On this day, one year ago, I was on my way to spend the winter at a Zen Buddhist monastery in California. I have done this for many years. It is a recurring three months of my life that I spend in relative silence and contemplation, and although it is difficult and different and I have never tried to describe it as “an experience,” there is a great beauty...
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When I was 11 or 12, I developed rituals around perfection in order to enshrine it. A certain chaos ruled my house—five kids, two parents, several dogs, cats, rodents, even a skunk and a raccoon at one point. My siblings were born loud and messy, and I was not. I was born tidy and reflective. I developed ways of preserving a comfortable space around me by...
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In New York City where I grew up, we were all veterans of the Cold War. Even the youngest kids, before they could read, knew what the words Fallout Shelter looked like. And the sirens that ushered us off the streets to practice taking cover, we knew what they meant. We couldn’t articulate the end of the world, or the end of our world, the end of us, so...
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This is what you should know about me: I own a gun. It’s a honey-colored 20-gauge shotgun. The metal barrel smells like cold fire, and the gun has a heft to it that I’ve never grown into. It was a gift to me from my mother when I turned 18. The stock was too long for me then because I was expected to lengthen out. Whenever I shot my gun I’d have to do a...
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