400 Words


Archive for November 2007

Flux

by Erin—Age 30—Saskatoon, Canada Each day is quite different from the last. I am a mother. I am a grad student. My work, however, can scarcely be summed by such labels. When I was five, my parents decided to go to grad school. In the five years that followed I was very much on my [...]

Easy

by Holly—Age 42—Killingly, CT I leave my quiet home on the lake and arrive at work every weekday at 11:00 am. Standing behind the register of our family restaurant, I take in its familiar sights and sounds. A three-year-old throws a tantrum when his pregnant tattooed mother takes away the salt shaker he was busy [...]

Switch

by Nate—Age 33—Petaluma, CA When it all started I took phone calls and fixed problems. Technical people called me, software engineers, and I helped them do things that I could never explain to my family. I felt like I had two lives: my days were filled with cubicles and computers, my nights were spent with [...]

Rice

by Lara—Age 37—Sundance, UT Cleveland, 1987. Most commuters shuttling home on Detroit Road to their five-bedroom tract houses miss Golden Buddha, hidden in a strip mall between a barbershop and a hardware store. I come here after school, three days a week. Wash rice! Wash rice! Mrs. Wu’s high-pitched voice; always the first words I [...]