Former Career Fire and EMS Lieutenant-Specialist, Writer, and Master Photographer.
Tag: Intersex
-
Some people are raised by fathers. I was handled like a problem to be solved, a miscalculation to be corrected. It wasn’t parenting; it was a slow, relentless campaign. I was born on July 20, 1979, in New York City. My father, Harvey L. Slatin, was sixty-four years old, with a worldview weathered in the…
-
There’s something in the air today—maybe it’s the way the breeze carries the scent of warm pine and worn wood, or the low, lingering dust hanging in the air like a ghost of someone you used to know. I cracked open the bedroom window and just stood there for a moment, barefoot on the floorboards,…
-
At roughly 4:00 PM on July 11, 2025, I found myself standing in a snaking security line at Nashville International Airport. The terminal was buzzing with the usual airport impatience — hundreds of travelers inching forward, shoes in hand, eyes on the clock. As a 46-year-old woman who’s flown many times, I had no reason…
-
When I was little, I used to imagine myself barefoot and wild, running through fields that never ended—thick with tall grass and wildflowers, the air alive with monarch butterflies swarming around me like they knew I belonged there. In those dreams the sky was a fearless blue, the sun gentle on my skin, and I…
-
There are nights when I step outside into the silvered darkness of my Vermont farm, and the only thing I feel truly seen by is the moon. The world is quiet here—just the chorus of crickets and the distant hoot of an owl—but above me the moon hangs like an old friend. Its pale light…
-
“Most people fall in love like rain; I fall like wreckage.”—Emily Slatin Most people fall in love like rain—soft, steady, the kind that gently soaks in over time. They ease into it, step by step, trusting that each drop will collect into something nourishing. I never learned that kind of love. I don’t fall like…
-
This past weekend, I drove back to the place where my story began. The road to my mother’s house is the same as it’s always been. That drive always stirs something in me. A reminder of who I was before the world turned hard and unforgiving. I didn’t just go to see my mom. I…
-
Out of nowhere, my former niece Makayla—who, decades ago, for all intents and purposes, had become my unofficially adopted daughter—reached out and asked if I could pick her up. The timing was uncanny. She called while I was out with Amelia, and the moment I learned she needed a ride as soon as possible, I…
-
I drove like hell through the night, the highway stretching endlessly before me, my headlights cutting through the darkness like a blade. The only sound was the hum of the tires on the asphalt and the music playing on my cell phone. I didn’t stop, didn’t slow down. I just kept driving, pushing forward even…
-
It’s nearly 4 AM, and the house is unbearably quiet. I’m here alone, surrounded by the same walls that stood witness to a childhood I’ve tried so hard to forget. My father bought this house, but it was never a home—it was his domain, his kingdom of control. He’s been gone for many years now,…
