Laie, 96762

A personal essay by Katey Workman

My deepening relationship with my happy-place hometown.

Love is an ocean.

It begins playful. Fun. Frolicking crystal that flows on resting sand—light, beautiful— shallow.

But it soon gets deep. It becomes meaningful as the shore’s playful blues turn into mysterious indigo depths that swallow the light. Color is made when particles of light reflect off of what it encounters, but all that bounces back is abyss, because there’s no bottom. Not for miles. Only the bravest venture past waist-deep. The bravest and the most foolish.

We do not love the ocean for its shallows. We are bewitched by its leagues and intrigued by its depth. Intrigued by what we still don’t know of it, longing to know what else it holds, and in humbled awe of the majesty it commands.

A General In A Cornfield

A personal essay by Joseph Fisher

When I looked at my grandfather, I didn't see a farmer. I saw a commander, a strategist--a general in a cornfield.

Some of my earliest memories are of picking tomatoes in my grandfather’s garden. Ten-year-old me didn’t even like tomatoes, but the memories are vivid nonetheless: steaming humidity from wet earth under the hot July sun, pungent and ripening red fruit, and thick, moist air that was hard to breathe and made you sweat and itch intolerably as you worked.

This is only the first stage of what my grandfather dubbed “the tomato project.” By the end of the day we will have produced 400 quarts of juice after picking, washing, stemming, pulverizing, straining, bottling, and boiling hundreds upon hundreds of tomatoes. It isn’t my grandfather’s only “project,” either. A month later will be the “corn project.” In October is the “apple project”—three pickup truckloads of apples turned into 400 gallons of fresh apple juice in the dizzying span of a few hours. Everything is done on a titanic scale, and my grandfather is at the center of all of it.

Vessel

A personal essay by Emery Warr

We build vessels to protect ourselves. But time turns ships into shells and shields into masks that only serve to distort our own reflections.

Last week, in the early evening, I invited several friends to join me as I made my way to the fluttering banks of the Provo River. We built a ship out of aluminum foil, folded silver sheets and crumpled them together to create sails, masts, bow, stern, deck, and hull. Some pieces tore in the process, but we crinkled them so no one could tell, and really, no one could. Then we sent our ship down the river.

When I was young, before I wrapped myself in a shiny coat that reflected expectations, Mother and I would sing by the ocean. We sang about barges and pirates, harmonizing with the churning of the waves as they thundered beneath, between, within us. I let my melodies go without fear, all power and peace.

This Alternate Universe Called "Japan"

A personal essay by Caroline Raines

On the evening of the seventeenth of December, 2014, I receive a life-changing assignment. “Japan, Fukuoka,” my lips mutter and I am stunned. I am going to Japan.

For eighteen months I will be a volunteer for my church in that foreign land where I've heard the sun rises. I stare blankly, trying to take it all in, and instantly, gongs ring in my ears. The only thing I know about the country is what I’ve learned through pop culture and media. Japan is where they wear red dresses and pull their hair back in buns and let their tiny facial hairs grow on the sides of their lips until they are long enough to drip into their sushi sauce. It’s the place where they say, “konnichiwa” for hello, or maybe it’s “nihao,” I’m not quite sure. Over and over those gongs sound in my head reminding me of how much I do not know about Japan. The sun is setting now, leaving traces of pink and orange in the sky. 

Miracles, Mysteries, and the Minnesota Vikings

When life hit me hard, I flew out of bounds. But at least Stefon Diggs didn't.

“This is the sickest I could ever be,” I thought to myself (naively) as my Dad pushed me in a wheelchair through the airport. I was now too sick to live by myself, so he had come to bring me back home to Minnesota. Everything we passed—people walking in every direction, vending machines filled with headphones, the line for Panda Express—all felt like a blur. Telling myself that things couldn’t get worse was a coping mechanism I used at the time. I told myself the same thing in a different wheelchair at the hospital, and again lying on the floor of my parent’s basement.

Being a Voice for the Voiceless

A personal essay by Talley Timms

“The human voice is the most perfect instrument of all” –Arvo Pärt

Last year, in preparation for an internship, I read a victim’s statement given by a ten-year-old girl who witnessed an argument between her father and stepmom escalate to the point of violence, ending in her father headbutting her stepmom and breaking her nose. What surprised me first about this victim’s statement was how careful the child was to protect her father, making excuses and minimizing the trauma, even though he clearly put her in a high-risk situation. What surprised me more was the obvious shame this child felt for events over which she had no control. But what surprised me most was how little I remembered of this witness statement considering that I was that ten-year-old girl.

Who's the Yarner

A personal essay by Bekah Luthi

Slide-hook-pull, slide-hook-pull, slide-hook-pull

One Friday night, my dad calls me to ask, “What are you up to?”

As I tidy up the living room, I tell him that I finished my homework only a half hour ago and decided to relax.

He disagrees. “It’s Friday night! Why aren’t you out? The night’s still young.”

“It’s eleven o’clock,” I remind him. He tends to forget about the time difference. “I’m tired. I just want to watch some TV and crochet for a bit before bed.”

“Crochet? Why would you do that?”

Learning to Love Myself

A personal essay by JC Eastwood


Transforming my self-loathing into something more.

Nineteen. Nineteen minutes to run a mile and a half. 

Exhausted and wheezing, I paused to rest near a tree as even the girls passed me by. A poor attempt to pretend re-tying my shoes fooled no one. Embarrassed, my little grey plastic inhaler remained in my pocket and when I returned home, I remained in my room. That day, I was not only embarrassed; I was embarrassing.

My parents couldn’t know about my pitiful track time. My father was the famous local basketball coach and my mother, a former swim instructor. Being an athlete wasn’t forced upon me, but it was expected. It was in my blood. It was in my DNA. But, it was not me. I was me. Criminally undersized, fitfully clumsy, and physically handicapped. Even as a fifth grader, I understood that I was just…me.

What's Left of My High School Crush

A personal essay by Kevin Dorman

She taught me to love, but I stopped loving her back.

The high resolution image couldn’t possibly capture, nor could it contain, her transcendent character; yet, in the first instant of exposure, I perceived passion, courage, and a winning mentality—this girl was designed for greatness. My intense glance caramelized into a solid stare, fixating my enchanted eyes on the flickering monitor screen, maybe for a whole ten minutes. I wasn’t merely attracted to her; I was enraptured by her, smitten, felled. Felled by this flawless Facebook photo. More like an advertisement, really.

That sacred Saturday afternoon, nestled in the eons of eternity, marked the first time I succumbed to love.

Grasping

A personal essay by Lynae Barlow

I've always dreamed of going to college, just like I've always dreamed of being a mom.  But being a mom while in college has its challenges.

“Crap!” I shout way too loudly to be appropriate in a public bathroom.  A wet warmth covers my jeans seeping through to my skin.  It can only be one thing: pee.  No! No no no no no!  This can’t be happening to me.  Not now, not on the first day of class.  My brain kicks into emergency mode to come up with a solution.

I forcefully grab my two-week-old baby girl, lifting her off my lap.  My suspicion is confirmed as the smell of urine fills my nostrils and my eyes land on the puddle she left in my lap.  The little magician soaked me with her pee while keeping her own diaper completely dry.

Show off.

I pause and chuckle because I can’t help but feel slight pride in her skills.

Between Heaven and Dirt

A personal essay by Sterling Smith


Is it possible to fully appreciate our comfort without witnessing first-hand sacrifices and appreciating powers beyond our own?

To a farmer, the world is nothing but dirt. Dirt is where a farmer plants his sacrifices. Careful cultivation and fertilization, allow a farmer to control the fertility of the dirt. However, without rain, dirt yields nothing.

He prays for moisture so that his offerings will multiply his living, so he can feed his family, clothe his children, and pay the bank the money he owes. A farmer has no control over what happens in the space between heaven and earth, but what happens in that space is just as vital to a seed as it is you and me.

A Single Compliment

"Like misery itself I was glad at least to have company."

A personal essay by JJ Carter

All it took for me to succeed was for one person to show me that I could.

I hated English classes. That is why I was sitting in the auditorium of a baptist church taking the AP English test with the rest of my class. I wanted to do anything I could to avoid taking at least one English class in college. By the time I was half way through the test I knew I couldn't pass and get college credit. I was nowhere near prepared for this test.

It wasn’t just me though. No one passed. No one was prepared. Like misery itself I was glad at least to have company. Not too long later I went to my first day of college English. It was a sunny September day on the outside, but on the inside my heart rained.

The Colors of My Room

A personal essay by Matt Easton

Painting my childhood room rainbow said a lot more about me than I knew at the time.

I still remember dad’s face when I told him the color I chose for my room. Are you sure you don’t want a bright blue, or a dark red? he responded, trying to lead me in another direction. No, I answered firmly. I knew what I wanted.

I was only eight years old when I got my first room, too young to know what implications came with wanting to paint my walls rainbow. After all, dad told me I could choose my favorite color, and my favorite was all the colors. Each one spoke to me in a special way; it was like asking me to pick my favorite stuffed animal or put on my favorite Disney movie.

Two Strangers

A personal essay by Alison Linnell

From birth, we drill into our children the concept of Stranger Danger, but what happens when we become that stranger.

“Can’t we be friends?” My hope in asking was to be something more than contentious relatives, strangers.

“We’re not friends, mom. A friend is someone I want to hang out with.” He was irritated by my asking, repeatedly, to meet his new girlfriend. I knew that. I had failed in accepting his friends in the past, and he believed the outcome this time would be no different, so he kept his life – his friends, his feelings, his future – at a distance.

It is hard to pinpoint the moment one’s child becomes a stranger. He possibly would name a specific instance; I could think of several.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

A personal essay by Nina Anderson

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be exactly like my mom.

It was 6pm, closing time. It was already dark because that’s how life goes when it’s winter in Minnesota. Donna had left for the day so I needed to lock up the shop. I looked out the front window and saw Mom waiting in the Ford Focus. Right on time. I slipped on my coat, hat, gloves, scarf, and flicked off all the light switches. Mom crochets these beautiful mittens and matching scarves out of wool that keep us nice and warm.

The bells twinkled against the door as it shut behind me. The lock on the door requires some practice and often the patience of Job. The key is really small, so I had to expose my hands to the frigid air for a minute. You have to turn they key quickly and hold the door in exactly the right spot for the bolt to slide into place. 

Uncomfortable

A Personal Essay by Hailey Kate Chatlin

“When Citizens prefer comfort to principles, much that ought to be valued is not.” -Joel M. Allred

Zoey Davis sits alone at the lunch table reading a book. She wears a green short-sleeved shirt with a tiny pink bow sewed onto the chest. Her plastic cheetah print headband has shifted to the back of her head allowing strands of curly brown hair to cascade around her face.. I should sit next to her. She’s only reading to fill the silence, I should sit down… but my friends are waiting for me upstairs. What would we talk about? I brush past the table giving Zoey a small smile and wave.

18

A personal essay by Annie Thompson

 To the Chinese it is yāo bā, to the Jewish it is chaí, to the Hindi it is Jaya. To me, it is free.  

As a teenager, I knew everything. My eyes often rolled at well-meaning, meddling parents. Sometimes I wished they didn't care quite so much, didn't still see me as a child. Dying for freedom from supervision and rules, I daydreamed about turning 18. Graduating from high school. Moving to Utah for college. Escaping. I longed for those independent days while I argued with siblings about bathroom turns, while I grudgingly completed chores, while I sat in class, bored out of my mind. I didn't know what adulting would be, what it would mean. To me, 18 was total freedom; complete independence. Until it happened. Until I was sitting alone in a cold apartment that I didn't have money to pay for. And I realized I was still a child.

A Home in North London

A personal essay by Seth Haws

I had never been to England, but I did not need to for Arsenal to feel like my home.

Wembley Stadium, in London, England, UK, has a seating capacity of 90,000, making it the largest stadium in the country. On May 17th, 2014, 89,345 of those seats were filled with people ready to watch the Hull City Tigers take on North London’s own Arsenal Gunners in the 133rd FA Cup final, the world’s oldest soccer competition. Kickoff time was 5:00 PM British Summer Time.

The Haws Residence living room in Redlands, California, USA has a seating capacity of seven, making it averagely sized for the neighborhood. On May 17th, 2014, one of those seven seats was filled with one new Arsenal supporter ready to watch his first ever FA Cup final, making him Southern California’s newest soccer fanatic. The Fox Soccer Pregame Show was 8:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time. 

Grasping Sunbeams

A personal essay by Josh Menden

I miss it, I crave it. I ache to possess something that is truly unpossessable, to be at once familiar and in awe of something of which I am largely ignorant. Can I ever learn to capture innocence like I did as a child?

When I was younger — maybe six or seven — I used to watch the sunlight pour into my bedroom through the window. It fascinated me: at once linear and amorphous, the way it split haphazardly in

distorted shapes on my navy blue bunk bed and shag carpet floor, how it sheared straight, distinct lines of darkness, mangled occasionally by an impeding object or moving limb. Staring at the trapezoids and triangles etched in light convinced me that the light itself was wholly tangible, graspable, touchable.

In the intermediate space, between the window and the floor, the incoming sunlight illuminated little specks of dust as they floated randomly through the air, reappearing and disappearing as they flirted with the divide between light and dark. The way they floated, so random and free, visible only within the box of sunlight — it dawned on me: I was witnessing rays of light. Not some nebulous stream of light, nor the feeling and notion of light as I now understand it, but actual rays of light: those particles, those little specks, were themselves the rays, and I was watching as they entered my bedroom.

On the Heavens, Scouts, and Weed

A personal essay by Anson Call


A lame week at an Indiana scout reservation allowed us to experiment with newfound idealogical freedoms and the beginnings of growing up. 

Every night, we’d quietly lift our hard, nylon mattresses off of our creaky, rusty cots and out of our dirty, canvas tents down the trail a half-mile to the beach's easy swells.

We laid on the sand, carefree, (Kolten, the two White brothers, and I) listening to the lake while Kolten showed us where the stars were. We'd done constellation requirements before for merit badges, but when Kolten pointed them out, we faced them for the first time.

Pain in the Asphalt

A personal essay by Katey Workman

Discovery of my own selfish Christianity

Mom sent a picture of a sign in a park that issued the following warning: "DO NOT LET YOUR DOG ON HOT  ASPHALT. IF IT'S TOO HOT FOR YOU IT'S TOO HOT FOR THEM". It detailed the severity in temperature difference between air and asphalt: 77° F outside equals 125° F on the asphalt, 87°F equals 143°F, and so on. The warning was intended, of course, for dog owners who care about the well-being of their pets, and was posted, no doubt, by those selfless pet-o-philes who care as much (if not more) about your Fido than you do. While I am neither dog-owner nor dog-lover, I wish I'd seen the sign myself before embarking on a mid-afternoon walk. 

Do you think you could come?

I had laid my plans for today already. Mounds of class assignments had reached an eyebrow-raising height and it had taken all my freshly won self-restraint to refuse fun things before first getting my work done. After all, how could I dependably spout my new favorite motto (that I had learned just the day before) "work first, then play," if I was to crack only on day 2? No, I needed to focus. 

Apology

A personal essay by Malcolm Lamb

Shanti. That’s her name, the girl from the Jungle Book. It’s a name that nobody knows because it’s not in the movie, and it’s not in the movie because Shanti is not a girl. She is a girl being watched by a boy. 

I am Mowgli in the jungle. I wrap myself around coconut trees and feel warm aluminum against my naked chest. I climb by inches, hoping for the world to turn upside down so that I may fall to the top, pluck the glowing fruit, and drop into the clouds. My feet are bare that I may stand as an extension of the earth, that I may feel the burning asphalt like magma against my soul heating me up until I glow orange in the dark. Seconds bleed in the jungle, mixing with one another until time becomes indivisible, less the passing of a car and more the air I breathe. And I will breathe forever.

The only threat to my immortality is the man-village. I see it like a faded moon in daylight. It lurks in my peripherals. There is smoke on the horizon, a black infection against blue sky that rises from the man-village where they burn everything that matters. Pokémon cards, candy, Clue, and crying are gathered up and thrown onto the pyre to be consumed for fuel. Made useful.

Rebuilding from the Rubble

A personal essay by Clara Dunlop

Sometimes the greatest tragedies in life turn out to be our greatest blessings.

The phone rings.  “Hello?”
It’s my mission president. “Don’t worry, no one died”
“I’m putting your parents through right now”
I have so many questions. “What happened?”
Gone.
My mom confirms, “Are you sure you want to see that?”
“I just want to understand…”

In a daze, I leave the office that I had quarantined myself in. My companion, the girl with whom I solely co-exist, looks at me as if in pain, knowing she has the obligation to say something. She comes up with “I do not know what happened, but I hope you are okay.” Just this. We aren’t close enough for anything more. When I awoke, my eyes were inflamed. My friend embraces me as my eyes fill with tears yet again. And I say it out loud for the first time.

 “My house burned down.”

A Different Form of Communication

A Personal Essay by Candice Boren

Alone, I feel it; with others, I see it. The gleam in their eyes when they recognize the opening chord. The smile that eases its way across faces. “Oh yes!” someone exclaims. “I love this song!” sighs another. I feel the joy myself, creeping its way into my heart that so often feels empty.

It starts with unzipping the case, pulling it out by the neck. The light shines off its polished surface, drawing my eye to the dark red that fades to black the further from the center they travel. The wood is smooth, gliding under my hand. I sit with my legs spread apart; on my bed, on a chair, on the couch, on the floor. I clip the tuner to the head, turning it to face me. A little bar appears at the bottom left of the screen when I hit the on button. I pluck the rough string; the lowest one, E.

The Rhythm of the Ocean

A personal essay by Frances Avery

Without a backwards glance, I tip off the edge of the boat and sink into the tumultuous waves around me. I am going in slow motion: the waves at the surface break and create little white caps but the deeper we go down, the less movement there is. 

At Kerama Islands, Okinawa, Japan.

I have trained, tested, evaluated, tested again, and finally proven myself worthy of the little plastic card I am handing over to the dive shop owner. I release a breath I did not know I was holding as he hands it back to me, smiles at me and asks me if this is my first time. I choke on the words and answer back that yeah, this is my first time. But what I want to stutter is something along the lines of yeah this is my first time and I’m terrified and please don’t let me die. I smile back and shove my doubts into the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet of my brain.

I wrestle into my wetsuit and wriggle around until it is comfortable; the wrists feel too tight; the neck is exceedingly scratchy, and it is pulling on my baby hairs that never had a chance at survival.

Bears and Cows and Alice! Oh My!

A personal essay by Melanie Henderson

Life is always exhausting and busy. But having Alice has helped us see that there is always room for fun and silliness. 

I slightly lift my eyelids. We both hear her. Her waking moans ooze through the crack in her door and spill into our room. My body is plastered against the cotton sheets. Like a hibernating bear, I refuse to move. It's not the right time; it's too early.
Connor, however, I suppose is the true mama bear as he lumbers to her room. On those mornings, he doesn't even ask me. He knows. He goes. He gets her.

When I'm the mover, I'm not as swift as Connor. I grudgingly creep to the crack—only wanting to drop down in bed and sleep for an extra two minutes. Before I push the door open, I wait. Maybe she will go back to sleep? Maybe she was just grumbling or playing in her sleep?

No...she's definitely awake.

The Rivering of Writing

Bachu, my river guide, near the Harishchandra Ghat
along the Ganges in 2004

Like the Ganges, writing is for me a flowing river, sacred and profane.

His name was Bachu and he was my river guide along the Ganges on a summer morning there in Varanasi. And he was difficult, to say the least.  For as he rowed, he haggled, pushing for more rupees. "I take you to the burning ghats. Everyone wants to see." And yes, I'd hoped to see the Harishchandra Ghat where ashes of the cremated were cooled and sent into the water. And so much more. But Bachu wrecked the still and quiet of the early morning river. The current, it continued, but Bachu stopped the flow.

We must seek out, we must protect, the flow of writing. The subjects we address, the genres that we ply -- they are but secondary to the primal flowing, the rivering of writing.