I like that the people here stare without abandon. They watch you intently and without reserve. Even when you watch them watch you they don’t look away, but why would they? It’s a good thing to take notice of someone observing you. It’s a good thing to be seen because…

I am half expecting the country to jump out at me. To have dreams in which a ghost tells me I mustn’t throw mop water outside at night, or roll over a stone from where it lay, or laugh too loud and too late. I’m expecting all the stories I’ve…

I used to say, Let me be fragile like an expensive set of hand-painted china receiving polishing before holiday dinners. Sat on linen cloth and plush towel for protection. Let me be precious like a new-born baby, pre-pandemic, carefully handed over from relative to relative with the room cooing as…

In Annie John, one of my favorite books of Jamaica Kincaid’s, the theme of mother refining daughter lays bare. The nature of refinement by your mother seems harsh to young girls but with age they find it as a preparatory and loving gift. A gift and cycle women who become…

And you should be too — You know the feeling when your imagination takes you to a place or with a thing you want very badly? It’s always a different scenario but each of them hinge on your deepest, innermost desires. Only as quickly as your mind goes there and imagines it enough for you to…

Anna Kendrick surprised me in this one

I ended Yaa Gyasi’s “Homegoing” in the same staff break room I started it in. I haven’t written in a while. I think I’ve felt an inward pausing that’s prompted me to stay silent even though my thoughts are scratching to come out of my own head. I thought about…

The wind in Montréal is multi-lingual. A nearby guitarist strums to the tune of ‘cause we’re living in a world of fools, bringing us down when they all should let us be. Maybe it’s the 10 degree Celsius weather or the Nutella, strawberry, and banana crepe but there is something…

A Black woman in yellow! A star on the street. A dark, Black woman yellow? Stop to stare and say, “saaaaaawweeeeeeeet” A Black woman in yellow! A color match made to meet. For years, I shyed away from a closet of anything yellow. I didn’t want to draw anymore attention…