A pair of binoculars rested on the vinyl floor between two glossy square shapes. Boots, I told myself. They were shaped to hold feet, and so they must. The boots rose into knees, the knees into khaki-covered thighs. Two hands hovered between them — pale, veined, obedient. Wrists disappeared into black wool. The fabric climbed to shoulders and then — nothing. No head. No face. Only the space where one should be. The image held, even as something in me loosened. The body remain

The other day I took a walk. Well, I got in my car and drove to the place where I like to walk: the three-mile loop near my family’s home. If you like Georgia Piedmont ecology: leaf litter; oak trees; dogwood; the occasional deer — this is the place for you. Though, be warned — the landscape is not quite the exemplar. It’s hard to keep deciduous charm where there’s a disc golf course. The trail still offers plenty of variation: scrub density, how much light reaches the ground

This May, my family and I will travel to Turkey for a week-long guided historical tour with an expert on early Christianity. The tour includes ancient sites like Sardis, Didyma, and Pergamon — all multi-layered landscapes full of art and architecture. Once our tickets were confirmed, I was considering just how many ancient sites I have had the privilege to visit. As I was reflecting on this, I felt a familiar rise in my chest. Today, I can name this feeling — turn it over and

On Monday, our family dog, Archie, was put to sleep at our neighborhood veterinarian’s office. An X-ray revealed cancer in his lungs and stomach. Made comfortable and wrapped in a blanket from home, he slipped peacefully out of this world. I am unaccustomed to the unpredictability of the swift swells of grief that have surged through me the past few days. Each rush has a unique flavor, showing me pain from new angles and casting piercing light — the kind that is almost too br

Something remarkable happened to me today: I found myself at the Starbucks on Emory’s campus. I tend to avoid it; it may be perfectly situated between my usual lunch spots and the law school, but I find it perpetually dim and faintly dusty, and the cheap lavender scent pumped into its bathrooms makes me feel like I’m in an airport. The music is loud and uncurated, the undergraduates chatter and laugh in serrated bursts, and the baristas treat my drink order as if it were a st