Picked Out
Picked Out

In fifth grade, our lunch periods were at different times. My best friend Samantha—Sam—ate while I had Social Studies. One day, I slipped out of class on a bathroom pass and into the cafeteria, where sound and color collided. I scanned the crowded room until the blur resolved into Sam—her thick black braid ending in a baby-pink scrunchie at the small of her back, a whole head shorter than everyone else at the long table. She squealed when she saw me, as if it had been years, not hours, since we’d last been together. Sam nudged the girl beside her, who slid over without question. I squeezed in, the other kids at the table shielding me from the lunchroom monitor as Sam and I whispered, knees pressed together. Having different lunch periods once felt like the worst thing that had ever happened to me.

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InfluenceKristina Buschcoming of age, familiy, friendship Comments
Putting My Gym Teacher's Head Between My Thighs
Putting My Gym Teacher's Head Between My Thighs

Appreciators of Sex and the City deep cuts might recognize Suffern, New York, as the fictional setting for Aidan’s country house, where bonafide city-girl Carrie Bradshaw sees a squirrel and declares she is “suffering in Suffern.” Why Carrie—written to originally be from Connecticut—was so distraught over a squirrel, I’m not sure. But the sentiment of Suffering in Suffern was one I understood immediately.

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InfluenceKristina Buschcoming of age, Sexual assult, Mental Health Comments
Daddy's Going To Buy You A Diamond Ring
Daddy's Going To Buy You A Diamond Ring

I am sixteen. He is thirty-four, tall and thin, a dynamic instructor who has been known to jump on his desk when acting out the murder of Polonius in Hamlet, a man whose narrow ties against his starched white shirts look like stained-glass windows. A man who just this year returned from teaching English in Orleans (which, until he says it, I don’t know is pronounced without the s), France and Frankfurt, Germany. A man who drives a two-seater with the steering wheel on the right-hand side. My high school English teacher.

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InfluenceKristina BuschSexual assult, coming of age, Marriage Comments
Woman, Mother, Protector
Woman, Mother, Protector

A few months after my mom’s cancer diagnosis, I was having trouble inserting a tampon. I had never really used them, since I was still pretty young and unfamiliar with exploring that area of my body. I had gotten my period earlier than most in my grade, around the age of nine. An avid pad user at fourteen, I figured the real way to become a woman was to use a tampon. Unfortunately, when I finally mustered up the courage to try, I couldn’t figure out how to insert it in a way that wasn’t painful. I talked to my mom about it through the bathroom door, as she laid in bed after her most recent chemotherapy. The stairs had become difficult for her, and she rarely left her room. Days when I came home from school and found her on the living room couch were good days.

Yet my mom’s soft voice floated under the door: I want to help. She was crying.

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InfluenceKristina Buschfamily, mother and daughter, coming of age, cancerComment
At Last
At Last

I used to believe risk would announce itself with fanfare—a cliff edge, a trembling ultimatum, something you could point to as the hinge on which your life turned.

In childhood I imagined risk as a sort of mythic test: a figure standing in the threshold, asking if I was brave enough to continue. I thought it would feel loud. Definite. Something that glowed red at the edges and warned me, Pay attention—this is important.

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RiskJulia Nusbaumlove, self love, coming of age Comment
The Risk of Change
The Risk of Change

Being a mother is difficult. I have always believed with enough unconditional love everything would turn out great for my own kids. So, when Lou, my youngest child, called and told us about their upcoming surgery, I felt honoured when they asked me to come and help them through their recovery. The long drive to Vancouver from Canmore gave me time alone to consider what was about to happen to my beloved child. That’s when the negative thoughts began to creep in about the risks of major surgery. I pushed them back, reminding myself this is Lou’s decision and I loved them enough to help them through no matter what.

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RiskJulia NusbaumLGBTQIA, transgender, familyComment
Proof of Life
Proof of Life

It took seven years of therapy for me to recognize that the gaping wound in my heart is not the child of grief or exhaustion, but of a life un-lived. I have made no great mistakes or spoken the silent, shamed words of “I should not have done that.” I have not done anything. My emotional destruction has been predicated on loss, trauma, and frustration. I wish it was the result of having my heart broken by someone I was in love with, or being stuck in a cycle of taking drugs that will damage my brain by thirty, or spending money under the false notion that I have a six-figure salary. At least I would have proof I could endure risk and confront it with confident uncertainty.

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RiskJulia Nusbaumaging, identity, self love Comment
Trying
Trying

I thought I’d finished coming out. I will be forty this year, and I spent my young adulthood struggling with my queer sexuality. There were the days of hiding and hoping no one would notice the desires that sometimes felt unnatural and unwanted, and the days of reveling in queer culture. There was the era in which I identified as bisexual, then lesbian, then bisexual again, until I eventually adopted “queer” a broad, fluid term applicable to anyone who isn’t straight. Coming out is a continuous process, but for the most part I felt like I was finished with slapping a label on my identity and presenting it to the world.

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RiskJulia Nusbaumtransgender, LGBTQIA, body image Comment
The Trap of Service
The Trap of Service

I was seven years old when I fell in love with the blonde-haired, hardworking heroine who was unceasingly kind to everyone, regardless of whether they deserved it. The girl with birds and mice tripping over themselves to help her. My mom had taken my sister and me to the small movie theatre in town where we’d shared a bag of penny candy, leaned back in our plush red velvet seats and watched the Disney special. 

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AloneJulia NusbaumComment
An Accumulation of Silences
An Accumulation of Silences

I’m toddling down our road, stumbling my way over the loose rocks and gravel in my light-up Barbie shoes. The journey seems long, arduous, and I am panting from exertion. Our house is still in view, the apple tree in the front yard partially blocking the front door. Shuffling my pants down to my ankles, I squat to pee. I ditch the pants and shoes and patter down the road, more slowly now on the sensitive soles of my chubby feet. I hear my mother’s call from the porch and streak now, as fast as I can, away from the house. A few moments later, I hear her footsteps behind me, and she catches me by the arm. Blushing deeply from embarrassment at my squirming, naked body in her arms, she forces a smile and waves politely at the neighbors. She whispers through gritted teeth, “Where are your clothes?”

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AloneJulia Nusbaum Comment
Awaking Alone
Awaking Alone

The eldest and only daughter, I had always liked being alone with a book in my hands, and my bedroom door closed. If the chaos of my three younger brothers seeped into my imagination at work, I’d lock the door. My mother called it my retreat from the noise but often would disrupt it herself with chores or babysitting for me since I was the right hand she turned to when she was overwhelmed. Growing up, I heard my mother yell my name from afar more than I heard it any other way.

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AloneJulia Nusbaumgrief, mother daughter, ChildhoodComment
Sandwiches
Sandwiches

It’s been seventy-two days. 

I manage to get the dog out this morning and the kids some breakfast, but then crawl right back under the covers. I don’t have it today. I am exhausted and my body hurts though I have barely moved in days. 

The slight rise and fall of my chest is the only evidence that I am not dead. Long pauses between breaths; my breathing is shallow and slow. Cradled by the foam liner of the mattress, my limbs are heavy and still. Staring at the wall, I barely even blink, hopeful that time will pass around me and leave me overlooked in the safety of our bed.  Maybe if I remain still, the kids will forget that I am here? Maybe they won’t need me for anything?

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AloneJulia NusbaumCovid-19, Motherhood, Death, grief Comments
Cooking in Secret
Cooking in Secret

The first recipe I ever attempted was Baked Alaska. I was eleven.

I’m not sure how my mother conveyed that she didn’t want to teach me how to cook. It was more implied than directly stated. I understood her meaning in the same way I understood that I should not ask why, unlike my younger, fair-haired brother and sister, who looked nothing like me, I was born in a town four hours north of our home in Hanford, California.

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FeastKristina Buschfamily, cooking, Food writing Comments
The Midwestern Table
The Midwestern Table

My mother made dinner every single night. We didn’t eat out. Ever. I grew up on sixties Midwestern food, colored by my mother’s aversions and preference. She loved her meals fiercely, but anything could be ruined by a bite of shell, bone, or gristle. No one likes biting down on whatever reminds us of our protein’s genesis, but for Mom it ground the meal to a halt. She preferred everything as processed as possible.

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FeastKristina Buschfamily, Food writing, midwest, recipes Comment
She Feeds
She Feeds

Disclaimer: When I was a kid, Hollywood had me believing that The Typical Grandmother was, among other things, soft-spoken, petite, and cute, with an old-lady name like Alice, Betty, Dottie, or Mildred—Millie for short. She played Bingo or canasta, spoke of the days when a soda cost a nickel, and baked cookies better than Betty Crocker.

Mine was not like that.

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FeastKristina Buschfamily, Food writing, growing up Comments
Resident Aliens
Resident Aliens

Our species had not yet persevered through Y2K, but my time was short for subatomic reasons. My father had imploded, six feet of a Johnny Cash accent spiraling to the carpet in a “cardiac event.” My mother was one hour away, watching Frasier reruns in an apartment with cathedral ceilings. I had just broken the tamper-proof seal on The Best Years Of My Life.

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Julia NusbaumComment
Nothing Much to Offer but a Sky Full of Stars
Nothing Much to Offer but a Sky Full of Stars

Dad and I bushwhacked a north facing slope along Northern California’s Smith River in a swath of forest we hoped contained culinary mushrooms. Pink rhododendrons blossomed in an understory of redwood, cedar and fir. We were hunting for chanterelles, yellow feet or hedgehogs. The mushroom buyer didn’t pay much per pound, but I desperately needed the money to pay for my half of an abortion.

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Julia NusbaumComment
In the Direction of My Heart
In the Direction of My Heart

“Mama, when are we going home?” my son whispers, his eyes glued to the car window.

I grip the steering wheel and glance behind me. His flip-flops and beach towel are strewn across the back seat. His goggles, around his neck. Pinkish popsicle stains skip across his white camp t-shirt. All signs of a good summer, or so I would have thought.

I wish I knew how to answer him. I’m not sure I want to go home.

“You miss being home?” I ask.

“Yes.”

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HomesickJulia NusbaumMotherhood Comments