Photo: A little bebe chick. A little bebe Welsummer chick. She and her sisters are larger now–photo at the end of the post!

I was a fool to think I was going to start blogging here every Friday. For starters, I’m not terribly interesting, so there isn’t much to write about from week to week. Second, though, my days are so fluid, even when they are a touch predictable, but adding “sit and write a blog post” time every Friday was a stretch and I should have known better. There is sufficient news, and sufficient time, for me to sit and write something now. For context, it’s a cloudy Spring day in Maryland, and my dogs are enjoying their Saturday afternoon bones in the new-green grass, I’ve done my weeding, planting, and snipping in the gardens, and my husband is working on the tajmahcoop. There is no better time than to sit in the fresh air, drink a little wine, and write a little update.

I suppose I should start by saying that sometime in the deep dark of winter, perhaps in that late January/early February time period, I lost a bit of my mind. I can’t put my finger on why. Anyway, I got lost in Chicken Youtube, which is a delightful mix of Preppers, Religious Zealots, Overachieving Millennials, Hippies, Hipster Millennials, Influencers, and a couple rando TradWives. Only a few are Black, but they are out there and I watch them. Anyway, hours and hours are darkness and Chicken Youtube and existential crisis brought me to the very important conclusion that “Honey, we need to get chickens” and “no, the coops that we saw at the store aren’t good enough” and “neither are the chickens we saw at the store.” Thus, bougie chickens were bought at a local hatchery, a tajmahcoop was co-designed with the engineer husband, many homesteading books were purchased and consumed, and bougie seed was purchased. Because we’re not just gonna get chickens, y’all, we’re gonna grow our feed, too.

This is probably a good time to mention a really interesting substack article I saw this week called, What is Millennial Hobby Energy?, and I didn’t read this article as a total attack on my character at all as I looked at my personal library of embroidery books, quilting books, writing craft books, knitting books, mysticism and spirituality books, homesteading books, and chicken books, not to mention my piles of books I have read and the many, many books I own but haven’t read. Or the yarn stash and fabric stash or very nice bead stash from my COVID lockdown beading…

Shhh…

Anyway, anyway… Chickens. Chickens are the reason why I haven’t been blogging.

Also writing, because there is an open call coming up that I very specifically wrote a story for. And I have also been working on my novel, which is coming along nicely. And then there is the Guild and motherhood and cooking dinner every day and doing this laundry and the dogs poop where they are supposed to and cleaning the house over and over and over again…

See? Very uninteresting.

Except… there are some interesting things…

Like, for example, I found out that the dilapidated on the edge of my property is actually former quarters of 13-15 enslaved people. A family. Siblings born close together in age and their mom.

It has been a lot to process… coming to own a place where owned people lived. In a very American twist of storytelling, I know the names of everyone who lived here. They were listed in the Will of the person who lived in the still-standing farmhouse my neighbors live in now. Their names, their ages, their birthdays. Through internet searching, I’ve found out many of their outcomes… not all of them. I worry there are people buried here and I’ll never know where. I am worried and about the parentage of the people who lived there (because I can’t find the name of a father, though everyone is listed consistently on later census forms as Black, not Mulatto (and yes, there is a distinction for that.)). I’ve spent many weeks thinking about what to do with this cabin, which must come down, yet honor the people who lived there and survived it and walked out of it as emancipated people.

I’ve raged at the idea that all of the people who have lived around this cabin, watching it deteriorate over the decades, told a different story about its origin, buried the truth of it.

With each person I’ve told the story to, I’ve learned something more, including that etchings exist on the wood of the house, both outside and inside. I can’t find the ones inside because the structure is too unstable.

In a world where someone thinks our history can simply disappear because it has been erased from a website or disappeared from a museum, I am acutely reminded that history has a way of lurking, even chasing. I ran from history when I left Massachusetts. I bought it when I arrived without even knowing it. I’m responsible for the history I left and now the history I keep.

We’re all responsible for the history we’ve left and the history we keep. We’re responsible for all of it because it all matters.

All of the people who survived their enslavement and walked out of this cabin as emancipated people either because they reached their 30th birthday or because emancipation was delivered in Maryland in 1864, were all illiterate and remained so as listed in subsequent census forms. Their children, however, were not, according to the records. One actually started a newspaper here in town and went on to be an editor in New York until his tragic death. 1 generation makes all the difference, the first steps in a long, long American journey.

I’m doing my best to find someone who will help me respectfully take it apart because it simply collapses on itself. The hearth of it is beautiful and still good. If I had the money, I’d remove the old wood, keep the mantle, and build a library on the spot, with a little desk, and restore the chimney so someone can light a fire in it. I’d fill it with books written by Black authors. Hang portraits of Barack and Michelle on its walls. I’d whisper to the spirits, here: here is what happened after you walked away from here. Let’s write new stories here. Let this place now be a place for the written word.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to make that happen, but I’ll try. Steps upon steps. Steps upon fitful steps.

Here is one step on that longer journey:

I am an imposter syndrome-filled member of the Clarion West Class of 2025! This is a very wild and wonderful and ridiculous development and I am so grateful and so intimidated and so excited and so ready to take it on! I’ve always admired Clarion West and I have read the extraordinary work of many Clarion West alumni, but I thought it was forever out of reach because it is a 6-week commitment away from home. Even if I wasn’t a mom, I can’t imagine leaving my whole life for 6 weeks like that. (I mean, I did it for college… And that’s, like, the last time I want to leave “home” for extended periods of time.) When I found out it would be online this year, I decided to shoot my shot. I feel so very, very lucky and beyond grateful to be included in this cohort. And for the first time in a long time, I am fully in the spirit of stretching myself and putting myself out there. I’m rooted and ready!

I also have other interesting news that doesn’t seem to be posted in the place where it should be, so I guess I will owe you another post when it comes out. 2025 is most certainly a complex year. There is plenty of wrongness, cognitive dissonance, fear, and frustration… and yet there is also joy and triumph, even progress. It’s strange.

I look forward to sharing more news when I have it. Meanwhile, stay safe out there.