the post calvin

Phone Calls with Nathan

by Ansley Kelly | Feb 3, 2023 | Placeless

Like he says,”What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

An Ode to My Check Engine Light

by Christina Ribbens | Feb 2, 2023 | Placeless

And for a moment I thought, “Ah, maybe the car has healed itself,” before remembering that only living things can heal themselves and that my car, although I sometimes talk to it as if it were a person, is not a living thing.

Digital Ghosts

by Sam Tuit | Feb 1, 2023 | Placeless

It was a bit like walking into a friend’s home to find they’d unexpectedly moved out, leaving empty shelves, bare walls, and rooms with no furniture.

Fish Tales

by Jon Gorter | Jan 28, 2023 | Michigan

Lurking the rocky bottom, deep in the black abyss of Bear Lake, the walleye patrols his kingdom

The Final Word

by Anna Jeffries | Jan 27, 2023 | Placeless

Stop littering! Stop using hollow cardboard words!

The Five Stages of Grieving a Bad Book

by Annaka Koster | Jan 26, 2023 | Placeless

It is not uncommon for readers at this stage to lash out at others; example behaviors include a savage Twitter mention and/or telling the librarian who recommended the book that he should “seek a new career path.”

What’s With All the Pants Posts?

by Natasha (Strydhorst) Unsworth | Jan 25, 2023 | Arizona

“Grand Canyon? More like Bland Canyon.”

Thoughtful Streaming on a Budget

by Joshua Polanski | Jan 24, 2023 | Placeless

You’ll find mid-budget Dad-tier sci-fi films you forgot about, and you’ll come across Chinese war movies that you’ve never heard of; there’s something for everyone here.

My Weirdest Experiences Working in Retail

by Mitchell Barbee | Jan 23, 2023 | Michigan, Virginia

I had only seen these cookies served on Delta flights, so my first thought was wondering how she had smuggled them off the plane

On Friendship and Gratitude

by Kayleigh (Fongers) Van Wyk | Jan 22, 2023 | Placeless

For me, friendship has hardly been that simple.

23 Things that Make You an Objectively Cool Person

by Emily Joy Stroble | Jan 21, 2023 | Placeless

Discipline is cool. A fascination with violence is not.

This Old House

by Lillie Spackman | Jan 19, 2023 | Placeless

I found myself nodding along with the explanations about heat exchangers and chuckling at the jokes about battery-free plumb bobs.

Mastered by Some

by Ben DeVries | Jan 18, 2023 | Placeless

Their poems a problem to be intimidated by, and then picked apart, and then finally, exhaustingly brute-forced into yet another five-paragraph essay.

Meditating on Midnight Mass

by Laura Sheppard Song | Jan 17, 2023 | Placeless

The show is a necessary skewering of how easy it can be for an earnest Christian community to be infiltrated by something monstrous.

It Gets Better

by Tiffany Kajiwara | Jan 16, 2023 | Placeless

To my surprise, my first thought was, “Ha! Little does she know that gays walk among us.”

Tips from a Year of Museuming

by Courtney Zonnefeld | Jan 15, 2023 | Michigan, Washington, D.C.

Whenever I enter a museum, I rediscover rhythms that I haven’t used since my last trip to Adventureland for nerds.

Subjective Joy

by Michal Rubingh | Jan 14, 2023 | Placeless

But I drove home after the interviews like a little sparrow. I was excited to get my hands in the dirt of the world, gracefully or not.

Missing Christmas Magic

by Olivia Harre | Jan 13, 2023 | Tennessee

Where was the magic in saltines and Gatorade for dinner, in spiking fevers and loneliness? Where was the magic in canceled flights and missed wedding celebrations?

I Voted for Quiet Music

by Jack Kamps | Jan 12, 2023 | Virginia

We are perched side by side on an upper landing in this barn, floating in the resonant space of music we have never heard so close, have never heard unmediated, have never heard in four-part harmony.

Buckets, Biscuits, and Benders: A Hockey Skater’s Guide to Skating This Winter

by Gabrielle Eisma | Jan 11, 2023 | Placeless

You get the lumber laid on you, you get a face wash, you end up in a yard sale—you keep playing.

Starting Off “Right”

by Gwyneth Findlay | Jan 9, 2023 | Scotland

There’s no escaping a year; we’re in it for the whole, well, year.

Master of None

by Josh Parks | Jan 8, 2023 | Placeless

What if our words were less like swords (sharpened, polished) and more like textiles—equally demanding to make, but designed to warm rather than to wound?

The Children’s Autonomy Paradox

by Susannah Boersma | Jan 7, 2023 | Placeless

It asks the question: why must beautiful and capable children be constrained by the law of incompetent guardians?

Joy in One Hand & Sorrow in the Other

by Hannah Riffell | Jan 6, 2023 | Placeless

Grief docks in your life like a sail in a harbor.

Santa Hat on a Tree, Nails in the Walls

by Alex Johnson | Jan 5, 2023 | Massachusetts, Michigan

If I lived alone, my apartment would probably look destitute.

Joy to the World Anyway

by Ansley Kelly | Jan 3, 2023 | New York, Pennsylvania

Both spaces have shown me the need for traditions that bring us back to joy, especially when the night is dark and the howling, frigid wind finds its way through every single-paned window and every batten board of the barn.