A strong cup of Jo

  Some days, my skin is a bridge.  Some days, it is a border. Joanna Boer, September, 2025,  Open Mic, Foundations of Social Work, Columbia University, Professor San Emeterio Some days, it carries me across oceans from Trinidad, to Nigeria, to Kenya, to Michigan. A bridge between islands, continents, histories. Between my great grandmother who crossed the kali pani , born in a boat, to grandmother who survived violence and addiction, and my children who inherit possibility. Some days, it is a border. The gaze that says, you are other. The silence that falls in a room, when my complexion enters before my words. The limits placed on me spoken and unspoken the values placed on me measured against someone else’s scale. But some days, my skin is a bridge. It connects me to my husband, a white man I love, but who could never hold all that I am. It carries into our children the magic of resemblance faces that hold both of us, and remind me that borders, or ...

I have a confession to make: I don’t know how to parent. I have let my children down more times than I can count, and until a little over a year ago, I had no idea I had let them down. I parented on instinct, and I parented out of my own pattern of how I was parented. James Dobson may be dead, but his approach to parenting lives on. He was a galvanizing figure in evangelical culture, shaping a generation with his rigid framework of discipline and control. Grace was in the rebuke. It was how I was raised. Every problem was sin. Every problem was disobedience. Nothing was seen as gorgeous humanity or uniqueness. Nothing was understood as a brain still developing. Nothing was innate temperament. She was as cute as a button, but that impish personality needed to be retrained. Shame was a tool generously used. Spare the rod and spoil the child. A Caribbean childhood mixed with conservative white Evangelicalism: a toxic, combustible potion. It combined cultural expectations of strictness wit...

To know my husband is to love him. And after a year of intense trauma therapy, I know him so much more, and so I love him so much more. And not love as in sex, or love as in losing myself in him, but love as in "I want you to thrive!" The best kind of love. His severe ADHD diagnosis was the most revealing. What I thought was male distraction, Dutch coldness, and workaholism was neurodivergence! They are still those things, but now I know! Therapy is a transformative gift, and I recommend it for every married couple out there. Whether everything is copacetic or not, learn about each other and how your brains work. Loving your brain is loving yourself. Loving yourself means you can love others fully. Our marriage is filled with contradictions and obstacles. Coming from different worlds, the path was destined to be difficult, but what is magical is our persistence, our grit, our fierce determination to win at all costs. Our definition of "win" changes, as it should. No...

 I feel tired. Going to my first class in about 19 years took a lot out of me. I felt great leaving the home this morning. I was excited about the new year and the new opportunity. But as I turned onto the campus, my heart started racing, and I felt very panicky. It took me three tries to park in a very straightforward spot. I could not line up. Obsessed with symmetry, I had to correct it multiple times. I encouraged myself, "Joanna, you are not a spring chicken; hold your head up like the hen you are!"  The beautiful brick looked warm and inviting as I relaxed and took an easy stride into the building. I entered the space and started to feel the energy of the campus. Students were milling around, chatting, and working. Unexpectedly, I felt a pang of pain. My brain, heart, and soul were forced to remember the last time I stood on a campus. Memories came flooding back, fragmented and warped. The injustice of not knowing it was the last time I would stand in that spot. If I had...

 Markus was so excited to take the bus and walk home from school. On his first attempt, he went in the wrong direction on our street and got turned around. I received a call from the crossing guard who said he had my lost son with him. The guard described where he was, and I rushed out of my house-- in bedroom slippers in the snow to fetch him. I got W on the phone to let him know what was happening. After a minute,  I saw Markus with the crossing guard at a distance. He had his bag on his back and his ball in his hand. I pulled up, waved thanks to the guard, and Markus entered the car. His face crumbled into tears. Hot tears streamed from those frightened blue eyes. A sensitive child, Markus is prone to crying easily when angry or frustrated, but this was fear and maybe some embarrassment. Because of my therapy work, I knew I had to approach this moment with a mind for the future. I said, "I am so sorry you turned the wrong way." It's crazy how the streets work, but I am...

Matt Halteman is a true friend. We have had countless conversations on the phone and in person—topics ranging from perfumes to art to fashion (vegan, of course). We have discussed dance practice and soccer practice. Matt has made vegan cocktails and chocolate mousse for my husband and me, and when he could not make us food, he provided us with the most delicious catered vegan pizza and sushi. I have not only laughed hysterically in his home, I have sobbed like a little girl. Shaking, but with no shame as he and his wife and daughter embraced me.  He is a friend; I put that out there because I am proud. But it in no way causes bias on my part. The real key to friendship is raw honesty. When I attempted to express my feelings in words earlier this year, Matt reviewed my essay and elegantly ripped my thoughts to shreds. I was so grateful for his benevolent censure. Before my crisis, Matt allowed me to review his manuscript for Hungry Beautiful Animals: The Joyful Case for Going Vegan....