Bloom Where You are Planted

A Personal Essay by Marin Pinkham

Standing out was something that seemed to be a common characteristic of my life, but it wasn't until I physically stood out  that I realized the beauty of differences.

"yellow petaled flowers near the cliff and crystal clear ocean"

My blonde hair billows in the humid but warm breeze as I saunter down the gray sidewalk that parallels the black asphalt road. The aromatic scent of carne asada and grease wafts towards me as I pass the local’s favorite taco joint - Pedro’s Tacos. I think about my possible order - fantasizing over a fish taco smothered in cabbage - as I wander closer to the enticing body of water at my favorite beach - T-Street.

It had been about a year and a half since I had wandered aimlessly through the colorful streets, remarking on the beauty and nonconformity that the houses gave in contrast to one another. It was here that I discovered the beauty that lies in the different, the unexpected. It was here that I realized the danger that comes when an individual strives too hard to fulfill the same future as the next person. It was here where I realized the beauty that I hold in calling T-Street my favorite beach.

Roads, Relationships, and Realizations

A personal essay by Tyler Erickson

Sunset on I-15

“On the highway of life, some ‘drivers’ may cross your lane and you may take ‘the wrong exit.’ Remain watchful until you reach your destiny.” – Assegid Habtewold

The north to south running freeway, I-15, winds through the diverse landscape of Utah. Through mountains high and valleys low it snakes. Beautiful red rocks with snow-capped peaks are seen as faces are pressed on the windows of cars. Yet, from Lehi to Provo, the freeway turns into a wild go-kart track.
This track, about four lanes wide with cars and semi-trucks and motorcyclists all sharing the same roadway, is where flat tires are born, as vehicles navigate the gaping pot-holes – those deep, dark, and endless potholes.

Fiery anger, from endless drivers, leads to curse words combined with inappropriate gestures and usher even the best of saints down a slow and slippery slope.

Leave it Fast

A personal essay by Kate Blatter

“Comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love” -Song of Solomon 2:5

Photo by Michele Blackwell on Unsplash

My favorite fruit to eat is an orange, but you’ll never hear me say that out loud. I was born and raised in the state that produces the most apples in the nation, so for emotional reasons apples will always be my favorite. Although it's probably strange to base your favorite fruit on emotional reasons rather than tangible, palatable ones, in a way I think I have the same relationship with apples that other people have with their state’s sports team. I picture someone showing up to work on a Monday morning and saying, “Did you know the Seattle Seahawks won yesterday??” and I hear echoes of myself proudly saying, “Did you know Washington State University created a new breed of apples??” as if anyone would care as much about Cosmic Crisp apples as someone whose roots are planted firmly in Washington soil. 

The Language of Art

A personal essay by Ashley Hayes

“There are two distinct languages. There is the verbal, which separates people… and there is the visual that is understood by everybody.” - Yaacov Agam.

They used to say I’d be the next Picasso. I wasn’t actually an exceptionally good artist - adults just tend to say cliche things like that when any kid has an ounce of prospective talent in them. Although I had no desire to be anything like Picasso - no one’s face actually looks like that Picasso, come on - comments like that really made me proud, maybe even a bit too proud. Now, I might not have appreciated Picasso's work, but I wish I would have realized earlier that at least his work had something to say; at least it made me feel something (even if it was a feeling of disgust). My doodles of Disney characters and my abysmal block lettering couldn’t make anyone feel anything, even if they were especially good for someone my age.

Ritual

A personal essay by Sara McOmber

The actions I do every day—those mundane, repetitive tasks—create a life not of meaningless routine, but of accumulated, beautiful experiences.


All my life, I’ve been terrified of mediocrity. Failure, though scary, is not nearly as devastating as the
idea that I’ll be just average—someone that people meet and immediately forget. What could be worse than living out a simple life and then passing on, the world not any different for your having lived in it? This fear has led me to a disdain of routine. I’ve believed that days filled with the same actions couldn’t possibly add up to a unique or noteworthy life. If each day is the same, how could my life be special?

And a lot of what I do each day is the same.

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.