Sometimes I sit back and reminisce on days when I had less responsibility, was more naive to the world, and spent more time surrounded by the people I love. I remember those summer mornings when I would wake up and smell fresh cut grass drifting through the neighborhood. In my family, a freshly mowed lawn on a Saturday meant one thing: we were having a cookout.
Back then, I thought the cookout was just a good time. Food, music, cousins running around, and adults laughing louder than what was necessary. Looking back now, I realize it was much more than that.
The cookout was my first classroom.
Before I knew anything about identity, community, or womanhood, I was learning lessons simply by watching the adults around me move through an afternoon.
The First Lesson Was Leadership
The structure of the cookout was always clear, even if nobody ever explained it. The men were usually at the grill, and somewhere inside, a game was always on television. Whatever sport was in season had control of the screen. Nobody touched that remote. It didn’t matter who you were or how bored you got. The television stayed exactly where the men left it. But in the kitchen was where the real authority lived.
In my family, the women ran everything. My aunts decided when the food was ready. My mother made sure everyone had what they needed before they could ask. And my grandmother could stop an argument with a single look from across the yard. Long before I had language for maternal leadership, I was watching it in action.
The Second Lesson Was Joy
What stands out to me now is how intentional the joy was. Nobody’s week had been perfect. People still had bills to pay, jobs to return to, and responsibilities waiting for them on Monday morning. But for a few hours, none of that got to be the center of the story. The radio was up, the cards were getting slammed onto the table, and somebody was dancing near the cooler.
Joy wasn’t something people waited to earn after life became easier. Joy was the initial plan. As a child, I thought everyone lived that way. As an adult, I understand how powerful that choice really was.
The Third Lesson Was Abundance
There was always more than enough. It didn’t matter whether you brought a dish or showed up empty handed. Somebody made sure you had a plate and were also able to take a plate home. Nobody stood around calculating who contributed what before deciding whether they belonged.
You fed people because they were there. It was generosity as a way of life, a form of community building.
The Final Lesson Was Inheritance
Alongside those larger lessons were smaller traditions that carried their own kind of wisdom.
The Black cookout is one of those experiences that seems to exist across all families and generations. We all have different stories, yet somehow many of us recognize the same details. I think about pot liquor, the broth left behind after the greens were done cooking.
The elders called it liquid gold and never let it go to waste. Somebody was always saving it in the refrigerator, dipping cornbread into it, or offering a cup to whoever was feeling under the weather. We believed it held something valuable, and that belief traveled through generations.
I think about spilled salt, too. If somebody knocked over the salt shaker, a hand would immediately reach for a pinch and toss it over the left shoulder before another word was said. Nobody stopped to explain why. You just learned that this was what people did.
Looking back, I love that these little rituals survived. They traveled across generations and found their way into our kitchens, our gatherings, and our lives without needing formal instruction. Some things are taught while the most important things were inherited.
What the Cookout Gave Me
When I was young, I thought I was simply spending time with family. Now I understand I was receiving an education. I learned leadership from the women. I learned joy from people who chose it despite life’s challenges. I learned abundance from tables that always had room for one more plate. And I learned inheritance from traditions that survived because someone cared enough to pass them along.
The cookout gave me all of that before I ever stepped into a classroom.
So this Juneteenth, I hope you pour something into yourself and into the people you love, let an elder boss you around a little if you're lucky enough to still have one nearby, and allow joy to be the actual plan for the day rather than something you squeeze in around everything else.
Happy Juneteenth.
The Balanced Fem
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