Endpaper
Nesting in Ephemera
I sliced up some magazines, printed out a few photos from my camera roll with a sticker printer I’d just received for my birthday, and stuck it all above my bed. The mere presence of color, and the memories each small picture held, felt like a balm — something consistent and bright and mine to return to. With a couple scraps of paper, I’d planted roots.
Anywhere I Go
When you lose the trappings of the familiar, you have no reminder of who you have been, or who you are supposed to be. So being in new places, at least at first, is both terrifying and exhilarating: You get to move a little more freely, losing the weight that expectations and environmental cues hold.
Salt Lake City Temple
It was strange, returning to that personal mecca. It was here that I had made pilgrimages throughout high school and college, where I had implored God for strength and guidance. Now, even as someone unable to enter beyond its foyer, I found myself praying.
In Defense Of Running Late
By procrastinating my own future, I’ve saved myself from making the most fatal mistake: embarking on adulthood without really considering what I want from it.
frisbee sunrise
I left my room at 6:30 a.m. my first morning with my hair tied up, loose strands pinned back, cleats dangling from my gloved hands. The wind seared red into my cheeks as I made my way over the Charles River, and I wondered when the sun would rise.
On Solid Ground
I had witnessed the magic some people found in this sport. I learned something entirely new that day; I hadn’t learned something so new in a long time.
Direct Flash
I can’t shake the fact that my love for Los Angeles Apparel opposes my self-professed feminist politics. When I add another tennis skirt to my shopping cart, I line the pockets of a man who built his career on the degradation of women.
Putting Society’s Ableism into Perspective
I remember how much I struggled to find the right words to write — staring at the computer screen for hours, refusing to write the word “disabled.”
The Threads That Bind
I often marvel at how it must feel to move throughout the world with such lived experience — how a person can bear witness to so much history and still take to the streets every day in a plush faux-mink coat with the fervent zeal of a person eager to inhale the equally familiar and foreign sights, smells, and sounds of New York City.
Kyle's Grandma Ruth
Kyle's grandma, Ruth, worked as a sewing instructor at the Henry Street Settlement — a social service organization in Manhattan’s Lower East Side — for over 50 years.
Kyle's Muse
It sounds strange to say that I look up to someone who’s a foot and a half shorter than me, but Grandma Ruth has always been my muse.
Courtesy Photo Andy 1
The author and his grandmother, roughly January 2002. Shot on film and shipped to America.
Courtesy Photo Andy 2
The author and his host mother during his exchange year, in Aachen, Germany.
Learning to Forget
It’s hard to resist the constant urge to document. But memory is just as much about forgetting as it is about remembering.
Leaving the Church, Keeping Its Ties
I have no idea why I chose to go back to Utah. When my parents called me a few weeks earlier and asked if I wanted a ticket, I said yes on autopilot. Later, I felt dishonest. I was embarrassed to be flying home for a religion I was supposed to have completely disavowed.
Skating Beyond Legacy Lines
You can only circle an area so many times before the joy dulls into monotony.