I wonder if I should explain that it’s not that I don’t want to make love, only that after a long day of attending to others I’m craving space. - Sarah Ladipo Manyika

In the early stages of any project I need longer periods of unstructured time to delve deeply into the writing and to stick to the project. It’s easier for me to balance several things at once if I’m in the editing and polishing phases of writing. I’m almost always craving more time and solitude to write, but at the same time I know that being engaged in the world is what fuels my writing.

I keep remembering the man who repeatedly lifted an empty fork from his plate to his toothless mouth.

Henry Louis Gates Jr’s op-ed piece in the New York times, Who’s Afraid of Black History? didn’t change my mind on the topic but it brought much needed perspective and insight to the current curriculum debates in the US.