In a crowded refugee camp in Bethlehem, Echlas chain-smokes her way through a pack of cigarettes recently purchased by her nine-year-old neighbour. Small for his age, and always smiling, he drops by often to ask whether she needs anything from one of the small shops in the camp. As she talks, smoke fills the small room. Outside, the imam’s faithful call to prayer competes with the shouts of the children playing soccer.

On October 10th, 2025, the one-year anniversary of my daughter Abby’s funeral, I awoke at our cabin in Northern Minnesota and got ready to drive the 15 minutes to Balmoral golf course. The year had carved me into an emotional relief of pain, guilt, sorrow, gratitude and wonderment, and I wanted the day to be a reflection on the yearlong emotional tempest that spun my life in all directions.

I read Virginia Woolf’s novels and her famous 1929 lecture, A Room of One’s Own, at the University of Cambridge during my master’s from 2021 to 2023. At the time, I did not realise how deeply her words would follow me into life beyond the classroom. At first, it was simply a part of my curriculum, something I had to study for the exams and pass the course. But gradually, as a writer, it began to permeate my daily existence. Woolf writes about a woman who needs a place of her own to write.

Think for a moment of your childhood home. Your bedroom, where you slept, played with your dolls and cars, and sludged through homework. Your kitchen, where your mother hovered over the stove, stirring chicken noodle soup. Your living room, where you watched TV with your siblings, decorated the Christmas tree with both breakable and paper ornaments, and sat in the corner, sulking in time-out.

When did my hands become my mother’s?
I took the time to really notice them, finishing typing the last words of a text to my daughter’s babysitter to let her know I would be a little late due to a train delay. Smooth and yet slightly leathered from years of harsh Chicago winters and humid summers. Knuckles crosshatched and indented. Small wrinkles appear here and there, wrapping around my pudgy fingers.

My mother does not approve of off-color language. But she is going to tell the story, the whole story and nothing but the story, even if she must reference her own hind parts.
“Have I told you about Mr. Warble? George Warble?” she asks my sister and me. We are on a conference line. She has called this meeting, not a good sign.

I was standing in a line that stretched out the door and down the sidewalk as we gathered to clock in. It was only 6:15 a.m., but already it was over eighty degrees. I could see sweat stains beginning to form on the shirt backs of the few men directly before me in line. Ahead lay nine and a half hours upstairs, on the second floor of the old factory building

I’ve been to New Guinea five times, and in 2025 was looking forward to my sixth visit to explore the world’s second-largest island – this time to venture deep into the remote, swampy terrain of the Kombai. A unique expedition, to participate in a sago palm grub festival. There’d be dancing, and chanting, and I’d probably make a fool of myself trying to mimic their rhythms.

My Nonna’s kitchen was a symphony of aromas. For my Italian grandmother, cooking was her love language. The air was always thick with the scent of olive oil, garlic, and her signature homemade tomato sauce (sugo). Her dishes nourished us and always left us wanting more. The lingering taste of only the freshest homemade ingredients was part of her signature style in the kitchen.

When our mother’s back was turned, my sister and I dug our fingers into the warm pie. We felt for stones inside the mushy fruit—feeling for a hardness, sharp at its edges. We were seven and nine. If my father didn’t come home, my mother retreated to her bedroom at the far end of the house, drew the curtains, and closed the door.

I can remember each and every sting. And how even a dead bee can sting. “Hm, look at that,” my father said. And to my five-year-old eyes, the gold-and-black stripes on the hallway mat looked like a key—a shiny key that would unlock who knew what magical adventure. So I picked it up. I don’t remember much else except that I went to kindergarten late that day, my thumb still swollen and red.

Sort the pieces:
Spread out all the pieces and flip them face up so you can easily see the image; look for similar colors, patterns, and shapes to group pieces together.
* * *
Late one winter afternoon, the department business manager steps into my office, wagging her cell phone in my direction. “Kendra Kimball?” she says.
“Pardon me,” I say to the student sitting across from me. “Who?”

My big brother, the eldest among us siblings, had to take the final highly competitive middle school entrance exam—a nightmare for 10- to 12-year-old kids aiming for the best schools. Determined to give him the best chance, Dad transferred him to a class taught by his friend…

I squeeze past a bedraggled goat and other passengers as I snag a stained seat by the window. My foot gently scooches a live chicken to the side while I stuff my belongings below me on the floor. The scented mixture of sweat and damp livestock permeates the air. Outside the bus window where I sit in Nchelenge, young boys shout at riders to buy food. I open a book, attempting to tune out all the chaos around me.

There’s no proper reaction when your mother tells you over the phone, “Your father is dead.”
And how words hang in your throat as she explains, through sobs, he died in a tractor accident, when the vehicle flipped, and the rear tire ran over his head—he took his last breath in your mother’s arms.
So you book the fastest flight from San Diego to Pittsburgh.

Malignant neoplasm of the kidney.
Forest Hill Memorial Gardens.
October 3, 2020.
A rumbling danced under my feet. A hearse violently reversed towards your tombstone. A myriad of cars flooded into the cemetery. Standing under the tent, my hair growing back thick locs falling over my face again. Clods of dirt lifted themselves, peeling away from your body as if the earth were inhaling backward.

The house we live in is built into the side of a hill where invasive French broom and oleander plants grow wild after it rains. The treetops above the ridge shield the state of the sky, so I look to the west to see what kind of day it will be. Usually visible is Mount Tamalpais, a point so tall it pokes above the thick, opaque fog that rolls in and out like the tide.

It’s a chilly Sunday afternoon in late October; I drive past a busy garage sale and pull over to check it out. I navigate the lawn’s clutter, heading straight for the garage. The first thing I notice upon entering is an unusual doll sitting on the edge of a shelf.

Good girls can’t lie, but they can’t always tell the truth, either. We must be well behaved but not prudish. Smart, but not boastful. Attuned to others’ without being needy. Strong, but silent. It’s a club I began subscribing to after my parents’ divorce. I joined without anyone telling me I had to, embracing the unwritten code without giving it a second thought.

Here comes another one. Amelia was scrolling through her social media platforms looking for amusement when an instant message pops up on her screen. She clicked the message, saw that a famous actor was messaging her and asking her to friend him.
Amelia was by now well-versed in how this interaction would go.

Since assuming a second term of office on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump, with the assistance of his zealous lieutenants, has, among other “accomplishments,” pardoned every one of the 1,500 rioters who were charged with participating in the attack on the Capitol in 2021; forced universities to capitulate to ideological demands at the risk of losing their federal funding; deployed the National Guard to traditionally liberal cities, where it is neither needed nor wanted…

Sister Barbara has always been drawn to the unknown. In 1965, a week before her eighteenth birthday, she travelled some 400km from Mount Gambier to Adelaide to join the Sisters of Mercy. Her entire family piled into the car and for five hours, Barbara and her siblings sat in the backseat watching lonely farmhouses tear past the window. Barbara had no idea that this would be the first of many long journeys…

It was 1962 in Taiwan, and I was five years old. The dormitory where my family lived had a single living space, with the bedroom raised three feet above the floor, and partitioned by a Japanese paper sliding door. My parents slept on a wooden double bed placed atop the Japanese tatami. Beside them, five children, ranging in age from seven to one, lay side by side on the tatami, sleeping soundly.

2018
Dodging cyclists, I scurried across the narrow road and headed toward Gaiole’s town center. A small Tuscan village of twenty-seven hundred souls in the Chianti region, Gaiole is known for its idyllic beauty, and these days for L’Eroica, an increasingly popular vintage cycling event.