From Bklyn to the ATX... yes, women can be friends...

I received a call yesterday afternoon... It was in a hustle, hurried, attempting to get across town during the busiest hours of the day. Austin, the city I currently call home was built on a north-south grid. There is, for the most part, one way in and one way out of the city. IH-35. You can only go North and South. For the most part, practically every highway, byway, city street, farmer to market road, etc. could possibly begin, east to west, but will eventually end up, North or South. Really... To top it off, rush hour, as a direct result of the North American Free Trade Agreement, again IH 35, is the most direct route from North Texas to South Texas onto our neighbors along the southern Border, Mexico. This creates a south bound rush hour that lasts from 3:00 pm - 7:00 pm. Please don't let there be an accident. And let's not talk about the "upper and lower" decks. Navigating the streets south can make you want to slit your wrists, especially if you don't know where you are going. Love can be a bitch, I swore I would never date, talk to, or enter an agreement with ANYONE who lived south of 183. Now, not only am I deeply involved with someone who works and lives a GAZILLION MILES (actually less than 15 miles) from 183, I also work past 183. Huhhh...
My ring tones are set for different folk. I hear my phone calling out Brooklyn. And that could only be ONE PERSON. Meliaceae. MO BROWNE. My sister-mentor-friend. It's refreshing. My goofy ass starts gushing immediately cause I had been waiting to tell her all about the previous night. She has been pushing me for a minute on anything and everything poetry. Now what makes Mo so damn special? Is it her winning personality? Is it her ability to use terms like "kicking rocks, being janky, or I can't stand yo azz?" Her ability to make and brake a negro at the drop of a hat? Maybe.. cuz all of that is funny and on point each and every time I hear and see it for myself. But what is truly magnificent about this woman, who, by years is bit younger than me, is the gifts she has given me. First she schools me about the "crouching tiger-hidden dragon" thang as it relates to female poets. Not has she done that, but has shown and taught me valuable lessons on being a woman, a female (and there is a difference) a poet, a writer, and now host. She has taught me that women who have similar interests can take an interest in other women without feeling threatened. I have passed what she has taught me in action and theory with "cousin"... who is now, doing the same damn thang with another female poet/friend. So when her call came thru yesterday, it felt good to talk to her, and to hear and see her baby-gaped beautifully contagious smile thru our Nextel/Sprint cellular towers.... And the warmth in knowing that she, as with Langston and ELM, knew just how much their opinions, suggestions and feedback mattered to me. There have been some remarkable gifts granted to me during 2005. She was only one, but she was the one who set the stage and made it possible for me to truly have faith in other women and sisterhood. To know that we can network, negotiate, hustle, stay on the grind, truly be friends and never have to use a fingernail or unkind word against another woman to get what we want. And what we need. At some point today she will read this, smile and say under her breath "word. now dat's what's up." yea.. Mo.. my sister-mentor-friend... "dat's dope, and dat's what's up." P.S. Please tell your Yemeyah that we are countin' dem days down. gotta kick some rocks.. holla.......