How is it that now that the kids are mostly grown I’m busier than ever? Many days, I feel like my head is about to spin right off my neck, what with all my projects and lists and such. It’s weird. This ramped-up activity is in stark contrast to how I felt when the kids were little: BORED OUT OF MY MIND. With littles to tend — nursings and naps, diaper changes and cleaning-up-afters — life slowed to a painstaking crawl. Killing time was my biggest hobby. No longer! Now I feel like I’m constantly pushing myself to go, go, go. Go running. Make breakfast. Smack out some meals. Bake bread. Text a ..read more

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary; everyday; ordinary; commonplace F4: friends, food, flowers, fun. Cinnamon twists: a new recipe none of us liked. About once a week, this is supper and I am happy. Jam instead of mayo: try it! Deep docks. While I was at work, my daughter made cake. Parallel. If you come see me, there’s a good chance I’ll feed you cheese. What I see. What she sees. Mid-rant. Feed me, Seymour, nom-nom-nom. Set. Barnyard guests. This same time, years previous: on being a family of four, chicken shawarma, garlic flatbreads with fresh herbs, a problem, the quotidia ..read more

I am a total sucker for simple recipes with basic ingredients and outsized promises of greatness, so last month when I came across a NYT recipe for a biscuit that had Eric Kim, a NYT Cooking food writer, saying things like “this biscuit is such a new taste for me” and “very unique” and “so different from any other biscuit I’ve ever had” — and he’s from the South! — I knew I had to make it. Friends, he is right. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but this biscuit is different from regular biscuits. The butter-flour ratio reminds me of pie pastry. The sugar in the dough made me think they’d be ..read more

Days One and Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, and Seven. driving home *** Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. — L.R. Knost *** It’s been two weeks since we returned, but I’m still putting the pieces together. Just the other day my husband said, “Do you think it was intentional that they structured the EJI museum so you felt like you couldn’t escape?”  And only then did I catch on to the planners’ subtle brilliance: the place was actually designed to make gue ..read more

Days One and Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six. Day Seven For our last day, we toured Jackson with Pastor Hugh, a lifelong Southerner. Hugh spoke slowly, rhythmically: sweeping stories bulked up with meaty facts. Thoughtful, meandering exposition punctuated with truth bombs. Roundabout answers that forced me to connect the dots myself. We’d only been with him for an hour or two before it occurred to me that it might be wise to take notes. So I did (thank goodness).  Hugh used a boarded-up building to explain Mississippi’s two deltas: there’s one at the southern part of the state, but ..read more

Day Five, continuedAfter spending the majority of the day with Leroy, we drove to Nanih Waiya, a Choctaw Indian Mennonite Church, for a mid-afternoon lunch of “Indian Tacos” (fry bread with all the fixings — beans, ground beef, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream), sweet tea, pecan pie, and banana pudding. In the meeting that followed, they told us about how their church was bombed three times during the civil rights movement, and a few of the older women talked about growing up as sharecroppers, and how the three groups — Blacks, whites, and Choctaw — didn’t like each other. I don’t know why, one o ..read more

Day Five We met up with our tour guide for the day: Leroy Clemons, a racial equity trainer, and the executive director of the Neshoba County Youth Coalition. We started our tour in front of a church where there was a marker commemorating the three civil rights workers who were lynched in 1964 when Leroy was just two years old: Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman. Standing there, he talked about growing up on the Black side of the tracks in a safe, warm community, and never being afraid, and he told us how all 39 members of the police force were members of the Klan when he was ..read more

For Days One and Two, go here. For Day Three, go here. We spent Day Four touring Montgomery, Alabama and then driving the route of the Voting Rights March, but in reverse — from Montgomery to Selma. Our tour guide was Jake Williams. He knew everything — dates, names, stories: my head was spinning! — and he spoke with an enchanting poetic lyricism. I didn’t write anything down (I was too intent on listening to write), but I do remember that he said regarding an abandoned town: that it “got lost” — which perfectly encapsulated that sad-grief feeling I got when visiting those once-vibrant neighbo ..read more