Wear Your
Inner World

I wore this to my first day back at work after my daughter was born. I hadn't slept in weeks. I barely recognized myself in the mirror anymore. I put on the Spirit Flow Tunic and something shifted — I looked like a woman who had come through something, not one who had been defeated by it. My manager stopped me in the hallway and said I looked powerful. I almost cried. I wore it every Thursday for the rest of that year, like a ritual.

My grandmother was from Accra. She died before I was old enough to really know her. When I found out the Sankofa symbol means "go back and fetch it" — to know where you are going by knowing where you have been — I ordered the necklace the same day. I wear it to every important meeting. I wore it when I defended my dissertation. It was the only piece of jewelry on my neck when my son was born. I don't think I'll ever take it off.

I bought the Inner Light Maxi Skirt two weeks after my divorce was finalized. I hadn't bought anything for myself in four years — everything had been for the house, for the kids, for the version of my life I was trying to save. I stood in the mirror in this skirt and I remembered who I was before all of it. That's not a small thing. That's everything. I've since bought three more pieces. Soul & Spirit doesn't just make clothing. It makes you feel like yourself again.

I'm a hospice nurse. I work nights. The days I wear my Chakra Kaftan to sleep in before my shift, I notice something in how I move when I arrive at work — quieter, somehow more present. My patients are at the end of their lives and what they need from me is not efficiency, it's presence. I think about that when I dress. Intention in what you put on your body is real. Soul & Spirit understands this in a way I haven't found in any other brand.

This wrap traveled with me to Lagos, to Accra, and to Cape Town in one month. In every city, someone asked me where it was from. In Lagos, a woman stopped me in the market and asked if I had bought it there. When I said it came from a Nairobi brand, she smiled and said the energy was right — that clothes from that part of the continent carry something in the weaving. I believe her. There is something in this fabric that knows where it comes from.

I wore this wrap dress to my daughter's naming ceremony. She is named after my grandmother — Abenaa, which means "born on Tuesday" in Twi. The dress arrived the day before the ceremony and I remember opening the box and the card that came with it, the one that names the artisan who made it. Her name is also a day-name. Abenaa. I took that as a sign. The dress was perfect. The coincidence was better.