A la Fregada con el Chronic STRESS!!!
(…regardless of what generation you were born in) Chronic Stress es todo lo malo that you feel when shit hits the fan and no one can snap you out of your funk BUT YOU! Money and life circumstances are the major stressors that cause anxieties and challenges on a day-to-day basis across all generations. Mi…
The Extraordinary Day to Day
This summer I plan to revel in the magic of the mundane… the magic of life as it flows, steadily, and the comfort of nothing actually going wrong. Spring 2022 was riddled with unforeseen obstacles, accidents and little tests here and there and everywhere. Needless to say, when that huge wave of health issues hit…
Why We Need More Transparency in Media
In the age of rampant misinformation it can be hard to know what’s real and what’s not. In fact, it might be better called information saturation. It can be hard to know the difference between news and propaganda. So what do we do? Well, I’m here to tell you that first of all, all media…
Homesick
Who am I? I have always asked often as I layed in bed and had nothing else to do but be a slave to my thoughts. The room was painted blue by the paleness of the moonlight. Why am I here? I used to ask the empty room expecting someone to answer or something divine…
Como Pajaritos
The day old gouldian baby finches turn their faces up to me as I open the wood nest box: their black and glowing pearly, alien mouths plead for food noiselessly. Rotating back and forth like sunflower heads moving their face toward the sun, their mouths wide. Moving much faster of course. Like some robotic face…
The Dawning of a New Day & the Cyclical Nature of Grief
By Mayana Geathers There is a moment before the sun rises, when you can feel and see the in-between of night and day. It is a sliver of time when the darkness still hangs in the sky, the moon waves goodbye and the brightness moves upward from the edge of the earth. Before the rays…
Mictlán En Vida
I’ve been quiet for a long time, but there is so much to say. Let me start then with the most important piece. I am like you. I was born to parents who had to leave everything behind in order to start anew. They paid for my education through the sweat of their brows and…
To Struggle or Sink
One more step, I tell myself. And every step requires tremendous effort. As I walk through the forest, my feet sink into the Earth. ~*~ This is where I was just over a decade ago: I am climbing a mountain in Maunawili, an area on the island of O’ahu. I laced up my shoes ahead…
A Return Home, Again
The summer of 2021 brought me home again. After more than a decade, I would move back into the only constant childhood home I knew. I hadn’t lived with my grandparents since high school; it’d been longer still since I’d lived with my mother. Now, at twenty-eight I traveled over 2,000 miles to move in…
COVID-19 as a Portal: How Contracting the Delta Variant Turned “Hot Girl Summer” into a Homecoming
Looking out at the tall, serene trees at my favorite local park, I was sitting in my car when I got the news. I quickly scrolled through my Kaiser app. The words, “Your COVID 19 PCR test result was POSITIVE,” struck me as if I had been dumped in ice water; my breath ripped from…
Resistance and Freedom in a Virtual World
Imagine a professional world where you could mute the sounds of white supremacy. Consider a setting without the prying eyes of the patriarchy, where you could carry your brown feminine body without apology. Muting and avoiding does not mean eradicating, but in a remote setting I have been able to create a working environment that…
A Year of Little Deaths
“We each die countless little deaths on our way to the last. We die out of shame as humiliation. We perish from despair. And, of course, we die for love.” – Clive Barker In the spring of 2020, bleary-eyed from my ongoing transformation into a mother, excited for my blossoming career, and questioning what I…
Joy in the Rebirth
Not long ago, I decided to wallpaper our guest bedroom closet with bright, rainbow watercolor paper. I had decided to do some spring cleaning, so I made my list of places in the house that needed attention, and at the last minute I ignored all of them and spent 5 hours cleaning out the closet…
Spaces
As academia aims to become more progressive in its effort to dismantle systemic racism, I tend to reflect on how these factors have impacted my experiences. Subsequently, I feel obligated to code-switch through the spaces that I navigate from entering classrooms to writing papers, entering work meetings, and even when I walk into my family’s…
