It’s possible to find comfort in something intended to be perplexing. Filling out the symmetrical 15x15 crossword puzzle grid is a joy often experienced in the tranquility of a hammock or a cozy corner on the sofa, accompanied by a warm mug of tea. The clues, riddled with cryptic questions and demanding ...
In one of the happiest countries in the world, I turned inward, a quiet countenance taking over my typically jovial spirit.
For thousands of days, I have woken to birdsong. The street where I grew up is flush with trees, some a century thick, that provide home to robins, cardinals, house finches, and mourning doves cooing in the blue-black of early morning. These birds scatter in my wake on morning walks. They snip at each ...
“No marriage till you’re 30.”
It starts and ends with the hills.
At the sand-colored strip mall near my elementary school, wedged between the dry cleaners and ice cream parlor, was my sister and I’s childhood playground. On long summer days or rainy afternoons, my mother would park beneath the dusty sycamores and walk us across the asphalt to the glass storefront. ...
I was only 17 when I ejaculated into the cup that my future children would be frozen in. I was about to become a mother, whether I wanted to or not.
On our second visit, Xiao Li tells us of a breakthrough: If you knot the top corners of the blanket around the first metal bar on each side of the bed, lao lao won’t get up at night. The contraption is simple: she tries to sit up, the blanket holds her down. With such little room between the mattress ...
“They’re just trees; no more pictures!” whines a boy, maybe six years old, to his parents. He is much more invested in the line of ice cream trucks a few meters away than posing with the sakura.
The cabin was dark. I sat amidst sleeping strangers and a baby crying nonstop. Maybe it was because everything from my hair to the provided blankets smelled like stale coffee that I sat wide awake, staring at the in-flight travel monitor—the only source of light in my vicinity. On the screen, a small ...
I forget exactly when I first became uneasy with my photograph.
“if someday you can’t find me you might
It is May of 1981. Tempo Magazine, one of Indonesia’s largest weekly newspapers, has just published an article about a wedding. “Their affections for one another are a little excessive, even in front of all their guests,” the author writes, seemingly amused. “Bonnie is pinching their ‘husband’s’ ...
As my mom reads off every name, my sister and I try our hardest to commit them to memory. We are six and eight years old, excitedly staring at the family tree in front of us. It is astonishing and extensive, with some very familiar names and others that I have only heard of as characters from my parents’ ...
“I am a product of Nollywood and my loyalty remains unshaken.” -Genevieve Nnaji
“I walk, all day, across the heaven-verging field.” - Mary Oliver, “Upstream”
Solutions by The State News
