Faith Cole
The End of Friendship

If adulthood has taught us anything, it’s that we cannot predict who will be there for a lifetime. The very person we trust will be there forever, becomes nothing but a memory Facebook won’t let us forget.

The End of Friendship
Faith Cole
Being Chased by Dreams: Seeds Sown

Deep down, I always knew I would live in America. As a three year-old, I was strikingly drawn to the brownstone row-homes and strange accents in Sesame Street. In my childhood play, I would create a world in which many of the characters had Southern drawls. The earliest vacation I remember was a family road trip across the States in 1992. It was an incredible time of laughter and discovery. I had traveled elsewhere before, but it was the first time I would truly take in the environment around me. Everything seemed so big in comparison to London. Big roads, big trucks, big houses, big portions. We would cite moments from that trip for the rest of our lives. From then the seed was sown. There was a big America, with big opportunity and I felt I belonged there.

Being Chased by Dreams: Seeds Sown
Faith Cole
Baby Names

Recently I was told that someone close to me had given birth to her firstborn. In many African cultures, there is a delay between the birth of a child and the announcement of its name. Often during the period, grandparents, siblings, aunties and uncles (even long lost family members) weigh in on the name of a child. It is then shared to extended family, and friends by way of a naming ceremony, celebrating the arrival of the newborn.

Baby Names
Faith Cole
Find Joy, Bring it Home.

My parents were very intentional with naming me, and I have found that names are either prescriptive or descriptive. I have certainly had enough experiences that require faith, and my name reminds me to look beyond my circumstances and hope in things I cannot see. One of my middle names is “Ayodele”. In Yoruba, this means “joy has come home”, and in my late twenties and early thirties, “joy” has been something that I have found myself craving more than anything.

Find Joy, Bring it Home.
Faith Cole
The Weight

We all have a unique personal relationship with the word “weight.” For some, it may cast a memory of the stubborn fat around one’s midsection that never disappeared after 27. For others, it may relate to the training, resistance, and conditioning of your physical body - that desire to handle more, lift more and push more. The word “weight” may also represent the heavy load that is felt emotionally, spiritually, or mentally, and walks with us in our daily lives. Regardless of how we frame weight, there is always something we are trying to do with it, knowing full well that it is not sustainable to leave it exactly the way it is.

The Weight

storms

Storms (Part 4) – The Dissipating Storm

Storms (Part 4) – The Dissipating Storm

At some point – the rain must stop, the wind must cease, and the immediate havoc of your experience must fade away. No matter how destructive they may be, storms are temporary. Quite often, they leave as abruptly as they arrive. You are forced to reckon with your wreckage, and make meaning out of what is left, in order to face what is to come.

The scale of damage can vastly differ. As mentioned before, no two storms are the same. What can destroy one person may barely move another. Whatever you have survived through, has also been the cause of someone’s death. Take a moment to celebrate that. Take a moment to celebrate that somehow, you are still breathing even though you have been battered. Even if it feels like there is nothing to be joyful about, take a moment. The fact that you have made it this far means that there is still more for you to accomplish. The storm is passing – and your time on this earth is not over yet.

Storms (Part 3) – As The Storm Matures

Storms (Part 3) – As The Storm Matures

Storms have the ability to form at any point, in any season and in any place. They gain fame for their destruction. They have an unusual talent for displacement, disorientation and dismantling everything we know. No two storms are the same. Their intensities vary, and the complexities of its wreckage widely differ. Nonetheless, every living, breathing being must face a storm, all with the hope that they survive it somehow.

Storms (Part 2) – Cumulus: When Clouds Begin To Form

Storms (Part 2) – Cumulus: When Clouds Begin To Form

Nature has an extraordinary habit of teaching the most powerful kind of life lessons. The life cycle of a natural storm is no exception, and provides insight for the metaphorical storms that we may face. Continuing with the “Storms” series, this piece looks at the first of three stages of the storm life cycle. Focusing on the process of cloud formation, it looks at how we may experience “cumulus” in our own lives.