Physical Health https://www.thesunmagazine.org/rss en-us Standards of Care The reason Black women were used to develop the field of gynecology was because they were no more than property. They weren’t seen as people; they were just seen as things. The controlling of Black women’s bodies started with chattel slavery, but it continues today.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28985 Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:45 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/606-standards-of-care 606-4-wild-preview.jpg 606 - Wild - Pitts The Empty Room Inside Each of Us Crumb is always right, always the one telling the story, always the one who turns the drab, lonesome plains they call home into a world that’s dramatic and necessary.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28992 Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/606-the-empty-room-inside-each-of-us 606-38-pedersen-preview.jpg 606 - Pedersen - Wilkins Formed Otherwise There’s a presumption that to raise a child with disabilities makes you brave. I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t always a stellar mother, either. But I studied my daughter as if she were an ancient text to see what was beneath the chatter and the rage

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28989 Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/606-formed-otherwise 606-44-epli-preview.jpg 606 - Epli - Bernstein The Feeding Some leeches have two jaws. Others have three. Some have teeth on their tongues. There are protective leeches who hover over their eggs, and leeches who carry their newborns in pouches like tiny kangaroos.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28988 Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/606-the-feeding 606-26-rios-preview.jpg 606 - Rios - Glatt Our Fraying Hearts I have a sense of the drama people want to hear about, but most days our ER is filled with abdominal pain and vomiting—nothing like what you’re accustomed to seeing on TV.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28986 Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/606-our-fraying-hearts 606-10-taher-preview.jpg 606 - Taher - Reinbold Sunbeams

God and the Doctor we alike adore / But only when in danger, not before; / The danger o’er, both are alike requited, / God is forgotten, and the Doctor slighted.

John Owen

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28984 Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/606-sunbeams 606-49-wild-preview.jpg 606 - Wild - Sunbeams Milk Pumped for an infant, spilled at the dinner table, used as a tear gas antidote

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28993 Sun, 31 May 2026 11:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/606-milk 606-30-wild-preview.jpg 606 - Wild - Milk Practicing Taking piano lessons, learning to speak Russian, seeking enlightenment

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28975 Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/605-practicing 605-30-anzorena-preview.jpg 605 - Anzorena - Practicing Boxer’s Fracture My mother once put her fist / through drywall, nothing fractured // but that already-broken home, / a little more of her spirit and ours.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28973 Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/605-boxers-fracture My Bowstring Heart On the field I was all animal instinct and brute force—a bruiser, a bone breaker. Every tackle was a rebuke against a life where fathers die. When I played rugby, I wasn’t a broke, lost little girl. I wasn’t a struggling amateur writer. I had goals. I was a winner. I was MVP. I was someone.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28969 Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/605-my-bowstring-heart 605-38-yeomans-preview.jpg 605 - Yeomans - Whitmore Bars On a playground, at a gymnastics meet, over an apartment window

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28959 Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/604-bars 604-32-law-preview.jpg 604 - Thomas Law - Bars The Night I Don't Remember It doesn’t matter how many AA meetings you go to. As long as you are taking oxycodone and oxymorphone, you’re going to be high, and, as long as you have complex regional pain syndrome, you’re going to be taking something serious for the pain.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28941 Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/603-the-night-i-dont-remember 603-27-kim-preview.jpg 603 - Kim - Ruddick Expats Rhonda tended to take in people—and cats, Jessica said. Spending about $150 of her monthly Social Security check on cat food, in addition to supporting her meth habit, had left her broke most of the time.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28939 Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/603-expats 603-40-carlsonwee-preview.jpg 603 - CarlsonWee - Garcia Unruly I’m rebellious, defiant, so I’m sent to the barn, driven there by my newly single mom, or my newly single dad, or my grandparents, or someone else. Another parent told my mom I should try horseback riding. Ice-skating and tae kwon do and ceramics didn’t stick, but I can already tell I’m a horse girl.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28920 Sat, 31 Jan 2026 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/602-unruly 602-38-wolfe-preview.jpg 602 - Wolfe- Wood The Dead of Dream Town As the majority population of Dream Town, the dead hold all elective offices. They determine the hours of the municipal pool. (Midnight swimming!) They program traffic lights to operate on peculiar patterns: Some never turn red. Others never turn green.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28919 Sat, 31 Jan 2026 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/602-the-dead-of-dream-town 602-20-demuth-preview.jpg 602 - Demuth - Brazaitis The Body Eats I want to keep eating. I want life. More life. I want to turn from the simple facts of my existence to consider bigger mysteries, to fret about what might be, to remember what is no more. I want to imagine something other than this food in front of me, already a commodity on some assembly line, moving away from me.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28897 Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/601-the-body-eats 601-20-easley-preview.jpg 601 - Easley - Safransky Bad Lunch I’d come to think of being a chef on a yacht as a kind of psycho-spiritual quest, like Homer’s Odyssey, only instead of tumultuous seas and six-headed monsters, our challenges were wealthy clients who arrived by private jet with Louis Vuitton purses on their arms.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28895 Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/601-bad-lunch 601-14-bonnet-preview.jpg 601 - Bonnet - Maron The Children's Wing Other parents see our little girl running up and down the hall, or performing a dance in the playroom, or climbing onto a stool to get the Funny Bunny game from the closet, and they ask why we are here. I have told the story so many times to so many different doctors that I’m beginning to wonder if I’m keeping the details straight. Was it four in the morning or six? What woke us—the trembling and shaking, or the lack of breathing, or the choking sounds?

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28884 Sun, 30 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/600-the-childrens-wing 600-43-saman-preview.jpg 600-Saman-Bashaw On Walking To love walking is to love the body, and this has been a barrier for me. Walking requires us to be a physical presence moving in a physical space. Your body is on display, with all its jostling parts and creaky joints. I know it’s vanity—this self-consciousness, this awareness of other people’s eyes—but it was something I shouldered when I walked, something that made me seek the comfort of a climate-controlled car.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28882 Sun, 30 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/600-on-walking 600-16-rouhana-preview.jpg 600-Rouhana-Sukrungruang Celebrating A fiftieth anniversary in Paris, a COVID Christmas in April, a first birthday in America

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28889 Sun, 30 Nov 2025 11:00:00 -0500 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/600-celebrating 600-32-weimer-preview.jpg 600-Weimer-Celebrating Considerable Luck In the weeks before my surgery I wandered parks and refuges where black-crowned night herons clung to cattails, pied-billed grebes fished ponds, and raucous crows cawed and flew upwind to find branches where they could shelter together. They would aim for a tree, fail to settle as a flock, then fall back and regroup to try again. Like the crows, I wouldn’t quit.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28867 Fri, 31 Oct 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/599-considerable-luck 599-42-lawton-preview.jpg 599-Lawton-Lawton The Childless Aunt Though a faint hope that I might yet conceive continued to smolder in the back of my mind, at some point it dawned on me that none of these joys and trials I wished for myself were exclusive to biological parents. I could love any child who needed me.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28866 Fri, 31 Oct 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/599-the-childless-aunt 599-24-hayashi-preview.jpg 599-Hayashi-Kulidzan About That Time I Pushed a Car Uphill I want to pause here and point out the obvious: According to the laws of physics, as soon as Darius put the car in neutral, it would begin to roll back. With me behind it.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28847 Tue, 30 Sep 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/598-about-that-time-i-pushed-a-car-uphill 598-24-Knight-preview.jpg 598-Knight-Peckham Avium You don’t know what’s with Marjorie, // but you almost love her as you gird your loins for a cure / worse than the disease. Imagining two years of drugs / in your still-able body that climbs hills and sings, // you can’t stop wondering how you got this thing. Yet / it must be said avium blesses you with a meaning hardly / to be believed. . .

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28832 Sun, 31 Aug 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/avium-kathryn-jordan-poem-597 Airborne Studies done with animals in labs don’t totally replicate the way humans get infected, which involves mucus, saliva, and other pathogens. We don’t know the full complexity of that interaction.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28824 Sun, 31 Aug 2025 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/seema-lakdawala-airborne-viruses-spread-pandemic-597 597-4-weil-preview.jpg 597 - Weil - Leviton Butter I went on absorbing Beth’s hostile digs until a new patient stole her attention from me. Louise had a round face, dark curly hair, and a generous, pear-shaped body. Her weight seemed concentrated in her thighs. When she arrived at lunch for the first time, her figure filling the doorframe, Beth’s eyes brightened as if she were an African lion coming upon a gazelle. I could practically feel my tormentor’s focus lift off me.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28601 Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/587-butter 587-24-bruce-preview.jpg 587 - Bruce - Maron A Seat at the Table wyattww@gmail.com The terrible emotions I was filled with are the truth of what it means to be alive. When you live, something else dies. Even if you only eat plants, animals die for you to be able to eat. We do not talk about that often enough.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28502 Mon, 01 Jul 2024 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/568-a-seat-at-the-table 583 - Egevang - Williams - 01 - Preview 583 - Egevang - Williams - 01 The Wisdom Package haydensaunier@gmail.com I ask the youngish eye doctor why my eyes itch / and burn and why new floaty bits / of paramecium-shaped debris swim // through my view each day

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28445 Thu, 30 May 2024 00:03:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28445-the-wisdom-package My Mother’s Disease Introduces Me to My Mother michaelmark3@gmail.com My mother’s disease wants / to know my name. // My mother’s disease takes / me in // with my mother’s eyes.

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28443 Thu, 30 May 2024 00:02:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28443-my-mothers-disease-introduces-me-to-my-mother Sunbeams

There are only four kinds of people in this world: those who have been caregivers, those who currently are caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers.

Rosalynn Carter, quoting a caregiver colleague

]]> http://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28444 Thu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 -0400 https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/28444-sunbeams-issue-582 582-49-wales-preview.jpg 582 - Wales - Sunbeams