Aug. 24, 2022
Healing Girl Summer
It’s a season for healing for team J.ill. In this episode Laiya and Aja talk about their summer travels that have sparked big awakenings. For more travel inspiration check out https://travelnoire.com/. Call 866-HEY-JILL and leave us a message with your comments on this episode!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to j dot il a production of I Heart Radio. Hold Everybonny h Welcome, Welcome to j dot Ilga podcast. You know who I'm here on. I'm sitting here with my beautiful, beautiful sisters laias Saint Clair. Yes we we that. This me hello an age a grading danceler. Yo yo yo baby pop come get me better make it fast or so I'm going to get a kissed. Can't you hear? Push? Push it really good? Oh my god, we just did an auntie anthem. Yes we did, Yes, we did. We did out here pushing it. They got to be We got some well, we got some sex. And listen, that is beautiful. Her chapsticks. Let me tell you when some girls can't get together all i'd the same. That's beautiful. This is a moment. It's ad. It's a d summer as well. We like it. Yes, yea having having some sex, so okay, we have to acknowledge it. Man, that's a blessing. Man. It's a lot of people ain't getting that out here. Man, what I'm saying that and the combination of that and some son shit. That's so you're so gleeful, you snorted. That's that's it. That's major, that major. The snort is an indication telling tell homie, I said, I say, yeah, you keeping the smile on our face out. Yes, my brother's over there, so shout and you know, year old maintenance over this mug. You know what I'm saying. The stays turned up, stays dirt up. It has to stay dirt up, come on down. That we do get a little bit of extra alone time, which is always a plus. I mean, that is the plus to our relationship in the way of functions and what we do for a living. You know, a lot of people don't get a lot of alone time. You're singing to each other too, and that thing hit different. That thing hit different in the hotel because that's you can't even be as loud and as rowdy as you can't be on the road. When you're on the road. She not talking about she talking. She's not talking about the singing Jill. She was talking. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, dude, I always talking. But but I was just saying, like, you know, you know, four play comes in a lot of different ways, right, I was thinking. I always felt as a fan of Cam Drid, I always felt like y'all you know, give me each other as a stages stuff in the transparency. Sometimes sometimes it can be that. Other times we can be a little bit on you know, autopilot. And then sometimes I have given him my aster kids right before we get on the stage, like all the stars, all the stars really they look up, always messed up those but but yes, it is definitely you when when all things are aligned, honey, and he's doing this good good singing, and we're in a good good place, good good singing, the good good place good and this is like the first real summer we had a good amen, you know, just like the first real big good like good summer, good summer touring and stuff. So y'all really, uh, the numbers must be up? Yeah, I mean, I mean yeah, I will say this though, like you know, the pandemic and everything did change how we were working and where this is the first summer that it's felt more like a normal summer. Yes, so things are definitely you know, kicking. We had a show last night. Wow. Up, So I've been up early girls and Richli Kwan and I don't today on today, I was up late and up early. Oh black Oh oh that's nice too, that's dance involved ladies and gentlemen. I want you to know it's vulgar. This is Monday. That happy summer to all, Happy summer to all. Last podcast, we were talking about the bro Mitzvah that Jet Night had um his bro Missfa. I just was able to accompany him, to show him, give him some world for his thirteenth birthday and his maturation. Yeah, I mean, and that was incredible. And I suggest anybody who has a young man child, even you know, if you gotta if you got a girl since Mitzvah, a girl, a girl mitsvah, it's just a writer passes missin since mits for Yeah, why not you gotta do some kind of whole African thing. Huh. Yeah. I just like, maybe we just ditch. I like BroMans for Don't get me wrong, I think that's dope. I know where's work. Let's put it into just figure out something that we can just make. Yes, I'm sorry black people, Yes, you're right, Okay, we're gonna think on it now. You're making us be more creative. That's fine. I I personally like, I like the whole concept of bar Mitzvah. I just thought that was I think something you know, even the name very cool something like that. Yeah, I think Hebrew Jed had to learn. Um I got it made. And he's flailing at best. I'm sorry when yes, I like, who's I got to me specialists? I gotta be okay. I just want to be clear, you girl, You say this like everybody in the atmosphere. They don't know. They know Jet was born too special as I got to meet he came, don't. So yeah, look, we were out here and I can I can see this. You can't see it, but I'm gonna describe before you. Layah has this like this goldie ready thing happening with her skin. It's really pretty and and I don't know what she's been doing, but she looks great. That's all that is. This summer Prian girl, it was. I just determined it might be the best island. I mean, I'd have been to a few, I ain't been to them all, but it's just something about Jamaica, the people. It was. It was, it was. It was relaxing. I went on a pre I'll say a pre op a prep baca because I'm getting my fabruaries out in a week or so. But It's funny because my doctor friend says me. As I was texting all my friends like yeah, I'm my priat bac and showing everybody. You know, he was like, yeah, enjoy your priat Baca. But you know you are'tupposed to be smoking a weed to drinking nothing before surgery. I was like, anyway, I still have that. I'm gonna cleanse out I got. I just went to this help. I got five more days and I got me some seed mass, some maringa, all the things. I'm gonna drink all this alkaline. But yes, Jamaica, it was. It was gorgeous. And I just said, I just say, everybody, if you get a chance and do what Airbnb. I don't. I ain't with the hotel life no more. Thanks to the COVID me and the man we are. Airbnb is for life and it is just better that way, and especially if you can, you know, save your coins, get somebody to cook you a couple of meals, and I have to go out and just sit on the beach. That's what it should be. Do you check for cameras? Uh do? But I also this particular Airbnb was a friend of a friend and if you could so, I kind of trusted them, but I most times because I'm at airbnber. Yes I do. I check for ambers a little bit. Yeah, but I'm not. Yeah, it's gonna be on the Just Give A show. I'm joking. I said, you travel all the time, though you never stopped traveling. I did doing the early days of the COVID. I kept it on the West side. I might. I just did Tahiti, but I still stayed over on the podcast. Listen, let me get my my broke bitch. Excuse me. Excuse me as I get my broth bass claimer to all like I like to him. Excuse me. You guys should know that here it comes, my broke bitch. Just claimer is, ladies and gentlemen. My mother has given forty three years of her life to an airline as a flight attendant, and I am just reaping the benefits of her hard work. That's why I always encourage everyone with a airport employee in their life to take advantage of these things. I just live your truth and own it. You can be boogie all you damn one to black woman deserves luxury, she said, I kept it on. I kept it to Tahiti. I was talking to it's to Tahiti. I can I just ask the reason that we kept it to Tahiti. Because when you live on the West coast, right and you and you want to travel to an island or something, but you don't want to travel because it's COVID. You don't want to stop in different places. You either got Hawaii or Mexico, or maybe you take eight one eight dollar flight to Tahiti. Most people don't think of Tahiti, but it's a lovely place. French, Polynesia and thank you think of the fantasy Bora Bora or Fiji. But these are all related to each other. They're all a part of the you know, Polynesian islands. So and Polynesian and French is the only language I took in school. So I kind of like when I can to go places where they speaking, because I can use that ship and say, you know, la toilet. Excuse him, Joe, that's where's the bathroom, That's where's the bathroom. I understood, Yes, I gotta twilet, I gotta toilet. Excuse me. I kind of let In fact, I'm gonna name my daughter twilet. So my children living it fresh, fresh air, what is that we're not gonna plenty of excellent speak in different languages. I'm gonna fight you. If you don't speak, you can't go. You can't be by friend. Do you understand that? Way off? You have to speak to a color purple? This is ma'am oh shipment, Yo, I can't believe I fail. Don't. It's okay, baby, We're gonna get you on. You have time. There's grace and mercy here. This is a safe place. We just want you to get on the people's Netflix. We just want you to get in the people's Amazon plan. When we get off for here, I know every other thing. Okay, We're gonna talk about this later because I'm okay, okay, alright, because all right, yeah, more conversation after the break. So Asian, how was New Orleans? Because I was mad I missed out on that trip. I saw you and the girl. Wait, I was just still curious about two heavy give us a little bit of background, like I'm like, I'm gonna say it like this. I know that these are not Um. I went to Hawaii and I just found it. I found it super expensive and I felt like they were unless you're in the military. Racist. Yeah, And I did not enjoy myself. I got a lot of stairs whenever I walked into a store and people were just looking and following me, and I was like, this is not this is not cool, Like I'm at a resort. Why are you following me? Why are you staring at me? Can I help you? Something? That was not a good feeling. So Hawaii is out for me, and the Indigenous people of Hawaii have made it very clear that they want us to chill on that for a minute. Number one of the coming there because number one, it was like a COVID thing. That was number one. They kept telling people to stay that but on the main land, you know, not the main land, on the other land. And then and then also to you know, they have been fighting the good fight. You know, everywhere you find indigenous people that consistently fighting the good fight. So that's the vibe there. So they're just kind of like, yeah, don't don't play games. But it's cool though. I'm just saying I ain't do nothing. She's I adn't do nothing. I didn't do Sometimes this was before COVID, way before like agows on like Japan levels as far as expense when it's for me, So I'm like that's always not my first choice. And yeah, but what I mean, I would say this about French Polynesia's dope because they suggested when you go there you learn the local language to Tahitian language, like learn how to say you know, hello, Yolana and all and all of these things. And but yeah, it's a beautiful place. And you can also take a faery. We rent a car and they're small cars and you can drive the whole island in probably two hours. But then there's you can take a ferry to other places, Like there's another island called Marenga Marea Moodea, which is about an hour out and we stayed there for a minute. But also check an hour out into the water the water with your car, because that means you know an island. But I also want to mention this part. Don't forget that the Marlon Brando Island is out there, right y'all heard about this, right Brando? Yeah, at least an island out there. And so there's one luxury resort on this island. It's a huge chi poo poo where Obama went to his memoirs. So we took a catamarran out there. You cannot see the resort. It's very small island, but you can't see the resort from where they bring in the you know, the regular folks, and you will not be able to go over there. You can just enjoy the white sand beaches, which are the brightest and could burn your retinas, that's how bright they are. The sand bars go out so crazy. I don't mean if you don't even know. I had to learn what the sand bar is for people who don't go to the beach. It's kind of like the sandbars where the sand extends in the water. You can just standel it to your ankles into your water and you could just walk to your ankles way out and so. And sometimes the sand bar will be in the middle of an ocean, and so you can just take a boat out there and do something like that. So yeah, and so stand out in the middle of it. Stand out in the middle of the ocean. People have parties and a sandbar. And Tahiti there's a thew sandbars where people like a mobile bar will come up to the sand bar and stuff like that. So it's really nice. Yeah, forget where we were. They had one of those. I don't remember where we were though, Galveston, Texas have one. I mean I don't know if that. I just know that you can walk for really really long time. I mean it was at least like a half of my own and it was the water in Galveston is what's that? Super warm? They get hit by hurricane, so that's usually an indication of a hurricane. Alley, is the warm water? Is it clear? Super warm? Yes? Okay, because I am when it comes to like beach water, I can't see my feet. I'm not paying I can't. So no, no North Carolina, no Jersey now. And first of all, let's keep it funk key, because me and the boyfriend are very clear about this. As he watches way too much shark week after, I will say this about Tahiti. They have sharks, but they're like straight dogs, so that means that. And we had to learn it's the hard way. We were out Snorkeland and the shark came up to us, and the boyfriend was like waving his hand like you know, no, no, no no. We running to the shore and we see two older local Tahitian folks standing in the water. We run towards them to let them know that the shark is coming and they let us know. Okay, yeah, they don't want you. It's enough fish here. The sharks don't bother people. That's something we have to get used to. But back to Asia's point, Caroline and all them places, they'd be on sharks, they'd be on Shark Week. I can't be on shark because the water is murky and you can't really see what was coming and the water and the changing climate climate change. Yeah, yeah, but I don't know if it's about being murky, because it's kind of like, I mean, you can see the point. You're right, it's not about the murky. Yeah, I just I mean you can see how I mean, you just can't see it. I just do that out there. I didn't know. I just never understood, like going somewhere for a beach vacation and I don't hope this don't sound bougie and you can't see your feet don't sorry? Oh yes, I mean we're doing this now. We're not just right, you just can't right if the actual is not like you you know what, I apologize, that is correct. I'm taking this is heavy right now, and I shi no. Let me tell you something. Black people deserve luxury period. There's no extra Black people deserve luxury period. Pooh, there's after that, there's no experiation period. Pooh. That's it. Yeah, but we do, and we're just not We're not gonna let it go any further. We're gonna despair things that we do and that people should do and if they find their way to it, they should and they deserve it. Period. That's it. Yeah, that guilt. That guilt is interesting. Now. That guilt is interesting because really the way that you responded, and I'm joking with you, but I understood the responsibility you felt. And I'm like, oh, I didn't want that. I just wanted to make a little jokey joke, but I have my own things. I'm like, I've been a broke bitch for long time. So getting out of that mentality when you work hard to get to a certain place. But it's it's that's it's it'sn't knowing that you deserve things, just like what you just talked about with luxury and what's called survivor's guilt. Is that a thing? Yeah? Yeah, amen, Amen. I didn't even tell nobody I went away. I was like the girl. I don't go away to get pre vacation and ship. I never had surgery in my life. I never had surgery in my life. So I'm like, I don't know, and my summer is over after this. Well let's just say this. You don't have to have impending surgery to go to Tahiti. Okay, okay, anybody, anybody listening to a little bit more free. You feel a little freed right now, because because I was explaining this to Jet the other day, I was like, the truth is just the truth? When if you if you're like, the truth is the flex really, if you're trying to if you're putting something on it, like I'm saying this because I want people to be impressed, then don't say it. If the truth is just the truth, there's nothing, there's nothing added to it, you know. You know what I'm saying. You have an opportunity to go and to places and have your entire life. I think nepotism is fire, especially because you ain't sitting around lazy and just sucking up. You know, whatever benefits there are. You work for a living and always have so there's that you know, and and you've had traveled enough that dad, you know what you're not what you like you know what you're not gonna take. But I think also too, people having experiences helps people who haven't had them, because I think it's just also gives you an idea of what you can do, where you can go, and if you do have the resources to go, it saves you time, money, energy based on things that other people of the experiences that people have had, and we do have to kind of normalize ees and kill the stereotype that black people don't go anywhere and that we don't have an interest of the resources to do. So I think at the end of the day, it's really more one of those things where we feel the heaviness of that you know, maybe everybody can and YadA, YadA, YadA, and it's just like we have the kind of debt that it's not a weight. We carry enough weight. We don't have to put extra weight on ourselves because it's unnecessary and it's unnecessary that sometimes that sometimes people do put the stink on it. People do put the stink on it, and this is where more's a lot of react and respond. I mean, like I'm glessing and that you can and look at you, you know what I mean. Sometimes I feel so much like it's just like yes, like like you know, damn, I didn't know. I wasn't ship, Like you know what I'm saying, I'm just on the payment plan and like I didn't know what I was that was that was messing with my self worth like that these reels be having you like, oh, I need to step my game up? Can I step my game? I'm telling you, I have to release myself. If you're going and you saved your money to go somewhere and you you know, have a wonderful meal and you stay in a in a nice hotel like you did that, congratulations, Please celebrate yourself and enjoy yourself wholeheartedly. And you know we like you know, like Aga was saying, and like yeah, that whole that survivor's guilt thing is just out. Let it go on this show too much. It's so funny because I'm like, I have to take the lessons that I learned on my own show. We talk about black people frolicking. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. We're not used to it. We're just not used to it, but we deserve well. I told for teen, I said my division right now, it's Project soft life. I'm done with hard life. Hard life is done for me, soft luster projects, soft life. What's the first step in life? What's the what's the first thing? You know? What's interesting? The first thing is understanding like the ongoing process of healing. So one of the things that that um that Jill was talking about with the bro Mitzfeld was that that was kind of about enlightenment, about having a write of passage. And for me, I found out that so much of what I was trying to do with my kids, which ended up kind of coming into our summer activities, was around healing and the process of healing. And I just want to make sure that I'm clear on this, is that that I've been in a in a healing process since the loss of my parents, since the pandemic. My children have been in the healing process from losing their grandparents, but then also from just the experience of the pandemic itself. My children have all gone through some major kind of changes in terms of people have ended their high school careers during the pan and make people have gone off to college and blah blah blah. So all these things have happened. So this summer has been the first summer, and I want to really, I wanna be honest, probably in about four years that my family has not been experiencing a major like thing that we had to heal from as a family, you know what I'm saying, And that we could experience the healing in a way that felt like we were making steps out of it, you know what I'm saying, not out of it into another kind of stage of the healing process, which I kind of feel like it's about redefining, you know what I mean. And so I tell say all that to say that my my daughters and I took a trip, but that wasn't the only thing that happened the month of June. And I'm gonna try to make this real quick so I don't get long winded, But the month of June is a transformative month for me. It really has become a season in my life that I pay very close attention to. Number One because it's my mother. Her birthday is June twenty. But also my mother passed away on June twentieth, and we actually had her homegoing on her birthday. Also, it's the month of Father's Day, is the month of um. You know that my father transitioned at the end of June, so he the first week of July, really, but it was also the end of June, so my parents transitioned around the same season. So a lot of their energy just gets very strong in present during that time period. And it has been always in the past eight years really, but definitely in the past four years a time I pay a lot of close attention to you. This year it was really powerful because my daughter, my third born, was graduating from high school, and you know, and it's also the month of my second daughter's birthday as well, and she was graduating high school, and it started getting too the month of June, and so many beautiful things were happening. I was getting the child ready for prim which in a lot of ways, PRIM ends up being like a write of passage to you know, especially for for for for black kids. It's not just about putting on the gown. You know. Black kids got a whole what they called a send off, and the whole NNE got music and I ain't gonna When I first got the Philly, I was like, what is this ghetto ship? But here's the thing, Just like most ghetto things, it's beautiful. It's black people defining who they are for themselves. And once you can step outside of what the white man say it is and start really looking at what it really is, then you can kind of get into it. And doing this for my daughter after two years of them being all in the house and everything, and some kids didn't have a prom, they didn't have a graduation, and to know she was going to have both, we did it up, really did it up. And going through that process with her was amazing for me. And it wasn't just about a dance. It was about just exchanging ideas with her and and and going to the fittings and deciding on colors and all of these different things. And I know this sounds like something so simple, but really it was a great experience for me. And while it was being able to bond with her, you know. And so then she graduated into my daughter's birthday came, she turned twenty years old, and it made me realize something too that out of six children, only one of my children has had both her grandmother's present during her birth. And that's my dear, that's my oldest daughter. And when I thought about that energy and what that meant she had both her grandmother's present and in the doorway when she was birthed in in her in the bedroom that she that she ended up living in because we had a home birth. In the hallway were all of her aunts. So all my sisters and my husband's sisters lined the hallway in front of the door as she was coming into the world, and I was flanked by my mother and my husband's mother. And when I realized what a powerful energy that was about her coming in to the world, it linked her to this June season in a way that I wasn't thinking about before. So, you know, so I don't get too complicated with it. At the end of the day, June for me is an ancestral coming together for me, and so that has it has defined itself as that. It wasn't even like I you know, there was no plan, There was no nothing. There was just a being in tune with a kind of healing and being in tune to listening and hearing God and hearing my ancestors and feeling them. That helped me to know, oh, this is the time, and that is something that is that is the africanness of us. Is that the feeling and the opening up the spirit to understanding what is happening and being open to hearing that part of it. So that's kind of what I feel like, you know, that's that's the communication that I've been having with the Creator around this time and round, you know, around that time. So it culminated to a degree with this trip that I took with my daughters, one who was turning in twenty years old, like I said, the other who was graduating high school. And I'm like, I have two grown daughters. We need to take a trip. So we decided to go to New Orleans because I love New Orleans. Number one, because New Orleans is blackly black, black, black blackie, and you know, I got to be someplace extra black, because that's just the way childbroys black girl, you know what I'm saying. And you know you could trace almost all of American music to Congo Square. I mean, New Orleans is a serious center of ancestral power. So we went and it was amazing. It was amazing to eat and to laugh and to party and to be creative with my daughters. And I finally got the sense at um that I was passing a thing on, you know what I mean, and that these were women that wasn't that was that was insane for me, because I'm like, these are these are women and and and they're my babies and my daughters. But for the first time I understood I had raised black women and that was everything to me. And I wanted so badly not to make it as big as it was in my mind to them. I wanted them to just experience the time with me, so that they could go back and listen to it, I mean, and think about it later and and then they decide what the significance was for them. But the significance for me was that this was the transition of my life, that oh wow, I've gone from raising little black girls to raising black women. And so how I talked to them and what I talked to them about and how I related them has changed forever. And I'm so glad that we did something to market. And so what was so beautiful about the season of my ancestors being in June is that the day that we left town, and I didn't even realize this, I scheduled the trip, and the day that we left town, I realized that I was scheduled to leave down the day that my mother passed away. June the twentieth, and that that was the anniversary of my mother's passing. And that four years prior, I had been in the airport on that day, but I was going to Atlanta to see my mother because she had passed, and so I had just gotten word that she passed. This so I had to go to Atlanta and and and you know, do the business of that with my sister. And so four years prior, I was broken in that airport, broken. And when in four years, you know, ahead of time, I was in such a healing space. And I wasn't gleeful because it was a grieving moment for me, but I felt so full because I was like, this is a moment that will be forever redefined for me. It won't be just about the grief today for me now. And I had gone to therapy before, and um, I was told that when you have hard days, plan make plans for your hard days, because that helps you to not have it so centered on the harshness of it, you know. And I was so happy because I was like, I felt like this happened, and I felt like, oh good, redefining. And so we jumped into it and we did have a beautiful time and I'm grateful. Oh and one thing did happen while we were there that I thought was pretty dope. So my daughter who graduated, she's a singer. She sings, but she don't want to be a singer. That's not her vibes. But she does sing beautifully. Well, we were in New Orleans and she got her opportun to do her first open mic while we were there. We went to an open mic and she didn't even tell me she was gonna do it. She just came hover and so what if I got up there? And then she did it, and she got up there and she sang so beautifully. She wasn't scared or anything. And I just in my home girl who was with me, was like, oh baby, I know you're about to be a mess. And I was like, I'm gonna hold it. I'm gonna hold it. And I and I just watched that, And I mean I got to witness her first time on stage for real, like in a club. I got to witness that. That was just good for me. It was good. My mother was in the midst, my grandmother was in the midst. Mm hmmm. I mean they were there, they were they were all up in all up in it, and um, I never got to take a trip like that with my mom and sister and and it just felt like all the things were right, all the things were in place. I love this for you. I love this for you so much. Oh, I love this for you so much because it's it's it's been heavy. Yes, it's been real heavy. Yes, and it's sporadic. It's not necessarily only in Junie. It's it's been it's been really heavy. And it looks like it got lighter for you. Oh. Yes, that was a huge release. Yeah, redefining and healing, it's it's everything. When your focus is on the loss, When your focus is on that, you you can't move forward, and then no one can tell you when that time is over. It's different for everybody, but once you can release it, and a lot of that has to do with defining and redefining spaces and times and places and and and and implementing joy in a place where there was pain. That I think is a real big deal. And and that was that will forever be the summer of for me. It's it's it will forever be that. We'll be back after the break. You know how you sat there and you watched your daughter perform for the first time, first time, first time. Asia. It's hard for me to hold this. It's hard. It's very hard for me. Like i'd like, I'm trying to keep it together because I think it's just wonderful. I really, I just think it's just it's just wonderful. Uh boy, this is this is the reason why we travel friends. You know, this is the reason why you know, you put money aside. And I know you know what you might be thinking about me. I know the reality of my you know, my existence. But I'm just telling you that I put money aside for two years to prepare for this trip because I wanted it to be everything. I really didn't hear, you know, and you know, down to the helicopter, we called a couple of them because I just wanted him to see and you know, coming from North Philadelphia, I just you know, you don't imagine that you're going to be able to experience world like this to you know, to this extent. But every little bit of world you get, every little bit of world you get, is an expansion to your to your life, to your spirit, to your horizons, to to It's a place to leave uh troubles. It's a place to meet a tree and let it have it. Like, let it have it. Go out there to that ocean and scream your bloody screaming, hollering. Give that ocean because it's bigger. It's bigger than you, and it's bigger than your problem and it can handle it. You know, a place to to release yourself and renew yourself. Yeah, I'm so, I'm so proud of all of us. Oh girl, me too. And let me say this too. You did the work that was necessary for your son to see what you wanted him to see before y'all went on that trip. See, that is a part I don't want people to miss. You can give a kid what you didn't have, but if you don't do the work in order for them to see the thing you want them to see, it's just gonna be something that they never knew someone didn't have. It'll just be a norm for them, which is fine. But that thing that you really want them to get, that's the connection. The connection that you make with your sons, the connection that you the things in ways you teach them to be and look at the world is he took those tools with him on that trip. Yeah, yeah, you feel me so yeah, yo, I was gonna say to y'all, not for nothing. That's definitely prepared. And this is a full circle moment because I'm listening to y'all talk about traveling with your kids and like not and not for nothing. Me and my mom my mom, But like I said, as a fight tender, for forty three years, I've traveled the world where her never on vacation, always while she's working, but even in that sense, getting to see her work, so we could live in this way and travel in these ways, like in the connection that we have now, me and Kareema. So it's funny to hear y'all talk about that and make sense of that as a daughter, and note that that connection that me and Karema guy O of that came from our time together traveling. And guess what, sometimes my grandmother was with us. Sometimes we my mom had to work on Christmas, she had to fly out of Brazil on Christmas. Guess what me and Margaret was doing packing up and we was gonna be there for Christmas. So y'all are so right, like this is sent't you. I was just adding it up for me I'm sorry. I had a light bulb moment like, wow, yeah, and that's an important light bulb mom because I think we don't know. You mentioned that helps us to understand what will happen later down the line and how that will impact the relationship that we have with our kids and how it's gonna their Also just made me go, I need to plan a trip with Kareema understood the same thing, like I gotta go somewhere. That was something that me and my mom and my sister always wanted to do and we didn't get the chance. And so you know, when everything happens for a reason, you know what I'm saying. But if you have that opportunity, take But have you done it with Tasha? Not really, we did. Me and Tasha took a trip once. See we are is at the same age basically, so we're just getting to the point in our lives where where you can have freedom you start to play the pro for sure, we definitely. I talked to her about it when I took the girls and she was like, girl that you know, and we were like it's all like, you know, you know what we need to do, like I do, I do. But when I posted about it. I posted a photograph of me and my mom and sister, and in the picture of me and my girls, and I just that was crue. That was gang, you know what I mean. That was gag. And everybody knows it's Susan and the girls, or Agent Tasha and Susan. It's like it's us, you know what I mean. So anyone listen to this who knows me, they know me, my mom and sister, gang gang, you know what I mean. So to be there with my girls like they even though I have four daughters and they are all amazing, being there as a threesome like that was significant for me. Yeah, you have so many opportunities because each time that you travel with one of your children too, you know you're going to have the most different experience every time. I think that's amazing. My grandmother was born in nineteen seventeen, and um, she had never she never rode a bike, she never learned to swim. She stopped her her education at sixth grade. Um, it wasn't a choice, and I had the privilege. When she turned eighty, she says she wanted to go to Disney World. So we went to Disney World and the best part of it all because it was it was a lot of organizing and making sure that she was going to be comfortable, you know, with a little schooter. She kept hidding people. That was funny. But the best part of it all was her face when she saw this guy from that ankle. I just want to encourage you to see this guy from different angles. Friends. It could be a buzz, it could be traded, it could be a walk. But there's more to see and more to do, and while we're breathing. While we're breathing, thank you so much for listening to Jay dot Ill the podcast as always our pleasure. Later, how do you eat an elephant? One? By? It time? Hey listeners, it's Amber, the producer of Jay dot Ill here. I love how life brings us these full circle moments, and travel can be a huge part of that. If you haven't been convinced with these last two episodes yet, I want to share travel in your's website with you. For some more inspiration for your next vacation, I'll drop a link in the show notes. You can also go back to last week's show notes for some resources on saving for your big trip. Hi. If you have comments on something we said in this episode called eight six six. Hey, Jill, if you want to add to this conversation, that's eight six six nine five four five five. Don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott presents Jay dot Ill. The podcast Jay dot Ill is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcast from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Welcome to j dot il a production of I Heart Radio. Hold Everybonny h Welcome, Welcome to j dot Ilga podcast. You know who I'm here on. I'm sitting here with my beautiful, beautiful sisters laias Saint Clair. Yes we we that. This me hello an age a grading danceler. Yo yo yo baby pop come get me better make it fast or so I'm going to get a kissed. Can't you hear? Push? Push it really good? Oh my god, we just did an auntie anthem. Yes we did, Yes, we did. We did out here pushing it. They got to be We got some well, we got some sex. And listen, that is beautiful. Her chapsticks. Let me tell you when some girls can't get together all i'd the same. That's beautiful. This is a moment. It's ad. It's a d summer as well. We like it. Yes, yea having having some sex, so okay, we have to acknowledge it. Man, that's a blessing. Man. It's a lot of people ain't getting that out here. Man, what I'm saying that and the combination of that and some son shit. That's so you're so gleeful, you snorted. That's that's it. That's major, that major. The snort is an indication telling tell homie, I said, I say, yeah, you keeping the smile on our face out. Yes, my brother's over there, so shout and you know, year old maintenance over this mug. You know what I'm saying. The stays turned up, stays dirt up. It has to stay dirt up, come on down. That we do get a little bit of extra alone time, which is always a plus. I mean, that is the plus to our relationship in the way of functions and what we do for a living. You know, a lot of people don't get a lot of alone time. You're singing to each other too, and that thing hit different. That thing hit different in the hotel because that's you can't even be as loud and as rowdy as you can't be on the road. When you're on the road. She not talking about she talking. She's not talking about the singing Jill. She was talking. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, dude, I always talking. But but I was just saying, like, you know, you know, four play comes in a lot of different ways, right, I was thinking. I always felt as a fan of Cam Drid, I always felt like y'all you know, give me each other as a stages stuff in the transparency. Sometimes sometimes it can be that. Other times we can be a little bit on you know, autopilot. And then sometimes I have given him my aster kids right before we get on the stage, like all the stars, all the stars really they look up, always messed up those but but yes, it is definitely you when when all things are aligned, honey, and he's doing this good good singing, and we're in a good good place, good good singing, the good good place good and this is like the first real summer we had a good amen, you know, just like the first real big good like good summer, good summer touring and stuff. So y'all really, uh, the numbers must be up? Yeah, I mean, I mean yeah, I will say this though, like you know, the pandemic and everything did change how we were working and where this is the first summer that it's felt more like a normal summer. Yes, so things are definitely you know, kicking. We had a show last night. Wow. Up, So I've been up early girls and Richli Kwan and I don't today on today, I was up late and up early. Oh black Oh oh that's nice too, that's dance involved ladies and gentlemen. I want you to know it's vulgar. This is Monday. That happy summer to all, Happy summer to all. Last podcast, we were talking about the bro Mitzvah that Jet Night had um his bro Missfa. I just was able to accompany him, to show him, give him some world for his thirteenth birthday and his maturation. Yeah, I mean, and that was incredible. And I suggest anybody who has a young man child, even you know, if you gotta if you got a girl since Mitzvah, a girl, a girl mitsvah, it's just a writer passes missin since mits for Yeah, why not you gotta do some kind of whole African thing. Huh. Yeah. I just like, maybe we just ditch. I like BroMans for Don't get me wrong, I think that's dope. I know where's work. Let's put it into just figure out something that we can just make. Yes, I'm sorry black people, Yes, you're right, Okay, we're gonna think on it now. You're making us be more creative. That's fine. I I personally like, I like the whole concept of bar Mitzvah. I just thought that was I think something you know, even the name very cool something like that. Yeah, I think Hebrew Jed had to learn. Um I got it made. And he's flailing at best. I'm sorry when yes, I like, who's I got to me specialists? I gotta be okay. I just want to be clear, you girl, You say this like everybody in the atmosphere. They don't know. They know Jet was born too special as I got to meet he came, don't. So yeah, look, we were out here and I can I can see this. You can't see it, but I'm gonna describe before you. Layah has this like this goldie ready thing happening with her skin. It's really pretty and and I don't know what she's been doing, but she looks great. That's all that is. This summer Prian girl, it was. I just determined it might be the best island. I mean, I'd have been to a few, I ain't been to them all, but it's just something about Jamaica, the people. It was. It was, it was. It was relaxing. I went on a pre I'll say a pre op a prep baca because I'm getting my fabruaries out in a week or so. But It's funny because my doctor friend says me. As I was texting all my friends like yeah, I'm my priat bac and showing everybody. You know, he was like, yeah, enjoy your priat Baca. But you know you are'tupposed to be smoking a weed to drinking nothing before surgery. I was like, anyway, I still have that. I'm gonna cleanse out I got. I just went to this help. I got five more days and I got me some seed mass, some maringa, all the things. I'm gonna drink all this alkaline. But yes, Jamaica, it was. It was gorgeous. And I just said, I just say, everybody, if you get a chance and do what Airbnb. I don't. I ain't with the hotel life no more. Thanks to the COVID me and the man we are. Airbnb is for life and it is just better that way, and especially if you can, you know, save your coins, get somebody to cook you a couple of meals, and I have to go out and just sit on the beach. That's what it should be. Do you check for cameras? Uh do? But I also this particular Airbnb was a friend of a friend and if you could so, I kind of trusted them, but I most times because I'm at airbnber. Yes I do. I check for ambers a little bit. Yeah, but I'm not. Yeah, it's gonna be on the Just Give A show. I'm joking. I said, you travel all the time, though you never stopped traveling. I did doing the early days of the COVID. I kept it on the West side. I might. I just did Tahiti, but I still stayed over on the podcast. Listen, let me get my my broke bitch. Excuse me. Excuse me as I get my broth bass claimer to all like I like to him. Excuse me. You guys should know that here it comes, my broke bitch. Just claimer is, ladies and gentlemen. My mother has given forty three years of her life to an airline as a flight attendant, and I am just reaping the benefits of her hard work. That's why I always encourage everyone with a airport employee in their life to take advantage of these things. I just live your truth and own it. You can be boogie all you damn one to black woman deserves luxury, she said, I kept it on. I kept it to Tahiti. I was talking to it's to Tahiti. I can I just ask the reason that we kept it to Tahiti. Because when you live on the West coast, right and you and you want to travel to an island or something, but you don't want to travel because it's COVID. You don't want to stop in different places. You either got Hawaii or Mexico, or maybe you take eight one eight dollar flight to Tahiti. Most people don't think of Tahiti, but it's a lovely place. French, Polynesia and thank you think of the fantasy Bora Bora or Fiji. But these are all related to each other. They're all a part of the you know, Polynesian islands. So and Polynesian and French is the only language I took in school. So I kind of like when I can to go places where they speaking, because I can use that ship and say, you know, la toilet. Excuse him, Joe, that's where's the bathroom, That's where's the bathroom. I understood, Yes, I gotta twilet, I gotta toilet. Excuse me. I kind of let In fact, I'm gonna name my daughter twilet. So my children living it fresh, fresh air, what is that we're not gonna plenty of excellent speak in different languages. I'm gonna fight you. If you don't speak, you can't go. You can't be by friend. Do you understand that? Way off? You have to speak to a color purple? This is ma'am oh shipment, Yo, I can't believe I fail. Don't. It's okay, baby, We're gonna get you on. You have time. There's grace and mercy here. This is a safe place. We just want you to get on the people's Netflix. We just want you to get in the people's Amazon plan. When we get off for here, I know every other thing. Okay, We're gonna talk about this later because I'm okay, okay, alright, because all right, yeah, more conversation after the break. So Asian, how was New Orleans? Because I was mad I missed out on that trip. I saw you and the girl. Wait, I was just still curious about two heavy give us a little bit of background, like I'm like, I'm gonna say it like this. I know that these are not Um. I went to Hawaii and I just found it. I found it super expensive and I felt like they were unless you're in the military. Racist. Yeah, And I did not enjoy myself. I got a lot of stairs whenever I walked into a store and people were just looking and following me, and I was like, this is not this is not cool, Like I'm at a resort. Why are you following me? Why are you staring at me? Can I help you? Something? That was not a good feeling. So Hawaii is out for me, and the Indigenous people of Hawaii have made it very clear that they want us to chill on that for a minute. Number one of the coming there because number one, it was like a COVID thing. That was number one. They kept telling people to stay that but on the main land, you know, not the main land, on the other land. And then and then also to you know, they have been fighting the good fight. You know, everywhere you find indigenous people that consistently fighting the good fight. So that's the vibe there. So they're just kind of like, yeah, don't don't play games. But it's cool though. I'm just saying I ain't do nothing. She's I adn't do nothing. I didn't do Sometimes this was before COVID, way before like agows on like Japan levels as far as expense when it's for me, So I'm like that's always not my first choice. And yeah, but what I mean, I would say this about French Polynesia's dope because they suggested when you go there you learn the local language to Tahitian language, like learn how to say you know, hello, Yolana and all and all of these things. And but yeah, it's a beautiful place. And you can also take a faery. We rent a car and they're small cars and you can drive the whole island in probably two hours. But then there's you can take a ferry to other places, Like there's another island called Marenga Marea Moodea, which is about an hour out and we stayed there for a minute. But also check an hour out into the water the water with your car, because that means you know an island. But I also want to mention this part. Don't forget that the Marlon Brando Island is out there, right y'all heard about this, right Brando? Yeah, at least an island out there. And so there's one luxury resort on this island. It's a huge chi poo poo where Obama went to his memoirs. So we took a catamarran out there. You cannot see the resort. It's very small island, but you can't see the resort from where they bring in the you know, the regular folks, and you will not be able to go over there. You can just enjoy the white sand beaches, which are the brightest and could burn your retinas, that's how bright they are. The sand bars go out so crazy. I don't mean if you don't even know. I had to learn what the sand bar is for people who don't go to the beach. It's kind of like the sandbars where the sand extends in the water. You can just standel it to your ankles into your water and you could just walk to your ankles way out and so. And sometimes the sand bar will be in the middle of an ocean, and so you can just take a boat out there and do something like that. So yeah, and so stand out in the middle of it. Stand out in the middle of the ocean. People have parties and a sandbar. And Tahiti there's a thew sandbars where people like a mobile bar will come up to the sand bar and stuff like that. So it's really nice. Yeah, forget where we were. They had one of those. I don't remember where we were though, Galveston, Texas have one. I mean I don't know if that. I just know that you can walk for really really long time. I mean it was at least like a half of my own and it was the water in Galveston is what's that? Super warm? They get hit by hurricane, so that's usually an indication of a hurricane. Alley, is the warm water? Is it clear? Super warm? Yes? Okay, because I am when it comes to like beach water, I can't see my feet. I'm not paying I can't. So no, no North Carolina, no Jersey now. And first of all, let's keep it funk key, because me and the boyfriend are very clear about this. As he watches way too much shark week after, I will say this about Tahiti. They have sharks, but they're like straight dogs, so that means that. And we had to learn it's the hard way. We were out Snorkeland and the shark came up to us, and the boyfriend was like waving his hand like you know, no, no, no no. We running to the shore and we see two older local Tahitian folks standing in the water. We run towards them to let them know that the shark is coming and they let us know. Okay, yeah, they don't want you. It's enough fish here. The sharks don't bother people. That's something we have to get used to. But back to Asia's point, Caroline and all them places, they'd be on sharks, they'd be on Shark Week. I can't be on shark because the water is murky and you can't really see what was coming and the water and the changing climate climate change. Yeah, yeah, but I don't know if it's about being murky, because it's kind of like, I mean, you can see the point. You're right, it's not about the murky. Yeah, I just I mean you can see how I mean, you just can't see it. I just do that out there. I didn't know. I just never understood, like going somewhere for a beach vacation and I don't hope this don't sound bougie and you can't see your feet don't sorry? Oh yes, I mean we're doing this now. We're not just right, you just can't right if the actual is not like you you know what, I apologize, that is correct. I'm taking this is heavy right now, and I shi no. Let me tell you something. Black people deserve luxury period. There's no extra Black people deserve luxury period. Pooh, there's after that, there's no experiation period. Pooh. That's it. Yeah, but we do, and we're just not We're not gonna let it go any further. We're gonna despair things that we do and that people should do and if they find their way to it, they should and they deserve it. Period. That's it. Yeah, that guilt. That guilt is interesting. Now. That guilt is interesting because really the way that you responded, and I'm joking with you, but I understood the responsibility you felt. And I'm like, oh, I didn't want that. I just wanted to make a little jokey joke, but I have my own things. I'm like, I've been a broke bitch for long time. So getting out of that mentality when you work hard to get to a certain place. But it's it's that's it's it'sn't knowing that you deserve things, just like what you just talked about with luxury and what's called survivor's guilt. Is that a thing? Yeah? Yeah, amen, Amen. I didn't even tell nobody I went away. I was like the girl. I don't go away to get pre vacation and ship. I never had surgery in my life. I never had surgery in my life. So I'm like, I don't know, and my summer is over after this. Well let's just say this. You don't have to have impending surgery to go to Tahiti. Okay, okay, anybody, anybody listening to a little bit more free. You feel a little freed right now, because because I was explaining this to Jet the other day, I was like, the truth is just the truth? When if you if you're like, the truth is the flex really, if you're trying to if you're putting something on it, like I'm saying this because I want people to be impressed, then don't say it. If the truth is just the truth, there's nothing, there's nothing added to it, you know. You know what I'm saying. You have an opportunity to go and to places and have your entire life. I think nepotism is fire, especially because you ain't sitting around lazy and just sucking up. You know, whatever benefits there are. You work for a living and always have so there's that you know, and and you've had traveled enough that dad, you know what you're not what you like you know what you're not gonna take. But I think also too, people having experiences helps people who haven't had them, because I think it's just also gives you an idea of what you can do, where you can go, and if you do have the resources to go, it saves you time, money, energy based on things that other people of the experiences that people have had, and we do have to kind of normalize ees and kill the stereotype that black people don't go anywhere and that we don't have an interest of the resources to do. So I think at the end of the day, it's really more one of those things where we feel the heaviness of that you know, maybe everybody can and YadA, YadA, YadA, and it's just like we have the kind of debt that it's not a weight. We carry enough weight. We don't have to put extra weight on ourselves because it's unnecessary and it's unnecessary that sometimes that sometimes people do put the stink on it. People do put the stink on it, and this is where more's a lot of react and respond. I mean, like I'm glessing and that you can and look at you, you know what I mean. Sometimes I feel so much like it's just like yes, like like you know, damn, I didn't know. I wasn't ship, Like you know what I'm saying, I'm just on the payment plan and like I didn't know what I was that was that was messing with my self worth like that these reels be having you like, oh, I need to step my game up? Can I step my game? I'm telling you, I have to release myself. If you're going and you saved your money to go somewhere and you you know, have a wonderful meal and you stay in a in a nice hotel like you did that, congratulations, Please celebrate yourself and enjoy yourself wholeheartedly. And you know we like you know, like Aga was saying, and like yeah, that whole that survivor's guilt thing is just out. Let it go on this show too much. It's so funny because I'm like, I have to take the lessons that I learned on my own show. We talk about black people frolicking. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. We're not used to it. We're just not used to it, but we deserve well. I told for teen, I said my division right now, it's Project soft life. I'm done with hard life. Hard life is done for me, soft luster projects, soft life. What's the first step in life? What's the what's the first thing? You know? What's interesting? The first thing is understanding like the ongoing process of healing. So one of the things that that um that Jill was talking about with the bro Mitzfeld was that that was kind of about enlightenment, about having a write of passage. And for me, I found out that so much of what I was trying to do with my kids, which ended up kind of coming into our summer activities, was around healing and the process of healing. And I just want to make sure that I'm clear on this, is that that I've been in a in a healing process since the loss of my parents, since the pandemic. My children have been in the healing process from losing their grandparents, but then also from just the experience of the pandemic itself. My children have all gone through some major kind of changes in terms of people have ended their high school careers during the pan and make people have gone off to college and blah blah blah. So all these things have happened. So this summer has been the first summer, and I want to really, I wanna be honest, probably in about four years that my family has not been experiencing a major like thing that we had to heal from as a family, you know what I'm saying, And that we could experience the healing in a way that felt like we were making steps out of it, you know what I'm saying, not out of it into another kind of stage of the healing process, which I kind of feel like it's about redefining, you know what I mean. And so I tell say all that to say that my my daughters and I took a trip, but that wasn't the only thing that happened the month of June. And I'm gonna try to make this real quick so I don't get long winded, But the month of June is a transformative month for me. It really has become a season in my life that I pay very close attention to. Number One because it's my mother. Her birthday is June twenty. But also my mother passed away on June twentieth, and we actually had her homegoing on her birthday. Also, it's the month of Father's Day, is the month of um. You know that my father transitioned at the end of June, so he the first week of July, really, but it was also the end of June, so my parents transitioned around the same season. So a lot of their energy just gets very strong in present during that time period. And it has been always in the past eight years really, but definitely in the past four years a time I pay a lot of close attention to you. This year it was really powerful because my daughter, my third born, was graduating from high school, and you know, and it's also the month of my second daughter's birthday as well, and she was graduating high school, and it started getting too the month of June, and so many beautiful things were happening. I was getting the child ready for prim which in a lot of ways, PRIM ends up being like a write of passage to you know, especially for for for for black kids. It's not just about putting on the gown. You know. Black kids got a whole what they called a send off, and the whole NNE got music and I ain't gonna When I first got the Philly, I was like, what is this ghetto ship? But here's the thing, Just like most ghetto things, it's beautiful. It's black people defining who they are for themselves. And once you can step outside of what the white man say it is and start really looking at what it really is, then you can kind of get into it. And doing this for my daughter after two years of them being all in the house and everything, and some kids didn't have a prom, they didn't have a graduation, and to know she was going to have both, we did it up, really did it up. And going through that process with her was amazing for me. And it wasn't just about a dance. It was about just exchanging ideas with her and and and going to the fittings and deciding on colors and all of these different things. And I know this sounds like something so simple, but really it was a great experience for me. And while it was being able to bond with her, you know. And so then she graduated into my daughter's birthday came, she turned twenty years old, and it made me realize something too that out of six children, only one of my children has had both her grandmother's present during her birth. And that's my dear, that's my oldest daughter. And when I thought about that energy and what that meant she had both her grandmother's present and in the doorway when she was birthed in in her in the bedroom that she that she ended up living in because we had a home birth. In the hallway were all of her aunts. So all my sisters and my husband's sisters lined the hallway in front of the door as she was coming into the world, and I was flanked by my mother and my husband's mother. And when I realized what a powerful energy that was about her coming in to the world, it linked her to this June season in a way that I wasn't thinking about before. So, you know, so I don't get too complicated with it. At the end of the day, June for me is an ancestral coming together for me, and so that has it has defined itself as that. It wasn't even like I you know, there was no plan, There was no nothing. There was just a being in tune with a kind of healing and being in tune to listening and hearing God and hearing my ancestors and feeling them. That helped me to know, oh, this is the time, and that is something that is that is the africanness of us. Is that the feeling and the opening up the spirit to understanding what is happening and being open to hearing that part of it. So that's kind of what I feel like, you know, that's that's the communication that I've been having with the Creator around this time and round, you know, around that time. So it culminated to a degree with this trip that I took with my daughters, one who was turning in twenty years old, like I said, the other who was graduating high school. And I'm like, I have two grown daughters. We need to take a trip. So we decided to go to New Orleans because I love New Orleans. Number one, because New Orleans is blackly black, black, black blackie, and you know, I got to be someplace extra black, because that's just the way childbroys black girl, you know what I'm saying. And you know you could trace almost all of American music to Congo Square. I mean, New Orleans is a serious center of ancestral power. So we went and it was amazing. It was amazing to eat and to laugh and to party and to be creative with my daughters. And I finally got the sense at um that I was passing a thing on, you know what I mean, and that these were women that wasn't that was that was insane for me, because I'm like, these are these are women and and and they're my babies and my daughters. But for the first time I understood I had raised black women and that was everything to me. And I wanted so badly not to make it as big as it was in my mind to them. I wanted them to just experience the time with me, so that they could go back and listen to it, I mean, and think about it later and and then they decide what the significance was for them. But the significance for me was that this was the transition of my life, that oh wow, I've gone from raising little black girls to raising black women. And so how I talked to them and what I talked to them about and how I related them has changed forever. And I'm so glad that we did something to market. And so what was so beautiful about the season of my ancestors being in June is that the day that we left town, and I didn't even realize this, I scheduled the trip, and the day that we left town, I realized that I was scheduled to leave down the day that my mother passed away. June the twentieth, and that that was the anniversary of my mother's passing. And that four years prior, I had been in the airport on that day, but I was going to Atlanta to see my mother because she had passed, and so I had just gotten word that she passed. This so I had to go to Atlanta and and and you know, do the business of that with my sister. And so four years prior, I was broken in that airport, broken. And when in four years, you know, ahead of time, I was in such a healing space. And I wasn't gleeful because it was a grieving moment for me, but I felt so full because I was like, this is a moment that will be forever redefined for me. It won't be just about the grief today for me now. And I had gone to therapy before, and um, I was told that when you have hard days, plan make plans for your hard days, because that helps you to not have it so centered on the harshness of it, you know. And I was so happy because I was like, I felt like this happened, and I felt like, oh good, redefining. And so we jumped into it and we did have a beautiful time and I'm grateful. Oh and one thing did happen while we were there that I thought was pretty dope. So my daughter who graduated, she's a singer. She sings, but she don't want to be a singer. That's not her vibes. But she does sing beautifully. Well, we were in New Orleans and she got her opportun to do her first open mic while we were there. We went to an open mic and she didn't even tell me she was gonna do it. She just came hover and so what if I got up there? And then she did it, and she got up there and she sang so beautifully. She wasn't scared or anything. And I just in my home girl who was with me, was like, oh baby, I know you're about to be a mess. And I was like, I'm gonna hold it. I'm gonna hold it. And I and I just watched that, And I mean I got to witness her first time on stage for real, like in a club. I got to witness that. That was just good for me. It was good. My mother was in the midst, my grandmother was in the midst. Mm hmmm. I mean they were there, they were they were all up in all up in it, and um, I never got to take a trip like that with my mom and sister and and it just felt like all the things were right, all the things were in place. I love this for you. I love this for you so much. Oh, I love this for you so much because it's it's it's been heavy. Yes, it's been real heavy. Yes, and it's sporadic. It's not necessarily only in Junie. It's it's been it's been really heavy. And it looks like it got lighter for you. Oh. Yes, that was a huge release. Yeah, redefining and healing, it's it's everything. When your focus is on the loss, When your focus is on that, you you can't move forward, and then no one can tell you when that time is over. It's different for everybody, but once you can release it, and a lot of that has to do with defining and redefining spaces and times and places and and and and implementing joy in a place where there was pain. That I think is a real big deal. And and that was that will forever be the summer of for me. It's it's it will forever be that. We'll be back after the break. You know how you sat there and you watched your daughter perform for the first time, first time, first time. Asia. It's hard for me to hold this. It's hard. It's very hard for me. Like i'd like, I'm trying to keep it together because I think it's just wonderful. I really, I just think it's just it's just wonderful. Uh boy, this is this is the reason why we travel friends. You know, this is the reason why you know, you put money aside. And I know you know what you might be thinking about me. I know the reality of my you know, my existence. But I'm just telling you that I put money aside for two years to prepare for this trip because I wanted it to be everything. I really didn't hear, you know, and you know, down to the helicopter, we called a couple of them because I just wanted him to see and you know, coming from North Philadelphia, I just you know, you don't imagine that you're going to be able to experience world like this to you know, to this extent. But every little bit of world you get, every little bit of world you get, is an expansion to your to your life, to your spirit, to your horizons, to to It's a place to leave uh troubles. It's a place to meet a tree and let it have it. Like, let it have it. Go out there to that ocean and scream your bloody screaming, hollering. Give that ocean because it's bigger. It's bigger than you, and it's bigger than your problem and it can handle it. You know, a place to to release yourself and renew yourself. Yeah, I'm so, I'm so proud of all of us. Oh girl, me too. And let me say this too. You did the work that was necessary for your son to see what you wanted him to see before y'all went on that trip. See, that is a part I don't want people to miss. You can give a kid what you didn't have, but if you don't do the work in order for them to see the thing you want them to see, it's just gonna be something that they never knew someone didn't have. It'll just be a norm for them, which is fine. But that thing that you really want them to get, that's the connection. The connection that you make with your sons, the connection that you the things in ways you teach them to be and look at the world is he took those tools with him on that trip. Yeah, yeah, you feel me so yeah, yo, I was gonna say to y'all, not for nothing. That's definitely prepared. And this is a full circle moment because I'm listening to y'all talk about traveling with your kids and like not and not for nothing. Me and my mom my mom, But like I said, as a fight tender, for forty three years, I've traveled the world where her never on vacation, always while she's working, but even in that sense, getting to see her work, so we could live in this way and travel in these ways, like in the connection that we have now, me and Kareema. So it's funny to hear y'all talk about that and make sense of that as a daughter, and note that that connection that me and Karema guy O of that came from our time together traveling. And guess what, sometimes my grandmother was with us. Sometimes we my mom had to work on Christmas, she had to fly out of Brazil on Christmas. Guess what me and Margaret was doing packing up and we was gonna be there for Christmas. So y'all are so right, like this is sent't you. I was just adding it up for me I'm sorry. I had a light bulb moment like, wow, yeah, and that's an important light bulb mom because I think we don't know. You mentioned that helps us to understand what will happen later down the line and how that will impact the relationship that we have with our kids and how it's gonna their Also just made me go, I need to plan a trip with Kareema understood the same thing, like I gotta go somewhere. That was something that me and my mom and my sister always wanted to do and we didn't get the chance. And so you know, when everything happens for a reason, you know what I'm saying. But if you have that opportunity, take But have you done it with Tasha? Not really, we did. Me and Tasha took a trip once. See we are is at the same age basically, so we're just getting to the point in our lives where where you can have freedom you start to play the pro for sure, we definitely. I talked to her about it when I took the girls and she was like, girl that you know, and we were like it's all like, you know, you know what we need to do, like I do, I do. But when I posted about it. I posted a photograph of me and my mom and sister, and in the picture of me and my girls, and I just that was crue. That was gang, you know what I mean. That was gag. And everybody knows it's Susan and the girls, or Agent Tasha and Susan. It's like it's us, you know what I mean. So anyone listen to this who knows me, they know me, my mom and sister, gang gang, you know what I mean. So to be there with my girls like they even though I have four daughters and they are all amazing, being there as a threesome like that was significant for me. Yeah, you have so many opportunities because each time that you travel with one of your children too, you know you're going to have the most different experience every time. I think that's amazing. My grandmother was born in nineteen seventeen, and um, she had never she never rode a bike, she never learned to swim. She stopped her her education at sixth grade. Um, it wasn't a choice, and I had the privilege. When she turned eighty, she says she wanted to go to Disney World. So we went to Disney World and the best part of it all because it was it was a lot of organizing and making sure that she was going to be comfortable, you know, with a little schooter. She kept hidding people. That was funny. But the best part of it all was her face when she saw this guy from that ankle. I just want to encourage you to see this guy from different angles. Friends. It could be a buzz, it could be traded, it could be a walk. But there's more to see and more to do, and while we're breathing. While we're breathing, thank you so much for listening to Jay dot Ill the podcast as always our pleasure. Later, how do you eat an elephant? One? By? It time? Hey listeners, it's Amber, the producer of Jay dot Ill here. I love how life brings us these full circle moments, and travel can be a huge part of that. If you haven't been convinced with these last two episodes yet, I want to share travel in your's website with you. For some more inspiration for your next vacation, I'll drop a link in the show notes. You can also go back to last week's show notes for some resources on saving for your big trip. Hi. If you have comments on something we said in this episode called eight six six. Hey, Jill, if you want to add to this conversation, that's eight six six nine five four five five. Don't forget to tell us your name and the episode you're referring to. You might just hear your message on a future episode. Thank you for listening to Jill Scott presents Jay dot Ill. The podcast Jay dot Ill is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcast from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
