Jitterbugging their way to the Village of the Ancestors

Sujari Britt Dazzles with Elgar Concerto

Where I’ve Been

I know I have been absent from Ourstorian for a number of months. I wish I could report that I was off the grid somewhere relaxing and contemplating the lint in my navel, but the truth is I have been busy researching and writing a couple of articles for publication and mourning the recent losses of family, friends, and elders who have inspired me throughout my life.

Several of those losses have been sudden and unexpected. Others came as a result of lengthy illnesses that theoretically allowed some time to prepare for the inevitable transition. In every case, however, I have felt my world diminishing, vanishing before my eyes.

Memory is no substitute for the here and the now—for the touch of a hand, an embrace, a kiss, the tears and laughter shared, the profound sense of being connected across time and space. But memory is all I have to sustain me in the aftermath of their passing. So I search the places of my heart to recall the melody of our times together … Angelo Harper, Edward Juan Harper, Liz Presley Fields, Dorothy Davis, Amiri Baraka …