How Tamera Gordon found solace in ‘hood wellness’

In her early 30s, Tamela Gordon practiced extreme self-care: regular yoga, manicures and pedicures, “extreme hydration,” and (when she could afford it) vacations. “By any standard of self-care, I was doing great,” Gordon tells PS in an interview ahead of the release of her new book, Hood Wellness: Tales of Communal Care from People Who Drowned on Dry Land. Despite these efforts at self-improvement, Gordon couldn’t help but notice that her health and quality of life were still deteriorating — an all-too-common realization for anyone trying to stay healthy while living outside of a white, heteronormative identity, Gordon says.

“Honestly, a lot of the issues I had couldn’t be solved by self-care alone, like housing stability, health, dental care. So I had to gradually identify my needs and seek out the communities that I was a part of or needed to be a part of so I wasn’t getting the support I couldn’t get on my own,” she says. In doing so, Gordon began to understand the power of communal care and what she calls “hood wellness,” which she defines as the way marginalized communities help each other. “It all depends on the spaces that we’re facilitating, the resources that we’re providing, and also making sure that we’re creating a safe space where it’s okay to say I need help or I can’t do it on my own,” Gordon says. While traditional wellness encourages us to look inward, neighborhood wellness and community care encourages people of marginalized identities to look outward to the neighborhoods they live in or can create to nourish their souls. That’s how Gordon took it upon herself to create neighborhood wellness retreats for marginalized Black identities across the country in her Little Havana studio (which she was able to fund thanks to community fundraising) during the pandemic.

Now, in her book, reviewed by Kirkus Star, Gordon explores how to achieve self-care while navigating intersectional marginalization through her own personal adventures and the experiences of people who have encouraged her and inspired her to think beyond the superficial health systems that currently exist.

In the excerpt below from the chapter “Begging, Borrowing, Healing,” Gordon details one of her first discoveries, a revelation that sounded a clear alarm that the health practices she had been practicing needed a complete overhaul. Through sharp words, humor, vulnerability, and critique, Gordon raises the very issue of upheaval that is needed in this industry.

One day, I found an old copy of Eat, Pray, Love. Ha! I chuckled to myself. In 2009, I couldn’t tear this book out of my hands. I ripped the pages off and tried to keep it. It brought back memories of my sister forcing this book into my hands on our usual Sunday brunch and book shopping trip. Now, a decade later, that tattered copy has survived rush hour on a crowded D train, hot beach days on Fire Island, and cramped middle seats on long flights. I read it everywhere.

Eat, Pray, Love is a 2006 memoir that follows author Elizabeth Gilbert’s emotional journey through divorce, depression, and self-discovery. Realizing she no longer wants the life she once dreamed of, she embarks on a year-long journey to find herself. Though her story and background didn’t line up with mine, when I first read the book at age 25, I saw much of the person I was becoming in its pages. Like Liz, I was a young woman ready to accept that the direction I’d first chosen for myself was no longer leading me to where I wanted to be. I had dreams of living off the grid for months in Cuba, learning to make arroz con frijoles like my grandmother did, then flying to Hawaii to just eat fresh pineapple and have sex with surfers. Just the thought of it excited me enough to practice my Spanish and go shopping for the perfect bodysuit. I was so excited, so sure it would all happen, that it reminded me of the sad fact that I hadn’t made it out of New York yet.

My reality was very different from Liz’s. For one, I might have been a writer, but I wasn’t the kind of writer who got free luxury vacations and lived alone in Manhattan. I was the kind of writer who had to answer the phone and tell the bill collector, “Oh, Tamera’s not here right now.” I was the kind of writer who cashed checks at the check-cashing bureau that I’d loaded onto a prepaid credit card. I was the kind of writer who had to use the self-checkout at the grocery store with earphones in so I could pretend I was distracted enough to not notice that I was stealing two-thirds of my groceries.

I was about halfway through Elizabeth’s Italian travelogue before shoving it away in the back of my collection. Liz and I were on completely opposite missions.

When I thought about the years I’d lost, I felt ashamed of having flitted around as if the flowers I’d excreted would continue to bloom forever. Why didn’t I travel sooner? Should I have gone to college after all? Was quitting the food service industry a bad idea? What on earth was I thinking all this time?

I was infuriated by Elizabeth Gilbert and Eat, Pray, Love. I was disgusted that, unlike cigarettes and alcohol, there was no warning in the back of the book: WARNING: This is not a book for fat, cash-strapped black women who live with their parents and don’t have a passport. If you are one of those women, reading this book risks making you think you have options that don’t actually exist. You’re stuck, bitch. Put this book down and find IYANLA.

“Healing is ugly, my nigga!” These are the words my friend and mentor Tanya Denise Fields uttered out loud. She was recording a Facebook Live and talking about her journey to healing herself. The conversation was quite delicate, but she didn’t hold back her emotions, spending most of the time screaming, clapping, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying. “You know what your kids told you in our last family therapy session?

And they were right! I have a hard job to do! So I’m not going to play around with my healing.” Tears streamed down my cheeks as I clutched the phone and looked at her like my life depended on it.

The more I reflected on Liz’s experience abroad and Tanya’s therapeutic journey, the more I understood the life I so desperately wanted to envision: a chapter of healing that was selfish, private, unapologetically ugly. Not the typical healing of spending time crying in therapy and filling the house with candles and plants (though that can come with time). The kind of healing that would help me move beyond my struggles and reach a place of peace. Healing that addressed immediate needs that mattered to me, not some fad self-care nonsense that did little to satisfy my emotions. But wait…what exactly are my needs?

I got out my notebook and started writing down all the things I needed to begin my personal healing journey. I was immersed in feelings of lack, but instead of writing them down I was hindered by thoughts of what I didn’t have and why I didn’t have it. Even if I couldn’t afford it, couldn’t have it, or couldn’t obtain it in some way, I needed to identify it.

None of the things on the list were things I could afford, and there was no reason for me to. But it didn’t matter, because I needed them. Beach access may have been a stretch, but it was the only place in the world where I felt truly free and beautiful. I firmly believe that heat makes people at least 30 percent more attractive than temperatures below 76 degrees. I also believe that the weightlessness of floating in the ocean is an incredibly effective, physically blissful experience for mental illness and low self-esteem. So, yes, I needed that form of water therapy in my life.

Maybe I wouldn’t hook up with some surfer in Hawaii or spend a season in Cuba. But maybe I could satisfy my craving for the exotic life and water therapy in Miami. I didn’t know how I’d get there, but I was sure I was on the path I was headed. That night I went to sleep feeling strangely inspired.

Excerpted by Tamera Gordon. “Hood Wellness: Tales of Communal Care from People Who Drowned on Dry Land” will be available on June 18, 2024.

Alexis Jones is PS’s Senior Health & Fitness Editor. Her passions and areas of expertise include women’s health and fitness, mental health, racial and ethnic disparities in health care, and chronic disease. Prior to joining PS, she was a senior editor at Health magazine. Her other work can be found in Women’s Health, Prevention, Marie Claire, and more.