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In Which I Explain to My Goddaughter (and Myself) What It Means to Have (and Be) a Godmother
When close friends asked my partner and I to be godparents to their daughter, the four of us got to decide what the relationship would mean to us.
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[My Upanishad] Something I Wrote in a Class I Almost Didn’t Take Because It Was Called Lit of the Sacred
Years ago I signed up for a class at Utah Valley University called “Literature of the Sacred,” specifically because my first instinct was to dismiss it. I reconsidered. This wasn’t BYU, after all, and the course description didn’t read like Seminary or Institute (the school-adjacent religious courses I attended as a high school student and during my first semester as an undergrad back in the early 00s). Maybe this class would help cleanse the bitterness mormonism had left on my tongue for words like “sacred,” “faith,” and “prayer.” Maybe it would be a good companion course to the work I was doing in therapy. I thought of all my classes…
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A Eulogy for My Grandpa
This is a version of the eulogy I wrote for my mom's dad this past year. I read this to my relatives during his graveside service. It includes excerpts from journals he wrote during the LDS mission he served in 1951, which is where he met my grandma. I didn't read this exact version at his graveside though. The eulogy I actually read was edited to remove superfluous details about my personal life and experiences. Those I'll share here, on my personal blog.
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āAtomic Habitsā by James Clear and the Self-Care Ritual of Routine: Or How I Plan to Process 2020
I find a lot of comfort in routine, controlling the things I can control when so much of the outside world feels and is so broken. My emotional stamina is currently finite and fleeting, so I have to spend it wisely or risk losing, hours, days, whatever to debilitating anxiety, which brings me to the point of this post: self-care.
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From Mexican Child Laborer to Civilian Engineer for the U.S. Department of Defense: An Interview with My Dad on the Eve of His Retirement
My parents are taking me to the train. We back out of the driveway and get a view of the house theyāve been living in since 2012. Itās the biggest house theyāve ever owned. Vaulted ceilings, almost a full acre lot, plenty of room for their thirty-four children, in-laws, and grandchildrenāand five dog-grandchildrenāto gather together at once.
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Personal Progress Stories: “My Journey is Not About Me Leaving; It’s About Me Finding”
Guest Post: I have a firm belief that each person needs to find what makes them happy and run with it. I have found what makes me happy and wish that upon everyone on this earth.
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How Poetic is Too Poetic? A Review of The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
The Yearling is a book that seeks to transform, as a year reinvents a person season by season, or at least offers up the opportunity by making an example of natureās interminable cycle of death and bloom.
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Resurrecting āHall of Broken Mirrorsā: My Vampire Story That Refuses to Die
What has captivated me about vampirism and what it implies (to me): invulnerability, complex solitude, the association with āotherness,ā immortality, perfectly intact memory, beauty and the unending quest for satiation. Why does (or doesnāt) vampire mythology interest you?
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‘Setbacks’ for Evelyn McHale
I wrote this for one of my favorite classes, Wild & Angry Lit taught by Rob Carney. CW: suicide, depictions of death. Design by Melissa Parra
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To the Woman Who Kicked My Dog: How Did Your Easter Fast Go?
I accidentally broke a glass before filling it with a cold water infusion of violet and yarrow, and didnāt realize it until I was already drinking from it in the dark, invoking the cosmos for respite from conflict, illness, from cruel people, from fear and the chemistry of my brain, from the pitfalls of my past and the inevitability of future mistake.