We use cookies to improve our services and remember your choices for future visits. For more information see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
We use cookies to improve our services and remember your choices for future visits. For more information see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
I am compelled to leave every few months with my backpack and cameras and a ticket to some distant place. I travel as simply as I can, with a tent, a sleeping bag, some cooking gear, and small gifts to give to people I befriend along the way. I am drawn in particular to the indigenous peoples of the world and their vanishing customs. They have taught me groundedness, humility, wisdom, and authenticity.
By Ethan HubbardAugust 2008At the edge of town in Merced, California, sits a pale building whose sign says, “The Gun Runner.” A shooting range and retail outlet for rifles, pistols, and any kind of bullet you might need, it is owned and operated by Sandy, a friend of my family’s and the only true psychic I know. Her husband, Gary, whom I’ve never met, helps her run the place. I haven’t seen Sandy for years, not since my father died and she came to the funeral to tell my mother, my siblings, and me what Dad wanted her to communicate: that he had passed over and was filled with love for us and awe at life’s immensity and regret over whatever hurt his depression might have caused everyone. We trusted Sandy and always welcomed her glimpses into the “other side.”
By Dane CervineJune 2008One night I read a short, autobiographical story about how difficult it was being a B-movie zombie. Afterward a few people I didn’t know came over to my table, the most interesting of whom was an attractive teenager who appeared to be part Asian. Though it was winter, she wore a short skirt and sat with her knees together, hands in her lap, and gazed at me.
By Poe BallantineMarch 2008On a soaking-wet August day I stood under an umbrella in a Jewish cemetery in Paramus, New Jersey. Though the man we were burying hadn’t been particularly observant, the service was Orthodox, and everyone followed protocol: the other women and I huddled to the side while the men lifted the heavy casket.
By Michele HermanMarch 2008I tried to appear strong in the face of Wanda’s weakening condition and, to some extent, my own. I visited her, ran errands for her, and sometimes cooked for her while the earth tilted us into summer and then fall.
By James KullanderDecember 2007Morel mushroom hunting, midnight sledding on Suicide Hill, eraser racing
By Our ReadersSeptember 2007I was thirteen in 1956. There was a lot going on in the world that year. Elvis Presley released his first album, the U.S. exploded the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll, and the Soviets invaded Hungary to put down an anticommunist revolution. There was also something going on in my house. I was only half aware of it, but it formed a kind of constant undercurrent, like a noise that your brain has not yet registered hearing.
By Madeena Spray NolanJuly 2007When I heard Michael was gone, I went downstairs / and sat at the kitchen table. / A half dozen oranges in a glass bowl, / leathery red pomegranates from the farmer’s market.
By Alison LutermanApril 2007A backyard barbecue, a Portuguese man-of-war, a game of croquet
By Our ReadersMarch 2007Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
Subscribe Today