Laughing Through The Pain
My family and I like to re-watch In Living Color sketches, and it’s always the same handful: Jamie Foxx as Prince, Kim Wayans as Crystal Waters, and Tommy Davidson as Michael Jackson. You should just […]
From the Writers Perspective
Do-Be-Do-Be-Do-Be-Do: An Essay on Identity
All of nature wants to be whole and bountiful. With Garden of Eden-like insistence, nature’s children yearn for openness over obligation, for existence over expectation, for play over posture. With a devotion to hope, above […]
“The Heart of the [Family] Matter”
“I think this is an opportunity for us to slow down and take in all that is around us—to draw nearer and closer to those who we hold dear. I think if we go through […]
I’ve Never Loved an Acknowledgements Section So Much
I’m aware of how much I take after my parents and forebears. I have my mother’s hands, my grandmother’s cheeks, and there’s a slight wheeze in my laugh that comes straight from my dad. And […]
How To Train Ya Neighbor
In the year following the onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, 2020 A.D., Union Station of Washington, DC—generally teeming with people going out of or on their way in—sat as a hollowed shell of its former […]
Divine Only and Difficult Always
“Not Me,” I said as the words left my lips in a nearly breathless gasp. The day was Thursday, April 16, 2020. I was in my home sitting in my kitchen chatting with my wife […]
Vicarious Victors
When I learned that mental health was one of the topics for this series, I didn’t know if I could write about it in first person. I’d subconsciously limited mental health concerns to things like […]
Big Wrongs, Big Words
I have always been captivated by big, grand, absolutist words. Words that name clear edges or hard stops or lines crossed—the finite, unequivocal, forbidden, unforgivable, irrevocable. Words that evoke how something is clear or clear-cut […]
Playing the Rigged Game
The worst feeling in the world is not belonging. This homeless feeling of being exposed to the elements yet pressed into a box is the plight of the Black woman. What I love about Sula is how […]
