HANDS OF TIME.

I read this to my parents on Christmas Day…not a dry eye in the house.

They say that having long nails is a sign of a healthy body, but I think my family’s ever-growing talons may be the exception to the rule. We’ve got nails and hands that could be identified as kin, quick as landing your glance on a set of twins—they are that similar. When we gather together on holidays, with out hands clasped in a prayer circle, or in line reaching for plates and spoons, it is clear that all of our hands came from the same hardworking, yet loving stock.

My father has hands like a cowboy—rugged, detailed, chapped. Fingers so big that they can’t be measured, adorned with a Hawaiian wedding band that has happily strangled the space below the knuckle for forty years. He grew up in Richland Farms, Compton California, and those hands spent most of their childhood tending horses and chickens on our family’s land. By his teenage and college years Roger’s hands were either playing sports or to running down the street trying not to be late for work. 

My father’s father was an actual cowboy, a farmer, and a sharecropper in Bakersfield, and in Oklahoma before that. Grand Poppy had hands of steel; permanent grooves with stories woven in life grout on tile. His nails were like those of eagles, with meaty fingers; callouses scraping along his inner palms. Grand Poppy would hold my hand as a child—it was like receiving a love note on hand-grip sandpaper. He meant well. 

My hands have the same groove-lines, though most of my life they were used to play music and write the things I felt. These hands of mine are slender, with strong, long nails that grow wildly, just like my Dads, granddads, and my mom’s when she was my age. Just like Mom, my knuckles gather tightly at the center, looking like the scrunchy wrinkled faces of our ancestors. They are beautiful.

My mom was a model when she was young, with the leanest digits and the most astonishing lacquered red nails you could ever imagine.  Her hands were like a cherry red Ferrari with smooth, chocolate leather interior. Her skin was warm and full of love; she knew how to be delicate, as models do. Now, fifty years later, she cares for my father and his aging cowboy hands. She tends to wounds he cannot always feel. Her silky, beautiful hands finally show life’s wear and tear, and yet we, her family, still reach to her for everything.

She holds our world in her palms, with the key to our familial wholeness solely on her fingertips.  When I take her hand in mine and examine all of the fleshy, brown well-moisturized lines, I see her entire lifeline, and all of ours, that she carries within. 

SPEAKEASY, LOVE.

THIS IS MY FAMILY.

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When I see images from my family’s history, it conjures something in me. This piece of fiction was inspired by the photo above.

Speak Easy, Lin

She never told the truth, ever, about anything other than what she already knew and decided was fact.  They called her Lin, though that was not her real name. Some old fling once called her linda, meaning pretty in Spanish, so she stole the word for herself, declaring it as her new favorite lie. Sometimes Lin believed it was more fun to fib than it was to be boring and honest, so she lived for the next opportunity to sit at the center of a circle of trust and paint pictures with words. Most times, her stories were remixes of reality, but the passion in her timbre and the conviction with which she boldly bent actuality was so matter-of-fact, that the world just went with it. She Banksy’d everyone constantly.

New storylines awoke on the tip of Lin’s tongue daily, armed and ready to make verbal art. Her words were her armor, though they were often a bit bedraggled from weaving tastes of cognac on the rocks across berry-like hues at the rim of her mouth. Last night’s lounge scene was one of valor for her, winning over the eyes of men and the envy of Queens whose rouge and ruby lips lost the race to out-party her. 

She, the master shapeshifter and owner of the fore, charmed an entire brood, yet got lost crossing the eye line of a young, docile gentleman—named James; an unexpected treat. Lin and James played catch-me-if-you-can with their eyes throughout the night, throwing swift glances in the reflections of a crackled vintage-style mirror along the main wall of the lounge. James’s aura illuminated sharps tones of gold and cobalt across an otherwise dark, smoky room, all headed in her direction. They officially looked at each other for a millisecond while Lin spouted off stories to a crowd of half-listeners, somehow able to own the room while also studying James’s every move. She must be a Gemini. 

He tipped the corner of the navy blue stingy brim atop his locks and smirked in her direction with confidence, logging the glint of joy behind in her eyes. Lin exhaled colors and saw stars as she acknowledged his nod, though never breaking her stride. She signaled back, confirming the unspoken reply with her hazel-flecked eyes, which glistened in possibility and haste. The crowded room and its sweaty walls, filled with the night’s final meandering hopefuls, suddenly felt empty. Lin shot James a purposeful grin—with teeth—a gift she rarely bestowed unto others, and it illuminated the ornate-yet-tattered lounge. She felt at home.

“Last call, beautiful people!” someone bellowed into a microphone, which howled in disagreement with the evening’s near end. The entire room winced in unison, both at the screeching siren-like sound of the man’s words, and at the reality of their evening’s blissful whims now soon set to conclude. In that momentary blink of sound, the remaining wave of partygoers tossed back final sips of courage while gathering handbags, hats, and egos alike. It was go time.

“Breathe b*tch,” she said aloud, while quietly fearing that she had missed a cosmic connection with the one mister who had her gaze. Disappointed, she aligned her view with the mirrored wall again, ensuring that she still looked like a dime. Just as Lin recognized her own reflection, it became two—and boom—there he was, standing right behind her. She turned to face him. Emotional truth serum struck her like a shot of white lightning, tossing her default settings into full fisticuffs with her tiny, forgotten heart. She gasped for air, or words—anything. 

Words came first, so she did what she always did, started telling stories. Lin the Liar instantly found herself lost in his eyes, counting his breaths, becoming all but a jester, praying he would react as others always did. Yet he just…stood there, still as an empty classroom in summer. His lack of outward expression made her second guess her entire existence. Was I boring, her inner monologue dared betray her with the thought. He was just waiting his turn.

After an eternity of one-sided conversation, Lin concluded her soliloquy by saying, “F*ck.”—the only word she could wield to plug the outpour of word vomit. The silence in James’s stoic, kryptonite-like powers rendered her helpless. Finally, Lin surrendered and shut the hell up, causing James to smile. He touched her hand with comfort and made eye contact so deep that her ancestors felt the connection.

“F*ck?” he repeated, still looking her deeply into her eyes, his hand and countenance both unmoved. James was unsure if she meant it as a noun, verb, or adjective, so he just smiled and took full hold her hand.  

“I meant, I mean, hi, I—-f*ck,” Lin said again in absolute bewilderment. It was getting too real.

“Hi ‘F*ck’, I am James True. I feel like you noticed me noticing you, and I have to admit, I feel incredibly drawn to you. Is that okay to say?”

“Um, I, um, YES. Do I already know you? I—I feel it too. I’m Lin.”

“I know you do, Lin, and no—not yet, but you will,” James said matter of factly. “But truth be told, I don’t….um, f*ck, on the first date, so if that was an invitation, I’m sorry but I must decline. I just…I just want to know you. It feels like I’m supposed to.”

She blushed until she was blue in the face. She grinned as they settled into the innocence of a new beginning, something Lin hadn’t felt in ages. 

“So Miss Lin,” James said in his rich, baritone voice as they exited the lounge, “What’s your story? Now, tell me the truth.”

For the first time ever, Lin, a notorious griot-slash-hustler; a wordsmith who always gets what she wants, was rendered speechless. That damn James True. F*ck.

original work written by Kyla Wright 2021.

MY BLACK HISTORY

i created this piece for WLDKAT Skin in celebration of Black History Month:

Hi WLDKAT fam, I’m kyLA. I’m a creator, a vibe curator, a connector, and a storyteller who’s lived about a thousand different lives. I see the world in mood boards, and I have a sixth sense that allows me to discover and interpret the world in crazy, unique ways. 

My home is a Black history time capsule that I have been curating for the past 10 years. It is my safe space, the place where I feel most in-tune with myself, and my hub for what i like to call “cultural self care”.  Yes — cultural self care is totally a made up term, but let me explain to you what I mean.  I think it’s safe to say that in 2020 we all learned the importance of setting boundaries and the need for making time to take care of yourself.  During the past year, my personal connection to my culture and to the Black experience has also become wholly important to my ability to feel complete on the inside.  Much of what has happened (to all of us) in the past 400 days or so will change the course of history, and as a Black woman I strongly feel the pull to be closer to my heritage, my ancestors, and our future more than ever.

Thankfully my time at home has given me the opportunity to connect with my culture on an even deeper level, and I’d love to share it with you!

Growing up, I remember being constantly surrounded by strong Black women.  My mother, my older cousins, my aunties, and all of my “play-aunties” were always buzzing around in my life, and I was enamored by every single thing about them.  When I close my eyes and think about my younger years, I immediately see chocolate skin and hoop earrings; I see red nails, glossy lips, babyhair, blouses.  I remember peeking out of my room trying to listen to “grown folks talk”, and those funny smelling cigarettes *wink* that would only come out after I was put to bed.  It was the era of vinyl records, Avon, Sade, and press-n-curls. Weekends were spent getting my hair braided with beads and foil on the tips, and running to the ice cream truck or to the candy house to get watermelon Now&Laters. 

Our Blackness was so full of love, so uninhibited and ever so palpable.

Though I was surrounded by Black beauty within my family, many of my experiences all took place in white America, Orange County, California.  My parents moved us from Compton to the OC when I was a kid, so my time and life was always split between two worlds. I was often the only Black kid in class, and sometimes in the entire school.  So the time I would spend with my family, especially with our tribe of eclectic and fantastical women, was absolutely invaluable. Those were the moments when I felt the most honest and true to myself.  And so as I got older, I took a particular interest in Black culture—I craved it. From an early age, I studied and collected “Black stuff”, largely comprised of pieces from elders in my family. Additionally my collection includes records, art, books and magazines that I’ve collected over the years.  I internalize each piece and and carried my Blackness as an identity that I needed to own down to my core, even though the kids at school weren’t always quite sure what to do with me.

As I bloomed into adulthood, I became a professional “code switcher” (goggle it, boo).  I could be or become whoever the situation needed me to be, but DAMN is that tiring.  I needed cultural self care; I needed to be unapologetically Black; I needed to be enveloped in the beauty of my people.  That feeling has burned in me for most of my life, and so I became extremely deliberate in creating spaces where my cultural identity can remain dominant. Most specifically, I curated my home to be a nest filled with archives of Black culture, nodding to almost every era over the past few hundred years, and it serves me well as a colorful, vibrant cocoon for my cultural self care.

My love for my heritage is something that I enjoy sharing with the world, and the ways I’ve integrated reminders of Black history throughout my home is something in which I take great pride.  Though my home is a bit of a stylistic anomaly, I hope it sparks a little something within you.  I hope that it encourages you to further discover more about the beautiful layers of Black cultures, and that you also to feel the desire to become even more connected to the cultures that make you YOU. I hope you start to truly tap into the comforts of home and lose yourself in cultural self care at the times when you need it most.  And, I hope your skin is slathered in WLDKAT goodness while you do it. Peace.

FAMILY MATTERS

I spend a lot of time diving into Black culture and the many layers of our past, and I collect relics that allow me to mentally go back in time. my house is like a time capsule of sorts, filled with generations worth of knickknacks, magazines, photos, and books. my collection of randomness dates back to the 1800s (i think actually the 1700s, but I need to double check), and i LOVE being able to learn the back stories on pieces in my collection. but, my FAVORITE thing to look at within my collection are the photos! i have everything from great-grandparents, to share cropper photos of family, regal looking dinner party images, and so many important moments within the last few generations of my family’s existence.

let’s take a look.

each of these pieces connects me back to my heritage, and allows me to carry on the legacy of my family. i share our stories as much as i can to ensure our narratives and images live on.

concrete and full of color.

the one place on earth where i feel the safest and the most connected to myself is the Downtown LA Artist District. the years i spent living in this neighborhood grew and shaped me in ways that essentially made me who i am today.

my style aesthetic is 100% built on the things i loved about DTLA life, and so even now when i need to reconnect, i take a drive to the corner of Traction and Hewitt, my personal heaven.

i left LA for a few years to grow my career and to build a life with my husband Jesse, and on my first trip back home to visit i saw a new art piece had been erected in my ‘hood. The artist was Tristan Eaton, a friend of my friends. dude’s style had me CAPTIVATED— like, blown out of the water, so to see this piece of art in [what i considered to be] MY home turf, it was love at first sight.

ffwd 10 or so years to now—i just bought myself Tristan Eaton’s 2nd magazine (which is actually a coffee table book) called TROUBLE 2 and it is *insert1000 flame emojis* !