Tag: writing
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a bridge, a mask

Last week I sat down to write an essay about the year I spent leading creativity workshops in a women’s prison. It felt like an obvious topic, one that would hook people’s interest and inevitably lead somewhere interesting. But it didn’t. Every paragraph was a dead end. Finally I walked away. Later that night, though,…
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an epiphany at church

A snapshot of a memory: I’m seven or eight, at church, sitting in a short pew with my mom and sister. The choir is to our left, where my father stands with about half the teachers from my school. Sunlight streams in through the skylights onto the wooden altar steps. The choir sings—pretty, polyphonic, a…
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what is garbage for?

When I was in college I used to walk around the campus’s lakes whenever the weather was nice. One night, spring of sophomore year, the sun was setting radiantly through the trees, pouring gold into its lake-mirror. It was so majestic it made my heart hurt. I felt helpless, like its beauty was too much,…
