{"id":115,"date":"2025-04-22T12:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T17:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inscape.jewell.edu\/?page_id=115"},"modified":"2025-04-22T12:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T17:05:08","slug":"creative-nonfiction","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/inscape.jewell.edu\/index.php\/creative-nonfiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Creative Nonfiction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Metamorphosis and Decay by Ivan Calderon<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    The sky gleams an otherworldly opalescent stream over an expanse of dirt pathways,
eroding brick homes roofed with corrugated sheets, and fields of lush, wiry grasses dappled in yellow wildflowers. These stone huts inhale and yawn out streaming air that\u2019ll eventually sail its way over the gulf and into the reaches of the Gerania Mountains. While these small Corinthian homes allude to the inhabitants of villagers who once cultivated crops and communities, it now seems dormant. Open windows whisper the stories of an ancient civilization reclaimed from the Romans, and the eventual hush of this slumbering village.

    My original assessment of Nea Korinthos reflects my singular frame of experience with
this region coiled in the long braids of history. Braids of undergrowth, wild flowers, spruce
needles, nymphs, and dryads, and chronicles of generations and societies who walked before
earthquakes and conquest. I would never be able to see the totality of destruction brought under the command of Lucius Mummius or the reign and eventual tribulations of King Sissyphus in the canon of mythology. I wasn\u2019t really interested in reading history to begin with. My eyes were more-so marveled by the mountains beyond, lying like slumbering giants beneath a veil of fog. I found myself fabricating my own daydreams that never pondered the empirical or historical analysis of such an ancient geological structure. I could easily carry on with my day without even an inkling of interest in the chronicles of history before me, but it was hard to avoid the enchantment of structures that could amplify the stories I held in my head. Columns remnant of colonnades gnawed away by rain and conquering stand along hills and meadows near the feet of high, grassy mountains. The valley draws a genealogy from the ruins and up the slope, but only the colonnade caught my eye as a primeval example. Even when I had finally reached the monument, I remember snapping a quick photo of the colonnade and then fantasizing of the journeys that awaited my tour group and I amongst the high orange trees in Nafplio. We never stayed more than a night in Nafplio.

    At 11:59 pm, EST on April 23, 2020, President Trump\u2019s latest Travel Ban went into effect,
substantially limiting entry into the United States.<\/em> We rode on buses and attempted to send back reassuring emails even with the frightful idea of our elaborate plans now thrown in disarray: Even when we feared the worst, the privilege of being students from a wealthy private school saved us from any major inconvenience. Even though the return home was three days away, we instead traversed the cloudy metropolis of London, England. We stayed in a nice hotel and spent the days exploring the folds of experience nestled amongst shuttling throngs and hazy mist. We shared the privilege to see structures much younger than those back in Greece. We saw the bronze statue of Nelson Mandela, Big Ben towering above spires, a bronze statue of a muscular lion along the bricks leading up to the British Museum, an abnormally large Ferris wheel, a Tescos near the hotel, and various McDonald\u2019s stores and Starbucks shops. We revisited the Tescos and McDonald\u2019s out of necessity. Soon enough, though, at the closing of a detour marked by calls and texts back home, and the looming anxiety of slight uncertainty, we walked to the British Museum\u2014 One of London\u2019s most notable and infamous cornerstones of a culture chronicled with colonization and stolen stories. Even though those concerns have been discussed in historical discourse for generations, the allure of such a magnificently sculpted structure depicting a millennia of human existence and the enchanting nature of consumerism batted away moral reflection. We stared at and passed the coffin of Hornedjitef, the Rosetta Stone, and armor pieces of ancient European societies. We all glanced at African iconography, Greek amphoras, sculptures, a restaurant encircled with neatly cut hedges, a little snack bar filled with expensive ham sandwiches, and a bookstore glowing with smooth plastic toys and magnificent, golden book covers. I brought home a book of Grimms\u2019 Fairy Tales<\/em> that I have yet to read. Stories splayed out in front of me like the tongue of a smelly, panting dog stuck in my face. So, I averted my eyes. I felt no interest in seeing the jewels of recorded time. Furthermore, the presence of evidence, a piece of the puzzle of presentation, illustration, and analysis left me even more unwelcoming to those perspectives. I shunned context because the flight we had scheduled the next morning held the presidency. My stomach also grumbled, my limbs shuddered with soreness, and my eyes drooped with my exhaustion. My thoughts lingered at the potentiality ahead. They were a crowded bus unable to provide occupancy for analysis or present thought.

    With the seemingly swift passage of time came our return back to our homes. The pull
away from the enchanting and unfamiliar topography, weather, and culture of regions brought us \u201ctravelers\u201d back to the less vibrant hues of the familiar. A mellow azure sky, beige and terracotta suburbia, glades of darkened green, and the chittering of squirrels wandering the backyard in the morning returned to my senses. I actually welcomed the sights and sounds of familiarity. I got to sleep in my own bed, and my spring break was also extended a few weeks in advance. Life was good until we soon learned that Lockdown would spread the breadth of most of our highschool careers. Hours upon hours sitting on the couch, poised at a desk, lying in bed, splayed out on the floor, and\/or skipping courses presented from a computer screen.

    The monotony of the constant flow of classes, homework, lying in bed, and staring out
my window made me stare at the aspects of my enclosure. I spent hours, lying in bed, gazing at my cupboard, or my wall that displayed pictures of a younger me drooling over my grandparents, or out my window that provided a view of the verdance outside. The backyard led to a forest. The longer I grew familiar with these things, the longer my enclosure began to pop and sputter with the flares of creation. My dreams opened up the way for haikus about frogs on boats, my cupboard became a small altar of crystals and incense, my wall began to remind me of a love I could see, and my backyard started to invite me to bask in its green. I began to do my homework out on the back porch, bathing in the spring sun rays and indulging in the chords of chirps and swaying branches. I wasn\u2019t just looking anymore, I began to taste, I began to feel the various modes of language that nature articulates.

    While there were plenty of days that I basked in the warm caresses of soft sunlight and
napped beneath the shade of high branches overhead, there were also many days where I lied stuffed beneath my covers. I lied trapped by the thralls of pressing the snooze button once more. My blinds covered the rainy scene outside. I normally sent out an email or two on these kinds of days because I felt comfort in this paralysis. My covers were an anaconda and I was a coiled up snapping turtle. I tried to bite back and convince myself to move, but the despair of the inevitable, the hopelessness of making it to class on time provided the assurance of simply allowing the anaconda to hug tighter and tighter. Eventually the violent pulsations of adrenaline stall at their apex. I grew tired. My eyelids fell. Darkness encroached, and the anaconda reigned victorious once again. I don\u2019t feel the snake\u2019s bite until I come to. The nap was much needed, but came at the cost of frantic emails and docked points. Moments like those bring in the encroachment of gloam. No longer can I see my altar of crystal bowls and essential oils. No longer do I feel the compulsion to investigate gleams shimmering from the edges of the blinds. I sink into the mattress.

    Wait, what\u2019s peaking through the blinds? The gleam grows and I raise the blinds. Rays of
orange sunlight sweep the room in radiance. Sparkly winks bounce off of the white quartz
crystals on the cupboard, my infant smile shows bright, and I see spears of light volleying
through openings in branches. Sunbeams shower into my backyard. They sprinkle over a
weather-beaten bird bath that lies partially reared over the grass. Left to wind and storm, this small structure embossed with rust and mud reservoirs some water that refracts sparkles off of the light. The bird bath has not been touched in years, at this moment, its age and metamorphosis from a pool of bird-bathing to an old cistern I now observe. While there remains some utility, the bird bath now bathes in the sun like an old oak. Its rust shows its elderly rank, but the allusion of faded red and pink stained glass gives this old codger something to say around the hearth. Paled vibrance, decaying foundation, and the whispers of primeval memory are revered traits held by those who have traversed and endured the duration of existence. While I found beauty looking at this old little bird bath, I also saw other forms emerging from the brilliance of the display out in my backyard. I saw smirks, grins, yawns, and scowls from the trees. I saw frogs in canoes riding the thin currents of rainwater draining down the hillside. I saw a mountain ridge blanketed beneath boreal fog like a slumbering giant tucked into bed. I saw braids of yellow wildflowers and wiry grass. I saw a colonnade standing tall in a meadow scattered with ancient stones.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Tying Shoes on my Own Time by Emma Kelly<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\" One, two, buckle my shoe<\/em>

Three, four, shut the door
Five, six, pick up sticks
Seven, eight, lay them straight
Nine, ten, begin again<\/em>

                                                I was seven years old when I was first told how to tie my shoes.
  At the time, I wasn\u2019t aware of how mature of an age I was at to just now be learning how to tie
my shoes. I was a child who adored Velcro. Velcro was

                                                                                                                Light up sneakers
                                                                                                                       Convenience
                                                                                                                              Comfort
                                                                                                                                 Home
                                                                                                                             My mom

My mom never pushed me to wear tie shoes. She knew I loved the way they lit up when I
stomped around, and she knew that I would learn. My dad, on the other hand, thought it foolish
that I was reaching third and fourth grade not knowing how to tie my shoes. She would always
say to my dad, \u201cFrank, she will learn to do it on her own time\u201d. She never doubted me, not even
                                       over something as simple as tying shoes.

Criss Cross and go under the bridge
Then you got to pull it tight.
Make a loop but keep a long tail
That is how to do it right
Then you take the other string and
you wrap it \u2019round the loop
Pull it through the hole
Now you got the scoop
Criss Cross and go under the bridge (this is where you tie the loops together)
Now you made a Double Knot!<\/em>

I got my first pair of tie shoes at nine years old. They confused me. The shoes didn\u2019t light up like
       my trusty Velcro shoes did. They were pink, sequined, and uncomfortable. My toes were
pinched. Heels were rubbed. Overall, my young self was displeased with this first introduction to
tie shoes. Why did my comfy pretty shoes have to go? What was so wrong about wearing the
                                                       shoes that I liked?
                                                               Tongue
                                                                 Lace
                                                                Eyelet
                                                               Toe Cap
                                                                 Heel
                                                                Insole

      According to LeapFrog, it takes practice learning to tie shoes. A lot of practice. As such, along
        with having skills, kids also have to have the maturity to have \"patience and determination.\"
Because of this, while kids may be ready when they are four via their motor skills, maturity-wise,
                          they likely are not ready until later to be willing to sit and work at tying shoes.<\/em>

I practiced. More so, I attempted to tie my shoes over and over again. I folded lopsided bunny
ears over one another that created too loose of knots to hold throughout my school day. I tied
faulty knots that came undone in a matter of five steps. I went entire recess periods with laces
scraping the ground. I just could not grasp the concept of looping bunny ears and crossing them
    over. Of course when my mother noticed I was struggling, she began to tie my shoes every
     morning. She must have done some magic, I never noticed that my shoes became untied
whenever she tied them. Obviously she had been double knotting my shoes, but to me, it was the
                                                   magic that my mom possessed.

                                                                                                 A Mother\u2019s love is something
                                                                                                       that no one can explain,
                                                                                                   It is made of deep devotion
                                                                                                     and of sacrifice and pain,

                                                                                                     It is endless and unselfish
                                                                                               and enduring come what may
                                                                                                     For nothing can destroy it
                                                                                                     or take that love away . . .

                                                                                                     It is patient and forgiving
                                                                                               when all others are forsaking,
                                                                                                   And it never fails or falters
                                                                                    even though the heart is breaking . . .

                                                                                                   It believes beyond believing
                                                                                        when the world around condemns,
                                                                                            And it glows with all the beauty
                                                                                             of the rarest, brightest gems . . .

                                                                                                      It is far beyond defining,
                                                                                                        it defies all explanation,
                                                                                                  And it still remains a secret
                                                                                           like the mysteries of creation . . .

                                                                                                  A many splendored miracle
                                                                                                       man cannot understand
                                                                                            And another wondrous evidence
                                                                                               of God\u2019s tender guiding hand.
                                                                                    - Helen Steiner Rice, A Mother\u2019s Love<\/em>

With time, things change. Some things get harder, but many things get easier. Tying shoes is one
of those things that thankfully became easier for me. While my laces do not drag the ground
anymore, I tend to keep my shoe tying to a minimum. I tie my shoes a bit loose, and then slip
them onto my feet everyday. Over time, this lack of untying my shoes has ruined them. I have
gone through several pairs of identical shoes because the sole becomes worn out faster than it
should have been causing the insides of my shoes to decay. I know this could be avoided if I
untied my shoes every now and then. My mom and I jest at how many shoes I\u2019ve gone through
because of my disinterest in tying shoes, and she always says the same thing.
                                 \u201cOh \u2018Em, you will figure it out on your own time\u201d

Hey, I put some new shoes on
And suddenly everything is right
I said, hey I put some new shoes on
And everybody's smiling, it's so inviting
Oh short on money but long on time
Slowly strolling in the sweet sunshine
And I'm running late and I don't need an excuse
'Cause I'm wearing my brand new shoes<\/em><\/pre>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Disproportionate by Morgan Mayo<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    Before I was born, and even before the birth of my brother, my mother feared his due
date purely out of nervousness and anticipation. It was not her first and it had been three years
since the birth of my sister, but each time is different and this time it was a boy and not a girl. At 9:29a.m. she awoke wondering if my brother would come today or sometime later; eleven hours away on the East Coast, the first plane crashed into one of two identical slabs of concrete and steel. By 10:28a.m. she was in the drive thru getting my sister a treat for breakfast while the
second tower fell. 11:00a.m. fear settles over the nation like the thick blanket of dust in New
York City, and my mother is crying on the couch praying her son is not born today.

    Every September the 2,977 lives lost are reproduced like an incessant droning and the
world feels like it is grieving over again. It feels like the dust was never cleared, until eight days
later when my brother blows it away with his birthday candles. Each year, my teachers shared
the event with impressive care as to not share the more complicated issues that spread with the
debris or the sound of the bodies hitting the pavement. When they decided I was old enough to
be told, I pondered the courage and the debilitating grief of coming to terms with realizing
suicide is the best option. I watched videos of the firefighters paralyzed with shock as they
watched shapeless forms fall from the sky and land like wingless angels, too intrigued to turn
around. Either way, those they did not see, they heard, as the sixth loudest city in the nation fell
silent along with its citizens.

    I was fifteen when I was introduced to the fact that on that day, people grieved for more
than the loss of life. Turning to face the rubble, they turned their backs on how every Muslim
was blamed for the actions of a few. I could finally recognize how color is the only distinction
here; unless you are white, you are a group that pays for the actions of its individuals. My
teachers preferred sharing death more than racism because death has no privilege, no
preferences; death comes for everyone. Despite the recurring topic, my teachers always prefaced
by telling us the purpose of not forgetting what occurred. We cannot forget because we are
American, but how many Americans forget about people like me?

    Sitting in the desks of my private school, I thumbed through a history book as void of
color as my classroom. Not in the sense of black and white, but even pictures printed in color did
not display people of color. Like a recipe, every history book consisted of the same
disproportions except they were measured in pages not cups or teaspoons. Two pages to
summarize four hundred years of slavery; one whole page for a day in September. One page for
Christopher Columbus; half a page for the Native Americans he erased. One whole timeline of
US Presidents but hold the racism and misogyny. Bake at 400 degrees and frost it in red, white,
and blue; this is what feeds a good citizen.

    Carefully curated like a for you page, the textbooks tiptoed around controversy and
sensitive parents. They won\u2019t include the assassination of Malcolm X because he was too
violent, but yes Martin Luther King Jr. because he was peaceful enough. Not Emmett Till
because there is no way to spin that, but yes Brown v. Board of Education and Little Rock Nine,
because it was so generous of them to let everyone be able to learn. Not the War on Drugs,
because it disproportionately targeted a certain community, yes, the NAACP because not only
black people helped found it. Not Hurricane Katrina because Louisiana is 67% black, yes
President Obama because it looks like America tolerates other races. Yes, 9\/11 because it united the nation, unless you were Muslim. It takes only a skim of the pages to realize \u201cfor you\u201d meant
for whites.

    For a high school girl to not see herself in the pages of a textbook causes her to wonder
why her past is not worth recording, while her teacher reads the curriculum in silent gratitude
that she is too shy to ask about what is missing in the middle of a classroom where she already
stands out a bit too much. She listens as people choose to make presentations on slavery and
pretend to love her race for fifteen minutes. They get extra points for their outside research on
how braids were used to create escape routes, then sit down and go back to whispering about her
hair.

    Junior year, our teacher talks about the first responders and how brave they were for
going into collapsing buildings, unsure if they would make it back out. We discuss the
firefighters who climbed stories weighted down by gear and smoke. A girl in my class raises her
hand. My teacher calls on her and she tells us her father is a policeman; she likes to remind us of
this every once in awhile, God forbid we are allowed to forget. She compares the smoke from the
fallen buildings to the gas used to break up the protesters after the murder of George Floyd, and
the firemen\u2019s bravery to her father\u2019s presence amidst broken windows and angry mobs. I lock my
jaw and stare straight ahead before I am tempted to tell her why there was a protest in the first
place, that an entire race of people fears for their lives; she rambles on about her father and some badge he earned while I think about how brave I am for even sitting here.

    This time I sit in Spanish class and realize my emotions transcend classrooms. I have
been learning the language for years now and formed relationships along the way with a culture vastly different from mine. Already certain I want to continue to study the language after I
graduate, and incorporate it into my life and career, I speak with my teacher before class about
which countries he has been to. At this point English and Spanish are the only two classes I feel
confident enough in to sit in the front; my college majors are foreshadowed in that very moment.
We spend a week unpacking racism, and it is fascinating to me to discover yet another culture
left out of our textbooks. I am fascinated by the Cuban connection to Africans, and how some of
them even look like me; I feel seen through seeing them. The lesson on deportation shrivels my
fascination into fury. A classmate talks about the legality of it, how it is justified if they are
illegal. Once again, I bite my tongue and wonder if she knows how her family got here and if she
even knows where they are from. I pack my things as the bell disrupts my anger and the illusion
of belonging that I found here, but I carry with me, to history class, the possibility of being seen. 

    I am encouraged that other cultures know what it\u2019s like to have curly hair, not for reasons
of vanity but of visibility; I wonder what is wrong with our side of the globe for trying to
convince me I am an anomaly. I digest that what is left untaught does not have to determine what I know and spit out the illusion that my narrative is not valuable. What I have been shown is not what is true, it is simply a reflection of what they want me to believe.

    I split my attention equally between what is missing and what is over emphasized; I
choose to benefit from being overlooked. Nobody will notice I am digging at the cracks, and I
am happy to be left unattended. While everyone zones out as the same information is shared in
September, I listen for the pauses and see that each one is a narrative removed. If they will be
intentional, so will I, and my knowledge has become disproportionate to what I was taught. I know other pictures deserve to be printed in color; alongside blazing towers, ought to be pictures
of people with my hair and skin that lived before me and even before the birth of my brother.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
My Sunflower by Ellie Quiroz<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    My sunflower, weathering the storms that would try to bend her, with golden petals
kissed by the sun, and a strength that helped her stand tall. My sunflower\u2014my sister\u2014with her
golden, bronzed, glowing skin, her beautiful assortments of locks of swirls and spirals, but most
of all her stern fa\u00e7ade that tends to conceal her gentle heart.

    My earliest memories of my relationship with my sister revolve around the moments we
shared together. Our conversations were always easy as our paths growing up were very similar.
Whether it was sports, drawing, or the chaos unfolding within our household, we always had
something in common. However, I subconsciously chose to forget certain parts of my childhood,
and with that came the loss of memories I had with my sister.

    I like to think we have always been as close as we are now. I imagine us tumbling
through the freshly cut green grass, blades clinging to our sweat glistened skin, the warm sent of
dirt, and sunshine wrapped around us like a warm embrace. I imagine making everything a
competition, just like we do now. I imagine the sleepover\u2019s we always had in each other\u2019s rooms,
where we would laugh so hard we felt it in our stomachs, and tears slipped down our faces. We
always tried to be as quiet as possible but failed every time. Oftentimes, waking up to our parents
asking, \u201cWhat was so funny last night?\u201d I like to imagine all of these things as if our relationship
has always had this bond, but part of me fears it wasn\u2019t always this way.

    Even though my memories with my sister are faded like the sun covered by the clouds, I
still remember the way I felt watching her as I grew up. I remember how people would stop and
watch her play volleyball. The moment she stepped onto the glossy hardwood, the world
seemingly froze. The crowd would gaze in awe, as if they have never seen anything so beautiful.
The humid gym air gripping to her sweat, shimmering like liquid gold across her skin. She
moved with the grace and precision of a dancer, each move reflecting years of dedication, yet I
didn\u2019t see the beauty in it. Playing the same sport as your record-breaking sister is not easy. A
tangled web of destructive emotions\u2014 jealousy, pride, and the unbreakable thought of \u201cI need to
be better,\u201d settled into my chest. I needed to be the flower that always got picked from the
garden. The expectation for success weighed heavy upon my shoulders as my standards began to
conform.

    I always thought sunflowers were perennial. Yet, as time passed something happened to my
sunflower. Her petals wilted, and her stem no longer stood strong. As if she was decomposing
before my eyes. My unbreakable sister, crumpled on the floor as she gasps for air, her fingers
digging into her arms as if trying to hold herself together. Her once radiant skin became ghostly,
and as I blinked my sunflower had lost its golden glow. The sobs that raged from her body were
unlike anything I\u2019ve ever heard. Raw, unfettered grief pouring out in waves. That moment\u2014the
moment that made her unable to sleep alone every again, is forever branded into my memory.
Nothing could have prepared me for the the weight of the yoke I watched her carry. You can
never prepare for the burden of emotions that come from losing a cousin and best friend; the one
who walked by your side. It was like she lost her legs and was trying to learn how to walk again.
As I was trying to get her to eat, I watched her drift into silent solitude, where her words carried
the weight of memories too painful to speak. Her smiles now forced, her laugh now brittle, and her presence now dimmed. I would try to get her back, but sometimes grief is a language spoken
in silence.

    For a while I thought I would never find my sister<\/em> in the storm that consumed her.
Whenever I got close, she pulled away, erecting walls I didn\u2019t know how to break. Those walls
led me to wonder what I would be like if I didn\u2019t have her. I think about the nights when I would lie alone in my room, clutching my curls so tightly fearing they would straighten, tears cooling my flushed cheeks. I think about how she held me, rocking me back and forth, whispering words of comfort as three voices clashed in another room, a storm brewing between the walls. The sharp scent of alcohol clung to the air, weaving through the vents. I remember her searching for her keys so we could leave. I opened my drawer only to find a slim wine bottle and my shorts deep red, knowing it wasn\u2019t ours, knowing it hadn\u2019t been there before. I process these moments from the past and wonder\u2014 what if I had been alone? What if she hadn\u2019t been there to hold me steady through my storm?<\/em>

    All of these \u201cwhat ifs\u201d that circled through my mind are the reason I traced my way back
to her, like roots searching for water. I sat with her in quiet, filling the silence with a steady and
unwavering presence. No words could mend what had been broken, but in the stillness, in the
shared breaths, I hoped she felt the steadiness of my love holding her. I learned when to push and when to simply be there, and slowly I saw my sunflower bloom again. Little does she know, her scariest moment was mine too. I feared losing her to something I couldn\u2019t fight, something I
could never fix. While watching her fall apart, I realized that strength does not mean standing tall alone. In moments I sat beside her, silent and steady, showing up until the storm passes is what she needed over a hug or a simple \u201cI love you.\u201d

    Coming to realize that our relationship came to life because of a tragedy was never ideal. But
maybe it didn\u2019t start there. Maybe we have always been this close, and I just don\u2019t remember.
What I do know is the joyful memories that have followed\u2014 our late night Target runs, music
blasting, sunroof open, voices breaking as we try to sing. For those ten minutes, nothing else
matters. Selfishly, I am grateful she cannot sleep alone. It means more late night talks, more
laughter, more moments that will turn into stories we will tell again and again. It means I am a
source of comfort to her, blooming my heart to the sun like a sunflower. Or maybe, just maybe it
means both.

    Years have passed, and we have grown, blossoming into our own lives. My roots began to
expand as I left for college, and she moved in with her boyfriend. While these changes brought
overwhelming joy, others carried a quiet ache. I found a new source of water, which nourished
the new life I was building, but the excitement of my wedding day became shadowed by the
knowledge that I would soon be 730 miles away from my sunflower. The thought of our
spontaneous late night car rides turning into scheduled phone calls made my chest tighten.
Sleepovers would require plane tickets. I would no longer hear her contagious belly laugh
everyday. We wouldn\u2019t be able to communicate with just a glance anymore. Distance stretched
between us like an ocean.

    Although, everything has changed, one thing has remained the same\u2014the daily calls to share
exciting news, vent, or to simply say \u201chey\u201d showed our continuous need for one another.
Although we have our separate lives. She is my sunflower, with her radiant warmth stretching
towards the sky. But maybe I am the roots, anchoring her to the earth, unseen but always there,
expanding yet entwined in a bond that even time and distance can not sever.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I can’t sleep by Ian Lewis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Induction by Baigali Nyamdulam<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    When I first crossed paths with induction, I was a high school freshman. The word
intrigued me; maybe because of the way it sounded; maybe because it was a widely used term for upperclassmen in math settings; maybe because it was too powerful - powerful enough to accurately foretell the future for eternity.

    In simple terms, induction refers to a technique used in math to prove a certain statement through its first case or base case and the one immediately succeeding the first case - if you can prove the first and second dominoes will fall consecutively then it implies that all of the dominoes in line will fall regardless of the number of dominoes. Simple yet powerful. It might be quite obvious why mathematicians like this technique a lot. You just have to find the most basic case where the statement holds true, and the induction allows you to prove the truth of the statement regardless of the number of dominoes. Meaning, you\u2019ll be able to prove its truthfulness in infinitely many cases.

    People like to say that there\u2019s no equation in life. Perhaps life has too many variables;
perhaps it is too unpredictable; perhaps a math equation is too simple for something as vast but I\u2019d argue the opposite. I want to prove that there is an equation in life.

Proof:
1\u00b0. Base case:<\/em><\/strong>

    It\u2019s 8 pm at night. After another practice with soon to be athletes, I drowsily move my
legs to the locker room. A missed call from an unknown number. Out of habit, I ignore it like I\u2019ve done hundreds of times before. Another call from the same number. Despite the irritation, I answer.

- \u201cHello, who is this?\u201d.
- \u201cWe\u2019re contacting you from the police department regarding your brother.\u201d

I\u2019m an only child but I have 5 uncles from my mom\u2019s side. I still wanted to disregard the call and go on with my day but, somehow, it couldn\u2019t be ignored. An uncomfortable feeling settled deep beneath my gut. I forwarded the call to my mom, and my intuition was correct. My uncle was found dead somewhere in the city, and they wanted a family member to identify the body.

    If there\u2019s anything I remember of him, it would be his alcohol stench in his clothes,
bloodshot eyes, slurry speeches, and fear. He was aggressive and violent when he was drunk;
shattered glasses, broken fine china, and animalistic screams often followed him like a shadow. One time, my grandma and I pretended we weren\u2019t at home when he visited us late at night. We hid like preys hiding from a predator. He knew we were there and continued to shout and bang on the door. Of course a steel door can\u2019t be opened with bare hands but a small irrational part of me still feared that he might somehow manage to open it. Fortunately, he couldn\u2019t and left.

    The news of his death didn\u2019t surprise me. He was an alcoholic. From the moment I
started forming my own opinion and judge for myself, I rarely saw him sober, and it was obvious where his life headed. There was more than enough evidence to suggest that he would eventually die from a complication related to alcohol - alcohol poisoning in particular.

Thus, the base case is proven to be true.<\/strong>

2\u00b0. Induction Hypothesis:<\/em><\/strong>

    Assume the statement, induction works in real life, is true for any arbitrary instance
named k<\/em>.

3\u00b0. We\u2019ll prove the truth of the statement for an instance k+1:<\/em><\/strong>

    For k+1, we\u2019ll look at k<\/em>\u2019s brother who was born right after him.

    On the surface, he\u2019s a good father, hard working employee, and hopefully a good son and
husband. He\u2019s one of the thousands of miners working at a coal mining company. His schedule is quite simple - 2 weeks of work and another 2 weeks of rest. You can be sure he\u2019s completely sober in the 2 weeks he has to work but as soon as the flight from the mining site to his home touches down, it\u2019s a different story. Day and night, he is drunk. He might not be as aggressive as his brother when drunk but the bloodshot eyes, slurry speeches, and alcohol stench in his clothes remain the same.

    The only difference in this case is that he drinks beer, at least so he tells. In my eyes and
our family\u2019s eyes, however, he\u2019s just another alcoholic who hasn\u2019t lost his life. Not yet. My
verdict is that he\u2019ll eventually lose his life to something related to alcohol as his life is already half-consumed. I just hope he will outlast my grandma so that she doesn\u2019t have to see another son's death.

Thus, the case, k<\/em>+1, is proven to be true.<\/strong>

\u2234 The hypothesis is proven to be true.<\/em><\/strong>

If we end the induction at this point, the rest of the siblings, including my mom, and the
entire lineage should have some kind of problem related to alcohol, like a domino effect that tips over each other until the last one standing. From a purely mathematical point of view, induction above is logically sound and will hold true for any instances above k (including k), and even from a non-mathematical point of view it looks completely reasonable to conclude that the same fate awaits me and my cousins as research suggests that alcohol use disorder genetically runs in the family - from sibling to another sibling, from father to son, from mother to daughter, and so
on and so forth.

4\u00b0. We\u2019ll CHECK the truth of the statement for an instance k+2:<\/em><\/strong>

    It\u2019s not common and frankly unnecessary to continue the induction when it\u2019s already
proven for k<\/em>+1<\/em>, and if we do end up continuing the logic, we should eventually come to the same conclusion no matter the n<\/em> in k<\/em>+n<\/em> if we let n go to infinity.

    If my uncle whose blood is replaced by beer is k+1, then my mother who was born right
after him would be k+2. My mom is a tax consultant and has worked in foreign invested
companies the majority of her career. According to the hypothesis, we should come to the
conclusion that she also has some sort of problem related to alcohol. Except, she doesn\u2019t. Sure, she drinks wine here and there but even those times have changed after the death of her brother. She has stopped consuming alcohol altogether.

    On the day of my uncle\u2019s funeral, I noticed my mom rubbed her eyes ever so frequently -
a sign of crying. Insensitively, I dared to ask why. My mom looked at me as if I had gone crazy but managed to tell me that her brother was gone.

5\u00b0. We\u2019ll CHECK the truth of the statement for an instance k+8:<\/em><\/strong>

    Continuing the lineage, I\u2019m at somewhere around k<\/em>+8<\/em>. Logically speaking, even if the
induction was disrupted along the way, there\u2019s still a good chance that I might end up abusing alcohol. After all, there\u2019s the base case<\/em> and evidence<\/em> that are in support of it. On the day of the burial, my uncle - k<\/em>+1<\/em> - and I didn\u2019t go to the burial site due to tradition but we still saw him in the morgue. All we had to do was to circle around the body three times. It only took one glance at his blue lips, closed eyes, and pale face to churn my insides and make me feel nauseous.

    A few years later when we ran out of disinfectant solution during the Covid-19 pandemic,
I decided to use a bottle of spirit to clean the house. Not long after, my hand was itchy and red, and I concluded I was allergic to alcohol. It was convenient. Convenient because I don\u2019t have to tell the real reason I decided to abstain from alcohol. Convenient because it's a completely valid reason that no one will question me for. Convenient because I don\u2019t have to be reminded of the cold lifeless body that I once used to call uncle.

Conclusion:<\/em><\/strong>

    So, what do instances, k<\/em>+2<\/em> and k<\/em>+8<\/em>, do to our hypothesis and our \u201cdomino effect\u201d?
These two instances disrupted my induction, and the hypothesis basically can\u2019t be proven to be true, at least from a mathematical point of view. The mathematician in me is frustrated that the induction didn\u2019t hold for an infinite number of cases but I\u2019m more than happy that k<\/em>+2<\/em> was the one that shattered the statement. I couldn\u2019t prove that induction works in real life in a mathematically sound way. After all, it was true that life had too many variables to be contained in an equation, at least in this case. The difference is each individual n<\/em> in k<\/em>+n<\/em> as n goes to infinity is given a choice to divert from the future they are foretold - whether it be our genes or issues that run in the family. The dominoes before us might seem to be falling without a choice but when our turn comes we do have the freedom to choose which is why k<\/em>+2<\/em> -my mom- didn\u2019t fall. Which is also why it was easier for k<\/em>+8<\/em> -me- to stay upright.

\u2234 The induction does NOT work in real life.<\/em><\/strong>
<\/pre>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
This is How. by Caroline Mayes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
   I\u2019m six years old. My bleach blonde hair drips on the reddish hardwood floor; I shiver in
a navy-blue towel that goes down past my knees. My mom hums as she dances past me to grab a cookie sheet. The stove is warm, and I huddle closer to it. I hear footsteps coming down the hall, slow, distracted, probably reading a book. I watch as my sister walks into the kitchen and sets her book down at the table, glancing over at our mom putting drops of peanut butter cookies on the cookie sheet

   \u201cCome on,\u201d she motions, already heading towards our shared bathroom. I look to mom,
who is busy trying to get the cookies baked for the 4-H awards banquet and silently debate
whether I should wait her out or not. I decide the latter and hurry to find my sister, standing in the bathroom with a comb in one hand, detangler in the other. She plops me on the off-white countertop that has barely enough room for my bottom; my feet sit in the sink. I sit facing the mirror, it covers nearly the entire wall behind the counter. My sister begins to coat my too fine, knots-way-too-easily hair in detangler and starts with the brush. Bottom to top, just like she taught me to do.

   My sister has long, thick, red hair in a French twist with not a strand out of place. She
smells like fresh laundry and shampoo. Her pale skin and freckled cheeks bring out her ocean blue eyes that have a certain sense of kindness in them. Her hands are much like our mom\u2019s, gentle and patient, as she combs through the rat\u2019s nest that lays upon my back.

   This is how you brush out a big knot, she explains. This is how much mousse you should
use. This is how you use a blow dryer. This is how I did my updo.

                                                                 . . .

   I\u2019m ten years old. My hands are completely covered in the ooey, gooey pie dough. I\u2019m
standing on a Cosco chair butted up to our kitchen island that doubles as a step stool when
needed. Flour hangs in the air and coats me from head to toe. The kitchen smells like a bakery, with the chaoticness of a donut shop on a Sunday after church. My sister tosses a small handful of flour on the stained, yellow pastry cloth, spreading it around with her hands before setting the ball of dough in the middle. She hands me the heavy, white marble rolling pin. It is cold and feels ancient. My grandma used this pin, then my mom, then my sister, now it was my turn. I begin to roll the ball from the center out towards the edges, just like she taught me. As it flattens and stretches larger, I continue to roll, to test its limits of how big I can get it to be. A crack begins to form from the top of my dough and as I roll, trying to squish it back together, it extends to the middle. My pride quickly begins to burn at my eyes. My sister is standing behind me, waiting to see what I will do. I feel her hand brush my shoulder. I quickly turn and push the rolling pin into her hands, crawling from the throne that was my step stool. \u201cThat\u2019s okay. Dough can be hard,\u201d she says, taking the rolling pin and scooting the step stool to the side. \u201cLet me help you.\u201d

   I wiggle my way back up the chair next to her, taking a deep breath and keeping my eyes
on her. She begins to carefully tear pieces from the outside and lay them over the crack.
Covering it up and rerolling. Covering it up and rerolling. Again and again and again, until it is a nearly perfect circle.

   This is how you make pie dough. This is how you roll out the dough. This is how you get
a crack in your dough. This is how you fix it.

                                                                 . . .

   I\u2019m seventeen years old. I\u2019m sitting in an oak kitchen chair at the table in my parents\u2019
house. It is 4:30pm on a Tuesday. It is quiet in the way that it never used to be. All my siblings have moved out except for me. My toes are cold against the hardwood floor. I stare blankly at the computer screen in front of me. NORTHWEST MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY the website says at the top. The next tab, WILLIAM JEWELL COLLEGE. The next, UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL MISSOURI. My three top options all side-by-side. I want to choose before I start my senior year of high school, just like my sister did.

   \u201cAre you busy?\u201d I send the message.

   Two minutes later I\u2019m still scrolling aimlessly through Northwest\u2019s website when my
phone rings. Facetime call from my sister.

   \u201cHellloooooo, what\u2019s up? What are you doinggggg?\u201d she says, face mere inches from the
phone. I can still see a bit of her red hair, her freckles, and her blue eyes. Her eyes are the perfect shade of soothing pastel. Of a mom rocking a baby to sleep or a bath after a long day.

   I flip the camera around to show her my three tabs, waiting for her to tell me it is my
choice to make or to ask which is the cheapest, but that\u2019s not her style. Instead, she pulls out a piece of paper and makes three sections: NWMSU, WJC, UCM.

   \u201cOkay, what do you like about Northwest?\u201d

   This is how you apply to college. This is how I chose my college. This is how you apply
for scholarships. This is how you sign an NIL.

                                                                 . . .

   I\u2019m eighteen years old. The hallway is quiet, almost calm. I expected chaos. It smells
sterile and way cleaner than anywhere I ever want to be. I make my way down to the end of the hallway. It feels cold, nearly freezing, in here. Room 819. I\u2019m holding a Chick-Fil-A bag, a light pink blanket, and a teal Stanley cup, gripping it all so tight that my knuckles are white. I can smell fries and chicken wafting from the bag. I take a deep breath and knock, gently, on the door. It quickly swishes open to reveal my sister, sitting up in bed watching TV. Her eyes are tired, but happy, calm, content. Next to her, in a little hospital bassinet, that looks more like a fishtank without a top, is my first niece, Eleanor.

   \u201cWant to hold her?\u201d I nod, unable to form words. I stand there, unable to move, to think,
to do anything but stare at this little child that I have loved before I even knew her and now, she is here. A tingle surges though my body as I step closer and touch her tiny fingers. She is so new, but so familiar. A tiny piece of my older sister.

   I scoop her up in my arms. Her neck is so tiny, so weak. Her feet are so small, so soft.
Her hands are so tiny, so cute. She feels fragile. I glance over at my sister, she\u2019s watching me
with tears in her eyes. I look back down at Eleanor, at her face, her hands, her toes. My heart feels like it could nearly explode.

   This is how you hold a baby. This is how you feed her a bottle. This is how you change a
diaper. This is how you put her down for a nap.

                                                                   . . .

   I\u2019m now twenty-one years old. Eleanor is three. She is sitting in front of me on the blue-
grey rug at my parents\u2019 house. Bluey is on the TV, and she is casually boogieing to the theme
song. Her long, curly red hair streams down her back, swaying with her movement. I brush my fingers through it, and she turns to look at me. Her blue eyes as bright as the summer sky and her skin, light and soft with only a few freckles. She smiles so big it nearly makes my heart ache, just like the day that I first saw her. She crawls into my lap and asks me to do her hair like mine. My hair is pinned up in a French twist.

   This is how I brush my hair, I tell her. This is how much mousse I use. This is how I use a
blow dryer. This is how I did my hair.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Why the Change? by Bryson Gates<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Growing up, I only listened to pop music. My rotation was Taylor Swift, Sia, Andy Gra-

   You know I don\u2019t want to start the story like that? Why don\u2019t you want to start the story
like that?<\/em> I think the readers may misinterpret the message I\u2019m wanting to portray if I start from the beginning. There\u2019s a possibility I may be judged. How do you want to start it then, Bryson?<\/em> 
Well\u2026

                                                                  \u2026

   I have a close friend who is obsessed with Taylor Swift. Her name is Aubrey. We went to
the same school together, and we both were in theatre. I decided to catch a ride home from her and as we were leaving theatre rehearsal, we walked down the long, smooth parking lot to her car. It was pretty dark since we didn\u2019t get out until 9pm. As we arrived, she said. \u201cCan you put the address in for where you live? I\u2019ll use GPS so that we can be on our way.\u201d During the car ride, I heard the voice of a very familiar artist come from the speakers.

   Salt air, and the rust on your door
   I never needed anything more
   Whispers of \"Are you sure?
   Never have I ever before<\/em>

   The voice sparked something in me that I didn\u2019t think I would remember. I asked Aubrey
about the song she was playing and the answer caught me off guard. \u201cTaylor Swift. I\u2019m surprised you didn\u2019t know. Have you listened to her before?\u201d I had, but it had been so long.

                                                                  \u2026

   I rocked my hips to the beat like I never had before. \u201cMy ex-man bought his new
girlfriend, she\u2019s like Oh my God! I\u2019m gonna shake.\u201d I loved listening to Taylor Swift. I was 10
years old and I would snap my fingers, purse my lips and scream to the top of my lungs. Taylor Swift was the definition of childhood for me. Anytime I would hear her music, it was like I was free from life and in my own world. The energy that she was putting onto the track just spoke to me a lot in my childhood. She was so care-free and didn\u2019t let anything that anyone said get in the way of her unworried attitude. \u201cCause the players gonna, play, play, play\u2026 I shake it off, shake it-\u201d Banging comes from my bedroom door. \u201cOh, Oh!\u201d

   \u201cBryson, can you come do the dishes\u2026\u201d A tall figure stood behind me and the nerves in
my body shot up like fireworks on 4th Of July. I could feel the presence of beady eyes staring down at me. My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. My father is standing behind me. \u201cWhat the hell are you doing?\u201d When my dad was my age, his childhood didn\u2019t entail listening to Taylor Swift. There were no divas<\/em> in his parents' household. So seeing his son shaking his hips must be a bit confusing. I tell him that I\u2019m listening to Taylor Swift. He looks at me, confused and disappointed, but he doesn\u2019t continue the conversation. He just says, \u201cCome wash these dishes.\u201d I start to panic, pacing around my room and slight tears start dropping from my eyes. Why did he seem mad? Older me knew that he wasn\u2019t, but younger me seemed lost. Was it wrong to shake my hips to Taylor swift? Should I even listen to Taylor Swift anymore? I thought I was care-free, but this made me care. The care I had turned into insecurities.

   When middle school rolled around the corner, my love for Taylor Swift had been
thwarted. The dynamic was so much different from elementary school and there was a trend
going around that made me fall out of love for her music. This trend was known to be the
Soundcloud Era. Teens my age including me fell for the trend, but it was these years that I picked up on rap music. Everyone that I was around listened to rappers like XXXTenacion, Lil Uzi Vert and Ski Mask The Slump God. I was still in my soft girl pop era phase, but that ended up being suppressed. Suppressed by the judgment of other teens around me, and pressured to fit in. I had decided to leave Taylor in the past. I felt the need to act tough and lose sight of the personality that I had held onto for so long. It was like being hidden within society, trying to fit in with the crowd instead of embracing who I truly was as a person. I did like the idea of listening to rap music, but if it was going to change my ability to express who I actually was deep down. Then, there might have been a problem.

                                                                  \u2026

   On the car ride home from my middle school orchestra rehearsal, Dad and I sat in silence
until I asked him a question. He looked so disappointed in me for shaking my hips, snapping my fingers and shouting Taylor Swift. He sits in silence first, not sure what I am asking, but then he finally asks the question I never thought younger me would hear. \u201cAre you homosexual, Bryson?\u201d I didn\u2019t know how to respond at first. I knew that I wasn\u2019t homosexual. I didn\u2019t really have any feelings for guys. I\u2019m always attracted to women. I just happened to carry some feminine qualities with me. \u201cNo? Why would you think that?\u201d I said. My dad didn\u2019t grow up like me, he wasn\u2019t ever around people who had feminine traits to their personality, but aren\u2019t necessarily homosexual. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to lie to me, Bryson,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you are homosexual, just say it now. \u201c I didn\u2019t say anything back and turned away from my dad. Tears drop from my eyes, and sniffling fills the air around me. However, I stay quiet because I don\u2019t want my dad to see me crying.

                                                              \u2026

   I am now an adult. I have facial hair and my voice has grown a lot deeper than it was in
middle school. There is no more \u201chigh-pitched\u201d Bryson anymore. So I ask myself, why the
change? Did I still feel that my dad was wrong?

   Are you homosexual, Bryson?

   Walking out from Mathes Hall, I take my phone out of my pocket, put on my tunes and
type these words into spotify. Shake It Off<\/em>, then I shake my head left to right. I\u2019m not
homosexual, but I still have traits that are opposite of my gender in terms of personality. So what are you then, Bryson?<\/em>

   I purse my lips, shake my hips and stick my tongue out anytime I want too. On the
contrary, I have a pretty deep voice, a flirtatious attitude and love to blast rap music in my
headphones. I paused my music and went to google on my phone. \u201cHey Google, what does it
mean to have feminine and masculine traits?\u201d

   Androgynous: a style that exhibits both masculine and feminine traits in behavior,
appearance or personality.

   I realize that I accept myself as a man who likes to do feminine and masculine things
because there aren\u2019t any rules that say I couldn\u2019t do what I pleased.

   Salt air, and the rust on your door
   I never needed anything more
   Whispers of \"Are you sure?
   Never have I ever before<\/em>

   Never have I ever thought to question myself again. I came to terms with myself. A grin
filled my face with joy and I unpaused my music, feeling the lower half of my body move side to side, shaking off the \u201crules\u201d that society put onto me. I didn\u2019t care. Taylor didn\u2019t care. We didn\u2019t care.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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Metamorphosis and Decay by Ivan Calderon The sky gleams an otherworldly opalescent stream over an expanse of dirt pathways,eroding brick homes roofed with corrugated sheets, and fields of lush, wiry grasses dappled in yellow wildflowers. These stone huts inhale and yawn out streaming air that\u2019ll eventually sail its way over the gulf and into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-115","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inscape.jewell.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inscape.jewell.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inscape.jewell.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inscape.jewell.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inscape.jewell.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/inscape.jewell.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146,"href":"https:\/\/inscape.jewell.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/115\/revisions\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inscape.jewell.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}