Sometimes I am more aware of my whiteness than other times. It’s a point of privilege, I realize, to be able to completely forget the color of my skin. Sometimes. It’s always a privilege, but it’s only sometimes that I forget. Other times, I am hyper aware of my whiteness and the ways that it... Continue Reading →
She often naysays new adventures. Always pushing to discover precisely what’s in store. Unknown throws her off-kilter. But life is inscrutable. Most of the time. So I push her. To explore. To rest easy in the not knowing. I wonder if I’m the best teacher, myself a resister of spontaneity. But I’m in recovery from... Continue Reading →
The plane hung there, suspended far overhead, so small it required careful squinting to verify its reality. Silent. So still that it seemed to fade in and out of existence, to bend space and time itself. Clouds dissipated over the plane’s edges, blurring it into both being and nonbeing. Solidly ephemeral. The plane vanished behind... Continue Reading →
The first day of school is like the liquidy center of that throwback 1980s gum I always begged for as a kid. A burst of surprise on a regular weekday. Something new, a flood of possibility. Warm fluidity, everyone bound together by first day jitters and the elation of a new adventure. I can viscerally... Continue Reading →
Summer descended on Atlanta. The air is thick, close, heavy. The sun shines gloriously, deceptively beautiful enough that you believe you need to shimmy into its radiance. Until you do and the heat sucks your breath right from your lungs. The reprieve of the shade soothes, though. And when a breeze deigns to grace Atlanta,... Continue Reading →
If my goal is to be an antiracist—not just as a badge I stick on my person for a nod & a smile from other white liberals but as a way of being that goes to the core not only of my actions but my beliefs and my ideas/thoughts—I’m going to be wrong a lot. A whole hell of a lot.
Walking into the Scholastic Book Fair as a kid made me tingle with anticipation. All those Apple paperbacks lined up just so, each of them a whole little world contained in its pages. And then there were the scented erasers, which I collected like trading cards but refused to use. Ever. At 9 years old,... Continue Reading →
Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn lays out a meandering history of two prominent Atlanta families: the Allens and the Dobbs. Both instrumental in guiding Atlanta toward living into its promise. Both local royalty in their own right. Both produced Mayors of the City Too Busy to Hate. One was white. One was black. Through this whopping 550 page narrative, Gary M.... Continue Reading →
What's a kid to do when her parents move her from one neighborhood to another--which means starting a new school?!? Watch as our intrepid second grade hero navigates these treacherous waters.
When I was a kid, Field Day was my day of triumph. I got to shock people every year with the fact that I could RUN. I was fast. I guess I didn't look particularly athletic. And, to be honest, my parents didn't really push sports. And coming home dirty from school was frowned upon. So, yeah, rough & tumble wasn't really my game. Which made it even more fun to kick ass every year in the field day race.
