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Baby, I Don’t Want to Know

January 10, 2018

By Shannon Lell

It was just before midnight in that sticky August air. My windows rolled down, feeling the wind my car made as I took the winding back roads listening to Fleetwood Mac. I was leaving the next day, for good, and I wanted to feel the hot wind of my hometown one last time. The back of my year-old 1996 Pathfinder contained all the belongings from two years of a desk job. On the seat next to me, a Tupperware container with the remains of homemade fruit salsa with sticky apples and grapes and jam along with homemade tortilla chips sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. It was for my own going-away party.

I was warm from all the things; the air, the apples, the love of my people I was leaving behind. The beers.

In that moment, I felt like I was leading up to the peak of a joy wave; one my life I hadn’t known for many years, maybe since I was little girl. That next day was my last day of my desk job. After work, I’d leave to get on a plane which was taking me on a greatest adventure of my life. First, I’d go to Seattle where the life was waiting. From there, we’d travel for a month to a Pacific island, through the Grand Canyon, over the Rockies, to the Bayou and to our new home together in the south. For a girl who’d barely left the Midwest in her 23 years, this was a very big deal. I’d gotten my first passport. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, Mental Health

A Reluctant Dance

September 28, 2017

By Diane E. Baumer

Plastic and expressionless, they lay in a pile, haphazardly tossed in with the fluffy pink elephant, the snow white Dalmatian with dark black spots, and the bright orange snake with the long red tongue named after my uncle Don. Of my treasured dolls, my favorite was Chickenhead. Her indelicate name came from my grandfather, who had aptly described her ratty coarse brown stand-up hair, the product of months and months of being grasped in a tiny hand and dragged along to every engagement that could ever be considered important in a 6-year-old’s life.

Chickenhead lived with the rest of my dolls and stuffed animals in a tall cardboard box tucked in the corner of a closet in the master bedroom that spanned the front of the house; my parents’ bed was in the center of the room, and I slept at the foot, in a kid-sized bed, complete with railings so I wouldn’t fall out. I’d sometimes crawl in the closet during the day, or late at night when I couldn’t sleep. With the door closed, it was dark as night and it was so quiet it would almost shut out the tense but hushed quarrels from the living room. It was child-small, but comfortably cozy, filled with that woody smell that comes with old houses and hardwood floors. I did all my thinking and wondering and worrying there, even though my mom said I was too young to have anything to worry about. The way I saw it, though, she only had me to look after. I had her and Chickenhead and Mrs. Beasley and all my other dolls to protect. I remember one morning when dad was home and we were sitting on the red couch in the living room – mom called it a divan in those days – and he took my doll dressed in the pretty pink gingham dress and threw her against the wall, laughing. I watched her, eyes wide and unblinking, tumbling through the air in slow motion, skirt flying up and exposing her shamefully. She hit the wall with a thud and slid down, landing in a heap on the floor, unmoving. My dad’s laughter echoed in my head, as I sat there, horrified. “That,” he said, “is what happens to little girls when they misbehave.” He tousled my hair. “But you’re a good girl, aren’t you?” My chest felt tight; I couldn’t catch my breath. Continue Reading…

Anxiety, Guest Posts

My Not So Hidden Anxiety

May 31, 2017

By Sara Ohlin

“Oh! We’re going to be late. We’re going to be late!” Lily’ s panicked voice rose above the din of skiers making their way toward the lodge mixed with the sounds of cars parking, children laughing.

I grasped her small, warm hand and squeezed it gently, as much for my own comfort as for hers. “Honey, we’ll be fine,” I said in the calmest voice I could fake for her. I was good at faking. “Jasper is the only one who has a lesson. We made it just in time, we’ll get him settled, then you and Dada can get your gear and go ski. We’re fine.”

My insides mimicked her panic. Officially we were on time. As in, my son’s lesson starts at 11:30 and it was now 11:30, but we still had to get him checked in and get his snowboard gear on. Late was more like it. Not as in we’re going to be late, but we were late. I hated being late. It made the bile rise in my throat and I wanted to spit it out on whoever was closest. I hated being late to the point I often didn’t react well if I knew it was a possibility. I looked down at my daughter, her blue eyes closed tight in the face of the sun, or impending lateness. I couldn’t tell, but in that second I felt the stab in my heart. Oh no! I thought, she’s just like me. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, Social Media

How Social Media Killed My Memories

February 1, 2017

By Nilanjana Bhowmick

Over-dependence on digital media to store memories is depleting them. We think we are creating memories, but we are in fact killing them. Our memories are more transient than ever before. They have never been as threatened before. As I found out when I lost the ability to see for two weeks.

On a patchy, unremarkable April evening, I was on my way to consult my doctor for a nagging migraine. I was sitting in the car, with temperatures threatening to climb over 45 degrees outside. The air conditioning in my car had given up the pretense of cooling. The car right in front was emitting black smoke in a thin spiral. Delhi’s bumper-to-bumper traffic refused to budge. The buzz of the daily, local market grew around me as did the swirling crowds. They dropped off and picked up, dropped off and picked up in their own lazy rhythm of heat-induced inertia. The steering wheels were sweating out the smug heat and the incessant, impatient honking. Snippets of a Bollywood song was floating in from an auto rickshaw with a garish pink interior. The driver was lip-syncing to the song. A romantic song I remember from my childhood. A man singing to his lover that her pink eyes were intoxicating.

The day would turn out to be one of the most momentous days of my life.

Later that evening the lights started dimming in front of my eyes and the world went down into deep shadows. I lost the ability to see for a whole two weeks. Just like that. Without the warning of an illness or accident. I should have remembered the day I went blind more vividly. But I don’t. My memories of that evening that you just read above are purely second-hand.

I remember them from my status updates on social media and a few pictures on my phone. Because I, like many many others of my generation of 30-40 year olds, was a victim of digital amnesia. Continue Reading…

Gratitude, Guest Posts, Travels

The Lasting Impact of “One Last Thing”

January 5, 2017

By Kristin O’Keefe

Of course she paced the van’s third row. Zoe knew what suitcases signified and she did not like to be left.

Abused as a puppy, our rescue dog would flinch when strangers raised a hand to pet her. She got better over time, but she was still frugal with affection. Zoe loved five people: my husband, our two children, my father and me. She tolerated everyone else.

Unfortunately for the dog, we promised friends in Europe that this was the year we’d visit.

At least Zoe wouldn’t be kenneled; she was old and sensitive and keened mournfully the times we dropped her at one. She’d be with family: first my sister-in-laws’ home for a few days, then off to my parents, where she’d rest her head on my father’s lap and patiently wait to be petted. Our dog was in good hands. Continue Reading…

Friendship, Guest Posts

When We Poured Coffee and Dreamed of Men and Horses

November 30, 2016

By Shannon Spangler

“What if God was one of us?” – Joan Osborne, 1995

I grew up in the middle of Kansas, a place where contrails score the baby-blanket blue of the sky, but only crop dusters land, a place of wind and dust and strip malls, their parking lots littered with fast-food detritus. Money was tight but my parents were teachers, and we were rich in the currency of education. My life traced a box, its four corners home, the Baptist church, school, and the public library.

To pay for college, I waitressed graveyard at a truck-stop diner just outside the city limits. As with any new job, the first task was to learn the language. “Eighty-six on the fried chicken.” “Coffees on ten.” “Hey, bitch,” from another of the waitresses was an endearment, unless it came from Lori. “Fuck,” at least, was familiar to me (although I’d never actually used it and wouldn’t for many years), mostly as verb and adjective, but here it became a sort of adverb (“fucking running my ass off”) or noun and pronoun (“fuck-wad”). Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, memories, Young Voices

I Miss The Bad Times

October 12, 2016

Note from Jen Pastiloff, founder of The Manifest-Station. This is part of our Young Voices Series for Girl Power: You Are Enough. We are always looking for more writing from YOU! Make sure you follow us on instagram at @GirlPowerYouAreEnough and on Facebook here.

By Alyssa Limperis

I said goodbye to one of my best friends from college today. He’s leaving NYC and moving west to go to Law School and be closer to his family. I feel sad. Maybe because I knew him when my dad was alive. Maybe because he’s one of the first people I go see when I have something to say. Maybe just because I want more late night, ice-cream-filled hangs. I’m sad to see him go. I’m sad that time keeps moving forward. After losing my dad, I want to hold tightly to everyone I love. I don’t want anyone to leave. Bryan represents my prior life. A life where I was scattered and free and waitressing and not quite sure where I wanted to be or what I wanted to do. He represents a time when I was depressed and lost. More than half of our hangs have been me crying to him. I spent so much time with Bryan worried about the future. Upset about the present. Hanging on to something from the past. I spent a lot of time on my phone. A lot of time in my head. I found out he was leaving a week ago and time slowed down. I instantly wanted to spend every minute with him. Digest all of his advice. Appreciate the profound comfort of sharing each other’s company. When time suddenly became limited, I wanted to freeze it and not let it escape. I wanted to go back and relive all of our times together. I suddenly yearned for feeling lost and uncomfortable and unsure. I wanted to be back to the time when I was deeply depressed. I wanted to go back to working doubles at a restaurant and slumping on his stoop in exhaustion on my way home. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, Relationships

Neurological Connection

September 28, 2016

By Moss Ruskin

I let go. But he let go first. I think of the words I said that marked the end with a bruised tongue.

I sat on top of him and held his face close to mine. His tears were rolling in between my fingers and his cheeks. They loosened my grip and when he shook his head, it was harder to hold on.

He said, “You don’t love me the way I need you to.”

Months later I sat across from him on the bed that held us through our entire relationship.

I said, “I don’t know how to be happy. I don’t even know what happiness is, really.”

He said, “Well, you know that’s not what I need right now.”

I left. I drove. I heaved. I woke up. I drank. I hurt -myself, for hurting him. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, memories, Women

Over-The-Counter Medicine

August 31, 2016

By Monica Drake

There’s no place more optimistic than a well-stocked pharmacy. Gleaming clean and rocking the high blast and buzz of fluorescents, everything on the shelves is there to save your life while it cushions your vanity. Crowded, tidy aisles scream, You can be healthy, strong and beautiful! When I was young enough to never need anything beyond an occasional shot of nighttime cough medicine—that sweet, Kool-Aid purple nurse in a bottle—but old enough to be out on my own, I had a job dusting cures, ringing up sales. We carried Epi-pens for anaphylactic shock, because even slight allergies can go seriously wrong. I read trifold pamphlets during the slower retail moments, making myself a student of human health. I learned that it can be the first exposure to an allergen, the tenth, or the hundredth time your body processes some unknown ingredient, in a kind of secret internal roulette, but every single second of the day there exists a slim chance: your immune system could kick into high gear and shut down your throat. It might start with an itch around your eyes or in your sweating armpits. Your blood pressure will drop, silently, and painlessly. That drop in blood pressure has the potential to undermine and weaken your brain’s decision making skills. Some people grow so cold they can’t stop shaking. It’s like a ghost has landed in their bones, when shock sets in. If you have it bad enough, your face can swell to twice its usual size. Then your cheeks sag into jowls and your eyelids get fat and you’re fifty years older than you were ten minutes before. Your skin will lump up in hives.

An allergic response can clog your lungs with fluid and swelling and then constrict your airways, cutting you off from your own life. This happens every six minutes, to somebody. If you’re fast and lucky, one jab with Epi-pen turns the whole mortal disaster around. You’ll be back in business! An Epi-pen can save your life. It’s a brilliant invention. A pharmacy has what you need.

Want to get high? It’s in the bins, drawers and vials. Time to sleep? That’s there, too. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, memories

Broken Records

May 15, 2016

By Vincent J. Fitzgerald

When I was young I grasped the tangible world of record stores, studied the featured album blared from speakers, and inhaled must from unmoved records. I roamed aisles of albums long since eradicated by the abstract world of digital music, captivated by a ritual ignited by bus rides debating the merits of hair bands versus heavy metal, and ending with comparisons of purchases soon to spin on turntables, later to be traded among my friends. In between I commiserated with fellow fans whose passionate positions helped me divert from Rock to Rap, opening my ears while raising friends’ eyebrows. That community has since disbanded, and banter silenced, replaced by a comment section in which I type some thoughts I fear no one will ever read.

I miss nods of approval from familiar cashiers who confirmed my selection solid. No one validates my push of a “buy” button; and a download lacks dramatic flair of fresh vinyl emerged from a brown paper sheath. I miss giving those nods as a record store clerk, long before I became a therapist and my opinions bore greater consequences. Continue Reading…

Family, Guest Posts

Childhood Revisited

May 2, 2016

By Liska Jacobs

We end up at my mother’s condominium one Saturday, waiting out traffic. She’s at work and we have the place to ourselves so I begin going through cupboards, rummaging through the pantry and fridge just as I did when I was a child coming home from school. I find the burned DVD with ’84-85’ written in my father’s hand in the back of her DVD collection. The air conditioning switches on, there’s a comforting hum that we don’t have in our one bedroom apartment in Pasadena, and we’ve filled a bowl with Goldfish crackers, opened a bottle of sparkling water. We press play.

Fuzz and then a plump young dad, hardly recognizable—younger than either my husband or myself are now. He’s video taping his wife who’s even more unrecognizable, just a girl with big auburn curls and thin, thin arms. How could she have birthed twins? But there they are—my twin sister and me—two baby girls, one dark the other fair.

Then it cuts. They’re playing in a blow up pool now. Naked and splashing. The mother pours water on the dark one, the oldest, me, over and over because they both think it’s funny. Get back here Dolly, she calls to the dark one’s twin, who is pale and small and trying to climb out of the plastic pool. Where are you going? This mother—face and hair so familiar yet alien—calls, splashing at my sister’s backside. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, Life, memories

Departures

March 18, 2016

By Andrew Bertaina

The world cares little for our departures. It spins and spins in the dark unaware that we are even here, spinning in that same dark. We are left to construct our own signs then, spin our own yarns about the moments that have marked us. We tell ourselves stories about first loves, parents, home, in order to give our lives structure, a foundation on which to build the architecture of the self. The meaning of our departures comes in hindsight, a postscript, leaving is not the car going down the driveway, the hand waving goodbye, it is considering, days, months, years later, what the leaving meant, trying to remember if you held your hand against the cold glass and what it meant that your mother didn’t cry. This essay is already a failure, an attempt to send myself a postcard from the future. I doubt I’ll have the sense to read it.

The last summer I spent in Chico, CA before leaving home was like any other: blazingly, soul-scorchingly, hot. It was the sort of heat about which people out east say, “It’s a dry heat though,” which is why I dislike almost everyone out east. The observation is made no less obnoxious by its veracity. The summer days in Washington D.C. are sauna-like, something to be endured, like watching golf on television. These relentless days always leave me longing for the cool California nights of my youth—crickets chirping and a light breeze prickling night’s skin.

Departing for college was the first of many adult severances. It felt like a pin prick at the time, an inevitable retracing of the steps taken by siblings and friends. They returned in the summers, strangers in a familiar land, stopping for a visit with the natives before returning to their new home. And yet, as the years have passed and college friendships and memories have faded, I realize that leaving Chico was a severance, an end to the era of a childhood and a farewell to my home, and to the idea of any place being home. Continue Reading…

Family, Guest Posts, Siblings, storytelling

The Memory Keepers

January 15, 2016

By Kelly Garriott Waite

My parents broke the news to my sisters and me one evening after dinner: My mother was having another child. My older sister, understanding our mother to be the Virgin Mary, refused to believe it. But it was true and with four children, we would need more space.

One town north and east, my parents bought forty acres of land we came to call the property. I didn’t consider whose property it had been, nor what memories of the place the previous owners held dear. It was ours now. That was all that mattered.

Weekends, we cleared the woods where our home was to be built, hauling brush and tree limbs to the burn pile, cutting and splitting logs for winter. When we took a break from our work, we wandered, discovering the secrets held by the land. The south field was stubbled with browned corn stalks gripping the soil. In the west field grew, besides corn, a window- and doorless cement building inside of which forgotten coils of thick wire, yellow and red and blue, were hidden by weeds. Where the corn yielded to woods, wild raspberries grew, big as my father’s thumb. A creek trickled through the woods, across which one day we came upon the junk pile, the stuff of life discarded from a long-ago, unknown family who had likely lived on the orchard behind the property. From the junk pile, I found a clear milk bottle from Rand’s Dairy and what my father identified as an ammunition box, from which I tried – and failed – to remove the patina that obscured the copper beneath.

We worked nearly every weekend. We built a barn. We built a house. We built a farm. We learned how to grow our food and preserve the harvest. We cleaned stalls and gathered eggs and nailed up board fencing to wooden posts. On a red wagon whose sides swayed dangerously whenever a tire caught a rut in what used to be the corn field, we learned to bale hay. As we shaped the land to fit our needs, gradually taking it from the property to the farm and, eventually just home, the land shaped us in return; defining our beliefs and becoming the foundation upon which we would build our lives.

As my siblings and I left for college, the barn emptied. My father sold the horses. The butcher loaded the last of the cows and the pigs into his truck. No new chickens appeared to replace those too old to lay eggs. The hayloft would never again house seasonal litters of blind, mewing kittens. My father rented the fields to a local farmer who replanted them in corn. I discarded the ammunition box: Its history held no value for me. Continue Reading…

Anonymous, Guest Posts

Living in the Past: Discovering Credible Facts in My Past Life Memories in the Holocaust

September 25, 2015

By Anonymous

A couple of nights ago, I woke up from a nightmare, disoriented and a heavy feeling in my chest. I dreamt that I had survived the Holocaust and was sitting in a concentration camp just days after liberation. I couldn’t see my reflection, but I looked down to see my that my legs were covered in filth. My toenails were bare and brittle, not the electric pink gels pedicure that I regularly sport. But what disturbed me most about the dream is the overwhelming depression and apathy I felt at having survived for nothing. I somehow knew my entire family had died and I kept thinking over and over, “I’ve spent the last few years trying to survive hour by hour, minute by minute, evading death at every turn. And now that I have, what is there to live for? How can I go on?” I think I even told one of the nurses there that I didn’t really want to live.

And then I woke up.

I’m not, in fact, a Holocaust survivor. I have no relatives that are survivors. My mother’s side of the family is what many people refer to as “hidden Jews.” This means they rejected Judaism for some reason or another and fully immersed themselves in Christianity (or the dominant culture). I wasn’t even alive during WWII; I grew up in the 1990s, two generations and an entire world away from the horror. My parents never sat me down to tell me about the Holocaust, as is the experience of many young Jewish children or descendants of Holocaust survivors. I had never seen a film about the Holocaust until long after my obsession began. Continue Reading…

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