My uncle died of AIDS in 1990. He was gay. Of course, he was much more than that — not least of which, the reason my parents met. So in a way, I owe him my life.

His death was terrible.

It devastated my mother, who had been living and working with him in the antique store he had in Houston, out of an old gas station down the street from where my dad lived.

Even though I’m currently living through a pandemic where the government was largely irresponsible and unsympathetic, I’m not sure we can imagine what it was…

Recently, I was taking a yoga class taught by a friend of mine (Fringe & Flow).

It was around the time of the spring equinox, and so during our savasana (final resting pose), she asked us:

“With spring blooming, what are you letting go of? What can you learn from it?”

In the moment and after class, I thought about her question.

I was feeling heavy and tired. I wanted to let go of something. I wanted to bloom, too.

Above all else, I felt ready to let go of anxiety.

Everything about this pandemic has exponentially increased my anxiety…

All my friends are fairly well scattered across the USA and the world — from my college cohort alone, my closest friends are in Seattle, Washington DC, New York City, Upstate New York, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Boston, Dallas, and Cleveland.

My family isn’t any better — we grew up in Texas, my sister now lives in Miami, my dad & stepmom in North Carolina, and my mom & stepdad largely live on their boat, making them a moving target.

So when I started traveling full-time in June 2014, a major benefit was being able to visit my people in…

I just saw another friend post about their new baby on Facebook (congrats! always very exciting to have a healthy little one arrive) and mention how crazy it was to feel so much love for someone so immediately upon meeting them.

At first I thought, sure, yeah, it must be crazy to show up at a hospital and go through birth and become a parent to this tiny, soft, delicate, breathing human who screams and cries and understands nothing at all except that you are home.

Absolutely checks out that it’s intense and overwhelming.

So often, our collective history is told through the work + actions of men. And we are told that this is because there simply weren’t women doing those things at that time — often because we weren’t allowed to.

For a long time, I believed this.

I trusted that the lack of representation of women (and other disenfranchised groups) was due to a lack of production, activity, participation on their part. We can’t show what doesn’t exist, right?

Yet the more I learn about history, the more I learn that actually, there were women doing very important work + taking…

Have you ever had a little sister? I’m not sure if little brothers are the same or not. They might be, but I can’t say.

My little sister has remained littler; small enough to tuck under my arm, fits well in compact spaces, easy to shield if needed.

As a child, she was a tornado of movement and mayhem.

In photos of us (of which there are many; my parents — dad especially — indulged in the hobby), I am almost always posed and trying my best to meet expectations; she is never still. …

We said it long ago. It’s funny how we forgot the meaning of one of the words in our name, that most important adjective.

This virus was a once-in-a-lifetime world crisis — and an opportunity for us to stand in solidarity & collectively take personal responsibility for each other.

Instead, we shucked our sense of honor and public obligation, however much we had, anyway, and put false individual priorities over the collective need.

How foolish we have been. And how deadly.

Our breath became a weapon, and I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised how many gladly brandished it. …

You don’t care about this story, but I am writing it anyway. It is unedited, unplanned, whispered itself into words.

We bought mango sticky rice in the street, from a cart, not even a dollar each. We sat outside a McDonald’s and ate it, plastic forks sliding against the wobbling plastic container, sweet coconut covered rice made crunchy, mango slices sliding along our tongues, the night air cooling, the traffic finally lessened, the darkness shimmering with neon, language a bridge between us.

It was January. A new year. Against the blind feeling in my gut, I wanted to feel hope…