"48, 49, 50! Ready or not, here I come!"

I covered my mouth to keep my nervous breathing from giving my hiding spot away. I was snugly tucked behind a large trunk in my grandparents' back guest room. I heard the door open and my cousin's footsteps walk across the room. The closet door squeaked open, and there was some ruffling before it shut again. I heard my cousin move closer to look under the bed. My hand squeezed tighter over my mouth, and I crossed my fingers that he wouldn't be able to hear the panicked beating of my heart. The footsteps headed back towards the door slowly. There was a pause, as if my cousin had turned around to check for anything else that seemed amiss, and a minute later the door gently closed with his footsteps heading down the hall.

I gasped a great sigh of relief and slowly raised my head above the trunk. I only had one goal in mind now. I crept to the door, opening it only a crack, and I peered out into the hallway. The coast was clear. I crouched down and headed for the next guest room, quickly looking around to make sure it was empty before taking refuge. I hid just out of sight behind the doorway, poking my head out occasionally to check for my cousin. I knew I had to go for it. This was my only chance.

I took a couple of deep breaths, my heart pounding, and I made a run for it. Down the hall, through the computer room, and out the back door into the garage. I heard a screech behind me as my cousin spied me darting across the hall. I fumbled for a second with the handle that would reveal my sanctuary, but the door burst open just in time. A few more feet, I told myself. Just a few more feet. My legs stretched out as far as they could, my feet pounding hard against the ground. I could feel my cousin right behind me, his hand reaching for me. At the last second, I threw out my hand and grabbed at the bark of a huge elm tree. "Base!" I called out the moment my fingertips grazed the tree. My cousin scowled and turned, in search of my siblings.

Buying a Camera

I moved all of my shopping bags to one side so I could take a closer look at the cameras in front of me. I picked one up and curiously began pressing buttons. I pick another in the other hand and began trying to compare them, trying to figure out which my boyfriend would like better.

A man with a little blue nametag that read "Joe" walked over slowly, stopping just short of the camera section and began straightening a pile of battery boxes. He paused and looked over, falsely surprised, as if he'd only just seen me. "Can I help you?" he asked, nonchalantly. I silently considered his question, pretending to weigh both cameras in my hands. "Yes," I said after a moment. "I'm looking for a camera." Joe raised his eyebrows. "Well," he began, moving over to block my way to the rest of the cameras. "What exactly are you looking for in a camera?" He took the models out of my hands, gently placing them back in their original spots. "Umm..." I began uncomfortably. "Something nice, fairly easy to use..." I trailed off. "Well, I would recommend this one." He picked up a bright pink camera. A smirk began to surface on my face. Joe noticed and the ends of his mouth turned down slightly. "Not what you're looking for?" He asked stiffly. I wanted to laugh at his too-serious face, but instead I contained myself and said lightly, "Oh, I just don't think pink is my boyfriend's color." His face pulled into a tight grimmace. "I see. Well, this is the best camera in the store for a reasonable price." He resignedly picked up a slim-looking sliver camera. I took it from his hand and looked it over for a moment. "I'll take it," I said, decidedly.

Destin, Florida

I dug my toes into the sand, the pink of my toenails glinting through the miniscule grains. Brushing off my towel, I lay back and shielded my eyes with the sunglasses sitting atop my head. Closing my eyes, I listened to the gentle crashing of the waves, echoing in my ears. The sun warmed my skin and made me sleepy. I yawned and closed my eyes, listening to my mom and aunt chat a few feet away from me in beach chairs that were exactly the same color of the ocean stretched out in front of me.

Half an hour later, I was caught up in an intense splashing war with my younger brother. He was just beginning to retreat when my dad called us in for dinner. I ran to the shore as fast as the water would allow and grabbed my towel, shaking the white sand off before wrapping it around me and racing my brother to the hotel.

Most Valuable Possession

On top of a bookshelf in my room is a small wooden jewelry box, polished and shining. The keyhole is clad in gold and the little handles are intricate and dainty. The inside is velvet. The earrings, necklaces, and bracelets sit on their padded thrones in their rightful spots. They glint in the dim light when the top is open, casting golden shadows on the wooden lid.

In the bottom of the box is a small golden container, nestled into the red velvet lining. It sits, waiting. It hasn't been opened in ages. A layer of dust forms on top of it.

There is only one item inside: a small diamond pendant. The tendrils of gold gently wrap around the faceted jewel, holding its history and secrets in the core of light that emits from the gem. The dainty gold chain is missing. Lost, perhaps, or broken. So instead, it sits, waiting. Waiting for the golden container to open. Waiting for a new chain. Waiting for the history to be retold.

Truth vs. Fact

“Happeningness is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”
-from “How to Tell a True War Story” by Tim O’Brien

Occasionally we find a way to express how we’re feeling by telling stories. It’s a way to find connection in our lives through the jumble of events and emotions, like a thread that strings our inner beings together. It’s a way to understand what has happened to us and why it happened. It’s a way of comprehending how the puzzle pieces in our lives fit together and allows us to see the full picture that the past, present, and future creates. It gives meaning to our lives.

Pico Iyer writes, “The truth is not the same as facts… I think the writer has to be true to the mystery as well as the clarity of life.” In his essay, “The Khareef,” he narrates a story about his visit to Yemen and his experiences there, and how six weeks later he watched the two airplanes crash into the World Trade Center. The forgotten place where he had been just a month and a half earlier fell underneath the national spotlight. I believe that to comprehend the idea of what Yemen had been like when he had visited six weeks earlier and the idea of the national significance that had been placed on it, Iyer wrote “The Khareef.” It was for his understanding and coming to terms with the past and the present. “Only later, when Yemen was suddenly yanked into the headlines in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks six weeks after my return, did I decide to write another piece, for myself, and arising out of memory and conviction, to come at the area in a deeper way than magazine journalism would allow.”

On Friday night after work, I got a message from Mireya saying that she wouldn't be able to continue our meetings because her kids had started soccer and it was too hard for her to find a babysitter.

My most recent meeting with Mireya went really well. We started off with some confusion, because we had agreed to meet in front of the library at 9 am on Saturday. After she didn't show up for 15 minutes, I called her and we worked it out that she was at the bookstore, not the library. We walked over to the library together and she told me about her crazy morning, trying to find a babysitter for her 3-year-old son. I began asking her about her kids and family. At the library, I showed her how to log on to the TCU computers. She didn't know her username and password and the help center didn't open until noon. We found her username by searching it at my.tcu.edu but she didn't know the answers to her security questions so we were unable to get her password. Afterwards, she asked if there were any websites that could help her youngest son start learning before he went to school in a year. We found a lot of good websites that had free interactive learning games and print-outs. She then asked me about my computer experience. She wanted to know how long I'd been around computers, when I first started using a computer, and how I learned to type. After we talked, I offered to show her how to type. We searched and found online games and tutorials that helped with typing. So far, I've really enjoyed getting to know Mireya. She's a really smart person and it's really great to see her progress. I'm really excited about our next meeting! We're going to meet at noon, instead of 9am and ask the help center about her password so she can log in.

Second

My second meeting with Mireya went really well. I was much more prepared this time. We began by working on some worksheets on the sounds of vowels and consonants. She did really well on that. Afterward, she said that she wanted to know how to work a computer. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to get to a computer and figure it out, but we decided to meet in front of the library next Saturday morning. Another thing we talked about was helping her with her driving test. She said that she's taken it in Spanish three times already but the questions are too hard and don't make sense. Her sister told her that the English test was easier, so I've also started helping her study for that. I'm especially excited about next week, because I'm going to help her set up her email and TCU account. Hopefully, things will keep going really well!

First Meeting

I first met with Mireya yesterday morning. As it was a Saturday and it took place at 9am, I was a little sleepy but did my best to wake up. Mireya and I met in front of the 1873 restaurant and I began by asking her what it was she wanted to work on. She said she wanted to learn how to read better, and wanted to work on her pronunciation of certain words. She thought that if she knew how all of the letters (especially the vowels) sounded, she would be able to pick up on reading a lot easier. I never really realized how many different ways to pronounce the letters there were until I began trying to teach her. "A" alone has a billion different types of ways to pronounce it, or, at least, that's what it felt like as I began trying to teach her. There's the way to pronounce it in "apple" and "can," but it can also have a more open sound like in the word "all". She wanted me to write out how they were supposed to sound, but I got stuck there. How should I write down the "a" sound in "apple"? The open "a" was a little easier (just by writing down "ah") but then what about the word "said", that has an "a" in it, but the "ai" is pronounced more as an "e". As I began trying to teach her, I started to realize what an aberration the English language is. It's so random and has so many exceptions that it's really hard to teach somebody. We also worked on writing down the numbers so she could write checks instead of using her debit card all the time. Towards the end, we got off on a tangent about words that we use in English that originate from other languages so they sound differently than you think they should. For instance, the word buffet (which is actually the word that got us off on the tangent) in English should be pronounced how it's spelled, but it's actually pronounced "buh-fay". It was hard to explain that. Overall, Mireya and I have gotten off to a great start and I really hope I can help her out a little more than I did the first meeting. But she seemed really excited about it and we're planning to meet every Saturday morning (for better or for worse on my sleeping pattern) at 9am.

The street I grew up on....

I grew up on an average-looking neighborhood street with small, one-story, lower middle-class houses on either side. The trees were young, nothing spectacular to look at, and stood straight, not yet having the weight of old age to bend their supple trunks. The yellow grass in each yard was dry from the intense Texas sun, and looked prickly and brittle. Even the name of the street was average: Eldridge Street. In fact, the only thing particularly remarkable about the street was the hill. From the evenly paved cement suddenly rose a steep and mountainous hill that veered towards the sky, or at least, seemed to, from my five-year-old point of view. In the winter, the hill would ice over and I'd take one of my mom's baking pans and slide down the hill, going faster and faster every second. Sometimes, cars would get stuck trying to drive up the hill in the ice, slowly drifting back down to the base, despite their spinning tires.

Before exams, before homework, before stress about work or relationships or GPA's, there was just an average street with average houses, surrounded by average trees, and a mountainous hill that a little girl slid down on her mom's baking pan.