What do my 101-year-old Grandpa’s instructions for his death reveal about the world he occupied and the one we are left to reckon with? A few years ago, at the urging of a therapist, I visited a woman in Salem, MA with a reputation as a masterful practitioner of past-life…

All I could think of to say after Saturday’s magnificence: “What a blessing in life it was to have as phenomenal a day as we just had.” It was a day of pure connection. Connection to all that is good and possible, to multitudes of people doing their best in…

Allison Gustavson based this article on interviews with an infectious disease physician who, due to safety concerns, spoke on condition of anonymity. For clarity and impact, it has been written in the first person, from the perspective of the physician. With his recent COVID-19 diagnosis and subsequent admission to Walter…

We all woke up today to news of the positive tests. Even in those first few moments as we took in this revelation, the kaleidoscope of thoughts and emotions spun with particular vividness and speed. It seems to have included, at least for most of us, some combination of the…

This story was first published on 9/11/2016 in Off-Guardian magazine. Ascending from the Wall Street subway station a few steps ahead of me, a woman’s heels click-clacked purposefully up to street level. …

“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is now.” — Chinese proverb Have you noticed, lately, that you get such a boost — on a deeply felt, cellular level — when coming across even the most seemingly minor…

The Queen of Not-As-Nice-As-We-Thought I have been quite taken with the evolving Ellen DeGeneres story. There’s something that keeps bringing me back, searching for clues, that reminds me of the days I spent compulsively checking for updates about Amy Cooper, of Central Park infamy. Her on-camera racism exposed so much of what is rarely…

On Monday, a wildfire burned through fifty acres and required more than seven hundred homes to be evacuated in our small mountain town. With plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky and tanker planes circling above my house as they traveled to and from the lake to replenish their…

“Momma! Momma, I’m through!” Over a month after his death, even as I continue to go about the everyday business of life — reading, working, cleaning, exercising, hanging out with the family, cooking, emailing, and walking the dog — I find myself coming back to George Floyd’s cry for his…