A PORT IN THE STORM

For my last happy hour with the Governor, I have to scour the cupboard for alcohol. It’s not that I’m a copious drinker, I’ve just been diligently using up the reserves for the past three months or more, and now we’re down little more…

YOU ARE WHAT YOU DO

This afternoon the Governor’s smile was priceless. Yes, yes, we are going to go through the numbers and give you the facts, but after all that, we are going to cut a ribbon here, on one big fat present of a project. They were at La Guardia,…

SOLIDARITY DAY

It was a day of great jubilee. “When freedom come, I didn’t know what that was.” Abraham Lincoln officially outlawed slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, but it wasn’t until June 19th, 1865, that the slaves…

PRAYING TO THE GODS OF GOOD TIMES

Here we are in the (new) summer season, supposedly normal. That is to say, normal with a recent spike in cases here in Berlin, with an entire block of houses, many of them recent refugees, individually quarantined. That is to say, normal as…

STATUES DIE TOO `

My brain had different thoughts underwater. Truth swimming, or sinking, seeping out the cracks. There is an unveiling in this hangover. Unavoidable revealing. Inadequacy sinking. Jealousy rising. Anger. Judgment. Equanimity. Grief. All…

DAY 100

So speaking of elder wisdom, I just made pirogis for your Polish grandma. I made pirogis just so I can learn how to make pirogis, so I could make them for your grandma should I ever meet her, and I did pretty damn well, I must say so. Pirogi…

SAY THEIR NAME

Over the weekend the protests continue, many of them loud, some of them silent. All the lost lives that have already turned to dust in the open grave of humanity are bodies on the street, marching. No man, no woman. No black, no white. No…

COLLECTING THE BONES

This is what we must do. We must say a prayer for our ancestors. We need to dig up and collect their bones. That is what they are crying for. We need to confront the past, recapitulate. Then we can move on. (In the park the ferns have…

HAMARTIA

A Silent Protest If you don’t know me by now — Standing up tall, finding your depth. Me sigue ? O no me sigues todavía ? Every time that Spotify advertises, I take an opportunity to come back to my breath. Ha. I jest. But if…

#BLACKOUTTUESDAY

<Everyone is praying for you> I am brought back into presence by the song of a bird I cannot see. The Governor is asked about the possibility of opening up unemployment offices for socially distanced in-person interactions. He says…