I don't quite remember when I fell in love with tea but I do remember the most special moments of me drinking tea. I was eighteen years old and I went to live with my biological mother for four months. I had just met her months earlier and it was awkward for both of us. She and her ex-husband lived a very quiet life in Boulder, Colorado. He was a professor at one of the universities and she was a housewife. After years of drug addiction and being in and out of jail, she deserved the break. I was homeless so she and her husband agreed to let me come live with them. Each evening my mother and I would find a spot in the living room with a cup of tea and a book.
Now, years later, I'm a self proclaimed tea expert. I start each day with a wonderful English Breakfast tea to get me going. As the day progresses, who knows what wonderful tea I will crown queen. But for sure, I have at least three cups of tea a day. And yes, when I can, I have tea everyday at about 3:00 P. M. I love to invite my friends over for tea and cupcakes and so far everyone thinks it’s a delightful experience. I am always in search of the best blend of tea. Yes, I’m a tea snob, I prefer loose tea but I do like some bags also. I have learned not to judge a book by it’s cover. Some bags can be quite nice. And yes again, any Diva knows, what you drink your tea out of is very important.
Tea for me is a way of life. It's wellness for the mind body and spirit. Here, I will explore every expect of tea possible, with a high concentration on wellness. I will review the best teas, the best places to have tea, the best ways to brew tea, the best tea accessories, what tea goes best with what foods, and the list goes on and on. I plan to share my passion for tea with you. And I've been told, nothing I do is ever boring so be prepared to go on this tea journey with me.
Until recently I had never drank Peppermint Tea made with loose leaves. And Honestly, I will probably never go back. The freshness of loose Peppermint Tea cannot be denied. When I open the can of Mint Medley, From The Persimmon Tree Tea Company, I feel as if I stepped into a garden of peppermint leaves. It is a perfect blend of organic peppermint and spearmint leaves grown in the US.
Mint Medley has become a favorite and I find myself reaching for this tea tin almost everyday. It is great for on-going nausea. The health benefits and endless. It relieves muscle aches, headaches, migraines, stress. And now that it feels like someone is sitting on my chest and I have a mean cough, I'm sure it will help to relieve some of this congestion in my chest. Mint Medley has been in my tea cup more than any tea as of late. It has really helped with my winter cough, congestion related to this bout of pneumonia.
You can read my full review on The Persimmon Tree Tea Company Mint Teas.
Welcome to my world of books! As an pre-teen books changed my world. I fell in love with the writers of the Harlem Renaissance period and the more I read the more I wanted to read. The fiction of this period was powerful and empowering all at the same time. It spoke to my own degradation and gave me hope for a better tomorrow. It gave me purpose for my own life and the courage to fight the good fight and never surrender.
I love to read! Inside a book I escape into someone else's life. There is something wonderful about turning to the next page of a wonderful story. Something intoxicating about the smell of the book and the story it brings to life. Reading brings me joy, and these days with my health in the balance, I find solace in my books.
I spent hours in my bedroom sequestered with the door closed reading the classics from the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes, Larsen, Hurston, Wright and Baldwin. Books became my escape and my salvation. The fiction of this period was powerful and empowering all at the same time. It gave me purpose for my own life and the courage to fight the good fight and never surrender.
Reading is the one thing that the pain of my life could never take away from me. It was the thing that helped to make it better. And even today, living with AIDS, books continue to be the safest place for me. It’s the one thing that belongs to me that AIDS cannot take away from me.The RLTReads book club will be books that I choose. It’s me sharing a part of me with you that has nothing to do with AIDS. It’s actually in spite of AIDS.
The RLTReads book club will be books that I choose. It’s me sharing a part of me with you that has nothing to do with AIDS. It’s actually in spite of AIDS. I have read hundreds of books from many different genres and I will pick the best of my reads over the years. I warn you, it will not be exclusively white or black, male or female, fiction or non fiction, it will be all of them.
I’m so excited and I’m grateful to everyone who wants to be a part of this venture. We already have 110 Book Club Members. You can email me @ RLTReads@raelewisthornton.com. The Twitter hashtag is #RLTReads. We can make this book club as wonderful as we want to make it. Who says that Oprah has to have the only ownership to a wonderful book club?
This Month We are Reading
In My Fathers House
by E Lynn Harris
Read along and join our discussion July 19th at 7 pm CST
For more Tea with Rae "Vlogs" Click here to visit her youtube channel
Today I turn 57 years old. Honest to God I had no idea that I would make it this far. I've been living with HIV for 36 years. When I transitioned to AIDS is was a death sentence and that is a fact. I try to explain to people that it was a lot of things that kept me here. At the top of the list is the God factor. But then there was an phenomenal doctor at the top of her game, treating women with HIV because she felt it was the right thing to do. Dr. Mardge Cohen fraught for me when I could not fight for myself, but equally important, I did everything she asked of me. I took all the medications that made me deathly ill until something came along that was better and more tolerated and less pills. Well, I'm on fifteen a day now, but that is better than 31. I am grateful to be alive.
As I complete my memoir Unprotected, I've been giving my legacy a lot of thought and some research. When I started speaking in Chicago High Schools, I had no idea that I would end up on the cover of Essence Magazine. Twenty-five years later my ground-breaking cover story has had an phenomenal impact in the history of the AIDS Pandemic.
One of the Founders of Essence Magazine- Edward Lewis, said in his memoir that was published in 2014 that my 1994 Cover Story was the number one December newsstand seller of all times. Now that blows my freaking mind.
Well I've been doing a deep dive on my legacy and I'm learning things that I have never knew about the reach of my work in the last twenty six years and I'm humbled.
Here are some of the books that feature my work as an AIDS Activist, My Journey Living With AIDS and the impact of the Essence Magazine Cover.
Today is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and my message is unwavering.We have to tap into our own power. We have to make the decision to put ourselves first, love ourselves first and absolutely love ourselves more than wanting and needing a man in our life.
Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with dating and love and all that good stuff. There's even nothing wrong with sex. Studies show that people who have sex are happier beings.
It's just, the decision that you make about your life and body should be rooted in self-love, not the love or desire for love that you have or want from another. If I've learn one thing from other women in the twenty-two years that I've been educating about HIV/AIDS, it's this, the only person that will keep you safe in the end is you. If I had a dollar for all the stories women have told me about what they thought about their relationship that was not true, I could get me a cute designer bag.
We make decisions everyday about our lives, based on what someone has told us that we believe, what we assumed and even what we hope for our future. When we should be making decisions on what we know to be true, for sure. We plan our future down to the last "T" but when it comes to dating and love we sometimes get so caught up, that we start making decisions that leave us vulnerable.
Let me use this example, if your employer told you that your job was going to end. They don't know the date, but for sure, it was not going to last. You would start looking for another job in spite of the fact that you continue to go to work everyday. You wouldn't keep hoping that the job wasn't going to end, you would prepare yourself. In fact, even if six months had passed the stress along of waiting for the ball to drop would make you get the hell out of that place.
But if a man tells you that he does not want a relationship, yet he keeps calling, texting, soaking up your space and diving into your goodness, you would rationalize that he eventually will come around. "He must like me," you say to yourself, "but maybe he's afraid of commitment." His behavior makes you think that one day he's going to say, "I want you as my woman for real" *blank stare* But the man done told you that he does not want a relationship and he meant that shit. That's why he has never introduced you as his women, in spite of how he treats you in private . You keep holding on waiting and wanting and losing a part of yourself with each passing day. Ladies, I'm a witness that the idea of a healthy relationship does not make it true. Just like when the boss say that they are closing the doors, coming to work everyday does not change that fact.
I keep asking why we make these decisions for ourselves that our unhealthy in search of what we think will make us whole. When in fact the only thing that will make us whole is living from our soul. We live from our soul when we make decisions that lift us up in every single way, mind, body and spirit. Oprah says all the time, that we are responsible for ourselves and that is a truth I will bank on. Yet we surrender ourselves in the name of love. It really is up to us to take control over our lives and our bodies. Our body belongs to us, our life is our own and some of us treat our designer handbag better than we treat ourselves.
My suggestions to take control over your life and body.
1) Insist on Condom Use. Every time you have sex without a condom you put your life against that sexual experience and for sure there is no sex worth your life. I promise, if you tell him, no condom no sex and mean it, he will adjust. If he doesn't want to adjust, you have to not only ask yourself but also give an honest answer, is sex without a condom a risk I'm willing to take? Am I prepared for the consequences of what I don't know?
The reality is this, it's 2 to 1 that a man will infect a woman with HIV and 20 to 1 that a woman will infect a man. Furthermore, over half of the cases of women infected with HIV are through heterosexual sex. We continue to have unprotected sex a decision that is made on what we think we know or we do it in the heat of the moment. Passion will not save your life, neither will your assumptions about your partner. For sure, If the penis ain't in your pocket you have no idea what it's doing when it ain't with you. I say often, "I hope what you think you know about your partner is true."
2) Everyone who has ever had sex needs to be tested for HIV. When people say they don't want to know, I say that's some stupid shit. Why wouldn't you want to know about a medical condition that can be treated and with an early diagnosis and virus suppression you could live a long life.
It's 2016 and every 10 minutes a person still becomes infected with HIV in the United States. Furthermore 38% of newly diagnosed HIV cases are of people that were infected by someone who did not know that they had HIV. Testing along can reduce the cases of new infections.
I have HIV and I insist that my partner have an HIV test. First off, I don't want to live in that kind of ignorance for him or myself. Most importantly, I am not trying to get re-infected with a different stain of HIV. What I have is more than enough. By the way, a man can't tell me he got tested a year ago and let it ride. I have no idea what you have done with your penis in the 12 months prior to me.
Testing for HIV is one of the best things that you can do for yourself. Staying in that ignorance could mean how long you live or how soon you die. If you test positive the better off you are in terms of life expectancy. The earlier they suppress the virus the healthier you will be. I know you think you know, but honesty, you don't know until you take an HIV test. Living in what you think you know rather then what you know for sure is not a healthy lifestyle. I bet you know how much that handbag is that you want so you can get your money in order. *Blank Stare* But you don't know your HIV Status?
3) Have a talk with your partner. I find it so strange that when we talk about sex, we leave out some of the most important things. We know what position he likes best and that is important, and what you like it is equally important. But have you sat down and talked about HIV testing, condom use and other sexually transmitted disease. Have you even opened the door for the conversation? So many people are living with herpes and HVP, not in secret, not just HIV. You must to be willing to have an adult conversation about sex and how it happens with your partner. It makes for a healthy start to any relationship.
So how to you talk about sex? At the kitchen table with all your clothes on. You cannot talk about sex, condom use in the moment of passion.
4) If you are infected with HIV. Get into treatment and care and STAY in treatment and care. I know it seems like an overwhelming burden. You send me messages about your struggle. But if I can do it for 33 years so can you. Think about this, when I was diagnosed there was no treatment, then came AZT, then can DDI then came more and more and more. I kept doing what my doctors asked of me and it saved my life. I want you to live a good life and the earlier the virus is suppressed the better off you will be.
a) Take your medication as prescribed
b) Talk to your doctor, ask questions, Co-partner with your care.
c) Get a support system. YOU CANNOT DO THIS ALONE
d) Get into some kind of therapy. Depression is very common with HIV and you don't need anything working against you
e) Find you a spiritual outlet
f) Find a community for yourself via social media. There are many people who follow me on my different social media sites who are positive and my post inspire them to keep going. Community is very important. YOU CANNOT DO THIS AlONE!
At the end of the day, I want women to know that we have so much unspoken and untapped power! My challenge to you today, whether you are infected or affected is to tap into the power within you, for a better you! Namaste
In honor of Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day the Office of Women's Health is sponsoring a blog hop. Please check out the blog post of my partners for today.
I was speechless when I watched this video that one of my Twitter followers, Ann sent to me. As I was shaking my head, I had to look down at my PJ's and remind myself that I am a woman, with a vagina and HIV.
So this guy Mike Frey actually said a woman's vagina protects her from contracting HIV. This reminds me of the 1987 article in Cosmopolitan Magazine that said a, "Woman with a healthy vagina couldn't get HIV." That was 1987 when we didn't know that much about HIIV and they still got picketed by Act-Up.
This is 2013, thirty-two years into the AIDS Pandemic and HIV/AIDS has had some of the most ground breaking research in a short period of time. To think that someone actually believes this crap and would part their lips and say it. *Blank Stare* Not only was his information WRONG about woman, but it was also WRONG on the why same sex male's contract HIV.
The internet is buzzing with articles challenging his views on male same sex and HIV, but I've seen very little on what he said about women. I get it, Gay Activist are on their A game and I ain't mad. So my blog post is not on the same sex point or same sex marriage that Mike Frey tried to make; I'm speaking for and about women. But just so you know, I do support civil unions of the same sex.
I so dislike when people USE HIV to spread hate. If you don't support same sex marriage then say it. But don't push some ill-informed, jack ass reason to support your position.
I practically dislike men using women's vagina's for their politics. When I was in undergrad I did a 30 page research paper looking at how men have used a woman's vagina to promote there political agenda, usually around birth control, but even around issues of race.
The problem with misinformation around HIV, for both Women and Men, could be the difference between life and death.
To tell women that they can't get HIV through heterosexual sex and to speak it with authority is just pure sinful and irresponsible..
So he claimed that female to male sex is safer because a woman has a, "Barrier of cellular tissue that doesn't allow the sperm... to penetrate the blood flow," but anal sex doesn't have this protection. With 34 million adults living with HIV world-wide and approximately half are women, I wonder what planet is Mike living on?
The fact of the matter, women are generally at greater risk of heterosexual transmission, meaning it's easier for a man to transmit to a women, then for a women to a man. According to the HIV/AIDS Charity Avert, "Biologically, women are twice as more likely to become infected with HIV through unprotected heterosexual intercourse than a man."
According to the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services Women are at greater risk for infection through heterosexual contact for the following reason:
The vagina has a larger area (compared to the penis), that can be exposed to HIV-infected semen.
Semen can stay in the vagina for days after sex, while men are only exposed to HIV-infected fluids during sex. Semen left in the vagina means a longer exposure to the virus for women.
Having untreated sexually transmitted infections (STIs) makes it more likely for a person to get HIV. This is especially true for women. Small cuts on the skin of the vagina are hard to notice but may allow HIV to pass into a woman's body.
In the back drop of Woman and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on this pass Sunday, I am aware of the fact that we must educate our women and girls about their risk factors around HIV/AIDS.
While treatment is great, I believe that prevention is our best defense against this disease. We cannot save lives with half-truths and misinformation. I have no idea who Mike Frey is, but what I know for sure is this kind of misinformation coming out of his mouth is dangerous. I was reading some of the comments people made on line at various articles on this topic and for sure, people cling to crazy out of the fear of the truth.
When a woman believes the truth that she is at risk for HIV, she has to then adjust her behavior to meet this new information. Half truths are easier to embrace sometimes. Who wants to believe that their boyfriend or even husband, could put them at risk? Who wants to think about using condoms with that man who is your best thing since slice bread? The truth then becomes the barrier between what you hope for in a relationship and what is the reality.
Condoms have become our enemy that is buried under the hope for a better truth; My Partner will keep me self, I am not at risk, I'm in a monogamous relationship, He loves me...
But when you pull the layers back, the most profound question you must ask yourself is, how much do I love me?
In 2013, we have come a lone way. But clearly Mike Frey has reminded us how far we still must go. We must challenge misinformation head on. The TRUTH is our sword in the fight against new infections, against stigma and shaming.
A Man who cannot respect the truth about a Woman's vagina, should not be privileged to enter it. And a Woman who loves the love of a man, over the love of her own vagina, is living in the world of Mike Frey.
A Woman's vagina should not be a pawn... Bottom Line.
I'm on the road today, speaking at Florida A and M University this evening. Traveling is hard on my body, but I do it because it's what I'm supposed to do. God has given me a gift and I dare not squander it. For the Last 20 years I've been clear, I have work to do and whatever doors God open, I will go through.
I love the young people at FAMU. In the last few years they have made it a point to include me in their student programming. They really value my work and that makes me feel great; Like I've reached somebody. The Woman's Program is having a week long event's and this one of many.
I'm honored to be featured in honest discussion, Things My Mama Never Told Me, with Dr. Julia Hare. It should be a powerful evening for the young people in attendance. If you are in the area, it's free and open to the public, please join us.
Lawd knows that I'm excited about having a speaking engagement. As I've shared before, the speakers circuit died up for me a few years ago and the chance to speak is far and few in between. He hardest part about no speaking engagements is struggling to live. It's hard putting food on the table, when the money is far and few in between. But God always seems to work it out. It seems like when I'm at my lowest, I'll get a bracelet sale or a donation to the blog. I don't always have extra, but I never go hungry.
Me in Emerge Magazine
I say that making ends meet is the hardest, because, while I'm not speaking as much, I still do the very important work that God has called me to do. Yes, I say God called me to do. I see my work as ministry and that's my bottom line!
As many of you know, I use Social Media heavily. I turned there as away to continue the work, when the gigs slowed down. I had a message and Social Media was an open audience.
I'm on Twitter from the time I wake, until the time I go to sleep each day, educating and challenging stereotypes and stigma around HIV/AIDS. Also, through blogging and Facebook I'm able to keep alive HIV/AIDS and all the issues I address, such as, self-love, self-esteem, self-worth, love, family and so on.
But there are other ways I do the work. I also allow the media into my life, both print and camera. I'm an open book because I want people to get it. Get that you have choices and how you make them will impact your life. Get that you can live in spite of what you face. Get, that self-love should always be the first love.
I thought that it would be neat to feature some of the very open interviews that I've had in recent years. So I will begin with a two-part, one on one interview with seasoned political reporter, George Curry. George came to Chicago two years ago and spent the day with me.
George Curry
I've know George since I was 19 years old, working on the Jackson for President Campaign and he a reporter assigned to cover Jackson. Later, when he was Editor and Chief of Emerge Magazine, he featured me in a cover story. George has always had his pulse on important issues facing African-American's and he has made sure that the topic of HIV/AIDS sits center stage.
The interview took well over 6 hours and this is what he pulled together from the day long interview in my home; Facing AIDS!!
Tea began as medicine and morphed into a beverage of choice!
I don't quite remember when I fell in love with tea but I do remember the most 
Until recently I had never drank Peppermint Tea made with loose leaves. And Honestly, I will probably never go back. The freshness of loose Peppermint Tea cannot be denied. When I open the can of 
I love to read! Inside a book I escape into someone else's life. There is something wonderful about turning to the next page of a wonderful story. Something intoxicating about the smell of the book and the story it brings to life. Reading brings me joy, and these days with my health in the balance, I find solace in my books.
