Grace and Courage is 4!!!!

   Grace and Courage is 4.

Like the negligent parent that I am, I forgot... 22nd February 2022. I started Grace and Courage. This year, I was just sick as a dog. But that day I somehow wrote like a demon. Today, I remembered when writing the latest piece, “Anger Management” and decided to have a dance party and buy myself a cake from Harrods to celebrate.

The motto of Grace and Courage…

“Empowering every human being to be loved…“where they stand”

And what are the lessons?

I absolutely have not lived a life of “Grace and Courage”

I should have named it “fire and brimstone” the way I have smoke for my enemies. But maybe it wasn’t for that. Maybe, both the teacher and the student are both me.

It’s helped me get over my father’s passing. I think that was the original point. I told my life coach “I knew I’d feel pain, but I didn’t want to suffer” when he died. It helped me shape his memory, for my father not to have a sainted, revered, memory but an honest one. He is still loved, just not venerated. He is human, and that’s how he will remain.

It recorded me finally falling in love in 2022 and the utter despair that followed which can easiest be described as having the sun ripped out of the sky.

It has survived my trip to the land of my fore-bearers in 2023.

It shows my truest, rawest thoughts about everything and everyone from talking about “gym life,” to UK politics, to the sweetness of two little black boys holding hands to walking to school, watching a friend lovingly interact with her daughter and husband, not forgetting my various cuss outs of people. And there were a lot of cuss outs…

 So, I now reflect on 4 years of making headlines…I will look up titles if I can’t find them, but here we go... These are my favourites, either because of the topics, the emotions they convey or the depth of the writing. These are the ones I keep going back to.

1.”Hydrocarbons” a 7 pager about the wonders of tea and cake on a sunny afternoon. Special mention to “sunshine and my own two feet” much shorter, but still about hope. There is a lightness to my soul that shines through, it’s a disquisition on gratitude. The first really good piece I have ever written… The first one I ever shared.

2. “Osowiec”. An 11 pager about the savagery of war. Focusing on the battle of Osowiec in WW1 the first battle where they used chlorine gas to choke “the enemy”(instead of “the enemy, read) “God’s precious sons” and then shoot them. Written just before Moljnir’s soul and was another really stand out piece for me, that I can still see some of the images I created.

3. Moljnir’s soul. A personal manifesto to learn all the days of my life. To build on a solid foundation. Inspired by a question Joe asked me… This should be higher. Dear God, I’m a good writer.  Moljnir, is the hammer the Norse God Thor, God of thunder uses in battle, fashioned by dwarves and only for the worthy… Which is especially important for someone who has had to fight by herself, sometimes for something as simple as the truth of her own memories and control of her narrative. The piece summons, Odin, the “All-father” and his ravens in the battle against the self, but also Thor for the strength to last the whole battle…  Amun Ra, as my champion against ignorance, the ancient Egyptian sun God known for battling Osiris, God of the underworld daily only to emerge victorious on his fiery chariot bringing the sunrise… it seemed fitting on the constant struggle.  An ode to my intellectual curiosity and the passions it ignites. My God, it is evocative. My command of the English language is second to none. If you want to know my vision for my life, read “Molijnir’s soul.” “Disagreements with such courage of conviction, that it would rock Yggdrasill and all 9 realms” It describes a breathless adventure of a life.  “Come back with your shields or on them” kind of life. Joe was there, in that writing, not consciously, but he is there, he showed me such a life was possible. To be filled with that much integrity, to have that much heart. I think meeting him gave me courage, to be like that, like him. Who knew a simple question could be so provocative? This was me giving it to myself. “The road is good” described a life with a family, loved ones and so much love. Children, husband, family. This is a road less travelled.  This isn’t like that at all… This is a battle cry against ignorance and intellectual atrophy. I don’t know if I realised it or not at the time, but this was what inspired my book, “the Devil’s Apprentice.” Which leads the charge in the very war I describe.  This is a battle I must fight on my own. “Courage man, take the hammer forged in the storm of your soul…and crush them all.”

4. “When did she die?” A haunting piece, that I can never take back. But it accurately describes how I feel and have felt for a very long time, there are other, earlier pieces but nothing as powerful as this one…where the beautiful, gentle sweet girl, born in 1991 died a horrible death from neglect. There is an indescribable finality to it, like a description of a mausoleum. It’s still painful to read.

5. “Show me heaven/ and then there were 2” an epic 10 pager about Joseph… the enigmatic, the joyful, the powerful. Every single wonderful memory I have of him.  I don’t believe I once described him physically, such is the strength of his character…the power of his words, his integrity… it’s as if I have never seen integrity in a man before. It seeps through his pores and touches everything he does. All this despite being the most handsome man I have ever met. His physical appearance is still the least impressive thing about him. Of course those that the Gods make great they first make beautiful. That is just the natural order of things. I am so glad I wrote everything down before I stopped being able to remember. 22nd November 2022 is still the happiest night of my life. Young, in love and with a man for whom “the road is good” the highest compliment I can give a man. I not just thought he was singularly the smartest and most authentic person I’d ever met, being around him made me better, smarter. “Why are you standing like speakers’ corner?” is still funny. I wrote a separate piece called “the road is good” and that was also beautiful, about hope, and a life well loved… all can be read to the drumbeat of Maria Mackee’s “show me heaven” sweet, stormy, buildup and thunder. This is probably one of the most life-defining pieces, I wanted so badly to hold on to the good, to remember every happy memory, because I’d lost memories before, shortly afterwards I stopped being able to remember happy times and now all I have is this piece.

6. “Romeo and Juliet” one where I cussed my friend out for not reading “show me heaven”, I used Shakespeare to cuss her and it was both eloquent and apt. Basically it said that if you only read the first few pages of Romeo and Juliet it’s a romance not a tragedy. Damn, I’m clever.

7. Hanson love- A list of all my favourite band Hanson’s songs and the beautiful memories that go with them. I am currently listening to “Penny and me” my absolute favourite song. This is the sound of my soul, its autumn in a song, the sun on your face, the apples falling from the trees, rich and ripe, it’s coming in from the cold when it’s just cold enough to make you grateful to be inside. From, “out of my head,” “Hope it comes soon” which will always remind me of 2008 Obama,  to “Battle cry” which is definitely about God, the singer is now a deacon, “for your love” which will endlessly be about my dad, to “Siren call” they have been the soundtrack to my life since Mmmbop.

8. “The Definition of Anna.” A recent piece, from last week, the latest in the many pieces I have used to define and describe myself. It frames my achievements under the lens of kindness, generosity, and thoughtfulness. Sometimes I forget I am a good person. I shouldn’t.

9. “I am a Roman citizen…” shoutout to my “loquacious brother in Christ…” Charles Sumner the 19th century abolitionist from Kansas USA, for his stories. This is the first story from his speech.   “A crime against Kansas” concerning a Roman senator who was hauled in front of a the forum because he beat a Roman citizen, despite the man’s cries of “I am a Roman citizen” the day that Alex Pretti was killed in the USA was the day I started reading that speech, and as part of the protests that killed Alex Pretti, a man was being beaten by US federal agents and he made the exact same cry that echoed through the millennia… “I am a US citizen” and they too, did not desist… maybe they too will be hauled before the Forum for their crimes... it was eerily apt in the modern world. I could also include “The Devil’s Apprentice extract… A crime against Kansas…” where I lovingly tell Charles that I’d have beaten his ass too if I wasn’t an abolitionist. My man really worked hard for the beating he received for that speech… But also… drop the name of your tutor and the curriculum you followed because I was regularly caught lacking… apparently, I did not in fact, go to school. He went to school; I went to classes… This dude is EDUCATED. We had Latin, the first Gallic invasion of Rome, a rare speech from King George III and Norse mythology amongst others… this man paid attention in class. That my dears, is a classical education, and his parents got their money’s worth. Meanwhile I wrote Mjolnir’s soul in order to inspire me to have what he has. Anyway… With all the love in my heart, and gratitude as a descendant of former slaves… I say… “You deserved that beating. And you’d better thank the Lord Almighty that he spared your life because your cause was just” but let me be clear, that speech was so good that all those who heard it had 2 choices, Abolish slavery completely, immediately. Or kill him. Because if he opens his mouth again it’s not “40 acres and a mule” you will get away with not paying. Reparations will be “200 acres and a Bentley” and this time you will cough up, even if you have to sell yourself into indentured servitude to do it. The brother of one of the people he cussed out decided on a 3rd option. Beat him with a whip meant for dogs in order to humiliate him… In congress I think, that’s why the speech is famous. They cracked his skull open. He survived. There was no way out, he’d called them out so thoroughly you had to silence him or slavery would need to be abolished that day… so of course they chose violence and whilst they are disgusting for doing so, my guy made sure if he was going down, he was going down swinging, and I respect him for that. God bless his efforts.

10. “Adulting Pro Max.” The busy-ness of being a black girl with responsibilities in the modern era.. sweet, funny, human about the humdrum life that we all take for granted.

11. “I can get hugged in London for free” a polemic on my trip to Freetown and both sides of the family, mainly the Griffin’s… There is a LOT of failure.  The disappointment I felt in going to Freetown was palpable and has been ingrained in my memory ever since.

12. “With his chest” a daughter missing her father… and needing a hug. “Love is not something you should be starved of. Love should be measured in metric tonnes per second not milligrams per annum.” Should be written on my gravestone.

13. Habeus Corpus- Latin for “you have the body/produce the body” and is a legal term that means you can’t detain someone indefinitely…without trial. But in this case, I used it to describe the slipping away of my father, when people would ask “how is your dad?” I would think “Habeus corpus” meaning “we have the body, but the spirit is leaving us.”  But also, “we cannot detain him from his destiny indefinitely.” An honest depiction of my father’s passing.

But with titles such as “mental paedophilia” (when women marry/date men who are emotionally/intellectually under the age of consent…) and “Did you trip on his dick and fall pregnant?” (No, I don’t believe there is such a thing as an “accidental child”) and “God better humble you before I do” (enough said) I actually forget how good of a writer I am. There are hundreds of titles. Hundreds of stories, memories, the last time I counted was several years ago and it was 250 posts at the time… I really hope that was after “the great writing blitz of 2023” and not before, otherwise the number is double and more.  Otherwise, the number is probably 400? Which considering I am writing 2 other books concurrently, isn’t bad. Especially when you consider my 6-month hiatus as a result of my grandmother’s passing. In the past 24 hours I have written 3, including this post. “Anger management, and “he’s dead” (Daddy, do you remember me?) are the other 2.

But dear sweet Jesus this has been a hard ride.

Reading words I wrote. I could cry for past me. I read some of the words and they are so beautiful. The same girl that remembers every happy memory of her childhood to tell her father before he died is the same girl who remembered every wonderful moment in her love life before she lost all her memories. But that is the same person who wrote every hurtful memory in a dark time. And there were plenty.

What did I learn from reading my old posts?

1.     Love is beautiful, I loved my father, and if love could heal him, I’d still have a dad. (I do love my mum too) Joe was a great love. And I love humanity. Often in principal, often against reason. I have held on to every sweet, kind thought in my head. I have lovingly put pen to paper on every piece of gratitude I can get my hands on. I think that was the point of Grace and Courage. To point to a life of beauty, of joy, of the change I want to see in the world. I have at least attempted to live by those words.

2.     I write voraciously. Volume and pages are not the point. Making the point is. And I code switch… regularly. Cockney? Classic countrywoman? Creole.  Interchangeable. But all my voice. I write with feeling. I said what I mean and I meant what I said.

3.     The nation state of Sierra Leone, and all its inhabitants… has let me down. Either I am descended from greatness or I am not. The answer is… No… That’s fine. I never had a problem in being a parvenu. That is my story. I’m not “self-made” I was built off the sacrifices of my parents… But the tales of aunt X or uncle Y are completely unnecessary…I know exactly where I am from. I am a Creole from Sierra Leone; I am descended from those who were enslaved during their lifetime spread across the African diaspora. The nuance that Grace and Courage has taken me through is that my mothers family, failed me. My father’s family are failures. Sierra Leone is a failed state. But I am not a failure. When I was brought up believing my mother’s family were giants, my grandmother Annette, worked really hard to provide for my dad(that part is definitely true and doesn’t change) and Sierra Leone was the “Athens of Africa” and that I was destined for greatness as greatness was my heritage…at least the part concerning me is accurate…that reconciliation was incredibly difficult to me.

Where once there was rage… “why do your words and reality not align?” Now comes an acknowledgement of what is. There is no  “what could be.” That is a fantasy. No different to Griffins and Wyverns.

One thing that Grace and courage is not;

It’s not a diary. It’s a snapshot, who I was at the time.

 Was I in love with history? Or Joe? Was I running? Was I happy, sad, evocative, or dead inside?

These snapshots make a movie. That movie is my life.

That can be summarised in 3 words…

Dear. Sweet. God...

Or alternatively.

Grace and Courage…

Annetta Mother Smith