humanism

2020

If 2020 was the first year we could remember, would we think of it as a “normal” year? If we had no comparison, would we use it as a template for all subsequent years? In this way, I can’t write about 2020 without context—as chaotic, as challenging, as unprecedented this year currently is and has…Read more 2020

Home in the Ether

“I want to drive into the sunrise.” Years ago, when I was living in Seattle, commuting every day to a comfortable desk job in the eastside, I used to mutter this half-jokingly to my carpool companion. This must have seemed to her not just wistful and slightly pathetic but incredibly dramatic, as we were usually…Read more Home in the Ether

Bittersweet

I spent most of last weekend in a kitchen heavenly fragrant with dried fruits, cinnamon, vanilla, ginger, nutmeg, brandy and red wine. That magnificent aroma of the holiday season wafting richly from mulled wine, glistening fruitcakes, sugar cookies and spicy gingerbread. I also brought out my largest pot to make a large batch of treats…Read more Bittersweet

Thankful

Part of me will always be suspended in disbelief. Dangling where there is no ground, no up or down, nothing more substantial than a mysterious ether. But I am not afraid. I am grateful. I know there are plenty of reasons to be worried, sorrowful, pessimistic. Plenty of tragedy, injustice and hate embedded, looming and…Read more Thankful

The Pendulum of Empathy

“Why empathy?” Silence. “Why compassion?” Silence. “Why should we care about each other?” No one answered. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to answer, we simply struggled to find the best reasoning for it. Perhaps we had never asked ourselves these existential questions before. Perhaps we couldn’t find an answer that wasn’t trite, naïve, or saturated…Read more The Pendulum of Empathy

Decent People to the End

Despite how problematic this story can be in our fraught media landscape seething with outrage and boiling with identity politics, it is the most urgent story. I am compelled repeatedly tell it—fresher, bolder, louder, its scope ambitiously greater than my tiny individual life.

Decent People

Origins

I recognized the shape of the island immediately, a rugged, horn-like protrusion emerging from sea. Lush vegetation nourished by rich volcanic soil made it a green brighter than the turquoise shallows caressing its beaches. The sky, the soothing pale blue of daylight, was clear enough to see broad plateaus and dark canyons beneath the shifting…Read more Origins

The Face of the Future

“You are the face of the future.” An acquaintance once said this to me when we first met. He uttered it emphatically, as if it was a wondrous revelation. It felt like an enormous compliment. “Thank you, so are you!” I replied. Of all the statements about my multiracial “mixed” features, indeed of all the…Read more The Face of the Future

Being Myself

Doubt is part of every word I say. Before the glances congeal into a gaze, I am already formed. A partial. A remnant. Existing to be discarded. How many estimates Must I encounter To meet the one I cannot fall short of? I fail, I fail, I will fail you Always In your judgement…Read more Being Myself

A Light Circle