Columns

How to Become a Freelance Journalist: Crip Edition

From my perspective, the typical path to becoming a journalist looks like this: First, you enter the formal education system and learn what you can from kindergarten till high school. Then, you try to figure out what you’re going to do with your life for the next several decades. You…

I’m Not Really Here: Taking a Ghost Vacation to Refocus

“Sometimes I pretend I’m dead.” This sounds like the lead-in to a particularly macabre joke. But in actuality, it’s a personal practice with the potential to revolutionize our approach to self-care. My friend Andrea Hannah calls it a “ghost vacation.” “Sometimes I pretend I’m dead,” Andrea likes to…

The Best Unorthodox Advice From My Doctor

When you’re living with a complicated disease such as SMA, it’s half the battle to have a knowledgeable and trustworthy medical team helping to manage everything. I’ve always been fortunate in that respect. I know how difficult it is to build a solid medical team, but I’ve somehow collected…

The Importance of Paradises in a World on Fire

A single lyric keeps ringing in my head from Fletcher’s latest single, “Her Body Is Bible.” It goes, “Hold on tight, when the world gets hard, this s**t’s like paradise.” The song appears pretty straightforward at first blush. The lyrics and the imagery are simple, attempting to reclaim religious…

Life Is Like a Box of Chocolates … and a Yo-yo

I’ve only seen snippets from the 1994 movie “Forrest Gump.” I know a couple of its famous lines, though: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” I love surprises, chocolate and otherwise! Usually. In the mid-1980s, my husband, Randy, and I…