mandate and to welcome the looming change in seasons accompanied by longer days, warmer winds and sunnier skies.
I’m here with a smile in my heart, after giving myself some space and time to grieve the death of my brother during the Christmas holiday season; to appreciate a return to better health after a challenging year, and to sit with my thoughts and in prayer to determine which projects from my Dreams & Goals List to focus on in 2023.
My novel-in-progress has remained atop that list, and I’m earnestly revising my completed first draft. I’ve also been supporting an author friend by championing his amazing body of work, which continues to resonate with readers of all ages – from children to seasoned citizens. Thank you, Kwame Alexander, for taking me on the journey with you. I’m learning at your feet as you do the work of changing the world, one word at a time.
I’ve continued to mentor a small band of writers who are members of my online Focused Writers Community. Last month, we celebrated the first anniversary of the anthology On Womanhood that we jointly published in 2022. This book is still resonating with readers of all ages and stages, and for that we are grateful.
Today, I’m delighted to celebrate the power of women and our stories as we settle into Women’s History Month, by sharing with you one of my signature events – a storytelling brunch I hosted in fall 2022: Still We Rise: Celebrating the Power of Women’s Stories.
If you’ll invest your time to watch (solo or with a group of friends!) I hope you will savor all that is expressed and end the experience changed for the better. May the truths and aha moments offered during the program help your heart open, your courage rise, your empathy grow and your understanding (of self and others) multiply. For you are a pearl in progress and your story is worthy celebrating, too. Onward!
Stacy Hawkins Adams (center) featured with speakers and presenters at her October 2022 brunch, Still We Rise: Celebrating the Power of Women’s Stories
Someone I care about entered hospice a few days ago, beginning a process that is both dignity-rendering, yet leaking with sadness.
Only our Creator knows the exact time left, but this person would want no pity, and if possible, would be cracking jokes and setting you straight on your attitude and actions at every turn, with declarations that life is to be enjoyed and celebrated.
With that in mind, I issue this Wednesday Wisdom to:
Love on yourself more, just because.
Tell others what they mean to you while you can (I have and I regularly do).
Cry when you feel like it.
Laugh every chance you get.
Forget about yesterday’s grudges.
Love those who love you back.
Be kind to those whose rudeness often means they need more kindness.
Challenge yourself to leave everyone better than you found them – with what you say and what you don’t; by how you share and where you set boundaries; and by giving with no expectation of receiving.
Let your heart break. The only way through grief is through.
Say Thank You for everything – because every breath, every day, and every person who crosses your path is in some way a gift.
When Bern Nadette Stanis – aka Thelma from Good Times (and more recently, Nee from The Family Business) – visited Richmond, Virginia in the fall, I couldn’t let her get away without learning more about her journey before, during and after becoming the first Black teenager on American television.
She shared some gems about her professional life and about her experience of serving as a caregiver for her beloved mother who lived with Alzheimer’s.
Her sweet spirit shone through during our chat, along with her message to always be yourself and to always lead with love.
Thank you, Bern Nadette!
Click Here to View my chat with Bern Nadette – aka Thelma from Good Times
We’re 6 days away from what I’m believing will be another God-kissed “Still We Rise: Celebrating the Power of Women’s Stories” inspirational brunch, and
while many of you can’t join me in person, perhaps you can spend a few minutes with your family or a circle of friends replicating this brief storytelling exercise that my friend Maya Smart guided guests through during my 2014 brunch.
If you participate, be sure to answer with “who” you are, not what you do.
Fast forward to today and you’ll discover with a quick Google search that Maya is a brand new yet already renowned author.
I salute her on this countdown to brunch number 2 by describing her with this one word: Amazing.
Maya Smart, author of the nonfiction book, “Reading For Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six”
It’s wonderful when life comes full circle, and my visit to Albuquerque, New Mexico last month to attend a Women’s Fiction Writers retreat was one of those occasions.
Thirty years ago, in the summer of 1992, I spent six weeks in ABQ interning for the city’s now-defunct morning newspaper, The Albuquerque Tribune. I lived near Old Towne with two sisterfriends who shared a house – Cathryn McGill, a renowned singer, songwriter and actress turned black leadership entrepreneur, and Pamela K. Johnson, a then-reporter at the Tribune turned author and filmmaker.
Pamela has since moved back to her native California where she continues to write for numerous national publications (Hey, Pam!) while Cathy remains in ABQ and continues to contribute to the community and the arts in a myriad of ways. She and I met for breakfast while I was in town and traded updates about life and goals as if time had never passed.
Stories abound! And as one of my mentors always says, Just keep living and life will keep giving.
Still Unfolding with Stacy Hawkins Adams 