Essay

Most of my family lives in Connecticut, and some live only fifteen minutes away from the ocean in Rhode Island. My aunt continues to hype up the beauty of the sight of the ocean.

I haven’t been to upstate New York since I was ten years old and we drove away from our house there without looking back.

It’s loud and rumbling, as if seething with unrestrained anger. Like a thunderstorm trapped beneath the surface of the water, desperate to break free.

I was born in a city.  Not a real city, just one of those urban approximations which flicker across the map for a minute, briefly important, and then fade.  My city was ‘briefly important’ for its steel.  We were one of th

I like the pace of time. I think that life tends to move on on just the right cadence, and if I had a Time Machine I would use it to lock time at its current pace.

The erosion of rights towards marginalized groups feels like a personal attack on the values of equality, fairness, and justice that have importance to me.

HOME: a place where we feel safe, comfortable, and loved. Not  just a physical structure, but an emotional space that provides a sense of stability and belonging.

I don’t know if we’ll ever be whole. Not that we ever were in the past. It has struck me, though, recently, that, while we, or at least I, frequently discuss, and, indeed, logically understand that our rights are not our own an

My body has an obvious, outward reaction to changes in temperature and lighting. Even when there is snow on the ground, as there is now, in February, I can smell the springtime hidden underneath it.

The irony is not lost on me. The day that Donald J. Trump will be inaugurated, is the same day as Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

My friend, on New Year’s Eve, learned a new word.

My copy of Frankenstein sits on my lap, the old pages glad to finally be read. I began it at the end of eighth grade, and yet I am only a few chapters in now.