Damien Maloney In the fall of 2015 and spring of 2016, Sarah Delashmit, a thirtyish woman from Illinois, attended Camp Summit in Dallas, Texas, which since 1947 has served children and adults (“ages 6–99”) with disabilities. Delashmit had muscular dystrophy, and was paralyzed from the neck down. She had a sophisticated power wheelchair and breathing

Most days, Olivia* feels like she’s drowning. Overwhelmed by the stress of protecting her two young children amid a contentious divorce from her abusive husband, she is too afraid to make the phone call herself, so she asks a friend to set up an appointment with Renée Monteil of Sacred Moon Doula. When Renée arrives

Doreen* had been bullied since middle school because of her looks. People called her fat and ugly, at what felt like a ceaseless pace. She didn’t feel sexually or romantically desired. Boys didn’t treat her the way they did her more attractive friends. Having a sex-positive attitude was even tougher growing up in a religious

Getty Images Throughout history, Paris has been through many times of turmoil and destruction—the Paris Commune of 1871 destroyed many of the city’s historic buildings and World War II subjected the city to heavy bombing. But Paris remains as resilient as it is romantic. Here, we take an intimate look back on the evolution of

When Aimee* and her boyfriend broke up in late 2018—the end of a two-and-a-half-year relationship after she found out he’d been cheating on her—she didn’t expect to get anything else out of it. But then, as she was looking into buying a house earlier this year, the 20-something healthcare worker had a surprising revelation. Below,

I was a candidate for Congress in 2017 when the #MeToo movement gained widespread coverage in the media. The public reckoning over the last several years has forced accountability for some high profile people in power for what was once considered acceptable, tolerable, or at worst, a gray area in workplace behavior. As one of

Just last April, I snapped a photo of myself proudly wearing a “Cuomosexual” shirt and uploaded it to my Instagram story. Cut to this week, when I typed the word “FINALLY!” in a text thread with friends as Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced his resignation. After state Attorney General Letitia James found he had sexually harassed

Early in my new novel, We Were Never Here, there’s a scene that was hard for me to write—it skates too close to a truth that fills me with anxiety and shame. In it, Emily, a twenty-something woman on vacation in Cambodia, brings a hot South African backpacker back to her hotel room… I discovered

After struggling with infertility for years, my husband and I finally conceived. The moment I gave birth to my son, Eli, was the happiest in my life. He changed my world. My identity had always been shaped by my career—I thought of myself first as a physician and a public health official—but suddenly I thought

Central PressGetty Images The past 16 months have taken so much from all of us: time, loved ones, income, joy, too many restaurants to count. I managed to make it through the worst stretch of the pandemic relatively unscathed, which is to say I only caught a light case of COVID-19, transferred all my friendships

I was once demoted from maid of honor to bridesmaid after taking too long to plan the bride’s bachelorette party. Jessica and I were coworkers at a publishing company where we shared a cubicle wall. We made our long hours bearable by scribbling handwritten notes to each other, which we filled with code names for

At the onset of the pandemic last March, Calgary Brown, then 39, was living in a one-bedroom apartment in East Los Angeles with her roommate and their two cats. The two cooked together, often grocery shopping at the 99-cent store to keep their expenses down. (Brown had taken a pay cut when she moved west

Barbra Streisand and Elliott Gould Entering the 1970s, Barbra Streisand and Elliott Gould were the definition of a Hollywood power couple—she’d just found success with Funny Girl and Hello Dolly!, while he was starring on M.A.S.H. But in the early ’70s, they went their separate ways.

Twenty-six years ago, Andrea Dobynes Wagner didn’t pass her preschool vision test. She was later diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a group of genetic eye disorders that lead to peripheral vision loss and difficulty seeing at night. Growing up legally blind, doctors warned Andrea that she’d never lead a normal life. They recommended she work a

In July 2019, I tasted dal, the South Asian equivalent to chicken soup, for the first time in four years. The red flat oval lentils, eerily similar to the microscopic imagery of the red blood cells that my anemic body lacked, floated in a spiced broth that thickened after cooking for hours in a metal

I nursed my gimlet over the next hour, taking a sip every time he said something racist. Whatever he thought, I wasn’t going to play along, so I trained my eyes to the bottom of my glass as I drank, avoiding his awaiting gaze. This was only the third in-person date I’d been on since

With the world on pause and sheltered in place, now is the time to dream. Yes, we will travel again—but for now, it’s all about wanderlust. Whether you’re dreaming of a quick weekend getaway, the ultimate surf, or spending this time at home to dream up the trip of a lifetime, a pristine beach is

As the world begins to reopen (both guardedly and with great gaiety), we can once again look forward to a summer spent alongside our nearest and dearest. Perhaps a Saturday lazing by the pool at a college roommate’s beach house is on the horizon, or the date has already been set for a trip to

For over a year now, with venues worldwide largely closed due to COVID-19, performers of all kinds have been forced to experiment. A string quartet in Barcelona played for 2,300 potted plants at the Liceu Grande Theatre, while a strip club in Portland experimented with drive-through go-go dancers. Still, unemployment rates for performing artists skyrocketed,

In March 2020, about a month after the South Korean film Parasite won four Oscars, including Best Picture—the first non-English language film to ever earn the Academy’s highest honor—US states began issuing lockdown orders for COVID-19. Shortly after, we began to hear reports of Asians and Asian Americans across the US being beaten, spit on,

Imagine walking into a crowded bar. A crowded bar full of unmasked people, talking and laughing and breathing and spewing aerosol particles into the air without the threat of an airborne virus looming over the room. We should be stoked, right? This no longer feels like a far-off fantasy. The mass tragedy of COVID-19, where

Once, in the span of a single conversation, a friend nearly two decades older than I am and I realized we were both running out of time. I clearly was not going to have my life “figured out” by age 25 or 30 or whatever the appropriate marker is. While she was grappling with the

Typically, celebrity nuptials follow the same format as the average wedding ceremony. Vows are read, the cake is cut, and the bride is carried over the threshold. Come the honeymoon, however, newlyweds celebs can be divided into two categories: Those who opt for a low-key getaway a la John Lennon and Yoko Ono versus the

Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary She became an Iranian queen when she married Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1951. The daughter of a German mother and a father who was a member of Iran’s powerful Bakhtiari family, Queen Soraya was the Shah’s second wife and later became an actress. She went on to star in two films, I

Barbra Streisand in ‘Yentl’ (1983) I’m as big a Streisand fan as the next person, but I can’t get over the fact that she played a 20-year-old Yeshiva school student when she was 41 years old. She did win a Golden Globe for the film, though, so it was for a good cause!

Content warning: suicidal ideation To the outside world, I lived a perfect life. My toy company, Melissa & Doug, which I founded in 1988 alongside my husband, Doug Bernstein, had grown from a tiny operation run out of Doug’s parents’ garage into a half-billion dollar business. Doug and I had been married for over thirty

When my marriage ended more than a decade ago, all parties assumed my ex and I would adopt the standard-issue divorce package: The kids would stay with me to provide the stability of a primary home, while he got weekend visits and I received child support. That was what the attorneys laid out as the

By winter, “the Millinocket wedding” had basically become shorthand for a “coronavirus superspreader event.” Stories about COVID-19 that ran in local papers were sometimes accompanied by a photo of the Big Moose Inn Cabins & Campground for no other reason than that everyone associated the one with the other. Keirnan Monaghan and Theo Vamvounakis The