What a joy to have Veronica Wells-Puoane on the podcast! We speak about her enchanting Jamaican grandmother Miss Leanora Johnson, as written about in her multi-generational book Bettah Days. Veronica's relationship with grief is not woeful; her grandmother is very present in her everyday life, so they've maintained a connection that hasn't warranted a lot of sadness. But Miss Leanora life had plenty of grief and we discuss all of it, from an unsatisfactory marriage to immigration. Veronica and I laugh a lot in this episode and her grandmother's magic showed up for me even before we started recording.
Veronica Wells-Puoane is a woman striving to live as the most authentic version of herself. It’s a feat that has become increasingly challenging as she navigates motherhood, re-imaginging her career and making time to take care of herself.
Veronica has devoted her life and career to telling the stories of Black women. She is the author of Bettah Days, a memoir about her late grandmother, and You’ll Be All Write, a question and answer journal for Black women. These days, as she works on healing, getting in touch with her inner child and liberation, she is focusing on narratives about girlhood and sexuality.
- Grandmother Leanora orchestrating her own death
- The different ways grief shows up
- Casket reveals
- Planning your own funeral
- Cleaning up your emotional affairs before death
- Telling her family's story with respect
- Receiving messages in waking life
- Veronica and her uncle being curing from childhood illnesses (thru folk wisdom and dreams)
- Babies with respiratory issues
- A red cardinal visitation
- The alignment of "Connie" from the last episode and this one
- Khus Khus herb and perfume
- Daughters come to teach (and straight talk runs in the family)
- The plant clipping from Jamaica
- Her dad's relationship with his mother-in-law
- Grandmother vetting her children's love interests
- On self-sovereignty: "Be the type of free that she (grandmother) couldn't be"
- Red finger nails
- The sex talk my grandmother gave me
- The immigrant way of "keep moving"
- The ring her grandmother received
- Veronica's favorite dish that her grandmother would make, beans and wieners
- Current dreams (and the family dog)
- Our loved ones on the other side WANT to connect with us
- Our power comes from being spiritually connected
- Yt folks and ancestors connection (or the lack thereof)
- Perpetrators of racism and THEIR loss of humanity
- How Veronica and I first connected
- Biases in academia
- Stripping off the need for acceptance from yt folks
- Black women looking out for Black women