There are not many things in this world that I, with time, cannot overcome. If it’s a homework assignment, I can escape the all-consuming mindset that one assignment will affect the trajectory of my career. If it’s a disagreement among friends, I can find ways to view multiple perspectives, finding ...
If there’s one thing to know about me, it’s that there are actually eleven (and counting): Paul Ryan, Frederick, Stacey-Maurice, Jerry, Bridgette, Gordo, Deena, Milo-Jordan, Billy Joel (a.k.a. Ol’ Bluegrass), Dickens, and Bixby. These little guys are my whole world, and they fit in the palms of ...
The table is set. A pristine tablecloth is laid—only the faintest of creases as evidence of usual irrelevance, when it sits forgotten and folded in a tiny cabinet high up in the kitchen. Further decorating the table is a feast. A true cornucopia. Filled with meats, carbs, and vegetables. It’s a ...
My mother’s childhood was full of plants made into toys. The last time I was in Moscow—11 years ago now, the memories are growing rusty—she shared them with me, introducing me to the many plants that could become playthings, even in a big city. There were the “touch-me-not” plants, “nedotroga,” ...
In one of my earliest memories I’m sitting on the lid of the toilet, wearing pajamas, a trash can between my feet. My mother is holding scissors as if she has just discovered what they are. She is a woman of many talents, but cutting hair is not one of them. Still, I let her try. Over and over, I ...
In the corner of the patch of land I call home there used to sit a treehouse. The funny thing about this treehouse is that it was never in a tree at all. It was a small wooden shed, perched atop nothing but solid ground.
I am single, and I am married. While seemingly paradoxical, both of these things are true. There is no husband, nor a spouse to whom I am married. I alone comprise the happy couple.
In nearly all the fairy tales of my childhood, the beautiful princess was always forced to choose between the princes, and the story could only end when she had chosen. When I grew up and graduated to young adult novels, the plucky heroine now had to choose between two boys with jawlines so sharp you ...
I found out recently that my favorite coffee shop in Providence will be closing in less than two weeks. This is both heartbreaking and, in some ways, strangely fitting.
Glory to the words once rehearsed and the feelings once known
I am jealous of every single first-year. It’s a sad truth, but an honest one nonetheless. Sitting in an English seminar, populated by everyone from grad students to seventeen-year-old first-years, the range of ages jumps out, refusing to be subdued by the equalizing experience of the classroom. Despite ...
I know a girl who dances as easy as breathing.
I. KNOWN FACTS ABOUT MY FATHER
While spiders have always paralyzed me, my greatest fear appeared when I least expected it, looming over me during moments of great happiness and great pain.
As I cast one final glance around my room, disappointment seeps into my heart. The unfulfilled part of me is saddened to feel nothing more than a single, temporary drop in my chest when thinking about moving away. It’s hard to miss something that has already been tainted by the notion of change, such ...
At the beginning, it was good. It was exciting to be around so many new people, so many of them interesting, passionate, and unfailingly kind. Campus was beautiful, the sun casting its golden glow on the old brick buildings, the grass bright and wet, the ancient towering trees scattering shadows like ...
Mid-December 2022. Heavy snow.
In seventh grade, we had a long-term substitute teacher for social studies because our teacher had fallen down the stairs. Besides his need to remind us he wasn’t strict (he was “just preparing us for the real world”), I only have one memory from his time as my teacher: He made me cry. No—he ...
Solutions by The State News
