The Friday Unwind 006: A Final Pep Talk Before My Year of Audacity

my big bad pivot towards the audacious years

Fridays are for unwinding. Inward journeys, outward wanderings, departing flights to nowhere but good memories, are all welcome here. Take all the space you need. In this series, unwind and unravel with me into a daydream, into a place that feels like a Friday spent elsewhere.

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My West African friends embody a sense of audacity that I admire. They’re brazen by choice, they hold eye contact with their entire body and they don’t seem to have any competition. I adore being around them. Audacity belongs to them and is a kind of birthright that follows them everywhere they go in the world.

This strain of audacity is a product of the environment as much as it has become inheritance. The majority of these friends are Nigerian or Ghanaian and London-born which adds another layer to the story of space-claiming energy. 

Once, I approached an editor I had never worked with before while in the presence of my friends. We were gathered around the table, braiding hair indiscreetly placed in piles on the rug, the residue of our ‘We’re Not Really Strangers’ cards left from our late-night deep dive still littered on the floor.  We’re in Lisbon and it’s the summer (my best and only time to have a romantic time in the city with every moving thing). There is no urgency in the day except for this email; the editor likes my portfolio and pitch ideas and wants to work with me. First though, she wants to know my rate.

“Double it,” my Ghanaian friend tells me when I curiously asked her how she would respond. “Triple it if you’re feeling audacious”. She doesn’t even look up.   

Nigerian audacity has widened my eyes many times; it has both affirmed and come for me a few times too. One of my closest friends is Nigerian and a newly published author, where she enters the room with divine ‘do you know who my father is?’ energy, lets her editor know exactly what can and can’t run, and makes sure that her laughter is heard, for better or for better. It’s inspiring to see her feel entitled to everything without feeling a need to shrink as the industry often likes new Black writers to feel. 

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This year, I’m sinking into my backbone and the sweetness of the soft and stern. I have been thinking about what this new year will feel like, how I will hold it, how it will hold me. I will let life slink its fingertips between vertebrae and I won’t shy from the sensation. I’ll use the flexibility of the spine to move and pivot without backing away and shying from anything. This year has shown me that discomfort can visit, it may stay longer than you wish, and sometimes, your task is to breathe through that. The year of embodiment, listening in to the shivers of the spine, and being a home for all wonderful and new sensations, has arrived.

To be clear, I’m already big, bad, and brave. I couldn’t travel without being so and yet I see a bigger, braver, and badder version of myself in 2024 and beyond. But as this newsletter champions, the romance of life is feeling able to meet and respond to the demands of life’s love. 

May the audacity of my West African friends coat the base of my spine. Asé, Amen. I believe that audacity belongs to and originates from us all, of course. I just particularly enjoy the entertainment and unserious seriousness of it once manifested in a West African person’s mouth. May we all make people cackle and sit up and double back in the spirit of our friends who know how to assert and bring vim and bring vibes without permission. May it travel like breath up and down our tall backs until the default is audaciously irreversible.

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Affirmations for a new audacious life 

I walk into every room like The Most High sent me

There is enough space for me, plentifully

I am deeply proud of myself, my service, and my offerings

Everything I have to say is valued and deserves full attention

I love how outrageously well-placed I am to receive the best in all moments

I claim my personal power with joy

My best life is stress-free and non-negotiable

I deserve to dwell in all of my worthiness

Life is delighted by me

As for me, I never carry last

Life is in Love with me

Thank you for being here,

Amara Amaryah