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Finding Peace at the Most Beautiful Taco Bell in the World
I need the ocean to quiet my thoughts, the surfers to remind me I’m a person, the Taco Bell as a place where I become solid again.
What am I feeling, what am I seeing, what am I hearing, what is the worst thing that could happen, what is the best, what is the most likely?
Anna Held is a writer and editor based in San Francisco. Her essays have appeared in BuzzFeed, The Cut, The Rumpus, Romper, Runner's World, Catapult, Vox, and Electric Literature, among other publications. She is an associate features editor at The Rumpus and a prolific ghostwriter.
Photo credit: Andria Lo
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So You’re Writing an Essay. But What Is It Really About?
To get from a pile of ideas to one essay, I ask myself three questions: What is this essay about? What’s it really about? What is it really, really about?
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Finding God in Science
The grounding I felt in organized religion was substantial: the loss, acutely painful. I found temporary relief in all the ways nature found me wherever I lived.
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“The whole country is fighting,” one of my relatives told me. It was a throwaway remark, but it was the most apt thing I heard that weekend in Ukraine.