Hello Honeybees,
The latest in my Chicago series. The last installment will be next week as I share all about the Equity Summit and what it meant to me and will mean to the city of Memphis. But for now I want to introduce you to some new friends.
After flying into Chicago that morning on a 6 am flight, taking what seemed like a long ride from O’Hara to downtown Chicago, checking into the hotel, waiting on my room to be ready, having breakfast while waiting, finally getting into my room, walking to the host hotel to register for the conference, I was ready for my fist session. Yes, I was tired but I meet a couple of ladies that lifted my spirits and made a really long day worth it. Meet my new friends Monique & Carolyn.
My first session for the Equity Summit was a mobile tour called Art Driving Activism: The Young Artist Movement in Chicago. We had a chance to visit two art focused organizations that are helping to cultivate the next generation of young activists in Chicago.
I met Monique while waiting on the bus to arrive. The first thing I noticed was her Black Loves Matter T-shirt and the fact that the sandwich that was eating smelled delicious. We stuck up a conversation & became bus buddies. Monique is from Colorado, yes there are African- Americans in Colorado, we had a good conversation and laugh about this. Turns out that she was headed to Memphis for the AFBE conference after the Equity Summit. Monique is also a mother of boys and we talked about the responsibility that goes along with advocating, teaching and protecting our boys and men of color.
At the end of the tour I struck up a conversation with another lady on the tour. We were staying in the same hotel & decided to walk back together. As we were walking back we started talking & learned that we had a lot in common. Both single parents, although her kids are older than mine, we were only a few years apart in age, she is working on her Master’s degree, something that I did later in life also. The biggest thing is that we both have a love for writing and the written word.
After making it back to the hotel we decided to have a drink in the lobby. Now when you get women together with a glass of wine what’s the one topic that you know will come up….MEN!! We had so many laughs. We also shared a lot of the same goals. Just because we are in our 50’s we are still determined to grow both financially and professionally.
Now we could not let this trip pass without a little outing. The next day after our last session we decided to be head to Navy Pier to shop and grab dinner. This my honeybees was like an episode of I Love Lucy. We started by trying to catch the bus, like the CTA bus. We had to figure out which bus to catch and the insanity ensued from there. After waiting for over 20 minutes on the bus Carolyn decided to hail a cab. No luck there either, so we went back to figuring out the bus situation. Finally, the right bus shows up and we make it to the Navy Pier. We enjoyed walking around the Pier, buying souvenirs and eating pizza at Giordano’s. We decided to take a cab back for our return trip. They were plentiful and it was getting dark.
I really enjoyed hanging out with Carolyn. We have promised that we will stay in touch and thanks to social media we are able to do just that. Out of 4,000 people I found two people that shared my same energy.
Thank you ladies for hanging out with me.
Beewisdom- Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference -Winston Churchill
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