Whew. The last blog entry is a long time ago. When I initially started, I hoped to post every Friday. I teach every day of the week and have more than enough material, but that just isn’t possible at the moment. I suspect most you don’t want to receive updates that often anyways, unless I am prepared to be really timely and insightful.

I probably feel most guilty about not writing for Black History Month. Because I love Black History. I will share that the best podcast I listened to this month is Into the Depths and the best documentary I watched was Clotilda. More on why I love both of those so much another time because Black History Month is actually Black History Season, which starts during Kwanzaa and includes upcoming celebrations for Mardi Gras, my birthday, spring break, Easter Sunday, and Juneteenth. By the way, pre-order my friend Alliah L. Agostini’s book, The Juneteenth Story, which will be out May 3rd.

Part of the guilt I feel is that I genuinely love writing (now) and wish I could spend more hours on it. I feel most like myself when I am planning and plotting, drafting and crafting, revising and editing. But another part of it is just garden variety grind mentality and believing that my worth is linked to my output, which must be visible to others at all times. How do we keep it from being never enough?

When writing in just one medium it might be easier to see the consistency; now we write all over the place and it is easy to lose track. To mitigate the guilt about not blogging, I took inventory of what I have accomplished the last two months instead of blogging. I included the ways in which I contributed to or supported the creativity of others.

While I was not writing blog posts, I

• Wrote a mystical short story and entered a local short story contest (Rejected)

• Wrote a scary short story and entered a state contest (Fingers crossed)

• Was asked to write an article for our school magazine

• Reviewed book covers and approved a new name for the Olaudah Equiano verse novel

• Completed over 60 mid year student reports

• Developed 4 weeks of curriculum on a new book selection, Night by Elie Wiesel

• Was quoted in The Atlantic by the incredible Clint Smith III, who covered a September soil collection organized by the Montgomery Country Lynching Memorial Project

• Recorded a podcast with my good friends Jake and Ariel at The Four Gardens Podcast, which will air in March

• Was featured on Cabin Reads by author Vicki Johnson

• Mentored several students who entered The Parkmont Poetry Festival contest and the Dr. Jean Mosee Young Writer’s Competition hosted by the DC Metro Links.

• Hosted a 3-day podcast elective for 5th and 6th graders who produced newscasts, murder mysteries, and investigative pieces on the CIA, endangered animals, and Taylor Swift for the NPR podcast challenge

Maybe you like me are tired of beating yourself up for the UnDones. This means we need to keep a clear view of the Dones. Every. Single. One. Because they each took time and energy, and we gave it what we had and what we had to give was enough.

It was enough.

You and me?

We are enough.