Sisterhood as a site of rest.

Stephanie Mithika
Jun 8, 2017
2 min read

It begins with a small smile.

I am walking to my class and she passes me, with her long box braids swinging behind her. We look in each others' direction, smile and move on. A seemingly ordinary smile, yet it seems to say something we both understand.

We sit in a circle, in a cramped dorm room, as Beyonce plays in the background. I am humming along to Formation. She is singing Daddy Lessons. She is telling us about the ignorant comments made in her class today. We could sing Solange's Don't touch my hair word for word. We read an essay by Audre Lorde. We share stories of when we felt brave enough to wear our hair natural. Solange is carrying those notes somewhere in the background. This is a room full of black women, and we are resting here.

It started with the distant glances and smiles as we passed each other in between classes.

Now here we are- we laugh. we cry. we nod. we hug. we listen. we share. we reflect. we sit. we rest.

These moments spent with these women have been moments of rest for me. I now realize how precious these little joys are- these moments where we gather, where we share stories and read together, where we laugh so wildly and dance so vigorously.

To navigate a predominantly white institution(PWI) as a student of color is not an easy thing. We don't roam our campuses with the ease, comfort or welcome that our peers do. There are glances. There are comments. There are difficult, ignorant and sometimes offensive conversations. To navigate this everyday can be draining. It can be heavy on the heart and heavy on the mind.

So we find rest in our shared glances and wide, passing smiles. We find rest in these moments where we gather in our own space. A room full of black women, turned sisters. I didn't go seeking this rest, didn't know how much I needed it, perhaps because navigating such a campus can be a slow fatigue. I didn't realize how starved I was for sisterhood, until these women gave me rest. Until we created this space that is an invitation to all of us, to lay down who we are, because we are most welcome in this space.

As women of color, as Black women in the diaspora, where we exist as minorities, we need spaces like this. They become necessity and not luxury. To find women who identify with you and share in your fatigue. To find women who are asking the same questions about womanhood and race and where these intersect. To seek answers and pour into each other. To rethink ways of navigating this space; a prep and priming for the day to day interactions, a fueling for the draining we anticipate.To water each other's hearts and nurture our minds together. To celebrate each other.

This sisterhood is a site of rest.