Transition
In defiance of all generalizations and laughingly agreed upon norms among my Liberian and American friends, Liberians were the first to arrive at our party- well before any Americans showed their faces. First was Belecca, friend in tow, dressed to the nines in a lapa suit I’d never seen and a fancy head wrap. I […]
Food is one of the great narratives of my life, and yet I am still surprised at how much the taste and lingering delight of a good meal can dictate the texture of my day and orchestrate the flavor of my mood. Food. More than sustenance and survival, for me it is tantamount to joy. […]
Food is one of the great narratives of my life, and yet I am still surprised at how much the taste and lingering delight of a good meal can dictate the texture of my day and orchestrate the flavor of my mood. Food. More than sustenance and survival, for me it is tantamount to joy. […]
Life here is a fickle two-year-old. Yesterday was the first day she didn’t cry or cower behind the nearest person not me. Yesterday she walked up to me, her round chocolate face so cute and beaming, no pants, stomach distended with a huge bellybutton bulging out like an appendage. She smiled at me. Held out […]
Liberia takes everything back. The land, the people. They are all seemingly swallowed, digested, and then sprout anew. Be it the banana peel I throw beside the trail to my house. The next day I see it brown and trampled. in a week it is gone. Eaten or carried away. Ground into the earth to […]
the notion of home has always been less place and more people. a military brat traipsing with my family hither and yon, the word home has always conjured up the faces of my parents and sister assembled hodge podge on my parents’ bed. it never mattered where the bed was, only that we were all […]
i’m almost afraid to say the word out loud. not in any connection to me. i have friends who have been declarative – insistent that i claim an old moniker…poet. i’m more hesitant. fearful that by saying it it will blow away like ash or dandelion fluff. scattering to the wind with no way to […]
it feels strange to be so close to home and still so far. when i’m gone – usually – i’m so far away that visiting isn’t an option or i’m close enough to drive home in a matter of hours. this west coast reality has thrown me a curve. flying home is conceivable but expensive. […]
the thing is, I’m aware of my place in the scheme of things. Not place so much as placement. It isn’t that I couldn’t move or change – only that in this instance if there were a mandate to assemble in some sort of order – I’d be fair to middling. Middling in the […]
free
free oscar grant was scrawled in black spray paint across the whitewashed wall of the bart underpass. i shook my head as i passed. irritated because this is new graffiti on the recently painted wall…irritated more that someone missed the reality that you cannot free that which has been killed. oscar grant isn’t being held, […]
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