I’ve only been here once, with my friend Jan. She came with me and met my Tibetan family friends and had a wonderful meal. As a person of color who was taken from their land of birth, I feel simpatico with this community. The speaker gave us in one hour a fascinating summary of the last 2,000 years of Tibet and the surrounding regions. Afterward, we were taking a walk, talking about history and thoughts about humankind. I looked down and saw this beautiful centipede. It had multiple black-and-white striped legs. Jan went over to a garbage can and dug up a Styrofoam cup with a top and put the centipede in the cup. Jan is fascinated with bugs and other kinds of creatures and feels responsibility for them. She was going to feed it and take care of it. For me it was a tie-in for the evening: this animal had an abundance of legs and we had just learned an abundance of history. And there are many legs on that history, and some of the legs propel us forward.
–Cherie Lockett, nonprofit manager