As a kid, I played for hours with my Smurfs under the dining room table, while my mother clacked away on the typewriter above my
There was a photo of me I never knew about that hung in my father’s house outside of Bonn for nearly thirty years. He lived
I’m sitting by your bed holding soaps and handkerchiefs– the only gifts I could think of to bring a dying man. It’s quiet– both of
Once when I was eight years old, my hair caught on fire. My older sister saved my life by shoving me out the front door
It turns out all access points to Multnomah Falls are closed because of the forest fires that have been raging for the past six weeks.
I can still name all the players on the New York Mets back in 1986, the year they won the World Series– Sid Fernandez, Gary
Over a thousand people came to my father’s funeral in Jordan when he died, even though he hadn’t lived there for many years. As a
Frau Bauer wore wigs–the kind you’d expect an old German woman to wear in the late 1970s—short, layered, and indecisively blond. These wigs went perfectly
The night before I fly back home to New York, I look into the living room and see you alone on the sofa in your
My mother was only five years old when my grandmother left. Although both parents were still alive, all three children were placed in an orphanage
The summer between the two collisions, I took to jumping into lakes. The idea of my body, shooting like a bullet through the scrim of
When I was 21, I woke up one Sunday to find that my knees had grown so swollen overnight that I couldn’t get out of
Last winter, I sat in a one-room cottage and watched almost everything I ever wrote burn up inside a small wood-pellet stove. The cottage stood
Instructions for Handling a Sensitive Soul: 1. Text her you love her, but only hit “send” when you can picture her smiling as she rereads
When you open an online dating app, there should be a check box for the following Terms and Conditions: “I acknowledge that I am now
“Oh my threshed and winnowed one…”–Isaiah 21:10 The rice harvesting season began during my last week in Bali. Each day from the yoga shala, I’d
I’ve had a thick scar on my left inner thigh since I was four years old, when I cut myself on the sharp plastic edge
Come on skinny love just last the year–Pour a little salt we were never here. –“Skinny Love,” by Bon Iver Ten minutes before the crash,
Once or twice a year a package would arrive at a post office box on East 54th Street, requiring a long subway ride and a
I will stare at the sun for minutes at a time,hold perfectly still as it stings the back of my brain.Let it burn a hole
There’s a simplicity that rises to the surface of such a land of extremes and contradictions— a land of ice-capped summits and fissures that ooze
When you’re 15 and you find a cassette tape lying in perfect condition in the middle of First Avenue; when you don’t know it, but
Salwa [ 2 syll. sal-wa ] pronounced SEHL-Waa. 1) consolation, solace 2) a quail 3) a luxurious treat There once was a shy little girl
A few years ago, when my car needed a new engine, the only loaner available in the one-horse town I was living in was a
When I was a kid, I’d get asked to sing almost anywhere I went– at restaurants, at parties– and I’d gladly get up and perform
Things implode.Fire brims; the earth peaks.Stone collapses into canyons,fills up with life and rain. Hearts implode.Love surges; wisdom swells;the soul cannot be contained. Decay precedes
I’m almost at the top of the rock wall when the attendant calls up to me. “Ma’am? I’m gonna need you to come down now.”
I don’t remember whose idea it was to make a Death Star as a tree topper that year. As a woman with little interest in