To Be Seen

On my flight to the Mars College community in Bombay Beach, I was reading Educated , a nonfiction memoir about growing up in a strict Mormon household and fighting toward education and self-definition. Before that flight, I knew almost nothing about Mormonism and even less about Nevada; the landscapes in the book felt distant, almost fictional. Then one night at Mars College, Summer came up to me...

As I shared with our community the story of my mother raising chickens on an apartment terrace in China—where they had to choose between staying safe or taking a risky leap into the unknown—Charlie told me that he had a similar “chicken moment.”

I’ve lived in New York City for over ten years, so I’ve always seen the East Hampton world as this... rigid , almost unreachable fortress for the elite. But that stereotype totally vanished when I met 'Chef Catherine' at Mars College. She was always in the kitchen—professional, focused—just making sure everyone was fed. To me, she felt like the adult version of the kids I’d read about in the book,...