I don’t understand war. I never have and likely never will. After this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week of war in Ukraine, I found myself drawn to the Manassas Battlefield. I don’t know what I sought—answers, perspective, hope. So, I walked among the cannons, the historical kiosks, the statues, the wide-open fields, and…
Some things require imagination—a dream, a novel, a school, a better future. My husband and I often walk through the Jennie Dean Park near our house. It contains the remains of Jennie Dean’s dream of a residential school for Black students to learn agriculture and industrial skills as well as gain academic instruction. A home…
We can’t know everything. But we can yearn to learn more. I recently learned of Mr. Lewis Howard Latimer—an inventor, writer, and leader. Born in Massachusetts in 1848, he was the youngest son of slaves who escaped from Norfolk, Virginia, near my hometown. His family decided to split up and scatter to protect itself from…
For me, hiking has always been a form of meditation in motion. Breathing in the fresh air, stretching my legs, decompressing my thoughts, letting go of stress, taking in the gifts of nature. On a hike back in 2018 in the Chautauqua Park, outside of Boulder, Colorado, I enjoyed all of these benefits of my…
I read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was twelve. I was deeply impacted by the personal story of an incomprehensible situation and ultimately, her tragic end. At the time, I slept in a room over the garage in my home, listening to records by Captain and Tennille, reading books like “Are you there,…
In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this year, I am re-reading King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” I’m haunted by his words. Most of us came to admire King for his oratory skills. But King’s superpower was his wordcraft, wielding prose as a sword or a torch or a paintbrush, rendering a better…
