CAPSTONE FINISHED

actions she takes. When you read Jessica
Todsen’s essay, “The Dirt We Carry”, ask
yourself, why is Todsen so adamant about
getting rid of dirt? What do her cleaning
rituals symbolically represent? These
questions will help you explore what is
driving Todsen’s essay, and why her
complicated relationship with dirt has
changed how she sees the world.

The Dirt We Carry
Jessica Todsen

“Hi Mom,” I said. “I just wanted to
say goodbye before I head out for the day.”

“Oh honey,” she said, “thanks for
coming up. Have a good-“ The rest was cut
off by racking coughs. Her knees shoved up,
and her chest thrashed against the mattress.
Her whole body was curling into a fetal
position. She was shrinking before my eyes.
The sound was unnatural, like she was
trying to shove gravel out of her throat. I
started towards her, my hands reaching up,
to do what I don’t know. She was already
regaining control by the time I moved. Her
muscles relaxed, and the coughs became
fainter. I stood there in silence.

“Do you want any water? There’s
some more soup in the fridge,” I asked.

“No no. Go to school. I’ll be fine,” she

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wheezed. I bent over her and tried hugging
her but only ended up grasping her
shoulders in a strange embrace.

Valley fever isn’t a healthy person’s
disease. A history of illness and harsh
treatments left my mom with a weakened
immune system unable to combat the
disease. In the week after my mom got sick,
my dad instituted a new hygiene regimen for
our house. There was a soap to use after
going to the bathroom, a different soap to
use before cooking, and hand sanitizer by all
the doors we had to use before entering the
house. We had to take our shoes off in the
garage to avoid tracking in mud, and we
shaved our dogs so they wouldn’t carry in
illness from the outside world. We tried as
hard as we could to remove dirt from my
mom’s life.

It was dirt infecting my mom. A
microscopic fungal spore had been kicked
out of the dirt, picked up by the wind, and
almost killed my mom. We were terrified
about the other microscopic life dirt could be
hiding. We had no idea if there were deadly
bacteria in the brown stuff under our nails or
on our shoes. Previously, I had always come
home covered in dirt from softball practice or
filthy from playing outside. Dirt was
something to wash off and forget about.
Sure, I hated the feeling of it on the kitchen

96

floor, but I could push it under the table and
forget about it. I didn’t waste my time
thinking about dirt. However, after my
mom’s sickness, going outside made me
made me feel claustrophobic. I was
surrounded by unfiltered air full of
suspended particles with easy access to the
mucus membranes of my nose and mouth.
The dirt was everywhere, and it was just
waiting for the chance to infect me.

My fear of dirt came from a fear of the
unknown. I didn’t care about the food
crumbs on my kitchen floor or the soil in the
potted plant by my bedside table. I’d lived
with those all my life, and they were part of
my home just like my bed and sheets. The
twinge in my stomach came when wind
whipped past my face, and I thought of what
it could carry, small bacteria and spores too
small to ever notice from places I knew
nothing about. The dirt below our feet is
mainly crushed rock, whatever type happens
to be in the area. I wasn’t scared of the mica,
quartz, and granite I had grown up
searching for sand rubies in. I was scared of
the little bacteria between those grains, the
squirmy bugs that could crawl and move on
my skin without me ever knowing they were
there.

Years later, the intensity of my fear
has left, but my reaction to filth remains

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visceral. I feel it in my stomach when I walk
across a dirty floor or disturb a mound of
dust. Maybe this feeling was already hidden
inside me waiting for a chance to arise.
Scientists say that disgust evolved to protect
humans from hidden diseases and is so
powerful that it is tied to our sense of
morality (Gorman). We mop righteously,
courageously fighting against the sickness
that threatens to creep into our houses. Week
after week we sweep, trying to keep the
outside separate from the inside. By
implementing a totalitarian cleaning regime,
my family tried to help my mom in one of
the few ways we could. We tried to reclaim
what was ours.

The war on dirt connects us all. One
summer in high school, I lived in a village in
Peru where all the houses were built out of
compacted bricks of mud and straw. The
floors were the same earth the houses were
built on. Only the ceilings weren’t made of
dirt. When I first went inside a house, I tried
scratching a wall to see what would happen,
and a small waterfall of dirt fell to the floor.
The homeowner saw it a couple minutes
later and quickly brought out a broom to
sweep the dust out the door. I couldn’t help
but think that the bristles of the broom must
have been kicking up as much as they were
sweeping out. It was my parents’ nightmare.

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However, as the months went on, those dirt
houses became my home. Sweeping moved
from a futile chore to one of the few ways I
had to maintain control over the area I lived
in. Especially in my own room, a pile of dirt
in the corner was an insult. As I felt more
ownership for the space, the dirt became an
encroachment on what I considered mine.

If cleanliness is next to godliness,
what does it mean to live in a building that
hasn’t been cleaned in over a year? I spent
one spring break volunteering with an
AIDS/HIV housing charity. We cleaned the
whole time. Bright new washcloths dripping
with lemon-scented cleaner were destroyed
the minute they touched whatever railing I
was washing. With each pass, months of
dark brown refuse gathered on the cloth only
to reveal more of the same beneath. When I
wrung the towel out in the wash bucket, the
stain of the dirt would spread out until a
homogeneous sludge color filled the water.

When we finished that trip, the
volunteer coordinator couldn’t stop talking
about how the cleaned hallways would help
the residents. She touched on ideas of pride
and ownership, but I saw it more as an issue
of safety. Walking into the buildings in the
morning, I was immediately put on edge by
the surrounding grime. I kept thinking about
how other people’s skin cells and lives

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covered the walls. It was the same way I felt
after my mom got sick. I liked cleaning
because I felt I was creating boundaries for
people to live within. By removing dirt, I was
creating a space for humanity.

The Oxford English Dictionary
provides this definition of the word dirty:
“characterized by the presence of dirt; soiled
with dirt; foul; unclean; sullied.” This
definition has been the same since the 1500’s,
which is not the case for many words. The
word ‘nice’ originally described someone
who was “foolish; silly; simple; ignorant,” in
the 1300’s, but by the 1750’s ‘nice’ had
undergone a total shift to mean “agreeable;
pleasant; satisfactory; attractive,” (“nice, adj.
and adv.”). People have always needed a
word for dirty, for the twinge of wrongness
we sense when disorder infiltrates our
homes. We’ve always wanted to remove it,
and we’ve gotten better at doing so. With
each new wave of antibacterial soap and
urbanization, we’re further removed from
the diseases dirt hides, and some people are
saying it’s time to move back.

The Hygiene Hypothesis is the
scientific theory that our immune systems
are too sensitive now because our sanitized
environments keep us too far away from
infectious diseases. With nothing to fight,
our bodies develop extreme allergies to

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harmless substances like peanut butter and
gluten. The way to combat this is by getting
sick and getting dirty. The Hygiene
Hypothesis is supported by multiple studies
and years of research. It’s been described in
top peer-reviewed journals, and it’s a leading
explanation for why autoimmune diseases
and allergies have been increasing in the
Western World. The proportion of children
with asthma has increased dramatically over
the past ten years, reaching what doctors
now consider epidemic levels (Okada et al.).
Scientists have spent years looking for the
cause of this change, and it seems that dirt
might hold the answer.

If you agree with the studies, my
brother should have played on more farms
or rolled in more mud when he was younger.
His extreme asthma and numerous allergies
mean he doesn’t go on our family bike rides
and can’t play with our dogs. One time we
tried riding up the hill by our house, and he
almost ended up in the hospital. Halfway up,
he climbed off his bike, sat on the ground,
and couldn’t get up until my dad came with
medicine twenty minutes later. My brother
described the feeling as “a ping pong ball
being shoved down your throat. You try to
force it out by breathing more, but you can’t,
and it stays there.” The dander on our dogs’
fur can give him painful hives, and he can’t

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touch our fruit trees when they’re blooming.
His oversensitivity to the outside can render
him just as weak as my mom once was.

As his older sister, watching him
double over during an asthma attack or lie
on the ground unable to continue an easy
bike ride overwhelms me with a sense of
helplessness. Doctors can’t cure his asthma.
Their best efforts only help him live with the
disease. There’s an appeal to this theory that
the illness could have all been stopped by a
messier lifestyle. It hums with buzzwords
like natural, organic, and wholesome.
There’s science behind the Hygiene
Hypothesis, but we also want to believe it’s
true that a life more like the one our
ancestors lived is healthy for us. Both our
bodies and minds desire a move back toward
our past.

Behind my garage, there’s a small
rocky garden. Piled next to it sit bags of
mulch and soil waiting for the next growing
cycle. Years ago, all the bags used to have
holes ripped in the back or sides. I ripped
them. I loved shoving my hands inside and
feeling the moist dirt squish between my
fingers. Tall carrots with bright green leaves,
shiny round tomatoes, and bursting
artichoke flowers would all grow in that soil.
I could feel their lives starting between my
fingers.

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My dad made our garden because he
missed his parents’ garden back in the
Midwest. As we worked together in the dirt,
he’d tell me about the neighbors who grew
so many squash they’d have to leave them
on neighbors’ porches in the dead of night, of
days when he’d tell his mother to start the
pot boiling because he’d be picking corn
within the hour, and of weeks spent
detassling corn on his parents’ farm. As I get
older I can feel my memories of Midwest
summers gaining the same nostalgic tint.
Pool parties at the neighbor’s, firecrackers on
the Fourth, and picnics outside are all tied to
my grandparents’ farm and corn it grew.

Rich nitrogen deposits left by moving
glaciers three hundred thousand years ago
control the lives of millions of Midwesterners
now. As the glaciers moved, they destroyed
all the mountains, plants, and animals in
their path. When they hit the Midwest, they
started melting and left behind everything
they picked up during their journey. (“The
Great Ice Age is Important to Illinois
Agriculture”). Bacteria in the soil
decomposed the organic material, leaving
behind the rich soil that provides my
grandparents’ main source of income, fuels a
multi billion-dollar industry, and left me
with summers full of bright green memories.

My grandparents’ farm thrives

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because of the organic material and life in the
soil where they live, but my family’s home
garden barely limps along. We have all those
bags of soil because the dirt around my
house just doesn’t have the organic materials
or decomposing bacteria necessary for plants
to thrive. We use imported soil and fertilizer
to pump life into our garden, but it’s not
enough. When I look at the ground around
my grandparent’s house I find dark, black,
moist soil with a deep rich smell, but I can’t
see the small molecules of nitrogen or
bacteria driving the growth around me. I also
never saw the bacteria in the dry desert dirt
that sickened my mom. It’s ironic; we were
unable to keep the living things in dirt out of
our house, but we also can’t bring the dirt
outside to life. We’re fighting against the dirt
we live with in both ways. We attempt to
squash it, and it finds ways inside; we try to
help it flourish, and nothing happens.

I’m waiting by the hanging rakes.
There’s a small tomato plant sitting on the
workbench next to me. My dad’s been trying
to fix the spongy drip line leading to the
baby butter lettuce plants for the past ten
minutes. I peek out the door just as he walks
in.“All done. Nice day out there. I think
we’re going to have a good year this year. Do
you want Sprite or Coke before we wash up
and see what your mom made for dinner?”

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he asks.
“Sprite please,” I say. He grabs two

sodas out of the mini fridge and tosses one to
me. I go over to the sink and scrub my hands
well, trying to get the brown layer out from
under my fingertips. After shaking them off,
I crack open the soda with a hiss.

“Those jeans are ruined Dad. I think
it’s time for your every twenty-year jean
purchase,” I say. He gives me a look as he
unlaces his shoes and starts to hose off the
soil caked onto his arms. I smile at him
before taking off my own shoes and joining
him by the hose. Afterwards, we both walk
inside to take showers. We make sure to use
the hand sanitizer by the door as we enter.
As soon as I step into my shower, the water
runs brown.

Works Cited
Gorman, James. "Survival’s Ick Factor." New

York Times. N.p., 23 Jan. 2012. Web. 5
Mar. 2016.
"The Great Ice Age Is Important to Illinois
Agriculture." A History of Illinois
Agriculture. Illinois State Museum, n.d.
Web. 5 Mar. 2016.
"nice, adj. and adv." OED Online. Oxford
University Press, December 2015.
Web. 7 March 2016.
Okada, H., C. Kuhn, H. Feillet, and J.-F. Bach.
"The ‘hygiene Hypothesis’ for

105

Autoimmune and Allergic Diseases:
An Update." Clinical & Experimental
Immunology 160.1 (2010): 1-9. Clinical
and Experimental Immunology. Web. 5
Mar. 2016

It’s likely you read Todsen’s essay and
felt that it was very authentic. There is a lot
of depth to Todsen’s essay. She is exploring
this idea of why our generation is so fixated
on cleanliness; “The war on dirt connects us
all,” Todsen writes. She hypothesizes many
reasons why, as a society, we tend to want
everything so sanitary. On another level,
though, the war on dirt is a personal one for
Todsen. Take a look at these three lines in
Todsen’s essay: “We mop righteously,
courageously fighting against the sickness
that threatens to creep into our houses. Week
after week we sweep, trying to keep the
outside separate from the inside. By
implementing a totalitarian cleaning regime,
my family tried to help my mom in one of
the few ways we could.” We can see that
Todsen’s cleaning practices come from a
different motivation than the people around
her; she is trying to protect her mother. What
is interesting here is the question of whether
Todsen is actually protecting her mother or
whether her cleaning is only serving to make

106

her feel like she has some control over her
mother’s illness.

The personal presence in Todsen’s
essay presents in a different way; she is
exploring one specific quirk about herself.
The way she interacts with dirt serves to tell
us a lot about her as a person. Not how she
looks or the way she talks, but about her
need for control. We see how it manifests
and we learn the lengths she will go to in
order to feel like she has control. We may not
feel the way Todsen does about dirt, but we
have this sense of understanding about why
she wants to feel in control.

The ability to reflect on our own
thoughts and actions is a very important tool
in the reflective narrative. Whatever it is that
we are writing about is over, and when we
sit down to write, we have this point of view
that we couldn’t have had at the time.
Todsen’s reflective narrative is powerful
partially because she is able to remove
herself from the moments in time when she
cared so much about having everything
clean. At the time, she likely didn’t form the
connection that she was trying to feel in
control of her mother’s illness, but now, she
is able to look back on who she was then and
look at who she is now and see this. Todsen
stops to reflect on what she was doing many
times in her essay. Todsen writes “I liked

107

cleaning because I felt I was creating
boundaries for people to live within. By
removing dirt, I was creating a space for
humanity.” These are the types of reflection
that will stick with your readers as they try
to formulate in their minds what the purpose
of your essay is.

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Chapter 6: About the Place

We have now talked a lot about the
people in your stories, but what about the
places? Each essay, no matter what the story
is, really tells us something about you and
the way you see the world. Oftentimes, when
we think of defining moments in our lives to
write about, we think about people, because
human interactions undoubtedly shape who
we are.

Other times, though, we think about
places. We ask ourselves where did we grow
up? The obvious answers are home and
school, but oftentimes, there are other places
that played a role in shaping who we are. It
might be a park that you went to everyday
after school or a summer camp. You are
about to read Lauren Weiss’s essay, “St.
Thomas.” As you read, ask yourself what
drove Weiss to write this essay about a
place? Why St. Thomas? What is this essay
really about?

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St. Thomas
By Lauren Weiss

The waves ebb and retreat- I only hear
the sand being pulled in and out by the
gentle, bay tide. My eyes are closed and all I
see is the pink of my lids and then the black
as I pull a towel over them. But I hear the
movement of the shore line and then, with
the breeze, the swirl of hanging leaves.

I’m sitting on the edge of Turquoise
Bay at the East end of St. Thomas. I’m sitting
on the shore of the Ritz Carlton’s property on
the white towel-covered, soft mat of a chair.
Facing the ocean, my mom dozes in my
periphery. They’ve all fallen asleep- my
parents and my brother- to the gentle roll of
salt water. What a beautiful family, lined up
like sardines to be packed in a can. Protected.
Will this bubble ever pop?
***

This is not about family; they are
simply intertwined in this narrative. I’m
sitting on the edge of an island. I know it’s an
island because I can reach out and grab the
ocean if I want to. I’ve been here eleven times
and that’s basically all I know. Facing the
ocean, I’m forgetting all of the low-roofed,
vibrantly colored homes that are half the size
of my own, or smaller. It’s the Caribbean and
there are some unpaved roads, but I think

110

it’s more developed than other places. I don’t
know though, I’ve only seen things between
the airport in Charlotte Amalie and the Ritz
Carlton.

We’ve taken the same route on every
vacation, and that’s all I ever see before we
get to the resort. It always looks the same.
This is what I remember: there is crabwood,
pink cedar, white manjack, aloe, and tourist
tree. There is sometimes bougainvillea, its
wrinkled, pink petals so light that you might
forget you were holding them. There are
crumpled plastic bottles without caps,
wrappers, and unidentifiable paper
products. There are rubber things and glass
things and just things. They are all lazing on
the side of the road in the island warmth.

The houses that I remember are pink,
yellow, blue, brick, rarely beige. Some of
them have aluminum roofs. Some of them
look Spanish colonial with their arches. But
they are miniatures. They are huddled
together up and down the mountainous
ground, not pristine. There are stores along
the way, but few chains. Sometimes there are
gates across the front arch. They are nestled
in a row of other stores or little and standing
on their own. The lone structures look
abandoned but maybe aren’t, deep in uncut
brush and palm. But most of the houses are
surrounded by road or dirt. Locals drive on

111

the left sides of the roads, honking at people
they know as they pass them. The walkers
follow the dirt off to the side, somehow not
showing evidence of sweat. I watch them
flashing in and out of my window in their
long pants and their tops that are always
colorful.

As we summit large hills, I can see
what I assume to be vacation homes in the
distance. They line the outside of the island,
pushing up against bays littered with
anchored boats. The water is so blue and the
houses so white. Almost all have roofs with
tiles the color of rust. Maho and palm trees
dot the landscape, often reaching over the
roofs. It is like something that belongs on the
cover of a travel magazine. But it would not
be if shown with the rest of the island. These
things are what I see, but what do I know?

Then we are at the resort. Our cab
driver greets the man or woman in the toll
booth, always seems to know them.
Everyone knows everyone here, they
simultaneously surround and are
surrounded by each other. It is unusual for
me, a girl from the northeastern United
States, to see real community. Interactions
are so flush with grounding genuineness-
people seem to truly hear each other. At
home we are awake but talk to each other as
if asleep. The typical question: “How was

112

school/work”. The typical response: “good”.
It is all muscle memory by now. I, the one on
the vacation, am jealous. I am jealous of the
connectedness and care that I see. The bar
lifts up and we descend to the point of check-
in. Men in black pants and button-down,
grey shirts (that look like chefs’ tops without
the sleeves) open the van and take out our
suitcases. I remember some of them from
years past. They say, “Welcome home”.

In the condo, my family and I open
our suitcases and dig for bathing suits. We
are in haste to get to the beach. Tony, my
stepdad, pauses to step out onto the balcony.
He leans against the railing, bracing himself
with his arms, right leg holding his weight
and the left one bent. I can see how deeply he
breathes. I pride myself in being able to read
people, but when he does this, I don’t know
what he is thinking. I suppose I never really
do.

The beach is waiting for us, every year
the same soft, white sand, the tide reaching
out, trying to pull us down to its shore. In
bikinis and swim trunks, my family and I
walk down the smooth, stone steps swirled
with red and orange, then out behind the
condo complex. A pathway winds around
the pool, past the bar, and to the beach. It is
almost white and must have been washed
again and again. The hedges are trimmed

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and planted in flower beds, there are
bougainvillea, but also hibiscus, heliconia,
and oleander. The landscaping is meant to
represent the island (and vacationers
appreciate this), but it does not. Everything is
too neat, too staged, too perfect. It is more of
a paradise than an inhabited island. Men and
women in Ritz Carlton uniform ask if they
can do anything for us. The staff is usually
different from previous years. We get one of
them to cover our beach chairs with towels. I
want to ask if I can do it for us. I watch the
man carry towels as bright as toothpaste-
commercial-teeth to the beach and set up our
four spots. I know that this is his job and that
he is being paid to do this, but I am
embarrassed to be attended to.

Nonetheless, it is beautiful, stepping
again onto the sand after a year away. My
calves work as I make my way to the chair,
the muscles moving in ways that only sand
can make them. Everything is so comfortable
that I want to freeze time. This is what utter
relief from things that you didn’t even know
that you were carrying feels like. This is my
version of tourism- so peaceful and gentle,
the sun tanning your skin, happiness. How
am I so lucky, sitting on a white beach and
living poetry? I am within less than a mile of
people who live on St. Thomas, who watch
tourists flock to resorts and beautiful beaches

114

while they work and walk home along the
trash-littered roads. Perhaps I did something
tremendous in a past life and am being
rewarded, but I don’t remember what, and
my being here feels intrinsically wrong. Am I
luckier than the locals though? If luck is
synonymous with privilege, then I certainly
am. But I don’t know how to measure luck,
was never given the proper tool to gauge it. I
only know what tourists think- well, what I
think. I have only hints of how locals live
and how they act, from the airport, the flea
market, and the cab. I wonder if it is my job
to understand them. It would be
disrespectful not to try – to really try.

Every year that we go to St. Thomas,
we use the same cab driver. This is what I
remember: her name is Clover and my
family is good friends with her. My parents
send her insulin for her severe diabetes type
I, and we only use her cab service. We
provide these things (I realize now that they
are just things), but we also offer
companionship. This is more unique and
seems more valuable – it muffles a bit of my
embarrassment over empty “gifts”. Clover is
kind and very devout– I have never met
someone with such grace about them. I know
that my parents have also given her money
to support her church, and I can’t parse apart
my feelings on this. I hope that it’s not

115

embarrassment again. Over the years,
Clover’s face has not grown wrinkles. It
seems to have beaten age and retained its
glow well into her 60s, much in the same
way that her eyes have retained their life and
excitement. Clover runs her own cab
company, and when she is at church or a
religious event, she sends one of her most
trusted employees to pick us up. If she is the
whole of St. Thomas, every resident on the
island would be luckier than me. I have been
born into wealth that affords yearly
vacations here, but I am not talking about the
privilege kind of luck. This is the deeper
kind, the luck that is human connection. If
Clover is the whole of St. Thomas, then the
island must be glowing in space. What I feel
to be the warmth of the sun actually comes
from the surrounding community. This is
more beautiful than the beach that I exist on
for one week each summer.

I know that this is romanticized. I am
a tourist, which is good, but I am foreign,
which is bad. For me. This means that I do
not understand what it’s like to live in St.
Thomas. Looking around at the people, I
cannot connect with them. I have known
Clover for years, but how deeply can I
connect with her if I only see her for seven
days each summer? Most of the frustration I
feel is with myself and my inability to relate.

116

And I cope with this failure by
romanticizing. I imagine friends sitting on
street corners talking about everything (not
just work and deadlines) and kids running
half-naked in the dirt. Do they even need a
beach? What do they want?
***

St. Thomas is where my family
spackles the cracks that have emerged over
the past year. At least, we do our best. My
parents are burnt out from work, even if they
don’t want to say so. My mom comes home
most nights only to sit in the kitchen and put
charts and charts into her electronic records.
Sometimes she falls asleep on the couch with
a glass of wine, still full. And Tony counts
down the days to a new routine, one in
which he can lean against the railing of the
balcony and stare out at the ocean. In St.
Thomas, my brother and I talk to each other
like friends. I don’t yell at him to get up so
that we’re not late to school, and we don’t
ignore each other like we do after long days.
I don’t have reasons to get emotional and
retreat. On the beach, we feel reality, but not
the usual reality that is associated with
waking up, working, doing, doing, doing,
sleep. There is stillness. We are gentle with
ourselves, gentle with each other. Standing
on the shores of Turquoise Bay, I feel the
shame of a tourist and the revival of a

117

vacationer. I am glad to momentarily drift
from my usual reality, and I wonder if the
locals wish for the same.

It is not the setting sun that draws
people up from their chairs, into their
sandals, and back to their condos. The sun
does not set so quickly here- it is island time.
Instead, it is the roll of waves beginning to
grow tired at the shore that sends us back to
our rooms, where we shower and de-sand
and suddenly smell like we do at home
again. Maybe some visitors skip the shower,
leave the salt in their hair and sand on their
skin. They carry the scent of sweat with them
to dinner, taking the opportunity to feel the
island on themselves. Maybe if I feel St.
Thomas, I will understand the people here
and it will feel OK to be a tourist in a resort. I
will understand what kind of people they
are, what they enjoy and don’t, what they
work for and want. But mostly, I will
understand if I am offending them by laying
on a towel-covered chair at the Ritz Carlton. I
won’t have to be as careful.

Some nights we stay home. I don’t
usually shower on these days, and we make
use of the furniture in our condo and lounge.
The dining table looks like the one in every
condo we’ve stayed in. It looks like the one
that held my peanut butter pie birthday cake
(what year was it anyway?) and Trent’s

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pumpkin pie. That was one of the years my
mom’s sister joined us with her family, and I
remember sitting in front of them all,
watching their faces, watching the candles
flickering on both cakes. It’s always been
nice to share a birthday with Trent, and it
was especially nice to celebrate life itself- real
and surreal- in St. Thomas. It’s as if things
are moving in a different way, they are
slowly spinning around us instead of always
moving forward. We are foreign together,
and I feel like an image. Here, age floats.

Some nights we go out, often to the
Buddha Bar, a sushi place that is probably a
drug front. It’s kicked off to the side of the
road, catty-cornered to oncoming traffic. The
shades are always drawn and, as we make
our way to the red stairway, I find plants
squeezing through the pavement. Every time
we push open the front door, I look around
to see if things have changed- they never do.
In the small restaurant, there are red paper
lanterns and the lights are dim. It’s always
pretty clean, and I think that they usually
have bamboo somewhere. There is a bar and
the bartender is always the same. He smiles
(maybe at us) and laughs (maybe at us), or
leans against the bar to talk to someone.
When I pass him on the way to our table, he
doesn’t seem bored, just calm. After half an
hour or longer, a waiter comes to our table

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and we are so hungry. The waiters are the
only things that change. First, we order
drinks. They are usually out of things,
Bombay Sapphire, tonic, limes. When he
comes back with whatever the bar has
stocked for the night, we are so hungry and
waiting to order food, but it is funny. We
always laugh so hard at the Buddha Bar
because it is so ridiculous and unusual, and
we feel risky eating at what we think is a
drug front. This would not happen back
home.

We tell the waiter what sushi we
want. They might be out of calamari or soft
shell crab. I’m waiting for the day when they
are out of fish. We are easygoing in St.
Thomas and just order what is available.
When the waiter leaves, we laugh again, and
this time the drinks might be at work too.
The sushi comes out and we stare at it for a
bit. The reason we come back every year is
because the fish is so good and fresh (and, of
course, because it is so ridiculous and
unusual). We want to treat ourselves, and we
each have around four rolls to eat, or maybe
three and an order of sashimi. We are so
gluttonous, but it doesn’t matter right now.
We are on vacation, the soy sauce salty like
the ocean.

One time the electricity went out in
the restaurant, and another time my uncle

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smelled something weird being pumped
through a vent into the men’s bathroom. I’ve
always wanted to look for hidden drugs
because it would be so funny to find them.
But people support themselves through
Buddha Bar salary, and we are laughing at it
and calling it a drug front. It doesn’t seem
wrong when we are there but now it does.
But the bartender seems to laugh at us also–
at least, I think he is amused. This should not
be funny, it is not entertainment. I am
foreign and detached in the same way that
the bartender is detached from me. But we
are in the bartender’s restaurant on his home
island, so I am the embarrassed party. These
vacations are healing and beautiful and I
don’t want them to be ruined because I think
so much about these things, but I can’t stop.

The next morning, we wake up still
full from our sushi dinner. Some days we go
on boat trips deeper into the Caribbean Sea.
As the small boat’s engine propels us away
from the shore and out of the bay, the resort
recedes. We are separated from our capsule
for a time, free to feel like a part of the
Caribbean. It provokes the same sensation as
skipping a shower after a day on the beach. It
is natural and apropos in the USVI. In these
small ways, we can drift out of the tourist
shell– the shell of the resort, at least. I try to
feel less foreign, to force my face against the

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window of St. Thomas culture. Perhaps I can
get through the glass.

Along the way, the captain anchors
and we stop to snorkel around his favorite
reefs. My mom is the only one who doesn’t
like to put her ears in the water as we look
down to the coral and the sand. The rest of
us submerge our faces and watch the fish
live beneath us, slipping in and out of coral
and between marine plants. Queen angelfish,
foureye butterflyfish, surgeonfish,
beaugregory, sergeant major, fairy basslet,
stoplight parrotfish, bluehead. I try to be
graceful with my flippers but I am no match
for them. Algae, sea grass, sea urchins,
sponges. I suck in air through my snorkel,
the fish breath easily with gills. The sea floor
is littered with the deepest reds and fullest
blues that I have ever seen. There have never
been so many lively colors in one place, and
yet, so much calm. As the water gently laps
over the edges of my submerged head,
soaking into my hair and slipping from my
goggle strap, I wonder. I wonder who is
more like these fish: myself, or the locals. It is
obvious though, and I only wonder because I
try to convince myself otherwise. They
surely mirror the local culture– at least, they
mirror what I believe to be the culture. In all
their bright colors, they are calm. They rest
and relax–unashamed– in anemones, on the

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ocean floor, or suspended in the salt water.
Or they flit in and out of coral towards each
other, past each other, and with each other
beneath the eyes of snorkelers. Then they are
gone.

My mom is not normally this carefree,
nor is my brother as agreeable. My stepdad
doesn’t show this much joy back home. St.
Thomas changes us fleetingly, often for the
better. No other destination provides the
same relief, the dissolution of tension. The
people have a very specific energy, a color
and calm like the fish. I believe the place
does as well. Every year, the sun warms us in
the same way, from the core out. If there is
rain, it comes from a passing cloud and lasts
for only minutes. Things change slowly, with
island time, or do not change at all. There is
stability through the years, and we become
the same new people each summer. St.
Thomas holds guaranteed joy and renewal.

But every year, we must return home.
Clover sends one of her employees to pick us
up. She is usually at a church event on the
Saturdays that we fly out. In the lounge, I
watch new couples and families arrive. I feel
like a senior in high school – a more
experienced tourist. I have begun to embody
island life after another week here, and they
are still as hyper as they are in the States.
They act disoriented, as if they have just

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jumped out of bed to an alarm, drank a cup
of coffee to power them through the day, and
sped to work. Sadly, they are not used to
stillness; they are always on the move. Be
mellow man, be mellow. But am I really like
this at home? Am I like this because I feel
more comfortable and connected to the
culture that I have invaded? Maybe, after
eleven years, some of the island ways have
become a part of me. At least, they are the
romantic, island ways that I have shaped in
my mind. They are the resort-island ways, a
sort of subcategory that probably isn’t true to
St. Thomas culture. Either way, I hope that
the newbies have fun and don’t think too
much about things.

On our way to the airport, we usually
stop at the flea market in the center of town.
This is what I remember: there are tents upon
tents set up in a large square near the roads.
Hanging from these tents are a lot of beach
wraps. I have a pink and blue one from that
flea market, the colors forming a gradient
that ends in small tassels. I used to wear it to
the Jersey Shore. There are also shirts with St.
Thomas written on them, knick-knacks,
name brand purses for cheap, and handmade
jewelry. My mom gets her purses from St.
Thomas because they aren’t this cheap
anywhere else. The vendors sit calmly
behind their stands, but once approached,

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push for sales. “Do you like this one? What
do you like? This color? Try this.” They need
to make sales, I think. But I don’t really
know. It’s a cash only business, so we pay
and leave.

I am always quiet for the rest of the
ride to the airport in Charlotte Amalie. I
think that the rest of my family is too. We are
mourning the end of another beautiful trip to
this beautiful island and are pursed to begin
our countdown for next year. The route to
the airport is different than the route to the
resort, but we see the same types of things.
There are colorful houses, clustered store
fronts, trash, trees, people. When we wind
up hills, I glimpse the big, rust roofed homes.
Everything is the same, except in reverse.

We reach the airport and slowly make
our way out of the van. Tony tips the van
driver, we collect our bags, and we head to
the check-in counter. The check-in counter is
still outside, so we stand in the warm, dense
air as we wait for our tickets. But once our
bags are tossed on the conveyor belt to be
shipped back to the Pennsylvania with us,
we must enter the doors to security. From
then on, the process is all inside, until
boarding.

When our zone is called, we walk
back outside and follow the ropes across the
tarmac to our plane. Climbing the stairs, I

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always want to look back and survey what I
can see of the island one final time. I want to
stop and try to feel what it’s like to live here
just once more. Sometimes I do, but
sometimes I am afraid to hold up the other
flyers who seem in a rush to board. Maybe
they are in a rush because the transition
between homes is the hardest part. But I lose
my last chance to inhale the island air and
just…get it.

This is what I want to remember: after
we board and wait, we finally approach the
runway. At this point, I don’t want to be
stuck in transition anymore either. The noise
of the engine is a signal and we collapse into
our chairs. During our first few trips, my
mom, Trent, and I would see who could hold
themselves away from their seat the longest.
I’d feel my abs burn as the plane tipped
towards the sky. I was always trying to work
after a week of not working, trying to
somehow pay someone back for another
vacation to the island.

Eventually, I give up and lean back
into my seat. If I have the lucky window seat,
I crouch forward to see the island as it
recedes. Now I can see the whole island, not
just the Ritz Carlton. There are trees that
might be crabwood, pink cedar, white
manjack, aloe, and tourist tree. Beneath them
might be pink bougainvillea, crumpled

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plastic bottles without caps, wrappers, and
unidentifiable paper products. There might
be small colorful houses and big white ones
and people honking at their friends. But I am
above and once again disconnected.
Eventually, I can’t see the island anymore,
only the ocean and its silver ripples. I saw St.
Thomas and I heard St. Thomas, but I still
don’t get it. I don’t get the place and I don’t
get the people. Maybe I’m not allowed to
know, and I will forever be a silly, jealous
tourist. Or maybe it will click next year.

Hopefully, you were able to
understand that Weiss’s essay did much
more than just describe what the island of St.
Thomas is like. Weiss’s essay is exploring the
interrelated questions of why do we vacation
and the implications of tourism as an
industry. The peak of Weiss’s essay, when
we get the purest reflection of what is it
about St. Thomas that needs to be written
about, is when she writes:

On the beach, we feel reality, but not the
usual reality that is associated with waking
up working, doing, doing, doing, sleep.
There is stillness. We are gentle with
ourselves, gentle with each other.
Standing on the shores of Turquoise Bay, I

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feel the shame of a tourist and the revival of
a vacationer.

These four lines really embody the
deeper truth that Weiss in uncovering as she
writes about her family’s annual trips to St.
Thomas. On the surface, this essay is about
family and about how family vacations
anchor families. But, this essay is exploring
something more. Weiss is questioning why
families act different of vacation and why
there is this sort of shame attached to be a
tourist.

The essay is about St. Thomas, but it
isn’t just about a place. Weiss does a good job
of tying this place to herself by way of
questioning who she is when she’s on the
island of St. Thomas. Weiss’s reflection on
the who she is as a person when she’s in St.
Thomas is evident in her reflection in lines
like the one below:

There is stability through the years, and we
become the same new people each summer.
St. Thomas hold guaranteed joy and
renewal.

It is also interesting to look at the
structure and craft of Weiss’s essay. Typically, as
you know, reflective narratives are written in
past tense, but Weiss abandons this unwritten
rule. She predominantly writes her essay in

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present tense, and it was not by accident. Upon a
close reading, it is evident Weiss made this craft
choice, because her essay is not about one
specific trip to St. Thomas, it is about the routine
and rituals that her family performs each year
when they take this same trip. Instead of writing
the essay like she is recalling specific events from
a specific trip, she is trying to convey to readers
that these events could have been part of any one
of the many trips, because what they do on each
trip is the same as they did on the trip before
that. They go to the same restaurants, use the
same taxi service etc. Her essay is just as much
about this routine, this one short period of the
year where her family acts differently. It is like
she is saying to us, close your eyes, and picture my
family on vacation in St. Thomas, here is what you
would see. This is why the present tense adds
something to her essay that past tense wouldn’t
be able to do.

As I told you at the beginning of this
book, there is no hard set of rules to writing
creative nonfiction. However, there are some
unwritten ones like that reflective narratives are
written in past tense. It is important to practice
following the rules before you start to break
them. Breaking the rules requires having a
specific purpose, and so, it is important to
understand why these informal rules exist in the
first place before you are able to understand in
what situations they should be broken.

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PART TWO

FINDING THE TRUTH IN
WHAT YOU HAVE TO MAKE

HAPPEN

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Chapter 7:
Immersion Writing

Sometimes your curiosity goes
beyond what you can explore by reflecting
on past experiences. Maybe you’re curious
about a place you used to go as a child or
you want to know why you feel so attached
to your phone. You rack your brain, looking
for an archived memory that can quench
your thirst for knowledge, but you come up
with nothing. The truth that you seek may lie
in what has yet to happen. Luckily for you,
the power to make something happen is in
your hands. You have the capability to
become an immersion writer. Admittedly,
this journey can be more difficult than the
reflective narrative. It is asking you to first
figure out the type of required, and, second,
to make meaning out of that exploration.
Sometimes this journey can be taken from
behind your computer screens, but other
times it might require you get up and go

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somewhere— perhaps, somewhere from
your past or somewhere unfamiliar.

The way I see it, immersion writing
can be broken down into three categories,
because you’re doing one of three things:
you’re going somewhere, you’re conducting
an investigation, or you’re doing an
experiment. The “Going Somewhere”
category encompasses subcategories; you
could be doing a reenactment where you
revisit a place that has some sentimental
value to you, or you could be traveling
somewhere you have never been before,
because something about the place interests
you. The “Investigation Category” could be a
physical investigation or a virtual one. In a
later chapter of this section, you will read my
essay, “The Cycle of Fatherlessness”, in
which I investigate my lineage by doing
research on my computer, but also looking
through boxes at my childhood home for
clues. The “Experiment Category” is
probably the most straightforward of the
three. The example of the experiment that
you will read is Zoe Lis’s essay, “I’ve Got 99
Problems but a Bra Ain't One”, where she
does an experiment to see what it’d be like to
stop wearing a bra.

What these categories of writing all
have in common is that they are asking you
to go out and do something. In essence, you

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are not writing based on a memory you
already have, you are actively formulating
memories. You are looking for a level of
truth that is not already known to you. The
immersion memoir, although a more
complex type of writing, doesn’t require that
the thing you go out to do must be
something huge. You might revisit your
elementary school because you want to
explore your personal stake in the
controversy revolving around public
education or you might not use your phone
for a week, because you wonder how it
affects your ability to connect with others.

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Chapter 8:
Voice, Authenticity, and Self

Immersion writing can sometimes
seem too journalistic or too scientific,
because there is some level of reporting on
findings of an investigation or experiment, or
you’re describing a place. There is plenty of
room for self-expression in all three
instances, but sometimes writers have
difficulty figuring out how to incorporate it.
The best advice I can give you on this is that
authenticity will come a lot more naturally
when you’re writing about something you
are exploring something you are genuinely
curious about, so your writing is about
something you are interested in. The
personal connection has to be there or the
essay won’t feel authentic, because we won’t
understand the purpose of your journey.

If you remember one thing about
immersion writing, remember that
immersion writing is just as much about
yourself as what you are doing. Whatever it

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is that you are doing or wherever it is that
you are going to write the essay has some
significance rooted in your curiosity, so you
do not want to let yourself become erased by
the place or the action. Your story can seem
very centered around a place or a person or a
thing, and, still, this essay must really be
about you.

It is important to remember that
people are dynamic. We are constantly
changing. In immersion writing, whatever
you went out and did likely had some effect
on you as a person. That’s why it is worth
writing about. Your audience wants to know
who you were before you took on this task
versus who you are afterwards. All
immersion writing is a journey, which means
you have to start somewhere and end
someplace else.

This personal presence is often
incorporated through self-reflection. The
moments where you stop what you’re doing
and acknowledge what you are feeling must
be shared. Unlike the reflective narrative,
this requires a more refined skill, because
you have to be engaging in self-reflection
while in the midst of your immersive
journey. What are you feeling in each
moment you learn something while
exploring whatever it is that you are curious
about?

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A distinct voice is also essential.
Because immersion writing is explorative in
nature, others might be writing essays about
similar journeys. Your voice is what allows
you to take control of the story. Since
creative nonfiction is, well, nonfiction, you
are only writing about things that actually
happened, but you have the power to dictate
how write about it.

You are about to read Zoe Lis’s essay,
“I Got 99 Problems But My Bra Ain’t One.”
Surely Lis is not the first person to be curious
about the necessity to bras and their
relationship to feminism, nor is she the first
person to write about doing an experiment
by not wearing a bra. As you read, pay
attention to how Lis makes herself present
throughout the essay by reflecting on her
building curiosity based on the unique
experiences that arise from her experiment.
Additionally, make note of lines where you
see Lis’s voice coming through and think
about how this adds to your experience
while reading the essay.

I Got 99 Problems But My Bra Ain’t One
Zoe Lis

“FREE THE NIPPLE!” I yell as an
Arab man corrals me into a corner,
separating me from my friends. I realize,

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perhaps a little bit too late, that this might
not be the best arena for my personal
feminist ideals. My friends stare at me,
horrified, but I’m saved by the fact that this
man knows about as much English as I do
Arabic. This man’s job is to stand at the
entrance to the Temple Mount, one of the
holiest sites for Muslims, and make sure the
tourists that visit are appropriately
covered. Gesturing at my chest, he says, “It
is too soft. You cannot go.” Confused, I look
down at my shirt to find that in the 100
degree heat I had sweated straight through
my previously opaque gray shirt, making my
black bra visible. “This is holy place,” he
says.

While my friend Liran tried to work
out a compromise with the Arab man, I was
left to contemplate why my chest had caused
such a stir. I felt bad that I was dressed
immodestly, but I never meant to offend
anyone. Clearly a holy Islamic site is the
wrong place to have a see-through shirt, but
it really got me thinking. Eventually Liran
bought a light pink poncho-esque piece of
fabric from a market nearby for me to wear,
but I still felt odd. I’ve always thought the
controversy around breasts was confusing. I
understand that in this particular
circumstance I was definitely being
disrespectful, even though it was

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unintentional, but I still had questions even
after I left the Middle East and returned to
the United States. I wondered if that
situation would have gone differently if I
had been wearing a tan bra, or if I hadn’t
been wearing one at all.

When I purchased my first bra in fifth
grade, my mom was a nightmare. She kept
laughing at me from outside the Limited Too
dressing room. To her credit she did try to
take me seriously, but it was really
preposterous to her that I could possibly
have needed a bra because I was as flat as a
board. The truth is my friend Kat had just
gotten her first training bra, so I decided I
needed one too. I remember my mom’s eyes
popping out of her skull when the total for a
single training bra, essentially a tan, cloth
bikini with no support or padding, came to
$30. I never even considered what that bra
meant to me. To my mom, it was $30
flushed down the drain. I felt no more
grown up than I had before, no more
comfortable with my bra on. It was just
something I wanted. I bought a bra and I
wore the bra. I wear a bra because that’s
what women do and I never questioned it,
the same way I never wear a bra to sleep
because that is just what women do. After
my experience at the Temple Mount I began
to wonder more and more why I wore bras

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and what my bras meant to me, and so my
epic journey began.

Day 1: Jumpin’ Jumpin’
I get the idea for my experiment

halfway through the day. Sitting in my
Hebrew class I think, what if, just once, I wake
up and don’t send my boobs to boob jail. There
is really no reason for me to wear one. Since
fifth grade, I have grown very little in the
breast department. My bras are really more
trouble than they’re worth. I intentionally
wear bras that give me no support because
support is pointless for someone as flat as
me. The “support” for me just means the
straps will be digging into my shoulders and
restricting my movement. The straps are
always falling down because I like to wear it
loose, but the pinching in the back still
hurts. When I take it off at the end of a long
day, the imprints stay in my skin like when
you sleep on your pillow a funny way and
you have wrinkles on your face the next
morning. The wire, yes underwear with
curved steel rods in it, pokes at me when I
slouch or bend over or do any movement
other than standing straight-backed and
perfectly still. I have just come to accept this
constant discomfort, but today I’m putting
my foot down.

As with every great epiphany I have,

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the first thing I do is call my mom. I tell her
my idea, and I can hear her holding back
giggles.

“Maybe if you were a little more, um,
blessed, then you would be a little less
excited to forgo support,” she says.

“And what exactly is that supposed to
mean?” I ask.

Unable to hold back her laughter
anymore, she says, “You know what I
mean.”

The first thing I do every day when I
get back to my house after class is take off
my bra, except for today, because my friend
Kat called and invited me to do homework
with her. I decide that since there’s no time
like the present I might as well start my
experiment right now. I change into a big
baggy sweatshirt to be sure no one can tell
and stand facing my front door. All of the
sudden, I get very nervous. My heart starts
pounding, and I feel like a kid who is
sneaking a piece of candy and hoping her
mom doesn’t catch her. It’s like I’m getting
away with something sneaky, something
bad. For nearly a decade I’ve worn a bra to
everywhere but my bed, and now I’m
choosing to not only question these past ten
years but deviate from my normal
practices. Kat hits me with that “what is
taking you so long” text, and I march out

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the front door toward the library.
There is a whole world outside that I

never even imagined existed. There is a
world that is free of wires and pinching and
straps falling down and that world is
beautiful. I giggle to myself as I finally
understand why they advertise cage free
eggs. I resist the urge to thrust my arms out
and spin in circles looking toward the
infinite sky. I hold myself back from
shimmying down the street. I feel free.

Kat is studying for her chemistry
exam, and is not nearly as thrilled to be alive
today as I am. I sit down at the table across
from her, beaming. She glares at me. “Can I
help you?” she asks.

“Guess what!”
“No.”
“I’m serious Kat, guess what!”
“Fine, what?”
“I’m not wearing a bra right now.”
She forces a laugh and tells me to get
to work. I’m nowhere near even slightly
disappointed about her less than enthusiastic
response. I am on top of the world.

Day 2: Who’s That Girl
Friday is perfect to try my experiment

for the whole day. I only have one class,
Hebrew, and I wake up feeling prepared and
enthusiastic. My Hebrew class only has

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about twenty students, so at least my
seemingly inevitable embarrassment would
be minimal. I get dressed, toss on a different
baggy sweatshirt and leggings to balance out
the look. Looking in the mirror, I feel even
more nervous than yesterday. I’m annoyed
at myself because I’ve already done this
once, so why am I getting all freaked out?

Class is a different setting than the
library with my close friend. It’s more
formal. I realize I don’t want to be known by
my peers as that girl who forgot to wear a
bra to class that one day. For whatever
reason, our society has decided that a
woman’s nipples are illegal. Even though
men’s nipples are completely pointless, if a
man was “nipping” in class it would be no
big deal. If it was a woman whose nipples
were showing it would be awkward at best,
trashy at worst. I think the #FreeTheNipple
movement is valid. It says that all nipples
are the same, and it’s sexist to only censor
those that belong to a woman. I always
thought it was odd that boys could be
shirtless on the beach even though many of
them have more fatty breast tissue than I do.

While I fully support the “Free the
Nipple” movement, I think the proper
territory to flaunt my chest is a very different
location than the classroom with religious
Jewish men. I eat my bagel and decide that

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there’s no use in backing out before I even
try this thing for real and I strut out the front
door.

Class is all smooth sailing. I
participate in discussion, turn in my
worksheet, and plan to go to lunch with
Kat. The dining hall is where things get a
little dicey. Kat’s parents bought her more
meals than she could possibly eat on her
own, so she often treats me to lunch at the
dining hall with the flatbread pizza that we
both love. I grab two plates with two slices
of pizza on each. I notice one of the dining
hall managers, a middle-aged man, is staring
at me. It is impossible to tell if he is judging
me for the ridiculous amount of pizza I am
about to consume or if he can tell I’m not
wearing a bra. I set my pizza down at our
table and I go back to get a cup of
water. He’s still staring at me. I’m a little
embarrassed, but I know that his opinion of
me is pretty insignificant in the grand
scheme of things, and I’m sure he’s seen
much weirder things on a college campus as
big as this one. He smiles at me and starts
walking in my direction. I want to
evaporate.

“What does your shirt say?” he asks.
“Kennedy,” I respond, as he looks
back down at my chest again.
“It’s funny,” he says. “It kinda looks like the

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upper peninsula.”
“It’s supposed to. I went to a summer

camp in the upper peninsula called
Kennedy.”

“That’s funny, my family and I used
to go up north all the time, it’s really
beautiful up there…” and he proceeds to tell
me a long, drawn out story about how his
family likes to hunt. I cannot stress this
enough: I wanted to literally evaporate. Kat
sees the look on my face and laughs because
she knows what’s going on in my head, but
makes no moves to help me. I consider
moving to Siberia and making new friends
there.

Day 3: Better Than Me
I decide to extend my experiment for

as long as I can. I run into a friend from my
English class and I tell her about my
experiment. After I explain that I’m going
braless for science she says, “Oh, is that a big
deal? I literally did that yesterday.” I am not
original.

Day 4: Run Wild
Today’s the day: I’m headed to New

Orleans for spring break. Being braless in the
airport is the bomb. Once I got patted down
because TSA thought I was hiding something
in my bra from the amount of padding it had

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