More on: family

I had wagered more than I could afford to lose on the probability that God was a friend to the orphan and a protector of the vulnerable.

Eileen felt that she should deliver the news of her brother’s death in person. She knew she would provide no solace when the time came, that her presence would only heighten the reality of Brandon’s absence; yet her mother was nearing seventy.

In my family, as in others, it was money that finally broke us apart. The brother who was out—my uncle—was now in; the brother who was in—my father—was now out. An old story, set now in southeast Georgia: Lear in the Low Country, the prodigal son come home to the provinces.

Like you, I’m on a journey, though where I’m going / changes with each moment.

The racetrack, famously built before we knew of such things, straddled a fault line at the joint of two very active plates. As a result, fissures spread through the walls of the old grandstand like capillaries. The world was tearing it apart naturally.

“Literature…can hold up those things that mainstream society doesn’t believe: that Black people are there. One of my jobs is just holding that up to the light so that everyone can see that they’re there.”

Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley on an east Pennsylvania rite of passage.

When I tilt the cup
it drains like a face.

Suffering, I once believed, was a human privilege,
but in that moment I watched as God
died, as God witnessed.

It’s sugar that makes fruit gel. Sugar preserves. Sugar is an everyday miracle. It causes fruit to retain its bright color, until it is brighter than it ever was on the tree. Heat and sugar alchemize to turn a jar of jam into a glowing jewel.