Benjamin Space

The Still Empty

It’s around 9 PM on a warm July night, most of the evening was spent setting up the telescope for what is promising to be a perfect viewing night. The desert sky sent the day off with an explosion of blues, orange, purple and pinks. Mesas and hill sides stand tall and strong in the backdrop looking like they had been painted onto my mind by some preeminent otherworldly marvel. Not a cloud in sight and the air is calm and clear. Camp is set up in an orderly fashion with the tent and tables all in an area where they won’t become a hazard in the dark. I doubt that I will be using the tent, but just in case. The small area I have chosen is surrounded on three sides by cliffs of rust colored sandstone reaching high into the sky with only one dirt road that leads in or out.

The cliffs are a usual spot for rock climbers and thrillseekers, but during the night, the area becomes a vacant haven for night sky watchers and the occasional camper. With the city lights blocked out the milky way burns its way overhead on its voyage through the ecliptic, reminding me of how truly small I really am and at the same time calming the mind and senses with its perfect wink. The chaos of the daytime world fades, calm settles over the dusty valley. The night is dark. Almost impenetrable darkness leaving one unaware of space, confronting any who face it with the deepest contemplations of eternity. Sitting in my folding chair sipping tea, the quiet of this barren world surrounds and rushes at me. Promising madness and the absurd the very moment perception runs wild into misconception. There is no one around for many miles. I am totally alone in a quirky space that seems to go on indefinitely. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Growing up, camping in the chaparral desert regions of southern California was a major part of our family life. Weekend trips were frequent during the summer, at least twice a month. Sometimes more. We visited the Gorman area and Hungry Valley OHV parks located in the northwestern region of Los Angeles County specifically. Occasionally my father would change things up and we would spend a weekend at the Leo Carrillo campground in Malibu, or sometimes in the Ocotillo Wells area. A weeklong trip towards the end of summer would even find us sleeping under the brilliant starry heavens of San Felipe in Baja, playing in the pristine sands and crystal-clear turquoise waters that make the Gulf of Mexico so magical. It was the dusty old granite mountains of Frazier Park though. The parched, chaparral covered land sparsely littered with ancient, gnarled oak and cottonwood trees within Hungry Valley and Gorman California where the most time was spent. This is where I formed a deep attachment, fondness for the arid desert regions that I would often be drawn to throughout my adult life.

Daytime during the summer months can be a shock to the uninitiated with temperatures ranging between 70 and over 100 degrees.1 The nights cool, at times just plain cold. A light hooded sweatshirt was often more than enough to stay comfortable though. Snow falls in the winter with a muffled roar, covering the floor of the valley and mountain tops in a powdery white blanket, sparkling, crystalline, like pulverized gemstones.

Despite this, water can be hard to come by. A small babbling stream runs along the base of the nearest mountain year-round but is hardly safe for drinking and is miles from the nearest camp site, anyways. Preparation is vital to survival as all provisions must be packed in. While rainfall is random and rarely enough, an entire microcosm of plants and animals have adapted and thrive in this exceptional little world. Lizards and snakes of all kinds dance along the heated sand and clay while the coyote sings into the night, a deadly game of hide and seek he plays with the long-eared jack rabbit. A roadrunner darts through camp, his shadow toiling to keep pace. An owl hoots into the dark of the night, solemn but beautiful. The grayhaired oak tree who carries a thousand memories takes no offence to the owl lounging in its canopy.

American novelist, environmentalist and historian Wallace Stegner wrote The smell of wetted dust and wetted sagebrush in a desert thunderstorm is a fragrance more packed with associations than the most romantic of flowers.2 The first experience I had with a surprise desert thunderstorm was at a very young age. I can still recall the smell of the wet dirt, the state of tranquility introduced. The warm rain drops fell on my face as the mighty Thor split the sky wide with a deep resounding of thunder so intense the senses arrested, a struggle to process while fear dissolved and gave way to excitement and curiosity. The air charged causing goosebumps to form from head to toe in response. Running through that rain with wet sand and clay clinging to my shoes and legs, intoxicated by the rich scent of the bone-dry desert soaking in every drop, I was free. Not a care in the world as my parents seemed amused at what I must have looked like.

1 According to the CA.GOV Hungry Valley SVRA site, summer temperatures can reach in the low 100’s while winter temperatures in the low 20’s with occasional snow fall.

2 A quote from the book The Sound of Mountain Water, written by Wallace Stegner.

As I got older, my father would sometimes take me on small camping trips. Just the two of us in the desert for a night or two. Trips to the Glamis sand dunes in southern California located between Blythe and Brawley were frequent. I was old enough to handle my own ATV and watch out for myself. I think this was his attempt to bond. When I was around 14 years young the trips stopped, though. I think we were just too far apart by this point. We both knew it.

It was around the age of 7 when we packed up into the family Chevy Blazer one summer Saturday morning, trailer in tow loaded up with supplies and atv’s for the hour and a half drive to my father’s favorite spot in the Hungry Valley OHV Park. We arrived around 10 am as usual. Camp was set up quickly under a pair of old oak trees at the base of a gradually sloping hillside crawling with trails cut by off road enthusiasts over many years. A weathered wood canopy was in place over two picnic tables situated perfectly beneath the old trees in a way that provided shade all day long. Wildflowers, orange, yellow and purple thickly blanketed the entire valley. The wildflower bloom in southern California is and always will be beautiful beyond words. With perfect sunny weather, the day was amazing, filled with ATV rides covering large portions of the park territory and a trip to the stream that runs through to cool off. Daylight faded as The Doors played in the background. My sisters and I sat around the campfire eating a steak dinner cooked over open flame. Soon it was time to call it a day and crash out. My father had other plans though.

My father and I walked out into the darkness far from camp. The moon was absent this night, and an old Coleman kerosene lamp was all we had to provide light. We settled into a spot unimpeded by trees or anything else. Laying on our backs, the sandy ground was soft and still warm. My father, a stern man of few words, directs my attention up. What I saw in that moment has stayed with me. It changed me and shaped who I would become. The stars densely carpeted the sky, each burning bright, twinkling red and blue while the milky way scorched a path through my field of view. An image that the universe is centered in the belly of a Moroccan geode of the purest Quartzsite crystal comes to mind. As meteors part of a summer shower streaked across the sky like angels falling to their doom, brilliant tails chasing after, my spirit was forever branded.

I felt an overpowering need to question, well, everything. This is the strangest life I’ve ever known, crooned Jim Morrison in one of my all-time favorite songs.3 Words that, for me, describe a state of confusion that persisted in the deepest shadowed corners of my thoughts for such a long time. I have only just started to fully understand. The emptiness and solitude of the desert (especially under a clear night sky) affords the mindfulness and calm for that understanding. I like to think that my parents knew of the power the desert can have. I like to think that they made a valiant effort in teaching my sisters and I to respect that power, and how to tap into it for ourselves.

You see, that night spent peering up into the cosmos with my father was the first, and only, time that I can remember the two of us truly connecting. One of the great philosophers of our time said, Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.4 I haven’t been back to the area of Hungry Valley OHV Park or Gorman CA in a very long time, but what my parents gave us by taking us out into the wilds of the often harsh desert world has been a gift of simplicity and healing that I could never repay.

Early morning hours crepe up on me as I point my deep sky Newtonian telescope East in the direction of the Andromeda galaxy. While Andromeda can be seen as a very faint smudge with the naked eye, it’s so far away5 that even on the darkest of nights the sensitive ten-inch mirror and four-foot light collecting tube will only allow me a fuzzy view of the inner most third of our closest neighbor. Still, what a beautiful and hypnotic sight. Embers of the campfire I enjoyed a few hours ago glow orange, still giving off heat. I confront the fiends of my subconscious attempting to crawl out of the shadows head on, transcending who I was the day before. So influenced by those trips of my youth, it’s here in the still emptiness of the desert lands that my spirit is free to wander. To heal. It’s here that I feel the most at home.

3 Waiting for the Sun by The Doors, Morrison Hotel- 1970

4 A well-known quote taken from the book Seuss-isms, by Dr. Seuss.

5 According to Astronomy.com, the Andromeda galaxy is our closest neighboring galaxy at roughly 2.5 million light-years away. While Andromeda is moving to merge with our Milky Way galaxy at unimaginable speed, it will take 4 billion years to reach us.

Talysha Beck

Cocktail, Pandemic Edition

As I watch this man walk inside without his mask after asking the hostess to speak to a manager, guessing as to what he may say, knowing at the very least it’s going to be a complaint, I have a million things on my mind to remember for other tables. It’s one of those days again. It’s really become so regular that this is the new normal. Who will show up to work today? How many things can you do at once?

Well, here’s another half dozen to do on top of that. Only another server and myself, the bartender, are on to take tables today. Piece of cake, or as Doug from Cocktail would say: “Relax, you’re in the perfect job. There’s no better way to make it than behind three feet of mahogany6 ” We should really consider ourselves lucky that there is a takeout person as well as a hostess. There is no food runner, no dishwasher; the busser will be here later (maybe), and only a couple of cooks are taking care of the entire line. We aren’t open for indoor dining, so my general manager hired a guy to set up a large canopy in the parking lot out front of the restaurant, with a bunch of fake-grass type rugs for “flooring.” There is white plastic fencing around the outside and a bunch of extension cords tucked around in the fencing and tucked under the rugs, with some white tarps around the outside for windy days and all the tables from what used to be our indoor cocktail area pulled outside. Think about what it might look like if all the restaurants in town were competing to recreate their own versions of a janky beer garden at a low budget outdoor festival, and you’ve pretty much got the picture.

There are bar drinks rung in on my expo screen with drinks every time I go inside from the other server, but I have to make my own tables’ drinks as well. The hostess is young and gets flustered when the guests coming in fuss at her, pointing at empty tables. There is a line, and she gives up on telling them there aren’t enough servers and there’s no busser to clean the tables and just keeps seating us instead. Every time I’m inside it takes awhile to catch up on drinks. Sometimes I don’t have time to catch up completely because I can see some of my tables through the front windows with their faces turning impatient from waiting to order. Oh my gosh, the hostess double sat me, and I haven’t finished making all the mixed drinks from the large party and family she gave me a couple of minutes ago. I’m left with no choice but to come back. These tables really need to order. There’s no time to check on food. Hopefully the managers notice and help us run food… maybe they had to jump on the line to help cook since we’re short on staff and that’s why all my ticket times are long. I walk back out to the “front patio” with a tray heavy with drinks to confront all the mask-less, angry faces. As I pass one of the server’s tables, a lady flags me down to yell at me to go back inside and make her margarita she’s been waiting. Another man, this time from my section, snaps at me that they’re waiting on their appetizer to come out. My neck and face get hot with anxiety as I pass out the drinks, knowing I don’t have time to go back inside to deal with either because I just have to get caught up on taking orders: Just another day in the Brewhouse.

6 Cocktail, film from 1988 based on a book and starring famous actor Tom Cruise as a flair bartender, effectively helping to make all us bartenders look cool indefinitely. Fun fact is that Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown both actually had to practice flair bartending for these roles and used real bottles on set. We could probably guess that since Tom Cruise famously prefers to do his own stunts. Had to include a classic bartending film as a reference.

My heart sinks into my stomach as I see the man waiting at the front desk inside while I go back to the bar to greet a stack of drink tickets waiting for me. I feel bad, since I once took pride in my trade and level of service. “These are not normal times,” I remind myself. As I’m filling the bar well with drinks, the man from my table proceeds to yell at my manager. He goes on about how he’s visited different locations of our Brewhouse restaurant in other states and is a regular for the company. Never has he received service such as this or been made to wait so long for food. My manager stands there patiently as the man continues his tantrum, and eventually has to soothe him, using calm apologetic words to defuse the situation. Looking on, I go from embarrassed to incredulous to angry. My manager’s sleeves are rolled up on his pressed, button-down shirt from helping his line workers cook and trying to run food in between. This angry guest is standing directly in front of my manager yelling without a mask indoors, and I wonder if he realizes how inconsiderate this is given that most of us inadvertently spit a little while talking and our county is experiencing a COVID-19 spike; that’s why no indoor seating is allowed. You’re sitting in a parking lot, sir, of course you’ve never had service like this. How lucky you are, with our local hospitals at full capacity and all of us in the middle of a global pandemic, that your big problem is not getting your food fast enough!

Almost everyone in the service industry has similar stories, some much worse from their experiences working through the pandemic. Sure, there was some light shed on these situations over the past year and a half, and for that I’m grateful. Jobs that fall under the service industry umbrella were largely overlooked and unacknowledged before this time. It seems that caring about or acknowledging the struggle of this subculture of workers was only popularized during the Covid-19 Pandemic, perhaps only because people were inconvenienced. Never mind the fact that many workers have faced their own specific set of struggles even before this all started, with little if any appropriate coverage or representation in popular culture and many not knowing how to treat customer service positions. Now the situations are vastly magnified and mixed in with customers feeling it appropriate to take out their frustrations about local policies, staffing challenges, objections to news and political beliefs out on service staff employees.

This same group of people interacting with agitated patrons regularly also have their own families to protect or that they possibly cannot see because people are upset that these services aren’t available. On the other side of the coin, large numbers of service industry workers who were laid off during this time suddenly were unable to pay their bills. If some of these workers were called back to work the hours were inconsistent. The added stressors of dealing with the backlash of masking policies, along with attempts at contact tracing that were often poorly executed. Regardless of our own personal beliefs or home situations, we were at the mercy of not only changing local and state policy but our management and owner’s political views. This could influence not only how much you were able to work, but also your managers’ views would determine how seriously work outbreaks were taken or how closely safety measures and masking policies were followed. Imagine all these outside factors having such a heavy influence on your ability to make money or keep yourself safe. We all have our own beliefs, fears, home life situations and families to protect, entangled in constantly having to adjust to changing policies or implementation choices while trying to contribute to the business staying afloat and paying our own bills.

One example that stands out to me from a customer during this time was involving an extremely chatty regular who kept coming throughout changing policies, but complained unempathetically and usually made things more difficult for staff members during his visits. This particular visit, by the time I had gotten out to the table for his drink order he was flushed red and had made the hostess cry. We were very short staffed on servers, again, and those of us that were there had too many tables already. There were still open tables in the patio tent though, and this customer told her he knew me and also it was ridiculous that he had to wait when there were vacant tables right there. He didn’t say any of this nicely of course and got himself worked up arguing with the hostess until she didn’t know what else to say or do but just seat him after bursting into tears. He was completely unapologetic about this and stuck to his guns, defending his actions. When explaining his version of events to me, he went so far as to imply he was being mistreated. Later during his stay, he kept me at the table even though I was clearly busy with other tables in my section to fuss at me about our indoor dining not being open, how inconvenient it was with the changing policies from the governor and how our company decided to execute these orders. I exasperatedly asked him how he thought the staff and I felt since we worked there. He argued loudly, “How do you think I feel?! I’m the customer having to sit outside in this weather being inconvenienced!” He felt passionately that his rights were being infringed upon because he wasn’t allowed to go out to eat comfortably. Looking back, maybe we should have capitalized off the scenes made by customers; at least then it would have served some purpose. We could have sold tickets, souvenirs, and made enough money to retire from the business: I saw an adult man throw a tantrum in a public establishment and all I got was this lousy t-shirt merch inspired by Waiter Rant7. I knew for a fact that this retired regular came out to eat for lunch, a couple of beers, and then would simply go home to take an afternoon nap. Meanwhile I was on partial unemployment for the first time in my life, was unable to work from home because of my line of work, and hadn’t seen my family, all of whom live out of state, for months now. All so I could be available to serve this man and pour his beers before his afternoon nap.

Though these instances are a little ridiculous, they are only a couple of examples of minor instances that have occurred in my experiences over the entirety of the Covid-19 pandemic. Other workers have had to confront even more difficult and dangerous situations than this of course, along with the anxieties that come with these confrontations, as discussed in Jefferson Center’s blog8. I do not feel at all like I’m alone in my struggles or ignorant enough to assume my cross is the largest. Nor do all these challenges at work reflect how all people feel and act during this whirlwind time. Many kind people would try hard to be understanding, express gratitude that we were open at all, put their masks on while I was taking orders at the table, tip generously because they saw me struggling or knew things were hard for us, just to name a few things. One instance stands out as particularly

7 Waiter Rant, by Steve Dublanica. Very funny book written by a former server and turned into an online blog with postings being updated even to this day. The silly hypothetical souvenir shirt from witnessing a ridiculous public outburst I mention here was inspired directly by a dark, very recent article in August of this year on the online blog called “Save Me a Margarita.” touching, during a time when things were exceptionally rough for our restaurant and myself in particular. We were busy, short staffed, and it was freezing outside. After a big surge following establishments being allowed to open at partial capacity indoors, the whole state had shut down for two weeks and we were back to outdoor dining and takeout. I had spent my recent 30th birthday at home, hadn’t seen my family in nearly a year, and we were coming up on Christmas. It was clear I wouldn’t be going home for this holiday like all the others because traveling was unsafe and the amount of people I’m regularly exposed to my mother has no immune system. This particular day was exceptionally rough because most all of the customers had been grumpy and impatient due to the cold. They were shivering and the one machine we had for coffee or hot chocolate kept overheating due to all the hot beverage orders. When the hot food finally came out to the table, it would cool down so fast people just wanted boxes so they could leave.

8 Jefferson Center- with your mind; online blog, specifically the article “5 Ways Essential Workers Can Manage Trauma and Anxiety During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” touches on struggles faced by previously overlooked types of support industries plus more importantly identifying traumas or anxiety and how to care for your mental health.

All day it went on like this, with my section that was way too big as usual on top of the line of tickets down to the floor in the bar inside from people ordering drinks or shots to feel less cold. I try to cheer myself up despite the fact that this day won’t let up by imagining a silly scene from Waiting as people placing drink orders on our patio: “I’ll have a single shot of whiskey, and a double shot of whiskey, and she’ll have a water. Oh, what the hell, it’s our anniversary. Bring her a Pepsi9.” No luck. Defeated and fingers numb from cold, I couldn’t wait for my relief, the PM bartender, to clock-in and for this whole season to just be over. A table of two ladies cashed out their check, telling me to keep the change. After I caught up with the rest of my tables I went inside to organize all the tables’ tickets and realized the change left by these ladies was no less than $100. “They must have miscounted,” was my first thought. I ran out to catch the ladies before they left the table and got home to realize their mistake. Except there was no mistake. They had seen me struggling all through the lunch rush. “Merry Christmas,” they said, effectively restoring my faith in humanity. Fast forward to me standing in front of their table with a tray full of drinks for the patio tables, thanking them for the third time. This time I’m certain it was mostly incoherent as I had unknowingly started to openly sob while trying to explain my gratitude. Instances like this stand out and were so appreciated by not only me but many others in the service industry. Kindness was so unexpected, and such a stark contrast to the long periods of struggles throughout this crazy time. After all this time that has passed since the beginning, we are still experiencing struggles while facing down another surge in the form of the Delta variant. With the holiday season coming back, tensions still high for many, and no clear end on the horizon, I find myself reflecting on everything that happened and what next hurdle is waiting around the next corner.

9 Waiting, 2005 movie and cult classic among restaurant service industry people. This movie is admittedly inappropriate for many kinds of audiences but nevertheless it is funny and probably the most famous movie about the restaurant industry. I wish there was better representation of service industry workers in films or some kind of accurate, witty modern-day Cheers at the very least.

Talysha Beck

A Chef’s Knife

After pulling out all the produce and ingredients I need, I reach down to pull out my favorite cutting board from the cabinet and, of course, my trusty chef knife. It’s time to start prepping for dinner. Make sure you have all your ingredients needed first, and tools, bowls, and proper disposal containers at the ready because you must maintain Mise en Place. 10 Once you can see you have everything you need as if you are putting together the edible version of an Ikea project, wash your produce, measure, and prep. I stand in front of my spot on the counter with my woodblock ready and reach for my favorite knife laying clean and ready at the side. I sigh, comfortable and confident now that I can tackle the task at hand with this in my hand. If a crafter is only as good as her tools, such as the list included on Mental Floss11, then I must already be off to a strong start. Sure, it’s only a weekday dinner with my significant other now, but it wasn’t always. There was a time when this eight-inch long, sharp blade of metal was my only partner in the trenches of a fast-paced, stressful environment I thought was so challenging I possibly wouldn’t get through it. The grip on this handle absorbed my anxiety, uncertainty, and temper through the trying times of my cooking classes in culinary school.

My first day of Intermediate Cooking started a week after everyone else in class because of a family obligation out of state, and that meant everyone else had also

10 Mise en Place, A Culinary Term Chefs Live by, St. Louis magazine. This is an article published by the magazine with half a dozen chefs sharing what the famous French phrase means to them. Why a French phrase? Because France is considered the birthplace of modern cooking. Prestigious pastry chefs traditionally came from there as well. Many of the proper names for sauces and dishes you learn to make in culinary school are French, like Beurre Blanc (white butter sauce). It is often said or yelled at you while prepping in your culinary classes. I was taught that it means, “everything in its place.” chosen table groups already. Coming in behind, I was placed in the front with a group of two guys who not only knew each other from Intro Cooking but were good friends as well as roommates. Surely, I’d feel like an equal part of the team in no time, and that I wouldn’t be fully under the microscope of my Chef instructor up there, right by his station. “Great, as if I’m not nervous enough as it is.” Sure enough, no sooner had I lifted my knife and made my first cut into my onion, that I saw Chef’s eyebrows go up and he was on his way over to my prep area to show me how to do it properly. Stupid freaking onion, of course I didn’t remember the correct form for chopping it, I’d been avoiding taking Cooking II after the ordeal of Cooking I.

11 18 Things Professional Chefs Say You Must Have in Your Kitchen, Mental Floss. This is a blog that features some of the best tools for your kitchen according to professional chefs. While I am not a professional chef, I do agree with most of the items included on this list and wanted to highlight that knives are often the first thing suggested as one of the best tools you can have. Just as important is keeping your knives sharp. Chef always said that a dull knife was more dangerous than a sharp knife.

Finally, I was there after a year and a half of avoidance out of necessity, since this was the only class left standing between me and my dream Advanced Baking course. Admittedly, I wasn’t exactly the best at classical cuts for vegetables in Intro but doing bad enough to catch the Chef’s attention on my first prep item my first day was pretty impressive. “What are you doing back here?” I thought as Chef took my knife from me, his instructions getting drowned out by the loud beating in my ears as I felt my anxiety rising. After he left me to it, the disassociation set in, and the negative thoughts were as loud as the beat of my heart. “You can’t do this. What were you thinking?!” My face went hot. Surely, everyone must’ve known what they were doing but me. At least from looking around, it seemed that way. And for twenty panicked minutes, as I watched as one by one others finish their prep faster than me and bring it over to their cooking areas, I seriously considered walking out in the middle of class and throwing in the towel on my whole program.

Okay, the shallots are diced, and I have some minced garlic put to the side, along with a couple zested lemons cut in half. The shrimp has been deveined and rinsed, with their tails simmering at low heat on the back burner the past couple of hours to give me a little last minute, quick improvised broth for my Scampi sauce. I take a swig of the white wine I picked out for deglazing, and this will do nicely to add flavor and pull together the ingredients. You just have to chop up a generous helping of parsley and you’re done with your shift for tonight, trusty knife.

Intro Cooking really did a lot to try my confidence, which honestly, I had a bumpy history with. I had convinced myself to go back to school to pursue my baking passion, that this program would be “just for fun,” and the first class required was anything but. Never have I felt so constantly uncomfortable, and on stage in a way never experienced before. Strange, since I’ve spent my whole working life in the service industry, and years as a bartender. There were two distinct groups in these programs: the cooks and the bakers. No matter someone’s sex, the nickname for those pursuing the cooking side of the program were the “hot-food guys.” This distinction was a running joke as you saw many of the same people taking similar core classes as yourself, because it was clear that your choice to pursue either baking or cooking often stereotypically landed you into one of two personality types. The bakers typically had high grades, having all their bookwork completed and recipes organized according to the lesson plans given at the beginning of the semester. Their uniforms were wrinkle free with their hair pulled back and usually had an affinity for attention to detail as well as pretty sweets. The “hot-food guys” rarely cracked the textbook open, as they didn’t often bother with the homework. They were usually seen with bedhead and wrinkled uniforms, because they’d rolled out of bed at the last minute without a plan, usually taunting the bakers about their page protected notes by touting phrases like “C’s get degrees,” and whipping up dishes seemingly effortlessly on the fly. Sometimes Chef would change plans on us, wanting to mix things up. Sometimes the produce or meat shipments wouldn’t come in on time, and the required activities were cancelled, and we had to improvise something else entirely, competing with classmates over whatever ingredients were left in the fridge to produce a beautiful balanced dish in time. I highly disliked improvisation days. I wanted us to stick to the plan, and it didn’t help that I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing at all times. At least with a plan I could go into the day knowing I could produce something to present to Chef for critiquing. When you’re in charge of your own dish, there is only yourself to blame when things don’t go right. It demands a level of independence, decision making, and accountability that I wasn’t comfortable with given I was so unsure of myself.

See, I had never thought I was a good cook, or a cook at all for that matter. My mother had often teased me for burning microwave popcorn and boxed mac n cheese after moving out, and everyone I’d ever dated was the person who cooked, certainly not me. It was stressful and demanding, and quickly after starting I often was overwhelmed, exhausted, and discouraged. Then, one night after closingdown the bar, after a long day of cooking labs and a busy night in the restaurant, my limits were tested further. Walking out to my car at nearly three am with every part of me sore and aching, I noticed the back window of my car smashed in and inside clearly rummaged through. Once the initial shock wore off, I ran to the back to open my trunk. “Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no! Please be there, please still be there!” In the shock I had nearly forgotten that I had come straight to work from class, and all my expensive knives and tools were in the trunk. Practically throwing the door up, I stare at the empty trunk in disbelief. Gone. Hundreds of dollars’ worth of tools, with the knives the most expensive of all. They even took my egg pan. Everything for class down to my spatulas, undershirts, and pens had all come out of pocket. Truly defeated, I was convinced it was a sign I was the silliest person ever to have made the decision to go back to school. Somehow, the next week I had gotten myself together enough to buy another whole set of gear and show back up to class. We were still finishing up eggs while starting on breakfast items, and I felt that I had even more pressure to be amazing because I had spent all this money twice pursuing this. Cursing at my botched poached eggs turned egg-drop soup, I told myself I had to nail these pancakes because who the hell screws up pancakes. After a burned first batch and some more cursing I gave up and had no choice but to present the next batch, however they turned out because I was out of time. Worked up in my mind, I was embarrassed by the time it was my turn to show my plate for critique. And when Chef said they were less than perfect, I broke down and started sobbing right there in the front of the class, to both of our horrors.

The shallots are soft and translucent, so I toss the minced garlic in until fragrant. Minutes later the pan lights up in a quick flame from deglazing with the wine, and it’s all starting to smell so delicious that I know a proper relationship has been formed12, and I decide this calls for a glass of wine for myself as well. Dancing to a little music with my spatula, my love comes in to steal a quick kiss, and I shoo the dogs back out of the kitchen. The sauce is reducing so now would be a good time to drain the pasta and maybe wash my tools. A little TLC is the least I can do in return for the service and what looks like it’s going to be a fabulous meal.

Our personal relationships with food can vary depending on our associations with it. For me, food is complicated as it relates to my life’s fabric because it ties into my childhood, my relationship with some of my immediate family members, as well as my love of sweets and the never-ending struggle with how you look in the mirror. Growing up, my mom was always this incredible cook for our family. She loved nothing more than to host people and go over the top with quantity around the holidays so there was an incredible spread no matter how many showed up, with days of leftovers after. There was an inside joke in our family because my mother always seemed to use an old fork to whip up everything, so my dad started teasing and implying that she would make miracles happen with just a fork, and it affectionately took on the name of “ghetto fork” as the years went on.

12 Food Smells & Aromas: The Science of Smells, by Fine Dining Lovers Magazine. This article dives into the relationship between smell and food, or namely how this relationship enhances your taste experience and our perception of flavor. Even before taking cooking classes, back in an upscale Chinese food restaurant I worked in during the trainings they emphasized that there were many senses that went into the experience of the plate. They talked about how the presentation added to it, as well as the smell and balance of flavors all were part of the receiver’s perception and experience of the dish. This is something I still carry with me both with bartending and cooking.

My mother didn’t live in the best areas growing up with a young mother, but she so loved spending time with her grandma cooking that she really took it seriously when her grandmother left her all her and the family’s recipes. Her specialty was soul food with some southern desserts sprinkled in, often with no precise measuring at all and no timers. Plenty of stories to go along with each recipe, though. She taught me all these recipes growing up, all with that same “ghetto fork,” and because I never considered myself a cook. In comparison to her passion and talent, I honestly felt like it was wasted on me at the time. Many years and a Culinary Arts degree later, my chef knife from class makes it out to help me for every meal and just about every dish I make. Maybe, without realizing it, this favorite tool of mine in the kitchen has become my version of the “ghetto fork.”

My mother has passed on her and her grandma’s recipes to me, despite me not feeling deserving when she first started giving them. Looking back, what she was saying by sharing all this with me is, “This is where I come from; this is what I love,” and passing that on to me, before I ever thought it was who I was.

Generations sharing recipes and stories becomes part of the family culture, and represents our personal expression, where we come from and everything we’ve overcome to be together sharing these meals. My special tool that I use to add to that, and which represents my own overcoming story, is how this knife is specifically culturally significant to me. It’s not just my own family but so many others who have special foods that represents their culture and upbringing. The association between culture, family and food is explored in an article called Food and Culture13. People use what they have based on where they come from, their resources, maybe their traditions, to come together as a family.

13 Food And Culture - Family, People, and Families, Family Encyclopedia. This was a lovely article that simply discusses how culture or ancestral location influences people’s food preferences, but also how food is often connected to one’s culture or even religion. It suggests that by extension food has an important role in family as well as culture and points out the differences in food traditions around the world.

My breakdown over pancakes was not the last time in my culinary journey that I felt enormous stress, defeat, or that I simply was incapable. On the contrary, these feelings came in varying degrees at many points over the next few years and put a spotlight on what I felt were my shortcomings. Was I ready to face these? It sure didn’t feel like it at the time. So much pressure, with Chefs towering over you, yelling, challenging, pushing. What it really was about was overcoming and facing these supposed flaws in myself in a way I may never have had the courage to on my own without external pressure. What I learned about my capability and potential despite my perceived limits is what I treasure from this difficult time. So, I forgive myself for not being perfect at it because I stuck with it, giving myself the opportunity to prove to myself that I can do a lot on my feet when faced with a problem. I can be uncomfortable, and thrown into the fire unprepared and unsure, and come out doing well, despite how I am perceiving my performance in my mind. I tried and discovered I’m quite good at thinking on my feet and have taken away more confidence from the experience. It gave me the confidence to tackle things I’m not always sure I can do, just to see what happens, and go back to school again for another degree. The anxiety was high when I went into school the day of my final for Cooking II, armed with little more than a knife, and after my last dish was turned in, I felt a wave of relief as well as a sense of accomplishment. Now, when I take my old knife out to make a meal for someone I love, I feel comfort in the handle, familiarity with the new unlocked potential in myself I never knew I was capable of, along with confidence to take on the next meal and pride in everything I overcame to earn it.

Axel Jerix Balicat

Unexpected: An Excerpt from Journal

Dear Diary, October 2018:

I’ll never forget the first time she approached me in the hallway. My heart began to beat faster as my face turned rosy-red as I blushed. She had long brown hair, light hazelnut eyes, and skin soft as silk. She had asked me out for our first date. I was nervous but was overcome with the feeling of joy and excitement. My heart began to pitter-patter, and butterflies filled my stomach as I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I can vividly remember the first time we shared a kiss, our heads slowly inching close with eyes shut tight. When we shared our first kiss, everything seemed to go in slow motion, the anxious feeling in my stomach ended, and my body was in a blissful state. I felt dizzy and lightheaded as the nervous feeling rushed back into my stomach. From that moment on, I realized that I was in love for the first time.

For the first time in my teenage life, I understood what it’s like to experience what I did about another person; the sense of attachment detailed in romance movies and novels. It felt genuine, and I was confident it was. You take a glance into their eyes and see the same star shining in them for the first time, and you notice that another person feels the same way you do about them. The feeling felt euphoric, like floating on cloud nine, madly in love and not worrying about anything.

For the first time, I truly felt and allowed myself to be comfortable around her. I whole-heartedly expressed my feelings and emotions. I let my guard down. I allowed her to see my true self. I allowed myself to be completely loved. I felt venerable around her. Around her, I would laugh so hard to the point that I would snort, but I wasn’t embarrassed. As our relationship got more serious and intimate, I became unafraid to expose my naked body to her, to be truly adored and cherished completely. I trusted her.

It was also the first time I revealed my insecurities and emotions freely and explicitly. Usually, I would hide my feelings from everyone and keep them to myself, but I trusted her so much that I allowed her to see me break down in tears. I loved her. Everything was perfect with her. But like the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. Life is unpredictable, and the unavoidable always occurs. I realized that the person who can bring you the most happiness and joy can also be the person who can cause you the most pain and agony.

I never really anticipated her losing feelings for me and letting me go. I trusted her to protect my heart but seeing her leave, I felt like a sword thrust directly at my chest.

It’s called First love. It’s the first time you will experience heartbreak when it’s over, like someone gripping your heart and tearing it to shreds. Also, the first time you will cry so hard, to the point where you’ll realize that it’s possible to run out of tears. You will feel helpless, like a newly born infant learning to walk. It’ll be the first moment you’ll overthink and blame yourself for something that wasn’t your fault, but you won’t be 100% sure, and make you feel entirely guilty inside. I blamed myself for loving her too much, I repeatedly held myself accountable for putting myself in that relationship and becoming too attached to her. At 16, I believed that my first love would also be my last. I painstakingly gave all I had into that relationship making sure she was happy because her happiness was my happiness. I thought we would be together forever.

Hearing her say ‘I lost feelings for you’ and ‘I don’t love you anymore’ sucked. Nothing compares to you experiencing your first love to be over.

This was my first experience of love. I’ve enjoyed and cherished the blissful moments, but I’ve also learned through my mistakes. It took a while but, I finally snapped out of my fantasy and understood that your first love isn’t like what they depict in the fairytales and movies. No matter how much time and effort we put into the relationship, it doesn’t mean that everything will be okay. I found out that it’s okay for things not to work out with your first love and that it happens to almost everyone. But it will leave you wondering if what you had was real, only because you manifested and longed for it to work. It will leave you feeling confused, lost, sad, and lonely. Most of all you’ll feel numb as you feel like your whole life is over.

First love really hurts when it ends. It will leave you having second thoughts about your self-worth. She left a hole in my heart with her absence: it felt like an empty void, like something is missing. In time, your heart does heal. However it won’t be the same. The empty space in your heart will remain. The scars and pain left by your first love will still be there and never be the same. When your first romance comes to an end, you will feel like you’re drowning, struggling to breathe. You will be yearning for assistance, but the person you trusted and relied on for so long Is no longer there.

The first love will not be the last. However, the first love, it’s something marvelous and magnificent, but it doesn’t mean it will last forever. It’s simply called ‘first love’ because it’s your first not your last.

I’ve taken this heartbreak and learned from it. The heavy burden on your heart will heal as time passes by: although it’s still there, it won’t hurt as much. Right now, I feel a lot better as I have slowly learned and realized these things. Although the feeling is still there, I am not bothered by it as much. It’s just a minute inconvenience that I have to deal with daily. But in the end I felt I’ve learned much from my first love and I’ve moved past her. I’m focused on myself. This truly was an unexpected turn of events.

Quentin Guyonnet

Live and Resist, Love and Cherish

My grandmother was a book. I mean, not literally but she was able to tell you any story from her life at three years old to the present. Her memory was incredible. In the same conversation, she could recall events from the harvesting day festival on October 5th of 1947 to yesterday’s visit with the neighbor. She was a memory beast. Every detail was in her mind, vivid, alive, ready to be expelled as soon as you asked for it. She was like a jukebox, pick a day or a theme, and you will be on a journey back in time. No need for fiction with my grandmother, her life was entertainment. And I, as a kid, had the chance to travel two days a week on a free ride to life. I could open a history book and be one of the characters.

With that said, we never travelled more than 10 miles from her house. That was the perimeter, the “safe zone” for us. I know, it sounds like the exact opposite of an adventure, but the truth is that was all I needed. Going out of our circle would be a strange and foreign land, “on the other side of the bridge,” as she liked to say. In this 10-mile buffer between us and the rest of the world, there were a lot of potential encounters. People were the purpose of her life around the house. The truth is that her region, the central part of France, is amazingly ugly. In this incredible variety of landscapes, we were going from a desertic flat land of corn fields to a desertic flat land of burned sunflowers. The famous highest spot is well known as the local church of St Therese, with her arrogant 55’ façade.

The people over there are a sort of a jungle of broken-toothed farmers and generational alcoholics. I loved them. My grandmother hated most of them. She was always criticizing them, saying that “this one is a cuckold,” and another is “only interested by himself”. The strange thing is that while my grandmother was complaining about of them, she was the one visiting them! She enjoyed her time, laughed with them, and as soon as we were outside, past the door, she would say something like “This one is still the same, a stupid uneducated boy”.

Nevertheless, there was this one friend that deserved to be visited. Her and my grandmother were almost raised together at the local church. Her name was Sister Marie. She lived in this tiny house, adjoining the south wall of the church. When she spoke, her voice sounded like she was rubbing her vocal cords in honey. It was a sweet caress to the cheek every time she talked. Marie had a pot that hung in the kitchen with an inscription on the bottom that said: No husband, no problems. She liked to say that God is not a very demanding person, and that he is a perfect companion.

After the traditional teatime, we always sang “The International”14 song together. The lyrics made some sense to me, but every word was felt with so much intensity by these two old ladies. For 5 minutes, the flame of courage and honor could be seen in their eyes, as if the threat was right outside, on the street. For 5 minutes, the 30-foot square kitchen became a place of protest, comradery, and hope. I don’t think I realized how lucky I was at that time. At eight years old, I saw a glimpse into the real meaning of the [French] Resistance, and it was more real than any books or course on it.

When I asked my grandmother how her childhood was, she described it as hard but rewarding. When she was a child, every task in the village was shared: the baker was helping the farmer when the pigs had to get killed, then the farmer was giving one pig to the baker who then, in exchange, gave a loaf of bread per week to the farmer. The same kind of exchange happened for almost everyone, from the simple laborer to the doctor. After a long day or week of labor, my grandmother described these big feasts next to the fireplace, where everyone gathered into a small kitchen that was also used as a bedroom for all family members. The floor was a composed of a single layer of packed soil. Comfort was not there but human warmth and kindness was all over the place.

On Tuesday evenings after school, my grandmother came to pick me up. She had this old white yellowish car, a Peugeot 104, sounding as loud as a plane during takeoff. No seat belts on it, so she always told us “Sit back and as far as you can on your seat,” thinking that we would be more protected this way in case of a crash. I would run to the car, put my back far on the seat, and get ready for a 15-minute trip along 3 miles. My grandmother drove slowly, but she was in control behind her huge glasses and a cracked windshield.

As soon as we were home, my grandmother jumped into the kitchen to make her special butter bread: a generous spoon of butter spread on a 12-inch roasted baguette (nicely burned in the toaster then the black burned layer was scratched off with a knife). I loved everything about it. The smell and the taste of the lightly burned bread mixed with a strong salty butter that was always left outside the fridge. I crunched into it like a savage and then licked the remaining melted butter off my fingers. I don’t remember having more pleasure in eating anything else after these. We were not about spending money on expensive ingredients and then mix them according to a complex recipe. Everything was about simple taste and good memories but also about the routine and the pleasure in the making process: seeing my grandmother cutting this long piece of bread with the smile and singing while spreading the strong-smelling butter. Reaching the toaster was a sort of a quest, as it was on the top of a shelf behind the freezer, but the boxes that were on the top of the freezer had to be put on the ground first to be able to reach this desired toaster. Why she never put the toaster on the kitchen table, I will never know… Until today, the taste of these slightly burned toasted bread is carved inside me. Every breakfast we ate butter bread, and every breakfast is now a reconnexion to these moments. This is my own madeleine de Proust15 .

14 The international song was the resistance anthem in WWI and shared by anarchist, communist and socialist party at that time. The lyrics describe the explicit violence and direct threat from the resistance in response to Nazis invasion and occupation of French territory.

Moving into the next step of our Tuesday evening, we walked into the garden. That was her pride and her reason to wake up early every day. The pleasure of doing things by yourself and be able to say, “These are out of the ground thanks to me” or, “I did this”. After this avalanche of colors and smells coming from every square foot of the garden, we came back inside, warming up the dinner on the old heater that was used as a stove. Once dinner was finished, she put me to bed while singing old revolutionary and resistance songs from WWII.

Even after I left the region where she lived (I was around twelve years old), we always talked on the phone on Sunday afternoon. Everything is about rituals with my grandmother. Our conversion was almost the same from one Sunday to another:

“How are doing grandma?” I asked first.

“Ouch, my belly is painful, I must have eaten something bad,” she always answered

“I hope you’re doing ok though” I always responded.

15 Marcel Proust is a French novelist that wrote “In search of lost time”. In this book, he explains that every time he was eating a madeleine (a type of French pastry) as an adult, he remembered the taste of those that he dipped into his tea while he was a child. The madeleine of Proust is any taste, smell or sound that will remind someone about his childhood and a memory associated.

“Yes, as everyone is telling me, I am in great shape for ninety-year-old women!” she was always proud to tell me.

“Sure, you are grandma, the strongest I know!” I answered to comfort her.

When I turned 26 years old, one Sunday, I called her as usual at 6pm but she did not pick up the phone. I remember that I felt bad because I had to leave on a mission in Kurdistan - Middle East - and I had a poor network for communication over there. I took off in Paris, landed in Istanbul for a couple of hours, and then took another plane to Erbil. While in the air, I was looking into the wide array of clouds and thinking about what the hell she was doing this Sunday as she did not answer my routine call. I wondered whether she was outside enjoying the vegetables’ company. I arrived in Erbil excited and motivated for my new mission in a local hospital. I slept well that night, but the phone woke me up at 0700 am. It was a call from my mother.

“Hi mom, what’s up?” I said.

“Quentin, it’s about grandma” She answered with a calm voice

I have no memory about the rest of our conversion. It was not a conversation though, just my mother giving unnecessary information about who found her, that she was in whatever position when they found her, that a neighbor said that she was probably dehydrated.

“I think I’m going away I can feel it but please don’t say anything to my family” That’s what she apparently said to her hairdresser the day before.

After this phone call, I was left alone, in a war-affected foreign country. I had a terrible moment of despair, hopelessness in front of the people’s condition over there. I was left alone, and my grandmother was gone. I was down for a week.

The next Monday, I woke up and looked through the window: crushed buildings, surgical bombing from the US army, some locals selling tea and saggy fruits in the middle of the road, speaking loudly, and laughing among the collapsed buildings, laughing despite their desperate living condition. This is when it appeared to me, when I realized where I was and what I was doing. My grandmother, no matter in which state and planet she was, was part of my everyday strength. She is the best thing that happened to me, and I felt her beside me watching these poor people from another land, “on the other side of the bridge” as she liked to say. I felt that she was with me despite the distance that was physically separating us. Even though I could not go to her funeral, all that did not really matter. The memories, the smells, the colors, the tastes, the songs, all this was a part of me. I was what I lived, I was her determination, her passion to accomplish something for yourself and for others, her skepticism about people and human condition in general, and her unconditional love for her family.

Jocelyn Sung

The Love Written into Memories

The world is full of so many memories. They’re everywhere. Sometimes, they’re engraved into the rough bark of a tree, like how two jagged initials sit inside of an uneven heart. Sometimes, they’re delicately interwoven into the familiar scent of a stranger’s perfume as they hurry past us, however fleeting that may be. Other times, they can be stored within a pair of footprints set into the sand, and even when a wave grows bold enough to wash it away, that memory is forever tucked away in the hearts of the two people who once walked there.

These memories are all so different, but it’s in that difference that their similarities lie. These memories are found in all types of places, by so many fateful means and with so many remarkable people. They’re protected within the beautiful words of eloquently-written letters, the allure of late-night phone calls, small acts of random kindness, and more.

Like all of these things, paper has a memory, too.

For example: when we thoughtlessly shove a prescription into a drawer that’s already full with other things, the paper remembers the way it has to curl in order to fit, and that curl will stay. When we’re in a hurry and we rush to fold up a grocery list, the paper remembers the crookedness of the crease. It doesn’t easily forget.

These types of careless actions are difficult to take back if not entirely impossible. Eventually, after a bit of time has passed or our busy lives have slowed down again, we may realize what we’ve done. We may do our best to smooth out the curls, to realign those creases and unfurl those crumpled balls, but the damage has already been done. As much as we’d like for the paper to be new again, free of all mistakes and imperfections, those marks are there to stay.

Paper has a memory, and so do people.

When I got the scar on my elbow, I was probably six or seven young enough to be able to use my age as an excuse if anyone ever asked me how I got it.

“Oh, that,” I would say, a relaxed smile on my face. I would nonchalantly turn my arm to get a better look at it. “I’m actually not too sure how it got there. I was pretty young when it happened, so I don’t remember.”

In truth, that isn’t how it is at all; the day I received that scar is one of my earliest and most vivid memories. I was already in tears, standing at the entryway leading into the living room. I can’t remember why, but I do remember the way it hurt. Those tears were the type that were really difficult to control, where sobs ricochet throughout the deepest parts of your body and you’re left gasping for air. Each breath was a painful one, and that’s all I could really think about: how all of it just hurt so badly.

My mom was there. She was already exasperated, but something must have made her anger rise to its limit. Maybe it was the sounds of me gasping on my own tears, or maybe it was the way I was trying to reach for a fistful of her clothes. Either way, it was enough for her. As my hands brushed against her skin, she threw her arm and sent me flying into the darkness of the hallway.

The shock a combination of dumbfounded surprise at her hostility and from the sheer force of me crashing onto the floor hit me all at once. There wasn’t any more pain, but in its place was a strange disquiet that spread from the inside of my heart to the rest of my body. I was quite literally stunned into silence. For a moment or two, I think it even scared away the tears.

That moment of silence very quickly passed, and my crying began again with a refortified sense of sadness one that was worsened by how badly my heart was twisting. If I was struggling to breathe before, then I was on the verge of passing out now. Even if my mom had tried, I was inconsolable. I was hyperventilating and couldn’t bring myself to understand what had just happened which would have been true even if I hadn’t only been six- or seven-years-old.

In the same way that my crying had been invigorated, so was my mom’s anger. She flicked on the light switch, stomped forward, dug her fingers into my arm, and yanked me to my feet. She dragged me over to the hallway closet, and with me standing in front of the door, decided that it was time for a hilariously late, impromptu time-out.

A minute passes. Maybe it was more, or maybe my memory is exaggerating, and it was actually less. Whenever this memory plays through my head, the timing is the part that I can never accurately recall. Maybe it’s because time moves differently when you’re younger, let alone in moments like these, when a parent’s definition of love couldn’t possibly be more warped.

I’m standing in my little time-out corner, and just because my mom has said so. It’s as if there are invisible walls keeping me confined to this one spot. I want to run away so badly my instinct is to disappear upstairs, to crawl into my bed and hide underneath the sheets like how I used to whenever I was really upset. Once or twice, I remember my dad coming after me to cheer me up. He was the only one who ever did, even though he eventually and rather quickly stopped. But right now, that wouldn’t have even mattered; even if these invisible walls didn’t exist around me and I could run up the stairs, I knew nobody would be looking for me any time soon.

I notice something out of the corner of my eyes. It’s to my immediate left, and it’s a dark splotch on the wall. I’m pretty sure that it’s never been there before, so I can’t help but wonder what it is. I turn my head to get a better look at it, and there’s a long smear of crimson, jarring against the white paint of the hallway’s walls.

I’m wondering how it even got there, but that’s the shock speaking for me, the process of processing that’s doing its best to protect me. I don’t need to ask myself, because even if I’m not ready to admit it just yet, I already know.

I glance at my elbow, and blood is running down my arm. It’s everywhere. (Even now, when I’m twenty-years-old and writing this, it’s still the most I’ve ever seen myself bleed.) For a few moments, I can’t even tell where all of it is coming from. I’m looking around, almost frantic as I search for some sort of explanation, and that’s when I finally notice it:

There are hundreds of glass shards covering the carpet, razor-sharp edges glittering underneath the hallway light. Fragments of entire mason jars sit in an overturned shower caddy where they had been waiting to be taken into the garage, bloodied and broken after I had been thrown right on top to them.

Despite the overall, almost piercing clarity of this one memory, I honestly can’t remember a single hint of remorse in my mom’s demeanor as she came over to find out what I was screaming about. I think I was even the one who had to help clean my own blood off of the wall.

Now that I’m older, the scar is a faded memory. I feel like most people would assume it’s a thing of bitterness that I keep dwelling on, but I just don’t think about it too much anymore. It’s not that I’ve forgiven my mom, because that couldn’t possibly be any further from the truth. In all honesty, it’s because not much has changed since then. I’m not small enough to be a target for convenient stress relief anymore, but there are other things that end up slipping past the cracks. They’re ugly, hurtful words that creep into a conversation. They’re nightmares that should be easy to discern from reality, but because of that reality, they’re given enough shape so that they always feel possible, to the point that I wake up with the taste of nausea in my mouth.

All of these things, these painful memories, have written themselves onto me. There are pages upon pages of stories with themes similar to this one, where the words convey a sense of disappointment and distrust, where loving someone becomes more of a responsibility than a privilege.

Like how I have these memories, so does paper. When we shove it into a drawer that’s already full of other things, it remembers the way it curls. When we’re in a hurry, and we rush to fold it up, it remembers that crease. It doesn’t easily forget.

But there’s one key point here: if paper has a memory in the creases we make with our careless hands, paper also has a memory with the words that we can choose to write on them. It’s just like how we have a memory of the moments that we do our best to remember and cherish.

Because years later, I remember the way my eighth grade English teacher praised one of the first stories I ever wrote, even if it was only for my weekly vocabulary homework. Now, I find myself sitting at my desk, crafting entire stories that would have likely never existed without her influence.

I remember the time in high school when a friend showed me a song from Hamilton because he really liked it. Years later, I have an entire playlist on my Spotify dedicated to musicals, and I still like listening to them.

I remember the late nights I spent on my laptop, hanging out with a group of people who I had never even met before. I can still see it so clearly in my head: the darkness of the night that stretches beyond my bedroom window, the way the soft light of my lamp illuminates my keyboard as I’m trying to type a cohesive sentence, barely able to breathe because of how hard I’m laughing.

I remember the way I felt when two classmates became two friends. I remember the comfort I felt inside of my heart, the warmth it emanated as I imagined myself turning the career I was forced toward into something that I can actually enjoy one day, as long as I had them to do it with me.

I remember the kindness of a stranger who quickly became one of my closest friends within a year. I remember the way I couldn’t help but smile at his excitement, the way I felt a little more at ease whenever I was around him. I remember the way he cares. I remember the way he made my twentieth birthday one of the best ones I’ve ever had, despite the fact that all of my previous ones were filled with so much disappointment and resentment.

Just like paper, we have memories, too. We choose which ones to act on and which ones we want to use to grow even more. We have creases and folds that were made by the carelessness of other people, but we also have a pen. It’s with that pen that we’re able to choose which memories we want to keep. In that way, it’s how we begin to write our own story.

Jennifer McCandless

Here’s to You

I can recall the day Albert died he was just 27 years old, just a few days before his birthday. He was buried on a hot, Sunday afternoon on July 12th, 1987. Albert was always curious about life, and he tried to make it as normal for himself as possible by learning to read and write, going to school, learning to ride a bicycle, and his interest in electronics and wanting to know how a radio worked.

He loved music, especially his Elvis Presley collection, and he even understood the Apache language and spoke a few phrases.

Albert was handicapped and stood 5’7” tall, always had his left arm folded inward which was his weak arm and dragged his left leg that made him crippled. My brother Albert always wore a cap and his hair was long to his collar, with bangs parted to the side. He had a mustache and never wore a beard. He always dressed himself in a colorful t-shirt and his favorite bellbottom jeans. When he was going somewhere important, he would wear a long sleeve, western shirt with his t-shirt underneath, with his blue jeans and brown cowboy boots.

When Albert was a teenager he moved away to Flagstaff to learn job skills and independent living. He loved traveling and stayed in a group home where he made many friends and he would let my mom know of all his travels. Growing up, I didn’t see much of Albert because I was beginning my life in college at Phoenix. When Albert came back home to stay with my mom he brought a coffee cup that he drank with it all the time and this cup is where this story takes place.

This coffee cup is navy blue with a handle, it has 2 horizontal stripes running across that were centered in the middle, the color of the stripes used to be gold, but over the years it has washed away and has now faded to brown. There is a small chip on the handle and a small chip around the rim of the coffee cup. After my brother died, my mom did not throw the coffee cup away; this cup has sat 27 years in the cupboard. The only person that is allowed to drink with this cup is my mom.

Every morning around 5:00 a.m. my mom and I sit in the garage area on the lawn chairs and start our morning talking about life, family and Albert. There was one time I remember when I was ten, Albert was gone on a Saturday, he had left early that morning.

I can recall our conversation: I asked mom, “Where’s Albert?”

Mom said, “He was going on a trip and Albert said he would be back in the afternoon.”

I didn’t reply, and spent the whole day playing outside with my younger sister Lisa, when all of a sudden a small school bus pulls up by the house. We see Albert get off and he is happy to see us.

I yell to mom, “Albert’s home!”

Lisa and I yell at the same time, “Where did you go?” and “What’s that?”

Albert pulls out his medals that is draped around his neck and says, “I was in Phoenix and our school was part of the Special Olympics.”

There were a total of 4 medals: 1 gold, 2 silver, and 1 bronze.

Lisa and I asked again excitedly, “What are they for?”

Albert explained, “I got the gold medal in the 50 yard dash, and a silver medal in the 100 meter dash and a silver medal in the 400 meters, and 1 bronze medal in the softball throw.”

We were amazed and very proud of him that day and to our surprise we didn’t know how athletic he was.

I can remember saying, “Can I try on your medals?”

Looking back at this special time of his life with my sister and I, he showed us that he was a role model even though we didn’t see it like that at an early age.

After telling mom my story of what I remember of Albert she smiled and laughed, “Do you remember the time Albert rode the horse.”

I had a smile on my face and said, “Yeah!” “I remember Albert chasing the stray, white horse around the house all day. Somehow he managed to find a rope and got it around the horse’s neck, I thought he had given up in the evening when it was getting dark. I remember you calling us in the house to eat, but Albert didn’t come inside. I remember Cooper saying he was at the abandoned cars trying to stand on the hood of one car so that he could straddle his leg over the horse. It was close to 9 o’clock at night and getting late. Remember, you were calling for Albert, and he came out of the dark into light riding the horse. You got mad at him and Albert said he would be in soon. That night we laughed and were very curious of how he had managed to get on and off the horse because of his bad arm and leg.”

I told mom laughing, “Those were happy memories.”

After sitting awhile outside and reflecting on Albert, mom went inside to check on the coffee.

Mom will be brewing coffee and once it is done she will grab Albert’s cup and add 1 teaspoon of cream, 1 teaspoon of sugar with coffee and sit outside. She sits quietly, staring off in the distance patiently sipping on her coffee. She is always looking down the street to watch cars, or children going to school and sometimes watching the dogs wandering around in our neighborhood.

One day I asked mom out of curiosity, “Ma, where did Albert get this coffee cup?” She replied, “The people that Albert stayed with, took them shopping in a gift shop in Flagstaff and the staff was going to pay for their cup.”

I questioned her again, “How did you get it?”

Mom looked at the coffee cup, took a drink and said, “When Albert moved back to Peridot, I always saw him with this cup. After he died I wanted to keep the cup as a memory of him. Every morning when I am drinking coffee I am drinking for him.”

I understood how special my brother was to my mom and realizing that maybe the loss of not having him here today was a special way she grieved for him.

The last question I asked before she asked why I wanted to know was, “What are you going to do if the coffee cup breaks or if you die?”

Looking with concern, mom said “Hopefully someone else will carry on what I have done to keep his memory alive, like I have.”

After getting a deeper understanding of why this cup is special and why it is only meant for her to handle, made me appreciate this coffee cup even more. Every day I wash this coffee cup and now I know how delicate and special it is and I handle it with more care, so that mom can continue her daily ritual to honor Albert.

When I look back of how special Albert was being handicapped he proved to everyone and even himself that he was capable of doing many things on his own.

The lesson he taught me to never give up and to focus on how important life is and to live it to the fullest no matter what challenges we face in our own lives.

Yassen Manassra

Wonders of the Red Mesa

As you might wonder why is it so important?

Why, so many colors to see, so many people looking at the sight wondering about thought they might have?

Why so many different colors in different shades from the sun above?

Why so many people loving this sight they we all know ?

People love seeing the history of the place and history of the sight

Wonderful colors with red, orange, and many more With people wanting to wonder why its so important

They seek and look and cant find

But then go and see and finally see why it is important to them.

Christopher Dyer

Ode to Chris: He was a man Of temperate climate

No matter the weather

Calm as a sunrise

Dependable too For students who asked How does it go?

Never a rush

To just get it done But always with A contemplative pause

Do you get it now? Still ever spun From his ancestors thread

Eyes claim distance

Without stamp of ownership

Part of this land

Part of his people

Ever with us

We get it- now

Sarah Llanque

3 Haikus Growth

Transitions are hard. Stagnation is still harder Challenges bring growth

Resilience

What is resilience? Enduring strain then recoil Resilience shows growth

Transition to Nursing

Nursing is Caring Transitioning the mindset to recoil Nurses can recoil

Joseph Lujan

We must take our comfort

We must take our comforts. It drags on as always.

Grinding us down back to dust. Taking more and more away. Small problems sucking the fluids out.

We must take our comforts.

Only so much can be taken from the tree

Before no leaves, no fruit are left.

Refocus on the self.

Feed and water well with time to regrow.

We must take our comforts. Keep warm and cool and rest. Try to fix it early and soon.

Slow ourselves to be vulnerable That we need some help of any kind.

We must take our comforts.

Mars Glazner

Greatness and The Dream

Put a finger down if you want to die.

A man in a button-up is surprised it’s gotten this bad. We know, say the comments, we’re living it.

Likes float across the screen as a white girl twerks to a song about slavery.

A dog in a beret briefly makes it better.

Put a finger down if you want to die.

Footage from a school shooting. Which one?

Children post memes under tables in the dark.

They’ve already sent their ‘I love yous’. A keyboard shortcut made in first grade.

‘Woman raped while having a miscarriage!’

A cop kicks a black man’s face in. Tiny bones uncovered at boarding schools. No longer news.

Put a finger down if you want to die.

Top Ten things to buy this Holiday Season:

Teenagers smirk with dead-eyes. Entitlement, the parents all agree. Music blares. You can tell by her posture he is not as numb as they want to be.

‘Chronically Online’ Anonymous1234 criticizes.

Put a finger down if you want to die.