A Pickle

A single green, warted member rests gently on the inside of the jar. The surrounding liquid continues to hug the aged cucumber as it slowly makes its way through the metamorphosis process: from a crisp, fine vegetable to a sandwich topping, it changes. It changes from a watery health food to something that makes adults …

Alaphabet Soup

Creating little whirlpools in the broth, the letters swirl underneath the weight of the silver spoon. The letters are soft on the edges, and with each passing moment over the heat, they threaten to slowly disintegrate. Mush. Much like my thoughts these days. It is excruciatingly difficult to sort and display the numerous letters into …

Irrelevant

Melancholic day, sunshine grins on the deck Cold coffee perspires I enjoy these few moments When the rest of the world And the weight of my future Takes off from my shoulders Even if eventually it will return Until it’s just A solidified Part of my life.  It reminds me a lot of mid-semesters, When …

Uncomfortable

I’ve been thinking about the idea of “uncomfortable” the past few weeks and admittedly been having trouble articulating what exactly the is I’ve been thinking. I think there is this idea of mission work being something that requires a sort of physical uncomfortability: we live with poorer families, I now know how to hand-wash my …

Speckles of Light

Last night was our first night in host homes in Catadupa, Jamaica. Just as me and my two other teammates were settling in, Mr. Henry, our host dad, used his arm to hold back the curtain door of his room and stood in the doorway. “My brother wife had died, and we go to a …

Rome

Being in Rome is like being in another country surrounded by another language, but with one significant twist: In Rome, I was immersed in an entirely new world of Catholicism. It was like this in Costa Rica, too: At first the newness simply clings to the edges of your clothes, occasionally brushing up against your …

City on the Water

I like it when things aren't what I expect them to be at all. It's like when I meet a someone for the first time, or even before that, and I come up with these preconceived ideas about that person by what I see on Facebook, hear from someone else, or even just by what …

The Sound of Krakow

St. Mary’s Cathedral towers over the quaint town square, keeping a watchful eye over the city of Krakow. The Gothic church is crookedly nestled in the Western corner of the plaza. Its red-brown brick and asymmetrical steeples are each topped with an unique ornate cap- the righter most stacked with a single dome in the …

The Ultimate Tourist Trap

I think all of us who travel have done this at some point during our adventures. It's a 21st century thing, really, and with so much of our generation traveling, it's an easy thing to fall into. I know I've done it more than once. It's easy for us to go somewhere new and exciting …

Where are the Words

I read somewhere about a month ago that the best way to be a good author is not to see your life in a series of words. Sounds ironic, right? The author wrote that the best thing you can do for your writing is to just live. Don't narrate your life, don't look or feel …