Have you ever had a Greek woman cook for you? Heaven can be found in a ripe tomato in the right hands. Sitting at a worn and faded kitchen table with a cool breeze blowing through, pushing the fresh herbs slowly across the counter, she had me roughly chop onions while our hands talked more than our mouths. Breaking off a small leaf, she waved the mint in front of my face to smell. Mundane moments become magical when you are invited into them.
Whenever I hear someone say white people can’t cook well or white people don’t know how…
This Is Us
When you think the problem is the answer, you’re helpless to solve it
“You have to call it what it is before you can tackle it.”
Those words repeat in my thoughts, bounce around my skull, and buzz under my skin. “But I don’t know what it is.”
“Okay. Describe again how you’ve been feeling the past month?”
“Tired, sluggish. My life just feels monotonous, so I’m bored and restless. I can’t focus on my class assignments, like at all, which is new for me. I keep not being able to sleep, so I feel like I’m moving underwater the next day. I used to love school. I just don’t care about it…
Being Dragged, Kicking and Screaming, into Embracing Change
I love structure. As much as I try to be hip and flexible, to just go with the goddamn flow, I’m wired differently. I like routines, schedules, and knowing what’s coming down the pipeline. I get the same thrill from new planners that I do from old books. I’m not the tragically creative night-owl writer a few of my internet peeps have suspected. I’m the introverted version of that perky, morning person you want to slap.
After a discussion of the creation of a trauma-based mental health care plan for the students in my local district in January, a friend…
On The Nature of Time and What It Means to Live
Time is predictable. Constant and cyclical. We’re born, we live, we die. For most of our history, this didn’t surprise us. Humans lived by the sun and the seasons. We recognized that the sunrise and the sunset were the same entity. We didn’t just smell the flowers. We planted seeds, watched them germinate, tended them as they grew, and saw them wilt and decay. Over and over. Birth, Life, Death. We were intimately acquainted with all three.
In the early 21st century, we set out to define and standardize that cycle. We measured it, and created notches and signposts throughout…
Lived Through This
A year in the life
Let me tell you a story.
Scenario: You have a public school day job of three years that almost pays all your bills so you take on an extra job as an independent contractor to make ends meet. You still have student loans from a degree that qualifies you for your slightly more-than-minimum-wage job at $1,100 per month.
June: Your primary support job at a public school ends. The next school year begins in August, but you haven’t been able to find a job yet. You’ve worked two jobs since you were 14 so you don’t think the summer will…
Confusing, Exhilarating, and Tiring.
“I hope my good mood doesn’t go away.”
“I hope so too.”
I say this to my best friend as she drops me off for work. Honestly, good moods tend to confuse me at times. Nobody told me that over a decade ago when I had my first bout with this nebulous thing called depression.
Just like there are days, I wake up in a fog. Or I can feel it creeping on in me around 3:30 in the afternoon.
There are days where the fog is just gone. I’m in a good mood.
I treat myself like a fragile…
There’s a moment when you realize this
There will come a weird moment where you realize an adult you respect and love has stagnated. This could be a parent, teacher, pastor, school mentor, coach, anyone that once upon a time, you would have taken their words as absolute truth without a stitch of salt. You’ll be in the living room, at a party, or bump into them in the fifth aisle at the grocery store.
It may start as an innocent conversation or throwaway comment or emotional argument, and in that moment, it will dawn on you. You’ll leave the idealization of their authority in an open…
You’re Worth A Little Mess.
“Sometimes we hesitate to invite people into our life because we feel like our space isn’t good enough yet. things are a little messy, or our place settings don’t match, or our situation isn’t quite what we want it to be. Don’t let that stop you. Invite people in anyway.”-Rendzina
Most of my friends now are mothers. I know where they keep their spare key under the mat and that tea I like in the cupboards. I know their silverware drawer is crooked and has to be slid out just right. …
How Growing Food Keeps Me Sane
