WAKE UP CALL

EMMERT

Freshman summer. I spent it working on my grandfather’s farm, but it wasn’t for fun or because I wanted to. It started during the school year when my life started to take a turn for the worse—The friends I was involved with and things I was doing weren’t things that parents want their kids doing. But I was blind, thinking I was always right and that no matter what I did nothing would come from it.

As the school year dwindled on and my life was still spiraling down, I was too blinded by my influences to even notice. It took doing probably the stupidest thing that I have ever done to realize that my life choices hadn’t been so great. One day my friends thought that it would be funny if we tagged this kid’s house. I jumped right in and that night sneaked out of my house and met up with my friends. When I got there they were all bummed because we had no spray paint. Knowing we couldn’t just buy spray paint we did the only thing that would could—steal it.

We went into the store scared and nervous, but I had never been more excited. Blood was racing through my veins and my heart was pumping so fast. Me and my friend went and grabbed two cans each and just ran. One of the clerks chased us as we fled to the nearest neighborhood. Thinking that they might have called the cops, I tried to suggest that we do the tagging another night, but my friends just called me names. Upset, I grabbed the spray paint and decided to just say screw the plan and went to tag the first house in the neighborhood. My friends joined in. I was almost done when the house’s garage door started to open. Not knowing what to do, I jumped in the backyard and laid down, hoping I wouldn’t be seen. But sure enough, he called the cops and since they were already at the store near us they got there quick. I was so scared that I panicked and tried to jump the fence, but I got caught.

They brought me to my house and my dad has never been so mad in his life. He wouldn’t even look at me. My mom took me to my room and told me to go to bed. I didn’t get to speak to my parents that night but I will always remember their words. Mom said “I just can’t take it anymore. I’m losing my son.” And my Dad “You’re going to your grandpa’s this summer.” The next couple of weeks were spent at the house I tagged, cleaning up the mess and anything else he needed just so he wouldn’t press charges. The whole time I was thinking that after those weeks I would be done and able to do what I wanted again…but that wasn’t the case.

Three weeks and a 10 hour car ride later I arrived on my grandpa’s farm, rejoicing that this was the best they could do as punishment. I expected to do nothing, and that night I slept like a baby—until four in the morning came around and water was thrown in my face. “What the f?” I said. There were clothes on the chair next to me but they were overalls and a flannel, which I refused to wear.

As I walked out down the hall to the kitchen a great big meal was waiting for me with pancakes, toast, eggs, sausage, and just everything you could want for breakfast. After I devoured the meal I went back to my room to sleep, but my grandpa told me to go outside because “We got work today”. He said we would go easy to start off. He wanted me to push-mow all 3 acres of his lawn. I threw it off with a laugh and said “Really, grandpa,” and with the blankest stare he told me to get to work. All day I never stopped complaining, and all day it took me to mow the lawn and pick up all the grass. Dead tired after the day’s work I crawled right into bed to go to sleep.

Day after day after day the workload continued and the more resistant I tried to be. One day I ran in to the grain field and lay there all day long and it was so peaceful I just never wanted leave. At about 9 o’clock my grandpa walked out to where I was and laid down with me. He started crying. Why though—I just didn’t know why—so I asked him.

“Grandpa, are you alright?”
“Yeah. I’m fine Christian, I’m just worried for you.”
“Why are you worried?”
And the answer was something I would never expect—He told me that he was just like me when he was a kid. A little rascal who always had his nose in trouble. I couldn’t believe it but the next thing he said changed my perspective.
“Christian, life is what you make it. And if you continue to make the choices you are making, you’re going to get hurt and just get in more trouble. I went down the path you did and I can promise you that nothing good is to come from it. Start to rethink your values…or your life as you know it will be no more.”

He left me there lying in the grain. All I did was think, but as time passed by a tear ran down my face. The first time since I could remember I started to cry, because I knew he was right—I knew what he was saying was true. I ran to him and hugged him. I told him that no one had ever taken the time to relate to me like he did.

I promised from that day to make better choices and give life all I’ve got. The rest of the summer flew right by. I spent most of my time that summer swimming in their little river, feeding the chickens, or even helping my grandpa around the house. That summer I will never forget because to me it was a wake up call.

Essay and Images by CHRISTIAN BRETT

RUNNING

EMMERT

[media-credit name=”Image courtesy Kristen Ludahl” align=”aligncenter” width=”580″][/media-credit]

Running. Always running. I dodge tree after tree. The dark, almost oily, black feeling of being followed weighs heavily on me. I shiver as the feeling trickles down my neck, drawing closer and closer with each passing second. Then it is gone. I slow to a walk, to listen to my surroundings. All I can hear is the soft hum of the cicadas and the sound of my lungs trying to draw air. I finally stop, bending at the waist and placing my hands on my knees as I attempt to regulate my breathing.

I’ve been running for years. Or at least it feels like it. It is not easy keeping track of time when you have more important things to think about. Trying to figure out who exactly is trying to catch me is my main focus.

About a turn ago, I had just finished my trek through the woods surrounding the little home my father had shed sweat and tears over to build as a wedding gift for my mother. I had just sold the last of my father’s prized sheep at the market in the village. Each was worth over 20 gold pieces each. After selling the last one to a kind old man, I had rushed back, my purse hitting my leg with each long stride.

About five months before, my father and I were moving our sheep to the lower pasture. My father said later that I had a gift, a `sixth sense` as he called it. I was walking after a young lamb who decided to leave and run to the stream that ran across the field. As I approached the stream, I began to feel uneasy, as though someone or something was watching my every move. I stopped and looked around. I saw a large shape a little into the woods behind my father. I gasped as the sun hit it. It was a moose. And father was going straight toward it. I broke into a run, yelling at my dad to stop. The sheep, startled by my voice, darted off, following the rock wall down to the pasture.

It is still well after dusk before I see the meadow through the trees. I had just caught sight of our barn when what my father calls, `my sixth sense` kicked into high gear. I rushed behind a large cedar tree, the braid slid off my shoulder; a swinging pendulum.

I see five dark figures carrying torches ablaze with a green-tinted fire, walking out from the far side of the barn. I watch as they fan out, one to each corner of the hut, their shadows passing the carvings that border the rough texture of the walls. As they raise their torches, I can see the tuffs of straw that stick out at the corners.

These five men in their robes lay their torches down among the thatch, where it almost instantly catches fire due to the long dry spell that has befallen us.

Soon the blaze is bright enough to show even more detail. All of the figures are large men in long black cloaks and heavy leather boots. They step back and quickly converge into a small circle. I hear laughter. A scream pierces the quiet black night and I turn my head to look back at the house. My mother.

“HEY!” Someone says. I tear my eyes away from the flames that are engulfing my family hut. One of the men, the short one whose nose sticks out of the cloak when he is in profile, has his bony finger held out to me. The wind carries his voice over.

“The daughter wasn’t in there” he says, “We can’t leave any witnesses.”

Before I hear another word, I turn and run, and have been running ever since.

And now, no one will help me. An unaccompanied young woman is a bad omen and one of those hooded men will surely tell someone.

My once-beautiful dark green dress now lays in tatters around my starved body. The long, gracious sleeves are gone, and the hem is ripped and covered in mud.

I can’t stop. No matter where I run or how well I hide, that oily black feeling wraps me up and takes me away with it, leaving my stomach knotted in fear.

But for now, my surroundings and feelings are quiet. I straighten back up and begin to walk through the trees. Before long, I stumble across a hole, just big enough for a small child to fit in. Just big enough for me. Gathering an arm-load of down branches, I cover the hole with the small pieces of bark, sticks and rotting foliage, being sure to leave enough space to get in. After throwing in the bag of stolen goods, I crawl in and settle down on the hard compact ground to think of all that has happened.

Why would my family be targeted? Why would someone want us dead? Then my thought turned to my parents. Are they happy where they are? Are they trying to help me? Every once in a while, something will tell me to turn a way I wouldn’t normally go. It saves me from another encounter with the men who wear black robes. Maybe my parents are here, watching over me as I fight everyday for survival. I fall asleep as the sun comes up, with the images of my loving parents dancing in my brain.

Story by Alli Timmons

Belonging

EMMERT

Taylor was adopted as an infant. Her birth parents were not able to sustain a nurturing environment for a young child because they were “children” themselves. Her mother, Sara, was only sixteen when she gave birth to baby Taylor, and was not able to take care of her lovely daughter at the time. Sara and her boyfriend Greg chose to have their daughter adopted by a married couple, Dana and Matt, who were much older than them, and ready for a family.

Her new parents, Dana and Matt, were thrilled to have a child of their own and later adopted another baby girl named Erica who is two years younger than Taylor. But growing up in a household where you know none of your family is genetically related to you can be somewhat of a struggle. Taylor was always allowed to visit her birth parents but she constantly wondered why they couldn’t have kept her if they went along and had two more children after her and kept both of them. Why? That was one of the questions Taylor would ask herself. She loved her adoptive mother, Dana, but wanted to know more about where her loyalties to a “family” should lie. Do they belong with her genetic parents? Or with the people who raise her?

Taylor looks in the mirror and sees dark brown eyes, light brown hair, and tan skin. Her adoptive sister Erica has pale skin with blue eyes and light blond hair and her adoptive mother and father are equally as different. Different skin tones, different eyes, different body types, nothing about her family’s appearance were relatable to Taylor’s own appearance at all. Taylor looks almost identical to her birth sister and brother and so much alike her mother and father. They all share deep set brown eyes, tan skin, and a very similar face shape. All of her family have similar body characteristics, so her birth mom, Sara, would be more of the one to give her clothing and personal advice with how to do their specific type of hair or make-up than her adoptive mom right? They could physically relate to each other, and her birth mom would have gone through all the same physical things that Taylor is as she’s growing up. But Dana is supposed to her mother, the one who gives her advice, and that’s where some of the confusion starts, and things contradict.


Taylor could feel all alone. She had a family that gave her up, and a family that’s nothing like her, who all have different genetic traits. When she spends time with her birth family, she feels like a part of them, same genetic attitude and humor, same appearance, yet she is not. If she doesn’t fully belong with any family, then who does she belong with? Who really cares for her?

But because she was adopted, that means someone did initially care about her. Her adoptive parents love her and treat her like a real daughter and took the initiative to adopt her as a baby, even though they had no idea who she was going to be and how she would act. Taylor’s birth parents love her too, and that’s why they chose what was best for her. But when Taylor tells them she sometimes feels like they are more her real parent than her adoptive parents because of their genetic link to each other, they reassure her she is loved by them always and will always be thought of as family, but they say “Your “real” parents are the people who raise, love , and discipline you. They are the ones you think of when you’re sick, when you’re in trouble. When you truly need something, when you’re sad, you go to them”.

So, Taylor could think she has no real family because of her adoption situation, but does she? Taylor could look at it as having more of a family than most people because of her four parents who all agree on the same thing; they love her, they want the absolute best for her, and the truly care for her.

Essay and Images MELAINE MERRYMAN

tactile

EMMERT

Photographer Derek Julian investigates TEXTURES and PATTERNS with a rather dangerous technique commonly known as macro freelensing.

First, you take your lens off your camera so that rain and dust can get in.
Then, while holding your camera in one hand and your disconnected lens in the other, take a picture.
When done wrong, you break your camera.
When done right, you get this:

[zenphotopress album=2 sort=title number=100]