While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.
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“… Horses had a nose for things that stray out from other worlds and stumble into ours.”
——Ta-Nehisi Coates
—--The Water Dancer
I stood at the top of the stairs, alone in the house, except for my two cats. On my way to the kitchen for a snack, I paused to relish the midnight silence, the dark of my familiar surroundings. A railing overlooked the first floor entry, where my tabby lay, committed to licking every square millimeter of his body. He was sprawled on his side, front paw raised to meet his tongue. My black cat was winding an infinity loop around my ankles. My brain said, okay, take a step now, but before the signal reached my leg, both cats jerked their heads to point at the same invisible spot in the direction of the back door. They froze. I froze. The house was quiet as a graveyard, I lost my appetite and crawled back into bed, covers over my head.

While I’m reading, a sentence will grab me and force me to stop. I pay tribute to other authors by sharing their Damn Fine Sentences with you. Then I recount a memory the words bring up for me. It’s about how books connect with your life.

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“This man is really trying to all-lives-matter my game.”
———Brittney Morris
——--Slay

Kansas City funded artists to create Black Lives Matter murals on the pavement of six streets around town. It was beautiful—the community coming together in hope and excitement. The streets blocked off. Artists, volunteers, and families out on a Saturday celebrating Black lives through art.

One of the murals is painted on the main boulevard running through my white-flight neighborhood. On the section that the mural decorates, left turn arrows, roundabouts, and street lights corral six lanes of traffic. You can turn into an upscale mall, or back onto the highway, or up the hill past million dollar homes with privileged views of the city below.

If I’m stopped at one of the red lights at this complicated intersection, and if there’s no traffic in front of me, I might glimpse a swath of color that looks like paint spilled onto the street. And if I can ignore the SUV grille filling my rearview mirror, I might remember the color swath is a BLM mural.
I might remember that I’m not spilled paint.

I might remember, until the light turns green. Then the other drivers and I grind Black Lives into the concrete, as we rush to destinations that Matter.