Here, on the Ranch, the air smells bigger and the sky sounds bluer. The stars dance into constellations, and my feet know the bumps and curves in the road like I know the ridges of my own knuckles. The crickets are friendly, and the fire ants are foes, and we...
When I sit in silence, I can hear Doña Rosa shuffling around, humming an unfamiliar tune that feels like love and sorrow. She wears a white blouse and a red knee-length skirt, their hemmed edges embroidered with rainbow flowers. Her hair is tamed in a pair of braids and topped...
Since the beginning of this decade, I’ve lived through a winter storm that caused cascading infrastructure failures in Austin, Texas, and a pandemic that affected the entire world. Now, I’m getting to experience a water crisis in Montevideo, Uruguay. Like the United States, Uruguay is good at marketing. Indeed, its...
I was twenty-one years old the summer Elaine and I backpacked into Three Sisters Wilderness. I was an urban creature, from a long line of same. My grandparents had emigrated from Greece and Italy, landed in the Bronx, and never went farther. They were factory workers, saloon keepers, a butcher...
A time-traveler named Harry Potter awaits the appearance of his dead father on the edge of a vast lake bordered by forest. It’s nighttime, and the castle of Hogwarts looms in all its might and mystery over the water. Harry watches impatiently as, across the lake, cloaked creatures called dementors...
What vile alchemy has enabled many Americans, with Texans in the vanguard, to conjoin a stated belief in God with a total commitment to a serial liar and a reliance on instruments of death? Even when children are murdered in the nation’s schools, the same kind of assault weapons used...
The photo is shocking: A massive sea turtle lies dead in the back of a pickup truck, its speckled front flippers so big they stretched far beyond the width of the vehicle. A chain is wrapped around its neck, and its bear-sized head, which looks injured, hangs limply over the...
The Yale Peabody Museum’s ornithology laboratory struggles mightily to enforce separation between “observer and observed,” as all good Western scientists must. And yet, mocking the laboratory’s attempts at sterility, the smell that lingers inside refuses any such boundaries. The bitter, stale scent infused my hair and skin as soon as...
It’s called the Doctrine of Double Effect, a philosophical conundrum but with real-life implications. For a doctor, it means that you are permitted to do something that on its face is wrong if it is morally the right thing to do. It means that you can prescribe pain-relieving medication to...
Online dating has become a widespread feature of modern social life. In less than two decades, seeking partners through commercial intermediaries went from being a marginal and stigmatized practice to being a common activity. How can we explain this rapid change and what does it tell us about the changing...
