In the spring of 2021, when New York City was coming back to life after the worst months of the pandemic, I was single and living alone in a tiny apartment in Greenwich Village. Although I had friends in the city, I was spending most of my time by myself. My office was …

    Cobra Lilies From a boardwalk above a bog, I look out to a conclave of cobra lilies. Their bulbous hoods are chartreuse, green globes set on tall stalks. Heads nodding in wisps of wind, these carnivorous plants—Darlingtonia californica—appear to be in conversation. My husband, David, and I have zipped by this spot many …

    My biggest fear at the start of each summer is the required swim test. I can’t swim for the life of me, nor do I want to. Anyway, the closest I will ever come to swimming is standing in waist-deep water in Lake Michigan.I arrive for the test with every orifice on my …

          Pain syndromes are common in MS. In one study, 55% of people with MS had “clinically significant pain” at some time, and almost half had chronic pain. -National MS Society When my legs slowly paralyzed—heavy rain, wood, stone—I spent hours holding tight to the kitchen table trying to lift each knee into the …

    I. Black-Naped Oriole, Singapore, July 1990 I was drawn to the open window in the dining room by the tutti-frutti trill of a bird. It was early morning. I was on my first cup of coffee. The air was cool. Looking down from the fifteenth floor, I scanned the treetops and saw a …

    He sat alone at his laptop, watching the moon blanch his keys. It was seven-thirty, late-April. His wife was upstairs in their room, sulking, though with a bit more gravity to her step. She was only thirty-six, and they had time for this, he knew. She knew it, too. She’d reminded him that …

    Narrow Way flows downhill towards our house like a patchwork river of potholes. Its broken stones shed asphalt band-aids, as though they could refuse a cover-up of things that came before. Half-timbered houses huddle close; a car can barely squeeze through the crooked gap. But, in a German town, this is a street: …