My Next Home for a Year: Ferguson, Missouri

Welcome to Missouri. November 2014.

Yes, I'm going to break my own rule and move to a place that gets cold - and gray and drizzly and shivvery - in the winter. What in hell would possess me to do such a crazy-ass thing?

The one-word answer: History.

We are in the midst of a new wave of civil rights history, and right now, the heart of this unfolding history beats in Ferguson, Missouri, a tiny, scenic municipality of 21,000 people.

Not far away is Columbia, Missouri, home of the University of Missouri-Columbia, aka Mizzou - my alma mater - and where someone popped an engorged pimple of racism, and its ugly pus splashed into the eyes of Missourians, Americans, and the world.

Being a Missourian, I looked at what happened from distant Louisiana and Texas, aghast, at the militaristic assault by then Governor Jay Nixon.


....... But before I land in Missouri, I'm stopping at Big Bend National Park for a retreat into nature, then in South Louisiana for a retreat into dance, music, and that lil' spark that snaps in the air there.