Steffany

I’ve been thinking a lot about girlhood, as my 19th birthday looms and that “girl you’ll be a woman soon” realization dawns. So, I’ve decided to rattle off an experience I’ve had that I hope people relate to.

A trip to the book section in Goodwill allowed me access to my first copy of The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah. My mom saw that $2 price tag, deemed it a classic, and handed it to me. She wanted me to read it and give her the play-by-play on how I felt about each chapter, each character, each description of the things Winter Santiaga was wearing. I now realize, in a sense, she was reliving her experience through me. And, like the doorknocker earrings and watching of hood classics, this was Mommy sharing a ’round-the-way-girl rite of passage.

Once I’d finished that book, I began to pass it around the other girls in my class. It provided an excellent alternative to Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, itself a classic in its own right, and known for being on middle school reading lists across the country. Everyone knew you always picked Speak to read over the summer because, more than likely, you would read it again in class later on that year. Also: When it was time to read out loud, whoever had to read about the rape that had taken place made sure to put on their best somber voice, and aim to invoke the emotion of the class, all of us pretending it was our first time hearing of all of this. Then, as a reward for pushing through, we watched the movie starring Kristen Stewart in class, which is basically a free nap.

Angel, Grace, Jenn, and I huddle around each other on the bleachers. It’s gym, but our teacher is lazy so it’s basically a free period. Normally we walk around the track and gossip. Occasionally, we play double dutch, before booting Angel from the game because she’s double-handed. That day however, we huddle around the The Coldest Winter Ever and gasp at the state in which Winter’s father’s incarceration has left the family. I’m reading aloud this time and I keep adding little ad-libs for dramatic effect. “Oh my god, girl can you believe this?” And then I turn and look at all the girls leaning in behind me while they shake their heads in disbelief.

In hindsight, there was something really funny and cool about a bunch of girls reading urban fiction and holding makeshift book clubs in various corners of our middle school. Pretending to go to the bathroom and hanging out in the staircases to discuss new titles, The Coldest Winter Ever being the OG of them all. I quickly outgrew the characters and cheesy sex plots found in other books. Yet, I just couldn’t buy into the common belief that these books were “low rate” or “less than.” They were imaginative, over the top, ongoing soap operas that took place in housing projects and places we walked toward as we headed home from school.

That’s only one experience in a long list of them, but I was cracking up thinking about it recently. I figured I’d share. ♦