For the Marigolds
What's the heart behind For the Marigolds? I'm so glad you asked.
Hello, my name is Shyanne, welcome to For the Marigolds.
Quick intro about me:
I’m a twenty-five-year-old writer, who has written approximately 30 books over the course of the last 15 years. I am a Christian Afro-Latina who happens to be an eldest daughter, content creator/social media manager, and avid lover of Taylor Swift. I have a deep passion for advocacy whether that’s with children or social justice. I like to self-identify as a raging liberal, partially because it’s true, and partially because I think it’s fun to say. I work in social media management/content creation and project management.
Allow me to share my heart for a second:
Maybe you’re a little sister who needs a big sister.
Maybe you’re a big sister who needs a friend.
For the Marigolds is like receiving a letter from your big sister who lives across the country/like getting a voice memo from your best friend/like talking to a friend who’s going through the exact same situation as you. I want you to belong here. I want you to see yourself in these spaces.
I originally came up with the idea of For the Marigolds in 2021, when I got tired of researching curly hair products. As an Afro-Latina, my hair is untraditional. I tend to categorize it as type 3B, but with the special mention that I have thick strands of low porosity curls that have endured several years of chemical and heat damage. And I’m sure at some point I’ll write about that entire journey, but I was struggling to find reviews on products for black biracial women. Then I started thinking about just how many things I had to google throughout my life.
Did they make skin-colored crayons beyond brown and peach? (I still think about doing self-portraits in grade school and not having a color I could use, unlike everyone else.)
How high of a temperature should I use for my flat iron?
How to stop my boobs from growing? (Honestly would still benefit from having this question answered.)
What is a micro-aggression?
There are lots of topics that I had to figure out on my own. I’m a proud first-generation, Afro-Latina, eldest daughter who is often called the “family manager” because frankly, I am the only Type-A person in my entire family. I figured out FAFSA by myself. I figured out my curly hair journey by myself. I figured out romance by myself (still working on this one). And if there’s even one person who could read what I have to say and think, wow that was so helpful to me, then isn’t it all worth it?
Do be warned, I’m a yapper. I’ve been a novelist and a poet since I was ten years old (the whole, if I want to read this book I’m going to have to write it myself, thought-process is so real). I’ve written thirty books, countless poems, a few songs, and too many academic essays. I am a literary-thought-daughter if you will. And not in a, reading The Bell Jar in a coffee shop with a matcha kind of way. More like a, I have random parts of writings on sticky notes, napkins, back of my hand, crowding up my voice memos, and I have a TBR that I love to ignore, kind of way. Reading makes me escape. Writing helps me process. Writing helps me feel seen because it’s my world, and I can say and do what I’m afraid of in real life. With all that being said, I will yap and tap your (internal) ear off.
Things to look forward to: fun pictures, esoteric playlists, deep dive into my notes app, political rants, letters to God, and probably a few ramblings from my journal.
And maybe this will read like a diary or an advice column. Maybe it will read like you’re having coffee with a mentor or a middle-of-the-night heart-to-heart with your best friend, but however you choose to read this, I hope you leave it feeling a little bit more validated than when you came. Even if not every one applies to you, I hope we can create a space together where we can stop being so afraid of being our authentic self, and we instead focus on loving one another exactly at the phase of life we’re in.
My advice isn’t anything revolutionary, but you wouldn’t believe how many articles I have to read to get a decent consensus on something as simple as “migraine relief”. Maybe all you need is a one-stop-shop for answers, I hope you find that here.
This is a safe space, for me and for you.
Oh—one last thing: Marigolds are the most resilient flower. I happen to think I had to be more resilient than most did at a young age. And if my knowledge can help women feel less isolated in their struggles and thoughts, then I would say I accomplished my goal. I’m not perfect, and neither are you, but maybe together we can make this season of our lives a much softer place to reside.
Welcome to the family my sweet Marigolds, it’s an honor to have you here.
How do you take your coffee?
LOOOVE!!! i’m so so so excited for this!!!