Columns
How I Learned to Reconcile the Distance Between Experience and Memory
As my mother loses the ability to remember, I find myself playing with my own memory.
Finding Peace at the Rothko Chapel: What Local Arts Can Teach Us About Our Cities—and Ourselves
In Houston, as with everywhere else, the arts serve as tiny lifeboats—and sometimes, if we’re lucky, we all find ourselves floating together.
温もり (Nukumori): When the Distance Between You and Your Loved Ones Disappears
Nukumori can refer to a kind of existence not dependent on physical proximity, allowing a person’s presence to linger with you even if they cannot.
The Rodeo Is a Holdover from Texas Lore, and Part of the Changing Story Houston Tells About Itself
If traditions like the rodeo can accommodate Houston’s diversity, whole new traditions will be formed—leaving us with something even better.
I Underwent Genetic Testing to Help My Son, and Discovered I Have an Increased Risk of Breast Cancer
What if my son, the boy who has puzzled everyone, has helped to save my life?
How Fairy Tales Teach Us to Love the Unknowable
Love is born in the quiet ways we reveal ourselves; how we notice and love our partners when they take on new, surprising forms.
憂鬱 (Yuutsu): When Mental Health Is Mistranslated
How could I navigate my Japanese-language emotions in pursuit of a Western psychiatric label?
Finding Holiness Beyond Houston’s Scores of Sacred Spaces
We’d made a connection across tables, generations, tongues, our own tiny blip of transcendence. Holiness in the noodle bar.
Two Black Parents Walk Into a Meeting: On Race, Education, and Our Son’s IEP
I’m not just advocating for a child whose challenges don’t follow a script. I’m also a black mother advocating for my black son in a room full of people who don’t look like us.
What an American City Sounds Like
It’s a space where language is manipulated and contorted and pulled and borrowed. It sounds like everywhere and anywhere else.