Category: Reflections

The Name of God

My first reaction was an unsettled, “What the heck?” Followed by a pissed, “Wow, way over the line.” Finally settling on, “Crap—now what?” From the back cover of the Nass, the Hebrew name of God, the holy Tetragrammaton, was staring up at me with the menacing grin of a camper who just got away with stealing food from the kitchen.

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Rub-A-Dub-Dub, Two Men in a Tub: Ruminations on Male Nudity

In which the author travels, bathes, and contemplates.

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Slice of Life

Brissed and dismissed.

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Levinski Park: Abroad, Alone, and Adrift

My friend James is soft-spoken; he talks instead of screaming and whispers instead of talking.

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Yellow Afternoons

“There were always guava and mango, grapefruit and lychee. But, above all, there was always mother.”

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Prayers for My Homecoming

“Sometimes my body just wants me and I give her me. Then we are good to each other: the wave rushing toward the shore, crashing violently, then retreating back into herself.”

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On Going Away

Just as I started to really enjoy Princeton, I’m going away—for a long time. When I arrived in September, I was a freshman, but not particularly fresh. I’d returned from a gap year that had me doing almost nothing, and certainly nothing that benefited other people particularly (unless you count the two hundred forty Chinese children whom I taught English for a semester—for a decent amount of cash).

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The House I Grew Up In

When I walk down Witherspoon Street away from the iconic FitzRandolph Gate that shelters Princeton University students from the town around them, my feet head toward the place that feels most like home. If it is a beautiful sunny day … Read More

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Nom de Guerre

My father chose the name and my mother chose the spelling. My father—for the High Priest Aaron of the Israelites, Moses’ fallible brother who leads the priestly order of Levites but is forever tainted by his participation in the building of the profane Golden Calf.

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We Added 200 Strangers on BeReal, and We’re Never Opening the App Again

“Hypothesis: people our age around the world are alone during a significant portion of their waking hours. And hypothetically, BeReal is the perfect observational device.”

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Midpoints

I spend this most recent Passover with my mother’s closest friend from high school and her family for the first time.

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A Fall from Grace

“That night, for the first time, I tried to fall asleep without praying. My room was completely silent; it was a strangely feeble, prickling silence, as if a wound were healing.”

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