Life & Love

Last weekend, my family of four—my husband, 5-year-old son, 22-month-old daughter, and I—went to the zoo. We played on the playground, saw the giraffes and lions, and ate a picnic lunch. This may not sound remarkable, but for us, any outing is an expedition. My husband, healthcare activist Ady Barkan, has had the neurodegenerative disorder

For much of 2020, I was in Portland, Oregon, where I live part-time. During my quiet, solitary existence, I was surrounded by nature. I became more attuned to the magic of trees and birds. A robin built a nest on my deck for the first time in the seven years I’ve lived in my Portland

A year ago, my husband and I were sitting on a beach in Lake Tahoe watching our one-year-old son play in the water, talking about the money we were putting aside for his future, something we had started doing while I was still pregnant. Finances played a big role in both my and my husband’s

Damien Maloney In the fall of 2015 and spring of 2016, Sarah Delashmit, a thirtyish woman from Illinois, attended Camp Summit in Dallas, Texas, which since 1947 has served children and adults (“ages 6–99”) with disabilities. Delashmit had muscular dystrophy, and was paralyzed from the neck down. She had a sophisticated power wheelchair and breathing

Most days, Olivia* feels like she’s drowning. Overwhelmed by the stress of protecting her two young children amid a contentious divorce from her abusive husband, she is too afraid to make the phone call herself, so she asks a friend to set up an appointment with Renée Monteil of Sacred Moon Doula. When Renée arrives

Doreen* had been bullied since middle school because of her looks. People called her fat and ugly, at what felt like a ceaseless pace. She didn’t feel sexually or romantically desired. Boys didn’t treat her the way they did her more attractive friends. Having a sex-positive attitude was even tougher growing up in a religious

When Aimee* and her boyfriend broke up in late 2018—the end of a two-and-a-half-year relationship after she found out he’d been cheating on her—she didn’t expect to get anything else out of it. But then, as she was looking into buying a house earlier this year, the 20-something healthcare worker had a surprising revelation. Below,

I was a candidate for Congress in 2017 when the #MeToo movement gained widespread coverage in the media. The public reckoning over the last several years has forced accountability for some high profile people in power for what was once considered acceptable, tolerable, or at worst, a gray area in workplace behavior. As one of

Just last April, I snapped a photo of myself proudly wearing a “Cuomosexual” shirt and uploaded it to my Instagram story. Cut to this week, when I typed the word “FINALLY!” in a text thread with friends as Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced his resignation. After state Attorney General Letitia James found he had sexually harassed

Early in my new novel, We Were Never Here, there’s a scene that was hard for me to write—it skates too close to a truth that fills me with anxiety and shame. In it, Emily, a twenty-something woman on vacation in Cambodia, brings a hot South African backpacker back to her hotel room… I discovered

After struggling with infertility for years, my husband and I finally conceived. The moment I gave birth to my son, Eli, was the happiest in my life. He changed my world. My identity had always been shaped by my career—I thought of myself first as a physician and a public health official—but suddenly I thought

Central PressGetty Images The past 16 months have taken so much from all of us: time, loved ones, income, joy, too many restaurants to count. I managed to make it through the worst stretch of the pandemic relatively unscathed, which is to say I only caught a light case of COVID-19, transferred all my friendships

I was once demoted from maid of honor to bridesmaid after taking too long to plan the bride’s bachelorette party. Jessica and I were coworkers at a publishing company where we shared a cubicle wall. We made our long hours bearable by scribbling handwritten notes to each other, which we filled with code names for

At the onset of the pandemic last March, Calgary Brown, then 39, was living in a one-bedroom apartment in East Los Angeles with her roommate and their two cats. The two cooked together, often grocery shopping at the 99-cent store to keep their expenses down. (Brown had taken a pay cut when she moved west

Over the last year, our worlds became small. Instead of planning an exotic escape to Iceland or plotting stops on a cross-country road trip, our travels were limited to walks around the neighborhood—or just from our couch to the kitchen. But as our lives open back up, all we want to do is cash in

Twenty-six years ago, Andrea Dobynes Wagner didn’t pass her preschool vision test. She was later diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a group of genetic eye disorders that lead to peripheral vision loss and difficulty seeing at night. Growing up legally blind, doctors warned Andrea that she’d never lead a normal life. They recommended she work a

In July 2019, I tasted dal, the South Asian equivalent to chicken soup, for the first time in four years. The red flat oval lentils, eerily similar to the microscopic imagery of the red blood cells that my anemic body lacked, floated in a spiced broth that thickened after cooking for hours in a metal

I nursed my gimlet over the next hour, taking a sip every time he said something racist. Whatever he thought, I wasn’t going to play along, so I trained my eyes to the bottom of my glass as I drank, avoiding his awaiting gaze. This was only the third in-person date I’d been on since

For over a year now, with venues worldwide largely closed due to COVID-19, performers of all kinds have been forced to experiment. A string quartet in Barcelona played for 2,300 potted plants at the Liceu Grande Theatre, while a strip club in Portland experimented with drive-through go-go dancers. Still, unemployment rates for performing artists skyrocketed,

In March 2020, about a month after the South Korean film Parasite won four Oscars, including Best Picture—the first non-English language film to ever earn the Academy’s highest honor—US states began issuing lockdown orders for COVID-19. Shortly after, we began to hear reports of Asians and Asian Americans across the US being beaten, spit on,

On my more hopeful days—when my dad got his first vaccine appointment, when the weather popped up above 50 degrees—I let myself imagine it. I consider the possibility of being maskless on a run, exhaling thoughtlessly the whole way through. I wonder what last night’s takeout might look like plated at a restaurant, surrounded by

For many of us, the last year was as clarifying as it was challenging, with isolation and grief sharpening our focus on what truly matters. The things we thought made up a life were forcibly supplanted by the things that actually do: it became, quite suddenly, deathly important to find joy anywhere—in blossoms that appeared

Before the pandemic, Kristen Wilson, 33, was a reluctant gym-goer whose discomfort in fitness environments caused years of unpleasant experiences. In group classes, she’d push herself to the point of pain, overextending because she didn’t want to look out of place among the workout zealots beside her. “Even yoga, which is supposed to be relaxing,

Carly Leahy went into 2020 with a plan: She’d get married to Charlie, her fiancé of nearly two years, and then down the line the two would try to have children. Instead, the 31-year-old co-founder of the reproductive health company Modern Fertility was met with a global pandemic, an unexpected pregnancy, a cancer diagnosis for