Childhood
My love for movies
Hi, my name is Emmanuel. Ever since I was 8 years old, I have always cherished and loved going to the movies. In my lifetime, I even had the pleasure of working at three different movie theaters đźŽ. Everytime was a different experience, but easily the best jobs ever. Today I want to talk about the joy and pleasure of a great movie going experience.
By Emmanuel Bryant 4 years ago in Confessions
It started as shoe polish scribblings
Have you ever had that one thing that makes life feel like the first day of spring? It's that one thing you might not do for a living, or have time for as often as you’d like; as life at times gets in way. It's that thing you'll always want to bring up around people that interest you (those you may want to impress). Even if you’re a humble person it’s something you have at least the urge to express and share; even if you never do. As that thing makes you feel like you have the power to create, and to be a master of something no matter how profound or how simple it is. You love it because even if it's just for you, it’s worth getting excited about.
By Perrity Fowler4 years ago in Confessions
The Plastic Inevitable
“I love sharks. I adore sharks.” – Matt Hooper It is impossible for me to talk about the natural sea predators we all know and love without referencing that movie. I was a young child when I viewed it in our very dark basement, Quint, Brody and the above Hooper hunting down a Great White Shark that had very serious boundary issues and carried a terrible grudge. If I think about it now, it was also the first movie that I can recall that made me consider the importance of a soundtrack, or at least a theme. John Williams’ score haunts me to this day. As a teacher of media studies, I try to point out to my students the importance of music in the movies they love (Ben Kingsley, at an Academy Awards ceremony, once described music as “the perfume you take with you once you leave the theatre,” and I cannot improve on that). My regret as a child is that I had no idea that I could buy a copy of the film’s soundtrack and use it to terrify my family by playing it at inappropriate times on my cheap turntable (oh, the regrets of youth). But there is something else worth mentioning.
By Kendall Defoe 4 years ago in Confessions
First Ice
Serenity one minute. Heart-pounding ecstasy the next. For an outdoorsy guy, there’s nothing like fishing on first ice. On Devils Pond, first ice is glass-smooth and sky blue. I drill my hole and sit down on my ice bucket stock-still—the fish below can hear everything. Whenever a walleye swims by a couple-few times, first ice is so clear, I can count his scales.
By Gale Martin4 years ago in Confessions
Fish Heads
That summer in Tobermory, I fished and crabbed behind the harbor wall or from the pier, and sometimes I took a rowboat out into the harbor. But mostly, I headed to the lighthouse. That summer was a typical affair if I don’t count the arrival of Lim-Tom, moving to the island from Sterling. Lim-Tom was Korean. It was my introduction to people who didn’t act, think, and look like me, white, dumb, and Scottish. There were, that I can recall, no intellectuals living on the island. Well, there was a young Jack Rafferty who always did well in exams. He grew up to become a police officer. Farming and fishing were the main work making up our community, and later, hoteliers. But at the time, there were no hoteliers.
By harry hogg4 years ago in Confessions
I write for people who are like me
I write characters and stories that are hard to write (for me). It’s exhausting to write happy people. It’s exhausting to write people fighting their way out of depression. It’s hard to move out of bed sometimes and open my eyes—-but I do it because that’s what thriving through pain is—-moving step by step each day to get by. To do each task and care for your family. I find it difficult to do anything sometimes, but I take deep breaths, and I do it. I try to do it well—-or least finish it to completion. This worldwide pandemic and the way everything feels slow and terrifying and unending—-it is hard to feel safe. But, with my friends and family, I can. Writing is my safeguard to keep me grounded as well.
By Melissa Ingoldsby4 years ago in Confessions
The Once Unknowns of My Life (Adolescence)
I will be writing a part 2 to this story, my adult life since graduation. I hope you will read this with an open mind. Every person in this world has lived with some form of struggle. Even those born into riches have their own struggles though many may not believe so. We struggle for food, money, understanding, even basal love. Many argue that they have it worse or their problems are more important but we all forget that what is a puddle to a Great Dane is a bottomless abyss to an Ant. I have always strived to see the world in that sense, understanding that everyone's needs and struggles though often similar are on completely different levels for each individual. That is why I want to write this now, to explain my own struggles even when they had never been acknowledge for so long. My entire life I was always told to 'shut up' or 'stop complaining' when I tried to talk about the things that bothered me or seemed off. I was told 'well it could always be worse' or 'you have it better than a lot of people' and after so long that broke me. I believed the problems I had were insignificant and that acknowledging them was me being a 'waste of life' as some had called me.
By Diahanne Raven4 years ago in Confessions
Robin's Egg Blues
It’s 3 am and I am having trouble sleeping again. The same brain that can really nail an Instagram caption also loves to replay traumatic mistakes and have me try to THINK my way out of whatever negative feeling it gives me. My brand of OCD is shame-flavored with a bit of symmetry obsession mixed in. The scene stuck on repeat is one of my greatest hits. Picture a sunny afternoon and you are me, and I am four. My mother is visiting a friend I am not super familiar with. The house is large, and to me, four and poor, it was very fancy. I am the best-behaved child my mother has ever met at this point in both of our lives. She says this so often that it etches itself onto my frontal lobe. I thought about being good constantly and defined my entire personality around it and cats, so yes, not much has changed. At four I hadn’t developed obvious enough symptoms for adults in my life to notice, plus the obsession with being good also helped me disguise that anything was wrong with me for years. Plus the 90s were a wild time.
By Jasmine Jaye4 years ago in Confessions
Finding My Talent
I grow up with a mom who pushes me into things. I was born in Chicago, Illinois USA. My mom is Asian and my dad is black. My dad was just a money provider for my upbringing. My mom made all my up bring decisions without asking me how I feel about them. I never really had spent any quality time with my Dad cause every time my mom sends me to my Dad over the summers, he passed me off to family members mainly my Aunts. The Last time I ever been to my Dad's house I was two. My mom moves to the south and meets my stepdad. I had to share my mom. I was not too happy about that. My mom told me I try to break them apart at my mom and stepdad's wedding. Everyone thought it was cute and funny. I was devastated, as a child of three. My mom was my world no one else was allowed in it. Maybe if my mom shares her plan with me and asks me how I felt? Things would be different.
By Mariann Carroll4 years ago in Confessions
