All of my old photographs smell like cigarette smoke. They were transported across the country in a large cardboard box the last time one of my sisters made the trip, rescued from the basement of the house we all grew up in, the house my grandparents bought in 1958, and then my parents bought from them in the mid-eighties.There should be more photos — I know I’ve seen other photos that we’ve taken, but they’ve been lost to a disorganized life. I find myself looking through these photos after my...

The first time I was pregnant, I almost died. My ovaries wrapped themselves around each other and filled my body with sepsis. It took three units of blood and two weeks of IV antibiotics to save me. It took an insistent doctor who had provided all of my fertility care to show up to the ER on a Sunday and tell the doctors something was very wrong and I needed emergency surgery. I miscarried my baby in a hospital bed. She slipped out of me painlessly and uneventfully. They showed her to me in a be...

I got a perm in 5th grade. It was 1988 and I was starting middle school. I was ready to be done with the poker straight heavy bangs of my youth. I also got a cut — a sensible bob. Dirty Dancing had come out the year prior, and even though I wouldn’t see it until a clandestine viewing at a sleepover in 6th grade, I knew Jennifer Grey’s hair was the goal for nearly every girl my age. The hairstyle was so prevalent that there was no memorable reaction to my new curly hair — I had just completed an...

You know how they say if you’re not angry, then you’re not paying attention? Is there an end to that statement that warns you that if you start paying attention, you’re likely to become so enraged that you won’t be able to sleep, and you won’t be able to talk without crying, and there is nothing else you think about except the glaring injustices you are now finally seeing?I don’t remember reading that part.I have been quiet here. I have been too angry to write. I’ve been too full of despair, fel...