Editor’s Edict:

It’s already mid-month of this brand new year and surprisingly, I think I’m pretty settled into it. Are you? Somehow I feel like this year will be like an amazing jacket you bought three years ago, put it in your closet with the tags still on and you are just now finding it…something old, yet new.

Whatever your situation may be, let’s take off the old jacket we’ve been wearing; it has done its job, it has run its course; it’s time to change!

Maybe you’re discovering old talents you’ve let lie dormant and are realizing once you blow the dust off ‘em, these talents can make you “change” (literally and figuratively – think $$)! Maybe you’re changing your outlook on life or the way you do things which will help you make a significant shift in your current position since changing a stagnant position can bring on growth.

The Gazette is due for a positioning change. Since I was a teenager reading “Seventeen” magazine and realized I wasn’t represented on those glossy pages, I’ve wanted to have my own magazine -- hence, the birth of The Brown Betties Gazette. This year we’ll be working to turn BBG into an actual online, flippin’ mag (see here). We will be accepting advertisements and donations to make this happen (click on the Paypal logo!). If you are interested in advertising with BBG, email us at brownbettiesgazette@yahoo.com!

Somehow, I think my mom and grandma win this month with how they have had to change…uhh, read her article, “Momma Said” and you’ll see what I mean. We have some wonderful poetry from Cecilie Davis Carter for “In My Solitude” and Tanya Alexander-Henderson asks you to defy what you hear with her piece in “The New Haiku”. Sidney Gaskins offers you a 2009 Challenge in “Love. Hate. Want. Need.” I’m a “Mocha Mogul” (so is Sidney), and came across a blog written by Nicole, also a Mocha Mogul, that was perfect for “Unzipped”. I hope you’ll enjoy it as well as the eighth fiction installment of "Harlem's Awakening"...the back story to Harlem & Joe of “Harlem’s Night Cabaret” as performed by the Brown Betties.

Our featured January Brown Bettie is my dearest friend, Miata Fuller…she is the perfect woman to jump off 2009 simply because she is who she is!

Thank you for reading; please forward to a friend; and don’t forget to visit www.brownbetties.com! If you have any comments, feel free to hit me up at brownbettiesgazette@yahoo.com

xo
The Hot One

ps. The biggest change of all: GO OBAMA! I still cry when I think of it.

Here are pics of me and some friends on that wonderful night he was elected. Photos by friend, Adrian Pitts.

Panorama of all watching the election unfold.

Un-believable. Couldn't stop crying.

Obama Girls!

Love. Hate. Want. Need.

By Sidney Gaskins

Each month, Sidney breaks down what she loves, hates, wants or needs.

What happens at the beginning of every 365-day cycle? There is a collective resolution-making frenzy. People spend the end of the prior cycle reflecting on the past and thinking of ways to bring it in the future with their New Year’s Resolution. What would happen if New Year’s Resolutions were called “New Possibility for Change”? What if this year you changed how you thought about a resolution and made it a challenge for your self, but stuck to it?

The Challenge: 2009 The Year of BOLDNESS, FREEDOM, and HAVING IT ALL.

In all areas of life these three elements can bring change if taken on as though Life depends on it. Let’s break it down in specifics to “Love”:
1) In love, BOLDNESS can break down walls; build strength and closeness; and even open an avenue for healing.
2) FREEDOM, injected into a love relationship or family situation cultivates comfort, security, acceptance, and the opportunity to speak your heart and your truth.
3) Planting the seeds of boldness and freedom can result in HAVING IT ALL in love. (Do not think that “love” necessarily has to do with an intimate relationship. Apply it to the people you love in your Life. Apply it to the most important person in your Life: YOU. Are you willing to change your love relationships this year?)

With BOLDNESS, FREEDOM, and HAVING IT ALL as a model for 2009 and beginning a regimen of love, it follows that shining the light of love on all areas of life can extricate hate, attract wants, and fulfill needs.

If I may interject, it is not an accident that I happen to be writing this at this time. Everything in this column happens to be what I am taking on. The truth is that boldness, freedom, and having it all are necessary ingredients for me to live the life I love in all areas. From 2008 to 2009 there were changes that happened but I allowed them to happen without taking action to have it go another way -- without taking true responsibility for where my Life was going. However, being on the rollercoaster is over and taking the reigns is in store so that I can have what I want. Most of all, to have the vision I see come to fruition, change is the order of the day. That vision is something that will take me outside of my comfort zone and requires change.

For me, my challenge includes: I would love to see the vision; hate to make the changes; want to be present; and need to embrace the boldness, freedom, and having it all to have 2009 be The Year of BOLDNESS, FREEDOM, and HAVING IT ALL. Will you take the Challenge with me?

Sidney Gaskins, Family and Business Consultant/Coach, is the CEO/President Enterprising Life in metropolitan Atlanta, GA. Enterprising Life encourages individuals and businesses to look outside of the box to unleash their dreams and achieve success. For more information visit: www.EnterprisingLife.com or call 678.886.3174 .

In My Solitude

Change
By Cecilie Davis Carter








2008
Stuck in a box
Humidity
No air
Can’t breathe
No track of time
Blackness
Ears are ringing
Voices in my head
Flowers are dead
Can’t move
Can’t think
Need
Need
Need
Panic
Hot
Fighting back tears
Adding on years
Can’t breathe
Can’t breathe
Can’t breathe
Can’t walk
Can’t talk
Can’t love
Stuck
NEED CHANGE.

2009
BRIGHT
FLIGHT
LOVE
AIR
LIFE
HOPE
CHANGE

The New Haiku
Each month we'll feature a New Haiku from
Tanya Alexander, poet and director of Harlem’s Night Cabaret


This month, we decided to include one of Tanya’s original poems. It’s message is priceless:

Recession?
How 'bout progression?
Bountiful sessions that teach us life lessons.
Pleasant like children who finger paint yes's that hang on the fridge of their fathers and misses.
More's not less's.
Good, better, best's.
Counting your blessin's and relieving all stresses.

How 'bout successes?
Organized messes and chaotic guesses that bring about wishes with
New visions and freshens our passions.
Gives us rations of abundance and fashions a soul harmonized and long-lastin'.

Can we say yes's?
Instead of negation, excuses of races, hatred and stagnation?

Can we see faces?
With eyes that speak and move beyond places of
Color, gender and sex orientation?

We are a nation.
A world of free spirit that moves through space and
takes shape and
remakes and
becomes something great.

We can see visions and listen and move to new levels of enlightened positions.
We can change our perspective, be still and reflective, become a collective and then effective.

Don't believe what you hear, ya'll.
Ain't no recession.
There's only progression.

Get Tanya's new spoken word album, "Pieces of Tanya", on Itunes or CD Baby. Some soothing samples are here:

"Unzipped"
Contributors offer what gets them "Unzipped"

"How Would Anybody Know I was Drunk at the Bus Stop?"
by A Mom on the Edge

Chapter 1--Holding the Line

Whenever I feel like screaming and hiding in the basement watching Lifetime all day, I remind myself that my goal as a parent is to 'hold the line'. Kids need boundaries, I am a trained therapist, I know this. I know that they push the boundaries to see if they will hold, because a strong front makes a country, a car, a mate, a child, feel safe. It is my job as a parent to hold the line on morality, social graces, education and a host of other things. Most days, I am up to the challenge. But other days, I keep flashing back to that game in gym class in elementary school. Do you guys remember Red Rover? "Red Rover, Red Rover, send the skinny, weak girl right over?..." I remember holding on so tight to that hand next to me, not wanting to be the weak link on the team. I remember the boys who use to run so hard into your hand that it brought tears to your eyes but you didn't let go. Parenting is a lot like that game. Most days, you get the weak girl trying to break through, but not really trying cause she didn't want to play anyways. But some days, that boy who got held back twice and weighs way too much is running directly at your writing arm. Wouldn't it be easier to let go and let him fall on his face? After all, was there a prize in this damn game?!! But then you remember that you have pride. and that you think you can beat him. And there is nothing worse than losing a game that you really think you have the ability to win. So come on back talking, come on bad attitude, come on 'I don't like you even though I'm wearing your last paycheck on my back', come on all you crazy mofos in the world who want to take my babies down...Red Rover, Red Rover, send that bullshit right over--mamma's waiting for ya...

Nicole’s primary field is in Therapeutic Social Program Development. You can read more of her blogs on her Mocha Moguls profile.

Harlem’s Awakening…
by Peppur Chambers

For your reading enjoyment, find the eighth installment of “Harlem’s Awakening”…This is the “True Hollywood Story” (as it were) behind the love affair between Joe and Harlem that plays out in the cabaret, “Harlem’s Night” performed by the Brown Betties.

Chapter 8 – Change of Face

Harlem knew it was time for change. It was time for her to get past her silly little crushing love-less fling with Joe. This past mess with him embarrassing her at the club by bein’ all friendly with another woman right in front of her face, was absolutely enough! And Thank God she had her best friend Cora around to make her know it.

Harlem stared out the window of the dress shop; 125th street was bustling along without her. She’d had plenty with sewing for today. She’d recently taken this part-time job to keep her mind off things. She was realizing that the boredom of it kept her daydreaming so much that her mind was always on the thing she was trying to forget!

She decided to do something about it. She tied off the yellow knot on the last stitch she’d made on the hem of a very pretty floral dress. She hung it up as she thought of something to say so she could leave. Mrs. Bell, the shop keeper and a dear old friend of her deceased mother, would certainly understand since Harlem was usually very reliable. “I’m not feelin’ quite one-hundred percent, Mrs. Bell. I’d like to get myself home and return tomorrow.” Harlem announced as she grabbed her coat so as not the give Mrs. Bell much room to tell her she couldn’t leave. Her hand was already on the heavy glass door knob by the time the portly Mrs. Bell made it from the back of the tiny shop to the front. “Ok dear,” she sighed. Harlem felt guilty for all of ten seconds before she waved a sickly “bye-bye”.

Once outside in the crisp afternoon air, Harlem realized she felt absolutely one-hundred percent better! She nearly skipped with glee at her freedom. She about ran all the way to where Cora was working, which was 4.3 blocks away.

***
Harlem arrived at the little ice cream shop that Cora’s father owned. She entered and the little bell above the door announced her arrival. Cora looked up from scooping home-made vanilla goodness and squealed with happiness which of course made her bombastic father yell, “Cora! Dammit! We have customers. Show some sense!”

Harlem said her pleasantries to Mr. Benjamin Franklin (Harlem always wondered why Cora’s grandparents would name their child after Benjamin Franklin, but who was she to ask since her name was a bit out of the ordinary too?) Before Harlem could sit her bottom on the counter stool, Cora blurted out, “Have you heard of the Brown Betties?”

Harlem had to bite her tongue for fear of swallowing it. Ohhhh brooooother. Had she ever.


(c)2007 Pen and Peppur LLC

Momma Said:
By Vicki Rogers (my momma)

Recently the word “change” has become not only a part of our daily vocabulary but part of our psyche of hope. In my own family, mother and I are caught up in a struggle of change. She was, all within 3 months, diagnosed with bladder cancer and has since undergone surgery to remove her bladder. She is now wearing a bag to collect her urine. That change was our hope, hers and her daughters, to keep her alive. However, this change, at first, was so foreign to her that she could not bare to look at what she perceives as mutilation. Even to aid in learning the procedures involved to facilitate her own recovery makes her cringe. The once vibrant and vivacious “mother” that I had come accustomed to loving with tolerance has changed into a voluminous mass of cantankerous, self-pitying flesh that is instrumental in pissing us off instead of learning a new way to pee. In the mean time, I too am learning about a new way to pee. A year ago, I began experiencing massive headaches whenever I took a piss. I had to physically prepare myself pre-piss for the post-piss pain. For months this went on because no one knew what the hell was wrong with me. Finally, I was diagnosed and a surgical remedy was prescribed. The remedy has turned out to be a widening of the Urethra which, oddly enough, sounds somewhat like a construction project that would take place on your city streets instead of one’s internal plumbing highway. My new semi-annual readjustment to my plumbing is my pathway to hope that those horrific headaches never return. And, I have to change my way of peeing just like my mom; but she has the bag and I now have a tube…which gets inserted …into a hole. Once again I have to prepare myself for the piss: currently, I have to take medication that turns my urine red/orange and so as not to stain the tile on my bathroom floor (which I put in myself, thank you very much!) I retreat to the tub to catch the urine as it erupts like lava out of the not-so-slender plastic catheter tube when it reaches its magma chamber that is my bladder. My aim still needs work. To make matters worse, my boyfriend has to help me find the hole with a mirror! When I take my nightly trip into the bathtub to empty my bladder with my catheter tube, I think of my mother empting her external bladder as well. At least mom’s bag is located above the belly button. Even if for now she refuses to look at it, she will always be able to find the hole it attaches to by herself.

Anyway, I wrote her this song (sung to the Brownie Girl Scout "Smile" song):

I have a little bag that goes everywhere with me.
I have a little bag that catches all my pee.
Sometimes it’s not so tidy when it springs a leak.
But I tell myself it’s not so bad even though it makes me freak.
I have a little bag that goes everywhere with me.
I have a little bag that let’s me know I’m cancer free.

I haven’t shared it with her yet but I sing it in the bathtub while my lava flows.