Parents
In Human Parts. More on Medium.
HUMANS 101
How do you balance obligations when the past still lingers?
“If you want people to help you, you cannot scream at them. You have to be kind,” I spoke into the phone to my father. We talk every day now, sometimes half a dozen times (the other half dozen I let go to voicemail so I can work). Most of…
“Some of it is pretty dark,” she warns.
“I was going through Papa’s papers and I found some poetry he’d written,” Mom tells me over the phone.
“Oh, I didn’t know Papa wrote poetry,” I respond, curious.
“Me neither,” she says. “I just have to warn you, some of it is pretty dark, so I don’t want you…
Imaginations ran wild
My mom was all about healthy snacks but knew enough about branding not to call them “healthy snacks” so she’d just ask if we wanted “something to eat.”
A lot of our household items felt either like sentimental family heirlooms or like timeless, origin-less utilitarian practicalities that had always been…
Lived Through This
Their choice to hide my biology has forever altered how I see myself
The day after I found out I was donor-conceived, I spent the afternoon walking through the streets of midtown Manhattan, wondering if anyone I passed by could be a relative. The information I had about the anonymous sperm donor my parents used was minimal: He was Jewish and had been…
This Is Us
A lifetime of memories in and about the place where we rest our heads
In bed we laugh, in bed we cry;
And, born in bed, in bed we die.
The near approach a bed may show
Of human bliss to human woe.
—Isaac de Benserade
When I was little, I was so afraid of the dark that I begged my sister to let…
This Is Us
‘I make my case over and over. Unable to tell if I am convincing anyone.’
I lay out ingredients. Not five minutes before, as I start to cook. Like normal people. I take them out an hour in advance. Set them on the counter. Unmeasured, unchopped. Mental meal prep.
I am 10 minutes late. Always optimistic that I can get my shit together fast. A…
Express Yourself
A simple drawing exercise to help you rediscover the meaning of perspective
Everything is closed. Schools are closed. Stores are closed. Parks are closed. Museums are closed. But you know what’s easy to keep open for you and your kids? Your eyes.
Let me show you an easy way to open things up. But I want you to wait until your kids…
Telling me to forgive my father means erasing the years of abuse I suffered at his hands
My father was a bad person.
There are plenty of ways to sugarcoat it, or use lots of needless words to make it sound a little less harsh. …
My mother had a complicated relationship with relaxation. She yearned for it, but didn’t really have the constitution.
I remember walking into her dark bedroom, aged seven or eight, to a screech from the dim far side of the bed: “Fuck off! I’m meditating!”
I didn’t really know what meditating…
There’s a reason the phrase “adult child of divorce” exists. It’s an odd pairing of words, “adult” and “child,” but as one, I can say they are more accurate than I would like to believe. My parents divorced when I was 20 years old. Perhaps “young adult” is…
Human Parts
A publication from Medium about humanity: yours, mine, and ours.
