Thinkery

To we who are elderly, let’s neither avoid nor swim in the times of our youth long gone. We are not decrepit versions of then, rather we wear different costumes of wrinkled skin, generous girths, and the unblinking stare of knowing nothing is new. We are comprised...

I suspect much of the reason that I, like many writers, need editing is because the act of writing and telling a story is such an immersive, mental experience. As we write, we exquisitely picture our characters, their demeanors, their states of mind and their tones...

After you’ve closed the covers on a book and still feel it two days later, you’ve been privy to something special. If you’re still thinking about it by the third day, you’ve been exposed to compelling questions. And when you talk about it ceaselessly with friends,...

It is my first holiday alone, following a breakup with the woman for whom I moved east from Chicago. I have no family nearby. All our friends are hers. Anxiety becomes acute as night descends, it’s the time we would have been celebrating with family and friends and...

Hamid was a child of six when her family emigrated from Karachi, Pakistan, and came to the U.S. Her memoir, The Borderland Between Worlds, is a tale of alienation deriving from cultural imperatives, socio-economic class conflict, parents vs. children, between...

I turned 77 last week. To some, that's old. To me, it's getting there. It comes with many strange sensations, one of which is a feeling of satisfaction at having managed, sometimes conquered, the numerous vicissitudes of a long life. Speaking of long, there is also...