For those who have miraculously found their way above the flood line, to rest for a moment, while the waters recede. — Joel Matthew Gunderson,

The week before our first date, we texted constantly. At the art store with my daughter, while she shopped for pens, I bought a color-your-own

At the end of last year, Julia gave me a stoneware crock, and I decided that I would use it to keep record of the

“Pussy will and can do a lot of other things to you, though.” — M.F.K. Fisher The first incongruous piece of the strip club was

“The natural progression from boiling water to boiling water with something in it can hardly be avoided, and in most cases is heartily to be

“Heavily-inked chefs and cooks, culinary lone wolves, maniacal attention to detail, something’s happening here, and I don’t know what it is. Yet okay. I know

“It is true that, when the wolf first proves he is actually there, you feel a definite sense of panic.” — M.F.K. Fisher Bouncing slightly

“You can still live with grace and wisdom, thanks … partly to your own innate sense of what you must do with the resources you

“Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg until it is broken.” — M.F.K. Fisher   My mother came into

“Take the goose, pull off the feathers, make a fire about her, not too close for smoke to choke her, or burn her too soon,

“Sometimes when you … smell the honest exciting smell of real bread baking, you remember a part of your childhood, and feel a child’s helplessness

The first time a man chased me I was jogging. I was a senior in college and ran the campus perimeter at night after I

After college, I packed my car and moved across the country to go be in love in Ohio. Six weeks later, I called my mom

“Appetite, a universal wolf.” — Shakespeare(Epigraph to “How to Keep Alive” by M.F.K. Fisher.) “Joy’s soul lies in the doing.” — Shakespeare(Epigraph to The Joy

The Liar had left his house open both weeks he was in Sacramento. The first week, I fed his cats. Monday evening of the second

Tuesday night, sitting on the edge of my bed, I called the Girlfriend. “I’m going to end things with the Liar in the morning, now

The next morning, I laid awake in my bed, remembering back a full week, to the day the Liar had left for his first trip

As soon as I saw her message, I closed my laptop quietly and slid it quickly into my bag. The chair creaked as I stood.

When the Girlfriend and I got off the phone Sunday night, I called my sweetheart. He sounded very tired.“I’m going to take tomorrow afternoon off.

Editor’s Note:  I wrote this essay at the beginning of March, the morning after it happened.     We had been dating for a month. It

My sweetheart telephoned on Sunday afternoon, on his way home from picking up his dog’s ashes. He’d been away all week working in California; since

CW: Abuse, manipulation, discussion of rape. It’s story time. I agree with the acquaintance of mine who once said, “Cancel Culture is murder.”Canceling prevents dialogue