I came to Nashville for the same reason that I’ve done a lot of things in the past eleven years– to get away, to make a clean break, to start over. This is one of the less dramatic iterations, seeing as I don’t want to fully wipe the Etch-a-sketch clear and start over altogether, I […]
Last fall, I met a man in front of his home in Hamtramck. His told me that his name was Mr. Ben Jaros, that he was 97 years old and had lived each of those years in this very house (except for the ones when he was enlisted in World War II). I snapped a photo in […]
When I was married, I figured out the perfect plan to make the relationship work: if my husband and I both had strong feelings about a topic, we would compromise. But if one person didn’t care and the other had an opinion, then that person would get what they wanted. It wasn’t complicated or clever, […]
All across America today, as families and friends gather over heaping plates of food, they are arguing or disagreeing or pushing down their feelings about the offensive things being said across the table. Everyone seems to have a grandma or an uncle or a brother-in-law who thinks outrageous things and finds in a holiday meal an […]
Before the media and the politicians got ahold of the collective fear consciousness following last week’s attacks in Paris, individuals reacted naturally in the most vulnerable yet most generous way possible– by opening their doors and homes to strangers seeking shelter from the violence outside. How did the spontaneous hosts know whether or not to trust […]
Post-bankruptcy Detroit is a place of undeniable opportunity, and people from all walks of life are eager to make the most of it. Massive tax foreclosures led to a record 24,000 properties being up for auction this fall, pitting residents against speculators for the chance to buy a home on the cheap. Everyone is trying to take […]
I wrote this song for my mother, Cheryl, to celebrate her 60th birthday. (Audio) Down in the neighborhood when she as young Cheryl was a friendly one who always got along hop the fence right after school oh what a lot of fun- to be jumpin rope and hopin scotch and skip n play n run? […]
If you saw God– if it revealed itself to you thru some miracle or burst of light some inner flame, or burning bush, some apparition or death revoked– you would carry it in you always. You would know.
They used to call it downsizing -but that wasn’t very popular- So then they called it “Right Sizing” -but everyone knew it was the same thing- And then they started calling it “Future City” -but still we knew better. And so, they didn’t say anything. Silently they issued yellow tax foreclosure notices And water shut-off […]
For the first 14 years of my life, I really didn’t talk to boys. It wasn’t really a problem in elementary school and, while it kinda sucked always sitting at the singles table in middle school, it wasn’t that big of a deal. But it was definitely an issue in high school. Girls seemed to measure how much they liked another girl […]
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