The Flowers We Carry: A Story About Judy

Hello, beautiful souls. It’s been a minute. The last time I posted here was December 3rd, 2024. But time isn’t always measured by calendars — sometimes, it’s measured by how much healing, growing, and remembering we’ve done in the in-between.

In the months since, I’ve been unlearning shame, rediscovering joy, letting go of survival, and learning how to be soft again.

And now, in June 2025, I’m ready to return — not just to blogging, but to my rhythm.

Expect new posts every Monday. Rooted in spirit, healing, art, and the magic of everyday Black womanhood.

This first post is a story. About Judy. About me. About you, too — probably.

Let’s begin.

The Flowers We Carry: A Story About Judy

Written by Jaliyah Thomas

For the women who carry wisdom in their wrinkles and courage in their curls.

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She walked up with Dollar Tree flowers in her hair like she just stepped off stage from a ballet in 1977.

Her name was Judy.

And for an hour outside in the thick of Pittsburgh’s humidity, we stood under invisible streetlights and swapped stories like old souls at a kitchen table. Cigarette in her hand, truth on her tongue.

Judy was the kind of woman you meet by “chance,” but really she was sent — by God, the universe, the ancestors, or maybe just by the part of yourself you didn’t know needed to be reminded of your calling.

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She told me she was a ballerina, a model, a commercial face on TV once, and I just stood there wide-eyed like, how the hell you fit all that legacy into that soft smile and those tiny bouquet clips?

She called herself the ugly duckling.

Said her siblings laughed at her teeth and her shade of skin — as if beauty ever had a single definition.

As if softness can’t grow in the shadow of hard things.

As if darkness isn’t where flowers bloom.

I told her: Girl, you’re beautiful.

And I meant it.

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We talked about Pittsburgh’s Black Week — a cultural memory I never lived, but could feel through her voice.

She danced for money, she said, but also for freedom. She moved to New York solo, carved her name into spaces where Black girls weren’t often welcomed unless they came polished and palatable.

And yet, there she was — teeth, tone, trauma, and triumph — still dancing through life with her own damn rhythm.

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Somewhere in that conversation, she shaded me.

Said she wasn’t as thin as me when she was young.

I felt my chest cave a little. My inner child cock her head sideways.

But I realized… her words came from old pain, not present jealousy.

So I let it slide. Let it teach me something.

That sometimes compliments come coated in comparison.

That sometimes love sounds like a sigh.

And I still listened.

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She asked if I danced. I told her I did.

She asked if I wanted to make money. I told her I wanted to make magic.

I said I dance for healing. For reclamation. For all the little Black girls trying to find their way back into their own bodies.

For joy, not just survival.

She paused. I saw her wheels turning.

I think she understood me. Maybe not fully, but enough to know that we both knew what it meant to fight for our own damn space in a world that kept trying to shrink us.

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I left with her number.

She left with mine.

And even if I never see Judy again, I’ll remember her — with the plastic flowers in her hair and the real ones blooming from her story.

Because sometimes, your biggest teachers show up without warning.

Not in classrooms. Not in boardrooms.

But on the sidewalk, with a cigarette, a side-eye, and a soul full of history.

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To Judy:

Thank you for your flowers.

I’ll plant them where the light gets in.

If this story moved something in you, tell me. You can leave a comment, share it with someone who needs it, or just sit with it and let it water something tender inside you.

More stories, more healing, more art — every Monday.

With love and rhythm, Jaliyah ✿