David Himmel David Himmel David Himmel David Himmel

Running Through Your Past

I wound through parts of Flossmoor I didn’t even know existed, despite growing up there. Oh! That’s where Flossmoor Hills Elementary is. I just never had any reason to journey to that part of town. In the familiar parts, I found myself thinking about my childhood. Acknowledging all the landmarks with memories. That’s where I ditched school that one time and smoked cigarettes when I should have been in math class. This is where my high school friends and I would meet before school to smoke cigarettes. There’s where there used to be a church where I once tried to woo a girl by playing her punk songs as we sat in her car—it didn’t work—and would sometimes smoke cigarettes. I wasn’t a teenage smoker, but, apparently, when I did smoke, I did it all over town.

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David Himmel David Himmel David Himmel David Himmel

The Forgotten Woman in the Gold, Oval Frame

The woman stood in a gold, oval frame. The frame hung above the small desk in my grandparents’ bedroom for at least since I was born. This was the desk where my grandmother, Nonny, wrote notes and cards and checks. The desk where she kept things like pens and stationary and correspondence and a few important documents.

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J.L. Thurston Jenni Thurston J.L. Thurston Jenni Thurston

The Haunting Regret Can Become Gratitude

For years after AMDA, I struggled to accept my decision. I had turned my back on a city that I loved, people that I had formed a beautiful bond with, and a dream I had nurtured throughout my childhood. Surrounded by the Midwest and all that entails, I saw beauty in nothing, and no matter what I took into my body I never felt fulfilled.

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