Perceptions

Where do we put our flesh? MY WORK IS CONCERNED WITH SOCIETY’S STANDARDS FOR WOMEN AND THEIR BODIES and the resulting effects on their perception of themselves. I seek to address this in the hopes of starting conversations and eventually moving beyond them to a more equal and diversely accepting world. Relief printing can reflect these concerns. Cutting into the surface of the linoleum, creating deep, irremovable marks mirrors the experience of trying to conform our bodies to Float PAINTING ON PAPER, ALUMINUM AND WOOD, I CREATE OBJECTS THAT BLUR THE DISTINCTION between painting, sculpture and installation. I am influenced by simple structures such as paper airplanes and origami — objects light in physical weight yet commanding and shaping the space they occupy. I paint the sculptures with hardedge, saturated shapes of color. The color in combination with cast shadows cre

BY CLAIRE BOWMAN ’19 BY RACHEL HELLMANN ’99 society’s ideals. Like my tools into the surface, the words and images that saturate our daily lives ates a playful conversation between real and illusionistic space. dig into our minds and leave imprints.

A boulder in Woodland Cemetery marks the grave of humorist Erma Fiste Bombeck ’49.

Empty your pockets

BY DOMINIC SANFILIPPO ’16

It was quiet, she thought— the woman walking through the hilly cemetery at dusk— a quiet that announced itself, somehow, mixing in the light streams reflecting and yawning off Miami Valley Hospital’s windows; magenta and canary— cerulean, too— all spilling through the dust and shadows and branches above the tombs, tracing an airy backdrop on which a yellow warbler was flitting, making its own sort of announcement, stamping seasonal presence early— in the first inning, even, the little daredevil. Quiet, and quiet, and more quiet— except for the warbler, of course, and a cargo plane making a lazy sweep over from Wright-Patt, and a few engine drawls on Brown Street—

(less than usual, though, as most students had already shuffled back to their starting points; the baristas and teachers and data analysts and stylists and artists all homebound, too, pacing and tracing and making do— the vehicles were mostly full of grocers and nurses and responders and nervous parents, some driving toward those same hospital windows on which the magenta and canary and cerulean spilled). She leaned against a tree, closed her eyes— exhaled, then looked over her shoulder at a boulder.

Yes, a boulder.

It seemed to her that the boulder announced itself, too, even more than the quiet and the warbler—

carved, faded from the Arizona sun, and almost thirty-thousand pounds, they say.

She considered the boulder— all who’d passed it, all who’d paused before it, all the laughter and sighs and tensions and tears that had spilled out before it, both in desert sunlight and Ohio fog.

She considered, too, the woman from Centerville, that hurricane of a writer, that anchor of a friend, that force of nature whose spark had given the boulder reason to make its own pilgrimage all the way to these cemetery grounds, this quiet oasis.

What would that laughter, that keen watcher from the past say to the present, to the warbler and the wind, to the grocers and cops and parents and sons and daughters navigating this new normal, this screaming quiet marked by weary glances and stock market zigzags and solemn pressers at the top of the hour?

Quiet, and then less quiet, as the woman in the present announced to the cemetery, to the warbler and the trees, to her quiet city and still campus, to her restless country and scattered world—

Empty your pockets.

She sprung from the tree, a small smile emerging; shook out her shoulders, gave a nod to the boulder and a wink to the warbler, and strolled toward the gates—

that’s what she’d say, yes!—

Empty your pockets and stride,

stride toward laughter in the living room and held hands by the fire and emails with old friends, toward yelps over the lost remote and backyard concerts and balcony concertos soaring over signals and ocean winds,

toward the responders and the deciders and the stockers and the grocers,

toward hard conversations and interrupted grief and mustered courage,

toward all those human souls, those sparks of light living the Centerville writer’s words in the shaky present whether they knew it or not, tying themselves to the infinite,

emptying their pockets with nothing to return, using everything given, reckoning with everything thrown their way.

She reached the gates— her small smile an announcement, a declaration—

and walked off into the dusk.

(Inspired by the words and life of Erma Fiste Bombeck ’49.)

Dominic Sanfilippo ’16, a philosophy and human rights studies grad as well as a self-proclaimed mediocre ping-pong player, teaches courses on philosophy, religious dialogue and sacramental imagination at Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette, Illinois.

Finding my way home

BY AMY GEORGE ’05

IRIDE THE SCHOOL BUS TO A STOP

sign on a small street. I walk to the small white house. I knock on the door, and my great-grandma opens it wearing an apron over her dress. I walk into the warm kitchen and put my school bag on the table.

Grandma goes back to the counter where she prepares a snack. I open my bag and take out my folder. I don’t actually have any homework in grade 1, but I want to write like the big kids I see.

Last fall, I wrote all the letters on their own pieces of paper to teach phonics. During recess, I sat on the bench, and the other students sat on the ground. I would show them the letters, and then the kids repeated. I wanted to be a teacher and have a desk and stapler.

I kept all my teaching papers in my folder and wrote my name with a “T” behind it. A boy helped sometimes. He didn’t have a teaching folder, so I wrote his name after mine followed by “TA.” Some older girls teased me. They thought it said “me + him.” I showed them “T” meant teacher, and “TA” meant teaching assistant. They didn’t listen. They just sang about us sitting in trees. I quit teaching and started playing on the monkey bars during recess.

Grandma places two saucers holding cups of coffee on the table. The coffee in my cup is light brown, more milk than coffee. It makes me feel like a grown-up to have my own spoon and stir. Grandma gives me a slice of bread and opens the butter dish. I spread butter on my bread and smooth it out until it touches the edges of the crust. I lift the lid off the glass jar of marmalade. I use the plastic spoon to put a dollop in the center of my bread. At home we only have grape jelly, so the marmalade feels special.

She lets me make my own sandwich and talks to me like I’m an adult. I tell her about my day as I eat my sandwich and sip my coffee. She never asks me silly questions about boys. She just listens to me and tells me stories about when she was in school. I think this is how grown-ups talk to each other.

Grandma needs to make dinner before Grandpa gets home. Grandma lets me make the Waldorf salad. Grandma already cut the apples and grapes and celery. I mix it all together with mayonnaise and raisins.

Grandpa comes home and gives me a hug. He laughs and thinks it’s funny that his whiskers scratch me. He goes to the bathroom to wash up while I set the table. When he comes back, dinner is ready. Grandma made pot roast and potatoes and carrots.

Grandpa says I’m a good cook when he tastes the salad, and I feel proud of myself. When it’s time to eat the pot roast, my piece has fat that I try to cut off with my knife. Grandpa says the fat is the best part and will put hair on my chest. I think he’s teasing me. I hope he is, because I don’t think I want hair on my chest.

Grandma made cheesecake for dessert. When I take a bite, I feel the creamy part dissolving leaving the pineapple on my tongue. This is my favorite dessert ever. My mom has the recipe, but she says something always goes wrong when she tries to make it. Only Grandma can make Grandma’s cheesecake.

When we finish dinner, Grandma does the dishes. I move a chair to the sink to dry them. I stack the dishes that Grandma will put into the cupboard. Then I hang the wet cloth on the handle of the stove. I like to line up the corners until they touch to know the front and back are even.

The Wizard of Oz is on television tonight, and I get to sit in the big chair to watch it. Grandma covers me with a crocheted afghan.

I hear Grandpa say my mom will arrive soon, so I decide to pretend to be asleep with the hope I can stay instead of going home. While pretending to fall asleep, I really fall asleep. I wake up in the night alone in the chair.

I pull the blanket up around me snuggling down deeper to sleep. I’m happy to know I’ll wake up and have another day with my grandparents. I fall back asleep thinking about eating eggs over easy in the morning and dipping the corners of the toast into the golden yolk.

“Finding my way home” is an abridgement of the first story in Amy George’s Six Going on Seven: Short Stories from a Short Midwest Girl, available from Amazon. The print edition contains a guided mindfulness journal for elementary school children.