Travels from the Time Vault: Naples

The tall mountains of the Mediterranean coastline seemed even larger from on top of them.  I had spent the last two hours on a bus full of kids my age—twelve and thirteen years old—ascending the majestic peaks ever so slowly, each circle we did around them bringing us closer and closer to the point where I felt uncomfortable staring thousands of feet down to the small foreign fishing towns below.  The mere sight of the distance between sea level and me made my stomach twist but also gave me a sense of wonder when I realized just how small the area was.

The Not-So-Snow Day in September

It was a Tuesday morning in September.  Third grade had just started barely two weeks earlier and I was getting used to my new teacher, Mrs. Crowe.  She had long red curls and big brown eyes. When she talked, any topic she brought up was bright and cheery. She made math sound like the happiest thing in the world.  Walking around as we worked on our workbooks, enthusing about how “math was the key to everything” and telling us if “we could multiply and divide, you could do anything” in that happy, cheery voice of hers.  Some days, I believed what she said to be true.

Out of the Box

As a young girl, I spent the majority of my time dirtying myself up in the woods of Wisconsin.  I loved playing make believe, cutting hair off my Barbie dolls, or jumping off the pier and into Lake Geneva.  I was not shy to being dirty, nor was I shy to getting rough with the boys.

From a baby to age fourteen, the question of love and who we fall in love with never really bothered me much.  As far as I knew during my grade school existence, I’d crushed on a few boys.  A few boys had crushed on me.  And of course, there were one or two girls who seemed to have feelings for me, but as far as I knew, I didn’t seem to like them back the same way.  Over all of that, I played on two hockey teams, so the idea of trying to date was totally off my radar.  So I placed myself in the first box: straight.  Straight as an arrow.  Or so I thought.

The Key to a Proper Diet

The year is 2011.  I was seventeen going on finally being a legal adult, preparing for university and collegiate division three ice hockey.  In the spring of that year, I’d written my first real full length manuscript (which I never ended up publishing) and I was attempting to get noticed on other smaller websites or journals.  As far as my future appeared, things were looking up.  Until I glanced around at the other aspects of my life.  Then the truth became more than apparent to me: my diet was inadequate.