When I started this book, I was on maternity leave with my second son. The freedom of being home all day, every day, and the disorientation of an on-demand breastfeeding schedule oddly suited my writing. It meant that I was awake and journalling during those quiet moments in the night when everyone else was sleeping. I liked the solitude that came with being housebound for large chunks of time with a newborn. After years spent hopped up on adrenaline, it felt good to be off the work treadmill for a moment and to have an opportunity to reassess my life and recalibrate. Not to mention I appreciated having a break to just focus on my family and my writing, uninterrupted by morning commutes, extended work travel and deadlines.
But now, as I complete the book with this introduction more than a year later, I’m housebound for a different reason. We’re more than four months into a global pandemic, as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) steamrolls its way through the world, and eight weeks into a nationwide lockdown. The experience of working from home all day, while in a government-enforced quarantine, feels much less like a freedom, though it is most certainly a privilege.
Small acts we once took for granted like shaking a stranger’s hand, hugging a friend, visiting loved ones or having dinner in a crowded restaurant, are not possible for the foreseeable. Now, we walk down the street wearing face masks, paranoid about who might have coughed just steps before. And we scrub and disinfect our groceries (purchased in a whirlwind of panic after waiting in socially distanced queues that stretch for blocks outside stores) with a rigour that just months ago would have been declared a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder.
The basics — our health, the food on our tables, a walk outdoors, a deep inhale of fresh air — now feel like life’s ultimate luxuries. But luxury’s meaning changes with context and the pandemic has made the divisions that separate race and class painfully clear.
When the virus hit, a popular line began circulating that 2020 was the end of identity politics, that COVID-19 was the great equaliser that didn’t see race or class. People of colour knew better. And the opposite turned out to be true as the news was confirmed. Black, Muslim, Latin and Asian communities were the hardest hit, and women (who make up the vast majority of ‘essential workers’) were shouldering the brunt of the load. The virus wasn’t wiping the slate clean, it was deepening pre-existing inequalities.
I’ve watched close friends lose their loved ones, jobs and mental health to COVID-19. I’ve also watched dear friends, forced to reimagine their lives in the face of disruption, begin exciting new jobs, launch innovative new projects, and enter new romantic relationships. Throughout it all, I saw my friends and family more than we had in years, checking in on each other throughout the week on Zoom, FaceTime and Houseparty to make sure we were holding up okay in isolation as sickness, death and a crippled economy inched closer.
And just when it seemed like the news cycle and our collective angst couldn’t get worse, we found joy, laughter and solidarity in the most unexpected places. At an enormous, spontaneous Instagram Live party put on by the American DJ D-Nice, I bumped into old friends I hadn’t seen in years (old media colleagues, music industry mates and nightclubbing buddies) and the imaginary ones I had only ever followed from a distance (Michelle Obama, Janet Jackson, Rihanna and Tracee Ellis Ross to name a few).
Each one of our circumstances were uniquely different and yet we were all there, 100,000 of us united in isolation and our need for human connection. Weeks later, over 700,000 of us tuned in to a live stream music battle-turned-mutual appreciation session between two women responsible for soundtracking multiple generations of Black lives, Erykah Badu and Jill Scott, and then bonded for the next twenty-four hours over the endless stream of feel-good memes the evening produced. It was a night of sisterhood and healing. A celebration of us, and all our nuances. ‘Most of the time, I’d prefer, I like to be a lady. Sometimes, I’m not. I’m a lot of things. Aren’t we a lot of things?’ Jill Scott said. We were all alone, together.
The show of numbers throughout these moments reminded us of our own agency and collective power, especially when the world erupted in protests over the videotaped murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man suffocated under the knee of a white police officer. We mobilised on both small local and sprawling global levels. We raised money for bail funds for protestors, called government officials and demanded arrests, and circulated petitions to defund the police. We protested, both in the streets and virtually. And we called out racism as and when we saw it. We said their names: George. Breonna. Ahmaud. Tony. Aiyana. Eric. Michael. Sandra. Tamir. Tony. Tanisha. Yvette. Rekia. Natasha. Kindra. Kimberlee. Joyce. Ralkina. Kayla. Gynnya. Korryn. And we did all of this in a matter of weeks, with black women powering much of the action, from organising marches and conducting justice work trainings to creating social media campaigns and assets that mobilised millions around a range of action plans. Throughout it all, we asserted our beauty and humanity in the face of tragedy, while continuing to go to work, mother our families and support our friends and relatives. We showed up, together.
So while the world looks radically different from how it did when I first began writing these essays, reflecting on a decade’s worth of personal and cultural touchstones, the issues at its heart — belonging, connection, resilience and identity — remain. And as we re-evaluate our lives during one of the most pivotal years in modern history, and move forward towards a future that will be different from the one we imagined, I hope this book reminds you that even in the midst of chaos, we’re here, loving, persevering, growing and finding the meaning in life as we go.
Girl! GWORL. Gorl. Guhl. Gurl. Grrrrrlll.
‘Mommy, why is it that every time you’re on the phone or with your friends it’s always girl, girl, girl, girl?’ my son asked me two years ago, as I was tucking him into bed for the night. I was amused. Mostly at the sight and sound of myself through my five-year-old’s eyes and ears — he had gotten my animated pacing and high-pitched intonation just right — but also at the idea that I used the word enough for him to pick up on it.
‘I hadn’t realised, sweets. Do I really say it that much?’
‘Girl! You do,’ he said with a childish smirk, before turning over and closing his eyes. I tried to swallow my laughter as I turned off the light and tiptoed out of the room.
In my life I’ve used many pet names for the people I know and love: sis, luv, beauty, lovebug, babes, hon, pumpkin, doodlebug, sweets, bae, dumpling and peanut among others. But throughout my evolving networks of friends — and especially so among my Black chosen sisters — one term of endearment remains: girl. Equal parts greeting, exclamation and rallying call all at once.
As long as I can remember, girl was the root word in the unique love language between Black women, regardless of age. ‘Girl, you got it. Just go out there and do your best,’