I coaxed myself awake with kisses to my arm this morning. The way you wake a child who has fallen asleep in the back seat of the car. Gently. As if someone were wrapped around me. Lips brushing my arm, making sure I know just how much I am wanted. Warm kisses on cool skin. Welcoming myself back into the world. Deliberately. Lips to the soft folds near my wrist. My palms. My fingers. Before the sun. After a season of quiet, I come back to myself. Lips first. Then words. And s

I have always loved dancing. Most often in the mirror. Watching myself. Imagining an audience. Adjusting to different beats. Exhilarated by freedom. Pregnant, I danced with Langston inside me. Hips wide. Arms cradling my belly. He and I, swaying low, full-figure eighths. Then he came. And I carried him. Too big for my arms, I brought him to my hip and kept dancing. Ever the adventurer, he squirmed for freedom. So I put him on top of my feet. Held his hands. It was easy at fir

(Slowly by Olivia Dean) The bus stop turned me around a few times, but we found the Rio Melcocho group: Drea, Juan David, their friend Andrea, a cluster of expats: Amber and her wife, Monique and her ten-year-old daughter, Mich'ellé, and Alex. Please don't be with us. Please don't be with us. God, please… "Hey! There you are," Drea says, hugging me, then Langston. I hug the ones I know and introduce Langston and myself to those I don't, leaving him last. I inhale. "Are you wi

This week has been a lot: house shopping, bees 🐝, fasting season, AG Gaston Conference, Langston's 16th birthday, and now he has the flu. I'll post tomorrow. Thanks for the extension. 🥂

P.S. Monday is my son's 16th birthday. This is an excerpt from my memoir of one routine night I remember most clearly. Happy birthday, Langston. Boog would unlace my boots before we got off work, and I'd slide my swollen feet into fuzzy pink slippers. The whole section, including the higher-ranked sergeants obligated to enforce the regulation, laughed at the spectacle. I could have found more appropriate shoes. One female sergeant whispered as much weeks earlier. But I could

I closed my coffee shop on February 16, 2023. It was my son's thirteenth birthday. Langston was transitioning from boyhood into manhood, and so was I. The day before we closed, a friend texted me. She had been helping me figure out what to say to the vendors I couldn't pay. She was one of those vendors. "It's concerning how when you have a need, that need will supersede all else. You do what you feel you have to do, moment by moment. We all do. But a lot of the decisions you

This is week five of me showing up here. Which feels both small and significant, given that the world is—once again—in unprecedented times. Though if I'm honest, I'm not sure when we haven't been. I grew up with dial-up internet and landlines. Watched it become high-speed and then obsolete. Got a cell phone in middle school. Became a cyborg by high school. I lived through 9/11. 2008. COVID. Racial reckoning. I watched Obama get elected. Then Trump. Entire industries collapsed

Thank God I'm wearing stockings. I haven't had a pedicure since I had both big toenails removed last June. Pedicures landed me in that predicament, and a touchy, half-grown bed keeps me from going back. But I'm liking what I see standing in front of the warehouse mirror at Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro, Alabama. The 6-inch, spiked, all-black, open-toed stiletto Louboutins give my body a real glow-up. The leather smells new, barely worn. My booty is sitting high, and my thig

Friday Night, 10 PM - The Couch Some friends are on the Daniel Fast. Some are doing Dry January. Others went vegan for the month. Me? I spent the first two weeks on an "eat what's already in your fridge" fast. This week, I'm modifying the Daniel Fast, hoping it'll help curb this sugar kick I've been on since Christmas. ...and as an elder millennial, I need as much fiber as possible. Start researching recipes on TikTok. Looking for three meals Langston and I will both eat. Chi

Here's a rough excerpt from the memoir I've been writing. It's my misogi project that inspired my first big-ass calendar habit of writing daily. Still working on it, but I wanted to share where I am in the process. The idea is to create a historical reference and guidepost for those who come along in my bloodline. When I ask my elders about this one or that, the oral history is gapped. Our family history—my great-grandmother in her 20s and 30s—is unknown. Beyond that, everyth

Happy New Year, my loves. "We all owe death a life." — Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children My mama told me to slow down my whole life. Washing dishes too fast and missing a spot. Forgetting a homework assignment. Saying the first thing that came to mind. I thought it horrible advice! I needed to get to the grand destination quick, fast, and in a hurry, clutching a whispered fear that if I slowed down, I'd miss what life had to offer. I paid tuition for that lesson. While the