At 20 years old, I sat in our Bristol home across the table from my mom and told her I was going to move to Australia. She responded confused, “What the hell is in Australia?” That was three years ago. Since then, I have taken leaps for many opportunities well beyond my comfort zone. I […]
Dear Spyce, As we go further into our quarantine, I’m finding myself depressed and lonely. I haven’t been dating much this past year, and my new year’s resolution was to get out there and go on more dates. I had been rewording my profile and finding some new pics, and while I may have been […]
They saw her go by with her dog a few days after they started working from home, but before they realized that’s where they were going to be stationed for weeks to come. “My computer is set up by the window facing the street so I can people watch while I work, and I saw […]
Last month, the CDC revised its guidelines on face masks, encouraging people to wear some kind of face covering, and overnight, face masks became a fixture of our coronavirus world. But with mass shortages in stores and online retailers, how are people supposed to get the PPE they need? Enter Project Mask RI. They’re a […]
“Nobody hangs pictures anymore, so I thought, ‘I’m going to hang pictures.’” He got here the week before the pandemic started. Providence was offering a new start, a new job and new possibilities. Like anyone arriving in the Renaissance City, he was excited for WaterFire, PVDFest and all the other city-wide events that make summer […]
As hospitals ban visitors to slow the spread of COVID-19, the stories of people dying in hospitals without the comfort of family nearby are heartbreaking — both for the patient and the patient’s family. I recently reached out to Jocelyn Arruda, a death doula in our community, to talk about what these patients and their […]
I love teaching. I love the time I spend every August getting my class together, from hanging the bulletin board paper and borders for my walls, to decorating my desk and wall with the mementos students have left me each year. It feels like Christmas when I’m going through my department’s inventory of novels, unpacking […]
A Pre-Script: I had the idea to write this piece on March 10, which now seems like a year ago, and by the time I put it on paper, things had already shifted significantly. Please note that this was before nationwide layoffs, before food insecurity spiked, before children were sent home, before toilet paper disappeared, […]
You’ve seen it all on the daily news, Instagram Live, even TikTok — folks clamoring to stock up on everything one could need to hunker down during a pandemic. While we’ve seen many fights over the last roll of TP at Stop & Shop or the final can of black beans at Shaw’s, four local […]
“At 3am every night, this guy comes in and asks me how I’m doing. He’s this older guy and I tell him he needs to be home, but he says there’s nobody out at that time, and he’s going stir crazy. I don’t bother yelling at him anymore, because I feel bad for him. I […]