When that’s gone, nothing’s left. So I left, too. Last year, without saying a word to anyone but my administrative assistant and the associate dean (who had been chomping at the bit to take over, anyway), I slid my one-sentence resignation memo across the HR Director’s desk, deleted all my…

In pursuit of wild asparagus yesterday, I slid down a muddy irrigation ditch and fully soaked my Doc Martens — which I was wearing because my hiking boots were muck-encrusted from the day before. I’d sunk a foot into the sludge to reach three green, gorgeously proud stalks beckoning from…

The Treasure State. Big Sky Country. The Last Best Place. Here’s what I see: Folks watch Yellowstone (a show that plays so loosely with distance and city locations that it’s laughable), then rent RVs and embark on summer family vacations focused on Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. Aside from the…

I never expected to stumble into a discussion defending police inaction. The day of the school massacre in Ulvade, as I switched from CNN to MSNBC for live updates, I was increasingly confused about the information conflicts and gaps. …

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. I’m making myself write this fast. If I start revising, I’ll never hit Publish. Drinking my morning coffee, Susan Landers’s story “The Disappointment of Having a Child Who is Different,” appeared in my feed. I have an adult son with bipolar disorder. This is…

Nearly every time I make the five hour drive to visit my adult son Max, I’m traveling partly to enjoy his company and mostly to help him navigate some issue related to his bipolar disorder. My intense love for him is coated with a veneer of existentialist nausea. …

It’s not stalking if your kid comes along. Note: Depictions of my mother’s speech are never designed to belittle her or anyone who stutters. I consider capturing the cadence and rhythm of her speech as central to how I understood her nature, my role as her daughter, and the story. …

My mother has stuttered all her life. Her dysfluency is severe, if one uses the generally accepted criteria that over 20% of her verbal syllables are affected. Growing up, my sisters and I never heard the term “stutter.” Mom has referenced “her speech”, but never uses the word “stutter.” She…

My son, Max,* was ten years old when his psychiatrist diagnosed him with Bipolar 1 disorder. I’d called his doctor a few days before, physically exhausted and emotionally overwhelmed with Max’s confusing, escalating behavior. …