Edited for Clarity and Length

Part of Me, In Print.

On Wed, Aug 18, 2021, I received this email from an editor at The New York Times. It was in response to the question “How Are You Today?”

Hi there.

Thanks so much for sending this. It caught my eye for possible inclusion in the At Home newsletter. Would you be able to confirm your full name and location? Thanks!

Of course, I said I was thrilled, because I was, and quickly confirmed my name and location.

This was what I’d written:

I am okay, in this midsummer moment, but beyond that, who knows? Even though I require Ativan to sleep and I drink more intentionally than I’m entirely comfortable with, I’m hanging in there. I think about my planned return to in-person teaching in under a month, which makes me nervous but defiant, determined. I want to be there, with my high school students, reading their faces above the bridge of their noses and their body language, even if it kills me. (Now, there’s a sentence that would have landed differently in 2019). I’ve let go of assumptions, but hold on to hope.

Lo and behold, a mere few hours later, I found myself in digital print, edited for “clarity and length”:

• “I am OK, in this midsummer moment, but beyond that, who knows? I think about my planned return to in-person teaching in under a month, which makes me nervous but defiant, determined. I’ve let go of assumptions, but hold on to hope. —Laura Hurwitz, Hamden, Conn.

Am I excited to have made it in some small way into The New York Times? You betcha. But what I’d written originally was so different than what they printed that I find myself saying, hey, guys, that sounds weighty and all, but what I intended was to be interesting and funny.

Still. They didn’t mess with the last line, which is good because it was not only solid but true and exactly how I feel about saying yes to the universe, of which The New York Times is but the teeniest subset. Wherever you land, it’s a start.