Where can we order this book, Shenandoah?

It's not available yet. BUT you can sign up for my newsletter and get info as soon as it is released!

And how can we sign up for your newsletter?

www.garbagebagsuitcase.com

Plagued and embarrassed by my name, made worse by a nomadic childhood that made it impossible to build lasting relationships, I developed tough skin at an early age. Along the way I learned to deal with disappointment, push through discomfort,...

There’s a women standing in front of me at the grocery store. I can see her fidgeting, shifting her weight back and forth. She glances my way and gives me the “what is taking so long” look as she rolls her eyes. I shrug and smile. She turns back around. I notice she doesn’t have much in her cart. After the person in front of her is finished, the cashier asks, “How is everything today?” Of course the cashier had no way of knowing what was coming next. This woman begins to unleash a verbal...

I have attended several funerals during my lifetime. At one, when I was still in high school, I remember watching the mother of a friend throw herself over her son’s casket, unable to contain her emotions. Those of us who were there sat and stared, stunned, but silent. Eventually, a much older lady with gray wispy hair came running down the aisle, throwing her arms around the women’s shoulders, whispering that it was OK and that she should take a break for a while. She hugged the...

Juan Ramirez grew up in poverty in the Rio Grande Valley, in a neighborhood infested with drug-and gang-related violence. By the age of 10 he’d started smoking marijuana and using inhalants. Within a couple of years he’d moved on to...

#WARonSlavery

Words like trauma-informed and resiliency get thrown around a lot these days. And for many, the visions they call up are a bit too glossy. You see resiliency and trauma-informed aren’t always pretty. Resiliency can look like closing the bathroom door and collapsing in tears… but then washing your face and going back into the world, carrying the belief that you can survive and the hope that things will get better. It looks like begrudgingly going on that walk with a friend, when the little...

Here in California, many people think that it’s only liberal Democrats who have a corner on championing the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and putting it into practice. That might be because people who use ACEs science don’t expel or suspend students, even if they’re throwing chairs and hurling expletives at the teacher. They ask "What happened to you?" rather than "What's wrong with you?" as a frame when they create juvenile detention centers where kids don’t fight, reduce...