What’s More American Than Skydiving?

Encounters with Freedom, Optimism, and Exploration at 10,000 Feet

When I quit my first real job, I didn’t have a plan. I just walked out with the recklessness of a Harvard graduate who had come of age during the Clinton era Internet bubble. I was barely out the door when reality set in, and elation gave way to doubts about the wobbling post-Y2K economy. What if I had doomed myself to poverty? I wanted catharsis. That’s when I got the idea to jump out of an airplane.

Soon after, in a boozy haze at a San Francisco loft party, …

by Taya Weiss | March 31, 2015

The Call of Home at the End of Life

My Quanzhou-Born Father Needed to Say Goodbye to China Before We Said Goodbye to Him

by June Shih | December 16, 2014

“In his condition, you’ll have to take him home business class,” the doctor in Beijing had said. “Bring sleeping pills.”

As we boarded our flight back home to Washington, D.C., …

I Loved My Wife, But I Wished She Would Die

Brittany Maynard’s Suicide Brought Me Back to the Last Week I Had With My Wife—a Week I’d Give Anything Not to Have Experienced

by John La Grange | November 17, 2014

I occasionally flip my car radio to the right-wing AM station to get my blood pumping and to keep up on what people with a different worldview are thinking. When …

Brooding Grief

by D.H. Lawrence | October 17, 2014

A yellow leaf from the darkness
Hops like a frog before me.
Why should I start and stand still?

I was watching the woman that bore me
Stretched in the brindled …

My Uncle Dale’s California Dream

In the High Desert, He Lived Like a Cowboy, Hauled Sand and Milk, and Kept Our Family Together

by Joe Mathews | October 9, 2014

I had to go to a family funeral up in Apple Valley, I explained to friends and colleagues, as I canceled a day’s worth of appointments recently. They offered …

At an Irish-American Funeral Home, I Found My Chinese Roots

Just Blocks Away From the Blarney Stone Pub, Buddhist Nuns Helped My Family Lay My Grandmother to Rest in San Francisco

by Jia-Rui Cook | October 1, 2014

In a room filled with wreaths bearing Chinese characters on broad ribbons, two Buddhist nuns in embroidered yellow robes started chanting and striking bells. One by one, members of my …

death

What’s More American Than Skydiving?

Encounters with Freedom, Optimism, and Exploration at 10,000 Feet

The Call of Home at the End of Life

My Quanzhou-Born Father Needed to Say Goodbye to China Before We Said Goodbye to Him

I Loved My Wife, But I Wished She Would Die

Brittany Maynard’s Suicide Brought Me Back to the Last Week I Had With My Wife—a Week I’d Give Anything Not to Have Experienced

Brooding Grief

My Uncle Dale’s California Dream

In the High Desert, He Lived Like a Cowboy, Hauled Sand and Milk, and Kept Our Family Together

At an Irish-American Funeral Home, I Found My Chinese Roots

Just Blocks Away From the Blarney Stone Pub, Buddhist Nuns Helped My Family Lay My Grandmother to Rest in San Francisco

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The Great American Art of Failure

From Our Bankruptcy Law to Our Jazz Music, We’re Willing to Take Big Risks to Become Big Successes

Our Favorite Christmas Classic Is Really a Study in American Suicide

It’s a Wonderful Life Delivers a Haunting Treatise on the Religious, Legal, and Economic Implications of Taking One’s Life

My Delightful, Non-Depressing Scandinavian Film Festival

As a Kid, I Took a Crazy Leap Off a Roof. As an Adult, I Took an Even Crazier Leap Into Nordic Cinema.

You Americans Aren’t the Only People Obsessed with Your Flag

Even the Mild-Mannered Danes Go Nuts over Their National Colors

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