Category Archives: Uncategorized

“It’s all I have to bring today…,” Emily Dickinson once wrote. Thank you, Emily. Because I have nothing of my own to offer on this end-of-summer morning. The days are shortening. The world is spinning off its axis. I am so, so tired. I send my bucket into the well, and all that comes upContinue reading ““…go to the limits of your longing.””

He darted out of the construction site to my right into the middle of early-evening traffic. A large dog running wild. The SUV ahead of me swerved and braked, but nipped him in the back legs. The dog spun in circles, coming to rest in the middle of the left-turn lane for oncoming traffic. IContinue reading “Coyote at the Crossroads, Revisited”

My husband can take canned vegetables, like green beans or spinach, and make you swear they were fresh when he started.  While this is a skill you may never see celebrated on cooking channels, it sure enough works for us. Our plates are the orphaned lids of Tupperware containers. The cup that holds melted butterContinue reading “The Art of the Meal”

This is the seventh in a series of excerpts from my memoir, The Edge of All the Light You Have. It follows “How can we be reconciled….“ In January of 1970, a white man sat having a cup of coffee in the Baptist Building in Raleigh. He was perusing The News & Observer for articles about the shootingContinue reading ““Take my hand, precious Lord. Lead me home.””

The intersections of infamy in our Southern history astound me. When I was growing up, no one ever mentioned that there had been a lynching in Princess Anne County, right around the corner from my grandparents’ farm.  The first time I learned about Noah Cherry was in 2019, at the Legacy Museum of the EqualContinue reading “The Lynching of Noah Cherry”

The Key to the Town of Wake Forest unlocked nothing. This is the sixth in a series of excerpts from my memoir, The Edge of All the Light You Have: a story across time and race (formerly From Where I Stand). In early June 1999, I found myself on the road connecting New York CityContinue reading ““How can we be reconciled….””

This is the fifth in a series of excerpts from my memoir, The Edge of All the Light You Have (formerly, From Where I Stand). In the cartoon, a portly man, in clothes several sizes too small for him, stands in front of a church, a double-barrel shotgun stuffed under one arm. Above him isContinue reading ““It could be my house tonight….””

The fourth in a series of chapters from my memoir, The Edge of All the Light You Have (formerly, From Where I Stand). This post follows “This is our fight, too.” Two days after the shooting, it was Monday morning and back to school. After they dropped us off, Mom and Dad went with MaMawContinue reading ““…refugees from a war zone””

This post is the third in a series of excerpts from my memoir, From Where I Stand, a story of love across race and time. This post follows “Choose this day….” Mom had put a ham in the oven that morning, but forgotten to turn the oven on. When MaMaw took Bryant back to the parsonageContinue reading ““This is our fight, too.””

An excerpt from my memoir, From Where I Stand, a story of love across race and time. This post follows “I thought they would come for me.” Sunday morning, December 14th, dawned clear and cold, stubbornly cheerful. Granddaddy was outside, smoking his pipe. He poked around with his cane in the weeds and ivy onContinue reading ““Choose this day…””