Tag: Beloved

The Calm after the Storm

Many of us have been through a couple weeks of unusually cold weather; in many cases the frigid temps, snow, and ice have disrupted travel plans. I was supposed to go on a mini retreat and visit a friend last week, but my flights were cancelled and I will have to take that trip later.

In the meantime, I have mostly stayed inside and taken advantage of the quiet time at home. There has a been a lot a reading, especially memoir, and every few days I make a pot of soup in my sturdy red Dutch oven. These soups are mainly vegetable-based; I take a look in the refrigerator or at the counter, and figure out what I’d like to make. Nothing is better than homemade soup on a cold winter day. One of my favorites is a green soup – sounds like it would taste odd because it has a lot of spinach, but I love it.

I have a project that I am excited about, one that taps into my admiration and appreciation for Toni Morrison, one of the best writers I have read. She passed away in 2019, but she left an impressive legacy as a writer and an editor. February 18th is her birthdate and in Ohio, there is a phenomenal project to honor her for a year, between February 2026 and February 2027. Beloved: Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison is designed and led by Literary Cleveland in partnership with Ohio Humanities, with collaboration from the Ohioana Library Association and the Toni Morrison Society. Beloved: Ohio Celebrates Morrison is a statewide celebration honoring the life, literature, and legacy of Toni Morrison and there are numerous gatherings and events planned over the year-long celebration. You can learn more at ohiocelebratestonimorrison.org. 

I submitted a proposal which was accepted and in March 2026 I will launch Beloved: A Communal Exploration of Toni Morrison’s Award-winning Novel. This event will consist of several online sessions to meet and discuss this amazing novel. Beloved is a masterpiece and I hope to share it with a group of readers who love to tackle challenging yet beautifully written prose. It is not necessary that you have already read the book, and we will take our time with the reading so we can slow down, understand the story, take in the language, and share an experience of reading this book in community.

I’ll be collaborating with Moira Baker, Ph.D., and we intend for this book discussion to be a space where we can learn from the novel and each other. The response to this project has been positive, spaces have filled quickly, but if you are interested in learning more, please reach out to me here. 

February might be a short month but there are other gatherings I am looking forward to, such as jazz concerts and a dance performance. This cold weather lends itself to settling inside, but I don’t mind so much since I am in a season of streamlining, taking inventory of some of my possessions and considering if it is time to donate or give away items. This is going to be a big year, and I want to make sure I have made space for what is to come next.

I hope you are safe and warm wherever you are reading this. One more thing – if life is becoming to be too chaotic and stressful, take a step back and consider the one small thing you can do to relieve some of the apprehension so many of us are feeling. One small thing, that is all. If you are led to do something bigger, that is something you can discern for yourself. And rest, please make sure you are getting your rest.

In peace,

Ramona 

Remembering Toni Morrison (1931-2019)

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Toni Morrison novels

 

I first read Toni Morrison in my twenties; it was the novel Tar Baby. Three decades later, I find her to be the most compelling writer in my lifetime. In her writing she chronicles and lays bare the experience of black people in this country in a way that is both affirming and gut wrenching in its truth. When I heard the news she had passed on I felt compelled to try to explain what her work has meant to me, but it is nearly impossible to do.

Maybe the best way is with a story, one related to her book Beloved. I had read Beloved before, but it was only after rereading it a couple of years ago that I truly immersed myself in the history and legacy of the story. In the book, Sethe makes the lifechanging decision to escape the cruelty of slavery in Kentucky and cross the Ohio River with one toddler child, and another on the way. When the slave catchers come after her, she attempts to kill her children rather than have them be enslaved again. It is hard to imagine making that choice as a mother, but then again, only one who had known how horrific life would be if she returned, for all of them, could understand the choice she made. Sethe kills one child before she is stopped and captured.

The story of Beloved was based, or maybe inspired is a better word, by the true story of Margaret Garner, who escaped from Kentucky, got to Cincinnati,(my hometown) and like Sethe in the novel Beloved, killed her child rather than have it taken away. Margaret Garner was captured as she killed the child, and was later tried. In another insult to her humanity, and the humanity of her children, she was not tried for murder. She was tried for destruction of property, because the child was not considered anything more than the property belonging to another human being, the slaveowner.

In Beloved, Ms. Morrison accomplished a major feat—addressing the devastating and ongoing impact of slavery on the minds, spirits, and bodies of black people, as well as the daily cruelties and suffering they endured. It is not easy to read, but I felt as if she had explained my story and the story of my ancestors in this novel. She wrote in her foreword, “In trying to make the slave experience intimate, I hoped the sense of things being both under control and out of control would be persuasive throughout; that the order and quietude of everyday life would be violently disrupted by the chaos of the needy dead; that the herculean effort to forget would be threatened by memory desperate to stay alive. To render enslavement as a personal experience, language must get out of the way.”

I read Beloved and I realized the river I grew up looking at from the bluffs of Eden Park had helped Margaret Garner pass over, and streets I knew in downtown Cincinnati had sheltered her and many others seeking freedom. Other forms of oppression awaited them, even in the north, but they sought relief from physical slavery and a chance to start new lives.

The Cincinnati Opera co-commissioned the opera Margaret Garner, and I was involved in a community engagement project to expand the audience for this opera. Margaret Garner was performed in 2005, each night sold out, and it was the most diverse audience in the history of Cincinnati Opera. There was a private reception before its opening and I was among the guests. I looked towards the door, and in walked Ms. Morrison. She was regal, her gray locks flowing, eyes scanning the room. There were so many people in the room, all eager to meet her, have their time with her. But in one moment, she saw me looking at her, and I smiled, and whispered “Hi”, trying to communicate I see you and I’m glad to see you, but I know everyone in this room wants to have your time, and I don’t want to be another person pulling at you. She smiled back, I nodded, and I left soon after. I had seen Toni Morrison, her books had already touched me, and there was no other reason for me to stay.

Ms. Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved in 1988 and the Nobel in Literature in 1993. Our country’s greatest writer has passed on. She has been an inspiration to me because her prose was so powerful and evocative and gave attention to stories about people that had remained unknown, ignored or unexamined by many. I am grateful for the richness of her legacy and the magnificence of her writing.

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One other note: I have heard many adults say that Morrison’s work is difficult. I believe it requires careful reading, but the topics and her unflinching look at our culture are very likely what people find difficult. However, she wrote a children’s book, The Big Box, with her son Slade Morrison, which I gave out as a graduation gift for years while it was still in print. I will make sure that my granddaughters do not wait until they are 20 to pick up their first Morrison book; I am so glad to have a copy of that book in my collection.

The Big Box by Toni Morrison with Slade Morrison