“During the day, MDP Circle is a dreamy little slice of what could be without the tyrannical hand of the state. At night, the police gas and shoot anyone gathered there. The oscillation between joy and terror is exhausting.”

The Disability Visibility Project compiles #ADA30InColor, a series of essays on the past, present, and future of disability rights and justice by 13 disabled BIPOC writers.

“She’d have less to worry about if she knew none of these things. But if she knew none of these things, I reason, she also wouldn’t know me.” At LitHub, Rachel Beanland explores whether or not family secrets are ever justified.

An essay on death, loss, and coronavirus: “The same unknown that makes me nurse the thought of my mother’s death, makes me think of the loneliness of everyone who died of the virus…. For decades, for the rest of their lives they will be imagining the last moments of the ones who left them.”

“Living in Katrina’s wake, I cannot make sense of this haunted world. New Orleans is a place that has survived, but isn’t healing. I can identify. Despite having married the next man who loves me, I am still broken from the last one, who did not.”

“The cinematic version of time passing, which often shows a succession of calendar pages disappearing off the screen, blown away by the breeze, was never how I understood time.” Terry at Vertigo shares her thoughts on time.

Kim Foster’s James Beard Award-winning essay weaves together the themes of family, addiction, and fast food into a beautiful (and heartbreaking) narrative.

“I want for this type of springtime but right now, the meadow has been cut down and the only way for me to accept this is to pretend we are in early winter.” In quarantine, the writer at Rarasaur reflects on her shortage of words.

“I’ll always see the world in a slightly different way than most people, but I’ve figured out a system that works for me, and it gives me great strength.” For Autism Awareness Day, Justin McElroy reflects on life on the spectrum.

“I know that this situation, while ‘oh this again’ for me, is probably novel and once-in-a-lifetime for you. That is, in fact, why I did the job I did for 30 years: so that shortages and lockdowns and shutdowns and uncertainty aren’t life-as-usual for you.” The writer at InBLOGnito shares learnings from years of facing […]

Alex Cochrane writes a eulogy for his mother, who lived a unique and incredible life: “The lives of both my parents wildly oscillated between disaster and triumph – a drunken lurch between palace and dosshouse.”

“While there are environmental forces—such as leadership and workplace culture—that influence what we believe about ourselves, ultimately we are the stewards of our own stories.” On his personal blog, content strategist Paul Jun muses on the stories we tell ourselves about the work we do.

“Being a mother, a woman, a wife and a writer is different from being a writer-writer. It’s possibly more precarious.” This Longreads essay by an anonymous writer — which has gone viral — is about the struggle to write as a woman, a mother, and as the wife of another writer who is jealous of […]

“Reluctant to give up the exclamatory joy of seeing, I have built a life at the untranslated point of an outstretched finger.” Roxani Krystalli writes about exploring the Scottish landscape and learning to see differently.