Where Differences Meet

A personal essay by Shae McCombs

Why do differences frustrate us, like a screech on a chalkboard? The chalk is not wrong and neither is the chalkboard.

You save yourself for the people that you know and trust. You lay out clues when you meet someone, cautiously, like little breadcrumbs in Hansel and Gretel, hoping that someone will follow you into friend-ship.  how it is for me, anyway. I’ve felt that way since I was a baby girl. I don’t play my music in the car with strangers. I swallow my jokes when I meet someone. I let my fake self go out to play just in case something bad happens. But when I play music for someone new, a connection begins. 

 

When Air Becomes Breath

 A Personal Essay by Megan Anderson

Who would true valor see/ let him come hither.../ then fancies fly away/ He'll fear not what men say/ He'll labour night and day/ to be a pilgrim

I read the last few words of When Breath Becomes Air slowly, so as to enjoy every last word to the end. Paul Kalanithi’s wife had to finish his book for him; the antagonist of his story killed him. She told us
about how much he loved and how much he lived to the end. I’m fighting back tears like Paul fought cancer. I’m failing, like he did. No. Paul succeeded. He reminded me why I love and live. He did that by greeting me kindly with raw emotion and sleepless nights and failing health. Like Paul, I watched myself waste away, wondering what would come of it. We’ve never met, Paul and I, but we have walked a lonely path together. He struggled, but he was honest with himself. I think it’s time for me to do the same.

My Faith is Not in My Father

A personal essay by Erin Lee

“I am not the child my father raised, but he is the father who raised her.”

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My father is a faithful man. He reads his scriptures daily, attends church every week, and participates in whatever role his local congregation asks of him. I grew up faithful as well—my religion was and is at the core of who I am. As a child, I idolized my father as the pinnacle of spirituality and faithfulness; I emulated him any time I could. So when I found myself questioning whether my father was the man I thought he was, I also found myself questioning my faith.  

How was I to separate my faith in a perfect God from my imperfect mortal father? Where had those roots first begun to intertwine? I read Tara Westover’s memoir, Educated a few weeks into September 2020, and I saw myself in it (the quotes between this essay’s sections are from that book). Though Tara’s upbringing was much more extremist than mine, I understood the battle of faith and family, of love and distance. As I read, I found myself remembering the moments when my father and my spirituality had collided. 

Love is not Love

A personal essay by Lindsay Taylor

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments.

August 28, 2020. 

He was light, yet he was dark. Like the rippling waters of a disturbed lake, hidden beneath the mist of midnight. He was hard to see. It was only with time that I distinguished him, out from behind a persona he’d built like a wall. Little by little, a handhold here and a foothold there, I climbed it. Peered over the edge into the tempestuous abyss. He’d hidden himself with care, wielded a blinding light with skill, to shock the eyes before they could see clearly the man that stood in the shadows.

It wasn’t a marriage. Luckily, it wasn’t a marriage. Not in the truest sense, at least. What it was is an almost-marriage. A near escape. A dream shattered like broken glass; no way to gather the pieces without drawing blood. A broken engagement, as they say.

East of Eating: The Intersection of Steinbeck and Anorexia

 A personal essay by Sophie Plantamura

One girl's war with food, one novel's unexpected significance. 

One of the many products of
my morning smoothie cravings. 

8 am. I wake up with the fortuitous desire to really try and eat more today, paired with the craving for a smoothie. Ready to take advantage of both of these daybreak intentions, I set out to the kitchen, my cold feet cushioned by slippers, my bony shoulders wrapped in my blanket. My blanket drags on the floor as I sleepily turn on the blender. 

First step: almond milk. “Easy,” says the voice in my head, “almond milk only has 30 calories a cup—go crazy!” The same rationale persists as I shove handful after handful of spinach into the blender. But then come the seeds: hemp, chia, flax, all of which my dietitian told me to increase in my breakfast, all of which trigger a tsunami of anxiety in my sick brain. 

The Fear Litany

A personal essay by Janaya Tanner

Seeking to understand fear through examples set by my dad.

I have always known I am a lot like my dad. I knew it when he read all the books I read. I knew it when we liked all the same TV shows. Yet, my dad was always mysterious and different to me in a way I couldn’t understand. Like the Greeks attributing the weather to a pantheon of gods, I attributed my dad’s abilities to magic—a magic I wanted to have. Though reserved, he never seemed shy. He took on new challenges with stoic zeal. It was like fear didn’t affect him at all.

One Christmas break in college, I discovered Dune by Frank Herbert and fell in love with it—the incredible new worlds, the political intrigue, the technology so like magic, the unforgettable characters. I shared my new love with my dad only to find out he had never read it.

Big Canyons and Small Things

A personal essay by Mattea Chipman

“Identity cannot be found or fabricated but emerges from within when one has the courage to let go.”-Doug Cooper

“Mattea, as you get older you will realize that your husband will eventually just turn into his Father.” 

I turned and stared at Craig. 

“Wait,” I thought. “I didn’t sign up for Craig.” 

I pondered that for a long time afterwards. Are we all just splitting images and personalities of our parents? How much do our families define us? 

If I am half of each of my parents I am one of those dollar toy stretchy monkeys, one arm holding onto a cliff, one arm holding to the bank on the other side of a canyon. Stretched thin and dangling in the center. 

My family is the definition of opposites attract. 

It all started at the wedding. It was a disaster, and then a party.