Souljournalists

You would be a terrible mom. My bare feet stuck to the linoleum as I paced back and forth in the bathroom. Panic was in full bloom, or perhaps it was the anxiety of the unknown. This was a test of will; days of waiting to confirm what I already presumed to be true, were tormenting. Empty boxes littered the floor, proof of my determined perseverance, I wanted it to happen. It had to happen and needed to happen. Then it did, two blue lines. Leaning against the counter, I tried to process what I was seeing; was this real? The first of five the past three days, and I was not sure if it was wishful thinking, or fear. Tossing the pee-stick into t

        I remember her hands the most.        There on that day, under the harsh glow of the hospital lights, her hands had been so small and frail in mine that I almost couldn't recognise them.        Those hands used to pick me up when I fell, brush me off and put a salve to all my grievous boyhood wounds. I watched those same hands stop a wild charging animal, radiating courage and power while my father and I hid in the car. Those hands held others, gripping tight as teardrops stained them or shook with fright. No person was ever left on their own around her. If they were in need of help or friendship, those hands would descend to upli

 I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have to remember to breathe every time those words come, I don’t want to believe it. I still can’t believe it. I remember the first time my counselor looked at me and told me that my depression and anxiety might be something more. Great, I thought, What could possibly be worse than this? Firstly, PTSD is not a disorder that only affects our war heroes, though that is what it’s commonly associated with. My own first thoughts were: “isn’t that a disorder for war veterans or someone who witnessed war first-hand?“ The truth is there are many causes for Post Traumatic Stress

Not long after my mother lost her battle with cancer, my aunt and uncle decided I could use some time away from it all, so we wound up in Ocean City at the same time as Hurricane Ernesto.  There's a picture of me somewhere, waving from a hammock strung over a flooded beach in the rain - an hour after that picture was taken, that hammock was gone, blown out to sea as the storm grew stronger. We had my cousin with us - she was three at the time, and to keep her from being frightened, we all pretended everything was okay.  We explored the closed-up boardwalk.  We drove out to Assateague Island, wondering with each loud Crack! whether the windsh

Inside my mind stands a single man. This man has grown and evolved, as have I in the real word. But he does something I do in rarity: he dances. He dances to music, alone. He thought he would never dance with another, until one day I met a very special woman. She and I danced, thus he was gifted with a dance partner himself. This man is made out of ink, as is many of the things existing within my mind, and each step is a word written in genius. As they dance I see the beauty created: immortal men, mysterious shadows, the endless expansions of love and the trials one must face, all from their dancesteps.

He doesn't look like a gymnast. He's all button down shirts and frazzled grey hair framing wire spectacles, a picture perfect professorial archetype down to the very tips of his frayed shoelaces. But he was a gymnast once, or so he tells us, and I believe him because he smiles like he knows something while he's chatting before class. It's strange to see that image superimposed over the current one – the distinguished professor in pressed khaki slacks and a jacket, worn brown loafers exuding a faintly courteous manner (you can always tell them by their shoes), and a ring on the fourth finger of his left hand – versus the athletic ki

 In a life that feels so lacking in concrete identity, the one thing that answers the age-old question “Who am I?” is the knowledge that Colorado is the land that gave birth to me. Pride swells in my heart when I see a bald eagle flying so close to the surface of Blue Mesa that its glossy feathers touch the water and make gentle ripples in the lake. There is equal awe when herds of elk and deer walk by me unafraid, and there is laughter when a wild turkey gobbles as he flees from me through a thick evergreen forest. Back east where the foothills give way to the Great Plains, I am humbled by the angry tornadoes that roar across the

Dear Maybe-Mama, I was not a mistake. It’s strange to think that exactly half of my DNA comes from you, and yet we could pass each other on the street and not even recognize each other. I’ve never really believed in searching for you, my biological family. I never asked my parents the heartbreaking questions that Hollywood makes small, blue-eyed orphans ask: “Why didn’t my real mother want me?” I’ve never believed in any of that, and I don’t expect that you’d want me to, anyway. But if we ever did meet, what would we even say to each other? I don’t speak Chinese, and you probably don&#

Canning season is that wonderful time of year when you never have a moment to yourself - it's all four in the morning mason jar sterilizing, neighbors making coffee in your kitchen before you're even dressed because they have cabbage, too (or carrots or apples or string beans) and you've invited them over with a truck load because you know extra hands make all the difference. It's the time of year when the kitchen is never comfortable - if the water's not on to boil, the oven is warming and full of jars, or the space around the table is all buckets and elbows, paring knives, sweaty brows and chatter. There is never silence - even in that te

This is an attempt at an informal essay on fan fiction, by a middle-aged woman who reads and enjoys fan fiction. It won’t really be a balanced argument—I will be concentrating more on what I see as the positive aspects of the genre. I’ll be using mainly examples from the Sherlock fandom, that being the fandom I’m most familiar with. (There will be some spoilers, especially for series 3, so if you haven’t seen the series yet and you intend to, it might be wise to give this essay a miss.) Why do I read fan fiction? The basic reason is exactly the same reason I read anything—some of it is of astounding qualit