The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

 I have been following the WGA Strike for 146 days. I have also been following the SAG-AFTRA, AMPTP, Teamsters, UAW, and honestly, every other group of creators, creatives, and collaborators who made this country work.  Never in my lifetime have I seen all these different industries realizing there is more power together, if they stand united, than there is in an individual negotiation for pennies. When I was in California, I desperately tried to find the SAG-AFTRA strike so I could be in solidarity in person, but I ended up at the wrong location. So I have been following from across the country. The same for the writers, I put down some major writing projects including my muse/book project and  my book reviews on Tayé Foster Bradshaw's Bookshelf.  If they couldn't write, produce, and earn a living from their craft, why should I? And it has been agonizing!  Now, to be fair and transparent, I am no where in their league. No one is paying me to sit in a room with ...

 It was meant to be an ordinary after-a-busy-weekend-Monday for me. I had two small meetings scheduled. Came home to refresh and relax, and decided that the evening news was to fill the space of knowing I missed out on all weekend. The Grand Jury had been meeting in Fulton County all day on Monday. It was now past 5 o'clock Eastern Time and they were still there. I went on about my evening and one pundit turned into the next into the next and it was getting past my bedtime. Then well after ten o'clock Eastern Time, the clerk of the court, an African American woman who resembled so many that I know, walked, through a sea of other African American women and the smattering of men, to the waiting scene in the courtroom, all of this televised, but silent. She stood as the judge read through the stack of papers - looked like a full ream to me - asked her a few questions, signed them, handed them back to her. In her summer orange dress and pixie cut, she turned with that stack in her ...

 If you know me, you know that I am somewhat if a bohemian, an amateur anthropologist and sociologist, a presence who observes life and wants to be a part of that life surrounding beauty. Maybe it is the mixing of all my heritages and cultures, or the simplicity of my personality, but I like to be and just appreciate being, experiencing life and she unfolds around me. If you also know it, I wasn't able to always do that. Once-upon-a-time, I was in the early morning grind of just trying to survive, the then-divorced young mom in my mid-twenties with boys I had to get to day care before catching my train to work. Now, as I am winding down this sixth decade of my life, cruising to that Milestone birthday next year, I'm reflecting on how I am living in the moments I could only dream about. My time is essentially my own, something I could never attest to even as a working-full-time and going to school full time college student. Now, I can regulate my day as it goes and for most of t...

 I have been busy with our family transition, dealing with movers, packing, setting up the apartment, and just swamped, so it was with a bit of dismay this morning that I was finally able to sit down and have a cup of coffee to watch the news when the news was shattering: The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Affirmative Action in higher education. Now, this is more than just Harvard or UNC or frankly, any college or university. This is four decades of precedence.  Like them striking down Roe v. Wade. They have consistently shown themselves to be the most racist, mean-spirited, ultra conservative court that has ever existed. White boys are not smarter than African Americans. What they got was legacy admissions and unmerited access to generations of higher education. White boys are not smarter than the vast majority of the country and one of the things that Affirmative Action made sure was that poor white students, women, African American, Indigenous, and other people who otherwis...

 I have been quite busy over the past few months and in the midst of all the jubilant chaos of excited blessings, I had to quiet myself. We have been on a whirlwind every since my husband stepped into his new role at yet another university. It has been event-after-event, more people met in a short time, and lots of changes. Those changes can feel overwhelming when stacked on top of one another. They have included moves of my adult children, lots of travel, planning entire house moves, studying, and still trying to walking in the joy and happiness I've been studying. Change is inevitable, it is new every day, fresh every morning like the grace that rests upon each of us, but it is also a lot to navigate if it is more than what was expected, or if it rushes at you all at once. Or it can be anticipated, but unanticipated at the enormity of it and how literally overnight your circumstances can shift. I have been packing for days on end now, preparing for our household move to place som...

I had a lovely conversation with a sister the other day and it was almost as if we had known each other our entire lives. The topics melted into each other and before either of us knew it, over two hours had passed. Neither of us was trying to impress the other, the very fact that we were both in this restaurant at this little corner table, comfortable in our own being, was more than enough. We had only met a few times before through those intersecting ways that women's lives often do. Before this engagement, I was interviewed by a member of my sorority whom I hadn't met. Her topic was about the ways we encounter and are empowered by Sisterhood. It is one of our founding principles, so I was eager to be a part of her national conversation.   It was another one of those kindred spirit moments where even through the gaze of the computer, we felt the energy of the other and as women do, made declarations of seeing each other at the next conference or event. About a year ago, me wi...

  I am the wife of an important man. He is a humble man who has done a lot in the span of his career. There is hardly a place in this country where we have traveled without someone knowing him. Well, ok, maybe The Dakotas and Wyoming, maybe Utah, but he is well known. Known as a scholar, advocate, mentor, and leader. I am lesser known, except in those spaces whereupon they meet me and only think, "oh, that's his wife." I've been called that so many times that my name was not used at all. Not disrespectfully, but in a way that my only identity was as his wife. Now, to be very clear, I am incredibly proud of my husband and so honored to stand beside him as he uses his gifts to transform education for so many young people. I remain in awe of this man who met me at the challenge of my faith and has been a steady hand in our life. You already know my story because while they are my pearls, I have shared that we met when we were in our thirties, we were each pursuing our ca...