By U.S. State
By Country
Or So I Thought
by Jack VA | Sep 25, 2017 | Placeless
I thought that I would feel more in touch with nature after. Like I had somehow participated in an older way of living, or taken on some inherited, but forgotten role in the forest. But instead I felt sick.
For my Camp Students: On Losing Races
by Lauren (Boersma) Harris | Sep 24, 2017 | Placeless
Paul calls the Corinthians, God calls us, to run to win. Our faith journey should be so committed that we’re willing to do it with half a lung and still come out on top.
It’s About Time
by Julia LaPlaca | Sep 23, 2017 | Placeless
Time isn’t food, money, a place, or a feeling, or an object or a person—it just is. Despite a wealth of idioms, it’s still hard to talk about time and harder still to savor it.
The Institute (of Arts)
by Paula Manni | Sep 22, 2017 | Detroit, Michigan
And for twenty-five minutes I am warm and more alive
than the seven hours and thirty-five minutes between walls and cabinets three floors above.
Figs
by Gabe Gunnink | Sep 20, 2017 | Grand Rapids
Meanwhile, I am childless, jobless, and directionless. I don’t feel that I’ve wasted my time, and I don’t feel dismayed, but I’m also tired of feeling crushed under the weightlessness of potential and gawking at figs like stars I could never align.
An Object Lesson
by Mary Margaret Healy | Sep 19, 2017 | Pennsylvania
Once someone no longer needs unemployment assistance because they’ve gotten a job, things should be much easier: more money, more independence, more control, more freedom. But DeParle wants to show us just how much harder it gets after welfare.
Chocolate Milk
by Ben DeVries | Sep 18, 2017 | Placeless
The smoothies are revoltingly healthful. One recipe, dubbed “The Beginner,” calls for pear, banana, pineapple, avocado, and a full six cups of kale.
Liner Notes with Tony, Part I: Sometimes People Do Non-Musical Things During Their Music
by Tony Ditta | Sep 17, 2017 | Placeless
I tried not to include too many live songs because that’s sort of cheating, but there are some REALLY good live ones, so those have been included.
Writing the Where
by Andrew Knot | Sep 16, 2017 | France
These three things struck me about the way Gopnik writes about place. Perhaps they contain a few lessons that will help us in writing about where we’re from, where we are, and where we’re yet to go.
Enough / Not Enough
by Cassie Westrate | Sep 15, 2017 | Placeless
Still, grace is not always a shout. Sometimes, it’s a whisper. Sometimes, it’s day zero, rather than the third day.
A Goodness
by Will Montei | Sep 14, 2017 | Washington, Wisconsin
A few days later I was back in Seattle and it felt like coming home, like jumping into your bed’s cold sheets and warming them as you fall asleep. I feel bad about that, for loving two places at once.
God Only Knows
by Catherine Kramer | Sep 13, 2017 | Placeless
I really appreciate the time you’ve taken to get to know me. You, my friend, are the master of mixtapes. Each week, you introduce me a new crop of tunes.
Grammar and Forgetting
by Abby Zwart | Sep 12, 2017 | Placeless
The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
For—put them side by side—
The one the other will contain
With ease—and You—beside—
When A Church Breaks
by Elaine Schnabel | Sep 11, 2017 | Placeless
When a church breaks, her people realize they broke her themselves. By not acknowledging the extent of our own broken fingers and bent hearts, we pursued something that might not have been the gospel.
Works of Light
by Jenna Griffin | Sep 10, 2017 | Michigan
The light pooled on the horizon, stretching like taffy, growing and receding. When it faded away in one direction, we looked behind us to see it growing in another corner of the sky. It seemed to breathe.
Yourself, Eventually
by Bart Tocci | Sep 9, 2017 | Placeless
If a Bart sings in the woods and no one hears him, does he make a sound?
Ruminations on Love and Marriage
by Paul Menn | Sep 8, 2017 | Placeless
As a young teenager, I always assumed that once you got married, you and your partner just sort of…stayed the same.
Within the Veil
by Caroline (Higgins) Nyczak | Sep 7, 2017 | Georgia, Placeless
This is the curtain call, a standing ovation for being present. We all saw the curtain between earth and heaven rise and fall again.
Still, Still, Still Simmering
by Josh deLacy | Sep 6, 2017 | Washington
Wildfires ravage and Irma bears down and nuclear tests keep happening, and I am heavy bored.
When Enoch Was No More
by India Daniels | Sep 5, 2017 | Chicago
Last Sunday, I stopped to get coffee before church when a woman hesitantly approached and asked if I was a Christian. I told her I was.
Of Mice and (Wo)men
by Caitlin Gent | Sep 4, 2017 | Wisconsin
Three days later, an industrious little nibbler gets into my bag of white cheddar popcorn. We stash our remaining food in Rubbermaids, bleach everything, and riddle our kitchen with even more mousetraps.
On Not Missing Childhood
by Meg Schmidt | Sep 3, 2017 | Placeless
I think everyone has childhood hurts that they carry with them, and these are mine.
Proving Sylvia Plath Wrong
by Carolyn Muyskens | Sep 2, 2017 | Placeless
I left that professor’s office thinking: I am the kind of person who has the potential to do anything but the proclivity to do nothing. I am the kind of person who is paralyzed by choice, instead of empowered by it.
The Starfish Dilemma
by Katerina Parsons | Sep 1, 2017 | Placeless
Maybe—and this is hard to admit—I care more about the plight of The Poor than about individuals in poverty with names and faces, each with different dreams.
On Being Informed
by Sam Titus | Aug 31, 2017 | Placeless
In fifth grade I manually calculated eighteen to the fifty-fourth power because I thought of myself as a “knower” (people thought multiplication was all that back in the day).
The Clone War: No, Not Star Wars
by Leah Carpenter | Aug 30, 2017 | Placeless
Shouldn’t this company have the right to create something from what they paid for? Shouldn’t they have the right to alter, adapt, or even terminate their product as needed?
1.8-Lingual
by Matt Coldagelli | Aug 28, 2017 | Placeless
It’s one thing to order pork or enchiladas, but I’ve reached a level of fluency where I want to take my skills beyond family and friends.
Perils of a Bargain
by Brad Zwiers | Aug 27, 2017 | Placeless
The moral of this parable? Never buy a computer. They never should have been invented. Never buy a computer on a bargain because bargains are a lie. Everyone in the sales world is out to rip you off.
Five Campsites That Were NOT Insta-Worthy
by Nick Meekhof | Aug 26, 2017 | Michigan, Virginia
In the middle of a freezing rain, we reached Dick’s Dome, a geodesic dome built to sleep four persons. There were eighteen people there.
Thanks for the Cat
by Jack VA | Aug 25, 2017 | Placeless
I had actually forgotten that I could just go buy a pet.
