More than sky
This wanting to be quiet felt like the antithesis of being a Yale student. I had spent almost four years learning how to express myself in ways that would both connect me and set...
Personal essays
An I not for an I
There are a couple different ironies at play when writing about one’s disavowal of writing in the first person. I’m going to name some of them. I’m hoping, upon reflection, that some things will...
In your bones
Last year, I spent two months sleeping on lumpy ground a hemisphere away. At the time, there were cracks in my lower left leg, but I spent many nights dreaming myself into motion. I...
The morning news
English muffins, and the living is easy. I shuffle downstairs in Pokémon pajamas, a tiny person in complete command of the new day. My personal chef—I call him Dad—takes my order. Muffin, butter, no...
MNR
12:14 p.m. “The biggest pyramid in the world? With a church on top?” The ad is for Mexico. The station is Bridgeport. I’ve spent the first quarter of this train ride staring out the...
Woody Allen
My dad says it gives me character. I say it gives me a big nose. I don’t think I had it as a child. But sometime between kindergarten and puberty, I became aware of...
Remembering Julia Rusinek, JE ’00
On Sun., Apr. 14, Cross Campus will be the site of the 14th annual Julia’s Run for Children, an event held each year to remember Julia Rusinek, JE ’00, who was between her junior...
Scars amended
I have exactly two scars. Two small pink dots, dots the size of needle heads, one on each hand. They’re symmetrical and neat, though smaller than I’d originally hoped, and when I turn my thumbs...
Growing pains
I was born with this extreme personality, at least according to my parents, who also hold that my little sister, with her normal amounts of crying, eating, and pooping, was a lovely palette cleanser...
Holding up the rain
If Prospero could create a tempest, my father could stop one. Stormy days, driving on the FDR, he’d summon all his power. And, for a few tremendous seconds, he’d hold up the rain. It...
Tapping empathy
I had heard that spinal taps are among the most painful medical procedures. My love for the rockumentary of the same name strangely made it more daunting.
Wants, dreams, and plans
I had a nightmare last week that my brother’s girlfriend had tried to abort Meagan, my baby niece. Meagan is a perfectly normal four month old, but in my dream she looked three or...
The curvature of the earth
Last winter break, I walked into a second-hand bookstore in London and stumbled upon a copy of John Donne’s Songs and Sonnets. I opened the book at random, and fate or luck—whichever you prefer—had...
Coloring love
The truth is, we have no simple words for these things. Luckily, we do have pictures.
Never your bedtime
It was like the hook of a Ke$ha song—you know it’s not good for you like a Vivaldi concerto is, maybe, but it lifts you up and pushes you forward.
The freedom trap
When we finally met, Janis didn’t look quite as good as she had in pictures. Though she had always been up front about her age, she seemed older than I had expected. She was...
Redbrick and gingko
At the foot of Lexington Avenue, exactly 23 steps away from the entrance to my Manhattan apartment building, sits Gramercy Park. Though it covers only one measly block, that park was a jungle to...
My halfway house
That was in 2011. I was 18, and I had had two experiences that most people don’t in their first 18 years: I had lived alone, and I had owned a house.
The lights come up
Plays almost always begin in darkness. Then the lights come up.It took me five years of working on shows, and more than that spent watching them, before I realized what is happening in that...
The eye of the storm
In New Orleans, where I lived for six years, there’s a time of year called “hurricane season.” It runs from June to November, when the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico waters are hottest....
