Anthrow Circus

How To (Maybe) Be OK When Things Are Not OK

ESSAY BY J. AARON SIMMONS
PHOTOS BY MANUELA THAMES

I vividly remember walking across campus that morning on my way to teach my Introduction to Philosophy course. I was roughly 20 feet from the door to the classroom building when my phone rang. It was my sister.

I answered. “Hey toots, I am heading into class. Can I call you back in an hour?”

Her response stopped me in my tracks. It was clear she had been crying. “Yeah, that’s fine,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you that [insert-the-name-of-her-asshole-husband-who-I-won’t-mention] told me he is leaving. My marriage is over.”

View From a Pandemic: A Journal Entry, Quarantine Day 12

WORDS BY JANE POTTHAST
PHOTOS BY MANUELA THAMES

This happens when I have been alone too long—the words start to leak out of everything and they will not stop. I cannot look around, I cannot take a single step, without it becoming prose, and it is not welcome. It thrusts me into a place where language imposes this acute separation between me and everything else—leaks its ink out of the bark, the pavement, the sky, flowing directly from itself to me in the form of a stream of words, and it will not let me rest.

View From a Pandemic: Europeans in America

TEXT BY IRENA DRAGAŠ JANSEN
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MANUELA THAMES

As I observe the global pandemic unfold from the comforts and safety of my Washington, D.C., metro area home, I am transported back to the basement shelters where my parents, sister, relatives, neighbors, and I hid from the daily deadly mortar attacks during the most recent war in Croatia.

Standing Rock, What It Taught Us

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY MANUELA THAMES AND BECKY SCHAUER

The specifics of the controversy over the Dakota Access Pipeline dominated news cycles last fall, but now we bring you reflections from behind the scenes at Standing Rock where our contributors learned much from their Native American hosts. Regardless of your position toward the pipeline, we hope you’ll listen and learn universal lessons along with Becky and Manuela.