When I was in college, I took an American Lit class with a new teacher. He had been hired upon the retirement of a beloved professor and I disliked him simply because he wasn’t his predecessor.
The only thing I remember from the class was the day our professor asked a white student to read a passage from a Flannery O’Connor book that contained the N-word. The room was tense, and a Black student in the back of the room (the only one?) walked out when our fellow student said the word.
We also had a Toni Morrison book assigned that semester.
This past spring, I learned there would be a Mindful Making Retreat about an hour away from me, co-taught by Katrina Rodabaugh and Meg McElwee. I’ve made a number of Meg’s patterns this spring and summer and have been gradually embracing the idea of slowing my sewing down and making it more of a practice than a drive.
That has been a process. My typical M.O. is to bring all my other responsibilities to a halt, let my children run feral, and whip up a top or a pair of shorts as quickly as possible.
As part of my goal to feature a title each month by a person of color, I just wrapped up Woman of Color, by LaTonya Yvette.
Part of me is embarrassed to feature this book – not because it wasn’t beautiful and well written. Instead, it’s because, even though Yvette doesn’t say so, I don’t completely feel like this book was for me, because while I’m a sister in womanhood, but I’m not a Sister.
It’s a theme, not feeling like I belong. It has everything to do with me and my own insecurities.
In that regard, this was the perfect book to read.
I started several times to write about Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church, by Rachel Held Evans. I believe it belongs in its own post, even though I’ve already mentioned it in several other posts in passing.
But while I kept starting the post, I couldn’t get past the first few lines.
Six months ago, I posted from the depths of a crazy long to-read list. When the pile of books gets that high, what happens? Here’s what went down.
