When “Why Didn’t You Say Something?” Is the Wrong Question

Every community eventually reaches a moment when a difficult truth rises to the surface and, almost reflexively, we reach for the same tired question: Why didn’t you say something? We ask it in families. We ask it in workplaces. We ask it in schools and nonprofits. We ask it

Burnt Eggs

After high school, instead of taking a year off or heading straight into undergrad, I moved across the country and went to culinary school. (The early 2000's were a different time kids.) Our first semester kitchen class was all foundations: knife skills, the five mother sauces, every shape

Trouble Worth Getting Into

I have taken exactly one swimming lesson in my life. I must’ve been six, maybe seven, on that windy summer day at the Richfield community pool. I don’t remember much about the actual lesson, or what skill we were supposed to learn, or whether I passed whatever small

One Stubborn Breath at a Time

I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be taking notes on my phone while weighing the pros and cons of filling this prescription at the pharmacy. No one should. But now isn’t the time for philosophical musings on what should be basic human rights. Now’s the time

Trying Anyway

My third grader has decided she wants to be a fox for Halloween this year. After some rummaging through closets, I find a few crumpled pieces of orange fabric, brew more coffee, say a prayer to whatever saint keeps an eye on overly ambitious craft projects, and dust off my

The Radius of Harm

I’ve been thinking about how harm moves. How it refuses to stays contained. How it reshapes the ground around it. With every new account of sexual violence, the conversation about power and responsibility grows more urgent. Another name. Another reckoning. Another reminder that unchecked power doesn’t just wound

Fiduciary Responsibility and the Physics of Power

When I’m feeling particularly anxious, I find comfort in the universal laws of math: algebra, physics, statistics. Bizarre statement, I know. You’d think it would be something like philosophy or prayer or reading my favorite book for the thousandth time. The thing about math that I find so

Grilled Cheese, Moral Clarity, and Other Things I’m Learning to Wait For

I make the world’s worst grilled cheese sandwiches. They are truly terrible. Somehow they end up both underdone and scorched. It’s strange, considering I went to culinary school and once wrote an entire term paper about sandwiches: their pitfalls, their perfection, and everything in between. I know the

Dead Moms Club

The winter my mom died, everything went quiet. I was a sophomore in high school and still believed terrible things came with some kind of warning. They didn’t. But this isn’t about grief in those first raw hours. It’s about what came later, the next fall, when

The Faith That Finds Me

I didn’t think I ‘believed’ ™️for a very long time. I wanted to, but I didn’t have that dignified, stoic, gentle head-nod-along-to-the-gospel-reading thing everyone else seemed to have. What I had was more of a bewildered, stumbling, uncomfortable, needy, loud thing that would claw its way out of

To Stand and Speak

Why survivors risk everything to break the silence

Aurora (Dawn)

Dedos asustados sueltan el cerrojo, dientes rotos desgarran lo que la ata. Yace inerte en nuestra palma, sus alas al fin desatadas, pero no aletean. Nuestro pecho no ofrece consuelo, ningún manantial de leche y miel florece bajo nuestra carne, y aun así sigue buscando. Sólo podemos ofrecer testimonio, nuestros