Hello Readers!
I hate to sound predictable and trite, but can you believe that it is 2021? It seems like I have adjusted
to wri@ng 2021 and leBng go of the last year more quickly than in other years. I think we were all preFy @red of 2020, who somehow blinked by and dragged us behind it at the same @me. Good riddance, amIrite? But, we must take the good with the bad. I think that 2020 gave us (the whole world) some real opportuni@es to stop and think about what’s important to us. The social-distancing we had to do in response to the coronavirus alone certainly shiNed every system I work with: healthcare, educa@on, employment, courts. If we add in the events associated with police brutality,
Black Lives MaFer protests, and the debacle that was 45’s campaign, 2020 was a mass of
trauma@c events, reflec@on, and growth. And you know what the biggest protector against trauma and the best context for reflec@on and growth is? Oh, yeah. Rela@onships. And February’s theme is Black
Love. Ha! I went a long way for that connec@on, didn’t I? Haha!
And on that note, check out your book recommenda@ons for February.
Love Like Sky by Leslie C. Youngblood (Children’s Book, Realis<c Fic<on) A recommenda@on for a children’s book about a liFle girl and her family might seem, to some, a bit out of place for a magazine that also includes drag queens and kissing adults and side boob. But, actually, the love and rela@onships we have in our lives as children can allow us to express our full range of iden@@es as we grow up. Love Like Sky is about a girl, G-Baby, and her liFle sister, Peaches. Their parents are divorced and re-coupled. The story is told from G-baby’s point of view as she figures out her place in both of her families. When Peaches gets sick, her parents are back to figh@ng and G-baby takes in on herself to make everything right again. The @tle makes reference to an analogy in the book. G-baby tells Peaches to think about a road trip. Love isn’t like the fuel in the gas tank, limited and needing refills. Love is like when you look up and out the window. You see the sky goes on and on forever. That’s how love is. Love is like sky. Leslie C. Youngblood is a Rochester local.
