Our Letters

The Notecard
By Elaina Portugal 06/20/23

As I head into the organic, granola, tree-hugging grocery store on my way home from an appointment, I notice this woman talking to someone in the parking lot. She waves her arms and laughs as she proffers up her backpack to the woman before her. The woman doesn’t look into the backpack or at the woman but instead rummages through her own purse. I pull a five-dollar bill out of my wallet as I walk by in case she stops me next. 

I can tell by her attire that she is probably homeless.  To read more….

Happy Cashew Day!

By: Elaina Portugal 12/14/19

Last week, my eighty-one year old mother-in-law hung her very first Christmas ornament ever. Being Jewish, she’d never had an opportunity, and perhaps never a desire, to hang an ornament before. She sat in her chair watching me unpack my memories from boxes and offered to help. She oohed and aahed over all of the Christmas decorations and ornaments I’ve collected over the years. Presents from students, co-workers, and even her, brought exclamations of delight as the tissue paper fell away to reveal each trinket inside. 

I told a few stories about some of the items and pushed buttons on ornaments that sang songs or made noise. We talked briefly about my childhood and decorating for the holidays back then. As I continued to unpack, the dreidel and the menorah made their way to their yearly spot on the top of the grand piano, and the Hanukkah tree ornaments looked perfectly at home and right in their usual spaces.  To read the rest…

To Spit or Swallow? – Elaina Portugal- November 27th, 2018

I scurried through Dollar General looking for ant bait, scratching at every imagined itch. The pesky little buggers had formed a conga line from the base of my window sill to the dog’s dish and I, in my manic endeavor to wipe them from the face of my floor, had stretched out under the table to interrupt their dance. Of course, the little fuckers found their way onto my top and no matter how many times I took it off and shook it out on the deck, I could still imagine them crawling on me.

Finding what I needed in the seasonal aisle, I tried not to run to the front of the store to pay. I imagined the ants swarming over my kitchen floor, turning it an undulation of black, looking for some scrap of food to pounce upon. I scratched behind my ear,  flicked something imagined off my top, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw the nemesis of my childhood. The ant bait I clutched went forgotten as the quicksand of memories sucked me in.  Read more…

The Biggest Bitch in the Pack

Written by Kerry E.B. Black

June 4th, 2017

My daughter, Bear, has a service dog through Canine Companions for Independence. We waited three years while the organization vetted us as a qualified family and while the appropriate dog was trained. When the time came and a dog with the right potential personality and skills became available, we moved to Dublin, Ohio for intense training. To graduate as a service team, we needed to master the commands and show our ability to adapt them in ways to help when we reached home. My daughter, her dog Latte, and I form a three-point companion team. Although Bear and Latte are usually pretty good about remembering, I reinforce the commands and ensure they pay attention to the rules in public.  Read more…

The Elephant in the Room – Colleen Aune

1 December 2016

You may have noticed the long period of silence from One Year of Letters. In addition to the individual pressures keeping us from our beloved keyboards, we’ve all been reeling from the results of the American election. I can’t speak for the rest of my team, but I’ve spent much of the past two months absorbed in anxious hand-wringing and reading. Lots and lots of reading.

And lots of unpleasant social media confrontations.

I dislike confrontation, which may seem ironic to you, considering how frequently I use One Year of Letters to call out hate and injustice. You see, for writers it’s much, much easier to orate than to argue. Read more …

UnThanksgiving – Elaina Portugal

November 29, 2016

I didn’t get invited to Thanksgiving Dinner. To be fair, since I moved to North Carolina four and a half years ago, Thanksgiving is typically not a holiday my family of origin spends together. Most years, I stay in North Carolina, my sister goes to her in-laws in Ohio, and my mom and other sister either go to my brother’s or they go out to dinner.

This year, I went back to Chicago to visit my daughter, who’s been in the hospital for the past eight weeks. She is pregnant with twins, and it is a high risk pregnancy. The doctors were pretty sure they were going to deliver on the 22^nd, which is why I came up for the week, but alas, on the 21st they decided to wait until December 2nd. My husband and sons were supposed to come up and join me, but without the appearance of babies, driving 12 hours for Thanksgiving dinner seemed a bit silly, especially since my brother, who knew we were coming, never extended an invitation. Read more …

I Voted – Kerry EB Black

November 14, 2016

Today, our nation votes for a new president. Here, a senate seat, several local officers, and a poorly veiled referendum will be decided as well. I took my sixteen-year-old to witness the voting process, as I have since she was small. She will be eligible to vote soon, just like her idealistic college-age sister.

Then there’s my nineteen-year-old. My Bear. She is biologically eligible to vote, yet because of her mental impairments, I hesitated when it came to registration. She and I talked long and hard about the state of the country and the candidates. We discussed the duties and importance of the offices. She twirled her hair, overwhelmed. Read more …

The Day After – Elaina Portugal

November 9th, 2016

Dear Mr. Trump

Congratulations on winning the most coveted job in the world. Today I had to go to work and face my students, students who were not in your camp. I thought I’d give a pep speech about how as Americans, we needed to come together and work through our differences. More importantly, I thought I would tell them we need to educate ourselves so we understand the process better. This way, when they’re old enough, they’ll have the knowledge to vote with confidence. Like most days in teaching, that’s what I “thought” I’d do.

Instead, I walked into a shit show.  Read more…

American Misogyny: Not Just Trumped Up Charges – Lauren Gregory

October 17, 2016

NYMAG.com posted a piece about how “Trump’s One Public Service Was Exposing the Misogyny of the GOP.” It’s a good piece, but I have to quibble with a couple of basic premises in it.

I don’t think “exposing” is the right word. The misogyny has been laid bare for a long time, a monolithic principle to be rejoiced in and depended on. Most have embraced it, and not just in the GOP and not only men. Blaming the GOP, or any one group, for the bedrock misogyny in our country is disingenuous.

American society, women included, has always lauded the patriarchy and women’s place in it. We’ve always been little more than children, indulged with the occasional treat or pat on the head, but ultimately an ornament to be seen but not heard. Or perhaps there’s a better analogy: we’ve been prisoners, incarcerated for the gender we were born with, taken at birth to a tiny cell, given the illusion of freedom through work-release, yet never gaining parole, never considered rehabilitated, never a capable member of society with the same rights or privileges as men. That status isn’t some new revelation. It was never hidden. The walls and ceilings were sometimes diaphanous, but let’s not kid ourselves that no one knew they were there. Read more …

The Truth Hurts – Colleen Aune

19 September 2016

With all the talk about universities, political correctness, and trigger warnings, I’ve been chafing to write something/anything on this subject, but knew I’d only get myself into trouble with my pro-Northwestern University, “suck it up, buttercup” stance. Then my alma mater Rice University played football against Baylor University last Friday, and I found a way in.

First, some background details.

As a freshman in 1983, with no band experience, I joined the Rice University Marching Owl Band (aka The MOB). Rice’s band went rogue a decade before my arrival and, in one infamous 1973 incident, ended up cornered in a tunnel by Texas A&M cadets. Notorious for making social and political statements, the MOB performs halftimes scatter-style, with skewering voice-overs, formations, and songs designed to drive home a message. Read more …

Everyday Adventures and Misadventures — Kerry EB Black

September 5, 2016

Imagine a road-weary traveler mere miles from home whose car breaks. When she shimmies underneath, she sees something broken, dangling, and dripping fluid. She pushes from beneath the car, feeling as though its weight crushes her chest. Her children – there are three with her, and their dog – whine about the heat even as she wipes sweat from her pre-menopausal brow.

No signal for her cell phone, since the road upon which they are stranded is rural and deserted. No houses nearby and the nearest sparks of civilization wait about a mile and a half from where the car rests, engine ticking as though in apology. She collects her elder daughter’s crutches, grabs the service dog’s leash, takes the six year old’s hand, and beckons to the recalcitrant teenager who manages to roll her eyes in a perfect imitation of Disgust from Disney’s movie “Inside Out.” Read more …

#ThatsWhatMatters – Tatyana Tyson

August 24, 2016

Do you believe black lives matter?

Do you believe white lives matter?

Do you believe all lives matter?

Well, I’m here to tell you that your answers, be they affirmative or not, don’t matter. Why? Because those questions don’t matter. And since this is the case, no answer you give matters either. But why am I saying this?

I am a young black woman. Growing up in America, I have lived through thousands of mass shootings and hate crimes. Many I’ve never even heard about. Recently, however, I’ve become hyper-aware of them. It seems like every single day when I open my laptop and check my email, there’s another one in the news. Black man, armed or unarmed, shot and killed. A young black boy, shot and killed. While some focus on guns, others focus on race.  Read more …

Race to the Finish – Colleen Aune

12 August 2016

Look at this photo of my classmates and me from 1969. I’m four years old, and it’s a preschool at Brandeis University in Boston. I’m the one with dark pigtails and a soul-piercing stare. Notice anything else? If you’re thirty or younger, it’s likely the scene looks normal to you, so let me repeat:

Check out this photo from 1969.

Not too many white people from my generation can say their education began during the Civil Rights Movement in an integrated classroom with an African American teacher.  Read more …