MEMORANDUM TO: White people and everyone with relatively greater privilegeFROM: Your fellow privileged white personRE: Efforts to outlaw DEIDATE: Today and every day——————————————Just a reminder: We look at the world around us to assess *how* to continue advancing justice. We do not assess *whether* to continue advancing justice. Yes, we change our methods when that’s […]
Today. MLK Day. Inauguration day, which I won’t capitalize. Sometimes, as I coffeewalk through the cemetery part of my loop, I think about the aphorism “The days are long, but the years are short.” People say it about parenting, but I think it’s true in a broader sense too. I’m holding onto that now. Look […]
I saw Elvis a couple of weeks ago. It did not go well. Everything started off fine. M and I had gotten tickets to take my mom and stepdad to a tribute band at a winery in nearby New Hampshire. Just a fun little holiday outing, especially for my mother who can still recite Elvis’s […]
Right after the election, I got to speak on The Redress Movement‘s panel about Building Racial Redress Into Housing Justice. They invited me on behalf of my client organization’s homeownership initiative that provides down-payment assistance specifically for first-time buyers who identify as Black and/or Latino… which begs the question, why bother listening to me if […]
“We’re spending so much energy talking about how bad things are, it can start to feel like THAT’s our activism. Instead of just talking with our friends and family about what’s bad, let’s talk about what we can DO about this election.” That’s what the awesome friend-of-a-friend seasoned organizer said on this morning’s powerful small-group […]
Hi, white friends! Can I invite myself to your dinner table for a minute? You know, the one where you’re having the same conversation that my family’s been having since the debate last Thursday, at our little dinner table in the tiny cottage here on the Beach of My Heart. It’s the endless circling conversation […]
This morning, back on Beach of My Heart. I smiled at the memory of the driftwood log. Then blinked, and laughed out loud because I realized it was real. Time doubles back on itself in odd and beautiful patterns here. Always so much the same. New joys adding bright threads that somehow match perfectly with […]
Yesterday I got myself well and truly lost in an area with no cell service. It’s okay. That was more or less the point. I started the morning by exploring around Lake Placid, scouting locations to view the next day’s eclipse. Then I went a little further afield, checking out a couple of villages ten […]
Oh my friends, my heart is so full. It’s been a year since this post, about pushing my investment advisors to “humor me” by centering my portfolio on my values rather than pure profit. I had my first annual investment performance check-in today, and I learned two crucial things: I have no idea how much […]
Fifteen years with no Nurn in the world. That’s what we called him. A silly, loving name for a silly, loving man. Dan Kalikow, 3/2/43-2/26/09. But of course it’s not true that there’s no Nurn left. There is so much of him in me – I see him often in my own face – but […]