Nov 13, 2019
Finding My Inner Piece: How Puzzles Ease My Anxiety
It’s very calming, very methodical, very good if, say, someone you love has died, but you know the world cannot stop, and you can’t either.
For Sale: Wedding Dress, Worn Once
There’s an irritating coyness to the language around wedding expenses: they’re not expenses at all, they’re “investments.”
May 13, 2019
The Tiger in Harlem Who Helped Me Heal
All the buildings I walked by each day and thought nothing about now seemed like they contained the answers to questions it hadn’t occurred to me to ask.
Feb 26, 2019
Why I Turned to Candy-Making as My Family Fell Apart
If I was in the kitchen making candy, usually my mom wasn’t in there screaming or throwing a butter dish at my dad.
Dec 05, 2018
Should We Stop Using the Word ‘Pariah’?
What do we do with language that is steeped in colonial history?
Aug 14, 2018
“A Modern, Up-to-Date Young Woman”: Shopping, Fashion, and the Rules of My Girlhood
All the fashion rules I learned as a girl were informed by the view that women’s bodies are never okay as they are—they always need fixing.
Jul 26, 2018
Take You Me For a Sponge?: How My Marriage Survived Illness and Caregiving
Sea sponges lack heart, lungs, and the ability to move. They perform their ancient tasks because they must.
Jun 06, 2018
Flour, Yeast, Water, and Salt: How Breadmaking Helped Me Get Through My Divorce
Breadmaking made me feel purposeful, instead of feeling as if I scarcely had control over anything.
Jun 05, 2018
Get Down to Work or God Help You: Reading Etty Hillesum
When Etty wrote to herself, I heard her speaking to me, and I took her words to heart.
May 22, 2018
A Living Time Capsule Shows That to Be Human is to Be Wild
Most time capsules are enclosed underground, but this one faces the world.
May 21, 2018
The Rose Quartz Ceiling: When It Comes to Love, Men Are Praised for What Women Are Simply Expected to Give
When love and femininity are intertwined, only some of us are expected to do the job of loving.
May 16, 2018
Mary McCarthy’s “The Group”: Three Queer Readings
“I think of McCarthy and ‘The Group,’ giving me language to understand myself before I even knew that’s what I needed.”
May 10, 2018
Amethyst: When You Seek Balance at All Costs
Maybe telling ourselves we’re balanced, that we’re in control, is almost as good as the real thing.
Apr 16, 2018
My Suits Helped Me Try on Another Life, But I Don’t Need Them Anymore
Sometimes I still think about my suits and the life I could have had. Now I work for myself, and my standard uniform is jeans and a T-shirt.
Apr 12, 2018
The Consuming Power of Hunger and Desire
“As a young woman, I was rarely in control of my body or my mind. I had hungers like snakes wildly contorting from my head.”
Apr 12, 2018
Is This Device That Stores a Heartbeat an Authentic Way to Memorialize Someone?
Platforms like Facebook already act as mediums between the living and deceased.
Apr 11, 2018
Great Book Finds, and One That Got Away
“There is a saying in book collecting: You only regret the books you don’t buy.”
Apr 10, 2018
How She Did It: On Penelope Fitzgerald, Writing, and Women at Work
Fitzgerald was ground down, I imagine, consumed by how to take care of her family. This didn’t make her any less the thinker, writer, reader, that she was.
Apr 09, 2018
The Male Gaze: Objectification in the Narrative World
“We have become so good at seeing our environment—our planet and the people upon it—as a rolling scroll of film.”
Apr 06, 2018
Capture This: How We Live Away From the Lens
I was embarrassed each time I got out my camera.
Mar 19, 2018
