Two Sturdy Branches : An Exploration of My Family Tree

A longform portrait of some distant (but beloved) ancestors.

a portrait of my distant (but beloved) Atlantic Creole and Andalusian ancestors

December 10th

I didn’t think I would get to the point where I could write about it.

I’m still not at the point where I can pull together a beautiful, polished, fluid essay about what it’s like to weather a tornado. But I’ve been taking notes, I’ve sat with my feelings, and I’ve documented…

It’s Life

Every December, our family watches It’s A Wonderful Life.

Like many people, the movie resonates with me because of its overarching theme of sacrifice. For years, I’ve been painfully aware of how my mom’s mother’s mother, my great aunt, and both of my grandfathers lived as George…

The Upper Middle South/Lower Middle Class Credo

There will be at least one dollar store within walking distance of the house.

There will always be at least five or six cans of chicken Vienna sausages in the pantry.

That’s News To Me

Thoughts about the ever-changing media world.

In 2013, I was depressed — and I couldn’t hide it. Some days, I barely felt like getting out of bed. But I’d already secured what was basically a full-ride to college — and I ate cheap food and…

Staring Contest

When I was nine or ten, I often went over to a neighbor’s house.

The neighbor, a childhood playmate, lived in a building that would best be described as ramshackle — though that word is still far too quaint to describe the damage inside. In one part of the house, the floor…

Alone With My Thoughts

It’s not easy to be alone.

Sometimes, I get an almost animalistic desire to hide under my desk when I’m the only one in a room, in case someone else walks in. If another person enters the room, it would just be the two of us — and I would feel defenseless. I…

The Idyll

Aunt Ruby worked out in the fields, sharecropping during the Great Depression. Her husband insisted that one of their children was not his…

Bill

My granddad Bill worked in the forests, in the mines, in construction.

He hauled logs down the Ohio River. He helped build canals in Florida. When the family lived in the Keys, he built my father a treehouse overlooking the Gulf.