Sometimes the most haunting part of trauma isn’t what happened—it’s wondering what could have happened if you hadn’t trusted your gut.
coming of age
Posted inEditor's Pick
Love and the Burning West
“She nearly died while fighting a fire. All she could think about was the tragedy of dying while still a virgin.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Woman, Tree or Not
In this essay from our Fine Lines series about age, Terese Marie Mailhot questions the value of Native coming of age ceremonies she missed out on.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Brown Girl with Bubble Gum
As a mixed-race kid with free-form hair, Lisa Rosenberg believed learning to blow bubblegum bubbles would be her ticket to an idealized (white) American girlhood.
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction
My Unsentimental Education
“I wanted him to understand my life—that I’d been caught in the local pattern and found the safest way forward, but if I’d lived somewhere else I’d be someone else and still could.”