Uncategorized
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Portland, Oregon is a walker’s city. Lovely neighborhoods, like Mississippi, Hawthorne, the Alphabet District, and Division/Clinton dot the city and make Portland feel like a collective of small towns, each representing a kaleidoscope of businesses and residences. Growing up in SW Portland, the eastside of Portland seemed as far away as Australia. But, after living…
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Then… You picked me up when I fell And soothed my broken skin and broken heart. You bought me new clothes for the first day of school And walked me to the front door when I was scared. You created a house that was a home And cheered me on in every soccer game and…
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Boom! Lights went out and sirens wailed. That’s what people remembered on that beautiful fall afternoon. I went to turn on the light switch, because I thought the light bulb burnt out, but nothing happened. Then, my husband came downstairs, “Did the power go out?” “I think so,” I replied. “I also heard tons of…
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“I only run if I’m being chased,” my friend Sean famously says whenever I talk about running. I love running and ever since I can remember, I have loved running. On the playground, affectionately called the fir grove, where the trees would touch the sky and create shadows to dance with, we would play “boys…
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It’s Friday afternoon and I am spent. There is a reason my friend calls it, “the Friday let-down.” I am ready for PJs and a glass of wine by 4:00 PM. So, when my husband and daughter had commitments outside of town early Saturday morning, we found ourselves driving to Boise on Friday afternoon. Sadly,…
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For my people, the mothers, who are told their womb is barren. An empty vessel. The ones who use needles, pills, and anything artificial to reproduce. The ones who are deficient. Broken. For my people, the mothers, who are told they can’t bring forth life, the thing that society and science say women are supposed…
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What’s a palindrome? It’s my name. You can spell it forwards and backward the same. Like, “A man a plan a canal Panama.” My name is a family name on my mother’s side. She was a great-aunt. I wish I had met my namesake. If she was anything like her sister, my grandmother, she would…
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It was spring 1998. I was studying abroad in Vietnam with 12 other American college students. We were there to immerse ourselves in the culture, people, history, and land of this Southeast Asian country. We followed the rhythms of the day as day turned to night. In the evenings, we ate Pho at street-side stalls.…
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“Let gravity do the work,” instructed my dad. I was small and needed some speed to get through the deep snow. We were skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho and it had snowed overnight. I had never skied in this much snow before. Some of my fondest memories are of skiing in Sun Valley. My family…
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His pupil got larger and larger, pulling me closer to him. Time stood still. Silent and suspended. “Bam!” My face hit his face. It was like hitting a concrete wall. Then, blood. So much blood. There was a full moon that night; it was Friday, January 13 and it was the first full moon of…
Throughlines 