This Is Love

Photograph of two women sitting at a banquet dining table. There are wine glasses and plates on the table in front of them. The woman on the left is wearing a gray sweater. The woman on the right is wearing a black shirt and a scarf

Episode 54: Grace and Julia

Episode #54

2022-10-26 05:00:42

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Grace Young remembers her parents were obsessed with food growing up — they went shopping every day for groceries and every night they cooked traditional Cantonese dishes for dinner. She started to learn to cook when she was young, but not from her parents. She learned from Julia Child.
Color photograph of Meredith Goldstein. She has blonde hair and is looking off camera to the right. She's wearing a necklace and a black top.

Episode 53: Desperate in Rockland

Episode #53

2022-10-12 05:00:27

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Advice columnist Meredith Goldstein says her favorite letters to answer are about breakups. "It doesn't matter who you are – if you have been dumped, it is awful."
Michael Packard with a large bag of lobster.

Episode 52: In the Mouth of the Whale

Episode #52

2022-09-28 07:00:17

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Michael Packard makes a living diving for lobsters off the coast of Cape Cod. “You know, this is what I love. It's a different world down there." Last summer, he had an astonishing encounter with a whale.
An illustration of Domenico DeMarco making pizza. The pizza is in the shape of a heart. He's wearing a checked red and white shirt.

Episode 51: The Pizza Maker

Episode #51

2022-09-14 05:00:15

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When Margaret Dugan was 17, she ate lunch most days at a place called Little Venice where a young Domenico DeMarco would sing while he made pizza.
A green wall is covered in printed photos of the actor Orlando Bloom.

Episode 50: A Crush

Episode #50

2022-08-31 05:00:27

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As a teenager, Kendra James had a crush on the actor Orlando Bloom. She decorated her room with pictures of him, she wrote stories imagining a romance with him, and she joined a message board dedicated entirely to him.
Photograph of someone standing at the bottom of a deep hole, wearing a headlamp and looking up and the camera. There's a metal ladder on the right hand side of the photo.

Episode 49: Beneath the City

Episode #49

2022-07-27 05:00:54

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Evan Woodard explores the city of Baltimore from underneath. He searches for things buried underground—things that some people might consider trash. We decided to go to Baltimore and join him on a dig.
Phil and Nnenna Freelon sitting on a gray couch. Nnenna is looking at Phil. They both are smiling. Their three children Deen, Maya and Pierce are in the background.

Episode 48: The Freelons

Episode #48

2022-06-29 15:21:18

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Nnenna and Phil met on a friend’s front porch in Carrboro, North Carolina in 1978. “It felt like I was meeting someone that I had known, but forgot that I knew,” she says. “It just was magic.” 
A young boy is smiling, holding up a spelling bee medal.

Episode 47: Frank Goes to the Spelling Bee

Episode #47

2022-05-30 13:44:32

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A few months ago, Frank Dumas won his 4th grade class spelling bee. And then he just kept winning.
A fox in profile, sitting on gravel, with its ears back and eyes squinted nearly closed. It looks relaxed.

Episode 46: The Visitor

Episode #46

2022-04-27 12:12:36

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Many years ago, Cathy Raven decided to build herself a small house on a large piece of land in rural Montana. She’s said, “I saw myself alone in the furthest future that I could imagine.” Then a red fox began to arrive, at the same time every day. 
Photograph of a drawing pinned up on a wall. The drawing shows the head and face of a young man asleep in profile—the ears, nose, lips, and cheeks are accented with red and the eyelids and upper lip are accented with blue. The man has cropped dark hair, pale skin, and an earring.

Episode 45: Seeing and Being Seen

Episode #45

2022-04-13 12:08:21

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When artist Wilfrid Wood was looking for new people to draw, he got an idea - and put a call out for models on Grindr. When Theo Adamson saw Wilfrid's profile, he says “it just caught me in the right moment as being up for trying something new.”
A gray cat sitting on an unmade bed with a striped gray comforter, in front of a wall covered with papers organized In columns, with string drawing lines across the pages.

Episode 44: Cain’s Jawbone

Episode #44

2022-03-30 12:00:15

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There’s a strange book from 1934 called Cain’s Jawbone that's “not for the faint-hearted.” It’s part puzzle, part murder mystery. And it’s only been solved three times.
A red snakeskin journal with white sticker labels that read: The Adventures of Dillon Helbig's Crismis, by Dillon his self. There are small illustrations of Santa hats and a Christmas tree next to the writing. On the spine of the book there are stickers indicating it's a library book.

Episode 43: The Adventures of Dillon Helbig

Episode #43

2022-02-23 13:19:47

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Dillon Helbig is 8 years old. He’s been writing books since he was 5. One day, he decided he wanted to see his book on the shelf in a library.
Black and white fMRI scan of Dessa's brain, with her head in profile, and a tiny red dot at the base of the brain

Episode 42: The Brain in Love

Episode #42

2022-01-26 13:08:11

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Dessa spent the better part of two decades in love with the same person. They’d broken up and gotten back together over and over again. And even once they were broken up for good, she couldn’t give up hope that they still had a future. She says she felt kind of stuck. And so she started planning an experiment—part science project, part art project—to try to fall out of love.
Kate Bowler, and her young son, Zach, standing at the fork of a trail outdoors in the snow. They’re bundled up wearing jackets and gloves, both smiling, and Zach has his arms spread wide open.

Episode 41: Finding Joy

Episode #41

2021-12-15 13:02:40

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In 2015, Kate Bowler was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. She was 35. “The chronic nature of what I had really lent itself to people wanting to openly explain why I was suffering. Was it something I ate? Was it something I did spiritually? Like, who’s at fault here? You know, maybe everything doesn’t happen for a reason.”
Black and white photo of an old, large American Chestnut

Episode 40: Grandfather of the Forest

Episode #40

2021-11-17 13:42:50

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“On the last day of the world, I would want to plant a tree.” A story about people coming together, willing to try something.
A young white couple posing outside on a sunny day. The man is wearing sunglasses and a hat. The woman has her arm around the man's shoulders and they're both smiling.

Episode 39: Can I Speak to David?

Episode #39

2021-10-27 12:52:23

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"I began to think: ‘Oh, my gosh. Everyone was against me dropping out of college, marrying a complete stranger, and moving to New York. Perhaps they may have been on to something.’”