humanity
If nothing else, travel opens your eyes to the colorful quilt that is humankind.
The Sahara
The blazing sun evaporates all water in sight. No sign of life has been seen for hours. His feet vibrate with every step; his blue eyes surrounded by dirt, fair skin turning red, brown hair peeking from a button down shirt wrapped around his head. Not knowing where he is going or why; he slows his pace walking up to an old abandoned boat. Halfway buried in sand, he finds his way in.
By Dominique Taylor5 years ago in Wander
Hometown Magic
Usually peace and tranquillity wrap their arms around the fringes of my childhood stomping ground. This is a place I climbed the rocks as a child at the edge of the Allendale Neighborhood. We would climb the cliffs to the Lake Michigan below, knowing that if our parents knew they would worry about us being swept away by the unrelenting waters. Many have drown in these turbulent tides. Today the water is calm, but back in August 2020, that silence was shattered by seven bullets. Seven bullets unloaded into the back of a black man at the hands of police. Seven bullets shot in his back while he entered his car where his children sat in the backseat. After that fateful day August 23, 2020, my once quiet and tranquil city has had a racial reckoning. People took to the streets in anger. The entire Uptown neighborhood burned down in what is a metaphor for the fires of racism that burn in the Kenosha Community. A privledged white teenage militia member took it upon himself to protect and defend the streets of a city that he doesn’t even live in and took the lives of two protestors with an assault rifle. This assault rifle became a symbol of the white privilege that Kenosha has grown to embrace. While police threw curfew violating people of color in jail over curfew violations. They tossed bottles of water to this white teenager with his gun as an “atta boy” type of gesture. It has been six months since that day, and our city is attempting to heal. Unfortunately the hashtag that rose from the ashes of Uptown after the riots has a divided message. #Kenoshastrong for those of us who want to see a new more equitable Kenosha see #Kenoshastrong as a movement towards a better justice system that truly echos the message, “Erected by the People of Kenosha County to the Cause of a Just and Capable Governement,” etched on the stone above the grand entrance of our Kenosha County Courthouse. My father spent almost 20 years committed to working as a Court Commissioner committed to justice and equal rights for all. I often wonder three years after his death how he would feel that the steps of the Court house have seen tumultuous protests since the nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd in May and June. I believe that my hometown is a place that truly can serve everyone in the community as do many other community activists who have taken to the streets, the screen, and the paper calling for unity and change. Faith communities have come together to work for social justice. Unfortunately there is a divide between working class Uptown and upscale Dowtown. I am worried about the effects of the fire that burned out Uptown and the possible gentrification that could grip a once diverse neighborhood full of people helping people. It seems that the priority is more division in the wake of tragedy. In spite of the ongoing racial divide, I still call Kenosha my home. Today I have hope as I cast my vote for what could potentially be the first judge of color in Kenosha County. This is the dawn of a new day. Hope springs from the shores of that tranquil Lake where I played with my childhood friends until the street lights came on and my mom would yell down the street for me to come inside for dinner. It is a place I grew up feeling safe. A place I learned to love everyone no matter who. A place that a community activist can bring back the magic of Christmas with letters and sleigh bells delivered in the middle of the night to small children. I wrote 60 of those “Santa Letters” because even as an adult in my forties, I believe in the magic of a place I call home, Kenosha, Wisconsin.
By Elissa Werve5 years ago in Wander
Midwest Memories
To some, Woodstock, Illinois is just a tiny dot on a map clumped in with Chicago. I did not spend my childhood here nor is it the place I have lived the longest - but for my family it earns the title of home, where 3 generations are preserving and creating memories.
By Janine McCollum 5 years ago in Wander
Peach Road
It was a wild idea. The kids were grown and living lives of their own all over the country. Why not make our escape from the drum of urban life? The heavy energy weighing heavier each year. The demands of work, mortgage and responsibility never seem to lighten. Life had become more about what we have than who we are. This reality had allowed a sadness to seep in.
By Kristine Drews5 years ago in Wander
The Inevitability of Change
When quarantine started, the first event that clued me in to the fact that things would soon be different was the shutting down of our town’s Jiffy Lube—my boyfriend’s primary source of income. The second was that I couldn’t get through to the tattoo shop where I had booked a touch up appointment for the work I had done on Valentine’s Day. No answering machine. Just a request to call again at some other time. I didn’t call again for about six months. I still haven’t had that tattoo fixed. Things like that seem so insignificant now.
By V. N. Roesbon5 years ago in Wander
The Identity of a Landscape
Week 1 - Landscape as PLACE Silver, yellow, white, white, blue, grey, red, black, grey, grey, green, silver, and forever continuing in a seemingly random pattern all in two straight vertical lines. This, my friend, is a carpark; a place you and I are most likely both familiar with. Glorious, isn’t it?
By Eloise Robertson 5 years ago in Wander
Road to self
I once came upon a silent place on the very bottom of a valley where monks, one after another, would exile for the remainder of their lives. I sat on that same bench where for an indefinite amount of time, the drought days of summer through winter’s breeze used to pass through the glance of a man. He might have felt every branch shake, every thunder, every bloom and blizzard, while his posture was slowly imitating the rose beside me.
By JPhilip Naim5 years ago in Wander
Trash Can Morning
Trash Can Morning Excerpts from Queen of the Can Openers A series on becoming homeless or not! It is February 14, 2021 Valentine’s Day. It is 6:15 AM. The wind is blowing the heavy plastic bag on my backside so tight against my skin that I am sweating. I’ve learned how to live out in nature and this morning’s glory of waking up listening to the sounds of the crashing waves is heart filling. The sky is cloudy but not foggy. The sun is barely awake and beaming its beauty. There are already bodies in wet suits trying to catch a ride in from the morning waves. The waves are restless and even more active than a few days ago.
By Lynn Denise Puckett5 years ago in Wander
Feels Like Home
I’ve always had this wanderlust inside of me. A restlessness that simply wouldn’t let go. From my earliest years, I remember the little explorer in me running off to the vast forest behind our family home. That little girl would skip and twirl in the dappled light filtered by a million leaves! Or is it a million and one? She’d try to count them all, lose her place and have to start all over again. Inevitably, she’d tire, pause to rest in a patch of sun and fall asleep from her efforts. The magic of the day would begin in the still of the moment at sunrise. From her bedroom window, she’d watch the sky magically come alive cascading from darkness to deep indigo, to hues of pink, rising in a crescendo of fiery orange! The glow would be heart stopping, then just as suddenly – Poof! Gone in a flash! She’d open her window, to try to catch the magic in her tiny hand. The challenge was to hold on to that magic you see! To carry it with you all day; To blow on a dandelion that had gone to seed and make a wish; To run and catch the end of the rainbow; To live the most each day!
By Julie Godfrey5 years ago in Wander
Rainstorm
Yesterday, I got caught in a rainstorm. I wanted to go for a walk, to prepare for all the hiking I plan on doing in March. I ended up going further than I planned and got stuck under that bat bridge for about forty minutes. My dad did come and pick me up, as he was on his way home from work and we now live together. I felt a little like a child, embarrassed only to myself that I needed saving. I was ill prepared. I didn’t even think about the rain, I just ran out there because I really wanted to. And for it, I got soaked, stranded, frozen. And I loved it.
By Nick Blocha5 years ago in Wander
