Linear time and progress is one of the most harmful lies of white supremacy. Some things permanently alter you. Sometimes the world does stop. For me in 2016 when my life crashed and veered from a singular event, I expected that my relationship with it would be one that the farther I got from it,… Continue reading Healing in the Middle
Last night I tossed and turned, the air filled with a nightmare mix of air fresheners and bullets. This afternoon when I hit 'end' on my last call for the day, my body instantly doubled over, racked with uncontrollable tears, as I curled into a ball, holding myself and shaking. Daunte. Another name I should… Continue reading “We Go Out for Sweets & Come Back”
For the past few weeks the sun has decided to shine down on my slice of the Bay, bringing warmth and comfort as spring finally takes a steady hold of the land. I lift my head up to the sun each morning, close my eyes, and bask in delight as the rays dance across the… Continue reading A Winter of Loneliness, Exhaustion, Solitude, Rest, and Gratitude
In September of last year the increasingly devastating wild fire season in northern California brought apocalyptic orange and red skies to the Bay Area. I woke up one morning and looked out on a dark red glow to the sky, disoriented about the time of day. I thought the redness would shake, but as the… Continue reading What to Black People Is Safety?
It has been roughly a month and a half since my birthday. I usually write a reflection a day or two, or a few weeks after my birth. This has been the longest time. But in a pandemic year where we've been asked to shelter in place, time has taken on new meaning. Mainly, that… Continue reading Reading Esther in the Age of Trump and Another Cycle Around the Sun
I had only taken the first two steps into my bedroom in a lush Airbnb when I saw the message from my friend Jacqueline: OMG RBG. I knew what this message meant, and I quickly googled her name to reveal the long list of articles already written about her death at age 87 from complications… Continue reading In Search of Beginnings
The week began with reports that those whose skin kiss the sun most often already knew: black folk were contracting and dying from COVID-19 at alarming rates. Yet instead of naming the man-made terrains of whiteness - food deserts, poverty, red-lining, environmental and economic racism, to name a few - they label race, not racism,… Continue reading Waiting for the Resurrection
The coronavirus had been on my mind since early January because I was scheduled to go to Thailand for vacation and work in February, and I was unsure if I should or would be able to go. I carefully watched each day as cases and deaths in China continued to rise, and held my breath… Continue reading Separation, Distance
I'm the "strong friend." The ones those online posters tell you to check on, but who you may never know what's truly going on. Not that I'm proud of that. It's because I have designated people who have been tried and trained to help me carry my loads. I like to appear lighter for others.… Continue reading Years that Bind
In my bedroom, I have a framed poster that reads "Trust Your Struggle." To me, those words are about knowing in my bones and my being the things that I know to be true. They are about caring about the process and not just the product, and all the ways that becoming is a necessary state… Continue reading Dear 30, Love 29
