“Memory is the scribe of the soul.”
– Aristotle
What do Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis all have in common? Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a Black musician from Arkansas who played the electric guitar and sang the blues and gospel. She toured with Muddy Waters in 1964 in England and is said to have influenced Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards…
Sometimes the legacy of a legend like Martin Luther King, Jr. is overwhelming. His words, his defiance, his righteousness, his dreams. I am haunted by his words and his uplifting vision for our country. He inspires us all to be and do better in order to realize our full potential as a nation. (A challenge…
The Christmas spirit is a funny and ephemeral thing. Sometimes it’s found in the twinkling lights, sometimes at the Santa visit, and sometimes at the table while eyeing the Christmas turkey. In our family, it showed up through the gifts and yes, there was a special tradition attached (of course). Our family always attempted to…
Chocolate on my shirt and a melting candy bar in my hand. I’d made a mess, and I hate messes, plus I’d been caught wiping that chocolate onto my clean, white shirt. As a firstborn, my mother supposedly kept me ultra clean, whisking me away from the slightest mess to put me into another outfit…
My mother knew how to make every holiday (and every day) special. Often, in college when I was stressed about exams or boys or other high-priority college stressors, my mother would come to town and take me on a pumpkin hunting trip. This was a great distraction technique (on which she should have written a…
I’m a bit haunted by Mother’s Day—a difficult day for me at times. Over the past decade or so, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I am now motherless and am myself a child-free adult (that’s a fancy new term I just learned this week!). Both facts can be a source of some…
