Or, why I haven’t been writing as much.

These three books are filling gaps in my world that I hadn’t realized I’d been avoiding. They answer, finally, questions I started asking in elementary school.

The genuine optimism conveyed by a more accurate history of this colonial country has been as much a surprise as it is a new strength. I cannot explain entirely why reading of such hardship and often horror has brought me nothing but hope. But I have found that an honest history is the beginning of liberation. Now we will know all of our ancestors’ stories, not just the stories of those who have dominated. For this I couldn’t be more grateful. (The 1619 Project created by Nikole Hannah-Jones)

My fundamental arguments against the eightfold path have been responded to, and wonderfully. Finally, a buddhist practice that offers to address righteous anger. Here now we have made room for those who would not be monks sitting alone on mountains, but rather who engage in activism, who fight for freedom. Those who would extricate themselves in real time, in the real world, that we might turn back and offer our hand to the next. (Radical Dharma from Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens, and Jasmine Syedullah, PhD)

The intertwine of my own freedom with that of every other human is a gift, not to be untangled but celebrated. If brevity is the soul of wit, maybe palatable concision is the heart of freedom. This little book has all the best tools for the gender conversation that will liberate us all. (Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon)