Brittani Minnieweather
@britminnieweather at her dining room table with poster board and paint markers.
-Theatre-
I drove down to Fairburn to catch up with Brittani. I was running so behind the sun had set by the time I got there. But she still opened the door with a big smile.
At the time of our interview, Brittani was 9 months pregnant and due in two weeks. I also showed up at her house the night before the Atlanta Artist Protest that she and the other members of BLACT were organizing. She should have been way to busy to talk to me but she is always that kind. She always has time for you.
Her wonderful husband hooked me up with a White Claw and Brittani and I sat down to chat.
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that after our interview I was encouraged to stay and chat about the protest being organized for the next day and the Black Lives Matter movement. The time she took out of her precious last few days without a newborn to talk to me about the movement are moments and conversations that will stay with me for a long time.
Interviewed 6.6.20
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Casey: Here we go. Hey, Brittani.
Brittani: Hi, Casey.
Casey: First and foremost, how are you doing?
Brittani: Today is a good day.
Casey: Good!
Brittani: Yeah. Yesterday, not so great. It's hard being pregnant during quarantine. But also, being an artist who was determined not to stay at home pregnant and being made to stay at home pregnant — I was determined to book a show while I was expecting, and I did, and then it was canceled.
Casey: Have you had more up days or more down days?
Brittani: You know, May was better than April. April had a lot of down days. April was really, really rough. In March we were like, "OK. We can do quarantine. We can stay in." There was the possibility of shows coming back, and things being lifted and it not being as serious. So when we went into April, I felt like that was awful, but May picked up as far as just speed of days. It just wasn't as sad.
I probably have a lot of hormones going on too, but I noticed at the end of the day I just didn't want to be stuck in my house. That was at the height of everything, and I was stuck. I know that I saw only (my husband Derek), which a lot of people can say, for probably like twelve weeks?
Casey: Because you're out here. It's not like you're near people.
Brittani: Right. I think one of my friends dropped off some cookies. When Britney came by, she made brownies and dropped them off.
Derek: That was two months ago.
Brittani: Oh. But this past week we saw some friends wave from afar. We met people, but outside, socially distancing and all that, especially with this (gesturing to her stomach). But I was just determined not to be at home.
Casey: How has it been since you've been pregnant and really haven't seen anybody?
Brittani: It's been lonely and disheartening. Where a lot of people would say, "Well, your baby is like your company." My baby is like — not out — so she's kind of been over it, too. I don't think she's enjoyed quarantine.
You're also scared for her health. I've had — not complications because she's very healthy — but I've been very sick. I was nauseous until I was seven months, and then her movements are very aggressive. When I was performing — because my adrenaline runs and you're up and you're doing things — she was much more peaceful. I don't know if she'll be an actress, but I knew that she liked to be up and moving about. So between the two of us, we were not feeling it.
If you would have come two weeks ago, you'd be like, "That's a different lady." This week, we've had things to do because of all the protest and all the Black Lives Matter stuff.
Casey: As a woman who's experiencing a big life moment — I did just talk to Ashley Prince the other day who is going through a very similar thing.
Brittani: Isn't she due in August?
Casey: October.
Brittani: Oh, gosh. Oh, I moved her up fast.
Casey: And a lot of our friends are getting married, including myself. These are big life moments that have a lot of celebrations around them. You know, because it's a big and exciting time. I'm assuming there have been things canceled? I'm assuming there are things that have been postponed?
Brittani: Yeah.
Casey: How do you feel about that? I would think a lot of us have been feeling — robbed is a really harsh word.
Brittani: For sure.
Casey: I mean, it was a moment you dream about since you're a kid, having your first baby and these celebrations, and what we've been able to do in the interim has not looked very much like —
Brittani: The same thing. We did a shower/gender reveal with all of our family the week before everything shut down, and if we hadn't had that, I just would've been devastated. So I kept pulling on that because my shower was canceled here. There's no maternity shoots. There's no "Let's be pretty, out." That's why I wore this dress for you, Casey, because I bought it for pregnancy and have now put it on because there's nowhere to go. You know? It's been very sad to not get to do those fun things. However, I feel worse for the high school graduates and the weddings canceled, and maybe that's just because I got those days? And she's coming no matter what. So maybe it's like, "Oh, I still get this gift at the end of all of this. Or in the middle of all this."
Casey: Who knows? At the beginning of all this? We don't really even know.
Brittani: Right. Right. So I think that without that gender reveal, I would have just been like — yeah. Today I feel less robbed than I did last week. Last week I was like, "I still didn't get to celebrate with my friends." We invited our close friends to Columbia, but it's like three and a half hours away so we knew we were doing a shower here, too.
Casey: I'm not hosting a massive party for (my wedding).
Brittani: No, pass. But I felt like a lot of other people were robbed more. I felt grateful that at least we got that one celebration because without it I would've just been -- it's my first kid. You wait your whole life. I mean, we've been married eight years this July. So eight years we waited and we can't even take her picture. We thought about other things to do and other stuff at home, but how do we do a maternity shoot? We'll do some stuff, maybe, after she's here.
I will tell you this, Casey. You know what I was robbed of? All of my birthing classes and most of my appointments during seven, eight months. They cut them down to tele-visits because I wasn't having a complicated pregnancy. It was so difficult because I was in so much discomfort and couldn't go to the doctor because it wasn't necessary. "Necessary." I don't know baby CPR. Like I'm just supposed to go on YouTube and learn it, but normally you have a class with a little dummy baby. And I know women have been having babies for generations without classes, but when I got pregnant, they were like, "We have all these classes for you! You get to learn all this stuff!" Just canceled, and they can't keep up with the tele-visits or the online classes. I'm sure you can go to some random person's YouTube and learn all about, but I want to go to my doctor's office and learn. So I have felt robbed of that, that education.
Derek: I can't go to the appointments.
Brittani: Oh! He can't go to the appointments.
Casey: Can't go to any of them?
Derek: Nope. Not a single one.
Brittani: My mom can't come into the birthing room.
Casey: But he's able to be there?
Brittani: He can come. For those two weeks, it was like "Nobody can come." I was like "Don't come out!" I never envisioned giving birth without my mom, and she can't even come visit at the hospital. Nobody can. Technically, nobody can come visit the baby for a month.
Casey: Will you do a porch thing? Like, through the back door or through the windows?
Brittani: Well, yeah, for our friends. Yeah, but family is so far away. Probably not till the fall.
Casey: Well, are you keeping up with people maybe more? I know that you're pregnant and you're keeping closer tabs with all of your family than you maybe were on a daily basis before anyway. But how is your family? Are they holding it together? What's going on?
Brittani: My cousin made a good point and said, "This is the most we've ever all talked ever." We have a bi-weekly Zoom call, which is probably due this week but nobody's brought it up because we're talking about other things and we're always on our text thread. That side of the family is going to, well hopefully, to a beach stand-alone house in December. And so everybody was like, "How do we quarantine for the house? How do we know we're all safe?" I'm like, "Everybody, Just calm down. Don't freak out. We'll have to play it like October and see where we are." But those bonds have become a lot stronger. A lot of my friends, we talk a lot more. So those things have been interesting. It has been like a time to like, breathe.
Casey: I'm glad they're doing OK.
Brittani: Yeah.
Casey: I love that you're the voice of reason.
Brittani: I try. I'm like, "Stop trying to cancel the trip. Like, actually, 'cause we can't get our money back. So everybody stop trying not to --". It's one of those houses where you go and you cook all your food. So if other things are opening up, do you really think they're gonna give you back your money right now? Like, "Y'all just chill."
Casey: December's a long way away. So besides growing a human, what have you been doing during quarantine?
Brittani: Reading romance novels.
Casey: Great.
Brittani: That's about it. I thought I'd write. I thought I'd be so creative. No. She took it out on me.
Casey: So the motivation's just not there?
Brittani: Nah.
Casey: How does that make you feel?
Brittani: I've got to be inspired. Like, "Oh! I'm growing a life! I have so much to say." No.
Casey: Do you think that it would have been the same if we were not in quarantine? Do you think you would have lost the motivation?
Brittani: No, no, no. I just kind of lost it.
Casey: But I think the rest is good?
Brittani: Yes, yes, yeah. It could be so much worse. It could be so, so much worse.
Casey: Everybody's got their struggles.
Brittani: Yeah.
Casey: It's all different.
Brittani: And I've seen a lot of people not have anything to look forward to. And I think being pregnant during quarantine is the worst and best thing that could have happened to me. Because at the end of this month I will have a whole human to love on and focus on and not have to worry about theater. Because guess what? There is no theatre. I was so scared before to become a mom and fall off or that nobody would remember me when I came back. Nobody's back.
Casey: Nobody's back. No one's. Yeah. Everyone's going to be forgotten.
Brittani: Yeah. So it's both sides of the coin.
Casey: How do you think those first couple of months will be with the baby, with you guys? And with us probably, in all reality, still in quarantine.
Brittani: Terrifying, and then relieving. I've been really scared to have her inside, and I think it's because I feel like once she's outside, even though biologically she's safer, but when she's outside, there's more people to care for her. I've felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility, which is great, but it's scary. If anything's wrong, I don't feel her -- which is not an issue anymore -- if I don't feel her, I'm like, *breathing heavily in a panicky way*. I know it's going to be extremely terrifying because you're not going to know how to handle this new person, but it's also going to be a relief to be out of this state of it. And to have him (referring to Derek) watching her like a hawk.
Casey: Once you can see her, I feel like it'll be easier to be like "I'm protecting her."
Brittani: Right. "I know what's going on." Yeah. I bent down, accidentally, to get the pot top, but it was a little further back so I squeezed a little too hard. And I was like, "Oh, my God! I'm so sorry!" She just punched me. It was like, "I think she's sorry."
Derek: I was not home, yet.
Brittani: See, that's why he's doing all the up work.
Casey: Uh huh. As he should. We talked a little bit about how we've missed out on showers and things like that.
Brittani: Yeah.
Casey: In terms of things that are not necessarily related to baby. What do you miss?
Brittani: People. Food.
Casey: Like restaurant food?
Brittani: Yeah. Because we go to the same couple places and just get takeout. UberEats was our friend for a while because I could just spray it down en mass. Yeah, people.
Casey: The Zoom calls aren't cutting it?
Brittani: Nah. Not Really. Just craving that human interaction is something that I really have missed. He gets to go to work. I don't know if you like those people very much, but he seems OK. You know what I mean?
Casey: Seeing people you don't like is better than seeing no one.
Brittani: Yeah. So. Yeah, people.
Casey: Do you have any new habits or new things that you've started to work on during quarantine that you want to continue to try to do after you have the baby and are still living your life?
Brittani: Oh, yeah. I really got into, it's straightened now, but I got into my fro. I'm now straightening my hair so that I don't go to the hospital with a fro, because I'm just not quite sure how it's going to end up when I don't have all my stuff. But I definitely conquered my fro and now know how to do it. That's how my hair was for all those months after we did the Gender Reveal. It was in a fro until Thursday when I straightened it out because the doctor was like, "You could go any day now!" Well not any day, but...
Casey: Yeah. You're getting down to the wire.
Brittani: Yeah. So I was like, "Mmm. We should probably have something here. We're gonna do braids." So that's one thing that I personally did and I learned; my natural hair and just embracing it and wearing it like that because it was healthy. And then also learning how to do it and knowing that I don't have to put any heat or a bunch of stuff on her hair. Now I know how to kind of manage it, if she has hair like me. I don't know. We'll see. Ultrasound said she had a lot of hair. I don't know if it means it's like mine.
Casey: You don't have to do it that early, though, do you?
Brittani: No, I think I just have to brush it. Sure. Let's go with that. Let's go with that.
Casey: I don't have any kids. I don't know. Brushing hair for a six day-old? I don't know. So we talked about how you're not motivated to create. How do you feel about that?
Brittani: Disheartening. Even he thought that I would write more in my pregnancy, and like have ideas about things. And I really haven't had them. I don't know if it's because you have dreams and then they take over? But I think it's just not being around creative people. And not being in the environments that inspire you. We've lived in this house for four years. I'm not inspired by the walls to write or create or think or anything. We found a church that we really loved over here. And I'd go to church, and at the church I'd be inspired and I'd have something to say or something to write down or something to be creative. I haven't been able to go. It's not the same online. So, yeah, that's felt a little disheartening.
Casey: And I would, if it were me, I would guess that once the baby comes, so much of the focus will be on the baby, but do you think that it might come back? Do you think that it might?
Brittani: Yeah, and I always wanted to like -- Casey, I was so set on, even with "In My Granny's Garden" at the Alliance, when they canceled it, they were like, "We're bringing it back in the fall."
Casey: All right. Great.
Brittani: Right. And as soon as schools are back in we're bringing it back. I was set on, like, "I'll never stop performing and I'll never stop creating and trying to do this thing! I don't care what it takes! Like, I'll work it around his schedule, my mom's schedule." So I had this whole plan laid out for the fall and I was going back to the Aquarium, even if it was unnecessary because I knew that for my mental health I needed to continue to perform. And now what are we gonna do?
Casey: It changed.
Brittani: So. How did that question start?
Casey: Do you think your creativity will come back?
Brittani: Yes.
Casey: When you have the baby?
Brittani: Oh, I don't know. But I know the desire to work will come back because it's never left. It's never left.
Casey: It wasn't up to you to stop working.
Brittani: Or I would have never.
Casey: Yeah, well, you were talking when we got here that you've been working on the march tomorrow. How has last two weeks changed your motivation, your inspiration? Sounds like you're organizing.
Brittani: Yeah, yeah. That's helped a lot because I haven't had anything like that to do for a while. I felt so helpless with the Ahmaud Arbery situation. I had seen an article about his killing before the video. And then the video came out and I just felt like there was nothing I could do. It was actually on a family Zoom call. We all discussed it and one of my family members said, "You know what? There was no video. There will be no arrest." It just broke my heart. And then, last week with George Floyd, and I was like "Really?" I sat and I watched it, but I have not watched the video; it comes up on the news and you see it, but I had not clicked on the video. I've definitely seen visuals, though. And Breonna Taylor, of course. I had read her article, too, right after Ahmaud's because it was kind of similar. And she doesn't have a video. So it's just been rough. I knew we all know that black lives don't matter to a lot of folks. We know that. It's been written in stone. It is in the fabric of our country. I grew up in South Carolina. You know people don't care. You know it's not as valuable. And now I'm having a black child. And this is the world that I'm bringing her into? Part of me felt a little guilty for a couple of days. Like, this is what she has to see? So I struggled. And the marches definitely help me have focus and be more like, "OK. We can do something." I donated to a couple of businesses that are black-owned that had their windows busted out during the "disturbances." But a part of me feels like "What am I going to tell her?"
Casey: What will you tell her about this time?
Brittani: Yeah.
Casey: Because she'll learn about it in school.
Brittani: Well, other than her, 2020 sucks. So she'll know. I'm sure a lot of parents would be like "If it wasn't for you, 2020 would have been like *eh noise*." Kind of like my grandparents explained it to me. I remember my grandfather saying that on his way to school, he was spit on by the white kids on the bus and he had to walk. Or my grandmother wouldn't let one of my aunts go to one of the marches because that was during the heart of the civil rights movement where they were using dogs and hoses. And where my mother tells me how she was the first class at her high school to have black and white students. So we're not that far removed. I think I'll just tell her, "Baby girl, when you were born. They were killing people. And it was on videotape." And I hope that by then they stop killing us. Period. But I don't know. We lived in Charleston during the Charleston Nine; the church shooting? That was rough. That was bad. That was sad. Bad. Awful. And at that time, I felt we had a leader that inspired some hope. At this time, I do not feel like our leader inspires any hope. Maybe the opposite. So I'll try to tell her to be proud and Black and stand up. And that we are a beautiful being and it's their fault that they don't see it.
Casey: What do you think, to kind of sum up, what do you think you'll take out of this time? Because it's a lot. It's been a lot for you, for everybody. But definitely, this has been a big time for you.
Brittani: Yeah.
Casey: It's got a very definite like, you know, you're at the end of your pregnancy. You know exactly how long --
Brittani: I'll never forget this time.
Casey: You won't forget. So what do you? What do you look back?
Brittani: What do you take back from this?
Casey: Pretending we're almost out of it.
Brittani: Right. Maybe, that when everyone was forced to stay in their homes, they were forced to face a lot of new realities. I feel like that across the board. Because you don't have other things to distract you. Somebody said online, "There's no pro sports. There's no movie premieres. All we have is the news and we've been watching it for three months because of the virus. And now all of this." And so I'll take back from this time what happens when everything halts. Who matters? What matters?
Casey: Are you encouraged or discouraged by what you've seen happen when everybody halts?
Brittani: I think people can halt, but when there is no end to the halt they don't do well. They don't do well at all. If they knew that, if they stayed in quarantine all of 2020 and 2021, then we'd be good? I think people would behave in a different way.
Casey: What, what? How?
Brittani: If they knew the ending, people would be safer. People would have believed in the virus more. They'd be kinder to one another. Because you saw little spurts of daylight; neighbors helping neighbors and all this kind of stuff. And I feel like that the people didn't do well because they didn't have any answers. I didn't do well. I didn't have any answers. And I was just at home. That's what I think. If they had an ending, we'd be better.
Casey: If you knew we had an ending, would you be better?
Brittani: Yeah. Even if it was a year.
Casey: At least you have a date?
Brittani: Yeah. People can't function. They don't know what to do with themselves.
Casey: With all that fear.
Brittani: Ton of fear.
Casey: Those are all the questions I have. Do You have anything else you want to share?
Brittani: No. That's Great. You're such a good interviewer.
Casey: Oh, my God.
