He Comes While We Are Walking
It doesn’t feel good, does it? I didn’t see it coming either.
...moreIt doesn’t feel good, does it? I didn’t see it coming either.
...moreSuch distinguished hybridity joined us all, animal and human, in a lonely, exclusive tribe.
...moreSome people say dreams are a glimpse into an alternate reality.
...moreMorgan Jerkins discusses her new book, WANDERING IN STRANGE LANDS.
...moreThis is my mother’s soup. This is what I aim for.
...moreE. J. Koh discusses her debut memoir, THE MAGICAL LANGUAGE OF OTHERS.
...moreI looked out the window again, and there it still was.
...moreShe holds me. We hold each other.
...moreShonda Buchanan discusses her new memoir, BLACK INDIAN.
...moreIt’s beyond comfort food. And when I’m out on the road it’s a signifier of home.
...moreAlways, when my father spoke to me in words I could not understand, my guilt spoke back.
...moreI was a lonely, dreamy, occasionally silly girl.
...moreLangston, I am finally at the table, eating with everyone.
...moreI am an oracle who, while dispensing answers to all those who seek them, cannot predict my own future.
...moreWhen I was young, my grandma told me that Armenians are distant descendants of Noah.
...moreComfort and memory and grief commingled in the dish.
...moreHuda Al-Marashi discusses her new memoir, FIRST COMES MARRIAGE.
...moreAll You Can Ever Know insists that the stories we use to understand ourselves should be allowed as much complexity as the truth dictates.
...moreTo truly know a land is to become it—to embody its storms in your bones, taste its dark soil beneath your nails, know the tangled history of the people who walked before you.
...moreIt is true that I’m talking to a photo, but I’m not crazy. Neither am I a durochka. Fools are oblivious, at least those from my childhood fairy tales. I, on the other hand, am perfectly aware of the problem.
...moreIt paralyzes me to think about the sacrifices my family made before I was in my mother’s womb. When they came here they knew they would lose a part of their language, their memories, their sanctity of self.
...moreThe sounds I made were pleasant to my ears, but that’s all they were to me. I was too young to understand what culture and heritage meant, too young to understand the reasons behind memorizing ancient poems.
...moreThe violence came in and we were not just in danger of being victims of it. We were in danger of being violent ourselves.
...moreI knew that just as the country was reverting, so was I. Every face now seemed a potential enemy and these were feelings I had not felt in almost twenty years.
...moreI want to say it must matter. Because history is erased from our veins when we allow ourselves to forget where we came from.
...moreWhat is it like to be you? he was always asking, in his way, and it seemed a stupid question then. I didn’t know. I could lie better than I could tell the truth. I hadn’t left yet.
...moreI’m constantly making up stories, and writing histories, even when I’m not putting them into songs.
...moreKnow that you are trying to steal from a naming ritual and culture that goes back five thousand years.
...more