I've scrolled Facebook so much in the last 12 hours that I don't know, at first, if the kids that pop into my feed are dead now or if I'm just looking at shots of my friends' kids finishing up their school year. The dead and the living, intermingled in my feed. The same age.... Continue Reading →
Using a working definition of love that tells us it is the action we take on behalf of our own or another’s spiritual growth provides us with a beginning blueprint for working on the issue of self-love. –bell hooks, All About Love People talk a lot about self-love and self-care. From a practical standpoint, though,... Continue Reading →
I misunderstood adulthood. I thought it was a destination that, once reached, meant all my shit would be irrevocably together. But, seemingly, there’s no magical destination. And having one’s shit together is apparently not a linear process, not a level to be unlocked. Instead, it’s more cyclical, with some ebbs and flows. And seemingly random... Continue Reading →
Today, as I was stretching to reach the top of the shower rod, so I could thread plastic loops through the holes of both the shower curtain and the liner, which I couldn’t even see because I’m way too short, I thought… adulting is stupid. Half the time, I feel like I’m playing house, doing... 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 →
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 →
Sharp pain behind my right eye. Throbbing brain. A vortex of omnipresent pain. A doorbell chimed vaguely in the background. A customer appeared. Black. Queer. Immigrant. That trifecta, people thought, was the worst possible hand, he said. But he identified privilege in the knowledge that he could chart his own path, could see a future... Continue Reading →
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 →
Wake up, brain churning, moving toward the to-do list, sucked into its gravitational pull. But the list reeks of scarcity and scrambling. Reset. Gratitude isn’t cosmic & significant this morning. It’s dog videos and raisin toast and the kid in her unicorn shirt--looking the perfect combination of the baby she was & the grown person... Continue Reading →
When we moved to Atlanta, we walked up into a ready-made group of friends we lovingly refer to as The Tacos. When we're all together, there are 21 of us (adults & kids). And, pre-quarantine, every Thursday we'd taco. All together. In a restaurant. (Actually, there may be 23 of us ... this is why... Continue Reading →
