life lessons

  • 25 Years of My Life

    25 Years of My Life

    I want to tell you about this because it’s important to me. Architecture of Shadows came out of the last twenty-five years of my life. Not in an academic way, but in a lived one. Walking into places people don’t like to talk about. Sitting with people while they shared experiences they had carried quietly…

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  • Mornings Perfect Light

    Mornings Perfect Light

    Morning light. Quiet house. Everything exactly where it should be. It’s six in the morning and I’m lying here listening to my grandsons sleeping at the foot of the bed. They probably stayed up later than they should have, but we were having too much fun to care. Life doesn’t really prepare you for what…

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  • Everyone was Kung Fu Fighting

    Everyone was Kung Fu Fighting

    In fact, I wasn’t. When I was eleven, there was a kid in school named Dwayne Hayes. Everyone called him Didi. For reasons I never quite understood, he and I didn’t get along. Didi fancied himself a kung fu master. He was always kicking, spinning, throwing his legs into the air like he was auditioning…

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  • Everyone was Kung Fu Fighting

    Everyone was Kung Fu Fighting

    In fact, I wasn’t. When I was eleven, there was a kid in school named Dwayne Hayes. Everyone called him Didi. For reasons I never quite understood, he and I didn’t get along. Didi fancied himself a kung fu master. He was always kicking, spinning, throwing his legs into the air like he was auditioning…

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  • Why I Write

    Why I Write

    Why do I write is a question I get from time to time. Most people assume it is for money. It is not. Writing has never been a good way to make money anyway, and I already have what I need in this life. I am grateful for that. I am not chasing more. Some…

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  • Walking With My Father

    Walking With My Father

    I had a dream last night that stayed with me long after I opened my eyes. It felt real in that quiet way some dreams do. In the dream I was walking with my dad at Christmastime. We were at Northwest Plaza in St. Louis, going to see Santa, and I was maybe four years…

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  • Gratitude, Without the Myth

    Gratitude, Without the Myth

    Thanksgiving is a time to understand the meaning of gratitude and thankfulness.

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  • Still Standing

    There are times when I wish I could go back to the days before I saw the darkness for what it really is. Before I understood how deep it runs, not just through the world, but through people too. The difficulty comes when once you have seen that darkness, you cannot unsee it. You cannot…

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  • There is a case to be made that Frankenstein is not just a gothic novel or a cautionary tale about science, but also one of the earlier works of queer literature. Mary Shelley wrote it at nineteen, surrounded by the radical thinkers of her time, many of whom challenged the norms of love, gender, and…

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  • Living at a Safe Distance

    I left the United States eight years ago. People ask me why, and the answer is simple. Until you are part of a minority that is under attack, it is hard to understand what it feels like to wake up every day in that kind of world. You learn to live with a weight in…

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