Tag: nonfiction

Traditions

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by Gianoula Burns

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Some traditions take time to fade, the stocking at the end of the bed, the laying out of carrot and mince pie for Santa on Christmas Eve, the lights that adorn the live Christmas tree much weathered with each year, mince pies and custard, fruitcake, all those things we have come to associate with Christmas, lovingly built up when children arrive slowly fade when they grow and depart. It takes time to dismantle, but with each year one or other vanishes from the celebration and we wonder whether they ever did exist at all, just memories that are stored and unpacked when reminiscences are the norm. They meant something, sometime to someone and then memory departs and traditions are buried with the people that gave them life.  She now prepares two stockings per bed, one for each couple, but they no longer sleepover, she no longer has to wait till they are fast asleep to creep into their bedrooms trying not to make a noise while placing the heavily laden parcels at their feet. That time has slipped away, gone with those other things we scarcely remember, the children’s high-pitched squeals of delight when the sun rises. Surely, they’ll remember when she’s gone the burden of that love, or so she hopes.

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Diary of an adventurous homebody

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by Haley Young

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“It’s just that you don’t seem that adventurous,” said an acquaintance when I told her about our plans to move into a converted camper van.

I smiled. She wasn’t wrong about my personality. She was wrong in her assumption that living on the road demands the highest level of adventurous spirit. Two years into travelling full time, I’m more of a homebody than ever.

I just take my house with me.

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On Getting Dressed and Getting Coffee

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by Charlotte Deason Robillard

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Getting dressed

When I was somewhere around age 8 or 9 – still homeschooled, living in rural Alabama, and mostly wearing thrift store clothes and hand-me-downs from my cousin – I meticulously put together an outfit I was proud of. Basing my vision off of whatever snippets of pop culture I’d been exposed to – Nickelodeon on the cable TV at my grandmother’s house, my best friend’s occasional copies of Tiger Beat – I pulled together a study in plum: purple jean shorts, a purple paisley oversized t-shirt, and a purple-hued tapestry vest. Since I didn’t go to school and I couldn’t wear jean shorts to church, the only obvious place to debut my outfit was homeschool day at the local roller skating rink. Despite my general lack of athletic ability, I was pretty good at skating, and I was excited to cruise around the rink in my fly new ‘fit. But my outfit was too avant-garde for the Pelham, Alabama homeschool crowd, and I soon had my first experience of bullying. Two girls (who I envision in the bland but popular Umbros and Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts of the era) shoved me and snickered about my clothes as they whizzed by me in a fit of giggles. I don’t remember what they said, but I remember being hurt and confused. I was the one who was dressed cool, right? I had seen vests and oversized t-shirts on TV, and I’d so carefully paired each color and pattern. This was my first introduction to conformity, and while my feelings were hurt, my taste for getting dressed up had not been stifled.  

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Concord Purple on the Sunrise

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by Pran Phucharoenyos

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The thunderhead is willing to break any and all windows because there’s no insurance around, and still, I take a blue car out West. The way I brought myself down to California— you would have been proud. 

I leave Enchanted Wells adjacent to Rainbow Blvd and across from Wishing Coin Road and other counterfeit fairytale worlds Nevadan roads titled themselves after. The Santa Ana reports here that this boulevard I’m residing in contains steamed rainbows from kitchen sink dishwashers and the youthful and overly sentimental scent of a clean glass picked up from the cabinet reminds me to bring water when I leave to lie flat on backyard artificial grass as if I’m in wait for a high danger surgery as the southwest sticks on my sunscreened legs. 

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I Could Be Modern Art

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by Natalie Hunter

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I used to care so much about my body hair. I remember the face-melting shame I felt when a boy at school announced loudly that I had hairy arms, while we coloured pictures at a table. But, when I think of it now, it is just a memory of a memory. I feel detached from the experience. I grew up with plenty of unconditional love at home. Therefore, I knew intrinsically that my value was inherent and unshakable … at home. Like so many people in this world, it took venturing out into the world for school, to initiate the confusing experience of being “othered.” Some years later, at the age of fourteen, I would stand in front of the mirror enumerating every single thing that was unacceptable about my beautiful, youthful body, as if identifying the offending aberrations could bring me closer to perfection. It amuses me to think of that fourteen-year-old seeing me now, two weeks from my fortieth birthday, thinking, “How could you let yourself become so ugly?” 

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Drummer

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by Dane Erbach

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“Harder!” Joe shouts from his podium, yells over violin bows stuck in the air like an unruly haircut. “Hit that bass drum as hard as you can!”

The orchestra spins toward me—rows of smarmy teenage smiles, annoyed; of middle schoolers wild with amusement, squirming their chairs.

“Have you ever heard Jurassic Park’s soundtrack?” Joe asks, his bald head shining in the fluorescent light. “The big BOOM at the beginning?”

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Curating Death

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by Diana L. Gustafson

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“What’s death got to do with it?” Our museum tour guide grins as she makes the irreverent reference to Tina Turner’s best-selling hit. Patty knows how to grab the attention of Gen X tourists clustered around her in the grand centre block of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum. In a former life, she was probably everyone’s favourite high school music teacher.

Patty leans in. “Death simultaneously intrigues and repels us.” I know she’s speaking to me. I signed up for the afternoon tour because I was curious about burial rituals practised in ancient times. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Easier than facing tough questions haunting my messy life. I soon discover that each pause on the tour unearths relics of my struggles to make sense of love and death.

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French Press

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by Megan Nicholson

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I asked for this reality of living on my own, alone. Being alone means you are solely responsible for your quality of life, with no one else to rely on. And goddamn, I really need to clean these dishes. They’ve been sitting there for a week, and god knows there’s plenty more around this damn apartment that needs to be washed. I did the first half of the dishes yesterday; now I need this second half done so I can clean out Pepper’s litter tray. The poor thing’s open bathroom is filled with interwoven fur and hay and pellets. There’s so much to get done, and there’s still four hours before I need to get to bed and wake up for work tomorrow.

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