words, words, words

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a digital zine


WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? To quote Willy Shakes, this little thing is words, words, words. I’m not sure what I initially concieved this as, to be perfectly frank. A place to write? A place to stretch and challenge my design skills? A place to show off my“meh” photography skills? An excersize in vanity? All of the above? It’s ended up as an all-of-the above thing. This is my very own zine, featuring poetry, prose, opinions, photography, design, and whatever else I decieded to throw into it. I’m officially calling it a zine, defined above by Yeezy. Wikipedia gives a more explained definition of “A Zine is most commonly a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images.”So! This is my self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images. Thanks for reading, thanks for listening. <3

“Zine pronounced Zeen short for magazine. A lot of people pronounce it wrong.” -Kanye West

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contact insta - @itsbridgetgraham twitter - @bridgetxgraham snap - @bridgextgraham tumblr - @odyssyes email - bgraham 18@stastars.org

colophon The font famlies used for this magazine were microsoft tai le and Tw Cen MT Condensed Extra Bold. It was designed on Adobe Indesign on a Microsoft Surface Pro.

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THE SEA IS CALL THE SEA IS CALL THE SEA IS CALL THE SEA IS CALL THE SEA IS CALL THE SEA IS CALL THE SEA IS CALL THE SEA IS CALL page three / bridget graham


LING ME HOME LING ME HOME LING ME HOME LING ME HOME LING ME HOME LING ME HOME LING ME HOME LING ME HOME page four / bridget graham


T H I C K THIGHS SAVE LIVES M

y least favorite part of my body was always my thighs because I always thought they looked so damn big. There was the year where I wore jeans when it was 90+ degrees because when I looked in the mirror they were all I could see, and then there was the days where I’d pinch and squeeze them until it hurt too much, but I still liked the way they looked when all the fat was pushed away, when half of my body disappeared. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at my thighs lately because when you’re rowing you look at the back of people’s necks and your legs. My thighs, wet with river water and sweat are an angry red and come in and out of my view as they go up and down. They’re still big, at least in my mind. In the boat, I’m always put in engine room, which is where they put the rowers who aren’t actually very good at the technical aspects but bring in a lot of power, those who can really push the boat forward. (As explained to me by coach Phil, who, despite 40-some odd years on this earth, has not yet learned to speak to other human beings:

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PHIL: The engine room, the power house, the meat wagon, whatever you want to call it is usually where the bigger girls are. Not that you’re that tall, but. You know. ME: *dies inside just a little*) But when I thought about it, my inner writer was ecstatic, because it was too damn poetic for me, My power coming from my least favorite part of my body. It was an intoxicating thought: my boat skimming gracefully along the water was at least partly due to my red and sweaty and big thighs that I tried to hide behind leggings and pinched skin. A few weeks ago I rowed a 4k race. 2.48548 miles of rowing, which I had never done before. By the end of the race my arms were slipping off the oars and I could hear the water sloshing in the bottom of the boat. I let my head down for just a second, and I saw my thighs pumping back and forth, angry angry angry red and I finally understood the positivity of the term “thunder thighs,” because damn. Those things looked powerful.


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LITTLE PINK PLUS SIGN The little pink plus sign is burned into the back of my head. I check the guide again and again, knowing it’ll mean the same thing every time: plus for pregnant, minus for not. Plus for baby, for the end of everything. I wonder if my own mother felt the same thing when she became pregnant at 16. The same age as me, now that I’m pregnant. I close my eyes and I imagine every path that currently lays out before me. Mother. I imagine the curve of my child’s head, his soft breathing and his beating heart against my chest. I feel his tiny hands curl around my finger, still chubby with baby fat. His giggles ring through my ears, mama, mama, lookit. Lookit. Already in my mind, he grows older, his white hair dulling into gold, his big, brown, curious eyes squinting in concentration. His smile turning into a smirk and his giggles turning into roars of laughter. He’d be a handsome boy, I can already tell, and he would know it, too. He grows older still in my mind, his hair unbrushed and dark, his eyes tired with the weight of the world. There would be nothing I could do to stop the ache of the world from getting to him too, just like there was nothing my mother could do, and her mother before her, and her mother before her. Educated. For me, at least, it means no more baby, but it does mean there is something of a future for me. The teachers always called me smart, always said that would go far. I bet I still could, I think, after all, I have something still left in me. I’ve always been

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able to see myself in college, being as bright as I ever was, spending my nights up late reading about Hemingway and Plath, and Einstein and Curie, and anyone else who mattered enough for their names to be written down. Maybe I could be one of them, that would be “going far”, I think. I imagine it for a moment, a classroom of bored students all reading my name, all being quizzed on when I lived and what I did. For a moment I want nothing more, to become the person all the adults told me I would be. But I’d have to do it alone. I’d be a solitary genius, I know. It can only be my name in that textbook, not baby’s or boyfriend’s or husband’s or anything. And for a moment that’s what I’m most afraid of. Both? The only one with a question mark, because I’m not sure if I could do both. I know if I even tried it would mean that I wasn’t the best at either. No name in a textbook and no adoring baby, I’d miss classes for school plays and I’d miss baseball games for finals. I know that from my own mother, who tried to get everything she wanted and ended up with absolutely nothing. Surely my baby would hate me as I hate my own mother, who never had enough time in the day for me or her boss or her teachers or herself. I cannot stretch myself thin like how she did, I cannot become my mother, I cannot have my son become me. For the first time in my life, I actually feel sorry for my mother. (Of course, it’s only now when I’ve made all the same mistakes she has.)


PLAYLIST

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The Part You’re Given

H

e wants to be Hamlet (They all want to be Hamlet. Every man thinks he is entitled to a kingdom that somebody stole away from him) He is not Hamlet. (Obviously.) But you still have to be Ophelia. Weeping, broken Ophelia. A star role. One that you never asked for. (One that she never asked for either. See, you really are Ophelia!) It does not matter, though. He still kills everyone in his search for a crown, And you still end up dead in the river.

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Not Your Tragedy I

carus is not about the failure of humanity. Icarus is about the failure of wax and feathers and the cruelty of the sun. I know the sun, I too have flown too close to the sun more than was wise, and I know the angry pink burns well. I too have put my faith in wax and glue only to have it melt when the sun rose. When I landed in the water, the bitter salt water filled my lungs and my own wings dragged me under, the very things meant to make me fly made me drown. but I am not Icarus. I am not Ophelia. I am not Dido Or Beatrice Or Cassandra I am not Helen or her thousand doomed ships. I am not your tragedy. In the morning, I will rise.

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T

o the sailor’s wives, she looks like a dead girl, claimed by the sea. Her long face looks pale and puffy and sad, all too paperwhite and murky-green at the same time. Her hair is wet and tangled, like the sailor’s nets, like the twisted seaweed the reaches up from the bottom of the ocean to grab you and pull you under. She looks as if she might do the same thing. To the sailors, she’s a woman, in their favorite kind of way. Her eyes are like the sea on a warm day, bright blue and full of promise, her hair is golden like sand or black like the rocks the waves crash against, depending on the man who looks upon her. Her face is still sad, but the sailors see it differently, A kind of sadness they can claim and turn into something else. A kind of sadness they can use. She reminds them of a new ship, ready to take them far away from their homes and their wives and their struggles, she promises them freedom and love. She is none of these things, she is not a simile. She is not like the ocean because she is the ocean. Her hair is the crashing ocean waves, her eyes are the black water that takes ships in the night. Her skin is the coarse sand that gets caught in their eyes and skin and their throats, choking the life out of them. Her song is no song but a war cry and she had no interest in the sailor’s other than to swallow them whole.

THE SIREN’S SONG

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dark blue LETTER FROM THE light blue APOCALYPSE yellow D gray

ear love, We made so many mistakes. I am so sorry for that. I have been trying to figure out why it all happened. Why we’ve done what we’ve done, and what we wanted. I know the answer just as well as you do: selfishness. Selfishness and pride and jealousy and all of those emotions that we tried to renounce. But I don’t want that to be the only reason. It can’t be the only reason. It can’t, because those emotions are not the only thing that motivates us. I know you hate the word curiosity, so I’ll find another one: loneliness. Poor humans! The universe is big and wild and frightening and it seems we’re the only ones in it. We’re orphans left all alone in our parents’ mansion, and we don’t know why. We figure with all these rooms and all these doors, there must be someone, or at least something. It’s so damn big that it seems to be getting bigger, what kind of person would just leave us here all alone? They must have left us a friend, we think desperately. We just have to find them. So we try to. We build rockets and we go into places that maybe we shouldn’t have. We go farther and farther, because we can’t give up hope. We can’t let ourselves believe we’re the only ones. Solitarily is a terrifying concept. Maybe one of the doors we opened wasn’t meant to be open. Maybe, at the beginning of time, our creator, our father or mother or babysitter or something told us that we couldn’t go there. But we forgot, or we didn’t care anymore. We disobeyed and we opened the door, the Pan-

dora’s Box, if you will. And maybe that’s the reason we’re being punished. We spent so much time looking at the stars we forgot to look at ourselves. There might not be any friends in the universe, or any other homes. But we thought there might, we knew there should be. Why should we care about our home right now, and our friends here, when there must be more out there. I don’t know if they are there, but even if they are, I’m not sure we’ll ever find them. Not now that we’re running out of time. That’s not the right word. We’re no longer running out, all of our time and yours is gone. Oh, I am so sorry. Maybe it is when we lose our world that we will find another. That’s always what the old priests tried to tell us, isn’t it? I think I always did believe them, even though I denied it. I believed there was something out there, and I dedicated my life to find it. I wasn’t looking for the man they called father, but I must have believed them because I didn’t think any good, loving father could leave his children all alone. Maybe I was wrong. Or maybe he doesn’t love us anymore. I wouldn’t love us anymore, if I were him. (Well, I’d still love you, of course. I’ll always love you.) I don’t blame him, though. I don’t blame him for any of this. This is the end mankind has made for themselves, our end that took away your future. I’m sorry, love. All my love from now until the end, Your father

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angry feminist rant: the 2016 election I

really thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the 2016 election. That was what all the polls said, that was what common sense said. She was running against a caricature, a man who was overtly sexist, overtly racist, overtly angry and rude and egotistical and selfish. A man who had been married three times, sued over 3,500 times. A man who was going on trial for fraud and for rape charges later in the election year. I thought it was common sense, that you might not like Hillary Clinton, but you have to, have to, have to see that she was better. I put too much faith in America. I could not sleep that night, knowing that the electoral college votes were stacking up and that when I woke up in the morning, Donald Trump was going to be the President of the United States of America. And that just sucks, doesn’t it? That is really the best way I can sum it up. It sucks that we voted for a man like this. (It sucks that we did not vote for him—she won the popular vote, but he got the most electoral college votes.) But what really hit me hard is the reason I believe that Clinton won. Now, I know people claimed they had plenty of legitimate reasons to be against her: emails, abortion, the war in Iraq, economic positions, whatever you want. But it is not like Trump is better than her on any of these things.

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Even from a conservative positions, he did not work. He has been pro-choice, his economic ideas would tank the economy (Just on immigration, the deportations would cost $100 billion to $300 billion, and the wall $25 billion, according to Time. And that is not even counting the money lost from cheap labor lost), he has got just as many skeletons in the closet as Clinton: his divorces, his bankruptcies, his lawsuits. Besides that, he is a liar, on every position he has taken, he has expressed differing views and then lied about expressing those views. Hillary Clinton did not lose because she was a Democrat, or because she was a liar, or unequipped to be president. Hillary Clinton lost because she was a woman. Clinton was the first woman to ever be nominated by a major political party in the United States. Two-hundred and thirty eight years, and a woman was never even considered for the position of president, not truly. Sure, women could not vote until 1920, but that still means that there has been 96 years a women could have technically been president, but they have not been. That is not a coincidence. There have been dozens—perhaps hundreds—of women who were capable, perhaps even more than men who have held the position. But they have not won, have never even gotten very far, and again, that is not a coincidence. We had 33 elections before women could vote. Our election system was built for


a patriarchal society, by and for men. It favors masculinity over femininity, even today. A good way to explain this was done by Ezra Klein on his excellent piece for Vox, Understanding Hillary: “[R]esearch suggests a reason for the difference: Women, she’s found, emphasize the “rapport dimension” of communication — did a particular conversation bring us closer together or further apart? Men, by contrast, emphasize the “status dimension” — did a conversation raise my status compared to yours?... One way of reading the Democratic primary is that it pitted an unusually pure male leadership style against an unusually pure female leadership style. Sanders is a great talker and a poor relationship builder. Clinton is a great relationship builder and a poor talker. In this case — the first time at the presidential level — the female leadership style won. But that wasn’t how the primary was understood. Clinton’s endorsements left her excoriated as a tool of the establishment while Sanders’s speeches left people marveling at his political skills. Thus was her core political strength reframed as a weakness.” The election was created to be won by a man. But I really, really thought that this one was going to be won by a woman for once. I thought that people would not be able to look

at this man and say, “This is okay. This fine. What he says and does is fine.” But a lot of people did. I woke up to a morning where my country told every single girl that it does not matter how smart, capable, QUALIFIED, hardworking, and right she is, because there will always be a stupid, selfish, ignorant man standing in her way and they would rather have him as president because America cannot overcome its misogyny to elect one of the best candidates it has had in years just because she is a woman. She was ambitious, and no one can ever stand an ambitious woman. I mean, have you ever heard someone say that a man is too ambitious? That he wants to be president too much? Every person who runs for president probably wants to be president too much. If you don’t think it is about sexism, you are wrong. People always say the gender issue does not matter anymore, to not bring it up. But it exists, it will not go away. Of course it matters. If it was not about sexism, Clinton would not have been called a bitch every single day of this campaign. There would not be shirts saying “Hillary sucks, but not like Monica.” There would not be questions of her acting “presidential,” or forgetting to smile. Which is why it is such a slap in the face when my fellow women say they supported him.

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I understand a difference in politics. I understand a hatred of Hillary Clinton. I understand the want to get rid of the establishment, to try something new. But Donald Trump is racist, he is sexist, he is ableist, he is egotistical, he is unreasonable, he is everything that constitutes a bad man. But wait, you say, I am not racist, or sexist, or ableist, or egotistical or unreasonable. I realize the things he says can be bad, but I looked past them to support him. I am not bad. Not good enough. Not acceptable. Perhaps you do not think all Mexicans are rapist drug dealers, perhaps you do not think that a man ever has a right to grab a woman by the pussy. Perhaps you do not believe that gay people should have to go through conversion therapy, or that Obergefell v. Hodges should be overturned. But you voted, you supported for a man and a party that does. You looked at all of those things and decided that it was fine for you. You decided that for you, it did not have to matter. But for the immigrant families who will be split up, it will matter. For every person in the LGBTQ community who now fear for their lives and their marriage, it will matter. For every disabled person who may lose their healthcare to a president who does not respect them, it will matter. For every woman who was gone through sexual assault, it will matter, because you just elected someone who has bragged about comitting sexual assualt.

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You supported what you believed in. And as frustrating, disheartening, and defeating that is, I still want to believe in the good of this country. Donald Trump may have won, but he did not win the popular vote. He won the vote of the old world, not the new one waking up. The election of Donald Trump was the last cry of the dying majority. So, in closing, I have two quotes: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters. -Antonio Gramsci” I’ve been inspired. I really think I want to go into political science now, because I need to help things. I think I can help things, I really do. I can see myself making a difference, speaking up for those who have been hated. I want to do everything now, I want to keep writing, keep voting, keep speaking. I’m never going to stop talking and fighting and believing until the new world gives way. But I have hope even for the dying world. I know that a lot of the people who voted for Trump voted out of frustration, out of anger. I hope they lose their anger, I hope they find satisfaction, and I hope it is not on the backs of the marginalized. Though ti was wrong, though they should know better, I hope those who supported Donald Trump did not do it out of hate. “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.” - Anne Frank

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photos courtesy of time. thanks time!! 1) People watch voting results in front of an American flag at Hillary Clinton’s election night event at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Nov.8, 2016 in New York City. 2) People wave American flags as they watch voting results be reported outside of Hillary Clinton’s election night event at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, on Nov. 8, 2016, in New York City. 3) A guest clutches a magazine showing a stylized Hillary Clinton and that reads: “Madam President” at the Democrats Abroad U.S. elections party on Nov. 8, 2016 in Berlin, Germany. 4) Voters lined up on election day to place “I voted” stickers on the grave of Susan B. Anthony at Mt. Hope Cemetery, on Nov. 8, 2016 in Rochester, NY.

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A Walk in the Woods R

ecall that secret place. You’ve been there, you remember: That special place where once- Just oncein your crowded sunlit lifetime, you hid away in shadow from the tyranny of time. That spot beside the clover where someone’s hand held your hand and love was sweeter than the berries, or the honey, or the stinging taste of mint. It is October before a rainfall the perfect time to be in love. -The Fantasticks by Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt

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01 02 03 I had been looking forward to this all week. I’ve always loved going out into the woods, camping, hiking, you name it, I love it. I loved that I had an excuse to get away from people for three whole hours and just be myself. I may be the #1 Chris McCandless hater, but I don’t think he was wrong about the lure and the healing power of nature. I just don’t think you should abondon those who love you just so you can “find yourself.” I went to the Overland Park arboretum, a place I went to a lot as a kid, but I hadn’t been there in years. This was the first trail I went onto, the beginning of the “rocky ridge” trail that was, like, 4.5 miles long.

A few minutes into my hike, the sun was shining through the trees in the most beautiful way, it looked nearly like a movie. I had started to think about coming here when I was a kid, and how much I had changed since then. When I was really young, I was one of those little brats who thought they were the funniest, bravest, smartest kids ever. Into middle school, I had basically became the opposite of that, and now I was somewhere in the middle. I started to think about how that happened, if there was something concrete and singular that happened to change me, or if it was a thousand tiny hurts that made me change who I was.

I stumbled upon one of the streams in the aboretum, and I remembered once whenI had went here with my cousins, and I had thrown off my shoes and waded in the stream. I had pretended it was an actual river, stretching from sea to sea, because it had seemed bigger then. Now it looked small and dirty. But I thought about how I used to brave and how I didn’t care when I was little, so I even though it was more than a little chilly, I took off my shoes and waded in it for a while because I wanted to be brave again.

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I followed the stream until I found one of the bridges, and I remembered another time I visited, with a girl named Sydney, and we ate lunch there. I thought about how Sydney and I hadn’t spoken since 8th grade graduration, and how I would probably forget her when I was older, even though she was my best friend for years and years and years. I thought about how I saw her life play out on instagram, how different it was from mine. I thought about what I would be like if we had never stopped being friends. I certainly wouldn’t be the same person I am right now. I might not even be at the same school.

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05 06 07 As I was walking in the woods, I turned a corner and was suddenly in the middle of a field of grass that stretched for as long as I could see, which made me think about how diverse and beautiful the nature in this country was. I started getting almost patriotic, thinking about those amber waves of grain and all that. It, unfortunatly, made me think about the upcoming election, but it also made me appreciate that America is already great, at least because of it’s greatest idea: the parks, and all the nature we put aside for future generations. I thought about how the arboretum was one of those places and I would be able to take my kids there someday.

As I turned back into the woods, I thought about how I would take my kids there someday, which made me start thinking about the future and how unsure I am about everything. My parents want me to start thinking about colleges, when I feel like I was just picking out what high school to go to. I wanted to feel like a little kid again, brave and quirky and doing whatever I want. So I laid down on the ground for a minute where I took the picture.

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This was my view when I was laying down. There was definitly bugs and dirt and everything else getting in my hair, but I closed by eyes and felt the wind go around me, heard all the leaves rustling around me and all the animals scampering around. I felt peaceful, which is kind of a big deal for me, as I am a certified not-chill person. But for once, in that moment, I felt like nothing bad was going to ever happen.

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08 I came upon this lovely lady along my hike, probably put there by someboy scout or something, but she made me think about womanhood. Before I had gone out, my mom warned me to be careful and to try and avoid people on the paths when I was alone. I thought about how this advice could have been given to anyone, but it was given to me because I’m a girl and if I don’t take precautions things are going to happen. And it made me sad and angry because I like being a girl, but I don’t like how society treats you if you’re a girl, espicially if you’re a brave, smart, funny, ambitious girl who doesn’t care what people think. I wondered if that was why I changed.

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I was sad as I finished my hike, not because of what I thought about, but actually because it was over, and I had enjoyed immensly. But I also realized that while thinking things through had helped me come to conclusions, and, as Kylie Jenner says, just realizing things, they hadn’t done any good for anyone else, and if I wanted to actually deal with them, I would have to talk to other people. But the insight I got on my hike was nice. That realization is what seperates me from Chris McCandless, I already knew happiness is not real unless it is shared

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On the rocky ridge trail, there was this like 10/12 foor cliff that I remember climbing with my friend Sydney and her dad when I was too little to bedoing that. Off-handedly, I thought, “What was he thinking, the old drunk, we could have died.” But that made me sad, because Sydney’s Dad was--is?--a drunk, I just didn’t realize it then. And I thought about how a few of my old friends parents were alcoholics now, with chips and everything, and how a lot of the people who I thought were strong when I was young were and are actually broken and trying to deal with it. I thought about how a lot of people my age are going down the same way and trying to solve their problems with a bottle. I thought about how there’s always been alcohol at every major event in my life, and I’ve never questioned it. Maybe that’s just being Catholic. Anyway, I climbed the cliff, because I was being brave that day. This was the view from the top.

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Where in the World? Some stories of where I’ve been, and what I’ve been doing in 2016. page twenty four / bridget graham


paris, france Paris, mi amor. You were beautiful, you had works of art everywhere, you had graffiti everywhere, you had cigarettes everywhere, you had flowers everywhere, you were beautiful everywhere. I don’t think I’ll every see things that parallel the ostentatiousness of Versailles, or how oddly at home I felt at Shakespeare and Company. You gave me a rush from beginning to end, every time I saw the Eiffel tower my heart jumped (especially when I was going to the top and those Romanian boys flirted with me and my group (He grabbed my wrist and said he’d hold me steady--swoon.) You were over too soon, I left feeling like there was still so much to be done,and yet I had done so much, seen Notre Dame, the Mona Lisa, The Arc de Triomphe and hundreds of beautiful and rude French people. Paris, mi Amor, À la prochaine.

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rotary youth camp, missouri No place I’d ever rather be than Girls Can Camp. I can’t believe that there were ever moments where I was hesitant about going, where I would rather be at home, because now it’s my happiest place on Earth. Nowhere else have I ever felt the same unconditional love, the same wildness, the same freedom. I love sleeping on picnic tables and being woken up by the sunrise, or the misting of a storm outside. I love drinking as much water as I can and daring the girls to do more. I love being called Boodles and holding the girls as we swim yet another lap around the pool. I love the tired exhaustion I feel at the end of the week, the ache I feel when the girls leave, yet the satisfaction of knowing they all had fun. I love looking forward to next year, counting down the days until I can spend 10 days in a little slice of heaven on Earth.

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rome, italy Rome, sweet Rome. I felt alive in Rome, amonst all the momuments to the dead. I loved the living history I was surronded with, the gorgeous architecture and busy people. I loved the gelato and the bread and the tiramisu and the pizza. I loved the language and how the people spoke it with their hands, their faces, their bodies. I knew every moment of the trip that I should be cherishing it, that it was the trip of a lifetime, and it was. Expereincing the things I did for the first time will never be the same, but I feel like I have to see them again. I have to go back to the Vatican and look at the most beautiful cieling in the world. I have to go back to Ostia Antica and see the bluest water in the world, I have to back to Pompeii and the Forum and all those museums so that I can see the forgotten worlds again. I have to get back the feeling that seeing a new (old) world gave me.

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grand marais, minnesota The homestead, if the Brookers truly have one. When we pulled up to the Nor’Wester I felt like I was eight years old again, and the world was anything I wanted it to be. It’s still the most beautiful place in the world to me, despite the disguistingness of the cabins or the flesh-eating qualitiy of the flies. I think Grand Marais opens up a part of me that I forget is there too often, a part of me that can open up the skies and see anything I want to, that can just sit and be happy and content with the life I’ve been given, that can love myself even though I’m not who I wanted or expected to be. Grand Marais doesn’t have wifi or a cell connection, so I don’t have to worry about what people back home are doing or who is or isn’t snapchatting me. I can think about and love the people around me, all the tune of whistling birds and Don McLean’s American Pie

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atlanta, georgia Atlanta was kind of just a weird thing that happened. I had never seen so many kids so hype about business. During the opening ceremony, kids were screaming, crying, just having the time of their lives. Whereas I almost missed my test because I showed up late and couldn’t figure out what hotel it was in. Mrs. Majors would leave me alone to look at colleges during the day, so I was alone, in business attire, in Atlanta. I had the time of my life. I went to the Olympic Park, and then, because I couldn’t find anywhere else to eat, a Hooters. I sat in the corner in my dress and read To Kill a Mockingbird. (#iconic). I went to the Coca Cola museum, which was a monument to capitalism, and to the CNN headquarters, which made my little journalism heart want to soar. I think I grew up a lot in those few days, it was a little preview of how I think some parts of my life will be (what I want them to be), alone in a big city, handling myself. Like a business bitch.

twenty nine / bridget graham


indianapolis, indiana I wasn’t going to go to Indianapolis for the journalism trip. I mean, after Paris, Rome, Atlanta, I figured my days traveling with STA were pretty much over, and that was fine, I had enough to last for a while. But I want to be yearbook editor, I really really really really want to be yearbook editor, and I saw going on this trip as a basic requirement. It was -a full weekend of journalism amazingness, I learned so much about writing, about design, about photography, everything I love. It was filled with those little moments that made me remember why I picked STA, why I love STA. The sisterhood was alive on this trip, whether it was crowd surfing to Actin’ Like You Know during the conference mixer (where we all wore our uniforms and were our wonderful, confident selves), bonding over bad Mexican food, or sitting in the bus aisle at 10 o’clock talking about life with girls I hadn’t meant before the trip. Truly #Blessed to be an STA girl.

thirty / bridget graham


forgo fragm page thirty one / bridget graham


tten ents

the excerpts from the stories I never wrote

page fourteen / bridget graham thirty two / bridget graham


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forty / bridget graham


forty one / bridget graham


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forty eight / bridget graham


thanks for reading!!


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