Author: Lacey Johnson

I once watched as a rose garden bloomed. The flowers were contained within a wooden box at the entrance of a café I frequented each morning. In between sips of coffee, I gazed with foggy eyes and admired the buds as they gradually appeared – as though cutting through the final winter frost and announcing the ascension of spring. Every day I glanced over at new colors emerging, like witnessing a fresh stroke of paint onto a canvas. Before long, harmonic explosions of fuchsia, blood orange and crimson created a symphony of movement and texture. And, when the petals...

They are going to sling it in your direction. They are going to spit it in your face. They may even pour it in a glass and serve it to you, hoping you will chase it down with a smile and devour it with enthusiasm and grace. Whether or not you swallow that poison, though, is your decision. No one can force you to drink it. No one can force you to subscribe to the limitations of their beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you attended an Ivy League school, were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, if you were blessed with...