Just Being in Litro Magazine!

E.B. Bartels — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 19:32:06 +0000

It’s spring again, and I’m still here, still sitting, still inside. At my desk, I gaze out the window at sparks of green, glimmers of yellow and purple, as daffodils, crocuses, new grass make their way into the warming world. Spring makes me want to get out and move – to go for long walks, to travel to new places, to see old friends, to roll around in a meadow. But instead, I’m sitting still, because I know that is what I need to do to help myself and help others. Being still sometimes feels like giving up. Being still feels like acting helpless. Being still doesn’t feel like enough. I usually think of helping as an active gesture; the words “action” and “active” have the same root, the Latin verb for “do.” But sometimes, I’ve learned, you can take action by doing nothing. Sometimes you can help by simply being still.

I started writing this essay three years ago. it has gone through many iterations and it took me a long time to figure out what it really was all about, but finally now it is now up on Litro Magazine and I am so happy to have it out in the world. Click here to read it.

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Freedom, My Dear

E.B. Bartels — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 16:19:14 +0000

For the full essay, see it on The Butter.
Originally published on January 21, 2015.

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In college, I was a terrible Russian language and literature major. I never finished reading Crime and Punishment, I still haven’t touched War and Peace, and I never went to the public Russian baths. Even though I spent a significant amount of time in the Motherland — a month living in a Siberian village on Lake Baikal, fourteen months in St. Petersburg, and a month studying in Moscow — I never had a proper public banya experience.

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Freedom Archives - E.B. Bartels

Just Being in Litro Magazine!

Freedom, My Dear