Yup... I'm a Colored Girl

This weekend was full of festivities for me, something that is becoming more and more uncommon - on purpose.  Saturday my high school took part in one of the country's biggest high school rivalry football games - the 122nd Annual Poly - City game.  With a score of 14-6 there was lots to celebrate.  It was great to see old and new faces, share our children together and just enjoy good times with good people. 



Me and good friend Jeremy spending time at the game

 Sunday was reserved for an outing with the Williams Family ladies to see Tyler Perry's new movie, For Colored Girls.  This movie, originally a stage play named, For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Was Enuf, touched me on so many different levels.  Without giving away the movie for those who have yet to see it, I'll explain how it made me feel. 

The first thing I noticed about this movie was how truly poetic it was.  I have not read the play to compare, but the pieces written were so very colorful and rich.  The very first one felt like a song to the soul as a young girl recounted her first sexual experience.  It took me back to my first and, for a moment, I relived what it felt like to be a teenage girl, in what I thought was madly in love.  To have all of my "desires" fulfilled and anticipate that phone call hours later just to recount what was felt.  The flutters, butterflies, distant smiles and blank stares softened by a memory that still feels like movement.  I felt her love.

Thandie Newton's part was self-realization and uplifting, although her part was very demeaning and destructive.  I saw what my life once was in her.  The shell that we create around ourselves... living with the fear of having to actually undress and stand in front of the mirror and say, "this is me...  And it's ok."

My favorite character was Kimberly Elise.  She played a part that so many black women find themselves in and don't even realize it.  Playing the roll of Superwoman to our black men because we know they need a hero.  Most live their lives, playing a leading role in "The Black Man's Burden".  And like many other sisters, she took on an overwhelming sorrow of another human, which ended up becoming her own. 

My girl Janet did her thing yet again!!!  I am so proud that she has embrace yet another great talent of hers and using it to empower us.  All of her roles have been so meaningful and powerful and this one falls right into place.

Phylicia Rashaad was the anchor of it all.  She reminded me of my aunts.  The rock of any circle of black women.  She dropped so much knowledge and kept it real. 

It was great seeing the lives of women in general in so many colors.  Everyone's experience is different, but every walk of life is an "experience".   If this movie doesn't make you think, cry, wish, celebrate and exhale... you have yet to experience the life of a Colored Girl.