Things Are Looking Up For Your Gurl, H-Bird!...💫🎭

The following microfiction piece that I wrote entitled "Things Are Looking Up For Your Gurl, H-Bird!" was inspired by the uber-fabulous, vibrant painting above, titled The Hummingbird Parlour by a very talented artist named Dontanarious Kelly that I recently stumbled across while surfing the net. I was immediately drawn to the painting because of its bright, cheery nature and the beautiful flowers and birds dispersed throughout, as well as the expression of pure jubilation on the young lady's face who is featured in the piece! I hope that you like the D.K. painting and my fiction story! 🫶🏾

Things Are Looking Up For Your Gurl, H-Bird! by Tiffany Gordon 

Hey Guys!

I'm L'Oreal-Loyalty Joseph. I'm fourteen and the second youngest Joseph kid in the family, directly behind my seventeen-year-old older brother Bronzer.

My family nickname is H-Bird, which is short for hummingbird, but my friends call me Lo Lo. Apparently, I got the nickname 'hummingbird' because whenever I saw a hummingbird flitting around outside when I was a baby, I would coo. It's a good thing that I didn't coo at the mud-soaked pigs that lived on my grandad's farm when I was a baby, or I may have ended up with the nickname 'Dirty Pig' 🐖 instead. Lol 🤣

I also have a four-minute-younger, fraternal twin sister named Maybelline and two cutie-patootie identical twin brothers that are four years old. One is named Revlon, and one is named Fenty. My little bros are my favorite people because they don't judge me, they aren't afraid of anything, and they are fun to watch cartoons with. They are both little geniuses in my eyes; Revlon can do a spot-on impression of Woody Woodpecker's famous laugh, and Fenty is no slouch either, guys; he can perfectly mimic Donald Duck's speaking voice. Scout's Honor! ✋🏾 My baby bros always manage to put a smile on my face with their antics.

Can I be truthful with you, guys? Momma is partial at times. She acts like Maybelline and Bronzer, can walk on water, but my Bible tells me that Jesus is the only one who can do that.

"Why can't you get good grades like Maybelline and Bronzer?" She always asks. I always tell myself, and more accurately the back of my bedroom door after my mom has walked out of the room and closed it lol😂, that if God wanted me to be like Maybelline and Bronzer, he would have made me Maybelline or Bronzer. Let's just say that I have learned to keep my thoughts to myself so that I don't get knocked into the next century by Momma or Grammy for getting "too big for my britches".

Truth be told, my twin Maybelline always manages to get most of Momma's attention and 99% of the praise just because she can play Tupac on the piano and isn't making our ears shrivel up, turn black, and fall off with her piano playing anymore.

What topping am I on Momma's pizza ingredient list, you ask? Anchovies—that's who... since I am her least favorite child. Maybelline and Bronzer are the pepperoni and sausage of the bunch in Momma's eyes; essentially her favorites.

I tried telling Momma that my words get blurry and wavy sometimes when I'm reading and that the kids in my class are mean to me about reading slowly, but she isn't really trying to hear it. She just thinks that I care more about being seen than learning, but the only reason that I crack so many jokes in class is because I keep getting teased about my reading speed and my hair texture, and my jokes successfully distract my bullies from those topics when I do.

To make matters worse, Justin Wallace keeps throwing large pink erasers at me and calling me "brillo-headed Lori" in front of the entire class. But I don't see anything wrong with Afro hair or the large afro puff that I wear. Even my Grammy once told me while she was combing my hair that it is not as "good" as Maybelline's. Maybelline's hair texture is more naturally straight, like the famous actress Zendaya. My hair is more kinky like the famous neo-soul singer Ari Lennox's.

Justin W. was my crush until I found out how mean he really is. I almost asked Revlon and Fenty to pretend that he wanted to use their classroom Play-Doh so that he could get a well-deserved pop in the kisser, but my best friend Bambi thinks that he is teasing me because he likes me, so I decided against it. Justin could use a whitening strip on his two front teeth, but you don't see me going around calling him "yellow bus teeth" out loud, in front of our entire English class.

Guess what, y'all? Miss Kay, the school counselor, heard me singing in the hallway earlier today, and she asked me to audition for the lead in a one-person, short, monologue-play that she wrote and is also directing at the local Gordon Cultural Center called Love Yourself about an African American teen girl who learns to love her Afro and the way that she looks. The part requires the lead to sing the song called "Beautiful Day" by that famous gospel singer named Jamie Grace. It also requires minimal acting, mostly ad-libs. I'm good with presenting things off the cuff so this could be the perfect role for me. 😁

Honestly, I kind of feel overprepared for the part because Jamie Grace is my mom's favorite gospel singer, and I've been singing that song for Momma's birthday each year since I was in the fifth grade. Can you believe that Miss Kay said that I have the perfect head of cotton candy Afro hair for her play and that I have a gorgeous singing voice that would be perfect for her main character, Cammie? It feels great to be recognized for something good for once.

Check this out... this morning when Miss Kay and I were chatting, I dropped my notebook onto the ground by accident; my progress report slipped out of my notebook and fell face up on the ground and exposed the fact that I currently have a D in reading comprehension to Miss Kay.

I was so embarrassed that I wanted to crawl under the carpet. Miss Kay sensed my embarrassment and told me not to sweat it and to please feel free to share what my problem areas in reading are with her. I immediately felt at ease when speaking with Miss Kay about my reading struggles, like she wasn't judging me, so I let her know that sometimes the words get blurry on the page when I am reading them and that I always have trouble with reading large words in class and with skipping small filler words like "the" when reading aloud in front of the class. Also, sometimes my teacher tells me that the paragraphs that I write in my essays are unorganized and that they don't have the right punctuation in them, but conversely, when I am asked to tell the class a story from the top of my head orally, I have zero trouble. In fact, my sixth-grade teacher once told my mom and stepdad that I am the best public speaker that she has ever taught in over twenty-two years of teaching.

I was a little ashamed to admit it to Miss Kay, but sometimes I mix up my d's & b's as well. For instance, whenever I ask Momma to use her dustbuster, sometimes I end up asking her for her bust-duster. She thinks I'm funning with her, but sometimes I truly do get confused. At times I also mix up my left and right sides. When Momma tells me to help Revlon and Fenty vacuum up the crumbs on the left side of the couch, sometimes I end up heading to the right side of the couch and end up getting in trouble "for not listening" because of it. And sometimes I end up mixing up Momma's and Grammy's cell numbers as well because they both end in the same two numbers. The last two digits of Grammy's cell number are 0-1. The last two digits of Momma's cell phone number are 1-0.

Miss Kay told me that it sounds like I may have a learning disorder called dyslexia, which is a neurological disorder in which the brain processes language differently. She said that she had similar problems when she was a kid and that she was diagnosed with dyslexia when she was in grammar school. She let me know that you can still thrive and be a success even if you have the disorder.

The next couple of weeks are going to be busy. Miss Kay is going to test me for dyslexia next week and then connect me with a language specialist to help me out if I do have it. This Friday is my biology midterm as well as the day that I audition for the lead in Miss Kay's play. Please pray for me, you guys!

***

Guess what, y'all!? I'm not a complete dodo, like I thought, after all. It turns out that I do have dyslexia, and guess what else? I just found out that I landed the lead in Miss Kay's play too!!!!

I'll chat with you guys later. I'm going to go lounge in my favorite room in the house, directly under the chandelier, in the den, on my favorite piece of furniture in the house, Grammy's red and white striped antique armchair, and take ample time to smell the roses 🌹 of my victory. I'll also be listening to some of Contemporary Jazz Great: Nina Simone's Greatest Songs on Grammy's old record player to celebrate me winning the lead in Miss Kay's play. I love Miss Simone's voice. It always relaxes me. The family's pet hummingbirds, Scooby, Scrappy, and Fred, will be joining me for my musical adventure along with the family cat, Orangesicle if he can stay awake! Lol 😆 Things are finally looking up for your gurl, H-Bird!! It's my time to shine! Maybe landing the lead in the play at the cultural center will finally allow me to get into Momma's good graces, like Maybelline and Bronzer. I sure hope that's the case! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Much love,

Tiffa Go 🌸

Please enjoy a little Jamie Grace "Beautiful Day" on me:

As well as a little Nina Simone: