"I love a good Nancy Meyers film. Give me The Parent Trap or It’s Complicated with a glass of wine, and I’m instantly transported to the Hamptons in a white cable-knit sweater, cooking a croque monsieur in a sun-drenched kitchen. There’s something comforting and aspirational about it all. The soft lighting. The oversized kitchens. The main characters who always have fresh flowers in the hallway and somehow find time to bake a pie from scratch.
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For years, I’ve turned to those films when I wanted to escape a little. When life felt chaotic, watching Diane Keaton in her perfectly-curated kitchen made everything feel calm, even if just for an hour and a half. The homes, the rituals, the slow pace of it all—it felt like a dream. But as much as I enjoyed it, I could never fully see myself in that world.
“The homes, the rituals, the slow pace of it all—it felt like a dream. But as much as I enjoyed it, I could never fully see myself in that world.”
And while I love the NMU—the Nancy Meyers Universe—I’ve never seen a lead, or honestly even a character, who looked like me in her films. The world she creates is beautiful, intentional, and peaceful. But it’s also normally very white. So, while I admired it from afar, it never felt like something that was meant for me.
That changed when Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, came out with With Love, Meghan. And I know, people have all kinds of opinions about her. But whether you love her or not, the show did something I hadn’t seen before. It inspired Black women to show the way they live their lives, too—with ease, with softness, with elevation.
Finding Inspiration in ‘With Love, Meghan’ as a Black Woman
Did I think I was going to binge-watch With Love, Meghan in one sitting? No. But did I? Absolutely. Because there’s something about seeing someone who looks like you in a space we’re often not represented. Standing in the kitchen of someone’s dreams. Baking a honey lemon cake. Making beeswax candles from scratch. Or reminding you that something as simple as making a fruit rainbow for your kids on a Saturday morning is enough. It makes you pause. It makes you reflect. It makes you want to remind yourself that you are not only worthy of that kind of softness—you’re capable of having it.
And for me, that changed everything. I didn’t just want to admire that world anymore. I wanted to create my own version of it as a Black woman, with what I already had, in the life I’m already living.
What ‘With Love, Meghan’ Did For Me
Sure, I don’t have a two-acre garden or a large all-white kitchen with perfectly-placed ceramic berry bowls. But I do have my favorite farmers market. I have Trader Joe’s bouquets from up the street. I have a few untried recipes up my sleeve. I can make a plate of fruit with whipped cream and surprise my kids with a rainbow breakfast on a Saturday morning.
And the more I watched, the more I started remembering how much of this I’d already seen. I used to watch Barefoot Contessa with my cousins on Saturdays. My grandma loved Martha Stewart. Looking back, those lessons were always around me. Homemaking. Care. Slow living. I just didn’t always feel like I had permission to move through life like that.
Because here’s the thing. As Black women, we weren’t really allowed to sit in softness. We were taught to save the world. To carry everything. To put ourselves last, even when we were running on empty. So while cooking gourmet meals from nothing is literally in our DNA, while nurturing and being grounded in the land is part of our history, the softness that’s now associated with those things never applied to us.
“As Black women, we weren’t really allowed to sit in softness. We were taught to save the world. To carry everything. To put ourselves last, even when we were running on empty.”
But it does. And always has. And we get to decide what it looks like.
Of course, Meghan didn’t create this. Black women have been living with intention, luxury, and softness long before the spotlight. But seeing it on a platform like this—where it can’t be buried or pushed aside—felt different. It reminded us, and everyone else, that this kind of life has always been ours to claim.
What a Nancy Meyers-Inspired Life Looks Like for Me
Living a soft or slow, Nancy Meyers–inspired life doesn’t have to mean buying a new wardrobe or redoing your kitchen. It doesn’t have to be expensive or aesthetic for the internet. Luxury doesn’t have to mean spending more. It can mean being more intentional with what you already have.
Luxury for you might be fresh flowers in your bathroom. Or doing your skincare routine with the door closed. Or lighting a candle before you eat dinner. Luxury can look like saying no, choosing rest, or ordering takeout because you just don’t feel like cooking.
Luxury for me is investing in cookware that’s healthier for my family. It’s grocery shopping on Friday mornings with an iced vanilla latte and no rush. It’s slowly swapping out old dishes for ones I love. It’s arranging flowers on the weekend just because it makes me happy. It’s planting a windowsill herb garden and letting the kids help water it. It’s choosing linen over leggings because I feel more like myself in it. It’s putting my phone down and doing crafts with my kids using what we already have in the house.
It’s not about perfection. There are still messes, still takeout nights, still unfolded laundry. But I’m learning to make small things feel special. And that feels like softness to me.
“It’s not about perfection. There are still messes, still takeout nights, still unfolded laundry. But I’m learning to make small things feel special. And that feels like softness to me.”
Even before With Love, Meghan, I was already leaning into this shift. But the show helped me see it more clearly. Meghan’s style definitely inspired me, but so did so many Black women I’ve found online who have been living like this for years—grounded, soft, intentional, and true to themselves. (Shoutout to creators like @sandramorgandownie, @akilahrelefordgould, @authenticallynicolee, @_tequa, and @simply.sanaii who continue to show what that can look like.)
Claiming What’s Always Been Ours
So while With Love, Meghan has its critics, the Netflix show also inspired so many women. I’ve seen it play out in my own life. Whether it’s on my FYP, in conversations with friends who are slowing down and softening, or in the fact that my grandma watched the whole series and loved it.
To finally see someone who looks like us in the kind of world we’ve admired for so long—the Ina Gartens, the Martha Stewarts, the Nancy Meyers of it all—feels like something new. Something overdue. And something we’ve always deserved.
Maybe this isn’t about recreating what we’ve seen. Maybe it’s about building something that’s always been ours. We just get to claim it now.
Daizha Rioland, Contributing Writer
Born and raised in Dallas, Daizha is an antiracist parenting consultant and advocate. With a unique blend of motherhood and storytelling, she seeks to shift narratives about People of The Global Majority and how they take up space in this world. A self-proclaimed coffee fanatic and taco lover, Daizha spends her days raising two young antiracist daughters, walking around the lake by her house, and binging episodes of Real Housewives of Potomac.