Available on Apple Books May 11, 2022
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Beginning in Feb through April 2022, over 9 1/2 weeks I released a series of Essays (find on: Medium/Hello Love/The Good Men Project).
The essays were curated from hours of relationship insights from a brotha I meet in a coffee shop in May 2010 who became a great friend over the years. Between December 2021 and April 2022, I had the following revelation:
My lived experiences brought me to the place where his insights, our joint exploration, and reflections were seeded and rooted at the beginning of my first Renaissance, New Year 1977, and uprooted and burned to the ground on 12.11.21, giving rise to my second Renaissance.
In between those decades, I’ve had some great relationships and loves. Also, a win in court but several humiliating financially crushing losses left broken by one and abandoned by another, but I’m still standing — resilient like Gumby.
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As I elevate towards the 60th floor, following the most recent exquisite beautiful soul touching and crushing, I’ve finally been able to see behind the curtain and beneath the code.
Forty-plus years and some 30 relational experiences later, the compiled essays first appearing on Medium are born of a fantastic, mysterious Universe crafted heart and soul-stirring, wrenching, and crushing journey that I wouldn’t change for all the riches in the world.
Journeys filled with fun, love, life, burning, and learning with some incredible women. The artists, attorneys, bank tellers, the bank manager, and cashiers, to the daddy’s girls to those abandoned and estranged, to college graduates to the non-college attending, and the college dropouts, the community activists, to the debutantes (G.R.I.T.S.), engineers, the hairstylist, the ones with duo-trio degrees including Ph.Ds, the nurses, the radiologists, the receptionists and scientists, a sweet kind-hearted twin, to an AU digging twin and a few tech executives. One more than a decade my senior to one decades my junior and others multiple age ranges in between.
From coast to coast and the other side of the northern and southern borders of the US and the Manhattan and Chicago high-rises to Hawaii. From Africa to Southeast Asia to the Caribbean to South America. Relationships and dating ranged from simply occasionally catching movies and grabbing a bite to world travel and everything in between. Other further-reaching relationships involved broken and fulfilled engagements, marriages, and bringing new life into the world.
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In going through my most recent experience and the insights derived from my friend, with a splash of insight from my father, who is approaching the 80th floor, I realized not everyone is as fortunate to have a father or friend they can turn to trained in cognition and coaching. So I figured I would share his wisdom in the form of essays so it might be helpful beyond me, my journey, and my reality.
The essays crafted from insights by the brotha from the coffee shop who, I had no idea at that time, would carry me across the burning sands following the burning to the ground of my first Renaissance giving rise to my second.
What he shared with me was so profound and universal that I wanted to share it with people, regardless of gender, who have had a similar experience or know someone else who has. Also, to those who had their romantic interest, semi-ghost them by ending the relationship by email, voicemail, voice-note, or a posted note, and those whose “boo” went full ghost.
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The iBook version contains an additional essay, insights, wisdom, and knowledge he dropped on me not provided on this or other online platforms during those 9–1/2 weeks and my own not previously shared insights. I hope the compilation of essays and the additional content only available in the iBook will provide all who read it with a new perspective and clarity on “sense-making.” And, for those experiencing their first or second Renaissance, perhaps carry them across the burning sands in the same way his wisdom has done for me.
Excelsior
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This is Dedicated to “Mr. Ubiquitous,” the Brotha I met in that coffee shop.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
 White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism |
 Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box |
 The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer |
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Photo credit: Shutterstock.com
