Durham Dust 💨
We spent Christmas with Kendall’s Family in Tampa, FL this year. That Iowa cold was too much for them this time, ha! Here's a journal entry I wrote after our most recent trip to Durham which you can read more about in this month's newsletter:
A JOURNAL ENTRY
December 27, 2024
8:50am • Tampa, FL
I feel at peace yet overwhelmed, as if the soil has cried out and finally taken a breath from calling my name—because I answered. My ears are still ringing. That compass-guided heart, once racing, now attempts to steady itself as I take in all they wanted me to see, feel, hear, and know.
“From dust you came, and to dust you shall return.” The Durham dust is in the soil, the Durham soil is also standing, speaking before me—a mutual rhythm of formation: they shape the city; the city shapes them. They are sacred, clay-like vessels, animated by a bleeding love for history, humanity…collective memory. People like:
Keith Daniel
Camryn and Ernest Smith
Bishop Clarence Laney
Dr. Carl Kenney
Breanna Van Velzen
Leah & Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Reynolds Chapman
Dave Crispell
The unseen ancestors leap for joy, their prayers now answered. They know their cries were not in vain; God has heard them too.
"Our babies are home. They’ve come home.
Do you see it now? We are magic.
Do you feel it now? We are powerful.
Do you smell it now? We are brilliant.
You can touch it now…the South is sacred.”
Kendall’s second great-grandmother, Fanny Latta, lived in Hayti once, before moving to Staten Island. I wonder—did she dream of coming back? Did she pray for a better life, too poor to belong among the Black elite of Hayti? Did she believe she would return, only to find life had other plans? Or did she weep for the land and pray her descendants would one day return?
Kendall’s 2nd Great Grandmother, Fannie Enoch McCoullough Latta, who he recently learned lived in the Hayti district of Durham, NC in the ‘40s / ’50s. The same neighborhood we’re moving to!
I imagine my Bajan “Lashley” ancestors walking this ground, their lives bound by the chains of Barbados’ sugar plantations—their bodies the blueprint for the domestic slave trade in the Carolinas. I wonder if they too passed through this soil, sold and scattered to Mississippi. Parts of a mystery I hope to solve in libraries and hidden records.
My body feels nervous. We’ve taken a leap of faith—a leap many we admire in Durham have also taken.
We don’t know how God will provide, but we trust She will. We don’t know what God will do, but we know it will be miraculous. Every step we’ve taken so far has been eerily divine…so divine I know we had nothing to do with it, except to say yes.
So on this second day of the New Year, I pray for you:
May you keep your soul this year.
May you reclaim your life from systems that kill for profit.
May you find your joy and hold it close.
May you discover your peace and never let it go.
May you quiet yourself long enough to hear your ancestor’s prayers and decide how you want your life to continue the story.
The soil speaks, the wind sings, and the rain rejoices. We are here. We are home.
Reflection Questions:
How do the places your ancestors lived and the stories they carried influence your sense of identity and purpose?
What steps can you take this year to listen more closely to the "soil" of your life—your history, community, and inner spirit—and respond to its call?
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