Writer

Author name: Herina Ayot

Writer. Woman. Human. I write about the difficult places.

Love, Politics and an HIV Test

Ebony.com /

I saun­tered in a black hal­ter and pur­ple peek toe stilet­tos, my sum­ma­time (sic) shoes.  I walked over to the bar, ordered a com­pli­men­ta­ry spe­cial­ty cock­tail, apt­ly named “Love,” and sipped for just a few moments before I was joined by a gen­tle­man dressed in red.  A red tie that is, one of two col­ors deemed accept­able for a man who wish­es to be tak­en seri­ous­ly. “So are you here for love or are you here for pol­i­tics?” was his open­er. Con­sid­er­ing the name of the annu­al event was “Love + Pol­i­tics”, a recep­tion that con­sid­ered the impact of HIV on our com­mu­ni­ties, and aimed to hon­or activists mak­ing strides in rais­ing aware­ness about the dis­ease, I thought his line was clever. “I’m here for the fan­cy cock­tails.” Read more at Ebony.com

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Why African-American Books Should Be Required Reading for All Americans

Ebony.com /

Black his­to­ry is not just for Black peo­ple. Just as the world is not paint­ed in “50 Shades of Grey,” and Amer­i­ca is a melt­ing pot of fla­vors, those aspir­ing to be well-cul­­tured put on their tech­ni­col­or glass­es, stepout­side their com­fort box, and expose them­selves to some­thing they may not already know.…Read more at Ebony.com

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REVELATIONS: Finding Opportunity in Life’s Journey

Ebony.com, Health and Wellness /

We wait­ed, the man and I, out­side the court­room for paper­work to be drawn up, and a court date set. Me, sit­ting on a bench, sip­ping cold cof­fee. Him, pac­ing the floor in front of me, talk­ing on his phone to…someone…about what had just tran­spired. In that moment, I remem­bered how every area of my life is con­sid­ered, and bal­anced. Phys­i­cal­ly, I try to eat healthy, organ­ic foods, lit­tIe sug­ar; and run con­sis­tent­ly. Men­tal­ly, I feed my mind stim­u­lat­ing myself dai­ly with writ­ers like Toni Mor­ri­son and James Bald­win. My dai­ly devo­tion­albegins my day. Time spent in my Bible ends it.  Emo­tion­al­ly, I fill my down­time enjoy­ing my chil­dren, hav­ing drinks with friends –real friends. I strive to excel in my career, man­age my finances, and build a life for myself that would prove an inspi­ra­tion to oth­ers. I seek to always be ful­fill­ing a pur­pose, all the while strength­en­ing an inti­mate rela­tion­ship with the Lord, ask­ing for his guid­ance and try­ing to fol­low his lead… Read more at Ebony.com

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[CONFESSIONS] Making Peace With My Mother (and Myself)

Ebony.com /

First, I thought I had malaria—the infec­tious dis­ease born from par­a­sitic mos­qui­toes that infil­trates blood cells result­ing in death—but lat­er learned the only par­a­site was a bun­dle grow­ing inside me that pro-life activists called a bless­ing from God, but my moth­er deemed shame­ful.  The excite­ment of spend­ing 4 months study­ing abroad my senior year of col­lege in Ghana, a coun­try rich in cul­tur­al his­to­ry where the sun sets a lit­tle more beau­ti­ful­ly than it does in New jer­sey, quick­ly turned sour after the first six weeks in. After get­ting the news that I was preg­nant, I often won­dered if con­tract­ing malar­ia would have been bet­ter. …Read more at Ebony.com

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Confessions: Lost Him Found Myself

Ebony.com /

It was in the nights I spent let­ting my tears trick­le onto my laven­der pil­lows, that I often won­dered why Apple nev­er cre­at­ed an app for heart­break.  iHurt seemed like a fit­ting name. The idea could hard­ly be nov­el in this time when any­one with inter­net access could upload, down­load, or Google all of life’s answers if they want­ed to. I stayed up late, read­ing up on char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Aquar­ius man, try­ing to dis­sect his thought process, think­ing that the out­come may have been dif­fer­ent if I had known this before and not after.…Read more at Ebony.com

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Birth Control For Men: Could it Work?

Ebony.com, Health and Wellness, Men's Interests /

With the intro­duc­tion of the birth con­trol pill in the ear­ly 1960s, women were final­ly able enjoy the free­dom to have sex with­out the fear of an unwant­ed preg­nan­cy. But men may not be so inclined to take such a med­ica­tion. Psy­chother­a­pist and rela­tion­ship expert, Mary Pen­der Greene says, “Men in gen­er­al are very com­mit­ted to the idea that being able to repro­duce has a lot to do with how suc­cess­ful they are as men. Regard­less of cul­ture, men have his­tor­i­cal­ly been looked to for pro­duc­ing off­spring. It’s a big deal.” Read more at Ebony.com

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