Category Archives: Writing

A Sonos speaker and a charging dock. Two inconsequential household items, yet I was sucker-punched to see them as we settled into the Sundial House in Lyme. In my house in Shoreview, we have both and use them regularly; they have become part of the landscape of our home. To see items from my house in a dining room across the world felt like a mockery of the life I missed. But I refuse to spend the next month in self-pity and nostalgia; I will be present and soak up the blessings that surround me like the constant rain.

A day later. I am stubbornly clinging to optimism and gratitude in the face of exhaustion and social burnout.I want to get out of this weather and away from these people. I want to go home, We plod up the hill, defying the droplets that heckle us from above. I don’t want to be here any more than the next person, but I know I will never experience these moments again, and I refuse to let them pass me without gratitude. I brandish my umbrella, a talisman against the rain and the resentment. I will drink up every moment of these next 29 days. Within 30 minutes I have traded my umbrella for sunglasses and am veritably traipsing through the same woods that I fought through moments earlier. I have always felt at home under a blue sky and green trees, wherever I am in the world.

After the hike, eggs and French toast and bacon rest in serving dishes around a table. Eight mugs are brimming with warmth, eight distinct voices blend into a soul-nourishing clamor. What was a mockery of a home has become a reinvention, an adaptation. It may not be the home I am used to, but it is a home nonetheless. We create this home by serving each other, by creating intentional community time, by laughing and living together. I refuse to waste these precious 29 days. I will sink into the blessings and lessons of each day,

It is Fawkesgiving, our own special holiday. The eight inhabitants of Sundial House have spent a collective 24 hours preparing potatoes, roasting chickens, and concocting a pumpkin dip that is a delightful danger. We set the table and document our aesthetic efforts for social media. It is the calm before the storm.

Chicken and sweet potatoes and green beans and French silk pie lounge on my plate. Our pumpkin pie awaits devouring and the creamy pumpkin dip is already half gone. After five hours in the kitchen, we have opened our home to our friends and created something beautiful. I had been expecting to be bowled over by homesickness throughout the evening, but my only tears fight through during the gratitude exchange, a moment to truly celebrate each other and the amazing journey we are blessed to share. I enjoy reaping the fruits of the labor of the day, but once again Iam overwhelmed by the number of people in our house. The eight of us have created a home perfect for us, and the sheer number of guests feels more overwhelming than welcoming. When the party dies down, the eight of us gather in the basement to just be together and nourish our souls with community. The storm passed and we found comfort in relaxing in our own home.

Eight hours later my housemates join me again, and we share the quiet vulnerability of an early morning, laughing about homework progress and nibbling our Thanksgiving leftovers. The basement is a mess of Monopoly but the kitchen is clean, a testament to our diligence and collaboration. This is my home now, and I never want to leave.

I do miss the community of my home, but sterling moments of new community exist right in front of me. They exist around a shared table, each scholar fighting against a deadline. They exist in the kitchen, as we stand shoulder to shoulder, staring down the suds. Home is what we make it, and we have made an oasis of community and rest.

Hi! This was originally two separate pieces but I have combined and synthesized them. Let me know what you think!

The sensation of time is different from the keeping of time. Time can seem to contract or expand to our liking, but the sun will rise and set with reassuring consistency. I was reminded of this truth while exploring Durham Cathedral and Melrose Abbey, two very different houses of worship that have reacted to the marching of time in very different ways.

We entered the hallowed hall and were immediately overtaken by the opulence. The vaulted ceilings towered over us and stained glass in every color dazzled our eyes. Durham Cathedral is a feast for the senses and the spirit. The ancient house of worship was built between 1093 and 1133 AD (Durham World Heritage Site) and has remained standing and active through the centuries, watching the rise and fall of empires with a removed steadiness.

One poster lists the name of every bishop, dean, and prior for the church-1000 years of history on a sheet that I can cover with my hand. Staring at this sheet, I wondered who all of these men were (because it took many centuries for the church to catch up with egalitarianism) and whether they enjoyed their vocation. Seeing 1000 years of history in such a small space made me feel I stood outside of it all, observing the passage of time from a divine vantage point.

Melrose Abbey was founded in 1136 and used as a monastery until 1590 when the last monk in residence died. (Historic Environment Scotland). It was there that I saw this faded gravestone and was overwhelmed by surprising questions. To my knowledge, the stone reads “In memory of David Wayness who died June 4th… aged 51 years”. Knowing that he had half a century of life doesn’t have as much impact without knowing the era. He could have led a long life in the 1600s or a short life two centuries later. Furthermore, knowing the length of a life doesn’t say anything about the quality of it. I wonder if he was respected in his community, if he felt fulfilled in his vocation or secure in his faith. The faded year is a symbol to me, and David Wayness lives on adrift in my memory. The sensation of time is different than the keeping of time, and this experience reminds me that time is an anchor, grounding us within space and providing a context.

I saw the list of names and years, and felt a reassurance that the gravestone lacked. The gravestone had a name and some information, but no anchor in an era. These names were all anchored into eras of history, and one could assume they were pious people if they worked in a church. Both images evoke awe and reverences but the poster offers comfort where the gravestone evokes a wistful pity

For the majority of my life, I’ve held cemeteries at a distance, being respectful if I must visit them but avoiding them as much as possible. I would not call myself superstitious, but I shudder at the idea of treading on another’s resting place, and I respect that there may be some lost souls about. However, the experience at Melrose showed me that cemeteries are good places for reflection and philosophy, and I no longer need to approach them with fear or hesitation. I present myself as a humble student of the past, honoring those who came before me.

Back at Durham, the Shrine of St. Cuthbert was set up with kneelers and candles and a little prayer inscribed into a plaque. I knelt and offered a prayer of gratitude, but what really awed me was the stained-glass window to the right of the shrine. A nearby poster reads that the window was commissioned in 2012 in honor of Sara Pilkington a college student who died of a mysterious heart condition. One died in 1104, the other in 2012 and I knelt in reverence to both equally. The fresh loss of Sara did not make her any less worthy of respect and adoration than the enduring memory of the saint. Both were humans, both were blessed children of God, and both are remembered with honor, no matter how much time elapsed between their lives,

After a while, I became overwhelmed with the holy power of the interior, so I decided to climb the tower, which ended up being an equally holy experience. When I got to the top, my breath was stolen by the wind and the incredible views. While the cathedral itself has remained mostly unchanged, the centuries have drastically altered the surrounding landscape. In place of wild fields, houses and cities and roads have risen. Civilization has steadily crowded into sacred land and turned up the volume but still Durham stands,

I sat with a friend at the top of the cathedral, listening to the bells chime the quarter-hour, and pondered the sensation of time. My friend commented that “the sensation of time is different than the keeping of time.” We were only eleven days into our semester at that point and it already felt like we had been gone for at least two months, so I felt this dissonance on a very raw level. Sitting on the top of a building that was older than I could comprehend, I began to gain a marginally increased understanding of the wide margins of time and how my minute life fit into the grand stained-glass window of history.

After the shrines and the views, I was ready for some music and quiet reflection. I heard faint strains of a timeless classic hymn and followed them to a private communion. I lurked outside the service until the female service leader invited me in. I stayed in the back for a few minutes and listened to her wisdom on the Gospel of Luke and the exemplary life of St. Cuthbert. Listening to a woman preach the word of God allowed me to anchor myself in the present day and witness the effects of time on the interior of the church.

The sensation of time is different than the keeping of time, Both of these monuments have been able to bear the weight of centuries and display it proudly, allowing us to see the past through the lens of the present and revere the constant fluctuation of time.

Hi. I posted the original draft of this piece when it occurred but I’ve revised it since then so here is an updated version.

War-torn cities aren’t always in active conflict, and Belfast is a prime example. The city isn’t as overtly sketchy as Dublin, but the war is hidden just below the surface. My tour of the city was heartbreaking, enlightening, and unforgettable. It was a privilege and a burden to walk among the fault lines of a divided community and witness the beginnings of true healing. The city is in the process of recovering from a century of conflict, but small acts of empathy and solidarity can have ripple effects of healing.

We met our tour guide Paul and I was instantly impressed. He was a teacher who transitioned into being a professional mediator between the broken families. The conflict in Belfast has been between the Irish Republican Army who support Ireland’s independence and are mainly Catholic, and those who support Ireland’s union with Britain and are mainly Protestant. As a professional mediator between warring factions, Paul is making tangible changes in the community, helping rebuild friendships and stretching the boundaries of coexistence. There are Protestant tour guides who won’t even walk into the Catholic part of the city or vice versa, and Paul got recognized by a local for being willing to walk through both sides.

On our walk, we saw two memorial gardens, one for each side of the conflict. The IRA garden felt angrier and more militaristic, with imagery of particular faces of activists and martyrs The faces were not serene and calm, but many seemed to be in the middle of shouting. The martyrs also held a plethora of guns and weapons, fighting for freedom even after death. The anger and grief make sense, given that the Irish garden was illegally built without a permit after the IRA was forcibly disbanded by a ceasefire. The British garden felt much tamer and cleaner, like a common cemetery, with uniform and tidy flower arrangements and generic epitaphs differentiated only by the details of the deceased. While the air of clean and orderly reverence makes sense, there is also an air of impersonal distance. A viewer can tell that the British cemetery is meant to honor.a long-forgotten victory while the IRA memorial garden offered validation for a still-smarting wound. The British military formally left Belfast in 2005, when the policies of the 1998 Good Friday agreement were finally enacted, meaning the violence ended just over 15 years ago and locals are still adjusting to new ways of life.

These two memorials stand in sharp contrast to many American cemeteries. In America, people are usually buried with an individual epigraph and a decently decorated tombstone, showing a personal touch and a desire for decency and reverence and honor. But in this city, even a garden makes a political statement.

This wall divides the Catholic neighborhood from the Protestant. The gates at the end of the streets, are known as “dead zones” and are locked at 7 pm each night to minimize the chance of violence in the no-man’s-land. As the walls have risen since 1969, history rises around the people of Dublin rather than disintegrating beneath the earth as history tends to do.

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This mural on the International Wall struck me because of the powerful contrast of these two images. On the left, the Irish Uprising of 1916 is memorialized, when the Irish Republican Army first began their fight for an independent nation. On the right, 10 hunger strikers from 1981 are represented. For almost seventy years, Ireland has been at civil war. As Paul said, “the electricity of tension that used to dominate daily life has softened”, but it can easily be triggered. While I don’t necessarily feel safe alone in Belfast, I respect all that the city has been through and pray for healing and recovery. Paul told us that more people died by suicide in the last 11 years than by direct conflict in the previous 30. It’s not just about individual trauma from isolated violence, as awful as that is. It’s a raw national trauma that spans multiple generations.

With the many posters and memorials on common streets, the daily lives of the citizens of Belfast are haunted by the past. Even on the sides of such simple buildings as supermarkets, there are political posters such as this one. It was made by the British supporters to ask the IRA “Where is the integrity in murder?” It is a valid question. Paul told us that both sides have made political statements throughout town, unwilling to truly lay the matter to rest,

This sign was outside the church in the middle of one of the “dead zones”. The sign says “peace” in both English and Gaelic, and the church is making tangible strides to bring a divided community together in small but powerful ways, such as having Protestant and Catholic women work together in childcare. Paul talked about how successes in politics and international relations are typically widely shared, but leaders in Belfast are hesitant to do so, for fear of jinxing the progress. The fact that success has to be kept a secret shows just how gradual the healing process is here.

The eeriness of walking through a war-torn city was a lot to think about in one day. The memories of many of the recent memories of townspeople are corroded with violence and grief, even as the next generation continues to slowly turn the walls of religious conflict into bridges of understanding and empathy.

It was an enlightening weekend to say the very least. Belfast is unlike any other city we’ve been to and I’m incredibly grateful to have the chance to explore this unique perspective. It definitely redefined how I think of abstract ideas of “conflict” and “civil war” in modern Western society. Belfast has been through so much over the century, but I have faith in people like Paul, taking small steps that have ripple effects of healing.

Hello! It’s been a hot second since I’ve written anything. First off, I am on free travel for the next ten days! My mother and I spent a day in Paris, two whirlwind days in Rome and then we spend a week in Florence before I meet up with my group in London.

On our first night, we took a walking tour of Rome’s fountains and monuments. We got a lovely walking tour of some classic a Roman viewing points such as the Spanish Steps and the Trevi fountain. I threw two coins in so here’s to coming back to Rome and bringing my future soul mate!

We also learned about Jordano Bruno, a progressive psychic rebel who was burned in the 16th century for opposition to the Catholic Church. He sounds like my kind of odd duck and I hope to do more research on him soon. Our guide Luca was much like Paul from Belfast-refreshingly honest with a touch of cynicism.

The next morning we did CrossFit, which I haven’t done in six weeks, and it was an awesome challenge. CrossFit muscles are very different than daily walking muscles. There was a woman in the back of the room redoing the 20.1 Open workout because she was unhappy with her first result. That level of dedication echoes many of our coaches and fellow athletes at The Athlete Lab in MN. A lot of the signs around the gym were also very similar to what I’m used to, and the familiarity was a nice anchor point, reminding me to stay with my body and feel the challenged muscles fully. My mind wanted to wander off to the most random paths, but workouts are an awesome form of meditation and focus.

One thing I’ve struggled with over the last few days is trying to control my future. I currently have no idea what classes I will take in the spring or what hours I will be able to work. I’m the kind of person who builds tight routines for myself like a comfortable blanket cocoon, and automating certain patterns frees up brain space for creative pursuits. This is a great chance for me to just relax into the present moment and let the unknown rest. I can cross any bridge when I get to it.

After our workout we took a walking tour of the Colosseum! Somehow I missed all the classes on the history of the monument so I was a little surprised by the sheer gore, but our guide Lorenzo was lovely, with a good sense of humor and endearing frustration with the crowds.

I’ve found a new appreciation for walking tours. They’re essentially like a class session, an overview and a deluge of important knowledge. I find myself taking copious notes from the guides and marking points to independently research later. I enjoy living in a student mindset and the tours are a great way to continue learning even while on vacation.

Our Colosseum tour rounded off an increíble day of learning,. It was wonderful to reunite with my mom again after six weeks and explore her favorite city with her 20 years after her first visit. This week is an amazing chance for me to refuel my mind and body and spirit and I am so grateful for it!

Bon Voyage 🇮🇹 E

On Monday the 7th we toured some important sites relating to the Battle of the Somme in World War One, and it felt like going through all five stages of grief in one day. It was absolutely heartbreaking and maddening and confusing, but it was also an incredible privilege to walk through history and understand the true cost of war and how this region has processed the trauma, particularly in contrast to Belfast.

Our first stop was Devonshire Cemetery, where our tour guide informed us that some of the youngest casualties of the Somme were boys as young as 12. Twelve. I have cousin who are twelve years old and I am appalled at the thought of them anywhere near a battlefield. Many of the recruiting officers were so desperate for troops that they turned a blind eye to thousands of underage enlisters. I believe that World War One was an industry and men were products in the eyes of many generals and military strategists. Whoever moved the most human units and had the lowest loss statement was the victor.

Four thousand men lost their lives between the spot where I stood and the edge of the wood. Four thousand men died in the space of a few yards, under the orders of one greedy general. This haunting stretch of land is just opposite the red dragon that guards the Welsh memorial of Mametz.

While we marveled at the Lochnagmore Memorial Crater, left to memorialize an exploded mine, we were visited by this friendly little pup. He seemed a little skittish and didn’t want to be pet, but he sat and listened to our lecture for a while. Having him around was a nice way to lighten the mood in the middle of the tragic history.

This sculpture, simply titled “The Empty Chair”, rests at the Lochnagar left after a mine explosion and symbolizes the place left around dinner tables and fireplaces by the 37 million total lives lost in World War One. Seeing this chair was a powerful supplement to the names on the Thiepval Memorial of the Missing.

Theipval Memorial of the Missing was a hard site to walk through and a terrible sight to see. All the names on the pillar add up to 72,000 men whose bodies were never found to be buried. There were actually 1000 more men, but they have been found and buried. 72,000 men, who had families and passions and hobbies and favorite foods. And they died on a hellish battlefield without so much as a proper burial. Our tour guide told us that four bodies were found and buried in the last year, and explained the archeological process of identification and burial. This process makes me wonder, at what point does history become history? At what point is it a logical matter of preserving data instead of a somber funeral for a life lost unfairly?

This was our final site of the day and it was a fitting note to end on. We ended at a preserved battlefield at Newfoundland Memorial Park. The catch is that they removed all evidence of battle for security reasons and decided not to alter the land in any way. The result is that nature has proven that beauty triumphs over violence. The grass has grown in, and the trenches have naturally filled in so that craters are now small valleys in a miniature mountain range.

This overgrown valley is a perfect visual of the internal processing that the people of France have undergone, and serves as a stark contrast to Belfast. While Belfast was a town still very much in the throes of conflict, northern France has made peace with the world, despite frequent reminders of the horrors. They have the distance of 100 years while Belfast has less than 20. The people of northern France have been able to honor their dead and carry on quiet lives and I admire that, and hope that Belfast can reach that point of healing.

Monday was a very intense day and I had a hard time handling the heavy grief. It was also an incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience. I don’t tend to dwell on heavy topics, simply because I’m not wired that way. The tour was a way for me to stretch my emotional boundaries and pay my respects by absorbing the vital knowledge. Knowing how France has housed these traumas has also reminded me that humans are resilient and able to find beauty and peace again.

Bon Voyage ❤️🇫🇷 E