One of the most remarkable things about large swaths of the non-western world from my distinctly western is the importance of hospitality, of honoring one’s guests and treating strangers as friends. I remember taking tea with countless Moroccans whom I know were unimpressed with me, but felt obligated by their culture to extend a simple kindness to a weary traveler. I remember a shoemaker in Nepal who offered advice and guidance to a wandering hiker who had lost his way. I remember a desk worker at a hostel in India who provided an exhausted man roaming the streets at 5 in the morning a bed to sleep in at no charge.

In this month’s issue of InTheFray, we feature three poems from Priscilla Campbell titled Shed for you. We hear about diversity and campus advocacy from LuzJennifer Martinez in her piece My L.I.F.E. story. Amy O’Laughlin also reviews The Tenth Parallel in Parallel lives.

It is my goal to learn something from these small acts of generosity shared with me by strangers, people who are much closer to the line between eating and not eating than I am and was. people who were surely aware of this and who helped anyway. It seems to me that at its essence, kindness, generosity, and hospitality are not virtues that are shared with others and thereby diminish ourselves, but rather acts that strengthen both the receiver and the giver. I try to remember this as I move through my days, helped along by the kindness of strangers.

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

I grew up in a town where everything was new. I’m still amazed at the growth that I see every time I come to visit: a new strip mall here, another housing development there, a wider highway, taller buildings. The sustained growth of the community is remarkable, and, I’m sure, something that is rewarding the business leaders quite handsomely. And growth is good, in and of itself. We are programmed to grow. It is our basic genetic impulse: reproduce, create more, grow.

But there is something to be said for the past as well. The town I live in now had the same number of people almost a century ago. I think of the streets being traveled by the same number of people; I think of the same buildings, new, shiny, bright; and I think of how people are mostly the same, backwards and forwards through time, the world around. We want the same things. We ask the same questions. We think in much the same way.

In this month’s issue, we feature Yellow River journalism , a piece by Caitlin E. Schultz that looks at the Chinese media. We also have an article titled Rediscovering the Old Country in which author Linda C. Wisniewski explores her Polish heritage.

When I think of my hometown and where I live now, I can’t help but wonder if someday the new will become old, and the old will be reborn. The buildings of Duluth are old and heavy with history, but they were once shiny and new, state of the art. Once this town was growing faster than almost anywhere in the world. I wonder if there were people who walked the streets then and sighed, thinking to themselves, this too shall pass.

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

You’re falling asleep. Your body relaxes, your mind expands, the lines between lucidity and fantasy begin to blur and, suddenly . . . you’re falling. Your muscles twitch, your body jerks, and you’re awake, lying in your bed, stable as a foundation. Not falling.

Falling dreams are the most common dreams. Scientists have suggested that this is due to our past, when our ancient ancestors lived on the ground, but slept in trees. Falling in those primordial days would likely be fatal, so we evolved an instinct to warn us, something to jerk us awake just before we slipped off the brink.

In this month’s issue of InTheFray, we feature The men on the streets, a piece by Amber Bard that looks at the lives of Nigerians and other Africans in Tokyo, Japan. Next, we have Autumn light, 2 poems from Andrej Hočevar. Finally, we share Skin deep , Amy O’Loughlin’s review of Mark Jacobson’s book The Lampshade.

Some days I can’t help but wonder if we, as a society, are on the brink. I imagine this cynicism or gloominess is something that’s universal to the human experience, or at least universal throughout human history. Every generation seems to think that they’re the last bastion of tradition, and these damned kids are going to take us over the edge. Of course, this has never been the case, and I suspect that it won’t be now. We’ve evolved. Just as we start to slip over the edge, we startle, lurch awake, and slide back onto the branch.  

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

Ships glide by in a veil of fog. The wind whips the lake into a fury, a white frothing rage, and it crashes into the blue-black rocks again and again, with the repetitive futility of a child’s tantrum. The Ojibwa, the Voyageurs, the robber barons, the Scandinavian socialists, all bore witness to the pounding surf, all came here, all made their home upon these shores. I pick up the threads they laid down. I gather their rice, I trap their furs, I mine their iron and I load their ships. I am those who passed before me, just as they are me. This is my identity.

Identity is chosen, self selected. It is something that we construct around us, a way we rationalize ourselves to the outside world and to our own probing thoughts. It is a shorthand version of the messy essence of who we are on the inside, but it does not define us. The lines our identity draws do not constrain us; we are free to reinvent ourselves as we see fit. Our lives are clay that we have yet to mold: Let us do so with deliberate care.

In our September issue, InTheFray features an essay by Saransh Sehgal titled Dreaming Lhasa that looks at how Tibetan refugees build new lives in Dharamsala, India. Jasmine Rain H. also shares 4 poems in Snapshots: seasons frame life and emotion.

As you daily determine who it is you will be and who it is you are, consider allowing the past to be your guide. There is strength in the humanity that has passed before us, and there is wisdom in the elders that remain among us.

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

Almost1 in 5 children in the United States grows up in poverty. This is in thewealthiest country in the world. A schoolteacher in Nepal once asked me ifthere were poor people in the USA. It was a difficult question to answer. SinceI’d arrived in Kathmandu, and Asia as a whole, I’d seen more people living inmore crushing poverty than I’d ever imagined. The homeless in India are in muchmore dire straits than the homeless in Los Angeles — those in India aremissing multiple limbs, missing eyes, emaciated, desperate, starving to deathin front of my eyes. Yet human suffering is human suffering. Does the Vietnamveteran who freezes to death in an alley on a particularly cold night deserveour sympathy any less than a leper, dying slowly in India?

Inthis month’s issue of InTheFray, we explore poverty. NatalieLefevre shares with usthe piece Europe’s most hated people, which takes a look at Roma living in Europe. Natalie Lefevre alsowrites about her experiences with HIV/AIDS patients in Thailand in Caringfor the rejected. Poet Lynn Strongin explores her poem TheWitnessing.

Soit is a difficult question to answer. Is there poverty in the United States?Well, look around. What do you see?

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

When my uncle was in his late forties, he began to notice anumbness in his legs, especially when he sat for a long period of time. Thetingling grew more persistent and pervasive and after a few years, it began tobe accompanied by muscle weakness and an increased difficulty walking. Thedoctors first began by ruling out all of the major neuromuscular disorders:multiple sclerosis, ALS, muscular dystrophy, and other, rarer diseases. One byone, they ruled out options, and one by one, specialists scratch their heads.My uncle lay motionless inside of MRI machines time and again, and all thewhile his legs grew weaker, until he was mostly unable to walk and confined toa wheelchair.

In this month’s issue of InTheFray, we explore our health, whatit means to be healthy and what it is like to cope with illness. We begin with LoriMarieLaSpada’s essay Hittingthe genetic jackpot, about her experiences living with a rareblood disease. Next, Lori Law tells the story of a woman waiting for a kidney transplant in Independenceday. Paul Jury shares his experience with a police officer and ajellyfish sting in Jellyfish conversations. In The rhythm of remembrance in health and healing, Larry Jaffe shares several poems from his recent book OneChild Sold. Jacqueline Barba reviews The Murderesin Damned and damaged. Finally,we hear from Tian Miao as she shares her view ofportions of Chinese culture in The sadness.

Eventually, the doctors did figure out what was happening with myuncle. Calcium deposits in his spine pressed on his spinal cord, damaging itenough to interrupt the signal between his brain and his legs. The good news isthat the damage has been stopped and his symptoms won’t progress any further.The bad news is that it won’t get any better. I think it is easy for those ofus blessed with good health take our health for granted. It is one more thingthat we should try to remember to be thankful for each day.

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

Severe, persistent mental illness (SPMI) is something that is always difficult to deal with. The people afflicted with this and the case workers and other support staff that help them get along in our world have difficult roles, but they do the best that they can. Recently, a gentleman diagnosed with SPMI moved out of a group home and into his own apartment. On the first day he moved in, his case worker called to ask how things were going. "Fine," he replied, "but there’s a troll in my apartment."

The case worker wasn’t sure how to respond. "Ok," she said, certain that whatever was in the man’s apartment, it wasn’t a troll. Trolls do not exist.

The next day, the case worker called again. "How are things in your new apartment?" she asked.

"Fine," he replied, "but I told you, there’s a troll in my apartment."

Again, this struck the case worker as odd, but she wrote it off to a mental delusion, and made a note to stop by. Later that afternoon, she stopped by to visit and found all of the man’s furniture piled up in front of a closet near the door. She gestured to the pile and asked why it was there. "I told you, there’s a troll in my apartment."

She began moving the furniture away from the door. When the stack was cleared, she opened the door to find a 3’10" Jehovah’s Witness inside, terrified and shaken. The man was thrilled to be freed, and, understanding the nature of the other man’s mental illness, agreed not to press charges. I’m certain that both men were frightened of each other, and neither man understood the other’s motives.

In this month’s issue of InTheFray, we start with a short story by B. Tyler Burton titled The Stream. Next, Stella Chung takes on a journey through China’s Hainan province in The two Sanyas. In An uncle breaks the silence, Michelle Chen tells of how her parents and her uncle live with the latter’s diagnosis of schizophrenia. We finish this month’s issue with Amy O’Loughlin’s review of Eduardo Galeano’s book Mirrors.

Mental illness is a class of diseases that can be very difficult to understand. As we don’t have any window into another person’s mind apart from their behavior, it can be tough to tell the difference between unpleasant actions caused by an unpleasant person, and unpleasant actions rooted in a chemical imbalance in the brain. Worse, some forms of mental illness arise in the wake of emotional trauma, and can be difficult to treat with traditional drug therapies. There are no easy answers in the mental health community, and we should all give thanks for the facilities that we have, for there are always others who are less fortunate.

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

As summer begins to creep in, towns and neighborhoods across America both small and large will perpetuate an annual ritual: the town or neighborhood festival. I love these festivals. They’re a celebration of what’s best about humanity. In this part of the world, most seem to feature a band, fireworks, carnival rides, and mini donuts. Still, each gathering is representative of the town or the area they take place in, and provides an insight into who lives there, what they value, and how they like to party.

Today marks the beginning my town’s festival, a week of music called the Homegrown Music Festival. Every year, the people of Duluth celebrate their shared love of music by having every musician in town perform over the course of a single week. Duluth isn’t a large town, but that still works out to over 150 acts over 8 days. Both the number of spectators and the number of talented performers is humbling and amazing.

This month’s issue features a look by Hillary Brenhouse at how (and where) muslim cab drivers in New York manage to pray in the midst of Manhattan traffic, called The Holy underground. Elena Rushing contemplates what the census and its racial reductiveness means for her child, in her piece Not enough boxes. Finally, Seiji Ishguro takes us to the islands of southeast Asia in Cebu, Philippines.

What I like best about town festivals is that they do manage to instill a sense of camaraderie, a sense of togetherness that so often seems to be lacking from our lives. As cities grow, and people become more and more fractured from their neighbors, these small gatherings remind us that even though we are Republicans and Democrats; Christians, Muslims, Jews, and atheists; black, white, Latina, and Indian; we can still find a way to party together. In those moments, we can cast aside our differences and remember instead how we are the same.

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

My wife and I took our dog, Mabel, to a dog park for the first time this morning. It was an odd experience. There were maybe 30 dogs running around in an area about the size of a baseball field. I’m not sure what was more interesting: watching the dogs or watching the people.

It was an interesting collection of people at the Lake of the isles dog park in Minneapolis this Easter morning, at least one of whom was already drunk at 10 a.m. I respect the determination and/or stamina it takes to be stagger-around drunk before noon, and this gentleman had the added benefit of a supply of odd, strangely interesting stories.

"My Ralphie," he introduced himself with, stumbling slightly as he approached and gestured vaguely at three or four nearby dogs. "My Ralphie ain’t fat. He’s sturdy. Like them Fleet Farm girls." He looked at us. "From the Sunday ads," he said, prompting us, waiting for a response. "Them Fleet Farm girls. They’re sturdy, just like my Ralphie. The vet said he could stand to lose some weight, but just told him he’s sturdy."

What’s going on with this guy? I couldn’t help but wonder. What’s his story? What’s cooking in his mind, or in his life that has brought him to this exact place at this exact time? And why have those events conspired to make our lives intersect? I guess you can ask those same questions about anybody, but I felt like this guy was a Harvey Pekar character or something, with a similar backstory.

In this month’s issue, we take a look at what’s cooking in a several different contexts. We start with the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, where Karoliina Engstrom tells about a recent strike in her piece Marching for more than money. Vivian Wong gives us a literal answer to the question in her article From petrol to tacos. In South America’s best-kept secret, Brendan van Son shares his experiences in Ecuador. Himalayan poet Yuyutsu R.D. Sharma shares three poems in ‘A threadbare foreword to the fleshy book of living and dying.’. Finally, Jacqueline Barba reviews Ted Conover’s latest book in her piece, titled The road as metaphor.

I never did find out much back story for the gentleman I met this morning. I learned he was married and the color of his wife’s hair when he said, "I married a redhead. You’re nothing but trouble. Happy Easter," to a startled middle-aged woman as she walked past. And got one more story.

"My neighbors come over the beginning of last summer. They’re both designers at some place downtown. They trying to get a permit from the city to build a chicken coop. Ask me if I care. They’re nice guys, so I tell them to have at it. They spent two grand building this chicken coop. Mahogany and brass. Nicer than what most people in Haiti have. They special order these special roosters, Rhode Island Reds, whatever, and take special care of them. I come home one day and they’re both out in the driveway, hugging each other and crying. So I go over and I ask them what’s wrong. ‘Raccoons!’ they say, and sure enough, I look in there and there’s nothing left but blood and feathers and a few bones. Them raccoons made short work of them special roosters," he said, and then laughed. "Felt bad for those two guys, though. Pretty shook up."

I bet they were.

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

I think it is easy to underestimate the power and pervasiveness of symbols in our daily lives. Humans are a symbolic creature. The first works of art, paintings drawn on the walls of caves 20 millennia ago, are symbols of people, buffalo, animals. It is an amazing power to be able to look at something and represent it with something else, and it is this power, as much as anything, that makes us human. Our language is symbols, our writing is symbols, our art is symbols, our religion is symbols — the world we live in is replete with symbology, and we use them to such a thorough extent that it is easy to forget something is a symbol and not the reality.

This month we take a look at signs and symbols. We begin with Emily Ann Epstein’s look at anti-Semitism in Argentina, My first swastika. Colette Coleman gives us a glimpse of Tortola in her piece Finding the belongers. In Haiti, before the ground shook, Gergana Koleva takes us to Haiti and shares her experiences of the country before it was changed unalterably in the recent earthquake. Chelsea Rudman reviews Barbara Ehrenreich’s newest book in Getting negative about thinking positive. Finally, we close with four poems from Terry Lowenstein, titled March hare and Eire green.

In a world dominated by symbols, I find it refreshing to remind myself that although symbolic thinking can be a useful and frequently essential shorthand, it cannot replace the urgency of direct, immediate experience. While we are quite adept at using symbols to communicate and share our internal states with one another, I am constantly reminded experience — that which is most pure, that which is most direct — cannot be shared, but rather only reflected, like the sun’s rays reflecting from the full moon.

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

On a sunny day in May, I sat on the side of the highway, feeling sorry for myself and watching cars zip by. I’d been coaxing an old Jeep Cherokee into motion for the past six months, and about three-quarters of the way between Duluth and Rochester, my best arguments failed, leaving me stranded. As I crested the hill on the south side of the Cannon River valley, the car’s engine roared, much too loud, then coughed and died.

This is my story of recovery. It is not as dramatic or grandiose as A Million Little Pieces or a million other recovery stories, but it is mine and it is true. I was drinking too much and not going to school enough. I was broke, my credit cards were maxed out, and I was exhausted. I was living my life for each individual moment, neglecting any subsequent moments, and paying a price for such self-indulgent behavior. As I sat waiting for the tow truck to pick me up, I realized the time had come for me to put away childish things and grow up.

In our February issue, we turn our eyes to recovery. Mark Murphy writes of love, loss, and recovery in his poetry titled Pomegranates, singing telephones, and night’s cloak. In her piece Toasting Poe, Cynthia Pelayo finds disappointment and recovery when she visits Edgar Allen Poe’s grave. Chelsea Rudman tells of her trip to Israel and her conflicting emotions in her piece, The Kotel. Jillian C. York reviews Footnotes in Gaza, a comic art take on life across the border in Gaza. We end with a look at Iceland’s recovery from its recent economic meltdown in Kekoa Kaluhiokalani’s Iceland after the fall.

Recovery is, by definition, the opposite of trauma, be it self-inflicted or imposed by the outside world. I would like to think the two are correlated: that every trauma has a corresponding recovery. But I know that this is not true. There are always those who do not recover, who will not recover. That is what makes recovery so precious: It is not like spring; it does not always come. There are no guarantees, and therefore it is always to be treasured.

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.