HerStry publishes one Personal Essay every Wednesday. Weekly Personal Essays are a way for writers to tell the stories they want to tell. There are no rules. No themes. Nothing is off limits. For essay submissions check out our guidelines.
So, the title is self-explanatory. However, this is a memo to all the up-and-comers and even those who are afraid of being told not to speak up.
Or maybe, I am just an asshole and want to set the record straight as a woman working behind-the-scenes in the entertainment world.
Oh, wait…
Read MoreMy Intro to Theater professor laughed and pressed his thumb and forefinger against his lips. I imagined that in an earlier generation he would have paced around the classroom chain-smoking. I wondered if he could tell if I was the kind of person that watched that kind of garbage.
Read MoreI met my boss downtown yesterday. She asks me to do that every once in a while. I like her. We’ve known each other for a long time. Shared the trenches on many occasions. She wanted an opinion on an expensive top. I was just getting out of yoga and wanted to go home. But hell, I met her. The top was pretty. “Get it, it’s beautiful,” I told her.
Read MoreA few months ago, I was given a seat from an old movie theatre. The theatre was called The Regent, and it was the one my parents bought in 1949 when I was five. When it closed six years later, I never gave a thought to what might happen to any part of it—the projectors, the screen, the seats—but then, over fifty years later, I happened to hear that a small local museum was mounting an exhibit about small-town theatres. I contacted the curator, and told her what I could about our theatre.
Read MoreI used to view the world only in terms of how it related to myself. What I could see of it, gain from it, and change of it. All my time and energy used to go into making plans for myself and improving who I was. Then I became a mother and everything changed.
Read MoreI have my face waxed every few weeks.
Hot wax is smeared down the sides of my face, over my cheeks, across my jawline and to my neck. Then, it’s ripped off in an instant. In that second before it is ripped off, my body automatically tenses, waiting for the pain that I know is coming.
Read MoreI wasn’t really sure if I should write about this incident on social media platform. Then I thought why shouldn’t I? It is indeed something that we all should learn from. We, as parents, often spend most of our time teaching our children, the right values, the right manners and many other “right” things that are too many to list here. We are so engrossed in teaching them things that we forget they also have a thing or two to teach us. Things, which, if implemented, will make our lives a tad bit simpler.
Read MoreFriendships can be hard to maintain. My thirty-three years on the planet have imparted a limited, yet I don’t think insignificant, view on how friendships change. What I know for sure is that, like any relationship, they require upkeep.
Read MoreI have a new man in my life. His name is Dominic. He is gentle, humorous, wise, eloquent and loving. We have been spending a lot of time together during the past five weeks and our appreciation and love for each other is deepening. Dominic is ninety-three years old.
Read MoreWhen my mother tells stories about me from when I was young, she often highlights the fact that I never wanted to play with baby dolls. I never willingly pretended to be a mother. I liked stuffed animals. Theywould be my children, and I would brush them and care for them rather than baby dolls.
Ten months ago, I stood in front of the mirror and called my body “beautiful.” For the first time in years, I did not criticize my appearance. I did not disparage my physical features. I admired every curve, every scar, every tensed muscle. I discovered strength cloaked behind weakness -- a powerful, invisible strength I have carried with me for my entire life.
Read MoreWhen I was a child, we didn’t travel very often. I didn’t even board a plane until I was 11 years old. We would go to cabins in the woods for a couple nights or so, but they were always within a few hours of home.
Read MoreMy high school guidance counselor once sat across from me and,with the entirety of my transcript spread out in front of her and said,“This is amazing! You know usually your kind don’t make it this far!”
Read MoreWhenever I see a drawing of a bird, I think of my sister. Cherie had a fascination with birds and an encyclopedic knowledge of every species. She worked at a wildlife center and fostered the injured birds, but she had a particular fondness for the birds of prey. She took beautiful photographs of hawks, eagles and owls, and sketched them every chance that she had.
Read MoreIn early 2013, when my partner and I had just moved to LA, we found out we were pregnant for the first time (totally unplanned!). I was working on a small stipend in which over 75% of my income was going towards the rent of a furnished 400 square foot studio apartment; while my partner was living in a city an hour away in his first year at graduate school, also living on a stipend that was mostly going towards rent.
Read MoreTo me, knowing who you are is as important as remembering to breathe. Self-discovery is a bit of a winding road. You never know when the curve in will cause you to veer and go off the road. We all experience our fair share of darkness and light. That is almost a given in any life, no matter how ordinary or lavish. It is about creating a delicate balance between the positive and the negative.
Read MoreWhen I was a small child, my grandmother took me to see The Elephant Man, a movie about Englishman Joseph Merrick. Joseph was born with severe facial deformities and was exhibited as a human curiosity in the late 1800’s. The depiction of Joseph Merrick shocked me, but not for the reasons it shocked others. For me, the shock was recognition. I knew Joseph Merrick. I was Joseph Merrick.
Read MoreShe said she thinks it’s terrible I don’t want to have children. Like being childless is the Plague or natural disaster. Maybe to her and to many others it is just that. It’s certainly not seen as natural not to want to do the one thing a woman’s body was built for.
Read MoreHi, my name is Judy and I am an addict.
My brain chemistry dictates that if something is good that more must be better. All I need for my "fix" is the opportunity to get more and/or a crisis to prime the adrenalin pump.
It is Friday night in Montréal and Molly and I are walking along the sidewalk in Outremont, a historically Hasidic neighborhood. I am an anthropology student at Concordia University returning from a field assignment to attend a Shabbat dinner at Molly’s home and investigate the gender based boundary building in the Hasidic community.
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