She Comes With Her Own Things

Week 5: I Can See In Color: Women On The Threshold by; M. Hakikah Shamsideen

N’tozake.  (en-toe-ZAH-kay)

It is a Zulu name — famously carried by the playwright and poet Ntozake Shange. It means “she who comes with her own things.”

I have been thinking about that name. About what it means to come with your own things — not borrowed or assigned things, not the things someone handed you along with a title or an expectation. Your own things. The ones that were yours before anyone told you who to be.

This is an introduction. Not to the woman you have been portraying, but to the woman who has been waiting

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I refer to myself as the holistic homebody — a title that truly captures the essence of my identity.

Home is my haven. Even running short errands like a trip to the post office annoys me. I’ve always believed the best thing about leaving home is the thought of returning. Reminding myself that I will soon return and pick up where I left off, even if it's simply sitting in my backyard. Home is my playground. At home there is always something calling to me. Books waiting to be read. Recipes waiting to be tried. Elixirs and potions waiting to be mixed. A hammock waiting to be laid in.

Quiet. Content. Infinitely wealthy.

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If I could go back and spend an afternoon with any version of myself, I would choose me at sixteen.

She is my role model. The older I became, the more I came to admire her. I like her.

Smart. Funny. Kind. A dreamer with a close-knit group of friends that gets her. She was quiet in the way that deep rivers are quiet — not empty, not passive, but moving with an unseen current. She was clear. Focused. She knew what she wanted. And what she wanted more than anything was to be free — free from attachments, burdens, and the pressure to meet the limited expectations of those around her.

That girl, she never left. She was just waiting for the rest of me to catch up.

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But life intervened — as it does.

At seventeen I left home for college carrying all of that clarity. Then came the trials I did not see coming. An abusive relationship. Teen pregnancy. Financial hardship. The kind of accumulation that doesn’t break you all at once but erodes you slowly, until one day you look up and the girl you were is harder to find.

I lost myself for a while. Not completely. But enough.

We all have thorns with our roses.

I'm not sharing this to showcase hardship or to elicit sympathy

I tell you because you need to know that who I am today was forged in the fire — and the fire does not disqualify you. It refines you.

It wasn’t until my late twenties that I began to find my footing again — first in my spiritual community, then in the work that community made possible. That was the beginning of the ascent.

Slow. Deliberate. Mine.

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I have a recurring vision for my life — one that has lingered for so long it feels more like a memory of a place I have yet to visit, but long to return to.

A cottage by the water. Solitude and plenty of time. The life of a medicine woman — practicing alchemy--creating elixirs and potions to share with the community. Engaging in rituals, and occasionally poking my head out to teach. And always, always writing.

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I learned to read at three. Words have been my first love language — my safe space--my home inside the home. And yet for most of my life, the intelligence and creativity that lived in me had no mirror, no one to affirm: “yes, that. More of that.”

It wasn't until my thirties, that I found a community that welcomed what I brought to the table.

They helped me realize that I had more to offer than the roles and limitations I had set for myself. With their gracious support, everything I had within me emerged, as someone finally made space for it.

I am creating space for it now, by myself and on my own terms. Now is my time to commit to the vision within me. Sharing, writing and teaching until I am empty-- nothing left to say.

For most of my life I have been silent — and silenced.

That season is over.

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Here is something I have always found hard to articulate: I care more than I let on. Far more.

I am deeply attuned to humanity — to the burden of others’ experiences, the unspoken nuances in a room, how decisions affect people who were never considered. This sensitivity is so intense at times that I retreat inward when it becomes overwhelming. To others it can appear as indifference. Never that. It is feeling everything at once and needing a quiet place to process it.

In numerology, my life path number is 9, which represents the humanitarian. I'm motivated by compassion, altruism, and a sincere wish to create a positive difference. I refuse to conform merely to maintain peace, especially if it undermines someone's dignity. My approach has always been to serve in every way I'm called to. However, there were times when I sacrificed myself. Now, I've learned to balance this by also learning to receive.

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My spirit is mine. It’s the best part of me.

Over the years, my faith has moved me through many rooms — Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Hoodoo, even Quaker. Not in confusion, but in curiosity. When I left my church home I struggled — not with God, but with what came next. One day I sat in a park and asked. God spoke clearly:

Go, sit in nature and listen to me.

And that is exactly what I have done ever since.

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Reflecting on my childhood and everything that came after, I can see it all clearly...

I came with my own things.

The curiosity. The sensitivity. The love of words. The spirit that could not be contained. These were not things I built over time. They were planted before I had language for any of it.

The tests came. The trials came. But the seeds never died. They were simply waiting.

Trust nourished what the trials could not destroy.

Tests, trials, and trust in God nourished the girl who became the woman now standing at the threshold of being fully realized.

Welcome.

It is so good to finally meet you...again.

This week’s color is burgundy, rose, and pink — the colors of self-love and admiration. Not the performative kind. The quiet, private kind that blooms when you stop looking outward for confirmation. Burgundy for the depth of who you are. Rose for the tenderness you deserve. Pink for the softness of finally being seen — by yourself, fully, without flinching. She who comes with her own things does not need to be validated. She already knows her worth. She is simply learning, at last, to agree.

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Who are you when nothing is required and no one is watching?

The answers you seek are within you.

May you have the courage to introduce yourself to yourself.

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Be Kind To Yourself...