Naturally Beautiful: "Good Hair" by Benilde Little

Always stumbling upon good books in the library. this time my eyes tripped upon this beautifully written 1996 love story about the odds and ends of a relationship forced to deal with black class differences. Must Read.

 

Excerpt:

I looked out of the window, looking for a distraction, and I saw someone who looked an awful lot like Miles coming out of Royce's with a woman dressed in a citron-colored spandex dress, white pumps, and hair or a weave down to her butt. My eyes followed them as they headed toward the red Porsche Carrera parked a few feet from the entrance. He put the key into the lock. I turned away from the window and faced the Plexiglas separating me from the driver. I wanted to ask him to turn the drug-hazed cardinals back on. I needed something, anything, to tune out the noise in my head. One tear began to fall, another one caught up. By the time I got to Upper West Side, my face was moist. I overpaid the driver and got out.


"Dank you, lady," I heard the driver say before he sped off. I ran upstairs to my apartment and called Miles before I took off my coat. He wasn't at his office and he wasn't at home.


I sat on my sofa bed, still wearing my coat trying to make sense of what I'd just seen. I thought of a line I'd read somewhere: Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.
-Good Hair by Benilde Little; (pg. 65-66)

Une belle histoire d'amour...

Came across this book almost by accident at the Philadelphia free library. And loved it. Author Erica Simone Turnipseed depicts the beautiful, complexities of...what else? Love. Simply Beautiful. Must read.



Excerpt:
Noire and I broke up yesterday. I feel fucked up about it, but it was the right thing. She felt it too. I was trying to just let things unfold but it became to hard somehow. And she was questioning whether my value system lines up with hers. I don't know if we've shot ourselves in the foot, getting caught up in such things. I mean, isn't happiness about enjoying the process of finding "the answers" rather than being paralyzed by the questions? Perhaps our obsession with both is the problem.

I think you've given me more credit than I deserve in rooting for this relationship with Noire. Her kind of loving is just so intense in ways that I can barely touch.

I don't know if I'm making a bit of sense right now. I just broke up with the most selflessly devoted woman I've ever dated in my life. I think I must be crazy.

 -Love Noire-By Erica Simone turnipseed; (pg. 298)