When most New Mexicans hear the word ‘Portales’ – if they’ve ever heard of it – they think of the fact that Portales is one of the top producers of peanuts and the top producer of Certified Organic peanut butter in the nation and that Portales houses over forty dairies and a major US dairy solids plant. So yeah, Portales is famous for peanuts and cows, in both reputation and in aroma...
The trouble with my brother’s tattoo is that he cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery. A tattoo is a desecration of the body and renders it unfit for burial. Possessed of many such idiosyncrasies, Judaism lives and breathes in me and I have sought to know it intimately. In seeking, I find Jewish thread woven throughout my existence. The doorposts of my house hang with Hebrew script and my logical scaffold for life hangs with concepts of miracle and kismet. Every year, between the apples and honey of the Jewish New Year and the closing gates of Yom Kippur, I am ensconced in those Days of Awe as golden cottonwood leaves drift past the windows. In the same cemetery where my brother is predetermined not to rest, visiting stones — never flowers— mark my grandfather’s grave...
“Watch the cymbals. “This was my grandfather’s advice for maximal enjoyment of the last movement of Pictures at an Exhibition. I imagine the broad rondo of his smile as the orchestra’s rhythms subsided into a monumental standstill. His arm embraced my then-toddling older brother; together they heeded the rhythmic hinges of magnificent mythical gates. They aimed their ears at the percussion soaring into the catwalks of the hall where it would linger for years.
I played the Great Gate of Kiev. I like to imagine that my grandfather similarly relished the moment then-
I can’t remember if I played the piece before or after he died...
East of Home is a desert hell spotted with gray spires reaching to Heaven. A wasteland stone-bare and bleak,I could have sought out Ozymandias and found him rooted there, boasting to the thirsty Earth of all his
withered glory. The road stretched ever-lonely and we traveled a hundred solitary miles through plains of sunand sand. The air-cooling failed an hour back and hot wind whipped my cheeks. A thousand beads of sweatgleamed on my father’s balding crown, not one of them due to heat...
Throughout elementary and middle school, my life revolved around being invisible, because if I remained invisible, no one could make fun of me for having a terrible haircut, a ruddy face, and, worst of all, for being intelligent. Words such as nerd, freak, and dweeb were thrown at me on a daily basis by kids who simply didn’t understand the power of such phrases. In the beginning of high school, my goal remained the same, stay invisible and stay out of the limelight. That was, of course, until I was introduced to an incredible organization designed for high school students...
Joining Future Business Leaders of America was the most life-altering experience of my high school career. My time with the organization began during my freshman year, when a few senior officers informed me of the free pizza that was served at meetings. Being a timid person, I saw it as an opportunity to possibly make a few new friends and to yes, eat some complimentary pizza. My resume will tell you what happened next, but it does not tell the personal transformation I went through to get there...
As my eyes wandered from President Obama to the examples of grandeur in the White House, including the presidential portraits in golden frames and rooms decorated with one color apiece, I realized how lucky I was to have been selected for such an incredible program. Girls Nation, sponsored by the American Legion Auxiliary, is a week-long summer program for rising high school seniors...
Being dropped into an unknown world can lead to unexpected possibilities. Being asked to discover one’s true self in a limited amount of time and make crucial decisions that could decide an entire future is not a simple task. Alice fell into Wonderland as a girl who had no idea who she was, where she was, or what she wanted. As she traveled through the alien land of Wonderland, she was faced with tasks that she never imagined she would have to face. The citizens of the land had told her that she had to slay a dangerous and formidable creature they called a jabberwocky. In order to slay this jabberwocky, Alice had to find the strength and courage within herself that she, and all of Wonderland, knew she had...
El Puerto is an “authentic” Mexican restaurant in the middle of Charlottesville, Virginia. When my sister, Madeline, is home from college for the summer, the two of us have lunch there every few weeks. While I cannot speak for its authenticity–I have never been to Mexico–I feel qualified to say that it is both the best Mexican restaurant in town and the place where I feel most content. Madeline and I have tried El Monarca, its obvious advantage being that it has sub-$5.00 lunch specials on Wednesdays. The rice at El Monarca lacks flavor, though, and it is not worth the drive up Route 29. La Azteca has bigger portions and a fancier interior than El Puerto, but there are too many TVs and the food is expensive. Besides, La Azteca lacks the cardboard cutouts of women in bikinis advertising Corona with lime, something which strangely adds to El Puerto’s ambiance...
Here’s what I don’t remember: hitting my head on the coffee table, my mom carrying me ten blocks to the hospital, and getting stitches. But I’ve been told the story of how I got the faint scar on my forehead enough times over the past fourteen years to know that these things happened. What I do remember is the aftermath of the incident: sitting on the edge of my parents’ bed and screaming. In the weeks after receiving my stitches, this became a daily event. The giant Band-Aid covering my forehead had to be changed every day, so each morning I would sit in my parents’ room weeping while my mom carefully peeled off yesterday’s Band-Aid and put on a new one...
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