An Origin Story: Mahogany's Muse
I do this for my namesake.
My name is Sasha Mahoganie Simon. My father named me.
Sasha is easily googleable. It means defender of mankind.
And I can see that about me:
I love children.
I try to elevate the best of ourselves.
I prefer to champion underdogs and the defenseless.
I have a long history as both a teacher and a student. I spread knowledge because I don’t just believe, I embody that it is power.
And god do I hate a f*cking bully.
And I may or may not, but probably, tried to save an extra h*e or two that should’ve been left exactly where they were, but I chalk it up to experience and another lesson learned.
Sasha is also short for Alexander in Russian. So, during the days that I was heavy into online multiplayer first-person shooter games — using nothing but my first name and my clan’s tag 💅🏾 — people struggled to believe I was a Black girl from Texas, and not a Russian dude with a heavy foot on their necks and a mean kill shot.
Now, I like “mahoganie” and I think it’s cute. Feminine even.
It’s similar to the tree’s scientific name, Swietenia mahogani, found throughout Central America and the Caribbean from where my parents emigrated.
But in online social fora, I default to “mahogany” because my name is just too damn cool for anyone to be butchering it.
And at each of my high school, college, and grad school graduations, that was exactly what happened.
Never again.
In my mid-twenties not long after receiving my Master’s degree, a personal curiosity, self-inquiry, grew about why I was given my name beyond the basic meaning and aesthetic.
What was I supposed to take away from it over the course of my life? What purpose was it intended to serve to motivate and inspire me? How should I reference it when I need to remember who I am?
One day when I was visiting my family home in east Texas from my then, personal home base in the Bronx, New York, my dad was sitting at the kitchen island and I sat next to him and asked why he gave me the name that he did. And he provided a response that influenced the rest of my life.
Initially when I asked, he took a moment, looked down towards the counter smirking to himself, and said to me from the corner of his eye:
“First of all, mahogany’s expensive.”
Utterly blindsided, all I could muster was:
… because at least he was taking accountability for his role in things.
Having long-saved that one, well-played with my speechlessness to boot, he continued, sharing insights about the role mahogany plays in shaping this world.
Like, in St. Croix where my parents met, the mahogany trees located along the sharp curves of a road were often marked or blocked off by barriers because the understanding was, if you’re driving and make the unfortunate mistake to come up against one of these, you’re done.
I took that one to heart.
I also learned that mahogany could withstand the raging winds of hurricanes that often rip through the Caribbean, only not to break. This, too, I took personally and absorbed wholeheartedly.
It’s more commonly known that mahogany is strong, beautiful, and valuable. A sentiment he didn’t hold back. It’s used to make some of the most elegant, lasting furniture and woodcrafts on earth.
For this reason, Haiti was forced to “reimburse” France for the nerve of gaining its independence and was overwhelmingly stripped of its mahogany trees, the lumber exported at a rate of 4 million cubic feet per year.
Haiti still hasn’t recovered from this imperialist and colonialist driven deforestation, despite the widely popular but inaccurate narratives spun about its descendants.
What it’s like to walk through the world carrying the musings of mahogany
In its simplest and most shoal interpretation: I have enormous value, strength, and beauty that come in a most regal hue.
Okay, great. But there’s more to it.
I have deep roots to draw on. Ancestral debts and wisdom that are mine to inherit, all one breathing organism, its own microcosm and ecosystem.
My power doesn’t just reside on the surface. And I sincerely pity those who discover this far too late into their shenanigans and machinations. Much like the awe we hold when we see a tree uprooted by natural forces or by the excavations of man, it can be intimidating to see just how deeply anchored mahogany is beneath our surface awareness. It’s easy to take for granted even when we’re taught better.
Every challenge, like every storm, is an opportunity to rebuild with wisdom, and every experience contributes to my renewed and sustained growth.
And that means that I can do hard things, really hard things. Keep in mind, the storms have to actually pass for it to be known that the roots are strong. In other words, or more biblical terms, the weapons form but they do not prosper.
I’ve experienced first hand that corrupt and greedy forces will pillage my innate gifts and resources if given the opportunity, while the reverent will praise and tend to me.
And for all of this, I’m deeply treasured, whatever the wind or the war.
Why I Write
I write because I have a lot on my mind and an insatiable desire to be fully understood.
And I humbly and thoroughly believe my thoughts are worth understanding.
I’m a bonafide longwinded, long-form motherf*cker.
It took me longer to realize this about myself than it did for the people around me who find themselves on the receiving end of this compulsion yet embrace and encourage it.
See my niece’s response to my recent birthday shout out to her on Instagram:
I can’t be contained to social media captions. And there’s no reason to be.
So here I am on Substack, a space I’ve created for myself to come alive.
Come with me as I unearth a collection of reflections — some superficial and others magma-deep — of what it means to seek and to be mahogany’s muse.
I’ve been at this a long time. Subscribe and join me.