Tender, Loving Self-Care

An Installation of

For the Love of Literature

BY KHADIJA POUNSEL

© 2025

Ahead of schedule on a few projects, no meetings on tap, and wondering how I could take a quick vacation, the week ahead looked good: full but not stressfully packed. On this side of things, I had selected a graphic novel, which by chance the bookseller had also read and enjoyed. But before sunrise, I found myself wide awake.

An internal back-and-forth conversation began, “If I just keep my eyes closed and stay still, maybe I can get back to sleep (but I have been laying still with my eyes closed). True, what time is it? (Don’t look). Maybe listen to a podcast or watch a favorite show quietly on demand (they say blue light messes with your sleep cycle and I am really not ready for any noise yet). I am still tired. I just cannot go back to sleep. (“I know, but let’s get on up.”)

So, I begrudgingly began my morning routine. First, I took my pouting and slight attitude to my journal, then between a long-ish meditation and a big, hot breakfast, did the day’s reading from Acts of Faith: Daily Meditations for People of Color, the 25th anniversary edition by Iyanla Vanzant. My morning routine started, super early though it was, I felt good and ready for the day ahead.

The term “self-care” is everywhere these days. In all our booked schedules and busyness, fitting ourselves into it all can seem perplexing. I have seen many a self-care challenge, ranging from gratitude to fitness to pampering, but I actually do not remember hearing the term, self-care, much as I was growing up. Looking back though, Acts of Faith served as a self-care manual for me. More accurately, it served as a manual for a self-caring consciousness. First gifted to me in my teen years (the small version with the purple cover), it’s the only book of the sort I am still in touch with. Plus, the ritual of setting aside time just to read it for myself made me feel cared for—by me, for me. It still does.

My entry point to self-care aligns more with the simple definition of care: “Care-to do the things that are needed to help and protect” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).

These days, my self-care entails who I am to myself and what I do on my behalf. The manner and methods can vary, but the spirit of care is what matters to me. I am reminded of one of my favorite passages from Acts of Faith (page 319) that begins with the epigraph from an African American folk saying, “Ask for what you want.” The passage offers the affirmation, “I make my requests from life clear, specific, and plentiful”; then ends with the reflection, “What special delight would you like to order from life’s limitless menu today?”

That sounds like tender, loving self-care to me.

Loving Literature,

Khadija Pounsel