Meghan o rourke

What's endlessly complicated in thinking about women's gymnastics is the way that vulnerability and power are threaded through the sport.

When my mother was sick, I found myself needing to put down in my journals all sorts of things - to try to understand them, and, I think, to try to remember them.

The truth is, I need to experience my mother's presence in the world around me and not just in my head.

Writing has always been the primary way I make sense of the world.

One of the ideas I've clung to most of my life is that if I just try hard enough it will work out.

Many Americans don't mourn in public anymore - we don't wear black, we don't beat our chests and wail.

It's all too easy when talking about female gymnasts to fall into the trap of infantilizing them, spending more time worrying more about female vulnerability than we do celebrating female strength.

I live to collect information, and I am also a perfectionist.

My mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer shortly before three P.M. on Christmas Day of 2008. I don't know the exact time of her death, because none of us thought to look at a clock for a while...

My whole life, I had been taught to read and study, to seek understanding in knowledge of history, of cultures.