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sobriety, transformation

Finding The Razzle-Dazzle: My Origin Story

January 7, 2018 is the day that I made the decision to quit drinking.It seems like such a small thing when you look at the words of it: I Decided to Quit Drinking. Like I just made a decision and then that was that and all was good in the world. But of course, it’s so much more nuanced than that. I was SO AFRAID. It was like I was about to say Goodbye to my entire Being; like I was going to strip off all of my layers of self that I had spent the last 25 years of my life crafting around me and start over bare and nude. Continue reading Finding The Razzle-Dazzle: My Origin Story

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Parenthood, Personal Essay

Now What? (parenting without the manual)

The thing about kids is that you don’t need a license or certification or even good intentions in order to have one. You just do this (rather animalistic) act and then -BOOM- less than a year later you are the proud owner of a fragile, flailing, extremely loud, real, live human…innately designed to scream the moment you close your eyes or sit down with a hot cup of coffee. Sure, there’s care and feeding instructions out there, but the disclaimer on every one is that if you get it wrong you will mess them up for life. Continue reading Now What? (parenting without the manual)

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Poetry, Shadow Stories

Into the Darkness

I walked with my friend into her darkness yesterday. She is in the midst of raw pain from a new divorce; lonely, shaken, exposed, angry, wild, and new. She was breaking loose from years in shackles. She needed to at once curl into her tenderized soul and nurse the open wounds of failed dreams and yet spread her wings in the updraft of full abandonment.  I followed her into the darkness like a cautious … Continue reading Into the Darkness

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Personal Essay

Part II: I cannot be silent, continued.

Violence against POC at the hands of police and people in power is only once piece of this problem: a symptom, really, of the larger underlying culture of systemic racism and white privilege here in the U.S. Many white people that I know, myself included, are wringing our hands wondering what we can do to show support for BLM and shift the tide of increasing violence towards Black citizens.I think we can start by turning those fingers we are pointing at police and politicians back towards ourselves: Looking inward at how growing up in a society fueled by systemic racism has influenced our core beliefs towards POC. How may YOU as a white person have contributed to this ongoing disparity in our country? Continue reading Part II: I cannot be silent, continued.

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Personal Essay

I cannot be silent (response to May 25, 2020)

I am white.I have never been black.Black people, I can say that I understand, I sympathize, I empathize, I stand with you; but because I am white, I can never truly do these things. I live in my world of white privilege. Perhaps I have a clearer picture than some because of my years of teaching in urban, primarily African-American, schools, which allowed me to know and care about young black teenagers in a way most white people will never have the opportunity to. But I have never lived in black skin. Continue reading I cannot be silent (response to May 25, 2020)

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