Author: Moriah Reif

Mossy forest, a soft bed of leaves upon leaves upon leaves. I wouldn’t know where the dirt began beneath if I tried. The trees loom high and leaning in above me, their limbs outstretched like arms to cover the forest floor, unsuccessfully shielding it from the persistent drizzle all around me. The cool fog and…

Scrolling Facebook and I see decade anniversary posts for acquaintances, happy they have fallen in love and been bold enough to keep it. I see pictures of kids the kids I grew up with have had, as they love on them and let them play in the rain. I see pretty dresses I’d like to…

That word has such a negative connotation. But what other word sums up crumbling of everything you saw the world through, the subsequent tearing down of what is left of the rubble, so that you can see all the damage, ask all the questions, seek all the truth? The really hopeful thing, I think, that…

Now that I know people read my posts sometimes, I feel like I need to be quieter. That’s so dumb. I often feel or have felt like I need to be quieter. To be liked, to keep the peace, to be ladylike enough, to not be annoying, to not be too much. The other day,…

Barbie was really good. I don’t know how a movie about a toy made me start thinking about the entire concept of girlhood, what it means to be a woman, how precious it is, and how there is room for everyone in the room without anyone taking over the room…but it did. So anyway, enjoy…

Emotions are so complicated. They are not always indicative of the full reality of what’s going on, yet they are indicators. Sometimes it all breaks down to one core emotion and sometimes it’s five that seem to take turns and sometimes they all jump in at once. So if you’re in a place where you…

But it’s beautiful too. I’m stuck right now. I’m not sure what’s happening. But I know it’s really really hard. And I know it’s really beautiful. And I know I don’t deserve the deep goodness I am given. But I know I don’t deserve the awful that has been dredged up. I am somewhere in…

I visited the Grand Canyon once before this, just over 10 years ago. It was magical and humbling, a rare chance to be overwhelmed by my own smallness and the beauty of what looks like forever. Ever since then, a little piece of my heart has been hidden in those rocks, and I have been…

Andreas and I love to travel. To explore a place neither of us have seen before, to share with each other a personal favorite. It is an exquisite joy to see something old made new through fresh eyes, or something entirely foreign multiplied in beauty by our shared unknowing, or to see the joy in…

I had not thought that my desire to please everyone and my desire to figure it out, to make myself responsible for everyone else’s happiness had maybe come, in part, from toxic purity culture. I have begun to think that maybe my hatred of my body or my own wants and needs came in part…