As a psychotherapist, Susie Orbach spends her working days helping people find words to express their emotional dilemmas. But the seesaw of the pandemic presents particular challenges. "We are not simply able," she writes, "to breathe into a difficult situation, roll up our psychological sleeves or dig ourselves in without the emotional cost of feeling constrained, nervous, watchful, touchy."Producer: Adele Armstrong

Will Self reflects on a year of not travelling on the London underground... and why he's starting to miss it. "On winter days," writes Will, "when it's dark first thing, then twilight, then dark again, the tube achieves its most magical state."And he says that, without the tube, the city seems to have lost its foundations.Producer: Adele Armstrong

As the government announces a tightening of Britain's borders, Zoe Strimpel tries to understand her very personal reaction. "As a Jewish descendent of German Jewish refugees," she writes, "I have felt - for the first time in my life - a sharp edge of panic and fear." Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sarah Dunant finds chilling parallels between recent events in Washington and the Sack of Rome in 1527. "Both seemed to feel," Sarah writes, "that whatever the threat, 'God's Holy City' or 'the seat of American democracy', were somehow, by their very nature, inviolate. I mean nobody would dare, would they?" Powerful first-hand accounts, the crowd fired up by wild stories and the use of new technology are all there. Producer: Adele Armstrong

Rebecca Stott on why stories told over time seem so fitting for lockdown."In this third lockdown," Rebecca writes, "now that my grown up children have gone back to their flats, I am living alone for the first time. I miss our conversations over the dinner table. I miss mulling over the day with them." But, she says, the cumulative power of slow storytelling is a perfect antidote. And, in particular, The Archers! Producer: Adele Armstrong

John Gray argues that the social media bans on Donald Trump pose many risks."The country is already divided between political tribes that hardly speak to one another," he writes. "More than any other advanced country, American has developed a dangerously binary type of public life. " He fears curbing free speech - in the way the tech giants have done with Donald Trump - risks threatening America's very stability. Producer: Adele Armstrong

Adam Gopnik attempts to make sense of events in Washington this week and argues that the attack on Congress was predictable. And he explores "the fascinating mismatch between the cult leader and the cult". Producer: Adele Armstrong

Adam Gopnik, cycling around Central Park in New York, explains why going round in circles suddenly appears not futile, but fortunate. In the midst of the pandemic, Adam - like thousands of other New Yorkers - has taken to cycling round the park on a daily basis."The truth, revealed at the end of one more revolution is simple," he writes. "We feel lucky to be alive. That may be the one truth we didn't know before, or didn't know enough."Producer: Adele Armstrong

Bernardine Evaristo reflects on spirituality and syncretism. "There are many people," she writes, "who are rock solid in a particular faith...but others are more flexible or live with multiple belief systems." Bernardine tells us why she loves the idea of the African-American celebration of Kwanzaa, founded in 1966 and designed to give African-Americans a winter festival that is uniquely theirs. Producer: Adele Armstrong

Sara Wheeler loves maps. Taking her cue from a 1755 map on her desk, she asks how maps can help us navigate our contemporary crisis. And she argues that - from cholera to covid - public health cartography has played a crucial role. Producer: Adele Armstrong