Our guest contributors are kindred spirits who also have the writing bug. Some are dear friends and some are writers we admire from afar. Their bios are included at the end of their individual articles.
I am typing this on a borrowed laptop. The ceiling paint above me is cracked and peeling, tainted with yellow stains. The bedroom door won’t shut into a door frame deformed from years of settling. I can see out the window because several of the blinds are cracked or missing, but the view is incredible.…
I was not your typical high schooler. While other girls spent their teen years at the mall with their friends, I much preferred wandering the aisles of the grocery store with a signed check from my parents to make the purchases I needed for the week’s meal planning. It was during those years that I…
Hello. My name is Danielle, and I married an alcoholic. It’s been 10 years since I divorced him for his substance and subsequent emotional abuse. I naïvely believed that somehow that meant I could begin again, that his problems would be his problems. But I was wrong, and now things have reached a boiling point,…
I’m staring at the blond fuzzy hair that covers his newborn head and trying to take it in. Maybe I can imprint this image in my mind forever. I smell his head (doesn’t everyone tell you to?) and yes, there it is—the smell of a newborn—a mix of soap and sweat and sweetness that should…
When I sat down to write this article, I could not think of a single new thing in my life. Same job, same house, same brand of coffee (Major Dickason, you delicious, brooding devil, you). Luckily, a quick perusal of my recent photos quickly reminded me of a ginormous, 90,000-person new thing that I just…
As we walked the field webbed by early century water lines, I noticed in moments of stress, he’d lift his hat with a hand on his head, favor a leg, and take a deep breath. I used to wait, like a kid who lit a firework, for the explosion. But, the explosion never came and…
Sometimes when I walk home at night, I see people I love under the lights of surrounding businesses. Around this time of year they are bundled up, cardboard boxes, umbrellas—whatever they can use—surrounding them to offer some amount of protection and privacy. Often, it can feel as though I am walking through a tiny secret…
43rd Time’s the Charm: In a Thriller, Wozniacki Wins Her First Grand Slam Title The headline of an article in the Sports Section of the Sunday edition of the New York Times reads like a poem. I cut the article out and, hanging it on the fridge, forget it almost immediately. Months later I sit…
We sat in the car, a full country’s length away from our normal. Years of marital problems had come to a head in the preceding weeks and, after an agreement to work on these problems and an understanding that they weren’t going to be solved overnight, nearly tangible tentativeness and awkwardness hung in the air…
It’s been a blur. My reflection in the glass. For the last seven years. So much so that if you asked me what I looked like, I couldn’t tell you. No matter how long I stand here trying to catch a glimpse of who I am, it plays out in pixelated streaks across my mirror.…
Don’t define your world in black and white because there is so much hiding amongst the grays. —Unknown “How old was she when you got her?” I look up from my young daughter’s partially tied shoelace to see a friendly blond mother smiling at me expectantly. It’s preschool open house, and parents all around us…
Hands poised, I felt brave and silly. How could I have not played before? All those moments I’d spent walking by, watching my kids and husband, I had not even once considered that I needed to play, too. She stands proud in my living room, daily offering her love to me, and I hadn’t realized…
I was sitting in a holy place. Metal chairs, a few tables, some windows. From a mounted television screen pictures from a wrestling match flashed, and the vending machines in the corner made their constant hum. But here in this understated room I looked at my brown leather sandals and half wondered about taking them…
Hospitality. I feel it may be a lost art. In the busy chaos of life, frenetic schedules, and individual pursuits, is there truly any space for opening our homes and our lives? Too few meals are shared with beauty, feasting, and wine over meaningful conversation that lingers on well into the night. But this makes…
The pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of knowledge. The pursuit of one date that doesn’t make me want to tear my hair out. I’m sitting in my car. These things always start in my car, at least half an hour away from my usual stomping grounds; it’s my fault for setting the search radius to…
Kindred 