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My bones wake me up at night. It was my hips at first, then my femurs screaming. Now my ankles. But my doctor won’t listen. It started last year when my son and I walked the Camino de Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage route that runs through Spain. I’m sure that’s why my bones hurt—from all the walking.
By Beth AlvaradoJanuary 2025I have spent hours in attics, the kind reached by pulling a rope in the ceiling and ascending to a stagnant room. It was in attics that I found love letters tied with ribbons, and wedding dresses in paper boxes the size of coffins, and sepia photographs of uncles in uniform and children who’d died of scarlet fever. I sifted through images of wraparound porches and white chickens, three-legged dogs and men with cigars. I think there is a reason why the past collects in attics: heavily, above us.
By Faith ShearinDecember 2024A broken clock, a chance encounter, a long-distance relationship
By Our ReadersNovember 2024A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.
November 2024The mountain in winter enables the kind of sleep that restores, heals, allows brains to solve problems. The days have more than enough darkness to crawl inside.
By Todd DavisOctober 2024Thoreau was the same sort of hippie I am. The main difference between us is that I do not want my writing to be as absolutely sexless as his. I want to be a Thoreauvian capable of lust.
By SparrowOctober 2024A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.
September 2024August 2024The body is a sacred garment. It’s your first and your last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor, and with joy and with fear as well. But always, though, with blessing.
Martha Graham
A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.
By Ryan MalloyAugust 2024Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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