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Write about something you do now that has become routine, but that the old you — or friends and family from your past — would never believe if they couldn’t witness it today with their own eyes.

Posted in Nonfiction on Nov 8, 2024

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✍️ 19 stories

They haven't even won my heart and mind

Winner of Contest #276 🏆

I feel the JACKAL sway below me, the dust-red road unrolling in front and the stunted mahogany scrub flashing alongside. We pass women bent double under towering loads of firewood and are passed by young men on mopeds in turn. I make it a point to always wave - with my left hand only, the right stays welded to the .50 cal. You can always tell there’s a village ahead because the trees start to thin and the umber houses begin to multiply. They could have been built yesterday or a hundred years ago and the only thing that changes is the age of ...

90 likes 33 comments 33
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Beginning to End

Submitted to Contest #276

What happened?That’s the thing with a visible disability. People are never interested in present you, it’s always past you that gets the airtime. Your story always starts at the hiccup that changed the course of your life, stuck in post-accident purgatory. People define you by that single day, that past you, and all the thousands of choices that followed, what you made with the hand you’ve been dealt, the present you, that all pales in comparison with the big question.What happened?Yeah, nah.That’s not me.#The Beginning...“Can you feel that?...

41 likes 18 comments 18
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Today I Fed a Fish

Submitted to Contest #276

I was never known for having luck with fish. When I was a child, my mother dutifully bought me a goldfish in a perfect glass bowl. This was the ideal goldfish. I don’t remember what I named her, but I remember that she looked just like Cleo from Pinocchio and I pledged to find a way to take her on adventures with me. Unfortunately, we never got that far, because my favorite thing to do with Cleo was feed her.  I was--and still am--very fond of snacks, and it seemed only fair that the fish should eat every time I ate. Soon, she was takin...

35 likes 27 comments 27
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On the Run

Submitted to Contest #276

This is the confession of an addict. I will admit that I have spent a lot of time not writing about my love of jogging, or running (both words mean different things to me; I will explain them later). Running was one of the things in my life that I came to completely on my own. It was never something that I was encouraged to do. I never did track and field in school (never even made it onto a team of any kind). I saw no one in my family who enjoyed going for a run. And it was not something that I ever suspected would change my life. But it ha...

27 likes 16 comments 16
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The First Pancake Rule

Submitted to Contest #276

The idea behind the first pancake rule is that it’s okay if the first one doesn’t turn out. It’s a do-over. The first one is the practice round for getting the cooking conditions just right. The adjustments you make will lead to perfect pancakes afterwards. It’s a strategy that encourages learning through practice, feedback, and continuous improvement. As a tool to aid in developing skills and expertise for any business, the first pancake rule can be useful. Encouragement to improve, forgiveness of failed attempts, support and advice on what...

18 likes 17 comments 17
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The Crisis Licence

Submitted to Contest #276

I press the button on the remote and the garage door jerks into life. A few autumn leaves cling to its lower edge as it rolls up, before they lose their crispy grip and flutter down to the concrete. My bike waits in the oily shadows. Like most children I had progressed from push along trikes to stabilised bikes to two-wheel proficiency. Whole days of the late eighties and very early nineties were spent riding around the streets in a state of BMX abandon, sometimes happily alone, sometimes as part of a peloton of weaving bandits. But that was...

16 likes 7 comments 7
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Shattered Certainties

Submitted to Contest #276

The universe had always been a place of cold, hard truths. Being an engineer and a committed agnostic, I had always rejected the idea of a higher power, considering it merely wishful thinking. It wasn’t until I faced an unplanned physics experiment regarding inelastic collisions that changed my mind.  Like many people, I imagined death as a permanent, dreamless sleep. I was self-sufficient and content with my life. Where my beliefs started is simple. I grew up hearing about how poor my father’s family was and how his mother would give m...

16 likes 16 comments 16
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From Being Horrible in French to an Expert in Wendat: The long and Winding Road of Becoming a Linguist

Submitted to Contest #276

I never did well in French in elementary or high school. I was no doubt a source of amusement to my fellow students when I had to say something in French in front of teacher and students. One year I was forced to take a summer course in the language. The main thing I remember from that class was that there were people even worse in the language than I was, something my classmates and my family would not have thought possible.  Failing French was one reason (along with physics and a few other courses) why I failed grade 11 my f...

10 likes 11 comments 11
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I have seen the Light!

Submitted to Contest #276

Long ago, way back when in Sunday School, I believed. My father and old Grandma took my older sister and me to Church. There we learnt about Jesus and God, forever blessing us. We learnt about the wonder of Heaven and Eternal Light and Love. When did you learn about God? I do not ask anyone.But we went home to my mother, an atheist and a nihilist. On her journey on this cosmic stage, she stopped us attending Sunday School, and prevented our youngest sister from ever being there. So for some reason, as a teenager, I studied Theology with som...

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Waking up to a storm

Submitted to Contest #276

“Get up Shaz, you're getting late,” Mummy politely urged me on.‘Five more minutes”, as I wrapped the blanket around my body again and went back to sleep with no intention of sticking to my words.“There is no chance of making it if you don’t wake up now.” Mummy tried to sound annoyed but she couldn’t hold on to it even if she wanted to! This is what you call mother material! The fabric that constitutes it has such a soft texture that it breaks before it snaps.I unwillingly threw off the blanket and took a long sluggish yawn to feel the day br...

9 likes 4 comments 4
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A Strong Future

Submitted to Contest #276

Someone once said to me, "Why do you train so much? You look miserable lifting all those weights." My reply needed to be prefaced with some background context because the answer to that question would sound truly pessimistic without it. I needed them to understand that my answer came from a place of philosophical optimism and not pessimism. I told them that I build my body up at the gym because my body is the only thing I feel like I own in this world. It's the only constant in my life that I know will be with me forever until I die. My love...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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Reaching Out My Hand

Submitted to Contest #276

I'm reaching out my hand. Help me. - I can't remember if I spoke these words out loud or quietly in my mind, as I was laying in my bed in February, not able to move, not able to go outside for even 5 minutes with my dog. There was nothing wrong with my body, but my spirit was suffering deeply. Exactly a year after my breakup with a man twice my age, I was a 25 year old who spent her days silently in her apartment, my only activities being: caring for my rescue dog and getting some groceries from time to time. I'd eat one meal per day. I deve...

9 likes 5 comments 5
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Lady from the Baby Shower

Submitted to Contest #276

  When I was 20 years old, one of the most nauseating events I could be forced to attend was definitely the baby shower. I guess the word forced is too strong. Maybe cajoled? Persuaded? Guilt-tripped? I’m not sure but regardless I truly never wanted to attend. If you are invited to a baby shower, here is my advice: if you can make it past the voluptuous ladies who know no sense of bodily boundaries, the baby blue and pink balloons, and the time-wasting games then head directly to the mimosa bar. They always have one which makes absolute...

7 likes 0 comments 0
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Right Brain Meets Left Brain

Submitted to Contest #276

My father glanced over, surprised. “Since when do you like writing?” he asked. “I’m not sure,” I told him. I didn’t know how, but writing felt like the right thing to do.On our drive home from Rouge Park, in the fall of 2017, I explained to him how during my year-long backpacking trip I wanted to interview people about how they define success and happiness for a writing project.As a child, I grew up loving dance and attended a performing arts high school. I dreaded my English classes and started studying sciences in university after gra...

7 likes 4 comments 4
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Growing Anyway

Submitted to Contest #276

Gypsophila paniculata, commonly known as baby’s breath, grows in harsh environments, among sand and stony fixtures. In the world of floristry, it often finds its place as a bed of contrast for other brighter and more elegant flowers. In some places in North America, it’s identified as an invasive species, toxic to surrounding plants and even some animals. It’s my favorite flower, I think. I use it every Sunday.           She and I fought so much over the course of our relationship that m...

7 likes 0 comments 0
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