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Choose Slow
Dear friends, As summer comes to a close, I grieve the end of unhurried days, of slow mornings. There have been many lovely moments this week when the stillness of an early morning or late evening has calmed my body, my mind. Moments when I can rest in the beauty of slowness, of quietude, paralyzed…
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In Praise of Roots
The wildflowers trembled in the early morning breeze. Their violet and ivory faces turned upward toward the patches of blue sky, caught between overhanging branches. My fingers brushed the flowers’ as I strolled down the trail. God had planted the word “experience” in my mind, a divine note, and I was existing in the moment.…
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Blindness
At age eight, I desperately wanted glasses. I liked the elegant look they afforded adults and thought perhaps the intelligence they conferred could cloak me as well. One of my schemes to acquire this special good was to fake an eye condition. I complained to my mother that my eye vision was blurred, and, as…
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So Long, Farewell
Reader, I graduated high school. With the close of this chapter of life, I enter a stage of bidding goodbye. Farewell is not a foreign concept to me. There have been many transitions, upheavals, and deaths of the familiar in my life. But I feel a strange sense of loss in graduating as I am…
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The Dangers of Anti-Aging Narratives
A month ago, I presented my speech, “Keeping Up Appearances: The Dangers of Anti-Aging Narratives,” in front of my school. I had spent all semester writing, researching, and thinking about this topic, and my presentation was a culmination of my efforts and thoughts. Learning about and speaking on this subject was a transformative experience —…
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Eighteen Going on Eighty
I turned eighteen several days ago. Considering I have been mentally eighty for several years, physically turning eighteen feels… almost natural. Eighteen is a strange number. Legally, it carries the weight of adult jail, child adoption, marriage, voting, and endless terms & conditions. But eighteen is also an expecting number, waiting for me to act…