Category: Reflections

Turning Twenty

“What was so different about turning twenty? It means I have passed something. That is to say, I have disappointed already. Former promise has resigned itself.”

by on

Telescoping Faith

In the succeeding entries, we telescope “faith,” a word with a variety of connotations. Join us in considering “faith,” its soaring capacities, and its particular and personal ones.

by , , , , , , , on

The Trials of Princeton

It was the first night without my parents in some hotel on US Route 1. I was alone and somewhere near East Pyne, brimming with the feeling of being lost and alone in a new city, juggling the oversized, color-coded freshman orientation specialty map that a volunteer organizer had gravely slipped into my purse.

by on

Butterflies

I was eight, on the farm in India, catching butterflies. The pastel powder of their wings crumbled onto our fingers as we held them shut. We’d lift them up for examination, watch them wriggle, realize they were nothing but glorified ants, lose interest, forget we had lost interest and try to catch another one.

by on

Towpath

“Oak trees, no longer mute, lose their even trim and the path invariably assumes a new and rugged imprecision.”

by on

Pedaling Danger in Phnom Penh

I’d just been hit by a car, and I had the urge to go ballistic, to scream and curse at the idiot behind the wheel while banging dents into his hood. It seemed like a natural and reasonable reaction for me to have given the circumstances. But instead I just looked at him, wide-eyed, and tried to remain calm as I steered my bike towards the side of the road.

by on

A Different Kind of Sound

Sign language stories in Barnes and Nobles.

by on

Making Compromises

“I guess this piece is a thank you. Thank you to all the people I’ve met here that have seen the beauty in me before I will, for making me feel like Cinderella.”

by on

Escaping the Werewolf: Alex G, Deep Ecology, and Our Increasingly Hostile World

“There are a million wolves hiding in the environmental substrate I’ve called speargrass. The reality is that they’re not even wolves. When they get home in the evening, they take off the wolfskin and look just like us.”

by on

Shakes On a Plane

Some people grapple with their own mortality through meditation, or mountain climbing, or making a pilgrimage to some lost, crumbling temple full of monks. Some do it because they’ve just received a diagnosis of terminal illness or reached their 80th birthday. I just have to step onto a 737.

by on

The Date From Hell

Qdoba, baseball, and modern romance.

by on

Dangerous Liaisons

I personally didn’t confess to myself that I had an impossible crush on my RCA until about a month in, impossible because of my sexual ineptitude, and impossible because so far, his role had been less disciplinary and more parental.

by on