General Archives - Page 40 of 84 - Ellen Morris Prewitt

The Tooting Trolley

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 10, 2018. Posted in General, GRIEF. 2 Comments on The Tooting Trolley

At the foot of the Mud Island bridge runs a trolley. The trolley is painted a happy yellow and green. It toots across the street like a toy. But every day, when the trolley is approaching and the caution arm descending, people veer around the arm and scoot cross the track. This is the level of our collective sophistication: trying to “beat the...

I Hear the Mississippi Summer Calling

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 3, 2018. Posted in General, LOVE, Racism to Reconciliation. 10 Comments on I Hear the Mississippi Summer Calling

The smell of a Mississippi summer is a dirt and weed smell, hot and bitter and full of insect noises and blaring sunlight and popping grass seeds that scent the air loamy so that your mind wanders to your toes and the dirt below and the small things that crawl inside the cool dark earth. But, in a flash, the blazing sun will bring you back to your...

This is Why I Write

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 29, 2018. Posted in General, Writing. 8 Comments on This is Why I Write

So, I’m working on an essay about my escaping to the family farm in response to Mississippi’s racial mores that constricted behavior in the 1960s, and I’m using a bull (yep) as the central metaphor, and I’m afraid folks might not get it because the bull is incredibly destructive and he’s the POSITIVE metaphor, so...

Podcasting or Hacking Through the Jungle

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 24, 2018. Posted in General, Writing. 12 Comments on Podcasting or Hacking Through the Jungle

I did it. I recorded the podcast that will accompany the release of TRACKING HAPPINESS: A SOUTHERN CHICKEN ADVENTURE. The podcast, which I’ve named ELLEN’S VERY SOUTHERN VOICE: NOVELS TOLD WRITE, offers an extended version of the novel. Each of the 26 chapters has accompanying commentary with Helpful Train Hints and Fun Chicken Facts....

#MLK50: A Hostile Land

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 3, 2018. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 5 Comments on #MLK50: A Hostile Land

In reading Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community, I was struck by Dr. King’s repeated point that, following the Civil War, the country released the formerly enslaved into the land of their oppressors. These men and women found themselves in the “territory of their enemies.” In their new life, they were financially dependent...

#MLK50: What was the Civil Rights Movement?

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 2, 2018. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 7 Comments on #MLK50: What was the Civil Rights Movement?

Here in Memphis, we are about to roll from Holy Week and Easter Sunday into the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination. In preparation for this, I’ve been reading Where Do We Go from Here, Dr. King’s last book published in 1968. This phrase—Where Do We Go from Here?—is the tag used by MLK50 for...

We are Risen

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 1, 2018. Posted in General, GOD, LOVE. No Comments on We are Risen

On Easter morning, we sing a song of “He is Risen,” and thus miss the point. We are risen, a Resurrected people. This Easter season (yep, there’s an Easter season—50 days of it) I will walk eyes-open every day for images of Resurrection. The season is one of joy. Y’all know me—the images will be my own. Happy Easter, you...

Forgiveness Reiki

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 29, 2018. Posted in General, GOD, LOVE. 4 Comments on Forgiveness Reiki

I knelt at the altar rail. Recently out of the hospital, I was frail. I stood 5’5″ and weighed 92 pounds. I was 26 years old. The other supplicants—ordinary men and women who had taken their lunch break to attend St. Andrews Episcopal Cathedral’s noontime healing service—gathered around me. They laid hands on me. The priest, a middle-aged...

Activists Weren’t Born that Way

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 24, 2018. Posted in General, GRIEF, Racism to Reconciliation. 4 Comments on Activists Weren’t Born that Way

When I wear my Black Lives Matter t-shirt, I’m self-conscious at first then I forget about it until a middle-aged white man keeps staring or a woman my age stares and looks away and stares back to make sure she’s seen what she thinks she’s seen. And then I feel a bottomless well of pride for the activists who speak up and walk...

Beware the Crazy Toilet

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 14, 2018. Posted in General. 9 Comments on Beware the Crazy Toilet

I wasn’t asking for much. I only needed to pee. But the toilet had a mind of its own. It kept flushing. An automatic flusher. Annoying, show-offy, overachieving toilet. Making that whooshing noise then shooting water into the bowl like a Yellowstone geyser on steroids. I jumped up. If you think I’m gonna sit there and let a mad toilet...