The Black South, Reimagined.

In The Porch Was Our Sanctuary, Karla Scipio reflects on how Southern porches once served as sacred spaces for healing, storytelling, and sisterhood among Black women. She beautifully captures the quiet power of these gatherings and the wisdom they held. Now, she invites us to witness a return—not just to the porch, but to a way of being rooted in community, care, and spiritual restoration.

Vascular dementia slowly took pieces of my mother’s mind, but never touched her heart. Even in silence, her hands, her eyes, and her presence held the power to comfort and connect. In this reflection, writer Joanna Johnson shares a story of grief, memory, and finding strength through the waves of loss and the quiet grace of a mother’s love.

We often think of life in years, but Karla Scipio invites us to consider it in breaths, each one a quiet and powerful gift.

Through her experience as a nurse and mother, she shows how intentional breathing can ground us, calm us, and reconnect us to what truly matters.