what am i writing?

It’s been a long pandemic year, and quite quiet on the blogging front. I felt my public voice flustered at the convolution of global crisis, the George Floyd Rebellion, and personal upheaval. I spent a lot of time healing: sleeping, meditating, marching, writing–and a whole bunch of therapy, of course. I’ll share my lived lessons on rest, mindfulness, and self- and collective liberation soon, but in the meantime here is some fiction and nonfiction I’m proud to put my name on. If you’re inspired, please check out my friend Esther’s writing workshop series, Unlocking Creativity!

Excerpt based on the prompt, “the danger of a single story”

Deanna was wiping the counter as a couple of girls she didn’t recognize came into the shop. Carmen was taking a cigarette break just outside the window, watching curiously as the strangers walked in. They were marked as outsiders—their too-pink skin and Ron Jon tees—tourists. Deanna smiled graciously as they entered, fumbling with their beach bags.

“Hi there,” she beamed, “What can I get for you?” She was still perfecting her grind, tamp, pull pattern but felt confident enough to make a few drinks on her own. The girls smiled back and asked for iced caramel lattes with whipped cream. Deanna ground fresh espresso, tapped it out onto the machine insert, tamped it down firmly, and plugged it into the espresso machine for a twenty second pull, then repeated the move from the beginning. She could hear the girls’ tittering whispers between the harsh grinding and low droning of the two machines, but let them have their conversation to themselves. She wondered where they were from—were they Raleigh prep schoolers here for the summer, or New Jersey types down for the week to visit grandparents?

Tourists versus locals was the first and most obvious social grouping in her town in the summer. Tourists gave themselves right-of-way even when they didn’t know where they were going, bought everything they needed as they passed the time, and gave a running commentary on what they did or didn’t like about the island as they moved through it. Locals used the back roads as much as possible, avoided grocery shopping around weekend check-in times, and served the food and drink that sustained the vacationers while pretending not to listen to them gossip. This was the way it had always been, as far as Deanna knew. She gave up seeing tourists as individuals long ago because they didn’t seem to see her that way.

She passed the girls their drinks and recited, “Here you go, have a nice day!” She didn’t like empty, repetitive speech, but there was something soothing about not having to think too hard through these mostly scripted interactions. It gave her a pleasant mask to wear, something to hide the general wounded distaste she had toward this class of invaders. The problem was, it didn’t protect her from open injury.

“Excuse me, we were wondering… do people actually live here?” The disbelief didn’t seem intentionally mocking, but Deanna still felt her whole community’s existence and livelihood thrown into rhetorical question jeopardy. “Um,” Deanna swallowed, smiling still, “Yes, I grew up here.” She glanced out to Carmen for a life preserver, but she was still taking long drags of another self-rolled American Spirit.

The second girl responded more eagerly, more incredulous: “Where do you go to school?” She seemed aghast that this beach, these acres and acres of homes and shops, this town full of people might exist for anything other than her own temporary entertainment.

“Across the bridge,” Deanna replied matter-of-fact, unable to shake her “have-a-nice-day” service persona. When would this conversation end? Maybe the first girl noticed her tensed jawline, because she touched the other girl by the elbow and made meaningful eye contact as she said, “That’s wild, we had no idea. Thanks for the coffee!” Carmen came in, all cheeky grins and secondhand smoke, as the made a quick exit. Deanna was mildly stunned and didn’t hear Carmen ask her what that was all about; she was still watching the strangers giggle and joke their way across the shopping center, off to casually consume someone else’s time and energy for the sake of having nothing better to do.