My daughter, Savi, instructs me to wear shoes when I go for my morning walk. She says it’s not considered exercise otherwise. I tell her my toes feel imprisoned in shoes and slide my feet into chappals before I…
after Jenny Offill On the hour-long train ride to New York City, you read a book about a divorce that almost but doesn’t quite happen. Your boyfriend says he’s knocked out from miscellaneous paperwork and allergy headaches and his…
“Maintenance is a drag; it takes all the fucking time.” —Mierle Laderman Ukeles, MANIFESTO! MAINTENANCE ART 1969! Proposal for an Exhibition, “CARE” (1969) MONDAY socks and shoes socks and shoes socks and shoes Taking all the fucking time,…
Aboveground I was twelve years old when I last saw Blanca Esperanto. She lived at the end of the road. Their house was a brown, dry affair of rustling wood and dark leaves. She loved sitting on the ledge…
By Nick Almeida • If you had grown up in my house, “You’re dollaring me to death” would forever echo in your head. The phrase is one of my mother’s favorites, inextricably linked to any requests for small amounts…
Content Warning—child sexual abuse Tansy My sister, Liberty, tells me I need to exercise, that it cures all ills. Well, I don’t see how swimming cures hers. All it does is dry out her hair. Jolee, my youngest…
1. When my mother first came to the United States in the 1970s, she was disappointed by the treeless tenements my father brought her to. She had grown up on a bustling island beach in what was then called…
4. It is prom night. A group of us are out to eat at The Urban Hive, on the rooftop. Couples sit in pairs around a table forged of meteorite. Smoky black, with a network of tiny bubble cells,…
He was standing at the corner where we met every morning to walk to work because we were young and carless. I had gotten on a train and moved 2,000 miles for a walkable city. He had always lived…
Essay by A. D. Carr • “Sometimes it just takes the right bird to awaken us.” —Priyanka Kumar I didn’t start to have an interest in birds until my midthirties. No doubt this shift coincides with the transition from…
