Couple-Care is a monthly series highlighting inspiring couples in our community. Each couple discusses how “couple-care” sustains their relationship, the self-care lessons they’ve learned from one another, and more.
“I had no interest in dating,” professor Dr. Chaya Crowder-Cook tells ESSENCE about the night she met the love of her life. While studying political science and international relations at Columbia University (before getting her PhD at Princeton), Chaya had dating fatigue. “I had been dating a lot and I was like, ‘I need to just focus on me,’” she recalls.
But, her twin sister was the vice president for the school’s National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and it was the night of their annual fundraiser. So, like any sister would, she went. While Chaya had reservations about going out, “I happened to be having the most incredible night of my life,” says jazz musician Braxton Cook, on the other hand. “That night, I had my first gig at the Lincoln Center in New York,” going to the fundraiser right after being dapped up by jazz figures like Wynton Marsalis.
“We met that night on the dance floor and [Braxton] got my number and we started exchanging text messages,” Chaya recalls. Then, Hurricane Sandy hit. With classes cancelled, the trains down, and rain flooding the streets, nothing stopped Braxton from hailing a taxi uptown to meet Chaya for their first date. Now, 13 years later, the couple have two children, Quincy and August, and careers that are both entrenched in Black culture.
While Chaya grew up around politics and Black elected officials—her mother was a lawyer and lobbyist—finding love with a Jazz musician is as Black as Black Love gets. Like her, “I also grew up in an academic household where we both valued the arts as well as academics,” Braxton says, studying English and African-American studies at Georgetown University before transferring with a full scholarship to Julliard.
But, like his love for Chaya, the deeper purpose behind his music is upholding Black tradition and history through Jazz. “There’s a lot of beautiful cross-pollination in what we do,” he says. “What Chaya does in studying politics and sociopolitical things and how that kind of intersects with what Jazz represents and where that sits.”
Read on for more about their love story, how they care for each other, and more.
Their Favorite Couple-Care Memory
Chaya: In the early days, we would go to Sojo, the Korean spa in New Jersey. When we lived in Harlem, we would take a taxi over to New Jersey and then we moved to Jersey when I was in grad school at Princeton and it was an even easier trip. We used to love going to the Korean spa together pre-pandemic. I feel like those communal spa spaces, they still exist. But post-pandemic, we have such a different communal relationship.
Braxton: That one was particularly nice. The white clay room and red clay room were on point.
Their Individual Self-Care Routines
Braxton: I think for me, practicing my instrument is something I do to help regulate my emotions. It’s a wind instrument, so it’s like I get to just breathe through it. I get so much stress out.
Chaya: I have a soul cycle exercise bike in the garage. I got really into doing that during the pandemic and it’s still something where I feel like wake up in the morning and I’m doing my soul cycling at home or a workout that I really like called the Soto method. I don’t drink a lot of coffee, but it’s like my dose of caffeine that really wakes me up and gets my day going.
Their Couple-Care Routine
Chaya: We used to do a lot of hikes and long walks. I’m a professor at LMU and I used to be a faculty in residence, so we lived in an apartment on campus and there’s a trail nearby. We would walk for an hour and a half and even doing hikes at Temescal Canyon here in LA. We do less of that now or shorter walks, but we live by a track, so sometimes we’ll just take 30 minutes and take the baby, Quincy, and walk around the track.
The Self-Care Lessons They’ve Learned From Each Other
Braxton: I can definitely say Chaya is good with prioritizing talking to family and making time for that. She’s the one to keep the group text going, scheduling a call, having a talk. I’m learning how to just be proactive and be that person in multiple friend groups is something I’m definitely learning from her.
Chaya: The thing that Braxton is really good at that I really admire is that he is someone who continuously studies. To some people maybe that wouldn’t sound like self-care, but for people like us who really value knowledge, reading, and learning, that’s one of the most luxurious things you can do is to be using both of my hands and my eyes and just sitting and reading a book.
The Products They’ve Introduced to Each Other
Braxton: You put me on to so much. I don’t know if I put you to anything, but she tells me “you’ve got to wash your face, you got to do the conditioner after you do shampoo.” I’m like, “yeah, you’re right.” There’s a laundry list of things I feel like you put me on too.
Chaya: I really like Black Girl Sunscreen for all of us in our family because so many sunscreens leave a white residue. It’s nice to have something that doesn’t, I always like August to look like a little shiny penny when he’s going to school. One of my girlfriends, she created a face oil called Myomi, and I used that facial oil on August every morning to get him nice and glistening.
What Couple-Care Means to Them
Braxton: I’m learning in therapy trying to find ways to fill up my cup is how she put it. My therapist was like, “you’ve got to do that so that you can just show up as a better husband and as a better father and make sure that you’re not in a space of lack.” I think that’s important and I’m learning that myself just not to be depleted and constantly trying to give all the time. You have to take care of yourself.
Chaya: August has this little book that we read to him at night that talks about why your parents might want to go on date night and it uses that same analogy of filling up a cup. The family starts with mom and dad and we have to fill up our cup in order to be able to pour into his cup and Quincy’s cup and then eventually we’ll all have overflow. We have to invest in ourselves in order to be able to invest in everyone else in our families.
