Won’t You Have These Conversations With Me? Aisha Adkins invites us into the crevices of her life. In her piece, she discusses what it is like to live on the intersection of living with a disability, being a Black woman in the U.S. and being a caregiver. Her piece moves us to reflect on the importance of having meaningful conversations.

Dr. Tamara Pizzoli is an educator and children’s author who has set out to bring representation to teaching tools and storytelling. This Texas-born child of a military father spoke with Aisha Adkins about her journey from small-town academic to Italian resident and innovative author. Please tell us a bit about your background. Where did you spend your childhood? Did you travel much growing up? I was born and raised in Killeen, Texas. It’s a small military town about an hour away from Austin

Likely for millennia, there have been stereotypes associated with people interested in learning about death. Death-talk was often viewed as something for people who wear all black and worship the devil. Newsflash: Everybody dies. Wealthy, working poor, newborn, elderly, queer, cisgender, vertically challenged, statuesque, Latinx, South Asian, agnostic, Muslim… even you. But if death happens to everyone, why are so few people willing to talk about it? Is it the fear of the unknown? Faith doctrine

Does panic set in when a friend asks to meet you at a different restaurant for lunch? Do you suffer a mini-meltdown when the coffee shop runs out of your favorite hybrid pastry? Does your life flash before your eyes when faced with a group project? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may want to ask yourself if you have trouble letting go of control. Throughout my life, I’ve spent a lot of time planning and re-planning events big and small. I meticulously scripted the clothes p

I can still feel the butterflies I got as a little girl walking up to the giant Christmas tree inside of the Seattle Center. It was a giving tree, where hundreds of tags hung from the boughs. Each tag contained the wish list of a child in need. My father would lift me up to get a better look at the tags that hung above my head. When I found one that spoke to me, I collected it from the tree, and the following days would be dedicated to granting this child’s wishes. We returned the following week

Ever since I joined the 21st Century and got a smartphone, I’ve noticed an increase in my anxiety. Why? Because with every event notification, ding, or timeline scroll, I’m reminded of all the social activities in which I’m not participating. Maybe you can relate: Do you cringe whenever you get an event notification on your phone? Are you torn between the decision to put on pants and go to dinner with friends or remain at home streaming the latest season of your favorite show on Friday nights?

Many claim they would go to any length for the person they love. But what if that length was measured in kilometers or miles? What if you left everything that is familiar to you, all for love? That is exactly what Greta Solomon did. She followed her husband thousands of miles away and new love found the couple journeying between Ethiopia, London, and Norway. Greta Solomon’s Black-British identity combines her father’s roots from Nevis and her mother’s roots from Jamaica with her British upbring