The one thing I wanted most was just a few minutes rest. Just to place my head down, close my eyes, and have a few minutes to rejuvenate, to get my energy back. It wasn’t that I wasn’t having a good time; in fact, this trip had been magical. My close friend and teaching colleague, Rhonda, …
There is a certain safety in regimentation and rote memorization. I didn’t know either of those terms at the time but thinking back to my first-grade class in my Delaware school, this is the way I learned most often—as part of a large group with no real attention on myself. That was the part that was …
I have often wondered about the ancestors on my father’s side of the family, the ones whose family crest featured a simple, austere tree—one with leaves but with shallow, almost nonexistent roots, as though the tree had been quickly torn from the earth: Or, a tree eradicated vert the motto says. Were my ancestors wanderers traveling from place to …
Up until about two weeks ago, there was one thing that I had not done during the pandemic, that I badly needed to do. That was to let my anger out in a truly physical and unapologetic way. Yes, I had expressed anger before. To like-minded friends and family, I had voiced my outrage at the …
When I knew her, her hair was dyed a deep auburn that formed wispy waves about her face and made her black eyes seem darker. She wore brown dresses that showed her solidarity with the earth and its ancient rumblings. She never wore blue, the color of the sky—for her greatest fear was to accidentally view the …