• Feeling some kind of way

    I have been feeling as my young clients often say, “some kinda’ way.”

    That phrase makes more sense to me now as I am struggling to understand what is going on with me. I have often encouraged my clients to be more specific… articulate…draw a picture…connect to a song or poem. And I feel a bit of a failure as a therapist when those interventions fall short. But I am aware now as I grapple with my emotions and feelings that there is actually space for feeling “some kinda’ way.”

  • The day when skin color will not matter.

    There’s a litmus test I’ve always used to gauge society’s level of racial equality: If I could be born again today, would it matter to me if I was born with “white” skin, or with “black” skin?

    If my answer was “yes, I’d really want to have white skin again”, then we had not stopped the ridiculous, abhorrent and brutal hierarchical categorization of people by skin color.

    Sadly, over the last 40 years, my answer to this test has always been “yes, I’d really want to have white skin again”. Yet I’ve recently come to think this binary black/white racial paradigm is making our efforts to combat inequality and injustice much more difficult.

  • Find a place that makes you happy and go there

    I live among what I describe as "Aging Hippies", "Good Ole Boys" and "Wise-Women" in the village of Saxapahaw (sax ‘ pa’ haw), Alamance County NC. It is situated along the Haw River, a five minute walk from my house.

    The Sissipahaw Indians were the indigenous people that owned the land that is now Saxapahaw. The land was later acquired by Congressman B Everett Jordan who built a cotton and dye mill along the river. The mill has long since closed. Congressman Jordan allowed the mill workers to buy their homes. And those cottages are now part of the landscape of Saxapahaw.