My Favorite Thing by Gianna Gorvan

   Okay, I must admit, creative writing is a topic that I struggle with because there are so many options, so today I decided to share a little bit of myself and my favorite thing. 
   If you know me at all, you probably know that my favorite thing in the world is the sky. More specifically, I am a sucker for sunsets. It is something that, even those who don't know me well, can probably infer as it makes up all of my social media. No matter what happens, everyday there is a sunset, no matter the weather or the season, the day ends with the sun going down and the sky lights up all different colors, and even when it isn't bright pink or orange, a special glow seems to form. It is simply magical. The sun slowly lowers down and a bold, beautiful painting erupts, taking over my mind as I stare out my bedroom window. 
   Every. Single. Day. I hear my mom call out to me "G... Look at the sky," and we meet to take in the enchanting view lying outside, blanketing the sky. It is a time that no matter how hectic the day is, we come together for, and I just think that is so important, however, the shock of the sky's beauty does not stop within the walls of my home. There is no exaggeration when I say this, every time the sun goes down, nearly everyone in my recent messages will get a text message. The few people I speak to everyday have begun to text me even before I can do so, because they know it's coming, and I feel lucky that I get to share a bond over something like this with so many people.
   Aside from the pretty colors, the sunset helps me to find the light, after the worst days I will find myself compelled to watch the day come to an end, because it is a phenomenal ending. It shows me that something good comes at the end of everything. Even in the darkest of times, the sun will still rise and set, presenting the world with stunning colors and a natural glow. This is amazing, and the hot pink and orange that floods my backyard is a bonus! 
   I recently saw a post that read, "Forever that person that gets really excited when the sky is in pretty colors," and I have never actually related to something more. The sky makes me "EEK," which is not something I do often, only for extreme emotions, which I think is saying something. How cool is it that we exist in the same world as the sky does, something so fascinating? We get to look at the most incredible thing, I've ever stumbled upon, nearly every day of our lives.  The sky is my piece of Heaven on Earth, something that keeps me and my sense of positivity and wonder going. If the sun can continue to shine and bring such great things to the world, even in the bitter cold or pouring rain, it makes me think I can too. I will never get over my obsession with the sky. 

We Were Here by Liv Przydzial

We Were Here

by Liv Przydzial

Sad songs flowed from my guitar,
the same words I sang after fights with my parents,
after losing my dogs,
after leaving friends, sometimes for just a few hours, sometimes forever.

I was alone in this world now,
trapped in this cold, bitter loneliness,
while around me was just the opposite.

I had no one, so it seemed.
My mom and dad were far, far away,
my sister was long gone at some school in some town,
my dogs in the sky, out of reach,
my friends across the wall but not here, not with me in the present.

I was lonely. Quite lonely.

Perhaps a walk?
I stood from my nest of blankets on the shaky legs of a newborn fawn,
a nest of blankets I would normally have shared with Bentley and Sylvia,
her tired body lying across the length of the bed,
me in the corner,
and Bentley stretched out over us.
Those were the days in which, among the chaotic tornado of life,
I had forgotten to appreciate the cramps in my neck the next day from not sleeping comfortably.
Physically, maybe I hadn't, but at least I slept in peace, in security, in love.

'Twas too warm for shoes.
Why should I care what people think if I am still alone in their midst?
I clambered down the hot pavement, my feet burning only a little step by step.
What a day!
The fresh breeze brushed through my messy hair just as my mom once did,
and my ankles brushed the soft wildflowers that we used to braid into crowns together.
I gently plucked one from the root, just as mom had taught me,
and breathed in a memory.

Down the street, I skipped,
the symphonic chirps and chatters of the birds bringing music to my ears.
I whistled back, just as I did to my parakeets,
now long gone, but here in memory.
They were here!

Into the woods, I bounded,
just as I did with my sister every day after school.
A race, was it? Some sort of competition?
The memories had blurred in my mind,
but the feelings wage the same waves in my heart.
My sister is here. This is Sylvia.
We are here together, skipping into the woods,
jumping on rocks, leaping across streams, climbing trees.
We are here, at last.

Down the path I frolicked, the leaves leaving a patchwork of ever-changing shadows across my face.
I came to the point in the path in which I found mom.
She was here, in this archway of vines.
She was here, in the birds' nests softly embedded in the twigs.
She was here, in the berries she told us were 'gold for the soul',
when everyone else told us they were poisonous and that we shouldn't even touch them.
She was here, in the bright morning glories that she'd wake us up early to see.
She was here, with me,
here.

And from my enchantment, I burst into the open sun,
just as I did when we went on bike rides with my dad,
my tiny feet pedaling as fast as they could to get up the hill first,
my dad letting me win, of course.
There were the benches from which we watched the sun fade into the night in a dazzling watercolor display.
This was us. We were here.

Bentley used to race down the path to swim here,
used to soar into the water with one giant leap.
He was never happier. I was never happier.
As I stood here, a smile came upon my face.
He was here, one big furry ball of love and happiness,
so why shouldn't I be happy too?

And as I crossed, barefoot,
the pointy, sharp rocks dividing the bank of the water,
I came to the realization that this bank, this here bank of this pond,
was just like my family, metaphorically.
Most of the bank was beautiful, soft, caressing,
but these sharp, stabbing rocks,
where the scary spiders of my childhood lived,
represented our struggles.
Our family had never been perfect, but in that imperfection were the best lessons learned.
The bad must also be appreciated.

Once I crossed the prickly rocks, I bolted across the grass, kissed by the sun,
down this hill and right up the next, just as I would with Sylvia.
I came to the picnic table, where other families had sat and eaten together.
I used to watch them from the other side of the pond,
hidden from view on a tree arched over the water.
I had envied them,
envied them so so deeply.
But those were their stories, not mine.
In a way, though, those families were my families, just the same.
I was a part of their tradition. I was here with them.

As I ran, I passed the raspberry bushes.
Oh, grandma. All raspberry bushes remind me of her.
I used to race to her garden first thing every time we visited.
She had fields of raspberry bushes, so it seemed, and I would stand on my tippy toes just to reach the sweetest, juiciest ones at the top.
I'd always come back with red juice all over my face, scratches from the thorns down my arms and legs, and a full belly of berries.
And right here, she was with me.
We were here,
together.

Still further down the path, I came to the spot in which my grandpa tried to teach me to fish.
It was not really here, in this spot,
but in my mind, he was here.
This was us,
this was our spot.
We were here.
Are, here.

The woods opened up from here into a small clearing in which a stout little house stood.
A perfect little house, flowers of every color one could imagine covering the porch,
their radiant gardens overflowing with beauty.
The old grandma and grandpa had shared this garden with me,
teaching me how to smell the rainbow and showing me that snakes weren't all that bad.
They were my family too, in this sense.
They had shaped, molded, me.
They were part of my history, and now part of my present.
As I stood in their garden, looking at the dead flowerbeds and remembering what once was,
I watched the gardens immediately come to life in my mind.
We were here.

And as the path continued back into the woods,
I came to a place in which I found a piece of myself.
A turtle was it? Yes, there was a turtle on the path,
a few little boys my age there, tossing the poor guy around.
I stood, frozen, formulating a plan in my mind.
But it was quite too late. I was already in the middle of their circle.
Not a single of us spoke as I snatched the turtle from one boy's hands and ran to the bank of the pond,
gently setting him down and allowing him to waddle back in, unharmed.
This spot right here, those boys, and, for god's sake, even that turtle - were my family.
And they were here. We were here.

And finally, I arrived at a little rock.
'Just a big hop over from the edge of the water!' I would encourage Bentley.
I finally got him to jump over, and from that moment on, this was our place.
Standing on this tiny, tiny rock I realized that we were here,
just as we had all been in all these places around the pond,
just as we were back then.
I sat down, criss-cross applesauce, just as I did when I was a kid, and watched the fish in the water below as the realization washed over me:
Everyone was here with me. Maybe not physically, but they were here in mind and in heart. In memory, we were here.
And that is all that I could ever need, all that I could ever ask for.

OCD and the Role of Nature in My Life by Olivia Przydzial

OCD and the Role of Nature in My Life

by Olivia Przydzial

When I was 6 years old, I was diagnosed with OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder. As a kid, it was just another part of my daily life, and I honestly didn't think much of it. My OCD was embedded in every single part of my life. Over the years, it's morphed into so many different behaviors and fears. Sometimes, it required minimal effort to just push it off to the side and ignore it. In others, I would experience panic attacks so bad that I would shake and vomit. But it was always just another part of my life. I never hated it. I never really associated the 'OCD' everyone's heard of with my own experiences. Why? I never knew anything different. It was just another part of life, no big deal. I expertly concealed my behaviors in public, and I continued to live on.

- - -

I spent my childhood in a large urban city in southern Jersey. Our backyard was about 30 feet by 100 feet and consisted of yellowing grass, a single large oak tree, a wire fence on its perimeter, and baby pine trees growing our neighbor's side of the fence. Almost two years after my sister was born, my beloved oak tree was cut down. I've counted the rings of that stump so many times. I've sung in my own concerts with the stump as my stage. I've performed surgeries on leaves and frogs with that stump as my surgical table. I've watched the stars from that stump, despite the heavy light pollution. I've sat on that stump and really cried for the first few times in my life. I told my sister stories about what once was the oak tree that I so adored.

I moved to Sparta for fourth grade. With the woods in my backyard, I was beyond overwhelmed with the nature before me. I was inexplicably drawn to the natural world, despite the lack of it in my early childhood. From the years I spent in my tiny backyard, to the years I spent exploring the woods, and to the summers I spent every waking minute of in the ocean, nature of all kinds had a special place in my life.

- - -

Over the years, I've discovered that my OCD compulsions were eased to more manageable behaviors when I spent time with nature. If I didn't spend time in the woods or if I didn't go on a walk, my OCD was so much harder to ignore, the fears bubbling in my brain and nearly impossible to push away. The harmony of the imperfections that characterize nature is therapeutic to me because they prove that something so imperfect can remain so balanced and beautiful.

OCD has been and still is such a significant part of my life, even in times where it was just an underlying theme to everything I do, but nature has played a key role in infusing peace and balance into my life.

Still Life by: Kaela Burke

Still Life

By: Kaela Burke

All was peaceful in the meadow. The grass had grown tall since the last of the snow had melted in the spring, and the bright summer sun had bleached its long stalks, giving the field a golden gleam. A passerine robin kept watch over all the meadow’s inhabitants, listening in on the other songbird’s conversations. Their chatter trickled through the canopy in soft chiming waves, pleasant white noise that none in the meadow minded. A herd of deer grazed on the grass, their tawny coats rippling as they meandered through the field. The grass whispered and parted around them, their soft steps fading into the bird’s background music. An indulgent doe turned a blind eye to the two fawns frolicking around with one another on knobby knees, thumping and crunching their way through the stalks, the spattering of white on their coats blurring the lines between them and the grass. There was one buck among them, his antlers crowning his head in elegant arcs. He stood on the outskirts of the meadow, just inside the tree line, his ears twitching, listening for any danger. The rabbits and voles scurried underfoot, the benevolent giants above them not seeming to notice nor care. The dappled sunlight that cascaded through the canopy covered the meadow in tortoiseshell patches that slowly dimmed as the sun disappeared behind the horizon, the distant mountains a silhouette against the now star-speckled sky. The songbirds quieted their chirping, the deer went on their way, and the rabbits and voles returned back to their warrens. The grass remained tall and golden from the bright summer sun, and all was peaceful in the meadow.

Hurricane Florence by Lily Loewen

Recently there has been a traumatic and destroying storm, Hurricane Florence. This traumatic storm raged the Carolinas, and was already the 6th named storm in the Atlantic hurricane season. There was a time when hurricanes occurred a few times over years, and there is a theory to why this is happening, and this theoretical reason is climate change. Climate change is not necessarily just global warming, as it is proven that not only the carbon dioxide and methane has increased in the atmosphere, but the Earth's temperature has slightly increased. Hurricanes are fueled by warm air, and the air has definitely become warmer. Although not proven, it is most likely not a coincidence that our Earth is warmer, and there has been much more tragic storms. For the last couple of years there has been so many storms, one after another to the point where the recovery time is minimal. Climate change may be a natural stage that our planet is going through, but this climate change is hypothetically ruining our planet. Finding a way to limit the carbon dioxide and methane may be crucial to saving, not only the land on the shore of the Atlantic, but the many lives of people living there.