Skyfoos.

Reading Authors of Color, 2020 Update *Quick note: if you're looking to diversify your reading list, please keep looking until you find someone of an ethnic group outside your own. This post is sharing my journey of trying to expand my own reading*

We don't think of grass  As doing much of anything  Do we? I don't.  But it separates us  From the mud. Grass at night,  Dewed and Shining Ricochets light  Mimics skyward spots As small As its opposite is large As close As its opposite is far.

It only takes two heartbeats to realize I am not a god. ________________________ Thump.  A single beat, a pump of blood through my body, a pulse.  I had ordered my guards away. They were gawking and I was unnerved. It was a natural reaction, considering I was naked and they were not. I walked into the water, staring out at the line of ocean and sky, blueish-gray and blueish-white. It was a clear day - I could see and be seen for a mile up and down the waterfront. I remembered that I can control weather, like the spring rains that water our fields and free us from droughts. I have never been taught this skill, but I’ve been told I have it. So I told the clouds to rain.  THUMP. I hear the second heartbeat in my ears.  The ringing left after the beat gives the illusion that there is no crowd here, there is no noise, there are no street vendors with likenesses of my face and unlikenesses of my body - muscular Pharaohs with none of the weaknes...

Yesterday, I was thinking about how we're all (at least) a little bit tired. Like, when I say that, there are exactly none of us who don't feel like they could sleep right now if they had to. But we also have a spark. A little piece of a part of us that would light up if only given some tinder and a reason to burn. So I'm trying to make today about starting fires. It's brighter, it's warmer, it smells like my grandparents' cabin. Those are things we all want.

I sit, staring at the plain white wall. It's been a typical hot and sweaty Texas day, so now I'm sprawled on my bed with wet skin and hair steaming from the shower, my ceiling fan scooping up my moisture and spreading it around the room. My bed and my wall are exactly alike, staring at each other with their clean, white, blandness. No images or frames, no decorative pillows. Just a blank facade in front of me and beneath me, waiting to be marked, begging to remain pure and simple and boring. I've left it that way for a while. There were girlfriends, somewhere back there in the past, in and out of this room like night terrors. Some were loud, marching in and putting up artistic paintings that read like protests to the simple boredom of my life. They were bold, offensive images that made it hard for me to sleep - confronting me, making me feel broken and confused. Some girlfriends put up quieter images with blue-tones, complimenting my attitude but somehow even more bor...

Prompt for a Scholarship Essay: How do you inspire students? My most persistent motivation for teaching is both from and for one detail about life: it can be beautiful and fun. I know that life is challenging and we all experience parts of it that give us grief, but I believe we all can take part in the best parts of life if we so choose. That being said, I inspire my students to believe in beauty. When I was a substitute for a Spanish classroom for a full semester, we took time to compliment the artistry and adventurous spirits of Spanish-speaking nations. When I taught Introduction to Business for a few months in another substituting role, I asked students to share their dream jobs with me, and found a way to invite personal friends in those jobs to come and share about their experience. In a library classroom, teaching Information Literacy, I made students laugh while learning how to write research papers.  If we can all see beauty and fun in our lives, we can live them jo...