BY: LANISHA PORTER
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By: LANISHA PORTER
BY: LANISHA PORTERProud moment! I just completed my very first window treatment on my own. I decided on an outside mount fashioning white faux wood blinds. The project would call for me to drill into a wood base that lines the window. With just mediocre (and by mediocre I mean very “beginner”) skill handling a power drill, and loading up on YouTube “How-To” videos, I set out hopeful to watch my project unfold before my eyes.
Quickly, I learned this: you can’t drill into wood without a pilot hole. This was a piece of information I would have otherwise gone my entire life without knowing. Veiled into my own world of ignorance, having never hung curtains, there’d be no need for me to uncover this information. But after a few moments surfing the web, it was confirmed for me that creating a pilot hole—or clearance hole—driven by a drill bit would prime the wood for the screw. I never even knew the concept of “pilot hole” existed. But within moments of study, I was thrust into a new world of jargon introducing information detailing screw diameters, keyless chucks, drill bit sizes, and enough other intimidating information to make me wish for a husband. BY: LANISHA PORTER
It is this awareness, in fact, that evokes me to live my life with very pointed intention. I understand death to be a natural and necessary progression of the human experience. By: LANISHA D. PORTER
By: LANISHA D. PORTER
Emerging Author, Lanisha Porter, Doesn’t Just Dream for Herself, but for the Generations Ahead.5/15/2019
By: Lanisha Porter I grew up in the West End of Louisville where by age 7 I was branded and pronounced to be “hot and fast”…even told that I’d be pregnant as a teenager. Though I was largely unaware of what the world would later cue me in on, very early I remember carrying a responsibility that felt like weight. A need to deflect attention from myself or cocoon myself in such ways that didn’t draw any attention…especially male attention. I would come to later understand this as what the world called sexuality. For some reason or another I would observe that there were things, even as a young girl, people around me deemed immoral—wearing red nail polish, showing my legs, sporting my hair straightened or with curls, wearing open-toed shoes, or even having male associates. I understand now in hindsight that the underwritten message cautioned loudly while being a young girl in the prime of my girlhood until, has always been this: don’t provoke your sexuality, and don’t allow your choices to provoke the sexuality of others.
By: Lanisha Porter“Once you choose a direction you never change course.” -This is Us I was watching an episode of my favorite tv drama series, “This Is Us” and the aforementioned struck me deep given the impending story about to unfold...
By: Lanisha Porter
By: Lanisha D. Porter Lets get right into it...
*Cues "Sara Smile" by Hall and Oates* On Friday March 31, I kidnapped my best girlfriend to the theaters to see Tyler Perry’s Acrimony. To tell the short synopsis of this movie, it’s about a devoted wife who becomes enraged and looks to seek revenge after feeling betrayed by her lover. This thriller explores all the emotions—resentment, anger, jealousy, betrayal, regret, shame—most women feel after being scorned in the name of love. No different from real life, the main character, Melinda (Taraji P. Henson), sacrifices a lot for her 18-year marriage to work. So much so that she denies herself happiness and peace. And throughout the years, Melinda’s sisters, Brenda and June, wasted no time asserting their opinions and reminding her that her candidate for marriage was a terribly poor choice. They didn’t even come to her wedding. However, there was an unsung hero who captured my attention throughout the movie...her name was Sarah. By: Lanisha D. Porter  Few things passionately anger me...or so I thought. Maybe I convinced myself I didn’t get angry—because women of elegance don’t really do that sorta thing—or maybe I just became great at hiding it. Whatever the case, as of late, my anger has reared its ugly head—more than it ever has in my life—causing a strain on some of my most precious relationships. By: Lanisha Porter  Nothing has shocked me more than the historic and lopsided expectations constantly reinforced as I navigate the heterosexual dating world. The unspoken, but very much expected, expectations from women are definitely not shared among men. It’s enough to make me, at times, want to opt for a life of singleness and freedom, where my autonomy as a person isn’t threatened or eclipsed. "Tradition has significance, but it can also be extremely dismissive when there's a blind adherence to it." By: Lanisha Porter Recently, I had to slip on my big girl panties. I had to self-reflect and honestly assess my new reality as an adult which was that I felt largely uncomfortable by those around me. Truth be told, if I could, I’d take all my friends with me—past and new. To me, friendships are precious keepsakes and summations of where we’ve been in life. I’ve always valued friendships and bonds believing that they edify and make our lives more rich throughout our human experience.
By: Lanisha Porter There are two significant dates we will be endowed with in this life: our birth and our death. One marking our enrollment in this life, and the other celebrating our graduation to a new place. Generally, it is up to us to make the time and experiences between those two dates mean something.
By: Lanisha Porter
By: Lanisha Porter You can count on it! Throughout whatever learning process it may be, you can bank on the event that there will be someone there to label you stupid. Maybe you chose to work through a relationship, quit your day job to start that dream career, or maybe you just did something different from the norm that didn't follow uniform with everyone else. Whatever the case, I'm sure the people sitting front row in your arena have dared to utter the words "wow, you are stupid" and perhaps it's shaken your confidence.
Well, may I offer this tidbit? By: Lanisha PorterOne thing I know for sure is that women are strong. Often times our strength extending pass what most can imagine. We go through and we get through to live and pass down our wisdom to younger women who will someday go through. But what I've learned from pain is that it often allows us to assume the exact form we were meant to take, while beholding the very knowledge we need to live forward with.
BY: LANISHA PORTER"You take yourself too seriously” is something that people haven’t shied away from alerting me to over the years. After hearing that enough it became my goal to strategically balance both working hard and enjoying my youth. However, I never allowed the often-heard-comment to deter me from giving my dreams a serious chance, followed up with tremendous work ethic. I believe that experiences mold a person, and there are certain experiences that have had a cutting edge in shaping the form I would take. I rarely ever cared to rebut my peers when they judged me for being “different” or “too uptight” because I knew they didn’t have the same experiences shaping them like I had shaping me.
By: Lanisha Porter Photography: Patricia Rodriguez-Diaz Here's my straight shot. My Crown Royal with no Coke. The Black community is plagued with social ills. Many of them deeply rooted due to the historical forces of racism, slavery and white supremacy. And while public policy has changed and made life much more livable for Blacks, there's still great strides that need to be made. However, just because public policy is lacking doesn't mean you're excused from having personal policy. Before we begin, I'd like to take the time to address any questions that may be left lingering....so here goes: 1. No I haven't forgot where I came from 2. No, I'm not in any sunken place, and 3. No, I'm not a ploy or a distraction placed by the government to take attention off of Trump or this American Health Care Act. I'm actually just a girl who comes from the ‘hood who has a few critiques that you can use to help yourself. |
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