It was my Junior year of high school that I first really went thrift shopping. My dad drove my two friends and I to downtown Portland, where he dropped us off while he went on his own kayaking adventure. The first shop had employees that were very condescending, so we did not stay long before drifting over to the second store. Here I found many things that I could fall in love with, though my tastes then were much more refined than they are presently. I remember that I bought my friend a pair of high heels because she was broke, but I don’t recall what I picked up. It is a short and simple memory, and it seems silly to refer back to a shopping incident as a turning point in one’s life, but that’s exactly what it was. That’s what they often have been for me.

At the risk of sounding materialistic, I want to express the importance clothing can have. It is a straightforward way in which we present ourselves to the world, which does much to direct the opinions of others upon first taking us in. Clothing is also a form of self-expression, creativity, and, at least for myself, an influence upon my confidence.

Back when I was a child, I hated pants. I wore skirts and dresses a plenty, preferably loose so that the wind could kiss my skin with its dance and refresh me. I also had sensitivity issues; there are clear memories of sitting on the floor our foyer crying that I did not want to wear my underwear, socks, or shoes as my mother sadly begged me to put them on and the bus drove past outside. I remember that a girl I called a friend told the rest of my class I did not wear underwear. I did wear little shorts. I laughed because her last name sounded like sorry, though it was spelled differently, and she was. I think I was too numb to cry. Her mom made her come to my house and apologize. They stood outside when they said it because I would not invite them in and kept the door only open as wide as I was. I remained her friend for some godforsaken reason, as she found more discreet ways to bully me and I stayed silent in my despair.

I remember standing in my kitchen screaming and crying because my dad was holding the only pair of tennis shoes that I had ever liked like they were going to contaminate him. He was telling me that they were trashed and that I needed to get a new pair, preferably ones with those thick heavy soles that are apparently good for one’s feet. I wasn’t sad because I loved them. I was sad because I had attachment issues and because of my desperate fear of trying to find a replacement. I just wanted things to stay comfortably the same.

In sixth grade, I grew tired of being the only one who dressed differently, caving and asking my parents to take me to one of the fancy popular stores at that time. I think I was trying to force my wardrobe into letting me belong, not knowing that that’s not how things work for people like me. I wasn’t going to be one of them, no matter how hard I wanted to try (though I only really did in the appearance department) and despite the hundreds of dollars that purchased ounces of clothing. How did my parents afford or allow those shopping trips I will never know, but I went back to school in my first pair of skinny jeans. No more gauchos for me. I felt self conscious, but triumphant as the complements and shocked expressions rolled in. Despite the immediate acceptance of my new look, the thin, tight shirts only hid my weirdness for so long and did little to protect me from the mess of hormones and confusion and cruelty that those years are.

I continued my search for normality until I hit high school. Well, I think I was still searching for some kind of normality but it was of a different group’s tastes. I believe I was just so desperate to belong that I thought if I looked the part, somehow I could magically shape myself to this person I am not. There had never seemed like there’s been a place where I can be just as I am, and so the search for some kind of wardrobe that would grant me membership continued.

My best friend and I kicked out of it some the summer before sophomore year. I remember us with our mothers getting first coffee, then driving to a piercing parlor in Beaverton. The place looked like a little house, quaint and blue with white trim, and a strange off-centered energy in the main room. We all went into the piercing room together and the woman had me lie down on the table. I can still feel the pinchers squeezing my eyebrow as she slid the needle thru. It wasn’t bad at all and it felt like a fist to the air declaring I was not what they wanted me to be. Though I was. All of this was only doing things for a different audience. I was always dressing for others’ benefit- either to impress, shock, or calm.

For a couple more years, I continued to try to fit into this darker alternative scene, though that doesn’t work when one isn’t being authentic. None of it does. I finally got to a point where I just started wearing what I wanted to, though with much reservation still, partly because I was tired of pruning myself to other’s tastes and partly because I discovered the joy of cheap clothing. Now, my life is ecstasy when I can get the price down to 89 cents a pound at the goodwill bins or I find 75% off, for a total of 2 dollars, pair of pants. I take pride in dressing in old woman trousers and things that have been loved before.

I remember the first time I cut my own pair of shorts from those high waisted granny pants. It was summer and I was with my bad-influence-but-good-influence-because-she-pulled-me-out-of-my-comfort-zone friend. She introduced me to the practice and I fell in love with doing things cheaper, smarted, healthier. It was to be in her good graces then, but I first started feeling comfortable in my body again that summer. It is as if I can trace my history through the clothes that I have worn. It still sounds superficial to my ears, but despite this I know that it is valid. I can see the twisting turns, the decisions I have made with my body synchronized with the changes that have occurred within myself, one overlaid upon the other as the events of my internal and external worlds and selves have unfurled.

I am standing at the smoker’s pit near the dorms at the beginning of my freshman year at Evergreen. I start up a conversation with someone I have only just met and they stop to compliment my outfit. I look down and realize that I am wearing something that I never would have worn before now; the fear that has kept me its prisoner so long is starting to retreat. In a way, I have come full circle. I am back to that early self, when skirts would blow in the breeze and I was free to dance in the music of it. But it not that time anymore, for time has passed and clothes worn and lessons learned. I am that me and I am this me. I tell my friend from back home that you could wear most anything here and someone is going to appreciate it. As I do I realize I don’t care anymore anyways. For the first time in years the wind blows along my leg hairs, tickling me with its liberating laughter, and my heart feels so open; no longer is there a square peg to jam myself into, tight socks that itch my toes, apologies.

Tasia Siereveld

4-5-15

Turning Point

In Search of lost time

For the 5th day in a row my mother had refused to get out of bed. She said she was “sick,” but even at 10 I knew she wasn’t the chicken soup and stuffy nose kind of sick, it was the other kind. It was an illness of the mind, and of the spirit, and her episodes were growing ever more frequent those past few years. For instance, when flight 175 crashed into the twin towers, I guess you could say she took it hard. The end of days is coming! She announced to my sister and I on our arrival home from school. She was certain that in a matter of days the world would be plunged into chaos, and that the apocalypse was nigh. We spent the entire afternoon hiding under the bed praying. It wasn’t until my father came home and found us that she could be calmed enough to venture out. When she wasn’t prophesying events of biblical proportions or finding demons in our ceramic decor, she was going on compulsive shopping sprees or in some cases just plain forgetting she had children to be home for. On a particularly rainy day I arrived home to an empty and locked house; I learned that picking a lock isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies. My father always tried to talk away the delusions, curb the erratic behavior, but he worked long hours, and to be honest, I think his patience had been wearing thin. So he came home later every night, and she slept longer every day.

The following friday was typical of Washington in October; the sky was hanging low, the fat gray clouds heavy with rain. I was leaning my head against the school bus window, day dreaming about a weekend shut up in my room reading, trying to escape the feelings of unease that had settled into every room of my house. I leaned my head against the window and traced shapes in the condensation on the glass. I would be 11 in a couple days, but I doubted much improvement would come from the addition of another year.

As the bus rounded the corner and pulled up to my stop, I saw an obscured figure standing on my front porch. I cleared a patch in the mist on the window so I could see clearly. It was my dad, home from work early. I found this so unusual that it disturbed me, and a lump that I could not swallow back formed in my throat.

I stepped off the bus cautiously, and took my time walking, afraid of the news I would receive upon reaching the porch. My little sister on the other hand, skipped, as merrily as you please, all the way home. She was never the most perceptive child, and tended to see the joy in every situation, rather than the grim reality that often stared us in the face.

“Daddy!” she squealed with glee, and jumped into our fathers arms.

“My Emma-loo bug!” he said. He forced a smile just for her as he lifted her into a hug. I on the other hand, got a different look entirely, one that said I have something to tell you, and it isn’t happy news.

After Emily was set up with a popsicle and a rerun of Arthur my dad told me to follow him out to the garage. Once out in the musty dimly lit carport, that for some reason or another my dad deemed suitable for father daughter chat, I felt the tension mount in my chest. My imagination invented a variety of horrific scenarios that could have warranted such an ominous welcome home. My mind went back to the image of the my parents bedroom door, which I had noticed on the way to the garage was hanging open for the first time in a week. The room, had been empty.

I was staring down at my tennis shoes, wondering why my dad hadn’t said anything yet, when I braved a glance in his direction. I saw for the first time in my life tears forming in his eyes, but he quickly composed himself and looked straight at me.

“Your mom,” he started, “your mom has left us.” I let the breath that I was holding go. I knew that I should have wanted to cry, but instead a wave of relief washed over me, and only a small twinge of guilt followed it.

“Where did she go?” I asked, as if I was asking what was for dinner.

“I don’t know.” he said. “Her note didn’t say.” I nodded, but I still couldn’t really comprehend. This wasn’t supposed to happen in normal happy families, I thought. I felt the delayed tears begin to arrive, and started to sniffle.

“Hey,” my dad, said softly, and he bent down to hold my face in his hands. “I know things haven’t been easy lately, but I promise you, we will be ok. We’re gonna start over, and we’re gonna be happy.” He kissed a tear off my cheek, like he did when I was little. “I’m sorry you have to grow up so fast Tasia.” I wasn’t sure what he meant at the time, but he was right, with him working full time, and a sister who was kind but unable to dedicate herself to a task for more than a few minutes, many of the responsibilities of a second parent fell to me. But he was right about something else too, after a lot of adjusting, and some healing, we were happy. It wasn’t so much the absence of my mother that changed the course of my life, but the newfound presence of my father. He redoubled his efforts as a parent, pushing us to study, making sure we were clean and had a warm meal every night, goals my mother could not always accomplish. It was years before we learned our new roles, but I had what I had always longed for, stability. We never quite achieved “normal”, but we did achieve a quite unique, but very happy family.

Climbing the rust stained concrete steps, with the black metal hand rail which could not be trusted. Two of the three posts had already broken free from the concrete, in some time before mine, by a combination of rust and weathering, leaving the middle one which had already been encircled with cracks. I knocked three times before I tried to enter, the door was locked, and then the sound of movement from within. The sky was dark and clear, cold, the moon was like a scythe preparing to reap the stars. Inside the house smelled sweaty and old, and it was an old woman who greeted me, someone I had not met before. She wore a black knitted coat and black pants; she had a hunched back and moved slowly, her face was very kind. She introduced herself as Pat.

“Good evening, I’m filling in for Dave tonight” Was the first thing I said inside the house.

“Oh good evening! I was wondering who they would find for tonight,” were the first words I heard in the house. “I was afraid I’d be here all night.”

The house was a duplex which housed four people. Pat gave me the tour: there was the living room with its couch, its arm chair, and its standard definition TV in an oak entertainment center; beyond this, opposite the front door, was the kitchen doorway (without a door) and the hallway running off to the left, with the big bedroom at another left, and terminating at a narrow door, which was to remain shut, leading to the middle space of the duplex, and right from there was the bathroom; in the kitchen, there was a door leading to the laundry room at the back of the house, and a door to the right leading to the small bedroom, which was meant, I think, to be an office.

Pat said “good bye” and I said “good night” and then I was alone in the house except for the occupants who were both sleeping. I could hear their snores through their doors. I sat down on the couch and opened an energy drink. The TV was playing infomercials; I turned the volume all the way down and opened a book. Six minutes passed and the door to the small bedroom opened, and I met Jeff. He was short and stout and had a very large forehead covered in zits. He stepped out from around the corner and smiled at me. He held out his fist, and I bumped it with mine.

I had heard about Jeff before. He liked to spit on people, and one time he broke his staff’s leg by kicking him. The stories I heard described one of the most notorious of our clients. Jeff stood in front of me smiling for a moment so palpably awkward that I couldn’t help but smile back, and then we were both laughing. Jeff spent the next several hours asking me questions from his bed. The house was small, and he didn’t have to speak very loudly form me to hear him. Jeff was one year, one month, and one day younger than me; he liked cars and anything that focused on cars, and he liked to talk to people. He spoke more clearly than I expected, and he was very polite. He had lived in this house for two years, which meant he had been around about as long as I had. He entered to program from foster care, and his foster mom applied to be, and was hired as, his first Head of House. Within a year or two she would quit however, or she was fired, I never heard the same story twice, but I was told that if and when she called the house, I would have to listen to her conversations with Jeff on the other line and take note if they ever mentioned the company or started talking about money. She called twice that I can remember in all the time I worked with Jeff and their topics for conversations were no deeper than the weather. Before he was in foster care, Jeff lived with his mother and father and ten siblings in Idaho. They were a religious family and the kids were all homeschooled. Both parents were abusive to their kids, especially Jeff who was diagnosed with autism when he was about 15, and this abuse the kids absorbed and projected on to one another, while they were children, and at the world, when they were adults.

3am finished Jeff that first night, as it finishes so many, and I would not see Jeff again for another two years, after I had gotten tired of graveyard shifts and of always being tired. When, at talent show practice, I was introduced to Jeff again by my sister, his acting Head of House. He was the only one there who had nothing to do with the talent show. He sat with his face glued to his Gameboy, ignoring everyone. In that moment, and many times in the coming years, I saw something of myself in him. I would be his new swing staff, the hours between 3 and 11 pm. My job would be to become a positive influence of Jeff’s life. For the next few years, swing shifts at first and then days, I tried to help Jeff develop healthy habits, like showering every day, eating healthy and exercising. The habits I tried to instill in him ended up sticking with me as well. I had to set an example or else I would have no grounds to expect him to try to change his old habits. The habits his family had taught him in those crucial first few years of life where a person is building his or her entire framework for how the world is supposed to be and what are normal healthy ways to act, which, in Jeff, were even more deeply established due to his autism. In the years I worked with Jeff he became, to me, both a reason to give up on college and make helping this young man my career, and to continue with college and hopefully help more people like him, perhaps save them before they become like him.

That first night with Jeff passed peacefully. Other days and nights with Jeff were less peaceful. In the morning there came a knock on the door a good twenty minutes before I expected, and before the sun was rising I was in bed, guarded from its obnoxious radiance by a double layer of black garbage bags taped over my windows.

Michelle McGee

Professor Davis and Schrager

In Search of Lost Time

06 April 2015

My Turning point

When UC Merced first opened, my mother and father were ecstatic, as a young eight-year-old, I;however, did not bother to care. Ever since the UC opened up in my home town my parents knew that was the place for me, they would tell me everyday something new and fascinating about the new university and why it would be the perfect place for me. As time went on my determined parents continued to tell me about UC Merced and I continued to not listen, that was until my Senior year in college came around. I had done fairly well in High School, I graduated with a 3.9 GPA,1850 SAT Score, and passed all of my AP Exams all awhile maintaining a rank of number two in the Central California Tennis Conference.

When I started to apply to colleges, I picked only the top Universities I loved. These included UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis, Long Beach State, Fresno State and San Francisco State; however there was always one my parents wanted me to apply to, UC Merced. Also because my parents were paying for my University I had to obey my their rules, and I was also only seventeen too. After working on my applications and redoing my personal statement hundreds of times, I finally sent all my applications in. The most difficult thing to do was wait, first it was a month, then two, then three, and finally almost four months past until I heard back from the first University, it was Long Beach State. Long Beach State accepted me and said that they would love if I would join their team and become a Prospector, the mascot for Long Beach State. That was one of the happiest moments in my life, I had just been accepted into my first university and I had done it through hard work and determination. The next day SF State accepted me along with Fresno State and then, silence. The UC system usually takes up to four months to send acceptance letters to students. I waited the long four months. The first UC that contact me was UC Davis. UC Davis had always been my dream school so when I discovered that I had gotten in, I was ecstatic. As that week went on I heard from UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine. I was accepted to Santa Barbara and wait listed for Irvine. The final UC to responded to me was UC Merced. When UC Merced congratulated me on acceptance I did not know how to feel, and let alone tell my parents. I told my parents about UC Merced a week later, scared of how they were going to respond. Of course they were ecstatic and insisted on me attending; however, I did not feel the same. I had no idea where to attend college, my parents were paying for my education but I still wanted to go where I wanted to go. I ended up going to UC Merced because of the cost, my parents were so happy and believed that I would gain success in every way.
I graduated high school and started UC Merced in the fall. I was okay but as the semester went on, I dreaded going to class everyday. I felt a disconnect from myself, my family, and my professors. This went on for about 4 months. When the semester ended, I had a choice, To stay at UC Merced and finish my Associates Degree or transfer to a completely different College and experience what I relived was ‘exceptional’ learning. I decided to go with the latter. This was my turning point. I left UC Merced with big eyes and an open heart, traveling twelve hours away from home and leaving California, I decided to attend The Evergreen State College. My parents were heart broken, they believed I had left because of them. I had left because they pushed my to stay in Merced and go to school where they could watch me. This was all false. I left because UC Merced was not the University for me.
When I arrived to Evergreen State, everything was different. The people, the environment, the learning. It was everything I was looking for. My parents did not understand much, they did not comprehend why I would leave UC Merced and move to Washington. My relationship with my parents has taken a harsh hit since then. They tell me every chance they have that I missed an amazing chance with UC Merced and I continue to tell them that they are missing the amazing chance I have here, at Evergreen. Our relationship has not been the same since I left, but my happiness seems to grow everyday.

Amethyst Olive
Sam Schrager, Stacey Davis
3/5/15

Turning Point

The word “God” has a variety of meanings to different people. To some it means fear, to others it means faith. When I was a little girl, the word “God” was a notion of comfort; a force in the sky that did good things for good people. A theory I didn’t question until my first communion.
My grandma used to tell me many stories about God and the many miracles he performed. She would tell me that everything we had and everything we were was because of him. I was enchanted, completely content with the promise of a good life and the eventual entrance to heaven for being a holy person.
By the time I was ready to begin school, it was decided that I would attend the Catholic school “Holy Rosary” where I would continue my education about God and what it meant to be a true Catholic girl. While I was there, I learned things like the Ten Commandments, the Stations of the Cross, and all about the many different Saints. What I remember most however is the year my 2nd grade teacher began to prepare us for our first communion.
Every day there was a time when my teacher would have the whole class sit on a giant blue carpet in the corner of the room. She would then sit down in a chair set in front of us and pull out various papers that held all of the information we would need for one of the most important days of our lives: the day we committed ourselves to Catholicism and confessed our sins to the priest for the first time. I was mostly excited about the pretty white dress I would get to wear and the piece of cake that would be waiting for me after the ceremony.
However it was during these times in class that I began to start having many questions, like “how do you really know there is a heaven,” or “if God forgives us of our sins, then why is there a hell?” For every question I had I would receive the very same answer: You just have to have faith. Every time I was told this, I only grew more and more confused, which only evoked more questions.
Soon enough, the day of my first communion came and I decided that since I would be committing myself officially, God would present me with the answers I had been searching for. My grandparents were so proud. I slipped into my white dress and veil, buckled my new white dress shoes and began my venture to the chapel. When I arrived, all of my classmates were there, looking just as sharp. I dipped my fingers in the holy water, walked down the aisle, kneeled at the pew and waited for the ceremony to begin- the whole time contemplating what I would confess to the priest, wondering if I would be forgiven and be worthy of God’s grace.
Finally, it was my turn. I went into the confessional booth and the priest began his speech. I confessed that I had been mean to my younger sisters that week, and he told me I was forgiven by the Lord and directed me to do ten Hail Mary’s, in which I immediately obliged. To complete the sacrament, I was to taste the flesh of Christ, which just tasted like flavorless bread that sort of melted on your tongue; and the blood of Christ, which I was relieved to discover, was actually just grape juice.
When the ceremony was over, I felt a sense of relief- but not because I now held the answers I was so eager to receive, but more so because it had been a long ceremony and I was ready to go home. The day I thought would bring me more answers only again filled me with even more questions that could not be answered. How could this be, could every and any sin just be forgiven with a ten Hail Mary? Could something as dark as murder be the same worth as my bullying? Nothing was what it seemed. The flesh wasn’t flesh, the blood wasn’t blood, and my confessions lead me to no real answers and no real sense of a connection to God. I could feel the enchantment that once filled me so begin to slowly fade away.
This was one of the very first turning points in my life. The moment I began to question everything I was ever taught about life and death. I began to realize that nobody really had the answers. The comfort I once knew began to dwindle. I no longer had confidence in what I was committing myself to, because nobody gave me a solid answer about what it all really meant. I did, however, begin to find comfort in the fact that although I wasn’t sure if anything was true or what I believed, I still knew that I wanted to be a good person and I had the power to do that.
Over the years I learned to develop my own truths about the world and life and death. I took values form the Catholicism that I liked and left the other ideas and rules that I didn’t. To this day, the word “God” is still a comfort and it still brings me hope. It’s just the definition of “God” that has changed for me over the years.

Kansas is my home. And despite the fact that I feel slightly nauseous admitting this, it isn’t completely awful. We have the world’s largest ball of twine, the world’s largest prairie dog statue, and the world’s largest Van Gogh repainting (none of which are particularly interesting, but all of which I have touched). We also have snow every Christmas, sunflowers that make me feel insecure in my height, and skies that look less like actual real atmospheric occurrences, and more like the coloring book of a very imaginative child.

I am, however, sometimes very justified in my complaints about Kansas. My hometown of Topeka, specifically, is where the Westboro Baptist Church is located. And even though they are a very extreme group, many of the people I grew up with shared their fundamental beliefs. My father used to be friends with several of their members. Sometimes, when affiliates of the church visit town, he lets them stay in our house with us.

I figured out I was gay halfway through my freshman year of high school. I had been attending the same small, private, k-12 Christian school since fourth grade. And while it wasn’t exactly the Westboro Baptist Church, it was definitely very far from perfect Christian love. The first, second, third, fourth, fifth times I heard the words “fag” and “dyke,” were from the mouth of one of my middle school teachers during our history class. In my tenth grade literature class, when we got to the inner ring of the seventh circle of hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy, our teacher asked us what we thought would be a fitting eternal punishment for homosexuals. One of my friends raised his hand and said, “I think they should be ripped apart, like how they ripped apart God’s plan for their life.” It’s amazing what people will say about you when they think you’re not there.

Obviously, coming out would not have been the best option for me at the time. But it would have killed me to completely play along with their hatred, so I fought back in whatever small ways I could. I refused to use traditional male pronouns when I talked about God, I tried to tie feminism into every academic paper and essay I wrote, and whenever we read Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams, Emily Dickinson, or William Shakespeare, I always reminded the class that these authors were very much not straight. Nothing I did or said directly challenged anyone’s core beliefs, so I felt safe, but by eleventh grade, you could see my teachers physically bracing themselves whenever I raised my hand. I loved it.

The summer before my senior year I began the very slow process of coming out. I told two of my friends from school, but it took the entire break for me to stop dropping hints and actually say it. A week before school started up again, I actually felt vaguely ready for once. While my support system was small, it was nice to have one. I had just gotten home from a sleepover when I received a call from my principal. She wanted to meet with me the next day so we could “address some issues.” I am an incredibly anxious person, so I spent the next twenty four hours wanting to throw up, wondering which of my multiple offenses and sins she wanted to discuss. But when I finally showed up in her office, I somehow wasn’t surprised at all by what she wanted to talk about. She asked me sit down, and then she sat down and folded her hands on the desk in front of her. She unfolded them a second later and started tapping her fingers against the wood like she always does when she’s uncomfortable. She sighed, and said that she heard some rumors about me over the summer.

The next fifteen minutes felt more like fifteen hours, and consisted of my principal slowly but surely forcing me to come out to her, to justify my existence to her. She rubbed the temples of her head, silently mouthed a couple words I couldn’t quite catch, and then she gave her offer. First, I would not come out to anyone else while I was still affiliated with the school. Second, I would tell the people I had already come out to (and anyone else who might ask), that I just had a brief period of confusion, and it is now behind me. And finally, third, that I would stop rocking the boat and making everyone uncomfortable. As long as I met these conditions, I would be allowed spend my senior year at the school. I agreed immediately. I didn’t even think about it. This is something I have been ashamed of ever since. I finally had the chance to stick up for myself, to stick up for something I believe in, to do something that could make actual change happen, but I was too scared. I grew up feeling the disappointment and disgust everyone felt towards people like me, and I allowed myself to internalize it, so somehow, part of me felt like it was a reasonable request. This was the point where I realize that even though it felt good to be a little subversive the last three years, it would take a lot more than that to actually make the school a safe place for me and anyone else who was in the same situation. It’s good to be brave, but you have to make sure you can be brave when it counts. I’ve tried to be braver since then. I don’t know if I can count the number of times I have used the exact words, “No, no, the Sodom and Gomorrah thing was about hospitality.”

While Kansas is not completely awful, it is mostly awful. And I just want to be the kind of person who is strong enough to make it less awful.

4-6-15

Before I found out I was pregnant I considered myself responsible, but I always did things the “easy way out” just so I can go party with my friends. My priorities were school over anything but that got blurry once I got a taste of “freedom.” The only reason I thought going out to parties was considered freedom was because I felt apart of something. I made friends with people who I barely even knew and who supposedly had my back. Now that I think of it, I never had a group of real friends who I called my own and was able to keep them because I was an Army brat and because I was too shy to warm up to them. When I did get the chance, it was in high school and too late because those friends were always a year older than me, graduating and moving on with their lives. The only people who I thought had my back at that time and road with me to parties was my cousin Callie, and a few other slutty girls who, I know now weren’t very good people to associate myself with in the first place. Callie was the wild one and the moocher, Kacey was the slut that slept with everyone for everything, and Kate was the alcoholic. Each of these girls would text me asking to hang out but had ulterior motives. “Let’s go to the RAC and pick up,” which meant I was buying and needed cash to pull out. Or  “There’s a party at the peak, lets go,” was code for can you drive? I never declined because I felt important to them.

I knew something was wrong with me, but I never thought the signs out thoroughly. My period usually came late, but I was more moody than usual. My sex drive was so off the charts. I felt like every time I was taking lines and smoking trees my body rejected the substances by making me three times sicker by throwing up and have outrageous migraines and body aches. I was constantly tired, gained weight and felt sluggish. I couldn’t come to the conclusion that I was pregnant and my friends helped me stay in denial, “I think you’re just dehydrated and hung over from the other night. Can you go to the bedroom please,” Mark and Callie would beg me as I curled up next to the toilet bowl, praying to the porcelain gods. I nodded thinking of nothing better than to dive under our thousand count sheets and bury my face into the pillows that I remember smelled of cigarettes, lavender and Mark’s musky-greatness. Thinking of the stench of cigarettes caused a tension of saliva that built up in the back of my throat. I remember gulping the puddle of saliva in my mouth back, attempting to resist the urge to throw up and got up to my feet. My hands remained on my stomach as I proceeded into the bedroom. I can imagine our cluttered hallway, clothes outlining the walkway, and dog toys sporadic in the living room. I forgot that night that we had company and I was too lazy to put on more clothes. So as I passed through the living room in nothing but a tee shirt and my underwear I remember hearing the whispers from soft female voices that, “She’s looking bigger than usual.” I don’t know why I didn’t look over my shoulder or at least say something smart ass to them like, “Who the hell are you to monitor my weight?” or “Mind your own damn business!” To help the situation along a picture of Callie, my other cousins and I were hung up next to the bedroom door. The ten of us was performing a hula dance to Pau Hana’s “Island girls” back in 2004 for my sister’s graduation party. My flat stomach and bronze abs glittered with the flash peeking out between a coconut shell bra and a grass skirt. I guess that was the moment when I actually thought about the weight I’ve been gaining and why I felt so sick and only for short periods of times? I made it a habit to remind myself to go to the store and buy a pregnancy test but Callie, Iz and Brandon encouraged me to spend all my money on thizz (for those who aren’t from the bay, thizz is ecstasy pills) trees and alcohol. I didn’t care until I was broke and couldn’t even afford putting gas in my tank to go to work-study and class. The moment I climbed into the bed a heavy dark entity rests upon my chest putting me to sleep. That night I remember dreaming that I was in a weird random house, laying in bed with an elephant size belly moaning in pain and yelling towards a door frame in what looked like an empty room, at my baby daddy (who ever that was) to “GET IT OUT!” Abruptly, I woke up in a cold sweat I could only imagine Mark walking through the doorframe in which I screamed through, in my dream.  From that moment on, I couldn’t stop stressing about needing to sell my things in order to afford a few pregnancy tests. I knew in the back of my mind that those grocery store tests weren’t the real deal, but I wasn’t ready to face my consequences quite yet. I wanted to live longer with Mark because I knew he’s my baby’s dad. Plus, Mark was too young and not accountable of anyone (not even himself) so I felt like I didn’t want to put this burden on him nonetheless, since he has his whole life still ahead of him. I finally took two different pregnancy tests and they both read negative. To celebrate the “in denial news” I went out with my friends to the Peak party. I remember getting into the biggest fistfights of my life at that party.  This random guy was a good six-foot something and began yelling in my face (obviously because he was too drunk to realize what he was doing) about how stupid it was that young people like Mark were at the party. I took offense because he was my boyfriend and I started yelling back at him to not disrespect the people I come with. He pushed me away, I think for getting up in his face. So I pushed him back and clocked him right in the nose, starting the domino affect of fights. Everyone I came with grabbed someone and began fighting their way towards that six-foot something guy. I don’t remember much after that.

I stopped going to parties from that point on because that stage of denial passed and I knew why my body was rejecting everything I put in it, even food. My cousin Callie helped me set up my health insurance and we made an appointment at the doctor to give me a piece of mind about the entire situation. The drive to Sea-Mar with Sam, Tony and Callie felt like I was driving for hours. I kept praying that all of this was just some mistake. The ironic part is, it was Valentines Day. I only remember that because I had made cupcakes for Callie my Valentine and was wearing a purple floral quarter sleeved dress with my floral acid washed jeans jacket. She held my hand walking in. The receptionist led me into the back room Lab for a urinalysis.

“It will take a few minutes to read but the doctor will be in with you if you can fill out these papers please.” My stomach dropped, by the way she said this as if the paper work was a pre-determined answer that I was pregnant. I squeezed tighter to her hand and held my breath in prayer accepting the fact that I can no longer run away from this and asking god to give me strength and motivation to change my life for the sake of my unborn child.

Jessie Nace

In search of lost time

Spring 2015

Turning Point Essay

In 1983 I was eight years old, my parents had been separated on and off for about a year, however, my dad would come around and spend time with us. My mother, me, my baby sister and my 2 brothers lived in a three bedroom rambler right behind my grandmother. We were so close that we could take a path and be on her cul-de-sac. We had a big back yard where my brothers and I would spend hours digging to China. In first grade I had been diagnosed with dyslexia, and been transferred to a special school, for in those days not all elementary schools had special education staff.

My dad was a man that found disabilities a waste of time, he felt that if you worked hard enough you could overcome anything. So at this particular visit, he made it his mission to cure me of my dyslexia. I don’t really remember exactly why he chose to focus on spelling, however, this is where he thought he would start. So he got my spelling list from the school, talked to my teacher, whom I remember he said that he didn’t like. I remember I didn’t much like her either. She always seemed unhappy, like she didn’t want to be where she was.

So my dad has the list, we are seated at the dining room table with a new spiral notebook, several yellow office notebooks, new sharpened pencils, a timer and me an excited eight year old, who when I look back I think it had a lot to do with the attention from my dad.  Spelling words like elephant, telephone, and saxophone, they were called phonics, and at this point I didn’t get them. So my dad started out by asking me to spell the word, “spell elephant”, dad said. “E-L-A-F-A-N-T”, “no, try again”  “E-L-E-F-A-N-T” “no, let’s try this” He took the notebook and wrote E-L-E-P-H-A-N-T, then said write this fifteen times.  Then he walked away. So I took my pencil and wrote the word, fifteen time. He came back and looked at the paper, then looked at me and then at the paper. I wasn’t sure what I had done wrong, but I could tell by his furrowed brow, and pursed lips that something clearly was not right. “Jessica, what is this”? He asked with a slight annoyance to his voice. I wasn’t sure what he was referring to, maybe I had not written it large enough, or not clearly enough. “Daddy, I copied what you wrote”.  “No you didn’t, the E, P and N are all backward, if you copied it exactly then they wouldn’t be”. Why are they all backward? “I am sorry daddy, I don’t know why I do that”.

So we spend the next three hours writing out the letters until they were no longer backward. Then I practiced writing the words. “Jessica spell elephant”, my dad said later, after my hand hurt, and I could barley see the paper.  “E-l-E-P-H-A-N-T” I replied, slowly spelling out each letter.  “Good, now spell telephone, my dad said, trying to catch me off guard. “T-E-L-E-P-H-O-N-E”, I spelled with a smile on my face. It wasn’t just the words, it was the idea that I had gotten my dad’s help. That he spends much time helping me, yeah, it was exhausting, but he was hardly ever around so this was to my eight year old self a win.  There were other words, on the list, however the only two that stood out in my mind were elephants and telephone.

Later, when I had been in bed for a while, I saw someone come into my room with a sheet over their head like a ghost, they whispered “Jessica spell elephant, half asleep I replied “E-L-E-P-H-A-N-T”.  He was so excited that he threw the sheet up over his head, hit the glass light bulb cover and broke it with his back. My mom heard the commotion and came into the room. My dad was bleeding, my mom was saying “Bill you’re bleeding, he didn’t seem to care, because he listened to me spell elephant over and over again.

I never spelled elephant wrong again and with hard work I eventually didn’t have dyslexia. (Except for maybe when I am getting somewhere, direction is sometimes a challenge, but hey, that’s what google maps are for)   The turning point was that no matter what roadblocks got in my way I could overcome them with hard work no matter what it was I wanted to accomplish. I remember how to spell elephant whenever I feel like giving up.

Haley VandenHazel

In Search of Lost Time

Turning Point Essay

4-5-15

There are specific moments in our life that spark personal growth and divert our path. These often occur to us so gradually that, “even if we are able to distinguish, successively, each of its different states, we are still spared the actual sensation of change” (Proust, 117). The sensation was the coffee.

It happened the first time as I was sitting in the living room on the plushy white couch waiting for my brother. As usual, the whole family had arrived on-time and we all sat in a maddened silence. “Get downstairs for family meeting” my mom howled at my brother who would eventually grace us with his presence several minutes later. As to save me from the exasperated worry about homework getting done and the promise these meetings always gave of conflict without resolution, my dad offered me a drink of his black coffee. Taking my role seriously as the mature eldest child, I accepted the test. I will never forget the playful glimmer my dad’s eyes and the humorous eruption that followed as I squinted up my face in utter repulsion. If I would have known these looks from my dad would become unwonted occurrences, that one day very soon he would stop looking at me like that, I might have endured the entire mug.

It happened again one beautiful spring day in Eugene, Oregon, a couple years later. My best friend and I had decided to go to “Tall Frappuccino Day” at Starbucks to celebrate our last day together before summer break.  After waiting in line for twenty minutes, apparently Chelsea ordered a Soy, Green Tea, Trenti, Frappuccino. After the drink had been created she gave me that contemptible guise that had served as the pinnacle of my utmost irascibility that year. Not only had she failed to bring her wallet, she hadn’t paid attention to the fact that she was supposed to order a tall Frappuccino, and she had ordered some ridiculously overpriced drink. In this moment, I realized that she was my absolute foil in the sense of responsibility but she had, within herself, what I did not. She had a way with people, an infectious personality that drew people to want to know her. She was just irresponsible enough to bring fun and spontaneity to my life. This experience was but an extension of the running joke that she owed me like 300 dollars; of which payments have yet to be collected.

Coffee was a part of my image when I became a hipster but then soon rejected when I became a real hipster. Coffee made me believe that we are all just telling ourselves that it tastes good, when it actually doesn’t; an example of a major conspiracy theory of mine. Coffee was the morally sound option to keep me from becoming an alcoholic. Coffee was the place for friendship and the mentorship; the drink of choice to be paired with the most beautiful and truthful words ever spoken to me. Coffee was the big white escape from vulnerability; the cup of emotional separation between two people. Coffee was the friend that kept me feeling affirmed, energized, and alive; simple but complex, always consistent. Coffee was always paired with overcoming my own perfectionism, my own close-mindedness, my own obsession with binding repetition and structure. Coffee helped me see other people, in their imperfections, as redeemed by God, precious, and worthy of love. It turns out coffee was actually none of these. Nonetheless, I have become intimately attached.

Works Cited

Proust, M. (2003). Combray. In In Search of Lost Time (Vol. 1, p. 117). Random House