The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

I am taking classes through a MOOC, Coursera.org, to be exact.  I have become a liberal arts student, a lover of thinking, pondering, and evaluating with over 30,000 other students connected through the power of the internet. This "semester" I am taking History of the Slave South and How to Change the World. Initially, I thought these courses had nothing in common save the fact they were offered for free (or $49 for the Wesleyan one if one wants a 'verified' certificate) and were both from Ivy League Universities (University of Pennsylvania and Wesleyan).  Then, as I often do, thinking about the connections, realized they are not so uncommon to each other. One class, so far, is giving a deep and thorough of the origins of the slave trade and the fact that the first indentured servants in the Americas were white, male, young, unskilled, Englishmen who essentially sold their labor for passage from England to the Virginia colony.  In 1618, the establishment of that...

Today is my second oldest son's birthday.   He is spiritual and lyrical, thoughtful and wise.  I have loved and admired him from the first moment he entered my world.  He was bubbly and had these eyes that would just dance and make you stop to notice that he was in the room.  His personality is equally as electric and he draws a crowd.  He writes, sings, raps, draws, and is self-made. My son and I have had quite a journey through life, he is essentially the oldest, his big brother died on his seven month birthday, so this one, my second born, is the one that I learned the most.  Through grit, trial and error, lots of mistakes, he knows I love him with my deepest heart.  He was the one who was so protective and felt a sense of responsibility, even as a five year old. The day would not be right if I could not pause to reflect on his journey and applaud him for his zest for living, his determination to keep going, and his surety in his purpose....

I was sitting at my desk, thinking, as I always do, about life and my connections in it.  When I thought about how we are all sharing time and space in this universe and what I do here, affects you there, I paused. This earth, this planet that we share belongs to all of us, that "haves" and the "have-nots."  It is a truth, whether that truth is accepted by all 7+ billion people inhabiting it or not. In that truth, we affect each other.  We, here in the West, with our seemingly insatiable appetite for new and shining things, completely affect the lives of those in the East, the keepers of many of those natural resources we cherish. In the East, when we read or hear about unclean water or a young girl's life traded away, it affects me here when I look into the eyes of my own. Pause with me for a moment and think about that. The diamonds on my hand, the gold, the minerals and metals in my phone, these did not come from my own hands, but the blood, sweat, te...

We live in the mundane. The everyday ordinary. Boring. Sameness of life. At times. Sipping coffee or tea, eating a banana, reading a book, loving our families.  Most of life is lived in moment-to-moment boring sameness that is much more fulfilling and exhilarating than the most thrill-filled roller coaster ride. Life is a marathon, one that if one truly admits, will find one with hair of snow, wrinkles etched across the face of time, joints that creak in the winter, and maybe a gait that is not as swift.  Years float by and one realizes that the gift of living, the legacy of living is earned in those moments when you are boiling water in the tea kettle and watching your daughter make markers before going to school. It is ok to be quiet and appreciate the familiar of your sitting room where every book on the shelf has it's own home.  To know that your husband makes great spaghetti and  you know more about fresh food shopping than he does.  That ...

This is the first day I've been in my home office in weeks. Holiday break is officially over, my youngest son is back in college, unpacking his dorm as I write.  The girls are back in school, husband is back to the university, the holiday decorations are long packed away, the house reordered for life after holiday, and the snow is melting. It is a Friday and a perfect moment, in this second Friday of the new year, to stop and ponder the What-Ifs. My thoughts on the What-Ifs are likely triggered by officially entering 2014 and my Jubilee Year.  Reaching an almost 5th decade and looking back, we sometimes take a moment to daydream. If I hadn't listened to my then-fiancé and taken the post graduate opportunity in Minnesota, I would probably be stressed and overworked, not the mother of two little girls, probably not married, and definitely not sitting in my home office writing on a Friday.  I would have fully absorbed the lifestyle and demands of that high level sala...

It is no secret that the artic blast, Polar Vortex, frigid temperatures have landed many of us inside for an extention of the holiday break. My family is smack dab in the middle of the country, in the St. Louis region, the place where just last week it was like spring. Changes all around. And cold hungry people. Joujou is a traditional soup made on Haitian Independence Day to celebrate freedom from the oppressive French regime that enslaved the island.  The first slave revolt happened in this island nation and I'm proud that my heritage began in the Caribbean. That said, this year was my first time making it by myself. I pulled on the warm clothes and headed to the store on New Year's Day, with my college son as my escort, to grab the ingredients needed.  We had spent the night before fellowshipping at my sister-in-law's mansion and a trip to the store was on no one's mind when we made it home past 3am. We gathered together the fresh ingredients, carefully...

snow, snow, snow, what a white-out to have on this first Sunday of 2014.  the little girl in me wants to go out and play, the woman in me is snuggling up in a blanket and sipping tea. we were prepping for the kids to go back to school and thought the snow would be a dusting.  there is close to a half foot on my balcony that my baby girl measured.  she and the rest of us are hoping for a snow day, an extension of holiday break. it is pretty, though, like love and life. one may not be able to stop it when it comes, it is coming, now, what will we do with it?