Posts tagged feminism
The Sign

It was a perfect August day, and the Wolf River was clear and cool. The leaf canopy of spruce and cottonwood sparkled overhead, like shards of brilliant green glass backlit by intermittent bursts of sunlight.

Dave and I were trying out the twin red kayaks that his kids had given us the previous Christmas. Everyone agreed we had been working too hard, and the weight of a business we could no longer save was taking its toll.

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Storm Warnings: Beware the Taste of Rain

In 1970 one drop of rain hitting the ground every ten inches constituted a ten-inch rain in Tempe, Arizona, home of Arizona State University and me, my freshman year in college. Wetback referred to a co-ed who made out on the arid soil after the sprinklers ran in the morning, not migrant workers. People spit on soldiers coming back from Viet Nam. The Women’s Movement quaked on the cusp of exploding. And me? Well, before Titanic, before Leonardo Di Caprio declared himself King of the World, I stood atop the footbridge over University Boulevard and surveyed the student-lemmings who marched along the sidewalk.

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Cousin Carolyn and the Magic Carpet Ride

“Come on Beth, while Urkie’s not looking, let’s do a magic carpet ride even though she told us not to.”  My cousin Carolyn’s magic carpet ride meant my sitting on top of one of our grandmother’s assortment of throw rugs and Carolyn pulling me at top speed up and down the hallways and other wooden floor rooms of Grandmother’s boarding house in Birmingham. 

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All the Ones I Didn't Love

I don’t miss him, but what I do miss is sitting on the cold sand of the beach in October, when the wind shivered my young bones, and I would huddle against him, burying my face into his cigarette, scented pullover. He would cross his arms for his own warmth, with a Marlboro Gold hanging from his blue lips. He never wore a jacket and even after all this time, this is the only way I can remember him.

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While

oo often single mothers are accused of being bitter and still stuck on wanting to be with her child’s father. But, in my opinion, being bitter has nothing to do with it. It’s just all that stress of doing everything by yourself that’s piled up on your shoulders and everybody takes it for attitude.

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Lighthouse

Because maybe the truth isn't a narrative, which is an idea that's new and terrifying. Maybe it's something else. When I was on too many mushrooms, after the part I thought I was in an episode of Doctor Whoand before I almost called you, I went inside my head and tried to find something bigger and behind God, who I don't believe in.

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A Latina's Journey to Self-Care

Latinas are unjustly taught to prioritize the needs of others over their own. Within the Latinx framework, loyalty is a cultural expectation. For instance, familism is imparted into our children along with superstitions and the ABCs. Niñosare taught to blindly respect elders and esteem the family unit over the individual. Latinas, however, are supplied a special strain of “loyalty.” One laced with codependency and side effects of dissatisfaction and neglect.

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My Pores

I look deep into my face in a circular mirror smudged with impressions. Some fingerprints and dental debris. Did I make this mess?  Maybe they are messages from the other side? I stop and wipe them away. I pause and consider my reflection which I barely have the effort or the energy to do most days. Tiny holes and small pinpricks. I see my eyes and catch my consciousness for a second only to dart them away. Hazel and unsure.  I don’t know that person. I see instead my pores.

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Nothing Serious Please: My Misadventures in Finding Muslim Love

n a childhood where my parents were always fighting, my escapes were the idealized versions of romance I saw in movies. The years leading up to their separation were filled with my frenzied consumption of the messages I received from Moulin Rouge (love is a many splendored thing!), Rodger & Hammerstein’s Cinderella (the far superior version with Whitney Houston and the most beautiful Prince Charming there ever was), and The Little Mermaid(who fell for a man she saw once).

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