Activity

Here is what I learned once I began studying whooping cranes: only a small part of studying them has anything to do with the birds. Instead we counted berries. Counted crabs. Measured water salinity. Stood in the mud. Measured the speed of the wind.

It turns out, if you want to save a species, y…

In the year leading up to calling off my wedding, I often cried or yelled or reasoned or pleaded with my fiancé to tell me that he loved me. To be nice to me. To notice things about how I was living.

One particular time it was because I had put on a favorite red dress for a wedding. I exploded f…

I would like to tell you I stopped the relationship because I realized this wasn’t what love was supposed to look like. But even as I decided to stick with graduate school, and not move across the country to be with Arlo, and in so doing caused one more grievous hurt to this person I’d hurt before,…

What was most compelling to me was the way the movie allowed the three men to pitch Tracy versions of her future by pitching her versions of herself. My friend Olivia once perfectly described The PS as: “Men explain Katharine Hepburn to Katharine Hepburn,” and, indeed, this is the whole bag. She is…

You visit your hometown. You are driving aimlessly when you see the wall. You stop and slowly back up to the right-hand turn. It is built. There it is, all real and caked together with stones, and you feel a pang. You can get rid of everything else, the phone numbers and the photos, and still you w…