I best create intention through my daily living. After finishing an intensive fellowship with the Oral History Summer School 2020 cohort, I became more clear about my commitment to Paperdoll Ancestry projects. As I am a macro thinker, through the wonderful peer support of my cohorts, I was able to create more tasks to start projects that begin now that are part of the vision and mission of my overall project. 

Here's a capture of my favorite not-a-lot-of-time breakfast. Although, what's the rush during COVID? It's organic scrambled eggs, pepper jack cheese and black olives on a whole wheat gluten free tortilla from Trader Joe's. So so good. My diet is pretty consistent with meals. I like to prepare dishes that don't take a lot of time. For dinner, I've been eating homemade ramen with vegetables. I have been a pescatarian for the past four years since I stopped eating poultry. I have not eaten beef in over thirty years and have never eaten pork. My Nana used to beg to differ, stating to my eye roll, "You teethed on a pork chop bone." Missing her wit and sarcasm tremendously though she passed away over five years ago. I feel her presence everyday. Ha, I remember when she told me that her doctor told her to eat a little piece of bacon every day. Good memories. I must not forgot to share that I have an incredible sweet tooth. I have tried everything not to eat all of my candy or ice cream in one sitting or a spoon at a time until its all gone. These days, I just no longer buy the temptation. Send good vibes for me to keep it up!

My favorite exercise is walking. During COVID, I learned more about mindfulness strategies and now I do 60 minutes of mindfulness walking daily. One of my favorite books on mindfulness to read and listen to is by Full Catastrophe Living. Check it out!

Scrapbooking is another one of my all time favorite activities. I do count myself lucky to have varied interests. Trying to catch up on all of my crafty daydreams while #stayathome during the COVID pandemic so I purchased supplies to update my photo collection. Here is a photo of me when I worked at the Cosby show and Patti LaBelle was a guest performer. I ordered archival photo cases to organize all of my photos by year.  I also scan my photos and back them up on the cloud and an external hard drive for extra safe keeping!

Relaxing after a long day of family history research and oral history design for my new oral history projects. Thinking of all I was able to get DONE that day, not perfect. Letting go of perfectionism has increased the quality of my life tremendously. BONUS. Excited to catch some wonderful light during magic hour. A great end to a magnificent day. 

My best and most consistent form of self-care is journaling. I have a tendency to keep all of my thoughts on my mind. Every morning, for many years, I free write three pages nonstop in my journal to clear my mind. Then I write down notes from my dreams on the right page of my journal. I began to notice that my dreams definitely have recurrent themes. Before I started writing them down, I found myself thinking back to the dream throughout the day. Same goes for random thoughts from the previous day. I found that if I consistently wrote pages and my dream down every morning then by the time I sat at my desk to get to work, my mind was a clean slate. My morning: Rise and shine, facial and stay-at-home grooming routine, vitamins and RX, set my Nespresso by De'Longhi Mini Espresso Machine, and journal. This is my form of self-care every morning. 

 Some of my best company and time is spent at my church, Alfred Street Baptist Church. Visit and subscribe to the ASBC YouTube Page for the online live worship schedule and video archive. You'll see what I mean.

This is the tablescape that's in my eyeline from my desk. Owls are one of my spirit animals and I have several around the house. I feel like they just speak to me in a silent affirming kind of way. Like, I see you girl, do your thing. Makes my heart smile. This one is hand carved from West Africa. I love the color yellow as my third color for small accent pieces. Now, the Himalayan Salt Rock Lamp also makes me feel peaceful. I love to have one in each room to lend positive energy throughout my work-home studio. The candy dish reminds me of my Nana. She kept one in the living room full of nice assorted candies. Mostly Mary Janes, Peppermint Patties, Rootbeer Logs and Butterscotch candies. Mine is empty. Because I love candy so much, I eat it all up. It feels like its calling me. So I chew gum. Trident orange is my favorite. It helps with migraines and anxiety. Both of which I am newly managing, very well finally, for the past couple of years. My dear acupuncturist gifted me the quote, "We can attain a state of freedom and unshakable happiness for ourselves while creating harmony with others." It's a beautiful quote from The Winning Life: An Introduction to Buddhist Practice. 

There you have the 8 steps to self-care that I practice daily in preparation for working on family and life histories. I believe selfcare is an absolute must and it works best for me when I need to criss cross lifetimes making space to receive ancestral stories. I'd love to know what works for you, too. Share in the comments below.

​All the best, with kind regards, Lisa
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Military records have been a big help in building my family trees. Reading the records give lots of clues even when I look at them more than once.  I started this research journey looking for maternal records and soon learned how women most often had less public records than men. 

These photos and posters in this post are from the publicity efforts during WWII to engage African American men to enlist. Meanwhile, there's no mention on how too many in the South weren't able to have jobs other than sharecropping or risked the high probability of getting arrested and become absorbed into the convict leasing scheme. 

My grandfathers were in WWII and I often asked them about their service and experiences while in the service. No need to guess that the stories included racism and discrimination. It has been an awesome experience to see the records that match the times of the stories that my grandfather shared. 

Growing up I was always reminded by my paternal grandmother about my grandfather’s Caribbean heritage. My paternal patrilineal heritage is from St. Vincent although genealogy research shows my grandfathers maternal line being from Grenada, Barbados and St Lucia. Reading the records over time got quite confusing until I created a chart.

I came across. Caribbean Americans in New York City 1895 - 1975 browsing at the Newark Library in the African American Studies room during the grand opening of the remodeling. It grave good insight about the early 1900s migration. I was always told that my family were whalers and came over after a huge storm and settled in Perth Amboy. On the highway my grandmother would point to the Perth Amboy sign on the turnpike and say that's where the Hazells are from. In the early 80s we went there for a family function although I dont remember meeting anyone.

My last name is pronounced Hazell with a long L while family pronounces Hazel. I wondered who changed the pronunciation? My grandmother?

Storm in St. Vincent 1900

With the disastrous hurricane in 1898 which caused 288 deaths and the Soufriere eruption which caused the deaths of between 1,300 and 2,000 persons, many unemployed laborers were forced to emigrate immediately in order to find jobs for the support of their families.
https://archive.org/stream/landusepopulatio00spin/landusepopulatio00spin_djvu.txt