After a brief visit stateside, I’ve returned to Europe; the time here will be well into 2025. I’ve planned more of a life change, so saying good-bye to family and friends felt different, because my resident visa brings me closer to obtaining the second passport. In addition to purchasing a home a few years back, I feel fortunate for the approval of the much sought after, free-to-low-cost National Health Care Insurance, which is one of the main reasons why Americans relocate to Portugal. And more importantly, I casted my vote in the U.S. primary, through the absentee registration program, allowing the ability to vote in the upcoming November 2024 election. This last matter was a priority, because of what’s at stake for the US and the world. Continue reading
A few weeks ago, having been gone for seven months, I took a flight back to the States. As the airplane flew over Los Angeles, nostalgia swirled inside my head. I first traveled to this City when I was a teenager from Ohio, ready to live with my aunt and attend college. 
Relocating to a foreign country isn’t for the faint of heart, even if the choice is an English-speaking country, there’s cultural shock. No matter what you’ve read in the popular International Living, life in an unfamiliar territory, is a reality check. You’re not on vacation.
Endless thoughts devoured my mind over the past months. They tossed me into uncharted and familiar territory. I think a SPIRIT’S power tells when there’s a need to step back, listen, watch, and learn something new or revisit something old. Lessons are hidden everywhere, often in plain sight. 
Black History Month leaves and a new month, March, emerges. During February, I thought what does it mean—Black History Month? One month nationally set aside embraces a history I feel only pricks a hole into the abyss. Much of what people of color don’t know is because their stories, contributions, and past journeys have been lost, untold, or reviled as not true American History. White folks are tired of reliving a placed blame. They need to be protected from their own history, starting from what the slave ancestors lived through—up to this very present, today, after decades as these ancestors walked as freemen. Irrelevant, is what people of color are labeled by an emerging group, picturing themselves saviors of an America, whose history is best served up on a golden platter of apple pie and fried chicken.