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Peaks & Valleys
Last month, for the first time since February 2020, I boarded an airplane. The Delta variant had just started to kick up, but my backpacking friend and I took every possible precaution. We had booked campsites in advance as well as kayaking and boating expeditions. We used a rideshare app called Turo to book automobiles…
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Körperkontrol by Bike
People may think of bicycling as a very individual sport, but actually there’s a lot to be said for teamwork to create a good ride, especially for safety reasons where one might be off the grid on back forest roads. So while one concept of body is the individual, as a group one becomes part…
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Ghost Ship
Though I’m doing other things with my life, I still sometimes have the sensation that my academic career plows onwards, like a ghost ship raided and abandoned by pirates. It’s a disembodied feeling, sort of like there’s a whole part of my body still on that boat, spinning the wheel and hoisting a sail, that…
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the brain as it is
Sometimes one rolls all the way back down the mountain in a snowball of old junk, into old realities which block out the new and sabotage hopes of renewed peace. What I’ve had to acknowledge is that through some of my experiences, my brain changed and I have to be continually mindful to manage it…
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hollowed pride
The above image chronicles the last time I played chess with my dad. I was almost 9 the day that I beat him. He snapped a polaroid, bragged about it to others, and never played with me again. Eventually I found other people to play with, one friend who was a boy, and mostly boys…
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Unpacking joy
It’s now about 2 weeks since I moved, the unpacking goes on. I keep finding more things to get rid of. When I was a summer camp counselor, they trained us up about how to help homesick campers: home is a place one returns to, but to return one has to venture out. So I…
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“Juliette Balcony”
Life has begun to move here again, with vaccines in bodies, the sun and spring blossoms compelling people out of doors, the optimism of beginnings of recovery under the Biden administration. For me, this has meant that it’s time to move. I’m lucky to have the circumstances surrounding it be amicable with plenty of lead…
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“intersubjectivity”
I’ve attended several virtual events this past year, and some have stuck with more more than others – those that have inspired me, or, alternatively, provoked me in uncomfortable ways that have continued to bother me or simply make me want to gag; as they say, if you see something, say something. So I am…
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Freeze / Melt
The ice storm of a week and a half ago turned out to be the most destructive weather event here in the last 30 years. I didn’t ever really have a moment where I felt endangered, but going through the motions of survival was probably good earthquake preparation. Being disconnected from the internet was a…
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Experiential Reading
As the interregnum draws down to its last hours, a couple of things have happened. Aside from a country nearly turned upside-down, the year changed — which meant that a new WordPress theme came out: TwentyTwentyOne. I am someone who needs to know more intimately than not how it works. The other news is I’ve…