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.
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.
Read MoreI stand at the church parking lot entrance and stop each car.
The surface lot is small and we’re saving it for those who NEED to park closer. Please park in the parking garage, yes, the one RIGHT there, and get your ticket validated inside for free parking.
I smile, nod, and point.
Read MoreI have a problem with many words in the English language, the most recent and personally applicable being “menopause.” Apparently, the term is a Greek mashup of “month” and “cease.” I’d have less of a problem if the English term were “menocease,” since “menopause” suggests that something about the female body—my body in this case—is “pausing” and will, ASAP, resume its regularly scheduled programming. But, that’s not the case. My body is going off the air.
Read MoreIt’s our last night on Kauai together, yet not together. For the past seven days, we’ve been staying at different places due to the separation, Ian and I in a condo, and you at a hotel. We have a late morning flight back to the Bay Area tomorrow, and when we reach San Mateo, you’ll drop me off at my apartment, a tiny one bedroom I’m renting several blocks away from the house we raised Ian in–the house where you and Ian now live.
Read MoreShe was doing Pilates when she saw the first sign. She should have noticed. It was like last summer when the cop stopped her, leaned into the window, and asked if she’d seen the “STOP” sign. Of course she hadn’t, she told him; if she had seen it she’d have stopped. But that, too, was no kind of explanation.
Read MoreThere’s a ten year old girl, long unbrushed brown hair in a private school uniform running late for lunch from gym class. She’s alone. There are eight buttons on her white oxford shirt. This is her third month in a real school after being homeschooled for her entire life, her seventh move to her fifth state, Ohio this time. Her sister, Liz, just two grades below her in third was recently teased for not knowing the word fart.
Read MoreAnd to feel that the light is a rabbit-light,
In which everything is meant for you
And nothing need be explained;
Read MoreAt the Y pool, 7:00 AM on a Wednesday morning, my lane stretches before me.
I’m in the chilly water, kept at what I’m told is “competition temperature,” a shock to me my first time here. Nothing to do but swim, swim, swim to try to stay as warm as possible. I’m the only swimmer who has pulled a long sleeved swim shirt over her suit, in addition to wearing swim pants reaching to my calves. After weeks of swimming, I am still not accustomed to the cold water.
Read MoreSome Girls
In 1966, a teenage girl walked into a fancy salon in London, England wanting a simple shampoo and set. Instead, persuaded by the owner, she had her long locks cut into a short crop. After the cut, a picture was taken, revealing an almost waif-ish yet intriguing schoolgirl: pretty, wide-eyed, and made up beyond her years. Barry Lategan, the photographer, said of the girl, “She was gawky, but she had a sort of elegance…I think it was the eyes…she had such a presence.”
Read MoreMy brother props his long legs on the dashboard of Dad’s pristine Honda. He presses his feet in their sweaty black socks into the windshield hard enough to leave `a smudge, a crime our eighty-five year-old father swoops on like a hawk.
Read MoreIt’s a known truth that shitty things tend to happen when life is on the upswing.
You just turned forty-two—at the height of the COVID19 pandemic, no less. After parting ways with your fiancé and pushing through a mammoth mental and physical breakdown, armed with hardheadedness and a sizzling double-dose of Moderna vaccine, you scratch and claw your way to a near-perfect existence. A slick dream job with stock photo coworkers on top of their game. Gamja hot dog and vegan donut picnics with your friends in Christie Park.
Read MoreThe further I get into the safety of a long-term relationship, the foggier my examples become. Each year is like another gloss of paint, obscuring. I am grateful for this obfuscation, however, a part of me wants to hold on to the memories, coloring them with new perspective as I grow in age and wisdom. This part of me wants to lose itself in the comfort of reliving the incidents, but altering the endings. This is what I would do, if it happened again. By rewriting your rape stories, you regain a façade of control.
Read MoreAt the age of thirteen, I attended a boarding school a continent away from my family, an experience that triggered a wrenching homesickness. As a teenager, I navigated international airports and transitioned between cultures with fluidity, yet a floodgate of tears would open at the echo of my parents’ voices over a long-distance call. They were a seven-hour flight away, too far to dash home for a weekend of hugs and home-cooked meals, distant enough for the cookies in care packages to grow stale before arrival.
Read MoreI study myself in the mirror. The same glass in the square wooden frame that has stared back at me ever since I was tall enough to see over the top of the dresser. I concentrate on the small round bumps barely rising from my chest. I call them “my breasts.” “Boobs” sounds like the noise my brother Kenny makes when he imitates drums. “Bust” sounds violent. “Titties” sound silly. I’m not sure about “chest,” the word could belong to a man or a woman. I choose to think of them as “my breasts.”
Read MoreThe sisters were hungry. They’d already eaten the things from the food bank that nobody liked. The weird canned potatoes, the sauerkraut, the can of beets. They’d thrown out the expired items and fed the can of dog food to the dog. The sisters had nibbled on dog biscuits in the past and those weren’t so bad, but they drew the line at wet food.
Read MorePutting myself back together was a boring, organized process. A 1,000-piece puzzle left on the coffee table for months, or in this case, years. Finally sitting down to frame myself in sky and earth. Painstakingly searching the jumble for all those matching hooks and crevices. After the chaos of him, simply paying the bills on time was a cathartic experience. Routine was my remedy. Work away the day Monday through Friday. Come home when it’s dark. Stop at Walgreens to purchase a bottle of wine and pizza rolls. Cigarettes if needed. Home to one-and-a-half glasses of wine and the allowance of one orgasmic cigarette. The order was important.
Read MoreIf not for the pup and the ritual of our morning walk, I might not have banked so much joy, watching her endearing hobby-horse bounce as she runs across the field. I would never have seen that barred owl swish overhead in a silent, majestic flight. I'd have missed the quiet presence of the setting moon and an infinity of stars disappearing into the pale blue.
Read MoreI didn’t want to meet Tim at first. I’d just been burned badly by a man who said we were exclusive, and then I found out he was dating around six women at the same time. I’d gone back on the dating apps more as an act of rebellion, an action to prove to myself that my horrible experience with Jeff wasn’t going to define my experience with dating and love. But I was leery. Oh, how I was leery.
Read MoreMy friends and I share six-word memoirs, which are supposed to be a story in a nutshell. This was the one I wrote yesterday: “Naked, I paraded through the jimjilbang.” I sent this stingy, six-word sentence out to them with no further explanation. Let them wonder. But for you, I’ll flesh it out: I recently visited a Korean bathhouse, and here’s a crash course in all things jimjilbang.
Read MoreI haven’t bled in five months. Each time this happens I wonder, am I done? Was that it? Have I finally crossed the threshold into after, whatever that means?
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