“Over the course of my life it is my relationships with other women that have lifted me up and held me down. It is my relationships with women that have provided covering and protection.”
-Stephanie D. Pearson-Davis
For the last several years we have spent our anniversary weekend celebrating in downtown Chicago. This anniversary was no different. We had a blast eating good food, listening to great music and just being together.
I am a summer girl. If you know anything about Chicago; you know that Chicago in the summer is EVERYTHING. Like… I want a summer home, but I need to call it an any season but summer home because I will always spend my summers here. The vibe is super easy and there’s something to do around every corner.
The best part of our weekend was spent in Grant Park with India Arie. The worst part was waiting in line to get into the venue. To say the line was long is an understatement. Plus, the temperature was on HELL. It was not a comfortable experience.
We were out in an open field. Shade was nonexistent. While we were lamenting about the length of the line and the heat, one of the women in front of us pulled out an umbrella and used it to cover she and her two friends. It was a special moment between friends. I’m sure they thought nothing of it, but it stopped me in my tracks.
This photo is a metaphor for friendship.
The world would lead you to believe that it is impossible for women to share in loving, productive, symbiotic relationships. I think this is particularly true in portrayals of Black women, buuuuuut it’s fair to say that women of all races get a bad rap for how they interact with each other.
Blame misogyny. Blame patriarchy. Blame media.
For me, I think it is important to cast out these negative and false accounts regarding relationships between women. These accounts that portray us as overemotional, drama filled and in constant competition. I won't lie, I have had a bad interaction or two. However, over the course of my life it is my relationships with other women that have lifted me up and held me down. It is my relationships with women that have provided covering and protection.
So, when I saw this woman and several others use their personal umbrellas as a barrier between them, their friends and the sun; I felt something.
Gratitude.
I’m so grateful for the awareness to really see that sight.
and
I’m grateful for the reflective spirit that allowed me to see myself in it.
It was a gift… me seeing myself in those women.
I’m 41. You don’t get to be my age without going through some shit. My friends and I have been through marriage, divorce, pregnancy, childbirth, miscarriage, abortion, home buying, homelessness, sick parents, mental illness, single motherhood, poverty, domestic violence and unemployment.
At times, life became almost unbearable… just like the heat from the sun in that open field.
When I have been on the hot ass, open field of life no one makes an announcement like, “Hey y’all! Look at this! Stephanie is about to pass out from heat exhaustion. No. That is not friendship. Like the woman in the picture, my friends assess the situation, pool their individual or collective resources and quietly, but fiercely protect me… cover me.
There have been many times I didn’t know how I was going to make it through. I once casually mentioned to a friend I felt badly that I wasn’t going to make it on a field trip. She volunteered to take my baby so she wouldn’t miss all the water park field trip fun. Or the time I was terribly sad and I just needed a place to be. My friend let me lay on her couch and sleep in her bed for 2 days. Last fall when I had my hysterectomy…. There were umbrellas everywhere!!!
I often get random texts that say, “I love you!”, “How you doin over there?” or “You good?”. When Bruce and I were newly married my Disney ideals about marriage had me taking everything he did personally. My friends would remind me of his stellar qualities and all the reasons I said “i do”. If I even sound tired, one of them will offer to come get these kids or minimally say, “What you need me to do?”.
As a friend, I have paid bills, purchased groceries, provided a place to live and held hands through a variety of medical procedures.
The point of this is not to brag or gloat about who did what. It’s just to say…
In friendship, sometimes you’re holding the umbrella… sometimes you’re standing under it.
I’m not here because I’m an expert. I’m here because I have experiences. -Stephanie