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“Mountains seem to answer an increasing imaginative need in the West. More and more people are discovering a desire for them, and a powerful solace in them. 1,288 more words

By Israel Gutierrez

I’ve been agonizing for months trying to figure out how to do this.

It’s been incredibly difficult, to the point where I usually talk myself in circles and end up making very little sense. 1,844 more words

These were the words I inked into my notebook as I led on my hotel room bed in Kazakhstan. More specifically, I was in Ust-Kamenogorsk… 848 more words

Dear Irresponsible Migrant Mother,

What exactly were you thinking when you woke your children in the dead of the night, picking up the baby still asleep? 1,184 more words

This is another poem intended for the These, My Streets project. Edinburgh is one of the major streets running North/South through Guelph. It is often used to mark the border of the “downtown” and the “west end”. 80 more words

By Christine Schindler

Alongside some of the world’s strangest preserved traditions – such as Mongolian wrestling, bareback horse riding, and throat singing – is contortion. A dance or a feat of flexibility, contortion is the art of stretching and bending the body into unusual and various shapes, lines and positions. 1,003 more words

“The ancients, no doubt, were as wicked as we are, but they knew it.  And so they were wise enough to put up protective railings” 1,263 more words

‘Miss,’ she said, as I bit my tongue. I was choking on the worst insult a female junior doctor can bear, ‘I know that crystal meth is really my problem. 1,605 more words

Going back to the dark days in my latest for Broadly.

According to therapist-cum-speaker Dr. Julie Gurner, “A responsible psychologist will always make a referral if the client continues to need treatment elsewhere, but it is ultimately the client’s responsibility to follow through with that referral. 1,119 more words

I’m not a big Hurricane Katrina remembrance person. Like a lot of people from the places affected by the storm, I usually unplug from social media on the days leading up to August 29th. 1,447 more words

We recently returned from a week in the supernaturally picturesque harbour town of Kas, on the Lycian coast of Turkey. Lynn and I first sampled the charms of this unspoilt resort, albeit briefly, a couple of years ago while on a touring trip around Turkey and it immediately struck us as being worthy of a more leisurely return visit. 289 more words

The Athabaskan people who lived near the mountain called it Denali, which meant ‘the high one.’ It’s a pretty name for a mountain. I like it. 1,076 more words

Last week I finally said goodbye to my Nan. I wouldn’t normally blog about something so personal, but her influence has guided so much of my academic career to date that she deserves a mention. 1,668 more words

Mum visited a good friend last week and came home with armfuls of freshly picked greens from her garden – rocket, kale and silverbeet (sporting leaves the size of small umbrellas). 698 more words

This post contains descriptions of Dismaland that are better left to your untarnished initial experience.  Leave if you don’t want the experience explained to you. 389 more words

This morning, moments after I woke up, Kellie greeted me by saying, “It’s all over.”

“Huh?” I said, rubbing my eyes and starting the kettle. 1,469 more words

There is power in a first draft, but Hemingway was mostly right: first drafts are shit. Maybe it’s not that way for everyone, but for me and what seems like many people, first drafts are a… 2,821 more words

by Alyssa Hudson

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I’ve made homes in moldy trailers, in lakeside houses, in beachside condos. I’ve made homes in giant muddle puddles with tadpoles, in the shallows of lakes with minnows, in garden sheds with cats. 2,573 more words

This spring, my friend Terri grew Monarch butterflies. Like most of us, she’s concerned that it’s our human footprint mucking up the planet and not, contrary to what some believe, God or Zeus or Mothra exacting their revenge on us for sport. 800 more words

The borders of Europe are in crisis, we are told. People are moving en masse, escaping war, persecution, and – in a least-worst scenario – appalling poverty.  1,943 more words

Two months ago, I returned home from a summer family road trip to a message from Michael Barbaro, a reporter with the New York Times.  He had some questions about a real estate lawsuit my firm had handled.  3,306 more words

For Bukowski on his 95th Birthday
by Bunkong Tuon

The punch clock rings like a tumor
as he steps into the late afternoon light.
The boarded-up windows hang like terrible… 270 more words

The hype behind the 10th anniversary of Katrina and the subsequent flood reminds me of a flock of turkey buzzards circling the city in search of carrion. 1,113 more words

Quite some time ago, in the basement of the Fine Arts building at Penn, someone told me that he wanted to live in a “Third World” country with just him, his wife, and their children. 716 more words

The other night I was one of two Americans at a table full of five people.  The rest were French.  Oui!  The thing I noticed while subtly tracking all of Vincent’s French colleagues’ movements was that the French have a quiet elegance.   995 more words

Here’s the lovely Nicola Benedetti. It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time when many people were disgusted at the sight of a woman playing the violin. 755 more words

I don’t remember my childhood.

Nothing except the smell of the monsoon rains, right before they lashed onto the verandah. Me, the solitary crawler, both enchanted and perplexed by a sudden downpour, would rush indoors to the safety of my mother’s lap. 434 more words