Danielle BarberI was obsessed with the inherited version of “gypsies”—a romanticized, mystical figure passed down through generations. Jewelry layered on skin, skirts shimmering with coins and sequins, fabric moving like costume, like spellwork. Not mildly interested. Not just curious. Fully, unapologetically obsessed. I dressed as a “gypsy” for Halloween five times. Five. That’s not a phase—that’s commitment.
Danielle BarberApril holds the birthdays of my grandfather, grandmother, mother, and father—the four people who shaped my earliest world in our home in Trenton. They were the foundation of my first memories, the faces I learned to recognize before all others, the voices that filled the corners of my childhood.
Danielle BarberIn my family, Easter meant three things: religion, bunnies, and cured meats—in other words, Catholic, pagan, and sodium.
Danielle BarberShe was named after the sometimes invisible, uniform-despising dog from I Dream of Jeannie. At the time, we spelled it “Gin Gin,” exactly as we heard it. Nearly fifty years later, searching for clips online, I discovered that Jeannie’s dog’s name was actually spelled “Djinn Djinn.”
