Author: Jessie
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I Thought Wisdom Came with Age
Today I watched the senate judiciary committee hear testimony from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the doctor who has accused him of sexual assault, PhD Christine Blasey Ford. There is a lot I could say. There is a lot I have said. I believe Dr. Ford is a hero. I believe Brett Kavanaugh was… Read more
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Timing and Age: The New Voices from Parkland Florida
I remember where I was when I heard about Sandy Hook. I was in a cubicle working my first job out of college. When I heard about Parkland it was almost the same, still a cubicle just a different office. I always think of Sandy Hook’s Noah Pozner because he was a twin, like me.… Read more
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The Silence of Small Things
When I was in high school I had a teacher who told me that the swastika was not a symbol I should find upsetting. When my sister was in middle school a boy drew a swastika on her notebook and the principal said that the boy didn’t mean anything by it and it was only… Read more
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The Ten Plagues: Science Not Silence
A week ago today I was still refraining from eating most carbs, as it was the Jewish holiday of Passover. A holiday where Jews across the world come together to remember the exodus from Egypt. One of the better known elements of the Passover seder, the holiday’s ritual meal, is the recitation of the 10… Read more
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Cultural Consciousness
It’s only Wednesday. But it’s already been a hard week. A bomb threat was called into the JCC in my community. And today I went on strike for International Women’s Day. These two events may seem unrelated, except in timing, but they have become combined in my mind. This week there were many people in… Read more
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In Broad Daylight: What I Believe
This time it is my city. This time it is my community. This time it is my people. This time it is not my family. I am lucky it is not my family, as I was lucky when it happened in St. Louis, and Philadelphia, and not here. But I am writing now when perhaps… Read more
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Thank You: From Taking to the Streets to Talking in the Streets (1/22/17)
To the grandma on the metro in the pink kitty cap, thank you. Thank you for smiling and nodding at me across the train as if we were sisters, because we are sisters. To the middle aged woman who looked at me on the street corner, thank you. Thank you for asking me if I… Read more
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When We Will Not See the Fruits of our Labors
Yesterday I, like thousands of others, visited the final resting place of Susan B. Anthony. I paid my respects to a woman who never saw her efforts come to fruition. But I voted. Her efforts were not for her, they were for me. And that’s the greatest gift anyone can give. Last night friends called… Read more
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A Night of No Returns
“I’m scared,” they say. This is what I’ve heard from my friends, people who voted like me. They are not angry or sad. The loudest noise has not been a noise at all, but silence. Our democracy has always been full of heated argument, lying, scheming, profanity, change, ingenuity, and passion. Now there is only… Read more
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The Void
You must feed the void or it will feed on you. That is what writing is. It is standing on a precipice, staring into an endless hole with no guarantee, no possibility really, that you will ever be able to fill it up. And while the void is deep enough already, if you wait, if… Read more