Dear White People: White is the status quo. White is the norm. White rules. White perspective is assumed to be universal and is imposed on everyone. White supremacy is a system we are all socialized into from the moment we are born. White schools are better than Black schools. White neighborhoods are better than Black neighborhoods. White health care is better than Black health care. White wages ...
I’m not a big user of social media. I gave up on Twitter a few years ago. Occasionally I’ll share one of my blog posts on Facebook or comment on a friend’s post. I don’t pay much attention to my LinkedIn presence since I’m not networking or building my brand. I’ve never used Instagram or TikTok or any of the other social media apps I don’t even know exist. But there’s one social media...
I think of you on July 9, and today I was digging through my box of family artifacts and remembering that period of time we were writing letters to each other. I might have been recently graduated from college. I’m not sure how we got started, but in a few of my letters I was trying to explain some life decisions I’d made. Where to live, what kind of job to take, some relationship matter. Maybe...
Here’s my relationship to photography these days: I point my phone and tap my screen. With reckless impunity, I tap and tap and tap. The photos get stored in the gallery app on my phone, then backed up to the cloud, and every once in a while I scroll through my gallery and cull the photos that are poor quality or meaningless or redundant. The rest stay in the gallery where I’ll see them the next...
Twenty-five years ago today we rented a truck and hired two strapping 20-year-olds and moved from a city apartment into our house on a tree-lined street in the suburbs. At the time we likely thought of this as our starter house. It wasn’t big or flashy, but it had character and charm. For the first few years we used the bedroom on the first floor and rarely even went up to the second floor, so...
I’m on my front lawn installing a wire cage around an aspen sapling to keep the grazing deer off the sweet new leaves. Less than four feet tall, I hope the tree will make it. A dark sedan pulls up in front of my house. I stay with my work for a moment, bending back tines to connect the circle. I look up and walk over and lean on the open passenger window. It’s Jean from across the street, my...
This maze of cracked boulders the size of houses and jagged shards of sandstone like the tables of giants pitched at awkward hard angles. You’d best be nimble with all four limbs and your feet and hands because you’ll climb and crawl and mount and squish and wiggle through tight passages under and over a moonscape of rock. Up and down and across holding your balance facing one decision and then...
In honor of all fathers . . . 1. Show Up Regardless of whether you live with them or not, a father’s job is to show up whenever possible and be a positive force in the lives of your children. My kids are young adults now and I’ve been fortunate to be present for most of their journey from infancy to adulthood. You’ve got to make time for them. 2. Be interested What you’re interested in is not...
About eight years ago I picked up this novel called TRAPS, about four very different women whose lives intersect in a collision of fates—a security guard, an actress, a prostitute, and a recovering alcoholic. Anyone who’s read my novels STASH and CLEAN BREAK knows I have a thing for these disparate yet connected stories and lives. I still remember how much I appreciated the novel—it was deft and...
I’d almost forgotten over the past year how much I love a fine restaurant experience. Creative food, unique cocktails, attentive service, the company of close friends—that’s a lot to savor. Plus from my years of experience working in restaurants I’m aware of and interested in all the details: the layout and logistics, the way the staff works together, how the table is set, even (especially?) what...
“Hi David, How are you feeling today?” So begins my chat with Woebot (quite the name!), an artificial intelligence-based chatbot that provides mental health therapy. I can write something in the text box or choose from a long list of feelings: anxious, depressed, sad, frustrated, happy (although who’s feeling happy if they’re using a therapy chatbot?), and many others. I don’t have a particular...
I just read a troubling article in The Economist: “How many American children have cut contact with their parents?” Quite a few: “. . . Familial estrangement seems to be widespread in America. The first large-scale nationwide survey, recently conducted by Cornell University, found that 27 percent of adult Americans are estranged from a close family member.” The actual percentage is likely higher...
That’s Fred in the center of the photo, Number 8, leaning into the first turn of his motocross race, just seconds after a thunderous start and sprint out of the starting gate. Fumes and dirt flying. Combined engines like a jet taking off. A younger man’s game, right? No. Fred is my age–and he’s still a beast on a motocross bike. He came in second in his class on a hot day...
How better to accept and appreciate living in the suburbs than riding your bike through quiet neighborhoods of tasteful houses and smooth, paved roads, no hands, lilacs and lawnmowers in the air, sitting high above your handlebars, pedaling, arms stretched out, balancing even through the tiny thrill of leaning into a corner and turning onto the next pretty block, no hands, no hands. What a...
