Mud → Lotus

Posted on February 22, 2026 by reginadma

“Most people are afraid of suffering. But suffering is a kind of mud to help the lotus flower of happiness grow. There can be no lotus flower without the mud.” —Thich Nhat Hahn

No mud,  no lotus

I don’t remember every distinct time I got grounded, but when I did, it was the same. The punishment was extreme, isolating, painful and incredibly long to endure. I remember one specific time when I was grounded. I snuck a book to help pass the time. As I mentioned in the offering Grounded, reading, just like listening to the radio or drawing, or playing cards, was strictly forbidden. I was instructed to just sit in my room with nothing to do.

I don’t cringe when I think about this time in my life anymore…not too much anyway. The memory will sneak up on me every once in a while and I’ll be able to process the memory and the accompanying feelings and keep it moving, and other times, like a few other memories I have, I’ll say, “oof,” to myself or out loud. It hurts. I cringe writing this, however. I cringe in the act of writing down such a horrible and painful thing to do to a kid, to me. I feel vulnerable writing this knowing people I do not know will read my experience. But, as I offered in the Introduction of You Talk About Race Too Much, I said, without baggage, as of late, I have felt I can and want to do more, and maybe you do, too. We get to decide for ourselves. I also said, I love a good journey. I love a good story. I love exploring and learning. And, well, my childhood is quite the journey that got me to where I am today, strong and powerful.

I do find myself in a well-worn habit of deflecting to this day when I reflect on my childhood and my journey out of being poor and working poor. Yes, it was horrible, but, other kids had it and have it way, way worse than I did. Yes, it was horrible, but at least any number of terrible things that could have happened to me, didn’t. Yes, my childhood was very difficult, but some people are actually in solitary confinement. Yes, it was a difficult childhood, but I also have very fond memories. When I habitually deflect, I don’t allow myself to acknowledge that when viewed alone, my situation was simply bad. That’s it, period. I don’t need to qualify. Do you ever find yourself deflecting a painful moment? If you do, is it to lessen the pain you felt, or to put the focus on something else, perhaps something more positive? If you do deflect a painful moment, when did you start deflecting?

Regina in a DC Green Book tee-shirt

More on the motivation

I have noted throughout this project, and will continue to mention, that I am very much a participant in this art project, just like everyone who is reading my words, viewing my photos, listening to my building soundtrack, and at a later time, reviewing resources that inspire me. For me, art is not linear and I anachronistically began the project almost in the middle. I didn’t know it at the time. The first several offerings I wrote, I realized, would need to come much later in the project for those pieces to fit the full concept taking form in my mind’s eye. I then began to play around with a notion: for you to understand my positionality for some of the things I want to tell you and ask you about, for you to understand how I came to think this way or present this way, you first need to know more about me, about my core. And if you come to see the stitchings and the weavings and braiding, palimpsest building, fermentation and the scarring of how I came to…be, that you will see I come in peace, I come in love with vulnerability, so when I ask you to participate with me, maybe you will. I am curious about your thoughts.

Invitation

Specifically, with my being grounded as a kid, and my memory of that grounding and the other groundings I received, they are a key, very, very important moment in my life. I don’t want to just share this with you, I am inviting you into this specific moment with me. The moment has so few details I remember, as I mentioned, but the essence of what was happening, I remember so distinctly. I remember and feel it as a very difficult time, but also it is undeniable to me that it was also a key moment in shaping who I am.

I wanted to share this particular piece directly on the tail of my offering, Grounded, as a way to deepen the feelings. To the degree you feel you would like to, please join me in this memory. It may be hard, so please make this decision for yourself with the love and compassion you deserve and need. I will remind myself to take deep breaths in, hold at the top, and a long breath out of equal or longer measure.

Kind of like a Ghost of Christmas Past, we can imagine and feel the moment, maybe even set a scene. You didn’t experience this with me, but I invite you to see and to feel with me. To be in this moment, as a kid, so angry, and bored, and frustrated. Grounded. Grounded with nothing but the passage of time to change the scene. Nothing but the passage of time. Nothing. But the passage of time. And listening to the sounds of my quiet house. For 10 hours.

For 9 hours.

For 8 hours.

Maybe I’ve asked my mom to use the bathroom at this point. Got the courage up to ask, parted the anger enough to talk and ask. And there was relief in walking out of my room, into the bathroom. The bathroom probably never seemed so interesting to me before. The window overlooking the backyard to the small purple and white lilac trees, the clothesline…the border of bramble in the backyard that gave way to some trees and then a field across the way that had one solitary horse in it for years; the bathroom tub faucet perpetually leaking, the hot water knob broken long prior and replaced with a small wrench so we could turn it on and off, but not all the way off. And then back into my room.

For 7 hours.

For six hours.

For five hours left until…bedtime. Maybe I’ve had a meal at this point.

For four hours.

For three more hours until it’s time to go to bed. Bedtime never seemed so exciting.

For two more hours.

One hour left until it’s time to go to bed. And I go to bed, and at some point, I go to sleep. 

The Earth rotates around the sun

Every once in a while, when I read the New York Times, there is an art prompt. Can you look at an image of a painting they’ve selected for 10 minutes? The idea being, many people, when we look at art at a museum, we spend about 33 seconds looking at it before we move onto the next piece, a kind of drive-by viewing. And when we do not give our focused attention to the piece of art, we miss perhaps a blob of paint here that may or may not have been intentional, or an expression on someone’s face here, or a dog in the corner over there., a seam in the canvas over there, scissor marks on cut out pieces of paper. We do not give our mind and our body a chance to relax, and just be with the piece of art. To just be and in the being, to look, to observe, calm in mind and body. I love that prompt and I recommend trying it yourself if you haven’t already.

And at some point, it’s the next day. And the countdown until freedom continues because the punishment is 24 hours, the clock starting at the command of, “go to your room.”

The god damn book

I wish I could remember the name of the contraband book I snuck. I was so starved for stimulation. I was understimulated and agitated. I remember there wasn’t a lot of activity in my house, my parents in their bedroom with the door closed, watching TV. I’m not sure where my sister was—maybe in the living room watching tv. I made the decision to read to help my mind, to speed up the drippingly slow passage of time. 

And I got caught.

I wasn’t fast enough to shove my book under my pillow so that as my mom walked by, out of her bedroom into the hallway, she had a clear view of me in my bedroom. It took my mom one step to cross out of her bedroom into the hallway, a second step to be already past my bedroom. Two steps. As she walked by, I almost simultaneously put my book under my pillow. Almost. I was too slow. How was she so fast? Where did she come from? How had I not heard the door open? Was the door not open, but then why would I have attempted to read with their bedroom door open?

I will never know the answers. But what I do know is that she saw me. She saw me putting my book away under my pillow. And what she said plunged me into a rigid, deeper despair. It was all one fluid motion: her walking by, one step, me putting my book under my pillow, and as she took her second step she said, “Another day,” and kept walking.

Despair, tight, rigid but with so much energy. Anger. Like the atoms inside a piece of wood: confined and solid, waiting for an opportunity to burst out.

Another day added onto my punishment, my grounding. Twenty-four more hours.

Twenty-four more hours. It was daylight, and then, after many, many hours, the sun would begin to set…

And, then, to protect myself, to help me in the moments of this grounding, I bring back my thoughts: This is survivable. I told myself that. One day, it wouldn’t be like this. It just wouldn’t be. I knew that to be true. But I had to get through this grounding first in order for it not to be this anymore. The passing of a day. This is survivable. Just get through it. It won’t always be like this. It won’t always be like this.
And the reason why this specific moment pearled an indelible part of who I am is because, in that moment, I settled into a depth much farther than my current despair at the situation, a deep, deeper still, depth of patience that I am not sure would have rooted inside of me. Patience. A gem. For me. Still water runs deep. I knew, because I knew I was going to survive this moment and other unknown moments. I would. I knew that. I just had to be patient. To look far into the future from where I am in this present moment, good or bad, but to know that the present moment, would at some point, become the past and that an unknown future moment would become my present. And that eventually, I would be making decisions for myself, for my life. But first, patience. I first had to get through childhood.

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Grounded

Posted on February 20, 2026 by reginadma

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.” —Marcus Garvey

A memory: I was grounded. I was maybe in 5th grade? I was young. The infraction I don’t remember because it wasn’t memorable. It wasn’t anything I am sure. I was an extremely good kid, and I was living in a very toxic environment. I knew the punishment had nothing to do with me, even then. But back then, I didn’t know anything about the very old, very loving amygdala, not about mine, not about my parents’, or my sister’s. I didn’t know anything about emotional regulation. I didn’t know a lot, but I was learning and adapting very quickly.

My parents’ emotions, for a lot of reasons, their childhood or lack thereof, their poverty growing up, their life experiences and how people around them modeled behavior, their chronic economic hardship, were unregulated. Even with one data point alone: my mom had me when she was 21 years old, she had my sister two weeks after turning 19. They had a lot going on as individuals, as a married couple (my mom’s second marriage, my stepdad’s third…maybe second. I’m not sure.), and as a family. We had a lot going on in our tiny, tiny house. So, their big emotions meant punishment for us kids.

The Crush

The family facing external pressures, combined with inherited trauma and Trauma, without regulation may turn on itself, lash out at itself, for relief. Mine did. A toxic environment; a harmed and harming household, no one is immune to the churn, to the grind. Being good was the best way I knew how to try and prevent punishment. If you’re good, you can’t get in trouble. Right? I tried to be accommodating to avoid stirring any ire or tripping any wrath. But like a veterinarian once said to me when I was looking for counsel on an aggressive dog who had bitten me several times, the best you can do with a dog that is being aggressive at that level, is manage the dog. Management is the best you can do. Manage the dog so it’s not put into a situation where its aggression will be triggered. But, like anything that is managed, the veterinarian told me, at some point, something is going to break down. Someone is going to drop a fork and go to pick it up, or get up too quickly, or, or, or. 

Have you ever been grounded? What was that like for you?

Being grounded at my house meant, “go to your room.” And what “go to your room” meant was no tv that day. But it also meant no radio listening on my pink radio in my room, no card playing, no drawing and no reading. There was no activity allowed. Just sit there, and think.

Being grounded in my household was very harsh, near solitary confinement for a minor infraction meant to relieve the dysregulated big emotions of my parents, certainly not to provide guidance to a child. It was near solitary confinement because I could hear the family in our small house. Not that there was a lot of talking happening anyway. I could see my sister if she walked in and out of her room, or my mom if she went in or out of hers.

I was allowed “out” for meals that my sister, mom and I would eat at the kitchen table. I had to ask to use the bathroom.

I don’t remember details of the meals. But, I am curious: were we so flooded by cortisol that the situation happening to me was normalized? Did we just carry on a conversation as if I were not being so extremely, harshly punished? Or were we all in shock a little bit by my presence? Did I make a plea to be released? Did I refuse to speak at all? What was my sister feeling? What was my mom feeling?

You can save…yourself

And for me, this grounding was awful and it sucked and I was mad, and dysregulated but I do not remember ever thinking, “this shouldn’t be happening. This is not okay.” I thought other things. I thought, who could give me a lifeline out? Was someone going to give me a lifeline out? No. No one was. So, I stopped thinking about that. I understood there wasn’t anything that I could do about this moment. There was nothing I could do to change the situation, so, I thought, all I needed to do was get through it. Time would pass. It would. Regardless of what was happening to me, time was still going to pass. The time would come when I would be allowed “out.”

This is survivable. I told myself that. One day, it wouldn’t be like this. It just wouldn’t be. I knew that to be true. But I had to get through this grounding first in order for it not to be this anymore. The passing of a day. This is survivable. Just get through it. It won’t always be like this. It won’t always be like this.

And, it would be years still after this specific grounding and the few that came after that one, that my singular idea would begin to take shape. A singular idea that gradually became a singular plan that didn’t have much of a blueprint to it…yet. But, as the plan became that blueprint, I know my grounding, my punishment, helped generate the design of that blueprint. I talk about the nascence of the plan in Hardship.

When the kernel of that singular idea came to me, to not be poor, it was connected to something else, something bigger…it wasn’t distinguishable from the goal to not be poor. Connected to getting out of poverty was getting out, period. Getting out of my house. To not be poor meant I had to get out of my house. There was something in me, during those moments of confinement that said you will survive this. You will. And you will get out.

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Reading

Posted on February 19, 2026 by reginadma

“And a month after this, James Blouis, our landlord’s son was attending High School, and was very fond of grandmother, so she asked him to give me a few lessons, which he did until the middle of 1861, when the Savannah Volunteer Guards, to which he and his brother belonged, were ordered to the front under General Barton.” —Susie King Taylor

A memory: at the beginning of one of my shifts at the rehabilitation and long-term care facility, the day receptionist, who was also my supervisor, told me a family member of one of the residents complained that I had been reading a book. So, because of that complaint, she said I shouldn’t really do that. She was really nice about it, but I was shook. I probably said okay, and apologized. But…ultimately, what I needed to know was, was I in trouble, with my job?

I had never been in trouble at any job before. What did it mean to get in trouble at this place? What would happen?

What did I look like to the person who complained that I was reading a book that they wanted to put a stop to it?

Realizations

At some point, maybe even later that same day, I reflected on this new predicament I found myself in. In my reflection, I went through the numbers. No one had ever expressed any displeasure with me. Ever. And I knew that because I was then and am now, an extravert. An extra-extravert. Being the friendly face of the facility was something I was very good at. I greeted everyone who came through the front door, some people even stopped and chatted with me. I answered the phone whenever it rang with such a pleasant, high-pitched voice of greeting. I talked with the residents when they came to the lobby if they wanted to talk. I completed all of the filing that needed to be accomplished. Yes, filing…paper filing, rolex cards that were filled out…in pencil that needed to be put back…in a rolodex. I knew I was doing a good job and this complaint was hurtful and stressful.

Rule Following was my jam

By this point in my young life, I was a trained rule follower and semi-professional people pleaser. But more than people-pleasing, first and foremost I was a rule follower. Getting “in trouble” was anathema to my survival tactics I had adopted and activated in my life. So I tried to comply. I tried.

But, I was so understimulated, and had so much studying to do… it took me not very long at all to break this new rule. Was this a rule or a request? Within the first 4-hour shift where I was told to “stay busy” and not read …I was writing a little…then I was reading a little. Then I was doing my work because I could not throw away precious hours of studying.

Being complained about wasn’t on my radar of something that could happen to me, because I was doing a good job. Honestly, the way my life was unfurling, I didn’t really know people complained about other people doing their job.

I was friendly and helpful and agreeable. Complaining to a supervisor about someone who is sitting quietly and had probably just said hello to you had never occurred to me before as something that could happen. That someone would find a supervisor and complain about reading…quietly, after being greeted with warmth by that same person.

No one ever complained about me reading again—well, nothing that was brought to my attention. I kept reading and writing and studying.

What happened to the day receptionist

And, fun story, the day receptionist put in her notice because she and the man she had met on Craig’s List were going to get married. It was very hush hush according to the day receptionist who told me all about it. Meeting someone and falling in love with someone through a Craig’s List connection was very taboo for many. He lived in California and she was moving there to be with him. Her family was not happy with her decision, because according to them she was moving to California to throw her life away right before she was murdered. She would throw her life away first, and then she would be murdered. She told me the situation with her family was a bit dramatic. I wished her well. I would move for love one day, I didn’t know it yet.

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Control

Posted on February 17, 2026 by reginadma

“The body is a sacred garment.” —Martha Graham

While working a part-time job at a country store, I enrolled at the University of Maine at Augusta (UMA), same as my sister. We would both become the first in our family to have a college degree.

Soon after I got my first ever job and enrolled in college, I got a second 36-hour a week job at a rehabilitation and long-term care facility. My sister, who at the time was a Certified Nursing Assistant and Med Tech at their affiliate location told me about the job. For three reasons, in descending order, this job was very, very important to me:

3. The job paid better than the job at the country store and offered more hours. That meant I would have more money.

2. I could work this new job that offered more hours at more pay on top of working my first job at the country store and still have the flexibility to take classes at UMA.

1. The job at the nursing facility offered health insurance. 

Obtaining health insurance was a very, very significant feat in my ultimate goal of not being poor. Having seen my parents both work well more than 40 hours a week most weeks, work most days, I was already conditioned to work as much as I needed to pay my bills. So the fact that the second job paid better than my first job was a bonus, but it wasn’t the thing.

To have health insurance, to me, meant that you had a job of a certain standing; health insurance symbolized accomplishment in life, that your job was stable; that you could take care of yourself, that you’d “made it” to some degree higher than if you didn’t have health insurance. You were further away from poor. Obtaining health insurance felt more important than attending college, than saving money, than learning how to drive. Having health insurance meant control. I was starting to take control over my own life. If something catastrophic were to happen, I would at least have some paid-into financial coverage to thwart financial ruin and complete disaster.

Having health insurance didn’t mean I could use the insurance, or if I did, it was for very rare occasions. To use the health insurance, I knew, would cost extra, and I by no means had extra.

Having a job that offered health insurance meant that I could relax just a little within myself. It meant I could focus a little more of my attention on my damn blueprint and figure out what the rest of my design was intended to look like; what I and my life would look like to not be poor.

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$9/hour

Posted on February 11, 2026 by reginadma

“Never forget, people DIED for the eight hour workday.” –Rebecca Gordon

Calculating how many hours it will take to survive

In college I worked several jobs at once. I meticulously tracked and logged how many hours I worked across all the jobs I had because all of my jobs were paid by the hour. I needed to know I was going to make enough in a week to pay for my basics. Many weeks, I worked 61 hours a week.

One of my part-time jobs was at a boutique travel agency in Augusta, Maine. The time period was probably 2000.

The travel agency had relationships with villas in Italy among other countries and Suzanne Cohen, the business owner, needed me to mail very beautiful, almost table-book style brochures, to clients and potential clients, open mail and a number of other tasks. People would call Suzanne and her travel agents to help them book villas for a week, two weeks, a month, two months. Suzanne had stayed at all of the villas and knew the villa owners. She had eaten at all of the restaurants in the areas where the villas were situated. People called her travel agency to talk to humans who could recommend where to stay and what fun and interesting excursions they could take based on their interests and the interests of their family. We had all survived Y2K, but from what I saw in my daily work at Suzanne’s, the internet was used minimally.

I worked for Suzanne and her team for maybe a year and a half. In 2000, the federal and state minimum wage was $5.15 an hour. I started my job at around $8 an hour and that starting pay was a big deal for me to close the gap of what I needed to meet my basics each month: rent, gas, food, books, tuition. That was a lot of money for me considering it paid more than my “main” job where I worked 36 hours a week.

A widening of what is possible

I remember one day Suzanne came into her living room (we worked out of her very beautiful home) where I was at the big oval table stuffing brochures into large envelopes and she said to me, something along the affect of, “you’ve been doing a great job and I’m going to give you a raise to $9 an hour.” I remember being so stunned. I remember rising from my chair and the legs of the chair getting stuck on the rug and not being able to really pull the chair out from under me and saying something to the effect of, “wow, thank you.” And I just said thank you a few more times, really unsure if I should hug Suzanne because the other two women who worked at Suzanne’s travel agency were her friends and the atmosphere was very friend-forward, very fond, lots of laughing between calls and friendly. But that was their long-term friendship, not mine. Do you hug your boss?

Suzanne didn’t know much of my background. She knew I was in college, but she didn’t know my financial situation. I know I definitely would not have talked with her about it because I talked to nobody about it. That I had left home before graduating high school and landed in the family home of a dear friend of mine for a year and some change before venturing out on my own. Though, it probably wasn’t hard for a woman in her late 50s to put a situation together to know I was definitely paying my own way. But I do know with certainty, I worked hard for her, I liked being there, I added positively to the atmosphere of her workplace and the ability of the team to accomplish other tasks. Her business was successful, Suzanne saw the value in my employment and she gave me a raise to reflect that value.

Suzanne had no idea that growing up, my sister, my mom and I would lament the terrible workplace atmosphere my mom had to endure. I talk about those nickel raises in my piece Hardship. The embarrassing and degrading nickel, literally $0.05, raises my mom would get from a multi-national oil and gas company that from my perspective, and from what my mom saw, was doing very, very well financially. My mom worked at first as a cashier and then as the assistant manager of one of their many convenience stores that also sold gas. She worked so hard at that company on her feet most of her shift, putting in well more than 40 hours a week each week, seeing the money coming into the store because she worked the cash register and completed the books at the end of the shift, plus she ordered the inventory. There was a lot of profit and not a lot of value placed on the people who helped to make that profit possible. My mom, my sister and I were so angry and upset about her situation almost every day. But, she needed the job. We needed her to have the job. There were good days at her job, of course, there always are if you want there to be, but that job took a lot out of my mom and they didn’t pay her well for what they extracted from her.

I remember rising from my seat in Suzanne’s living room, getting my chair stuck on the rug as I tried to push back; I remember the tears* in the corner of my eyes that appeared once I comprehended what she had said to me—the raise truly was out of the blue for me. And I just stood there, saying “thank you so much, Suzanne.” I didn’t move. I froze. I didn’t know what to do, and I just stood there, very overwhelmed by what I did process as kindness to me. My very old, very loving amygdala froze me in place, working to protect me from…something. I was feeling something and the moment called for stillness.

Intentional support from very specific and dear people in my life

In Hardship, I talk about very specific and very dear people in my life whose intention and support helped me unseal from the muck of poverty that holds so many so tightly. Suzanne is one of those people. Though our lives didn’t overlap for that long, she had an influence on me during a period of my life when I was learning and doing all at the same time. I was learning how to be on my own as a very young and sheltered 20 year old, I was doing my life by going to college and working to pursue that goal.

Suzanne was wealthy and I found that fascinating. Because of her life she was wealthy and I didn’t know very many wealthy people, not that I could point out anyway. I wished I was wealthy. Her husband died years before and she remained wealthy—she wasn’t plunged into poverty because of the loss of his income. She owned her own business and she could afford to travel, let alone that her business was travel. She made decisions and she was coming and going, independent in her own life that to me, she seemed to enjoy quite a bit. She employed people and she shared the profits of our work, willingly. She had ease.

Power

Suzanne had the power to increase my pay by a whole entire dollar. That she increased my pay because she could, not because she had to due to a pay scale structure, was not something I’d ever experienced before in that way. She was already paying me, in my mind, so much more than the minimum wage. This was not a nickel raise. This was not a coveted and rarely given quarter raise that for my mom represented so much about what her job was willing to do for her, what she meant to them.

But, before representation of the gesture and comprehension of what the raise would mean for me financially, I felt. I felt deep, deep relief. Relief that had an accompanying body sensation in the back of my stomach through the middle of my back. Like warm water flowing in my muscles and veins. Some of the burden I carried every day maybe would ease for me. Also, I felt cared for and seen by my employer, by an older accomplished person.

Suzanne’s raise represented for me, a 20-something year old kid trying to make ends meet in central Maine that my journey might be different than my mom’s, or my stepdad’s. In Hardship, I mentioned that my inchoate goal was simply to not be poor. DO NOT BE POOR. Very Hemingwayian in its bare bones simplicity. A goal like that can leave a lot to the imagination and it was around this time that I began to add texture to my goal, that it was a possibility to add texture. I filled in my DO NOT BE POOR goal with layers of what I wanted my life to be.


From Suzanne, I saw and learned care and humanity could be part of the bare minimum for some workplaces. That care and humanity were a given  choice and the work could build around those basics as a choice was illuminating to me, and groundshifting. And something I would carry with me for the rest of my life.

*Those in my life know that I cry a lot about a lot of things. I’ve written about that, too. Commercials, movies, moments…And I recently learned in 2025, that people who cry a lot the way that I do, are actually processing information in the moment, are adaptable and empathetic. I’ve never minded being someone who is quick to tear up, luckily, too, because it happens all the time, and this new piece of information, true or not, I love.

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Hardship

Posted on February 3, 2026 by reginadma

“If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.” —Harriet Tubman

Realizing your life situation is not…amazing

I grew up in a working poor upbringing. There was struggle for and in my family. I didn’t have insight into why the struggle was happening, and happening for so damn long. I just understood my stepdad had a job that paid really well, and then he didn’t have a job that paid really well. Struggle was how it was.

My perception of what was happening around me was through a child’s lens. And what I saw was, both of my parents worked…a lot. They worked shift jobs, my stepdad’s job was on his feet all day in boots; same for my mom until she got a different job that allowed her to sit part of the shift to do paperwork. Knowing what I know now, I’m grateful that their main hours were consistent. My mom was home a lot for dinner. Together, they just didn’t make enough money in the 40 hours they worked each, so they more often worked double shifts and extra hours to hold onto the life they had built.

Dignity for workers is a choice

When my mom would get nickel raises, I remember how shitty she, my sister and I felt with such a small increase in her pay. She deserved more than that! After taxes from her paycheck, the nickel didn’t amount to anything that was significant to her, or for us, and therefore for our family’s financial well-being. Sometimes, her raise would be an entire quarter, and that was good. A quarter, after taxes, still bumped up her paycheck. A quarter was a whole hell of a lot more dignified.

In the moving picture of my life, I look back on my childhood, and see my family sealed and sucked into airtight mucky mud of working poor status. And I hated it. I was very aware of being working poor. I’ve heard that phrase throughout my life, “we were poor but I didn’t know it.” Oh, I knew it alright. I was aware, from what I perceived through seeing and hearing, the kind of working poor we were. I also knew it could be a lot worse. But I also knew from what I observed through seeing and hearing, things could also be a lot better. And, at some point, because of the day in and day out of my childhood into my adolescence, I began to formulate one singular idea, and then one singular plan that didn’t have much of a blueprint to it, and that was to not be poor. I didn’t know how that was going to happen. For the longest time, as an adolescent, I just relied on my New England Capricorn stubbornness that I would will my plan into existence.

Growing Power

I did become unsealed from the muck of being working poor. Fast forwarding the moving picture of my life, with intentional support from very specific and dear people in my life, and with the random acts of kindness from others at just the right time and in just the right intervals, education and community volunteering, work experience, sheer damn luck and with opportunity, came better jobs, better paying jobs, better paying jobs that I really loved. Slowly, slowly, slowly over years and years I began to be unsealed from the physical grip of the working poor strata. Physical, meaning I had more money in my bank account, or, really, I had any money in my bank account. Unknown to me, it would take me further more years to unseal myself from my working poor strata spiritually. And there are days I know I’m still connected, and I always will be.

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Vulnerability

Posted on February 2, 2026 by reginadma

“I’m not going to hide from what’s true just because it hurts.” —Toni Morrison

Amygdala lovefeast

Feeling vulnerable, feeling open to harm, to attack, to criticism, isn’t something many of us delight in. Certainly, our very old, very loving amygdala is present, ready and prepared to respond to any perceived threat well before we are physically aware there is a threat. Our very old, very loving amygdala doesn’t distinguish physical harm from emotional harm, or even discomfort. That is where we come in, we have the ability to distinguish, we have the ability to create patterns our amygdala can distinguish and understand so we’re not unnecessarily in flight, fight, freeze or fawn mode.

But but for real

Before I say another word, I am compelled to share a learned pet peeve of mine. When I was coming up through learning how to give presentations, I learned about a common pitfall people often set for themselves. Right at the beginning of their talk, people will take away their own credibility and ask the audience to stop listening to them or to question the validity of what they are saying. You may have heard someone say, “I’m not an expert, but…” It happens often. If you haven’t noticed, be on the lookout, tell me if you come across an example in the wild. Now, when I hear people say that, I don’t stop listening to them, and I don’t invalidate what they are trying to say. More, I want to help them rewrite what they want to say*.

Yet, there is a specific phrase, adjacent to “I’m not an expert, but,” that I do think is important for people to say and I am going to say here: “I’m not a doctor. I’m not a clinician. I’m not a therapist.” Everything I say is either my opinion based on my life—this whole photo writing project as I mentioned is based on my experiences. And, I am a huge intellectual nerd, so I will offer lots of resources from people who are doctors, clinicians etc. But I’m not a trained or licensed professional.

I mention not being something because in talking about our very old, very loving amygdala’s role to keep us safe, many, many people are in actual harm’s way. They are in very terrible home and life situations and the resources they need should come from professionally trained people. I mentioned in my piece, Anger, when my sister felt herself reaching a breaking point, she didn’t turn to yoga or stretching, she didn’t turn to knitting or hiking, she didn’t turn to her trusted girlfriends and she didn’t turn to me. She turned to a trained licensed therapist, and that was the absolute right person to help her. I tear up thinking how grateful I am to my sister and to the professionals she sought support from. And it is with peace and love that I manifest to those who are in harm’s way, to tarry to safe ground; you deserve safety.

I almost always take the invitation to breathe when it is offered

I definitely invite all of us to take those in breaths through the nose, pause at the top and let the breath out through the mouth. Even now, when I look back at the moving pictures of my sister and me 30+, 20+ years ago in specific scenes of ick, I tense up. I shallow breath. Even now, in writing this, I’m feeling a lot, even though I’ve written and talked about my sister’s decision to seek a therapist a lot. The invitation to breathe for a second is for me, too. But, I know I am okay, I am safe.

Getting and being vulnerable

You Talk About Race Too much came from my desire to do more. I’m busy, so are you. That is not going away for me anytime soon. I like being busy and how I’m busy is important to me. And, I want to offer to everyone reading some of how I came to a place right now of being open to do more when I already do so much. In my writing Anger, I pulled out the tarot card of emotions and specifically on that card, was anger. A new tarot card I’ve pulled for this conversation is Vulnerability, and vulnerability is its own card. 

Being vulnerable is deeply, deeply uncomfortable, and again, our very old, our very loving amygdala is going to protect us against things scary and vulnerable. We have the opportunity to work with our very old, very loving amygdala to let our brain know, to let us know we are safe, we are just uncomfortable. And being uncomfortable, experiencing discomfort, is survivable. It is. I would say, maybe not airtight, but if we find ourselves purely uncomfortable, we’re probably physically safe.

But we have to work with ourselves to remind ourselves that when we are uncomfortable, we are physically safe. We have to send the message to our very old, very loving amygdala that we are physically safe so we can also know we are spiritually safe. And that message channel needs a clear pathway in order to signal effectively. When we find ourselves in places of discomfort, we have to message to ourselves often, even within a short period of time because for a lot of different reasons, sometimes the travel pace of the message we are physically safe is s l o w.

Come Correct

And as I said in Anger, we also have to come correct. To be vulnerable, to be open and exposed means we lay our weapons of defensiveness and barriers and excuses down, even if for 30 seconds, breathing the whole time (or your practice of choice): in for a count of 4, hold that precious breath for 7 whole seconds and slowly let that breath out through your mouth for 8 seconds**. By repeating this breath, and, for the breath to transport you to a place of feeling safe, just be patient with yourself and don’t rush. Believe in the breathing. Actually count. Actually be in the moment of discomfort, of vulnerability. By repeating this breath, you signal to your brain—to your very old, very loving amygdala who lives at the base of your brain, that you are physically safe. And when you are physically safe, you can be spiritually safe, and when you are physically and spiritually safe, you can focus on listening to hear and listening to understand and listening to learn new and different. And overcoming discomfort to relearn, to lengthen empathy, to deepen and strengthen resiliency, or whatever it is that you are trying to accomplish. We will be moved out of and away from the same old same old that isn’t serving us, and we will navigate to a new place that feels more authentic. And this practice grows our power. And when we have power, we can do more.

*I am an Ambassador to the incredible organization, The OpEd Project. The OpEd Project works to support more representation in writing and specifically writing op-eds, which to this day are overwhelmingly pitched and published by white men. As an Ambassador, I can offer scholarships to people to attend a 2-day virtual workshop on writing op-eds. Let me know if you are interested. 

**Breath breathing has a lot of variations, in breath through the nose for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds at the top, and out breath through the mouth for 8 seconds is one example. A 4-4-4 breath is another. There are breath exercises that are all nose breathing. There are workshops that you can attend online and maybe even irl about breathing. What a gift!

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Anger

Posted on February 1, 2026 by reginadma

“I believe in anger. Anger’s like fire, it can burn out all the dross and leave some positive things.”

—Maya Angelou*

Pulling the anger card

In my introduction to You Talk About Race Too Much, I note the project came into focus because of my many experiences, current lived reality, reflections and emotions among other considerations. And within those considerations that allowed the project to be born, I pull out, right now, the tarot card emotions. And specifically, on that tarot card of emotions, is anger. Anger is important to me, distilled, anger motivates me and I write about anger often.

I began to work intentionally on regulating myself so that I can show up as bright as I’m supposed to be for my sister and my niece. They were my first and only motivating factor to “come correct.” And I have my sister to thank for putting me onto this mind health journey. My sister was 27 years old when she understood that to survive, she would need to seek a therapist to help her make sense of her past, her present and the mismatch she was experiencing that was causing disruption in her life. My sister spoke to me about her journey, and she speaks freely to others about how therapy saved her life. I remain so proud of her for taking control of her life course, and putting herself on a path more authentic and safe. Through her work, I felt compelled, obligated and encouraged to do the same for my journey, so I could be better for her and for my niece.

So many years later and I am in the grove of who I am. I am who I am supposed to be at my resting state, and I now have such strength to continue on my journey.

Anger is here to stay

I write about anger a lot because no matter where people are at in their journey, no matter how long or how short their emotional range, anger is something that every person feels. And back when I was coming up through, anger had such a bad wrap. It was an emotion to tamp down, to feel anger meant that you were doing something wrong and to do something correct meant the absence of anger. And, as I’ve been on my journey, as more therapists and sociologists and GenXers and Black women have added into the conversation about anger, the emotion has been able to be seen in new ways that were not accessible to me when I was younger.

Being unstoppable

Now that I am healthy and healthier, now that I am regulated and regulating, now that my life’s purpose has come into spiritual focus, I appreciate my anger. And through my work, I’ve been able to understand my anger, my origin anger and my current internal anger and external anger. I don’t shy from saying I have anger, I don’t ignore its existence. I now have the training to use my anger like I use my critical thinking skills, my interpersonal skills, and my other emotions: to propel me, to motivate me, and to create.

The 2015 family comedy “Inside Out,” and 2024 sequel “Inside Out 2,” shows the character of Anger in lovable and relatable scenarios. And we also see the power of Anger when he uses his forces for collaboration and for good. Anger makes good points and Anger is deeply, deeply protective. I have come to understand my anger in its many forms, and that anger is not going anywhere. But, over years and years and years, I have built a relationship with my anger so anger can work with me…most of the time. I’m still human. And more often than not, anger isn’t the first tool I turn to, and rarely is the main character. More often than not, anger is often accompanied by many other emotions.

Darling, I am here for you

I provide my anger as background because it is a theme I write about a lot and I do not shy away from talking about it. I have anger, but I’m not angry. As a human, you experience anger, too. And, a lot of what I will offer through this photo writing project, anger is woven into the pieces. Not always, not always the main character, but anger is there.

And, I invite everyone reading to reflect on some questions that I find deeply fascinating. What is your past relationship with anger? What were you taught about anger, and what did you learn about anger? What is your comfortability talking about your anger? How has anger shown up in your life to keep you safe, to keep you avoidant, to fuck up your shit? What is your current relationship with anger and do you like it? What would you like your current relationship with anger to be? What do you do when you are angry? Please let me know what you would like me to know. Of the 6 Mantras of True Love, the first Mantra reminds us, “Darling, I am here for you.”

* Leave it to Maya Angelou to use the word dross. As a lover of words, intellectual, and as an older person, I had never heard of this word before…ever. I turned to my PhD-touting husband and read this quote and he said, “no one knows that word.”

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Introducing: You Talk About Race Too Much—a photo writing project

Posted on January 30, 2026 by reginadma

Too little

A section of a recent interview of writer, sociologist and MacArthur Fellow, Tessie McMillan Cotton, from my viewpoint, went viral. I’ll paraphrase the clip of the interview. Professor McMillan Cotton noted that many people are feeling fatigued about the state of the world, the state of their country, the state of their state, the state of their neighborhood. They are tired. And she offered, for some, the reason they are so tired isn’t  because they are doing too much, but because they are doing too little. Doom scrolling and passive observation can get our amygdala fired up into fight, flight, freeze, fawn mode, fill our bodies with cortisol and make our bodies feel run down, after having done…nothing. Many people are indeed not doing much to contribute to making the world a better place, and have swapped meaningful action with ersatz screentime and are suffering from fatigue with nothing to show for it. Professor McMillan Cotton suggests for those specifically suffering from that kind of tiredness and fatigue, the answer is to actually be involved: call elected officials, volunteer in the areas that are making you feel the worst—hunger, homelessness, if you are afraid for children, become a mentor or teach kids how to read. By taking action, you have the opportunity to shift from passive malaise to purpose; to being needed, to realize a path you can take to make change.

Do More

As a lifelong social justice activist and volunteer, I agree. I actually don’t think I could agree more. But I will try. I will try to agree more by doing more myself. And, in doing more, I commit to encouraging those around me, those of you reading my work, who want to do something and for those who are already doing more, to do more. To your degree; always, and without excuses and without excoriation of what you have or have not done already. See, I already do a lot, and I know I do a lot. I say that without ego and I say it without faux humility and I say it without working to shame anyone. People can shame themselves without my help. Shame and excoriation wastes time, and this Capricorn from New England does not like to waste time. Without baggage, as of late, I have felt I can and want to do more, and maybe you do, too. We get to decide for ourselves.

And…I love a good journey. I love a good story. I love exploring and learning. I love art in all forms. And I’m an extra-extravert. So what that means is, in my pursuit to do more, I make an invitation to all of you to actively participate with me. Pick up anything from me I am offering that you need or want. Put down some things for me to pick up and weave, stamp, adhere, cure, sew and sow into this pursuit, this journey offering and invitation.

Introducing a writing photo project

Over the course of many months, an idea in my mind’s eye began to take shape, coming into focus because of moments in my life: Professor McMillan Cotton’s words, my recent trip to the Legacy Sites in Montgomery, the upcoming commemorative Black and Women’s History months, reflections of my childhood and coming of age years, my friendships, my existing writing, my anger and power that I’ve applied to my current lived moment and the hardships that are around all of us. I’m excited to share this idea with you; an idea that has evolved into a full photo writing project. And through this project, I’m excited to be tired; for you to be tired because you’ve taken action, or because you’ve taken more action.

For my photo writing project, over the course of February, each day I am going to post across social media platforms. You can find these posts on my personal blog, my personal instagram (in private mode) and I am working closely with Food Recovery Network to provide a weekly FRN-focused synopsis of the posts that most relate to our vision to recover surplus food to feed everyone who is hungry on my FRN Substack.

My photo-writing project is titled You Talk About Race Too Much, and it’s an offering to you.

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I need your help to foster equity

Posted on December 27, 2021 by reginadma

Dear friends,

I hope you are well, safe, healthy, feeling loved and in love. I hope 2021 has brought many gems to you and yours. I also hope that the hardships we’ve all faced this year and in 2020 (remember that year?) have produced pearls of wisdom, experience and remembrance for you.

That’s a lot of hope that I want to express to you in the form of a big, virtual hug wrapped in the sparkly aspiration to see you very soon.

I’m writing today to celebrate my birthday! Woo Capricorns! And in full transparency, to ask you to make a financial contribution to my nonprofit, Food Recovery Network. I wanted to ask each of you to personally shape the equity practice I have worked hard to foster at FRN by becoming a recurring monthly donor to this organization that means so much to me. The amount can be whatever makes sense to you. My goal is to have enough recurring monthly donors to equal $1,000 per month in contributions. I can tell you exactly how that will help walk in equity with me and make a huge difference for FRN.

First, let me tell you a little about Food Recovery Network

At FRN, we are committed to building a more equitable and sustainable food system. We were founded to address the alarming reality that more than 40% of the food produced in the US each year goes to waste, while nearly 42 million people face food insecurity. Through a simple yet effective student-driven model, we harness the energy of young people across the country to redirect thousands of pounds of perfectly good food from landfills and into the hands of those who need it most. Since our founding in 2011, FRN has evolved into the largest student-driven movement against food waste and hunger, with chapters on nearly 200 campuses across 45 states and the District of Columbia. To date, we have recovered more than 5.3 million pounds of food for our neighbors in need. That is more than 4.4 million meals to those experiencing homelessness, veterans, parents and their children, and like too many, those who are trying to recover because of the job loss or pay for medical expenses and those who are working and working hard, and just cannot consistently afford food. These are our loved ones, our neighbors, and honestly, at any one moment, with any one financial setback, this could be us.

Our FRN students deliver food to those in need literally in all conditions. I’m honored to work with them.

A little about me as it relates to FRN

My career has been in the nonprofit sector and I have been the Executive Director of FRN for 6 years now and I am committed to continuing to work within the unique contributions of FRN to support the economic security of the 42 million people who are needlessly experiencing hunger, and I want to ask that you help me.

Speaking at our last national conference

By providing the food that people deserve, I see that action as a bridge, a ladder, to other areas of work we can also engage in together to walk in equity and eliminate poverty. I also know that feels like a big task. It is. But, the key is, we designed poverty. It’s not naturally occurring. And we can tackle poverty one area of work together at a time.

Let me tell you more about why supporting FRN matters within equity:

  • Spiritually, none of us want to see fellow humans suffer, and yet, we know that so many people who are working hard each day are suffering. Your support helps us today to provide meals to those individuals. Your support helps FRN contribute to structurally changing a system that continually keeps so many people working hard in dire straits. I’ve been poor, I was poor for decades, and we can unpack this statement through various conversations but let me sum up for everyone what it feels like to be poor: it is deeply troubling, stressful, worrisome and it sucks.
  • Physically, the $12,000 a year I hope to raise through my birthday campaign will help me to pay for part of the FRN employer paid health insurance for my team. My team is dedicated to the work of FRN and for them to dedicate themselves to helping to ensure the economic security of the 42 million people who are food insecure means they need to be healthy. Being able to take care of our bodies when we need to is critical. Providing employer paid health insurance was a big moment for FRN. It took me years to build the health insurance expense into our annual budget. Health insurance is critical to my team, yet as many nonprofit employees know, it’s often deemed “overhead” that is not easily funded. Everyone deserves access to health insurance, and more, healthcare.
  • Financially, your recurring contribution can help me better predict how much money FRN can rely on every month and ensure that money goes directly to providing health insurance to my team.

To learn more about me

  • I invite you all to listen to some of the episodes of Intersectionalities in Practice, my almost-monthly video conversation series. Intersectionalities in Practice is my space to have real conversations with people who are engaged in the work of and fight for equity every day. The conversations illuminate how multifaceted the issues of poverty are, and the many ways organizations engage in equity work.
  • To hear more about some public conversations about equity and our work at FRN here is an interview I had on Voodoo Retail. I get a little personal in this one, which I’ve been doing more and more recently because I want people to know that on and off the court, I believe in equity.
  • And here is a blog post I recently published on the FRN blog that highlights the last Intersectionalities in Practice conversation on community disinvestment. We can have it all and our resources can be shared among all of us, don’t believe the scarcity hype.

Thank you all for considering making a monthly recurring donation to FRN. And also, if that is not in your cards right now, there is no pressure at all! One-time donations are welcomed, texts of encouragement are always welcomed, too! No matter what, please do get to know us at Food Recovery Network. In 2022 we have some really great work ahead and we’d love to see you involved!

With love,

Regina

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