This summer I went swimming, this summer I might have drowned, But I held my breath and I kicked my feet and I moved my arms around. This summer I swam in the ocean and I swam in a swimming pool Salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes, I’m a self-destructive fool. ~ “The Swimming Song” by Loudon Wainwright III When I was in my early 20s, I was a recent...
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Those who wish to sing always find a song. ~ Swedish proverb When I was in fourth grade, we got a new teacher at our Catholic school: Dr. Leone. She had tight, permed curls and a gruff voice. In the beginning I was a little afraid of her. We all were. She wasn’t mean to us, but her voice made her sound mad all the time, even when she wasn’t. I had...
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After seven years of being conscripted into Catholic school and wearing a uniform every day, I was thrilled when I deserted to public school because I could choose what I wore to school. But no pants. Though it was the 1970s, pants on females were still considered radioactive and radical. Pants were part of the school’s no-fly, dress code zone along...
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The first time I passed through a metal detector, I was walking into a high school to attend my first day of class in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I was 16 and an exchange student. It was my first solo experience abroad, and Sao Paulo was an eye-opening warren of skyscrapers, frenetic traffic and the kind of big city-ness I had only seen before on television. The...
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A month ago, I made a pilgrimage to Weeki Wachee, Florida, a dot of a city on the marshy Gulf side of the state at about the same latitude as Orlando. Weeki Wachee is little more than one square mile, has a population of 12 and is all about cold water. I went there to watch mermaid auditions. Weeki Wachee means little spring in the language of the Seminole...
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