Humanity: Raw & Unfiltered
An Italian heart is an artichoke,prickly-petaled, not inviting to eat. Every leaf ends in a little nail, a claw that forces you to navigate your way to tenderness, discover a taste that lingers, on your tongue and fingertips, embedded in the mushrooms, rice, chicken simmered with it. A platter of Read more
My godmother tells me stories of my mother’s mother, her aunt, called Pepina. In her forties, she climbed into a dumpster in the Bronx to scrounge for food, discovered a case of celery, but not before the dumpster was hooked up to be carted off, stopped by her screams. Grandma’s Read more
In retrospect I realize that my not having a boyfriend for all those years had given me a deep sense of failure. Not just failure, but a feeling of being flawed in some basic human way. I knew I was attractive, but nonetheless felt un-womanly, like I was lacking a Read more