Black History Month 2023
On what it means to be a “good” person, grappling with our place in society, and ancestor work through the lens of Black History Month.
Reflection
Goodbye 2022, Hello 2023!
Happy new year! We’re at the end of January, another “unprecedented” year behind us. Nonetheless, I think often of how much of what we’ve experienced these past few years has, in fact, been precedented. Having spent a month in 2023 already, it’s clear that the world is continuing with the same ebb and flow. This is not to say that there is no hope for change. However, you won’t hear me saying “new year, new me” with any kind of seriousness. I do not subscribe to that belief system. We are always growing and changing into different versions of ourselves. This is not simply because of the turning of a clock. I am the same person I have always been. Yet I am utterly unlike the self I was five, ten, and fifteen years ago.
Feeling Good
Birds flying high, you know how I feel
I have a very intense fear of heights. But the thing about having a fear of heights, is that having a fear of heights is not about the fear of being up high, it is about the fear of falling. It is the fear of having nothing to catch you. I have dreams of being in the body of a bird, of flying, and in those dreams I have no fear of falling because I will catch myself on my wings. It is the plummeting crash that I fear. The view from up high is amazing, the fear is the potential to fall.
Hope
It’s funny how life can surprise you. There are so many things that have happened in my life that I regret. Alongside them are things that I do not regret, though some people might think I should. And as I think about where I am going, what paths I am taking forward, I sometimes wonder […]
NaNoWriMo 2021: An Eleven Year Reflection
It is November and that means NaNoWriMo has come around once more. It has been eleven years since I participated in my first NaNo in 2010, and I like to think I have improved a great deal as a writer since that truly egregious novel that I wrote as a teenager and that hopefully never […]
Curated
In the age of the internet it seems as though there’s nothing that doesn’t get put online. Ultrasound photos, obituaries, dance videos, fanfiction, blog posts, selfies (so many selfies), love notes, sex tapes, death threats, music, and so much more. And all of it, they tell you, all of it lasts forever. When those ultrasound […]
Why fanfiction is the only Harry Potter content for me
If it is not related to fanfiction and fan creation, I want nothing to do with Harry Potter. I actively avoid supporting J.K. Rowling in every way I possibly can. Her power and influence is insidious, and permeates almost every aspect of my life, but I cannot abide what she has said and done.
Poetry and Music
I’ve been a poet and a writer all my life. Growing up I wrote poems in journals, on post-it notes, in thank-you cards and letters. Words sprawled across pages, some of them unbearably cheesy, corny, angsty, particularly as I got to high school. For years I have been honing my craft, and I continue to […]
My Fanfiction Journey
When I was younger, I was incredibly shy about how much I loved fanfiction. Ashamed even. Reading and writing fanfiction were solitary activities, and I hid anything having to do with them from all but my closest friends. I became more open about my love of fanfiction and began to blend my identity as a […]
Adulthood, Time, and Direction
One of the first things I thought to myself when I decided to let this blog loose was: okay Talia, what are you going to write about now? What do the people want to hear? After thinking about it for a while, I decided that my first approach would just be to start with telling […]
Another year gone, a new year begun
2020 “won” but there is no competition when a new year has come 2020 was a year full of loss, on both a personal and global scale. The Covid-19 pandemic has reshaped the entire world, and how humanity moves forward from this point will never be the same. One popular meme claims that there was […]
Recentering
I have decided that I am going to take the time to recenter, refocus, and clarify my life. I am taking the steps I need to focus on the things that are most important for me and my mental health going forward. The first step I decided on was that I lowered my reading goal […]
Day 25 — Meditation
This reflection was written on the twenty-fifth day of NaNoWriMo in 2020. I do not know why I do not meditate more often. I know that it would help my mental health — I always feel so much better about myself, and much more centered in general when I meditate, but for some reason I […]
The Garden: A Mediation
The garden is overgrown. Slate had been laid across the dirt to create the patio, but weeds have grown up, died, and grown again between the slabs. I remember when I was a child I would get on my hands and knees and pull on the weeds, the hot summer sun beating down on my […]