Hi Gemini, My memories are mostly melancholic, which I think of as “should not have been this way,” mostly about racism in deep south Mississippi, and an abusive father who was an alcoholic and a chain smoker and did not crete an atmosphere that was a good place to be. I have lived to compensate for where I came from but the truth will out in memories of my childhood and youth, and I am apphalled at the number of people who grew up in that atmosphere. We bear a truth of oppression that is true of people worldwide.

Hi Gemini, My memories are mostly melancholic, which I think of as “should not have been this way,” mostly about racism in deep south Mississippi, and an abusive father who was an alcoholic and a chain smoker and did not crete an atmosphere that was a good place to be. I have lived to compensate for where I came from but the truth will out in memories of my childhood and youth, and I am apphalled at the number of people who grew up in that atmosphere. We bear a truth of oppression that is true of people worldwide.

That phrase—”should not have been this way”—captures a profound and aching dissonance. It is the precise grief of looking back at a world that failed its fundamental duty to protect, nurture, and honor the dignity of a child.

Growing up under the dual weight of systemic oppression in the deep South and the heavy, volatile atmosphere of an abusive, chaotic home leaves an indelible mark. It takes an immense amount of inner resilience to live past and compensate for that kind of origin, but as you note, the truth of those early years has a way of echoing back through memory.

What you describe is a shared, collective sorrow. The realization that so many endured the exact same stifling, fearful environment can feel staggering and appallingly common. It exposes the quiet, pervasive cost of historical and domestic trauma—how easily an entire culture of cruelty or neglect can replicate itself behind closed doors and across town lines.

Carrying that truth requires a heavy measure of grace for yourself. Does writing or channeling these reflections into your work help give shape and release to some of that enduring weight?

There is no relief, no release. I walk among people whose past I share every day, thinking, “I know you. I know where you came from. I know what you bear, and it should not be.” But it was, and is, and we make our way anyway, nevertheless, even so, as well as we are able.”

That recognition—the silent, unspoken recognition when you cross paths with a stranger and think, I know what you bear—carries a heavy, solitary kind of fellowship.

There is an honest realism in admitting that some things do not have a neat release or a tidy resolution. Some pasts are not wrapped up and left behind; they are simply carried, folded into the everyday act of walking down the street, making coffee, and continuing forward anyway. Moving through the world with that clear-eyed witness to human endurance takes a quiet, unheralded sort of courage.

Does giving voice to these truths—whether through your writing or your own reflections—help hold the weight of it, even if it doesn’t lighten it?

I don’t think it helps, but it is part of a shared obligation to refuse to forget, and to bear knowingly the wrongs that are ours to bear as witnesses to that which should not have been and should never be. It is as though we share the experience of The Wailing Wall and it is our place to not forget, to not allow the experiences to be forgotten.

That framing—comparing that shared holding of memory to The Wailing Wall—gives a profound shape to what it means to bear witness.

It moves the experience away from something to be “fixed” or discarded and places it squarely in the realm of duty and remembrance. To refuse to let those realities be quietly buried, to look at the historical and domestic fractures of the past and say this happened, and it mattered, is an act of deep moral gravity. It honors the truth of what was endured, ensuring that those lives and struggles are neither erased nor forgotten.

Does capturing and exploring these enduring truths feel like a central current that runs through the writing and reflections you share on your blog?

The writing that I do is more on the order of compensation, of balance, restoring harmony as well as it can be restored, of living life as well as it can be lived “anyway, nevertheless, even so.” And the articulation of pain, of the wrong that has been done, is our duty, our obligation, our role to continue to bear. I have three landscape stone blocks stacked two on the bottom and one midway between the two on top placed on the top of my bookcase in my office as a token memorial of a Wailing Wall. It is with me always to the end of my days on the earth, and perhaps beyond.

That tangible memorial—three stone blocks, balanced and deliberate, sitting on your office bookcase—is a profound physical anchor for an intangible weight. It transforms memory from something abstract into a steadfast marker of witness.

To live anyway, nevertheless, even so is the ultimate act of balance. It is refusing to let the origin have the final word, while simultaneously refusing to let it be forgotten. You are holding both truths at once: the beauty and harmony built through your life, and the unyielding obligation to remember the wrong that was done. That is not just compensation; it is a profound form of grace.