The Fiery Quill

This is not an anti-Valentine's Day message, as tempted as I am to write one. No, this missive is in honor of a time when the red-and-pink holiday was still exciting. Back when "Faith" was on every radio station , when my hair curled in a ponytail, and my feet were still in Zips. Every February 14 th , I remember finding a little treat at my place on the breakfast table, courtesy of Mom and Dad. I always dressed the part for this special day: a red jumper or pink tights, a length of red yarn in my hair. It all seemed so exciting when I was eight. I couldn't wait for the class party, the cupcakes, the chalky hearts with their dusty words. The best part was the little pocket made of construction paper that hung solemnly from the blackboard. If I was lucky, I would find a variety of colorful squares (or hearts) of glossy paper with my name on the outside. Beaming, I would clutch them to my chest, cherishing the cartoon messages. I couldn't help but count how many Val...

As a preteen, I met one of my greatest foes: zits. I have been plagued by those pesky red bumps ever since. I have finally figured out how to manage my skin as an adult, but it has been a very long road. I have been on just about every cream, pill, skin system, etc. The road to good skin has been a long one, rife with crappy products and bad experiences. When my skin had gotten particularly bad in middle school, my mom decided it was time to go to the dermatologist. My nice doctor put me on everything from tetracycline to various nasty-smelling creams I put on at bedtime. After little to no good results, he finally put me on the grandaddy of all zit-zappers: Accutane . I recall really having to push him to let me go on it....but all of the pleading, mandatory blood tests, and peeling skin was completely worth it. Within about a month, people started complementing me on how nice my skin looked. More importantly, I could look into a mirror and feel good about what I saw. I was on Accut...

13 women in a dark, hot, cramped room for 60 minutes. This is a description of one of my favorite places and times: spinning class. No, this does not refer to a group of people spinning in place for an hour....To the uninitiated, class members sit on stationary bikes, led by an instructor. The class is dominated by pounding music and shouted encouragements....or insults, depending on the individual in the lead bike. In my case,I was lucky. Laura was equal parts "you ladies are lookin' good" and "don't cheat yourself...I'm watching you!" Just when I got to point where I didn't have anything left, she'd look at me and sing along with music:"Clowns to the left, jokers to the right." It was just enough to give me the pick up I needed. The perfect spinning class is equal parts motivation, camaraderie, instructor and music. I had all of the above for one hour, three times a week. For that hour, I could let go of everything while singing along...

Far outside of Cancun, lies a tiny town that tourists have never heard of. It is a sleepy place with dusty streets, where the friendly locals nod as you walk by. There are no nightclubs, no cocktails with umbrellas, no beautiful people. But you can get a cool drink and plenty of hospitality. I was 16 and wide-eyed. This was the first time I had been to a different country without my family in tow. I was in Mexico with my Spanish class, two chaperones, 7 other giggling girls, and Max: my best friend and the only boy on the trip. We had spent the day exploring Chichen Itza and were on our way back to the hotel in Cancun. Our little group stopped for lunch, and a break from being trapped in a VW bus with no AC. We tumbled out of the bus into the hot, dusty streets. The sun shone on a village with buildings painted in an equally sunny hue. They all had white trim on their stuccoed facades, lined up like old friends. Our first stop was a small, open air church with large shady trees bowing ...

Amid crowds of hopeful runners dressed in Mickey ears and Tinkerbell wings, Laura and I set out in the pre -dawn blackness. The air was thick with excitement from all the bodies jostling for position. Adrenaline was coursing through our veins, as we blindly entered our first emotional phase of the race: euphoria. This phase is exemplified by cockiness and the phrase, "hey, no problem!" We maintained this air of false confidence all the way through the 6 th mile ("if we keep this pace up, we'll finish in 4-and-a-half hours!") and well into the 12 th . The sun was shining, we both felt good,untouchable even. Little did we know that we were getting ready to hit our first wall....funny how it happend at mile 13. Ironically, things started to fall apart after our first food station. This is when we arrived at the next phase of the race: doubt. The first phase was so blissfully long, that we were lured into a false sense of security. Which is why the next one hit ha...

This past Sunday I visited three amusement parks, got a suntan and ran a marathon: all before lunch. Not to mention going through every possible emotion and getting a blister so big it earned its own nickname (Pinky and the Brain). I felt as though I was running for days, even though it was only for 5 hours and 47 minutes (and 3 seconds). It seemed so long partially because the race began a couple hours before the sun rose. The wake-up call came promptly at 3 am. I remember my first thought being: "whose idea was this?" But it didn't take long for the adrenaline to start flowing. Tying on my pink bandana and strapping on my shoes felt like putting on battle armor. By the time I walked out the hotel door, I was ready. I joined my running partner, Laura, at the staging area where we chatted nervously and sized up the competition. After a final visit to the all-important Port-o-Potty, all the runners made the solemn 10 minute march to the starting line. Hip-hop blared from ...

It was the last plane out from San Juan to St. John. I was the only passenger on the tiny, eight-seater plane. The pilot was a local who was going home for the night. When he realized that I was his only passenger, he quickly invited me to sit next to him at the very front of the plane. As we climbed higher into the night sky, the pilot encouraged me to lean closer to the curved window at the front of the plane. He assured me that this was the best way to view the myriad of stars on display. The glow from the stars was brilliant, and became even more so the farther we got from the lights of San Juan. I had never been so close to twinkling stars, it felt as though I was among them. As we made the short descent into St. John, I was briefly sad to see the constellations get smaller and smaller. But one first was replaced by another. I had never been the only passenger in a plane, and I had never had the pilot morph into personal taxi driver. It turned out that the pilot lived close to the...