The Monster Inside of Me
I don’t know life without asthma. For twenty years, I have battled with, and lost battles against, this debilitating sickness that...
Disproportionate Burden
As an undocumented woman, my life is filled with insecurities and false hopes. And on a cold winter day in early January, I lost control...
Postcards from Air
I want the word for “to not map, ever” —Graham Foust We are more alike than we knew. We are always smiling, or so the old thyroid...
With Regrets to Yeats, Cecil B. DeMille, and to a Lesser Degree, Charlton Heston
I live at the southern tail end of the Wasatch Front. Have planted myself here all my life. Was born here, actually, so it’s more fitting...
Noise
The first time it happened it was a B3. It came out, but something in the air pressed it back, and it slipped sideways and skidded off...
Shared Air
If the State of Deseret had come to pass, my great-grandmother’s homestead would have been on Utah soil. As it stands, my family’s state...
Fashion Statement
It is December and I can’t see the snow-capped mountains. Salt Lake has been smothered in an inversion for a week. The air is...
Brigham Young Would Have Marched on By
The perky voice of Donna Kemp Spangler, spokesperson for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, came over the radio announcing a...


Legacies of Snow and Love
Silver strands of hair stretch out of my grandfather’s dark, spotted scalp with the determination of tulips breaking the surface of...
Breathing Pollution
Asthma attacks can come on suddenly and can be triggered any time of year by ozone or particulate air pollution. I have been a practicing...