Family
Letting the Oil Run Off
When we sold the food business my parents started in the early 1980s a few years ago, I was deeply concerned it would kill my father.
That’s because it was the truest expression of his undivided self.
America
Stand on Purpose
Standing on purpose and grief are one and the same. Those of us working in the trenches in our communities experience these in tandem, knowing that the blessing of purpose and the curse of grief are tightly interwoven.
Health
Suffering as Grace
Something I’m really grateful for, which having this eye condition taught me, is that when your body sends a distress signal, you need to stop and slow down against all conditioning.
Family
I was such an asshole.
Sometimes I randomly apologize to my mother for being a little shit and it makes her emotional, which confirms that I have indeed been, or still am, a little shit.
Memoir
The Backyard at Longview
In my silent picture memories out back in the old house at Longview, a few places stand out. The window above the sink overlooking the backyard. A walnut tree. An ornate altar to the Virgin Mary.
Memoir
Watermelon Girls
Justin Timberlake's recent run-ins with the law reminded of the watermelon girls who shared a table with me in art class. We had nothing in common, but a semester is long enough to forge lasting memories.
Family
Ode to a Creep
I credit my sister for all of our major family trips. While my parents and I are very dynamic people, we’re also a bunch of stick-in-the-mud homebodies. A recent excursion reminded me of a funny time we had together.
Memoir
A Useful Childhood
I’ve always seen going to school as a choice, even though it was compulsory and truancy was enforceable by law. Maybe that's because I had somewhere else to go that was steeped in usefulness.
Impact
Banana Season
In education we frequently hear, “It’s all about the kids.” But this is a profession like any other, and like all professionals, youth practitioners need to feel valued and fulfilled in their work. So here's some good stuff that happened recently.
Business
A Tale of Two Braids
Sometimes you have to get over yourself, as the hump standing in your own way, and just go for things. Trouble is, that's not how I was raised or what I was taught was right -- and I carry that in my hair.
Family
Daddy Stories
My life is full of my father’s stories. He is a delightful man, and rampant conversation dominator. He has travelled the world, seen life, built an empire, and he has a right to talk.
Work
A Self-Made Retreat
Being away helps me realize so much about myself and my anxiety-inducing behavior patterns that hobble me in my day-to-day life, such as my complete and utter inability to settle into swaths of unstructured time.
Business
Peace Through Commerce
In September 2023, I rage-launched Los Compas Coffee, a coffee roasting social enterprise that teaches opportunity youth about the liberatory power of small business entrepreneurship.
Health
When Life Shakes You Down
In December of 2021, I languished in a hospital bed for nine days. An infection was carved out of my body. It was the scariest time, the medical trauma of which has only recently fallen off.
Work
The Grief of Being Complicit
Even when most individuals in large system are operating with the best intentions, the machinery of the system renders injustices. It's hard not to feel complicit.
Food
A Trip to a Warehouse ☕️
Being in the Klatch Coffee warehouse and training center was more than a learning experience. It was a throwback to growing up in a food warehouse and what my father built.
Memoir
Picnic Sandwiches
One day a white Ford Econoline van appeared, so old that its paint was matted, its enamel sheared away by time and smogwinds. It's name was Picnic Sandwiches, and it was my father's mighty chariot.
