The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

I made a Facebook post the other day. Then I thought I should take it down. I left it. The thing that prompted the post was the endless "asks" we receive to support someone's business, idea, fundraiser, or whatever. And we do, very often. So, the issue became when folks who never interacted with me, never bothered to read my work, support the literary circle, or frankly, anything else I did, were asking for my support.  They wanted my access, the people who in my networks, on my pages, the many groups I interacted with. The value of my "like" exposed them to even more people.  But they never "liked" my work. And it should never be a quid-pro-quo. That has never been my way. I serve, am called to it and I give. What bothered me, though, is something that bothered me years ago after Ferguson.  It was the expectation that I had to do it. That I had "more" and that they were "owed" because of where they lived.  One encounter that was so...

  I woke up with the sun streaming through my bedroom. I woke up rested. I woke up renewed. I woke up rejuvenated. This has been the first morning in four years that I did not wake up with the heavy cloud of division, despair, and destruction that has loomed over America since 2016. It feels lighter. Like a heavy burden lifted. For years, months, weeks, so many have prayed, protested, and praised their way to an America that is reflected of our better selves. Yesterday, solidified that. Look out over the hills, there are more who think of the common good. When I received the news, I, like so. many others, had already been up for days, weeks, months, working in the election cycle, watching the news, and then glued to CNN or MSNBC for the results to come in. We alternated between our social media groups, and my teen daughter's updates with her friends. It was a typical Saturday in our house, we are still settling in the move from the Midwest, Missouri, exactly, to the Northeast, Con...

Election results are in for some races and not for others, most notably, the Presidential. I went to be at 1:30am, after feeling my stomach turn and disgust rise up in me as I learned that Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell were going back to the Senate. The green stench bile of racism is all across this country.  America the ugly. My home state of Missouri voted for division, racism, classism, and xenophobia. I work for a Missouri non-profit that threw our heart and soul into trying to make this state better for all people, even those who did not reflect our sense of decency and humanity. It was disappointing news. We will not know what is ahead or what will happen when the shenanigans on mail-in ballots ends.  What we will know is that in parts of America, over 50% of them prefer fear over hope, and that is a sad thing. Black Americans did all we could. At 13% of the population, all across this country, we Strolled to the Polls, we put Souls on the Bus, we stood with elders,...

 I woke up this morning to sun and clear skies, outside Boston, hope in my heart. Rain+fog+wind kept me in the area an extra night as attempting to drive home for this new, New Englander was a bit scary at night. That had me think about other things that could be scary on the last day before the day. The news that a candidate's supporters surrounded another candidate's campaign bus to the point of them being boxed in, was more than disconcerting. As was pepper spraying those marching to the polls in a sign of unity to hecklers of voters, all of this is disconcerting. I live in the tri state. New York had hate-filled trucks blocking access into New. York.  In Boston, I saw more signs of unity, hope, and promise, we saw only one lone dude in Back Bay with a sorry attempt to swing for a side that is completely opposite that. What struck me as I was able to stay in bed on Saturday and Sunday morning was the report that 94 millions have already voted. Many more stood in line over t...

 Daylight savings time. November 1st. Just days away. And I still have the dread of knowing that the last four years were not a dream but a lived reality we all endured. Many lives lost and many still tone deaf, like the Girl Scouts, of the impact of decisions made by this administration. They "celebrated" what many of us cringe in knowing. Then, I remembered, 53% of them voted for their caste, their race kind and not gender kind, they screwed the rest of us over and over 225,000 Americans have paid the price since March. So, last week, while in a meeting, just seven days before the election, we received news, in the dark of night. Like many of my friends, friends with daughters, I woke up the morning after with a dread in my gut. A sinking feeling. A weight. Not too much unlike the darkest moment of my life thirty-eight years ago. The feeling was heavy, sinking, suffocating. Last week, while on a panel for the screening of Rigged, someone posted in the Zoom chat that the Rep...