high net worth men vs high value men

The very controversial Kevin Samuels - relationship advisor, master misogynist, and recently deceased - spoke about the high-value man, but what he really described was a high net worth man. A high value man... is something entirely different.

What is it that makes a man valuable? Is it material wealth alone? Nobody asked me, but here’s what I think.

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1,001 black women’s stories

At the start of this year, one of the items I plotted and prioritized on my Life Value Map was my goal to record the stories of 1,001 black women.

The desire came as a result of having taken the time to record a series of life story interviews with my grandmother in the summer of 2020.

The experience was not only profoundly revelatory for me, it also strengthened the bond between me and my grandma. This was our special thing. Something only we shared and I felt as honored to listen as she felt to be seen and heard.

Later in the year, I was introduced to the book ‘But Some of Us Are Brave’ a collection of womanist - aka, black feminist - essays from a variety of black woman scholars and writers. One such essay, entitled, ‘Debunking Sapphire: Toward a Non-Racist and Non-Sexist Social Science’ by Patricia Bell-Scott, highlighted the lack of ‘everyday black women’s stories’ in the overall study of black women and black women’s histories.

“Proponents… have concentrated almost exclusively on the lives of nationally known Black women. Implicit in this “life and times” approach is a class bias. The prevailing or resulting impression is that Black working-class or low-income women are inconsequential to the American experience. All this is not to say that the lives of prominent Black women are not important; however, their lives represent only a few of the least generalizable circumstances that Black women have experienced. Most Black women have not been able to rise to prominence.”

The essay was written in 1977, the same year I was born. And 43 years after its writing, I can see that there’s still a lack of celebration of the ‘everywoman’s’ story in black media and literature, even in black families. 

Much of the details of my womenfolk’s stories were never shared with me, but within them are the seeds of my own story. Any path that I chart to success or other destinations will be a continuation of their stories, but what I’ve often been encouraged to do is to look outside of my family and latch on to the stories of prominent or notorious black women as either templates for me to follow or emulate, or cautionary tales on what I should avoid.

It wasn’t until I was able to hear my grandma’s stories about her upbringing and values, her struggles and sorrows, her triumphs and adventures, that I could truly give a name to some of the shadow or not-fully-visible parts of myself and my own story. My process of self-actualization (i.e., becoming my authentic self) and self-definition would be unnecessarily difficult or even impossible if I did not ‘go back and fetch it’.

And this experience of loving compassion for another’s story leading to loving compassion for one’s own story is the experience I want to share with as many other black women as possible. 

The reason for the goal specifically being 1,001 is two-fold:

1. It seemed a number that was big enough to scare me a little, while still being achievable, and

2. It was inspired by the legendary heroine of 1,001 Arabian Nights, Scheherazade. A woman who literally saved her own life through her storytelling.

So! To accomplish this slightly-scary-but-still-achievable goal, I need your help. 

I’m asking for you to help me achieve this goal by recording the life story of an elder black woman family member (preferably, for the reasons stated above) or any black woman that you know and would be willing to interview, listen to and honor via this act of love.

I understand that the telling of one’s personal story is an intimate or even private event, so I won’t ask for you to share the recorded stories with me - though you are certainly welcome to! - instead, I will measure success or progress towards this goal by the number of ‘story pledges’ I receive. 

Not a perfect metric, but it’s one that respects the process more than the goal.

For all those who take this pledge, I will provide support in the form of:

• Step-by-step instructions and guides on how to prepare for the recording, what questions to ask, and how to interview your subject(s),

• Guidance on how to use the StoryCorps app or site as a completely free tool for recording your interview AND a way to have your story archived at The Library of Congress!

• My personal participation as an interviewer or facilitator, if you would like your own story heard and recorded, or if you feel like you could use an unrelated person to help bring out the story of a close relative (full disclosure: there will be a small fee to cover my opportunity cost)

So - will you help me reach my goal?

What the big tree in my front yard taught me about being a woman

Free women are offensive.

This is due to the social obligation that female-bodied humans have to conform, to be acceptable according to a narrow set of standards. To be quiet, polite, tucked in, soft, predictable and tamed.

The true nature of woman – just as it is with all of nature, all of creation – is wild. Women – because of their blood connection with the cycles of nature – the waxing and waning of the moon, the ebbing and flowing of tides, the blossoming, fruiting and shedding that their bodies pass through in a lifetime, are, in their natural state, more wild than men. So that I’m understood clearly, when I say wild, I don’t mean crazy, or dangerous or daring; I mean that which is unbound, untamed, uncivilized. Wild like birds that come and go according to some unseen rhythm, or wild like flowers that sprout and grow whenever and wherever they please. Or wild like the tree in my front yard.

The big tree in my front yard doesn’t give a fuck about me. It doesn’t give a fuck that I paid my yard guy to clear all its leaves away not even a week ago. Or that her leaves blanket not only my yard, but the yards of my 3 closest neighbors on both sides of the street (it’s a wonder they haven’t sent me their yard guys’ bills). It doesn’t give a fuck that the Uber Eats delivery driver has to pick her way carefully up the walkway to my front door, wading thru the latest deposit of fallen fall leaves and last-of-the-season seed pods. It doesn’t give a fuck that I nearly twist my ankle nearly once a week on said seed pods, or that I curse her like Yosemite Sam whenever I do. She has a tendency to grow moss up her right side when the weather is moist, and a penchant for dropping her scraggliest branches on my lawn and driveway when the wind picks up. No doubt, even now as I write this, her roots are snaking down into the ground, towards the pipes that carry my waste away from the house, seeking to break them open so she can better use my organic matter to fuel her slow and steady growth.

No, the big tree in my front yard doesn’t give a fuck about any of that. It simply exists. It abides by its nature. It flowers and lets fall according to the seasons. It provides abundantly and matter of factly - neither benevolently nor magnanimously - to all nature of organisms... squirrels, butterflies, hummingbirds, exotic seen-only-once-a-year moths. It almost certainly predates me, and will very likely survive me.  It’s she who denotes the location of my simple blue cottage to first time visitors. More than the numbers affixed to my mailbox post. Certainly more than my almost-invisible driveway. I even bought a sparkling belt of lights to wrap around her mid-trunk, so that newcomers will know where to stop, where to turn. “It’s the house with the big tree out front with lights around it.” They arrive now without panic, confused texts or calls to ask, “where?” or, “which?” Her presence says unmistakably, “here”. It gives certainty to the would-be lost.

Why did no one ever think to cut her down? I wonder, as i sit on my front porch, sipping coffee, contemplating her grandness. Or at least prune her? She’s mine now, so that duty (aka, expense) falls to me, but who in the hell let her grow so wild and wide and wanton in the first place?

I meditate on this tree a lot. On how little of a fuck it gives and how much of a nuisance it is and how majestic and beautiful and necessary it is in spite of all that. Of how much, in its messy necessity, it reminds me of the wild women I know. The big tree women.

Of big tree women and bonsai women

Big trees like the one in my front yard are beautiful to us civilized folks only until they become a nuisance to our civilized lives. The tree is lovely and majestic until one of its branches reaches too far over our carefully constructed homes and threatens to damage what we’ve built. Or until its roots begin to creep and spread in their endless search for sustenance and start to buckle up the smooth pavement we’ve poured over them or until their leaves and seed pods begin to clutter up our perfectly manicured lawns and clog our straight, clean gutters.

This is how women are naturally. Lovely, majestic things whose wildness is an inconvenience for a civilized society. Their unpredictability is a threat to a stable, controlled way of living. As trees provide an essential element we need for life to exist, women provide the essential portals through which human life flows. We’ve not yet found a way to control the oxygen that trees provide us (though no doubt some scientist, somewhere is working on it), but we’ve found ways to control women and our collective access to the life force they hold within themselves.

In doing so, we’ve made these wild, inconvenient trees into bonsais. Beautiful still, yet dwarfed and carefully, meticulously deformed. The same tree that is made into a bonsai would naturally exist somewhere on the edge of a cliff, perhaps. Beautiful to behold, but unable to be possessed.

“If you set a bonsai in a window that overlooks a wild, untamed forest, would it feel jealousy? Would the forest silently long for the warm, homed comfort of the bonsai?”

So in order to take this unreachable, unattainable thing and make it an owned object, it is plucked from its natural state at an early age, placed in a small container and wrapped tightly with restrictive wires, pruned and clipped until it adopts a new shape and scale. One that can easily fit on a shelf or a table or a mantel and be pointed to while saying, “That is mine. See how lovely?”

Yet there are some women who, through magic or folly or lack of training, have escaped the small pot, the stiff wires, the sharp pruning shears. They remain full-sized. They live in plain sight, but in a state that makes them seem unattainable, unable to be possessed. And, while beautiful, they are also disturbing, even offensive to a world that has come to define tree as bonsai and woman as domesticated house pet.

It may be some time for these women to even become aware of the offensiveness of their particular brand of existence. They may go years or decades before even recognizing that there’s anything unique or different or unusual about them. But eventually, they find out. It usually comes to them first when they are shunned by other women. Bonsai women who look at them and proclaim, ‘Ugh. Too big!’ Too wide. Too all over the place. Taking up too much space. To the bonsai woman, the big-tree woman is grotesque.

It will later come to her when she decides that she wishes to be within a certain space – a shelf or a table or mantel she desires to be set upon and adored from. She will attempt to fit herself into these coveted spaces, but will soon realize that it is impossible. That she would need to cut off much of herself to even try to fit in and be accepted and admired by a lover, a group of colleagues or even the bonsai women who are her kin.

Some of these big-tree women will spend the rest of their lives trying to do just that, however, chopping off more and more of themselves, trying to fit their big roots into tiny pots that eventually break and shatter, or trying to balance their full-grown selves on top of tables and mantels that buckle under their weight. Ignoring the physics of the matter in a desperate need to be possessed by someone.

Those who figure things out ultimately discover that belonging to, rather than being possessed by is what differentiates the big-tree woman from the bonsai woman. That belonging to is really the only thing other than complete wildness that a big tree woman can aspire to. Since she will never be able to shrink herself to fit into a place of possession, she will instead need to seek out spaces where she simply belongs. Where she can exist as her full self, in ground that nurtures and keeps her in place. Where she can be tended to, admired, adored, appreciated and allowed to give freely of herself without being begrudged for branches that spread too wide or roots that buckle concrete or leaves that fall here, there and everywhere. Where she does not run the risk of being cut down and used up or consumed to be someone else’s shelter or warmth.

A big tree woman who finds such a space is lucky. A big tree woman who learns how to create such a space for herself is blessed. A big tree woman who shows bonsai women that it’s ok for them to become big tree women (if they so desire) and shows them how or encourages them to find their own way of breaking out of their pots and unwrapping the tight wires from their branches is magic. She is in league with the universe and an agent of both God and nature.

ms. mcknight

In elementary school, my PE teacher was a drill sergeant.

Her name was Ms. McKnight. She had a sort of hi-top fade – mostly black, speckled with here-and-there grey. She sported a couple of matching chin whiskers.

To be fair, I don’t know for sure if Ms. McKnight was actually ever in the military. I do know that at the start of every PE class, before the actual PE portion began, Ms. McKnight would have us perform military drills. Well, not drills, really… formations.

After ‘dressing out’, we’d all line up in neat little rows, alphabetically by last name. We each automatically assumed the ‘at-ease’ position – feet firmly planted hip-width apart, hands lightly crossed behind our backs, backs and shoulders straight, eyes straight ahead focused on some imaginary point in the distance. We looked like some kind of Smurf version of S1Ws. We were a class of less than 30, none of us more than 10 years old, most of us, black. Our contrasting light blue top and dark blue bottom uniforms drove home the militant midget image.

How long had we been lining up like this?

By this point, the routine wasn’t so much memorized as it was ingrained. Was this not just the way one stood when standing around doing nothing? Would I not stand this way in similar situations forever into the future? In the grocery store checkout line? At the DMV? When waiting to ride the Scream Machine at Six Flags? When I looked to my left and right, whether it be now or 20, 30 years from now, would I not always find Ashley Davis and Greg Dinkins flanking me in line?

Once lined up, we’d stand there and await our instructions from Ms. McKnight. She’d take her time, finish with whatever she was looking at (‘How To Weaponize Adolescents (Revised Edition)’? ‘Retired Drill Sergeant’s Monthly’?) on her clipboard, then slowly walk to her starting position in front of us.

“Ah-TENNN-HUUUTT!!”

We’d spring into action, in one synchronized motion, we switched to the ‘attention’ position. Feet and ankles close together, bodies rigid, eyes alert, arms stiffly extended by our sides.

“PREE-zennnt ARMS!!”

Our collective right arm engaged and landed in a taut salute.

Ms. McKnight would begin to walk slowly among our ranks, inspecting each of us for flaws, misalignments, sloppy or incorrect dress.

“AT EEEEZ!” she’d shout out as she continued walking, peering.

We’d shift back into our resting position.

“Ah-TENNN-HUUUTT!!”

Back to full salute.

 “Ah-BOUUUT-FACE!”

We pivoted swiftly and curtly to the rear, one Smurf army united in motion.

“At EEEEZ!”

This would continue for several minutes. Ms. McKnight shouting orders at us; us responding with the appropriate movements.

Occasionally she’d stop in front of one of us and bark a question that we were all to have memorized and be ready to answer at a moment’s notice. There was no way of knowing if you’d be the one she’d ask to spout off the answer like a Marine reciting the Rifleman’s Creed. It was as random as being singled out in a game of duck-duck-goose.

She’d slowly stalk us, row by row, scanning her eyes over us, while we dared not break formation by looking at her, moving or even breathing too much. All of a sudden, she’d stop and address one of us by last name.

“Demps! What is physical education!?”

To this day, I remember the answer to this question. It is tattooed on my brain. It is a part of my nervous system. If I were ever in a coma, and someone asked me this question, I’d probably wake up and respond,

“Physical education is that part of our education that strengthens us physically, mentally and spiritually!”

If we stammered, forgot or responded too slowly, we’d get a demerit. Ms. McKnight would note it on her clipboard then continue her inspection, looking closely for any other infractions.

Ms. McKnight was always stern, but never harsh or cruel. In fact, I’d dare say that we all liked her. We also feared her, but it was the same kind of fear we had for our parents, and we liked them well enough. We didn’t even mind the drills much. It was simply one more of the peculiarly unique things that was a part of being a student at the little red brick schoolhouse on Ward Street.

Was it odd to have a bunch of kids pretending to be tiny soldiers? Certainly. Was Ms. McKnight and her approach to physical education likely a holdover from her own childhood PE classes in the 1950s? Probably so. But if it were only the drills, the whole thing would have probably become a source of childhood trauma. Whenever I happen to reunite with my former Smurfs, we tend trade these old memories like survivor stories. But, unlike typical survivors, it’s not scars we have, rather a wistful sort of awe that what once seemed so perfectly normal is now bizarre for its quaintness and simplicity, and, for that reason, all the more precious to us.

Yes, if it were only the drills, Ms. McKnight’s methods might have been considered truly weird. Even questionable. But it wasn’t only the drills. It was the question. The question made the whole routine mean something more. I didn’t know it at the time, but there was a reason Ms. McKnight asked that question.

She could have asked any number of questions.

“Demps! What’s the school’s alma mater?”

“Ferguson! How many bones in the human body?”

“Bentley! If you were a hot dog, would you eat yourself?”

But she didn’t. She asked the one question that would remind both us and her of our reason for being there in that class – outside on the playground-slash-parking lot behind the little red schoolhouse in good weather, downstairs in the social hall under the church when it rained. Why we were performing those drills. Why she was inspecting and correcting every detail of our movements and dress.

She was there to instill pride, discipline, a basic and physical understanding of teamwork and cooperation. She was there to remind us that at this small Catholic parochial school in an all-black neighborhood, there were many kinds of education to be had. There was religious education to strengthen our spirits – the nuns and other clergy saw to that. There was classical education to strengthen our minds – our dedicated staff of lay teachers handled that; but only physical education addressed our entire selves. Spirit, mind and body. And only, she, the Commander-in-Chief of Physical Education, had the privilege and the duty of delivering this most complete form of education to us.

In hindsight I think we Smurfs were damned lucky to have a Ms. McKnight.

But that doesn’t mean I didn’t I feel a certain kind of way the first time I saw Full Metal Jacket.

Photo by David Pennington on Unsplash

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Kisha Solomon is an Atlanta-based writer, knowledge worker and serial expat. She writes witty, poignant stories about the lessons she’s learned from her life, work and travels. She deals with the sometimes frustrating and often humorous side effects of being black, female and nerdy. When she’s not writing working or travelling, you can find her in deep conversation with herself or her four-legged familiar, Taurus the Cat. www.lifeworktravels.com

recipe for a good woman

A woman is an important somebody and sometimes you win the triple crown: good food, good sex, and good talk. Most men settle for any one, happy as a clam if they get two. But listen, let me tell you something. A good man is a good thing, but there is nothing in the world better than a good good woman. She can be your mother, your wife, your girlfriend, your sister, or somebody you work next to. Don’t matter. You find one, stay there.”  

~from Toni Morrison’s “Love“

After reading this passage from Toni Morrison’s novel, “Love”, I knew I’d found a morsel that would become a permanent part of my personal collection of life recipes.

The quote comes from the character, Sandler – a concerned father who is schooling his teenage son on what to look for in a woman. Fortunately, it’s an easy-to-remember recipe that includes 3 very simple ingredients.

Good Food

I don’t care how old-fashioned or outmoded I sound saying it, I’m going to say it anyway. If you’re a woman, you should know how to cook something. I’m not suggesting that you channel Betty Crocker and prance around the kitchen all day in frilly aprons and heels making biscuits and pies from scratch (but, if that’s your thing, by all means, go for it!). But every woman should have at least 3 solid dishes that she can whip up at a moment’s notice. That means not having to consult a cookbook or a recipe, but being able to prepare a simple, elegant meal from memory – preferably with easy-to-find ingredients. As they say, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”. Even in non-romantic situations, being able to cook something tasty for someone you care about (whether it be your man, your mom, your kids, or your friends) is not only a useful talent, but also a satisfying and rewarding experience.

Good Sex

I suppose this one should go without saying, since we’re all sexual creatures. But since everyone has different tastes and preferences, what exactly qualifies as good sex? Whether you’re the swing-from-the-rafters type or more of a missionary girl, I think that at the root of it all, a woman with ‘good sex’ is a woman who is equally skilled at giving and receiving pleasure.

Good Talk

I’ve heard numerous tales from my guy friends about dates or relationships with drop-dead gorgeous girls that they found extremely attractive… until they opened their mouths. A good woman cultivates interests in things that are worth talking about. A good woman stays abreast of current events (no, not just celebrity gossip), a good woman has a bit of ‘game’. A good woman knows how to give a compliment.

Recipe Notes:

Noticeably missing from this recipe for a good woman are inessential ingredients like: big boobs, long hair, thick legs, fat booty, expensive clothes, killer makeup, and similar decorative toppings.

Admittedly, a good woman who comes with one or more of these inessential ingredients will be just as fulfilling and even sweeter than the original recipe. However, a woman that possesses inessential ingredients yet lacks all of the good woman ingredients may be sweet, but won’t be nearly as filling. And really… who needs empty calories?

ma annie

I wish my great grandmother hadn’t died when I was still so young. But I feel blessed to have touched her, to have known her smell, walked the floors of her little house out in the country where she made lye soap, tended a wood-burning cookstove and did all manner of hard handwork in the back yard.

I was only 5 when she left, so I don’t remember details like what her voice sounded like, or what color her eyes were, or how long her hair. I remember feelings. I remember how it felt to be near her – warm, moist, yet coarse and firm. I knew even then what it meant to be a woman of contrasts.

I remember the little girl who lived out there too. Her name? Long gone. But I remember her reddish-brown skin like the inside of pecan shells, her pigtails which hung low at the nape of her neck, while mine perched high on the sides of my head like rabbit ears. I remember the kinship we had – the mischief in both of our eyes. we would run around playing made-up little girl games in the tall grass out back, make our own social club clubhouse out of the abandoned school bus forever-parked next door. who did that little girl belong to? I can’t recall. it doesn’t matter. Our minds were not yet preoccupied with thoughts of belonging or ownership. we took such things for granted.

I remember the joy of how it felt to be wild yet loved. Of knowing that no matter how far we went, we would always be seen by eyes that knew us, that cared. and we would always have a place to return to. a place that smelled like lye soap and wet grass and wood and ma annie.