How We Show Up by Mia Birdsong

Author:Mia Birdsong [Birdsong, Mia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2020-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

“WE’RE UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS, YOU FEEL ME?”

Takema is a fast talker. I imagine it’s necessary because her mind moves at a quick pace and she’s just trying to keep up. We used to cochair a board of directors together. We would meet up with an agenda and hours later find we’d not gotten past the first item because we’d ended up talking about our kids or dating or marriage or work or politics. There was usually wine and we usually had to schedule another meeting to actually get through our agenda. I love talking with her. She is about the business as a mom. Takema works in education and her kids’ academics are paramount and there is no slacking when it comes to school. She supports their talents and loves them deeply and decisively. She raises her three kids with an approach that mirrors how she was raised—single mom with a support system of extended family.

Takema grew up in San Francisco. Her mom worked two jobs and Takema spent a lot of time with her grandparents, who lived close by. Sundays were for family and food. Multiple grandparents and stepgrandparents, her “cool uncles,” and others gathered to share a meal. That family members who’d been together and split up came over with current spouses and partners and everyone was considered family was normal to Takema. Although the nuclear family was what she wanted for herself, she also remembers knowing that if she was a single mother, she’d be fine just like her mother was.

Takema met Mario when they were both in Atlanta for a teacher-training summer program. They stayed in touch, met up a few times, and started a long-distance relationship before Takema moved to New York, where Mario lived. They broke up several months later, on September 10, 2001.

Takema was on the bus the next morning when she heard about planes hitting the Twin Towers. As chaos erupted, she ended up at Mario’s family’s house in the Bronx. “We were like, ‘Oh my god, the worst terror attack that’s ever happened, happened. We broke up over something trivial, right? And we can’t break up; we have to be together.’ That was September, and Yasmin was born in December of 2002. That’s how our family was made.”

They soon moved to the Bay Area, where Takema’s family was. They stayed together until Yasmin was eighteen months old. “I think my mom being a single mother let me know that I can do this on my own. I was dead set on just being good and being happy more than being in a relationship, but my mom’s strength let me know that I could leave.”

While in retrospect Takema thinks they should have worked at the relationship more, she also felt like it freed her up. “I was like, ‘Okay, now that we’re split up, I’m going to explore all my dreams.’ Because you know when you are in a partnership, you’re trying to mold your shit with their shit. There was stuff I wanted to do, and I was always trying to check in with him and see if he was okay.

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