Melanin + Moxie

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Living Colorfully

Musings

Talented

February 14, 2025
Grace tap-danced across the living room’s parquet floors in her black top hat, bow tie, and dance uniform. I stared, marveled by her new talent. She had just started lessons, and I already thought she was so good. But I wasn’t jealous. Rather, I was proud to be her younger cousin. Proud to be part of a family that had so much talent. I bubbled with excitement about when it’d be my turn to share my talent. Un aplauso por favor, my older cousin, Gretchen, said, mimicking Don Franscico, the  ...

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Wellness

21 Days of Belonging

February 13, 2025
As soon as I read the email, the word whispered in my head. Still, I searched. Wholeness? Healing? Community? What felt safe enough to commit to for 21 days? To publish and share? “belonging” the voice echoed, stronger this time. But I’m tired of talking about belonging. Of trying to find people committed to it. I’m tired of coming up empty. Emptiness, perhaps that’s my theme. Surely, I can write about emptiness for 21 days, right? It’s the perfect topic for a writing challenge. “Belonging”  ...

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Living Colorfully, Wellness

A Modern Love Letter

February 14, 2020
This is going to be long. And it probably isn’t going to go how you think it might. But today is Valentine’s Day and I want to take a moment to give thanks for the power of community, of kind actions, and of love. I’ve been having a *really* difficult few months. The kind of difficult that no amount of bold type, underlining, or capital letters can capture or accurately underscore. In late November, I was diagnosed with suspected endometriosis, adenomyosis, and PCOS. All  ...

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Musings, Relationships, Wellness

On Finding the Merry: After the holiday reflections

January 7, 2019
This image popped up on my “Facebook Memories” today and I had to chuckle. I remembered all the energy I had poured into choosing a wedding day photographer exactly for this reason. I wanted someone to capture the excitement and love and happiness of our day, because I knew that there would eventually be hard days ahead. And I wanted us to be able to look back and to remember the happy moments and how we felt on the day we got married. Little did I know, one of those “hard  ...

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