On Decorating a Home
By Heidie (Raine) Senseman
If you’ve ever gone shopping for throw pillows, I pity you, for you are either a wayward soul searching for the perfect pillow that you will not find, or you’re the emotional support friend being dragged from store to store.
I also pity you if you’ve shopped for wall decor, for each mass-produced, HomeGood’s-stocked picture on the shelf is either too large, too neon, too cliche or too expensive. In the process, you find the occasional oddity, like a 3x4 ...
Just sayin’: On next steps
By Heidie Raine
I’m currently sitting in the Dayton airport, gate B19, three granola bars into a flight delay. The plane thatcame from Philadelphia has a bad nose, so while it gets rhinoplasty, we’re waiting for another jet fromD.C. Then to Chicago we’ll go — a jamboree of travelers depleted of phone batteries but rich in freeairline snacks.Chicago is a 90-minute drive from my mother’s house. It’s close enough that I can convince my dad topick me up tonight, but it’s far ...
A Personal Take on Halloween
By Chris Karenbauer
Halloween is the one time of year when kids and adults dress up in fun costumes and wander their neighborhoods asking strangers for free candy, and society will not judge them too harshly for it.
Halloween is mostly harmless, except for the small percent of teenagers who find it funny to toilet paper their neighbor’s house. But despite its appearance to target children in marketing, Halloween has dark origins that explore macabre and witchcraft.
Despite its dark ...
Learning to Live Without Social Media
By Heidi Raine
I recently friended my best friend’s mother on Facebook. The interaction went like this:“Heidie, you have a Facebook? I thought it was for old people.”“Haha yeah, I guess...do you have one?”“Yes! Friend me!”Kimber is now one of my 738 friends, a number that feels ob-scene but also doesn’t begin to capture all of my family, high school classmates, coworkers, old teachers, church friends, college friends, camp friends, sis-ter’s-church’s friends and obscure ...
On Staring
By Heidie Raine
The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.
–Flannery O’Connor
Sitting in the library, looking through the thick-paned glass of the upper-level windows, I am staring. I am squinting and watching and questioning all that passes below. This is what I see:
I see a boy with olive cargo pants and a faint mustache topple off his longboard, roll like a bowling ball and land in the frosted crunch of cold spring ...
On Productivity
By Heidie Raine
We are nearing the end of the semester. Assignments are many. Reprieve is sparse. Writing about productivity feels appropriate.
These are the months where papers and reports begin to clog our Canvas calendars and pile up in the filing cabinets of our minds, making us choose between exfoliating and editing as the hours dissolve and the rubrics flood in. Life becomes a large Google Doc, punctuated by professors’ comments to “stay strong!”
These are the months where I ...
On Embracing What You’re Horrible At
By Heidie Raine
I quit cheerleading after my sophomore year of high school in search of something new—reduced glitter, less time, better people. I found my answer in the form of the cross country team, a lovely athletic group that shared mutual respect, carb-loaded dinners and one goal: run fast. Though unfamiliar, cross country fit my criteria for a new activity:
1. No glitter
2. 45-minute practices
3. An altogether kinder atmosphere than competitive cheer crowd had provided
C...
On Jesus Camp
By Heidie Raine
Career Services sent an email on January 10 telling us to mark our calendars for the Summer Camp Career Fair — the week where neon banners and stock photos of face-painted 4th-graders cascade across the walls of the upper SSC.
I usually find myself delightfully uncomfortable the week that camps come to network and hire, wanting to both learn more and avoid the greeting that follows eye contact. My curiosity presses me to say hello, ask about their grounds, hear how they ...
On Piercings
By Heidie Raine
Like most women in my generation, I got my ears pierced at a Claire’s burrowed deep within my local mall. A woman with chunky, early 2000’s highlights and a hair feather approached me, piercing guns in her hands, and reassured me that it would only feel like a pinch. Then came the click, my raised-shoulder flinch, and two slightly uneven studs—the product of double-fisted piercing guns and a twitchy 3rd grader.
Since then, my number of piercings has increased: doubles ...
Just Sayin’: On New, Nomadic Roots
It started because of COVID, for me. The polite kick-out we received in March 2020 sent everyone into a frenzy as we tried to figure out plane tickets and carpooling partners. Where would we go? For how long? What was happening?
I answered these questions from my then-boyfriend’s basement in Cincinnati, a suitcase of clothes and textbooks (and a cardboard box of my plants) the only company I could bring from my dorm.
Four days later, I continued answering those questions from my ...
