September 2, 2025

🌬️ the last winds of summer

swirls of change, desire, and autumn's call

Hello dear friends,

Can you feel it?  August flew all about us, generating great, big gusts of wind in her trails. Here in Philadelphia, it's been uncharacteristically cool and windy, though internally I feel great alignment with the weather outside. This time of year – the transition between the end of summer and the beginning of fall, has always had all the powerful qualities of change and regeneration. Wait for what is green right now to turn into a bright and probing yellow. Watch the air – which was full of water just a month ago – turn crisp and sure of itself. As the winds of autumn swirl in these last days of summer, inviting us to take a leap into our next season, I’ve been feeling a lot of my desires – the ones that hung wet and heavy under summer’s humid gaze – turn into fuller versions of themselves. As I recently learned from poet Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Oya is the Yoruba goddess of wind and transformation. In the Yoruba tradition, wind stands in for both destruction and creation … which to me is just another way of saying change. God is change, Octavia Butler reminds us. “The only everlasting truth”.

I can feel my dreams swirling all about me, ready to take form. I have home dreams, and travel dreams, and creative business dreams, and friendship dreams all waiting for me on the other side.

This month, instead of the usual blog post, I offer you a poem about my grandmother and her own relationship to change & dreams & water & weather:

Haibun for Sallie - A Poem by Sojourner Ahebee — SOJOURNER AHEBEE

a poem by Sojourner Ahebee

🌑 New changes to the paid newsletter tiers

Back in June, I introduced paid tiers for this newsletter. Over the past two months, I’ve realized what I want most — for both me and you — is simplicity.

Managing multiple tiers tied to different types of content has felt a little too complicated, and I want the making of this newsletter to stay joyful. So, here’s the new (simpler!) system:

Free tier: If you’re a free subscriber, you’ll now receive most of my regular newsletter content — blog posts/essays, creative breakthroughs, and media recommendations. The only thing reserved for paid subscribers will be the novel writing updates, the recipe essay and the Ask Me Anything feature.

Paid tiers: I’ll still keep the three payment options open, but all of them unlock the exact same content. Paid subscribers will receive everything — blog posts, creative process essays, creative breakthroughs, media recs, recipes, novel updates, and access to the Ask Me Anything feature.

Think of the paid tiers as three different ways to support my work and my novel writing journey, with no difference in what you receive.

If you have any questions about these changes please email me directly. I’d be more than happy to help.

To support my novel writing process and the making of this newsletter, I’d love it if you would forward this email to one friend and consider upgrading to a paid tier:

Thanks for being here and making this newsletter a place of growth and creativity alongside me. 

And now, back to the newsletter!

💡 i just had an epiphany (creative breakthroughs)

• childhood bedroom portals as world building: I returned to outlining my novel after a long break and what I’ve realized about writing novels (which is very different from writing poems) is that the making of a novel feels like returning to your childhood bedroom. On a recent visit to my family apartment, I slept in the bedroom that was mine during my college years(my family moved out of our first family home around that time so I no longer have access to my OG childhood bedroom). But what I noticed is that the objects in our childhood bedrooms are charged, especially if it's a room that hasn't changed much since you left or moved out. These objects transport you to older versions of yourself. Time blurs, and all of a sudden you’re feeling emotions from a decade ago that you thought you’d outgrown or outran. And writing a novel feels a lot like that. It’s a spatial-emotional experience that you’re trying to create so you can understand the world you’re writing and the people in it. Being in the room of your book feels like creating a tether to the emotions and desires of your characters. And when I take long breaks away from the novel, it’s harder to let the objects in the world of my book speak to me. Unlike poems that often feel like sprints, I think novel writing (for me) requires daily touchpoints. I need to lay my hand and my heart each day on my characters and their rooms and their objects, or the connection can go fuzzy. What everyday space or object feels like a portal to you? Where do you go and why? What’s possible or true for you in that place?

  

  ☔ what’s pouring in (sojourner’s inspo)
  
  

• in the eye of the storm: I started reading Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ generative biography on Audre Lorde entitled Survival is A Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde. I’m only about 30 pages in but I am already certain that this is a biography unlike any I have seen before. From the very first few pages, there’s an emphasis on mystery and wonder in place of expertise and certitude about a life and a historical figure. And I was struck by the structure of the opening chapters, which take the form of a hurricane (you have to read it to find out what I mean), making connections to the storms Lorde and several generations of her family weathered in the Caribbean, the storms of colonialism and migration, the storms of racism, Lorde’s affinity to the Youruba Goddess of wind and change (Oya) in her adult life, and her poetics of climate. Gumbs reaches into the intimate corners of Lorde's life and encourages us to ask more questions within the gaps in the archive. This is the kind of biography we need but don’t often see coming.

  

• late-1800s tomfoolery: I recently finished watching season 3 of the HBO original series, The Gilded Age. I came for the costumes and the drama. I am now deeply fascinated by this brief and often overlooked period in American history (1870s to early 1900s) that’s marked by so much social stratification, the rise of unions and urbanization, the end of the Civil War, infectious diseases, and mass industrialization. Also, the performances are PERFECT. Cynthia Nixon really givin the girls something new to work with!! Carrie Coon is acting her butt off. Audra McDonald and Denée Benton are opening up the window into Black high society in the 19th century.

• mirroring beauty: I recently went on a cooking spree for the past two weeks, where I made several new recipes in a row, sometimes back to back nights, including a delicious Vietnamese noodle soup (miến gà), poached cod in a coconut milk, turmeric, and saffron broth, and a braised lemon chicken that cooked slowly in my oven inside of my red dutch oven with the lid on top. With all this swirl of activity in my small kitchen, I’ve been dreaming a lot about how I want this space to look and feel. Last week, I watched Rajiv Surendra’s YouTube video called How I Turned My Tiny Kitchen Into A Treasure Trove. 

  

  You may remember Rajiv as Kevin from Mean Girls but now he makes these beautiful lifestyle videos among other things. I was really moved by his approach to beauty in the kitchen, everything from his choice to install a marble sink despite the warning of others that the color would change over time( Rajiv says change is beauty!), his disdain for utilitarian objects in the kitchen like plastic dish soap bottles (he replaces his with vintage glass bottles), and his tip to make the inside of your cabinets and refrigerators feel like works of art. I want to surround myself with things of beauty as I cook things of beauty. This video watered a seed deep inside of me, particularly the desire to paint my kitchen walls a deep sea green, invest in some funky mason jars for my dried goods, and place more photos of my ancestors in the kitchen (there is an iconic photo of my grandmother at a kitchen table that would shine on a kitchen shelf).

🫶🏿 community support for asylum seeker - stand with Yero Ba

As some of you know by now, my family friend Yero, an asylum seeker from Mauritania who has been living and working legally in our Philly community for the past three years, was recently detained at his routine ICE check-in, an appointment he attended faithfully each year with no fear, believing he was doing the right thing.

Although slavery was officially abolished in Mauritania in 1981, its legacy persists. And like the trade winds that blow from Africa to the Americas across the Atlantic ocean, Yero came to the U.S. fleeing one of the world’s least known but most brutal systems of oppression. And despite his courage, Yero’s future now hangs in the balance. 

He faces the terrifying prospect of deportation back to a place where his safety and freedom cannot be guaranteed. He is awaiting his asylum hearing, which could be weeks or months away.

In the meantime, Yero urgently needs resources to fight for his freedom. Immigration legal defense is costly — expert witnesses, translation, and court filings can quickly add up to thousands of dollars. To give Yero a real chance, my mother launched a GoFundMe campaign, with all funds going directly to his attorney’s office to cover his legal expenses. 

Please consider supporting the campaign here:

Every gift, no matter the size, will help bring hope and strength to Yero during this difficult time. We’re also asking folks to share this campaign widely with friends, on social media, and within your community. All the August proceeds from paid subscriptions to this newsletter were donated to the campaign earlier in August. 

Together, we can make sure Yero’s story does not end in silence or deportation. We can help him continue his life here, where he belongs. 

Thank you for your generosity and solidarity.

With love,

Sojourner & Octavia

🗂️ into the archives

Lampposts for the path through the creative avoidance loop

guidenotes on creative avoidance — SOJOURNER AHEBEE

some reflections on how I guide myself from the inspiration stage to sustainable, creative momentum and progress that isn’t rattled by doubt.

Chasing beauty in Durham, N.C.

Chasing Beauty in Durham — SOJOURNER AHEBEE

a travel diary on beauty, home, and survival in Durham, North Carolina.

The source of creative confidence and the magic of beginning

The Source of Creative Self-Confidence — SOJOURNER AHEBEE

a guide for nurturing the confidence within you to get started on any creative project or dream.

❤️‍🔥 Until soon, dear friends! May you be carried by the winds of change and desire as autumn calls.

from the footsteps of my desires to yours,

🦉sojourner