Essay
Words and Afterwords
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The personal experiences of sexual assault and how the response afterwards compounded the damage. (about 1750 words)
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A Montana sky splayed a zillion diamonds above us. We were two thirteen-year-old girls, alone on a school playground, catching altitude on a creaky swing set. A chubby milky moon rose as freight trains carrying timber rattled and rumbled in the distance. It was August, 1968 and the Rolling Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash was at the top of the charts. The hint of summer’s end hovered as we talked and laughed, boisterous and free. Our future felt boundaryless until, in an instant, our confidence, born from sheer naïveté, disappeared into a cloud of panic.
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Or
A compassionate yet hard hitting look at why people believe in God or don't believe in God. (about 1,600 words)
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You’ve got a fantastic sound system along with a massive flat screen TV. You have an eye on a motorboat. You imagine the salt air and sunshine on your skin and that feeling of accomplishment, pride in yourself and your natural abilities. Once the stock market cooperates you’ll buy that flat in London. Ski the Alps. Go to Carnival in Buenos Aires. Make an echo in the Taj Mahal. Have sex on the beach. Eat crème brûlée. God? Totally unnecessary.
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Alchemy
A creative non-fiction essay about inherited trauma. (about 3,500 words)
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My adult son works in tech and publishes a zine in his spare time. He does not remember much of his childhood and possesses a certain melancholy. He tells me that it comes from an overdose of empathy which he traces back to me. He doesn’t say this with resentment, he says it coolly as if it is understood to be an inheritance, like having blue gray eyes instead of brown. He has no idea how right he is.
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Changing Clothes
A story of cancer, and the compassionate and intentional death of a friend. (about 2,034 words)
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That Sunday I made soft, peanut butter cookies and brought them over to their house. Earlier when I had asked Doug what kind of treat could I bring him, Doug pursed his lips and went into deep concentration. I could tell he was running down a list of goodies, and landed on peanut butter cookies, not imported beer, not tapioca pudding, not melon sorbet, but old-fashioned peanut butter cookies, no added chocolate, thank you very much. Was that what it was like to be dying? Was it pleasant to think of an assortment of sensory moments, then choosing a particular one to soak up? He was existing in an in-between state. This seeded the question: When attached to the life of the body how does one become one with the sky?
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