Got a camera. But I'm not a photographer! keeps running through my head. How strong these ideas are of WHO we are. 

I asked the guys in my neighborhood if they'd be my first subjects. 

These men take care of me better than anyone in any neighborhood I've ever lived. Charles, the one closest to the camera, knocks on my window to remind me to move my car. I will never get over that kindness. 

They didn't really have a choice. 

The woman who believed in me so much I couldn't not shoot for the moon. Thank you Johanna! 

The Fort Greene farmer's market, a mixed mecca. I come here just to watch all the couples and mixed babies. 

I only hope to have such a cool looking family. 

Somehow I managed to make it out of NY, apartment rented, bags packed. Philly is where I met Ruby and instantly wanted a daughter.  Look at that personality, and I was a stranger! I literally came to her family's front door after having had a brief email exchange with her mom Susanne, and her dad John, opened the door and was like, Abby, you're staying for dinner! Ok, sure!

I couldn't get over how "straight" her hair is. She's half black and half white like me but has no kink in her hair at all. I thought, she's lucky. Yep, that's what went through my head, the truth. 

Ruby's brother Solomon. Brilliant little boy just like his sister. He asked if he could play a few songs on the accordion during dinner and just like that, he got up and started. The world won't see him as black but he has a black father. His father told me that there was no hiding his "blackness" at school where they labelled him a troublemaker for calling out answers to questions out loud. He switched schools and now he's one of the best students in his class. Overreacting? Too sensitive? I might think so if the exact same thing hadn't happened to my baby brother. Boys with even a bit of brown are bad until proven otherwise. 

Susanne and John, Ruby and Solomon's parents and the kind of parents and couple I aspire to be. They fed me perfectly cooked salmon and kept good red wine flowing. Ruby said, Dad would never drink a bad wine. I was home in Philadelphia. 

The Family Stone. John's feelings on people going up to touch his kids' hair:

If I ever would've went up to a white kid and touched him, you can imagine... I'd never thought about it that way. 

Kate actually admitted that she didn't just want to have another regular "white" family.

FINALLY, the TRUTH. I hope she doesn't get mad at me for writing this because I think it's really important and not at all why she's with Albert, obviously.  It's okay to not want the things that "whiteness" stands for-uptight, boring, plain, and conservative. That's what we mean by "white." And to not want those things in ones life does not make you a bad person.

You can say that out loud. 

Albert went to school in Scarsdale with my ex-boyfriend. Small small world. Or not.  Either way, it was a relief to meet someone with even a tenuous connection to home. 

I just like the way their heads make a heart. They were so cool about keeping them pressed together for a long time. It's hard to look someone in the eyes. Try it. These two bought each other the exact same Jon Stewart book for Christmas one year. So just how "different" are they?

They're both food obsessed and don't care what other people think. I knew they were for real so I took them up on their recommendation to go to Southwark for slow, locally sourced food and amazing cocktails. It didn't disappoint. 

Erica, this divine half black and half white woman lives literally across the street from where I was staying. And both her parents are Pennsylvania Dutch. I didn't know what that meant either. It means both her white father and black mother were raised rooted in German culture since that's who settled in the part of Pennsylvania where they were born. So, when Erica's mother first invited her white grandparents over for dinner, race wasn't an issue because they shared the same culture--food, habits and strong connection to church and community. 

I ran into this father and his two daughter at a coffee shop up the street from where I was staying. It was pouring rain so I ducked inside and found this sweetness. Reminds me of what I used to do to my baby brother. 

He asked me how I knew they were mixed. I said, it takes one to know one. 

My cousins Finn and Ava; my mom's brother's daughter's kids. They can't get any blonder and we share the same blood. No one would ever know. Such a fallacy race.

Ava. I've  only met her once before when she was four but that didn't matter. She greeted me with a handmade Happy Halloween picture with my name on it.  I was so relieved since I'd been scared that her and her brother didn't want a weird brown relative staying with them and invading their space. Then she gave me her room to sleep in and it was full of butterflies. I love butterflies.

When posting this I realized that my brother has the same wooden sword. And he used to make that devilish grin when he brandished it. Home again. 

River.  If we're talking "race" I would say she's half Asian and half white but that means nothing. Her mother is actually first generation Japanese which would be entirely different than if her mother were Thai or Indian. This is when I start to realize just how fucked up a concept race really is. It means nothing though it deeply affects all of our lives whether we want to admit or not.

Adam, River's white Southern American boyfriend. He made me eat fried pimento cheese and hushpuppies. So good. River made him this shirt. I wanted to steal it. 

The hot, half Japanese waitress at Greer St. Garden. River knew her because all the creative people in Durham know each other. She is half the creative force behind Deer Heart. She mentioned that they're getting a write-up in Garden & Gun which is what everyone wants down here. I bought a copy of the magazine to check it out. I asked her, you want to be featured in what? I thought I'd misheard the title but apparently this magazine is the soul of the south. I'm now a fan.

Sitting alone at the bar eavesdropping. Are you on a date? Ummm, I think so. Excellent, can I take your picture?

Something this cool could only come from NYC. Nicole Nichols has left her packed classes at Jivamukti and moved down to Cary NC to open up Republic of Yoga. She's in an interracial relationship too but we didn't get to talk about that. We had too much else to catch up on, like how you change your life when the pain of staying the same just gets too great. Amen. 

Outside a bar called Surf Club. I had to talk to them. This wasn't the South I was expecting. 

And I was almost gonna go home. 

I like tall guys with beards. I'm a sucker for hipsters above 5' 11.

Getting my 3rd coffee of the day at Respite. I looked up, saw her and almost decided not to ask if she was mixed. I feel weird asking so I quickly follow it up with, cause I AM and I'm working on this project...Her mom is from St. Kits and her dad is white. Beautiful freckles. 

This is where I was staying in Durham. I noticed in Kate's Airbnb profile that she lived with her girlfriend, so I thought “Lesbians-safe!” (I was scared of the South at first.) 

I was drawn to Marquita like a magnet. Something about the blond hair against the dark brown skin and the clear transitioning from male to female. I was shocked to see it happening so blatantly in the South by a black person. Two of my own ideas of how things are being messed with at once. 

She was so excited that I wanted to take her photo and that I thought she was pretty. Her "mother" told me God loves all his children. Amen. 

Little Soleil. She loved my hair and I think she knows hers is going to be exactly the same. 

Her parents met in college at Eastern Michigan. The majority of problems they had came from white girls while they were in college. They've since learned to have a sense of humor about any stares they get on the street. 

Waking up one morning wondering wtf I've gotten myself into. This project is INTENSE.

Her beauty was just mesmerizing. 

Lucy and Vince, refreshingly urban as I was starting to miss NYC. 

He warned me how how deep racism in Asheville runs, beneath the patchouli and spiritual veneer. 

Found this cute teenage couple at the mall of all places! 

Many people in their upstate NY town have never actually been "up close" to a black person so they often assume she just has a tan. 

Random couple I assaulted and forced into a picture during my big night out in Asheville. 

He explained how he doesn't like the term "interracial" because it gives meaning to race when race is just an external thing, we all have red blood. 

Linda, the most vital, energetic, hilarious, woman over 70 I’ve ever met. I asked her how she’s stayed so vibrant. She said “ I love myself. That’s it.”

I went up into the mountains for a retreat to help process all the intense, inspiring stories I was uncovering. This is my friend Sarah, putting detoxifying mud on her face. 

I can't help but take photos of beautiful things. 

Who says chair yoga's easy?!

A bridge and a Buddha.

Bella and Calvin explained that to make room for the expansion of I-10, the city bought up all the homes that were “in the way,” which was essentially an entire middle class black neighborhood. Then the city created new homes that were far too expensive for the previous residents to purchase. The result was a huge majority of Asheville’s black population forced into sectioned off public housing.

Calvin had been wrongfully incarcerated at 19 and served 17 years. Bella, who has two children, that Calvin now cares for, told me how one of her main goals is to get out of public housing before her children are old enough to fall victim to racial profiling and abuse. But don’t feel sorry for these two. They’re extraordinary. They’ve helped create the Ujamaa Freedom Market, a bus that brings fresh, organic produce to the poor areas of Asheville. 

Ami, another beautiful baby with caramel skin and hair like mine. I was so happy to see my face reflected back at me so many times. 

Ami's brother Elhaj loving his chicken. Their dad Bah is from Senegal so we ate dinner on the floor as is customary. My mind was whirling from having just been at the Asheville housing projects. How wonderous to drive just ten minutes and be totally transported to a different cultural experience yet one also so similar-another family navigating the interracial experience with a black father and white mother.

Janelle and her "rainbow babies." She taught me that term and I love it. She explained how Elhaj was hanging around her neck one day and one of her white friends said "he looks like a little monkey." Janelle was so taken aback at the ease with which this statement rolled off her friend's tongue, further proof of just how ingrained racism is in our culture. 

And then there was Emil. The day I was leaving town he overheard me discussing my blog in a juice bar. He said, “you have to come to my studio and see my art.” I thought, “who is this old white guy?” Trusting a feeling that I should see his work, I went to his studio that afternoon. It was filled with sculptures and paintings rooted in the interracial experience. As a young man Emil had married a black woman and was thrown into the “race traitor” bucket by friends and family. They got pregnant. People expected him to pretend the child wasn’t his because “that’s what you do.” But Emil was in love so the two married. Once the child was born the family came around and their views on race were changed forever. 

Carl and his wife Judi own Farmacy Juice Bar in Asheville. I was so happy to see a black owned juice bar I didn't want to leave! That doesn't even exist in NY.