A couple of weeks back, something beautiful happened to me on Facebook. A long-ago “friend” who was really only an acquaintance through my very-ex-husband reached out privately. “I’ve been reading what you write over the last two years and your writing has been meaningful to me,” she messaged. “I’d like some help on how to […]
Thanksgiving. I am so grateful for all the time I get to spend in the beauty of nature. And. My coffeewalk isn’t exactly “natural,” is it? I mean, sure, the trees are real. The chirping birds are real. The blue sky is real. The way the rising sun makes patterns through the branches and turns […]
Oh, my friends. Amazing, heart-filling news. This riverside path has helped to heal me. Slowly, literally step by step, for almost two years that I’ve walked it nearly every day with my travel mug of coffee… watched the waters flow and the leaves turn and the birds visit from the window of my first tiny […]
SCENE: Commuter bus to Logan Airport, Sunday 7:48 a.m., a couple dozen passengers and one Jovial Driver. He is an older gent, looks like Einstein with a crew cut. He’s been complaining entertainingly since we boarded. Massachusetts drivers! This bizarrely warm autumn! Unspecified politicians! His one-man show gradually turns into a two-hander with Tough Cookie, […]
Recently, a friend asked me to put on my consultant hat and talk with her team of grantwriters about how to get better at centering equity in their writing. As part of preparing for this conversation-style training, I started jotting down a few ideas about how to introduce myself and my background, and it… sort […]
I figure: if we do land acknowledgments to start something as small as a meeting, shouldn’t I incorporate one into my new life here in the home I just moved into? I found this secondhand mirror that speaks to me of my name for this place, wrote this message and hung it by the front […]
Hi, my name is Andie and I am learning in real-time! Remember a couple of days ago I did a long post tying one of my past organizational experiences to Tema Okun’s classic “White Supremacy Culture” article? Grateful to a couple of friends who pointed me towards the re-appraisal of that article which is currently […]
Once upon a time, not too long ago, I was a new member on the DEI Committee for a nonprofit I still love. It was a beautiful early-June day, and we — the almost all-white staff and volunteer committee members — were debating how the organization should honor Juneteenth for the first time. We talked […]
The other day I walked here in my father’s footsteps, in one of his favorite places. I hadn’t specifically meant to; I was there for my own reasons, because it’s a treasured part of my life, too. I watched the rowing teams slide along the glassy surface, and thought of him. Nurn, our weird and […]
Look, y’all. There’s a lot I want to say about Juneteenth; I’ll be honoring the day on Monday by taking time to write up a memory that’s on my heart. But as I’m seeing more posts and news stories in the run-up, I just cannot keep quiet about this: Saying it’s “the day enslaved people […]