How we got to Scotland.

And how it's going in life off-the-road.

This past month, I took a longer break from Wanderland while I’ve been rethinking how to do regular, off-the-road life. What’s moving me these days isn’t online. My joy isn’t coming from optimizing my existence, scrolling socials, listening to the opinions of others. Instead, I find myself reading fiction, walking in nature, meeting my neighbors, being with friends, unpacking boxes, renovating our home, sharing resources, waking up at five to do a meditation intensive, and learning to communicate (along with a community of other white people) past the twin traps of polite silence and social media fights.

For the past six weeks, Richard and I have been sleeping on a mattress on the floor just like when we were first together as kids (except then we shared a twin bed!) Despite not knowing what box my research is located in (or even what country,) and though we’re constantly surrounded by dust and strangers, and a house wrapped in tape and plastic like a scene from a haunted movie, we are getting rooted. We’re meeting new craftspeople and artists and workers. Our family is getting together for Sunday dinners and gardening days, something we haven’t done for years. A kind of chaotic joy has taken over, interspersed with making mistakes, and arguing about our missteps, and then making up with long conversations in darkening rooms because we forgot to get light bulbs.

There’s also been some grief along the way. A necessary grief.

Alongside this time of project leadership and sweet ministering to others, I’ve been with the losses to our democracy and rights here in America. These are tender-hearted days, especially for marginalized people whose existence and choices are being undercut by systems set in place to benefit those in power. The recent Supreme Court decisions have made it clear that institutions are being weaponized to enshrine the rich investment class, wiping out the ability for government regulatory agencies to balance the harsh impacts of corporate supremacy. This is a scheme that’s been in place for decades, led by Mitch McConnell (thanks home state!)—and which uses religion and racism to win supporters, and this week alone, granted king-like powers to the Courts themselves, through the vehicle of the President (Happy Independence Day!)

These past weeks, we’ve had days of the real freedom of traveling back and forth between our two countries, between Vancouver, BC, Seattle, WA and Portland, OR on road trips where we talked about how many humans would love to cross borders like this. Friends asked why, with this election looming, we weren’t staying in Canada. We came back to the USA because we feel that it’s an essential time to be here, that our values include being willing to take a stand with our bodies for upholding justice. That what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said was real and inhabitable—"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”¹ Everything that happens in America happens in Canada, we are knit in the manner of proximity, we have a similar white supremacy at our roots. But also, Canada is experiencing its own version of a far-right populist operating from the same playbooks as the Republican right-wing. They’re already pushing conspiracy theories and planning to deport immigrants and destroy environmental protections, so tick-tock on a place where safeguards of land and humans are a given. (Spoiler: Canada hasn’t been protecting all humans since its inception, and it has one of the largest fossil fuel polluters in the world in the Alberta Tar Sands, one of the most carbon-intensive and toxic fuels on the planet.)

In the midst of this news, there’s been some angst and despair. This is a grueling and monumental and overwhelming time, but it’s also a time to form coalitions, and to consider living more strongly in our values and close to the ground. The ground is solace. I’m writing this newsletter with my bare feet in the grass, children running behind me, the sun glinting through the tall, tall Douglas firs, giants who are some of my closest companions. Maybe for you the ground is the river, the ocean, the mountains, the stars, the sunset? When this overwhelm becomes too much, I try to recall that this is how life gets when love expands beyond its former capacity. That maybe this is the kind of chaos it takes to evolve. I go out to the big trees and lean against them and feel to my depths. I hope you’re able to find some ground for yourself in the days ahead, and that you can breathe and organize and rally with others you call kin.

All the weathers, Scotland, April 2024.

The last Wanderland trip for 2024 (maybe)

I said I’d write about our trip to Scotland, to hike the Isle of Skye and the Isle of Raasay, and hang about in Inverness with the likes of Tilda Swinton², and then in the glory of another few days in London. But this is going to have to be a two-parter, because I have to tell you how we got there.

I wouldn’t have chosen Scotland for myself, but I think that’s because I only knew it as the place of American film myths like Braveheart and Rob Roy and the romantic Outlander series. Richard chose Scotland when he accidentally discovered that his father was from there. I’ll let him tell the story.

Richard: I lost my father three times. The first time, I was three years old, and he left my mother, sister, brother and I, not to be seen for 15 years. The second time, four decades later, a DNA test confirmed that man hadn’t ever been my dad. The last time, when I’d found my birth father through posting a DNA test on Ancestry.com, the new family refused to admit that I was his son. They said to talk about me would cause too much disruption in their family. After a couple of years of thinking about this news, they chose not to tell my father that I belonged to him.

When I was born, the man married to my mother suspected that I wasn’t his. A Navy man, stationed out of Halifax, NS, he reportedly held a Luger pistol to my mother’s body as she held me, a baby, in her arms. He threatened to kill both her and I. We escaped to another city.

I once knew this story about my past, but then an accident in a cancer surgery caused an anoxic insult in my brain and erased the memories of my life. I suppose you could call that another loss of my father. The fathers keep appearing and disappearing, like the way my own history did, and continues to do so still.

There was a bit of luck in the family that couldn’t claim me. I noticed that my brother and I had a difference in just one area of our DNA—I was far more Scots than he. When I inquired with my father’s family, one of the women decided to share their ancestral names and the places where they came from. We were indeed Scottish, from near Edinburgh, our immigration to Canada within the last few generations.

I said that if I couldn’t meet my father’s family, then I would like to go to the place he came from, to see if I felt anything on that land. We made a plan to go in the spring, when the midges weren’t biting, and the wildflowers were just at their start. We would go into the lochs and over the Black and Red Cuillins, and I would learn from where I came.

I thought Scotland was one thing, and it turned out to be vastly different, one of my favorite places I’ve ever visited. Next time: I’ll take you on our journey and hiking trip to the Isle of Skye with family, local Scots and Brits, and bogs for days.

Completions

In other news, I sent Bloodlines—my book on a legal lynching in my hometown of Owensboro, Kentucky, as well as my history of inherited whiteness—to its publisher. I spent a decade writing and researching this book. I’ll say more when an announcement gets made by the publisher, soon, I hope.

Working with Sonya:

This summer, while all of the last deadlines were focusing my days, I taught two classes at Corporeal Writing, gatherings that turned out to be gentle and fierce and deep, the kind of community-making where the writing moves like summer fireflies glowing through our bodies. I’ve included below what a few writers said about the experiences of their work with “Liberating Narratives.”

This autumn I’ll be offering another class. If you’d like to join in an online or in-person program like this, please be in touch and feel free to offer ideas for the kinds of workshops, retreats and events that appeal to you.

Working with Sonya is a wonderful experience. She emphasizes descriptive (versus critical) responses to our writing and, unlike any other writing teacher I have encountered, can "hear" very deeply into our writing. As such, she fosters an environment in which participants also listen very attentively to one another and take chances in sharing their writing at every stage.

~Jennifer Schulz, writer & writing mentor

This class truly opened me up to ways of digging deeper into myself to pull out story ideas. Going through my obsessions was something I was so unaware of but clicked as soon as I tried it. Sonya helped me break into my short story in ways I would have never been able to without her class.

~ Aerick London, writer

Sometimes when I participate in generative workshops the prompts don't quite move me and I don't exactly generate. But your prompts are so particular and expansive, and the way they build upon each other and challenge me to think in new directions is really, really effective. I've started so many pieces in these last 4 weeks that I'm very excited to return to and, perhaps more importantly, play with. Liberated!

~Stephanie Silenti, writer

You can find Sonya at~

My Instagram.

My Website.

The podcast I did with my kid.

1. Letter from Birmingham Jail, https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf

2. Not really, but she was on the flight a few rows from us, and chatted up everyone, and lives in Inverness where she hangs with locals and doesn’t play the celebrity at all.