The Belonging Wall

What did you make?
Who did it reach?

Two questions. That's the whole wall. Tell us what you made — a song, a garden, a group chat, a loaf of bread — and what happened between you and another human being because of it.

Add your story

Post to the wall.

150 words max. Short stories travel further. Every post is read by a person before it goes up — usually within a few days.

Optional. "Chicago" not your address.

0 / 150 words

Never published. Only used if we need to reach you about your post.

From the wall

How people are doing it.

After my divorce I started photographing my block at 6am. Same corner, every day. By week three the man who opens the bakery started waving. By week six I was photographing him. We talk every morning now.
Marcus T. · Chicago Photography
I crochet one granny square per night shift. The other nurses started picking colors for me. The blanket is ugly and it belongs to all of us.
Dana R. · Houston Fiber arts
I'm 67 and I write one postcard a week to someone I've lost touch with. Eleven postcards out. Four phone calls back. Best math I've ever done.
Eleanor W. · Cincinnati Letters
Moved to a new city, knew nobody. Started a beat tape and posted one rough loop a week. A stranger from two neighborhoods over DM'd me a bassline. We've made fourteen tracks. I've met his mom.
Theo · Atlanta Music
My grief counselor told me to journal. I drew instead — one tiny ink sketch of something my mother loved, every Sunday. I mail them to my sister. She framed the whole first year.
Priya · London Drawing
I bake bread badly. I started leaving a loaf on my elderly neighbor's porch with a note rating my own failure. He now leaves the notes back, graded. We are pen pals across a fence.
Sam K. · Paris Bread