By Morgan Dykeman
2012 was the first year I was eligible to cast a vote for President. I was 20 years old, a student at a small liberal arts college that was proud to boast about 1,000 students total in a rural swath of Western North Carolina, just south of Asheville. We were as far left as they… Read more »
By David Janey
the stale smell of adolescence lingers still in the varnished wood floors and bleachers of my high school gymnasium. Memories aged fifty years now are just that: faded but not gone, like a scar from an ancient wound or the sting of a racist slight. Only on election days do we come here, only to… Read more »
By Christina Baquero Dudley
Let me take you on a trip. It’s right about the turn of the century, and I’m a 15-year-old engrossed in everything normal and expected: blink 182, school, friends, and boys. Except there is one aspect that’s not so normal in my suburban upbringing: my father is not a U.S. citizen. And that didn’t mean… Read more »
By Michael Ansara
My 28-year-old son turns to me, “You failed, you failed.” We are attempting to discuss the morality of the moment. Is violence against police morally defensible? Is there any case that can be made to not vote? I am attempting to pass on lessons from my youth. He is having none of it. “You failed completely,” he hurls at me in bitter condemnation. “Completely.”
By Kelvin Kellman
Like every school boy, I was cultured to dine with fine silver;piercing steak with polished tines and cutting with the right. Because eating bare hands in the manner of my forebearsmirrors the manners of every other primate shooting from tree to tree. I recite the rosary, venerate men (now saints) that lookzero like me, did… Read more »
By William Torphy
A deadly disease infects us all. We acquire it from birth. It threatens lives and incites fear. The disease is racism. Black Americans have been subjected to brutality—physically, spiritually, and economically—since their ancestors were forced into slave ships and transported as chattel to this continent. From the “slave patrols” that subjected slaves to prohibitive surveillance,… Read more »
By Maria Luisa Arroyo Cruzado
The few times that I’ve walked into the Big Y in Longmeadow, MA, the supermarket closest to the university, at which I teach, I steel myself against the barbed gazes. This is a predominantly white market situated in a predominantly white, affluent suburb. I am less than a stranger. I am a walking abomination, a… Read more »
By Eduardo Mendieta
Essential: adj. 1: of, relating to or constituting an essence <voting is an ~right of citizenship> <~ oils> 2: of an utmost importance: INDISPENSABLE…Synonyms IMPERATIVE, NECESSARY, NECESSITOUS—essentially adv. Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Eleventh Edition My mother is now retired, and I am glad and thankful, but today were she not she would be an “essential worker.” Before… Read more »
By David Janey
lost promises imagine you’re in a class, a class withno instructor, only a syllabus, only oneassignment; describe these troublesometimes, explain our collective cruelty, untangleour web of deception, describe – us – to astranger, a stranger as close as a twin alsoin a class with no instructor but on a distantplain, in a parallel universe far… Read more »
By Doug Canter
Three days after George Floyd’s unjustified murder in Minneapolis, I read a frustrated plea from a fellow teacher at Western High School in Baltimore City where I teach tenth grade English. The email’s subject line, “Trigger warning,” captured the pain and frustration of my colleague who wrote: “As we are inundated with the unavoidable and… Read more »
By Lisa Braxton
They stepped out of front doors, proceeded down spacious brick pathways to the foot of their manicured lawns, and with the precision of a military unit, pivoted to face us. All of them were white—men and women—homeowners in a leafy enclave in Fairfield County Connecticut suburbia anchored by raised ranches, Dutch Colonials, and split-level homes.… Read more »
By Donna Weaver
Mum’s Friend Request For three weeks Mum was forty-nine. If she lived she’d share everything on social media. She wouldsign up for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and LinkedIn.But I am doing it for her. Her ashes on a shelf I can’t touch. Thought she’d be chosen to appearon ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ as she… Read more »
By Tessa Clare
When I was sixteen, my mother told me to be grateful for any job that I could get. As a woman of color, I was raised to believe that opportunities were scarce and that I should make the most of any one that I could find. It didn’t matter that my mother spent the majority… Read more »
By Kristian Macaron
At seven A.M. on a Saturday, I was making coffee and my doorbell rang. On the other side of it were two police officers. I grew up and have spent most of my life in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which has the one of the highest violent crime rates in the U.S., and is also an… Read more »
By tina scott lassiter
Pleasure is found on the grounds of a garden estate that I frequently walk and photograph. When the pandemic restrictions began to lift, I received a members only invitation to visit; I immediately made an appointment for the first hour on opening day. It felt strange driving through Rock Creek Park to this best kept… Read more »
By Margo Gabriel
The pancetta crackles in the pan as I dice shallots. This dish won’t taste nearly as delicious as it would if I enjoyed it alfresco at MIDA, one of my favorite Italian eateries in Boston’s South End. On this night of quarantine, I settle for a homemade version of carbonara and a glass of wine.… Read more »
By Melissa Jenks
An article came out recently exploring the idea that some people, during the coronavirus, especially those consistently and chronically afflicted with anxiety and depression, have had their illness lift during the crisis. The author explored several theories as to why, including the concept that the worst has already happened, so what else is there to… Read more »
By Caitlin T.D. Robinson
In the age of the coronavirus, fear, sadness, and suffering prevail. Unemployment, illness, and death are just some of the trials we face in this global pandemic. Amidst these difficult times, flowers bloom and humans find new ways to connect. A great deal of tenderness and meaning can be experienced when we look for it. … Read more »
By Shilpi Suneja
When the pandemic erupted like a cursed piece of do-it-yourself Ikea furniture, I was planning to travel to Rome with my mom. The trip was to be her seventieth birthday present. To date, I have done very little to mark her birthdays: no surprise diamonds, no cruises (thank god!), no large family gatherings. It’s just… Read more »
By Kangsen Feka Wakai
T.M. leads the walk towards his new apartment at the end of the hallway on the first floor of his new home. Fidgeting with the keys, he struggles to fit the key into the lock. He shakes his sweaty head, smiles nervously, and wiggles the key again. Maybe he is overwhelmed by the enormity of… Read more »
By Nadia Ghent
By Nadia Ghent I’ve always done my work at the kitchen table, an oversized, blonde, oak pedestal table that was one of the first pieces of “grown-up” furniture my husband and I bought for our new house almost thirty years ago. The gouge marks are still there from our two cross-country moves, New York City… Read more »
By Eduardo Mendieta
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle provided us one of the most important definitions of what it means to be human, namely that we are “zoon politikon” –that we are political animals. Aristotle added some nuance to this definition when, in his Politics, he said that humans, in addition to being political animals, are also “zoon echon… Read more »
By tina scott lassiter
I am one of many entrepreneurs who watched an invisible nemesis whisk away current and potential business as the coronavirus moved across the map. Add to that the disappearance of funds from my retirement portfolio. One morning, I woke with tears in my eyes that led to a good sob before I began my daily… Read more »
By Lindsay Hosmer
In early January I was struggling to quit drinking again after a relapse. I would go for a week, twelve days, then find myself walking into a liquor store and buying four nips of Absolute vodka. Yes I’m an alcoholic, my purchase affirmed to the clerk. I had given up caring. Whoosh, the first one… Read more »
By William Torphy
Forty-seven percent (that’s 47%) of Americans do not have $400. in cash available for an unexpected emergency. This is a statistic that has stuck with me for a very long time, one that reveals most directly a dysfunctional economy, and now with the Covid-19 crisis places at least half of all Americans in deep financial… Read more »
By Lori Michas
Living mere blocks from the university where I work, it is easy to see the vast generational divide in how we view and are experiencing the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Online, a colleague made a post to Facebook pleading with others to join in calling Idaho Governor Brad Little’s office to urge for more stringent social… Read more »
By Robbie Gamble
I’m a nurse practitioner and I’ve been working at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program for twenty years. Yesterday, March 25th, I was called in to work at our main facility, on a floor where one wing is hastily being transformed into a COVID-19 unit, where we can receive homeless folks who have been… Read more »
By Herman Axelrod
To think about the implications and permutations of the coronavirus is a daunting affair with no clear-cut solution. The thought of being volitionally incarcerated in one’s home would have been inconceivable a few short months ago. Perhaps a few short weeks or even days ago. The point is, according to most credible intelligence, commit to… Read more »
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