Blog

photo of Kathryn Bjornstad-Kelly

Awareness Is Not Enough

by Kathryn Bjornstad-Kelly I knew autism awareness before I knew I was Autistic.  I didn’t know what autism was, but I heard the word all…

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photo of Ari Ne'eman

New Look, Same Values.

by Ari Ne’eman   As you’ve most likely noticed by now, ASAN has recently unveiled a new website with a new look. We’re excited to…

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What I need and want

Alicia Lile says: I want to be loved and accepted. I wish others to tell me that it’s wonderful that I was born. I feel guilty of existing, tell me I am wrong.

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True Dawn

An essay by Stephanie Allen Crist. Today is Memorial Day in the United States. It’s a time to look back, and remember those who have sacrificed to make this country a place to be free. Instead, I look ahead and ask myself if it is freedom that I see. There’s something on the edge of thought—a feeling to be written of that isn’t quite ready to come out, not quite ready to be exposed. Frustration is there, and so is disappointment. All swirled together with a steady, flat kind of hope.

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Big Trucks and the Work that Needs Doing

An essay by Mark Stairwalt. Years ago, before the coming of the cell phone, I was the driver of a Freightliner FLD 120, an imposing, long-nosed boat of a semi tractor that crisscrossed the United States and parts of Canada with a 53-foot trailer in tow. Never mind that as a driver of a commercial vehicle one ends up memorizing the locations of countless truckstops, customers, scale houses, steep grades, and unlikely parking spots; what was truly impressive back then was that drivers would end up cataloging the locations of every accessible payphone along every route in every state we frequented.

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Thoughts from the Food Pantry

By mid-October, I found myself going to the local food pantry. The last time I’d been there was between the endless succession of jobs won and lost, when I couldn’t pinch another penny and the food money ran low. This time I was there because I wanted to volunteer. I’d always meant to do so, because I don’t like taking handouts; but the food pantry is open during the day and I usually had classes then, so I was limited to the church library and the cat shelter.

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My middle name

An essay by Melanie Yergeau. The map is new, and I know it all. I hop from one painted state to the next, reciting each capital, each state bird, each state nickname, each state flower, each state population as of 1989, the year imprinted on the spines of my World Book Encyclopedia set.

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