“Some are tired. All are broke. Some are gay or trans and suffer for it. All have professional ambitions beyond what they can achieve on a blockaded island.” At Here is Havana, Conner Gorry reflects on emigration, loss, and Cuba.

“The impulse to see pregnancy as a sci-fi curiosity turns pregnant people into something that is not human, or at least adds an asterisk to their humanity.” In this longread, Sara Fredman writes about pregnancy, demons, and Stranger Things.

“For all I say I’m envious of my daughter’s freedoms, perhaps the older woman has more leeway, more agency.” Artist Myfanwy Tristram was irritated by her teenage daughter’s extreme fashions — until she took an illustrated journey into their origins.

“Just like the countless options on my office’s hot drinks machine, I fell in love with a fresh sense of possibility — that there was more than one way to live my life.” In this illustrated longread, Candace Rose Rardon reflects on coffee, life, and finding herself, no matter where she is in the world.

“Tomorrow, again, I’ll get up, do the Things That Are Necessary to help pay the bills and then I’ll turn to those Things That Matter.” At Parhelion, a new literary magazine, Evan Guilford-Blake reflects on why he writes.

Experiencing heartache? At Longreads, Jacqueline Alnes compiles a reading list of essays that have allowed her to grieve.

“These days, there are two main populations I end up mentoring: CEOs, and kids. At some level, they’re totally different. But at some level, they’re surprisingly similar.” On his personal blog, Stephen Wolfram reflects on his role as a mentor to people of all ages.

“I’ve come to believe that a long hike has a biological cycle. Like almost everything—life, relationships, civilizations, songs, stories, stars—it is born in explosive uncertainty.” At Appalachia Journal, Ben Montgomery writes on divorce, loss, and taking his kids on a 244-mile walk to make sense of it all.

“Just because something can’t be a career doesn’t have to mean that it can’t be part of your life and identity.” At Man Repeller, Molly Conway muses on imposter syndrome, work and identity, and being a playwright.

“This man — sick for so long — would be receiving a kidney that should change his life. A kidney from my wife. We know almost nothing about him.” On his blog, Jeff Pearlman recounts the day Catherine, his wife, donated one of her kidneys to a stranger.

Thoughts from Heather Kirn Lanier, who is the mother of Fiona, a child with Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome: “They are treated, in other words, like banks, where the teacher deposits information and then, at a later date, requests that the information be returned back.”

Jonathan Kauffman says goodbye to San Francisco: “Of the friends who packed my going-away party in 2006, less than 10 remain in town. More leave every year. The city whose culinary history and geography I know better than almost everyone has made it clear that I will never own any piece of it.”

From Nadia El-Awady: “I come from a culture that tends to glorify non-elected, autocratic, all-powerful leaders. They have to. The consequences of not doing so are not pretty. So I’ve grown up with a disdain for the glorification of single human beings; even those that don’t have much power.”

“We’re all a little weird thanks to our mothers. I’m carrying that tradition on with my own children.” Mary Laura Philpott, who blogged previously at I Miss You When I Blink, shares an excerpt from her new essay collection at Longreads.

From Spikosauropod: “I have read the Bible from cover to cover, but it never really spoke to me…. I was also considering collecting some writings of my own and binding them together to be my bible…. Suddenly, I realized that this was all a mistake. There was no book of rules for me.”