Rashad Houston · A living archive

The Life Between

The years between the words. Fatherhood, family, movement, and the places that brought me back to myself.

Fatherhood

The years held in small hands.

Rashad and Omari seated on Metro-North, with Omari holding a black-and-white cookie.
Sharing tradition. A black-and-white cookie with my oldest son, Omari, on Metro-North. Beneath the Golden Clock →
Rashad and Aidan smiling beneath the tall windows of Grand Central Terminal.
Me and Aidan in Grand Central. A place from my childhood, now part of his.
Rashad and his youngest son Aidan sitting together on Metro-North, holding cold drinks.
On Metro-North with Aidan. Another ride along a route that’s been part of my life for years. The story behind these journeys · Beneath the Golden Clock →
Two brothers looking out toward the trees.
Growing together.
Two brothers standing side by side, facing the water.
Looking toward what comes next.
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A street view along East 47th Street near Grand Central, with two figures walking ahead.
East 47th Street with my youngest, Aidan. Grand Central close by.
Aidan, Omari, and Rashad together in an outdoor family selfie.
Out with my boys. Aidan, Omari, and me.
Rashad and his sons Aidan and Omari smiling together in a second outdoor selfie.
Another frame with my sons. Glad we kept both.
Rashad embracing his son in a green gown at his high school graduation.
With my son at his high school graduation.
Rashad and his son wearing shirts and ties beside the water.
Me and my son, looking sharp.
Rashad and both sons making shaka gestures
A father holding his baby
Held close. Fatherhood & inheritance →
Father and child walking beside the water
Father and son making matching playful faces
A father holding his baby beside his older son
Rashad holding his older son at birth in a patterned hospital blanket.
With my older son at his birth.
A father and son playing basketball
A father and child enjoying music at home
Father and son looking upward among trees at dusk
A father with both sons and a handmade card
A baby reaching for his father’s cheek
A father walking beside his older son
Father and baby near the Golden Gate Bridge
Rashad styling his younger son’s hair with both sons at home
A father and son laughing together
Rashad’s young son smiling by the White House fence
Rashad holding his younger son at birth in a hospital chair.
With my younger son at his birth. He wore the same hat as his older brother.
A father and his sons at the beach
A father and child sharing headphones
One sound. Two listeners. Frequencies →
Father and young son holding hands beside outdoor steps
A father resting with his two sons
Father and child beneath palm trees
Rashad and his sons beneath a monument at Yorktown
A father and son close together
Father and child on the beach
A father kissing his smiling baby
A father and son talking on the porch
A conversation on the porch. The Current Remains →
A father leaning close to his smiling baby
A father outdoors with his two sons
A father crouching beside his son
A father and son selfie
A father and son sharing a moment outdoors
Rashad sharing a playful moment with his young son.
Rashad and another man beside a baby in a carrier.
Rashad and his son beside an arcade fortune-telling machine.
Two relatives visiting a newborn in the hospital.
Rashad and his son holding a Dad cereal box.
Rashad and his sons flexing their arms together at home.
Rashad talking with his sons on the couch.
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Movement

Different cities. Different versions of me.

Rashad standing beside lockers and bunks in his ship’s berthing after a workout during deployment.
After a workout, back in the berthing on my ship. A moment from deployment.
Rashad in a jacket on a Virginia beach beneath a clear blue sky.
A cold day at the beach in Virginia. Related writing · The Tide Has No Master →
A television screen shows Rashad Houston being interviewed by News 3, holding prescription pill bottles.
On the news in 2017, discussing the pills I used to take for epilepsy and cannabis reform.
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Rashad Houston as a boy beside Elton Brand, his mentor and camp counselor from Peekskill.
With Elton Brand, my old mentor and camp counselor. An NBA legend from my hometown, Peekskill.
Rashad Houston standing on a broad sandy Ocean View beach, with grass-covered dunes behind him.
The beach I remember. Ocean View, 2019.
Rashad Houston standing on the sandy beach beneath a blue sky, with the bay behind him.
This place helped build me.
Rashad Houston crouches at the water’s edge on a foggy beach, with his reflection in the wet sand.
Even in the fog, I knew where I stood.
Rashad Houston crouches beside the bay in outdoor training clothes beneath a clear blue sky.
The work continued beneath an open sky.
Rashad Houston stands barefoot on the beach with one fist raised as a twin-rotor helicopter passes overhead.
Feet on the earth. My fist toward the sky.
Rashad seated at home in a black tank top, headband, and running shorts.
Preparing for a long run after prayer and ritual.
Rashad Houston outdoors during cold-weather training under a blue sky.
Cold-weather training.
An early portrait in a white shirt
An early portrait in a black shirt
A quiet portrait at home
An early photograph in the kitchen
A photograph outside a hangar
A visit to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
A visit to the Washington Monument
A street photograph in the Philippines
A portrait at a restaurant
At the microphone in the studio
The room becomes a voice. Frequencies →
A portrait on the train
A portrait in black
A seated portrait at home
A moment in Washington, D.C.
A portrait in Peekskill
Peekskill. The line continues. Metro-North to Nowhere →
A quiet moment in a white hoodie
A portrait in sunlight
Recording in a blue-lit studio
An outdoor portrait
A seated portrait in a black tank and headband
A portrait in a black Nike shirt
Rashad as a boy in Chicago
A shirtless portrait after training
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New Orleans

New Orleans and the River Road — places, memory, and traces of history.

What the Land Left Within →

The Caesars Superdome seen through a geometric steel window frame in New Orleans.
Caesars Superdome, New Orleans.
The ornate white Wedding Cake House with its curved portico on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans.
The Wedding Cake House, St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans.
A Hurricane Katrina flood-water marker dated September 1, 2005.
Katrina flood-water level — September 1, 2005.
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The Big House at Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana.
Whitney Plantation, Wallace, Louisiana — along the River Road outside New Orleans.
An open page of The Voodoo Doll Spellbook photographed in New Orleans.
A page from The Voodoo Doll Spellbook, photographed in New Orleans.
Rashad beside Marie Laveau’s tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans.
At Marie Laveau’s tomb, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans.
Rashad beside Nicolas Cage’s white pyramid tomb inscribed Omnia Ab Uno in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.
Beside Nicolas Cage’s pyramid tomb — “Omnia Ab Uno.” St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans.
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Future Relics

Machines, monuments, and the future hiding in the ordinary.

New York City skyline glass artwork displayed in the foyer of Rashad’s childhood home in Peekskill.
The New York City skyline in glass. The foyer of my childhood home in Peekskill. Beneath the Golden Clock →
The MetLife Building seen from below against a clear blue sky.
Standing beneath the MetLife Building, looking up. New York still makes me do that.
Grand Central Terminal’s turquoise celestial ceiling above the main concourse.
The ceiling I remember. Grand Central, with my family below. Beneath the Golden Clock →
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Steel roof beams forming a geometric pattern overhead.
A concrete pier support meeting the sea.
An aircraft silhouetted against textured clouds.
A rounded modern building above a city street.
An aircraft crossing a cloudy sky above trees.
A tall light pole beneath storm clouds.
A vintage theater facade and marquee.
A white stone mausoleum beneath a blue sky.
Stone crosses above cemetery monuments.
A sculptural signpost beside the coast.
A small aircraft silhouetted in an expansive blue sky.
An aircraft passing beside a tall lighting tower against a blue sky.
004 — The Air Won’t Settle →005 — Infinite Fuel →
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Nature

Where I go to hear myself again.

Ocean View, in words · The Tide Has No Master →

Waves meet the Ocean View beach below a rocky embankment and shoreline homes, with a pier in the distance.
We brought stone. The water kept moving.
A posted swimming advisory at Ocean View warns that bacteria levels do not meet state water-quality standards.
A warning where we came to breathe. Photographed advisory, 2026.
Dark storm clouds stretch above the bay as small waves wash onto the sandy shoreline.
The sky had something to say.
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Rashad Houston’s shadow stretches across the sand toward the Chesapeake Bay after his workout.
After the work, I stood still. Ocean View, October 16, 2026.
A quiet moment on a grassy hill at sunset
Arms open toward the sunset
A moment in a volcanic landscape
Looking out toward the sea
The horizon keeps its distance.
A portrait by the ocean
Facing the trees
A portrait among the trees
A quiet moment in the woods
Reading outdoors
Reading among the trees
A page beneath the trees.
The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth, by Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor, photographed on a table.
Another page. Another way back to the earth.
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For my mother, my sister, and the Black women who have carried me.

The Women Who Kept the Light

Rashad with his mother beneath a Welcome to Chicago sign.
Me and my Mama.
Rashad embracing a woman and kissing her forehead outside a home.Rashad and a woman with long locs sharing an embrace beside a birthday cake.
Rashad Houston with his mom and sister at his Navy boot-camp graduation in Great Lakes, Illinois.
My mom and my sister beside me at boot-camp graduation. Great Lakes, Illinois.

Some of the strength people see in me belongs to you. It came from the extra days you worked, the calls you answered, the wounds you tended, and the times you loved me enough to tell me I needed to choose differently. When men tried to break me, you helped me gather myself. Good men have guided me, too. But you were there for the work nobody applauded, making sacrifices I understand more deeply now that I have children of my own.

There is a particular kind of magic in the Black women who raised and steadied me. I have known it as protection, laughter, correction, and somewhere safe to land. I hope this page gives you a little of what you have always given me: the feeling of being seen and loved. Whatever I make, whatever my sons inherit, your love is already in it.

More moments together
Grandma Minnie seated in an armchair in sunlight in Yonkers.
Grandma Minnie. Yonkers.
Rashad’s mother standing beside a fountain and palm trees in Hawaii in the 1980s.
Mom in Hawaii, in the 1980s.
Rashad and a woman together in a family photograph.Rashad in Navy uniform beside a woman.Two children together in an early family photograph.Rashad sharing a birthday embrace with a woman.Rashad and a woman together at sunset.Rashad beside a woman wearing glasses.A childhood family photograph beside a brick wall.

Their words live here, too.

A Mother and Her Son: Life in Poetry ↗Priscilla M. Houston & Rashad V. HoustonThe Fading Rainbow ↗Semirra LongThe Unwritten Words: A Black Woman’s Perspective on Life and Love ↗Semirra M. Long

Family

The people woven into the story.

Rashad’s mother and his sons Omari and Aidan overlooking Grand Central’s main concourse.
Mom, Omari, and Aidan in Grand Central. Three generations, in a place that keeps bringing us together. Beneath the Golden Clock →
Family gathered on a couch in rural Alabama.
With Mom, my niece, and our elders in rural Alabama. In our family’s history, this is the couch where Martin Luther King Jr. sat for a meeting in the 1960s.
Aunt Diane and cousins gathered in a family home in Peekskill.
With Aunt Diane and my cousins in Peekskill.
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Omari and his grandmother seated beside each other in a restaurant booth.
Omari and Mom. A moment to sit down together.
Family gathered in Yonkers, with Grandma Minnie, Aunt Diane, Semirra, and Omari.
In Yonkers with Aunt Diane, my sister Semirra, and my son Omari. Grandma Minnie beside us.
A childhood photograph of Rashad and his cousin Kelly.
Me and my cousin Kelly.
With Mom at a restaurant
Across the table. With Mom. A Mother and Her Son →
A selfie with Mom
With Mom beneath palms at sunset
A kiss for Mom
Carrying my son on my shoulders
Together with my sons in the car
Rashad Houston with his mom and sister at his Navy boot-camp graduation in Great Lakes, Illinois.
My mom and my sister beside me at boot-camp graduation. Great Lakes, Illinois.
An early family portrait
Rashad Houston as a child sitting with his big sister.
Me and my big sister, sitting together.
Rashad as a baby with his brother
Rashad Houston at his second birthday, on his big brother’s shoulders, with his brothers and sister.
My second birthday, with my brothers and sister. On my big brother’s shoulders.
Rashad with his brother
Rashad Houston standing beside his Grandma Minnie indoors.
With Grandma Minnie. The love I carry.
Rashad Houston and Grandma Minnie smiling together in a close selfie.
Me and Grandma Minnie. A smile I carry with me.
Rashad with his father
Rashad Houston with his dad, both wearing sunglasses. The last time Rashad saw him.
With Dad. The last time I saw him.
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An ongoing collection. Select any photograph to view it in full.