Paha ReviewWriting and Art from the Hill

Mount Mercy University

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Spring 2012

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The term paha comes from Dakota Sioux dialect meaning “hill” or “ridge,” and it was first applied in 1891 by W.J. McGee to the special hill forms in this region of Iowa…Their distribution and alignment parallel to (and very often near) river valleys strongly suggest that paha are actually wind-aligned dunes that accumulated in response to the strong, prevailing northwest winds that were scouring the Iowan surface during this period of glacial cold.

Jean C. Prior Land Forms of Iowa

We need to recover the ancient sense of homeland as an area defined not by armies and flags…but by nature and geography and by the history of human dwelling there, a habitat shared by other creatures, known intimately, carried in the mind as a living presence.

Scott Russell Sanders

Mount Mercy University is built on one of the many paha in Iowa, most clustered near or southeast of Cedar Rapids.

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Editors Laina Pilkenton Alison Swanson

Assistant Editor Troy Hess

Copy Editors Laura Campbell Troy Hess Alison Swanson

Selection Committee Laura Campbell Rachel Dee Jessica Joens Robert Tigan

Art Editor Maria Terzopoulou

Photographers Kathryn Hagy Maria Terzopoulou David Van Allen

Cover Art Aunna Ruiz Mushroom Landscape Etching

Cover Design Maria Terzopoulou

Faculty Advisor Mary Vermillion

Special Thanks Art Club Bill Basler Mildred P. Barthel Christopher DeVault English Club Kim Flugga-Ciha

Jane Gilmor Cecile Goding Jim Grove Joy Ochs Joe Sheller Carol Tyx

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The 2012 edition of The Paha Review is dedicated to Jane Gilmor, Professor of Art, and David Van Allen,

Senior Lecturer of Art and Director of the Janalyn Hanson White Gallery. As they retire, we thank them for shaping

countless minds and offering their creativity to Mount Mercy University.

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Contents

Adrienne BaileyBras 35

Jonathan BergerVictorian Death Portrait 33

Brennan BogertMy Neighbor’s Daughter 67

Cody BouwmanRed Seat Repose 36Mindful of Art 46

Ivory DavisTristan 18Midnights 23

Rachel DeeGrief 32Awash 59

Scott DroesslerSaffron-Gatherer 39

Sarah EkwallUntitled 40

Christopher EmeryPoor Fortuna! 8My Places in the Woods 28

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Adrienne HersheyApple Diptych 37

Sara JacobmeyerA Portrait 45Breathe 61

Jessica JoensHe Was Happy (Ode to Hemingway) 27Winning 54So Many Questions 62

Maddy JonesMrs. Boyer 12

Kristine KoubaLove Is 63

Aaron OstrengaGrandma’s Mexican Song 19Thunder, Water, Woman 53

Laina PilkentonScarlet O’Henry 11Storyteller 65

Namrata RaghvaniPersonality Cover 34

Rebecca RedmondUntitled 38

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Aunna RuizOyster-scapes 41Encapsuled 31

Stephanie RussellMy Softball Glove 2441°53°16°N, 91°3°33°W 60

Travis SchaufenbuelLondon Fish Cage 43

Nevin SnyderEl Flamenco 21

Amy StouracOh Western Prince! 22

Alison SwansonJumping Bird 10 Your Mentalis, My Mark Twain 25

Robb TiganSaturday 55

Kate TillSelf Portrait 42

Caleb UpahWall Street 44

High School Creative Writing Contest Winners 66 Notes on Contributors 70

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Poor Fortuna!Christopher Emery

You choked at your seat ’til your face was fuchsia, all brought by a small bite of that honey lime tuna. You had gasped at air while our friends’ chat was the topic: ski slopes, Vail, planned this winter. O Fortuna, had laughing not distracted focus, I’d see you, flailing, beneath sun-hat. Poor Fortuna! Your red purple straw sun-hat! Any color unblended thee, but fuchsia: not was that. If, but a lighted distraction, could have ceased our evening’s formal meal—sublime. When finally came signal from a wintry stirring gust, shrill cries, attesting, ceased sup chats. Poor Fortuna! Lacking speech! Your chattiness had parted. Shadowy face, darkened sun-hat: I could not watch, as you were fallow in turn. The doctor stooped, determining your future, hardly giving a sign. Oh, you honey lime tuna: gently lodged in her digestive tract! Poor Fortuna! Dead: by man’s distractedness! How could one resume their eatery?—Chatter- boxes! The whole lot! Draped you were, upon lime- stone walk, loll’d without breath. Color: not sun-hat, but paler pink had thus returned. “Foo’—Shut-up, Foo’!” I pitied, like Mr. T, the Wynters.

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O Fortuna! Could it be? You may winter not in heaven?—the doctor had detracted from her: rubb’ry piece of fish! Very few share such a luck, Fortuna, to live at Chateau Vail for some months. Lift up high that fine sun-hat, knowing you had once its purple shade! Well, I’m at a loss with how events have turned! A lime- rick ought to be made of fool-hardy Wynters! Fortuna’s near-tragedy, regard some that were rash, but finally eased, from thoughts distraught. We all can laugh and eat and merrily chat again—Fortuna, you’re no longer fuchsia! Had we not seen fuchsia, from a limey piece of tuna, had chat of wintering distracted more, had rose sun-hat veiled face: Poor Fortuna!

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Jumping BirdAlison Swanson

Sitting the ledge of the tallest building he could find, the bird leaps into the air but cannot fly. All of his friends are watching the fireworks (because it is the Fourth of July), But still, he cannot fly. Waddling around and around the ledge, he finds an opening, to which he could fly; if he could fly. Instead, he jumps, using muscles most birds could not even find, catching glimpses of fireworks in the sky. The next morning, the tired bird sits upon the ledge of the tallest building he can find. Morning news programs waft in and out of neighboring windows to where the bird stands. Laughingly, the anchor tells the public that the Fourth of July is traditionally a bad night for birds. Laughingly, the bird leaps into the air but cannot fly.

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Scarlet O’HenryLaina Pilkenton

Ye wonder as I pass by, why do I cover my right eye? Aye sailor, ’tis a gruesome tale, of my battle with a certain male. A storm was a’brewin’ out at sea and he began to pick a fight with me. Upon the deck our swords did clash, while the thunder and lightning crashed. When I turned my gaze the other way, to watch the mast as it did sway, a place to strike his sword did find, drew blood and left me blind. For ne’er was a man so my match, with love he gave me this black eye-patch.

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Mrs. BoyerMaddy Jones

There she was. Just sitting. Every single day after lunchtime, she’d be out on that big covered porch attached to that big white house. Just sitting. Rocking back and forth on the painted red porch swing. Rocking, rocking, rocking. You’d see her go inside for a glass of sweet tea every once in a while, but she’d always come back out to the red chair to sit and swing until the sun went down. She was old, that Mrs. Boyer. She had to be almost eighty, but when you’re twelve, everyone older than your parents just seems ancient. Especially when they do what old people do: nothing. It’s just like my grandma and grandpa who live in the nursing home three towns over—they sit and sit and sit and sit. They eat, while sitting, then get shoved back into their rooms in their wheelchairs to do a little more sitting. Eventually, mama says, they do a little laying and some sleeping and then get up and do it all over again. Sometimes, they even get to play Bingo—while sitting. I don’t ever wanna get old. I can’t imagine just sitting all the time. There’s hardly ever a point when I’m sitting down. I’m always doing something, somewhere. I don’t have any siblings or friends for the most part, so I have to go out and make my own fun and it sometimes gets me into trouble. “Susan,” my mother says to me in her ever-present, disapproving tone, “if the sign says ‘Private Property. No Trespassing,’ that means you can’t go in there.” Sometimes I think my mother would like me more if I was more like Mrs. Boyer: stationary. So what if I like to play in the

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junkyard and occasionally like to bring things back home with me? Why is that stealing?

I shouldn’t have been brought home by that mean police officer and been punished for it. All I did was grab a few license plates to add to my collection of stuff. It’s a junkyard. No one wants that stuff anyway.

When my mother decided that visiting and helping Mrs. Boyer do whatever she wanted was to be my punishment, I was not happy.

“What does she need help for?” I asked my mama. “All she does is sit out on her porch all day long. Not like she needs any help with that.”

“You’d be surprised,” my mama said. I was to report for old-lady duty that evening, and I

didn’t know what to expect. I had never had a conversation with her, let alone gone into her house. As a matter of fact, I was pretty sure I had never been closer to her than the distance from the sidewalk in front of her house to her red swing.

“She’s a stranger,” I said to my mother before I left. “I’m not supposed to go into strangers’ houses! That’s your demand, not mine.”

“She’s not a stranger, Susan. I’ve known her since before you were even born. You will go over there and you will do whatever Mrs. Boyer asks you to do.”

Dusk was approaching, and I could see Mrs. Boyer through our living room window sitting on the porch. She looked like she wasn’t paying attention to anything, and from this distance, it almost looked like she was sleeping. Then the street lights came on. She immediately stood up, grabbed her glass of sweet tea from the little red table next to her big red swing, and went in through her big red door.

It wasn’t like I had a choice in the matter, so five minutes after the street lights turned on, I walked across the street, walked up the big white house’s steps, and rang the door

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bell. Ding dong. I waited a second, looking back and forth between the big red swing and the big red door, straining to hear some movement inside. The swing looked bigger at this distance than it did from the sidewalk. After hearing no movement inside, I rang it again. Ding dong.

Finally, I heard her yell, “Hold on!”I was afraid at that point. Her voice sounded so...so

threatening. It was cold, like earth that hadn’t seen the sun in many, many years.

After Mrs. Boyer opened the red door, the first thing I noticed was how clean everything was. The entryway was in the direct middle of the house so that when you entered, you either went right or left. The room to the right was dark and eerie, and Mrs. Boyer headed the other direction towards a lighted room. There were framed pictures arranged on every surface in that cluttered order that only old people seem capable of arranging. There were pictures of times when I hadn’t even been born and pictures of Mrs. Boyer looking just a few years younger than she is now.

“What happened to Mr. Boyer?” I asked without a sense of shame—not really understanding that this was a personal question. As a child, I never had much of a filter for my words, another thing that constantly annoyed my mother.

She looked at me long and hard for a few seconds. At this point, I realized that maybe I shouldn’t have asked. Maybe, for once, I shouldn’t have opened my big, fat mouth. And then she spoke: “He died of a heart attack a few years ago. The day you were born, actually.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just kept wandering around the room looking at things. There were just so many pictures. Different shapes, different sizes: black and white, sepia, color—it was all there. She just sat on the love seat in the far side of the room watching me.

“Mrs. Boyer?” I asked with slight hesitation, knowing that I was probably already pushing my limits.

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“Yes?”“I see you outside on the swing every day. Why do you

do that?”“Well, I guess I haven’t much else to do during the day. I

wake up, I clean, and when I’m done with that, I don’t have much else to do, I guess. I have no family left, and when Mr. Boyer died, I stopped speaking to many of the neighbors, including your parents. It wasn’t their fault. I just couldn’t stand to see the look on their faces. It was one of pity, and I had nothing to be sad about. We had a wonderful forty-two years together. I was blessed with George, and his death crushed me, but I knew I had to keep on.”

Again, I didn’t know what to say, so I looked away and continued wandering as Mrs. Boyer continued watching me.

“What were you doing hanging around the junkyard, anyway?” Apparently it was her turn to ask the questions.

“I don’t have much else to do, I guess,” I replied. “I always see you playing alone. Don’t you have any

friends?”“Not really.”At this point I was done looking at all of the pictures.

They seemed to be in some sort of chronological order, starting in a time before Mr. Boyer. These pictures were mainly of what looked to be her family and friends growing up. There also seemed to be a lot of pictures of her playing the piano. The pictures ended with a feeble looking Mr. Boyer sitting in the very spot Mrs. Boyer was now sitting. It must have been sometime shortly before he died, right before I was born.

“So your house seems really clean and you already have the boy down the street do your yard work. What exactly am I supposed to do for this punishment?”

Ignoring my question, she got up from that very spot. “I want to show you something,” she said as she started

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walking back towards the entryway. I obediently followed behind her, not knowing what to expect. She was headed towards the dark room, and I imagined what was in it. Either another room full of pictures or a torture chamber to punish me for all of my wrongdoings. But, as she flipped on the light, I saw neither.

The room was painted all white, except for the front wall, which was the same color of red as the swing outside. It was completely empty, except for one thing: right in the middle of the room, a magnificent grand piano that seemed to swallow the room up completely. The outside of the piano was a satiny black with shiny brass wheels, pedals, and accents. The keys were as white as freshly fallen snow and stood out against the black on the rest of the piano. The side closest to me read “Steinway & Sons” in the same bronze color as the rest of the accents. Even at twelve I knew what it was: breathtakingly beautiful.

This belief was amplified by the look in Mrs. Boyer’s eyes as she gazed at it. You could tell a lot of time and energy was spent on that grand piano. “It’s a Steinway & Sons Model D Concert Grand Piano,” she explained. “It’s almost nine feet long and weighs just under a thousand pounds. You don’t even want to know how much it cost. I don’t think you could count that high at your age.”

“How long have you had it?”“I got it three months before you were born. Your

mama watched from your porch—big as a buffalo—as we tore down walls to get it in here. I had the old one since I graduated from Julliard in 1922, and it was just too much to keep up with the repairs. It was a lot of work, but George knew that it was what I wanted.”

“You went to Julliard?” I inquired, with big eyes and more than just a hint of surprise detectable in my voice.

“Yes—many moons ago,” she laughed. “Since then I’ve been with seven different orchestras and composed

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numerous songs.”“Why aren’t you in an orchestra anymore?”“My fingers just aren’t as strong as they used to be,

Susan. Playing hurts me now. It’s the disease of old age. Arthritis.”

“Please play something for me,” I practically begged, as I hopped up on the bench next to her. She started playing—what I would later learn to be Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 Op. 23. I sat there watching, completely mesmerized, as her fingers did a sort of dance across the keyboard. About fifteen minutes into playing, she stopped and looked at me.

“Would you like to learn to play?” she asked.“You’d teach me?” I asked, incredulously. “Of course! What else do I have to do? I’ll see you

tomorrow, same time. We’ll start then.” I was leaving happy and excited, the complete opposite of how I thought I was going to leave. I was picturing an evening playing Parcheesi with a grumpy, old lady whom I was supposed to entertain. Instead, it seemed as though we both benefited from each other’s company.

As I was walking out the door, I smiled and said, “Thank you Mrs. Boyer.”

“Call me Katherine.” She closed the door behind her and waited for me to cross the street and walk into my house. Then she turned off her porch light, leaving the big red swing to gently sway in the darkness of the evening breeze.

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TristanIvory Davis

You are emeralds wrenched from the earth.You are ravens flocking overhead, soft feathers brushing my skin, gentle rush of wind.You are my father, the pillar propping up my bent back.You are my mother, an indomitable force towering over me.You are the strumming guitar, the broken voice, the macabre melody shattering me.You are indecision, fluid.You are the pain that turns my thoughts. Kindness in a gesture, hatred in a glance.You are faith in my strength. Faith in love, faith.You are the emptiness that I fill slowly, piece by piece, while I wait.You are me. The part I cannot send away, the part I cannot live without.Who are you?

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Grandma’s Mexican SongAaron Ostrenga

Ethos personified in tamales Mexican to core slowly formed by native, tireless, hands. Grandmother’s twin instruments pluck acidic strings of seedlings from dried chili corpses. I, the student, play a faulty imitation as I admire her song in fluid motion. Corpses are the chili husks, put to pot, steeped. Boil in water. Patiently wait. Melodies pause for a moment in time. The player knows the score. She deftly adds pork meat from the hind thigh, broiled on a high chord, a scalding heat. The notes are just as necessary to relay scent, sound, aroma, the well-tuned note un-frayed in the kitchen as the spices rise to tantalize the taste. Chili flames imbue the pork with life-like Lazarus

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rising with each crescendo melodies imprinted on the soul of the marriage of chili, meat, and bone. See, smell, taste, touch the essence of marinated creation. Apportion the browned flesh from heated broth. Words, and notes, and chords, meaningless forces in the face of experience. Improvisation and memory mark the road to music creation. Failure is just another word for success until the future deems the work a beautiful opus. Pour, aware what is not needed. But always return to what was left behind. Pork is not discarded only left for another step. Add the chili broth to corn flour. Ivory hues of the powder slowly blend with fiery red chili hues absorbing the flames of the dish leftovers from chili souls. Not powder, not broth, just orange tinted dough instrument fingers play, strong hands knead to soft perfection. Final step, finale to the song, the meat with soul finds home in the heart of the chili dough. Steam in heated beat, rhythm slow enough to create the ballad. Slow cooker holds it all together. Grandma wipes her brow, tender grin; I know that taste of the song will be the essence of her smile.

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El FlamencoNevin Snyder

Many a time I’ve stared at you vivaciously. The tone of your voice churns thoughts unstirred. Music from your lips dancingly takes me, and the beat of your body has me cured. The curves of our members sift through the sheets of passionate fires. My pelvis holds tight the rhythmic tide of where we’ll meet. How the tempo consumes me! Your hips move just right. The ritardando of your step plateaus exhilaration. Climaxing inside of you thrusts nails down my side. Breasts press upon me, a kiss of elation, while the drum of our hearts, through skin, confide. The fermata of our chorus begot the night’s air. Easily you sleep; my fingers sift through your hair.

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Oh Western Prince!Amy Stourac

Oh Western Prince! Take me to your Crystal Palace!Show me your might in iron, glass and steel. Bring your guns and your machines of destruction and wipe out everything we as people hold sacred. Take the best of what is ours and leave us with child. We will nurture this child of greed and it will bringexploitation and oppression to our world as it has yours.

Oh Western Prince! Save us from the burden of our own ignorance, for we did not know that living must be without joy. Before your rescue we had time to play, time to teach, time to love. Now our children learn as yours do, in large groups in a sterile setting instead of at homeat their mother’s and father’s knee.

Thank you also, sweet Prince, for the gift of hunger. Once we had more than enough food to share, but now we understand how wonderful life tastes when each day you wonder if it will be your last.

Thank you, Sweet Western Prince! For without your mercy, we would simply be indigenous people…

But now we can say…We are Westernized!

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MidnightsIvory Davis

At night, the moon makes your skin ethereal— pale as its light, shining with the sweat of our bodies intertwined. Your hair the dark void between star and moon— silken void of heady scents. The owl’s hoot, soft whoosh of wings— lost beneath the sound of groaning breath, flesh slipping on flesh. The stars glistening— envious of those eyes, half-lidded. Eyes glorious like grass. Eyes glorious like lust. Emeralds seething—with desire, with tears. The moon rushes to its peak— drag me with it... Higher, higher until night takes us and we move no more.

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My Softball GloveStephanie Russell

My softball glove is just my size.It’s brown and tan with some black ties. Smelly, faded, covered in dust, there’s no other mitt I would trust.The best of them all, in my eyes.

For every throw, my glove replieswrapping itself around the prize.Seldom has it caused me disgust.My softball glove. Low to the ground, I use my thighs,ready for a play to arise. On the pitch I have to adjustfor the hitter, strong and robust.Crack! I am not caught by surprise.My softball glove.

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Your Mentalis, My Mark Twain

Alison Swanson

“Don’t ask me anything,” I said, “Then I won’t have to tell you any lies.” You take my words with easy acceptance, pulling me towards you, pulling me into your arms, doing what you can to create happiness. I laugh in your bedroom; you smile at me with muscles you tell me about in the mornings. Frontalis, nasalis, risorius—these are for smiling. Shutting the door behind me, I have to go, I am two steps away from your threshold, I have left all of the air behind. You gave me new lungs; I cannot breathe. We are together; we are unraveling quickly, oh-so quickly. I’m afraid to pull at strings, afraid to notice flaws. Flaws? You’d say. You’d smile with your zygomaticus major (and minor). True, none of the warning signs are present, We give each other life, We move in, out, like water on the river.

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“Let’s light out for the territory!” I’m navigating; I’m speeding out of control. You’re smiling and I tell you: You are my Huckleberry Finn, my Jim. The water is rising; our raft has leaks.

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He Was Happy (Ode to Hemingway)

Jessica Joens

Dean sat on the bed with his gun. He liked to clean his gun. He took the rag and rubbed it up and down. Dean was 19. He had never shot his gun before. She was coming over. He was happy. He looked at the time. She would be there any minute. He cleaned his gun faster. Dean wanted to get it perfect. He pushed the bullets into the gun. He lightly tapped the safety. He was happy. The storm was moving in. It might ruin their night. She would come any minute. He rubbed his gun faster. Dean wanted to get it perfect. Thunder clapped. His hand moved faster. His heart raced. The door opened. His head snapped. His finger clutched. The gun went off. He was happy.

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My Places in the WoodsChristopher Emery

I’m with our dog, Tallulah; she sits in the yard, stern and erect as the guardian of our lawn, yet silly and out-of-place with her fluffy-chocolate, poodle-pup fur. She stares off at something across the driveway, but pays no attention to the deer families eating peacefully a few hundred feet away on the edge of the property and in the woods above. Sometimes she’ll notice the deer, turkeys, and squirrels to chase them, but not the way Tessie did—I forget how different Tallulah’s flamboyant, attention-seeking personality is from the humble, unpretentious temperament that Tessie had. Tessie would spend her days resting her head on the window ledges, vigilant all night and day, always looking out for the family: she was our guardian. Her golden-brown, white and black collie coloring came together in an elegant coat accented by the neutral tones of the undisturbed forests we lived around. These woods were her territory—her place and mine. Maybe Tallulah will learn that this is her place, too—her place and mine.

Here, back once more to the edge of the woods I once knew at the gateway to the world that sits knowingly at our backdoor. What do I call this place? What does it mean to me?—questions I can’t answer on my own; it’s been too long. I don’t remember what first brought me to think of exploring the woods. Maybe it was seeing the deer and turkeys migrate up and down these hills and wondering where they were heading. Maybe I followed Tessie there to see why she was wandering through the woods, too. Maybe my best friend Graham and I had wanted to see if we could

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cut through the woods instead of using the quarter-mile of road to get to our houses. And, maybe, I wanted to see what there was at the crest of the hill—the one that looked over our house. Regardless of how my exploring began in the woods, it expanded my world as a nine- and ten-year-old. In these years I journeyed; my life had been in these woods. But is it still there now?

Mr. Landenberger rakes the leaves off his driveway into the back of his pickup truck, and we each exchange greetings as Tallulah and I pass by to make the ascent. I tell him about the bald eagle I saw the other day in the cottonwood by the canal—he was poised, like Tallulah, without concern for the squealing crows in the encompassing branches.

She beats me to the starting place, detecting the puffs of fresh activity left by the deer up the way, and stopping to question the smell. Beneath the spotty canopy, I breathe as well in the presence of something in the air, but ’Lula seems to neither share nor notice this scent. It’s not the deer or the leaves scraped and piled along the gravel by Mr. Landenberger’s rake, but a familiar smell: rain and moisture, earth and decay, bristle and thorn, bark and shrub, foliage fermenting—her place and mine.

To the left, the deer again; the mother stares down with black marble eyes. I ran by the creek once with my friend, Joey, and as I skipped ahead through the brush, there in front of me was a deer: a body of rotting bones with all but the head remaining intact. With head twisted back and gazing in my direction, its eyes were endless, unchanging, and seemingly senseless like something neither dead nor alive. Those are the eyes of a deer: portals of speculation as to the life or the death of the animal—a fear and beauty that man must acknowledge. We peer into another person’s eyes and search for the meaning of her or his life, but it is not so in the woods, not with the deer. Their eyes are mysteries to us, and maybe ours to them. I can never assume whether

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the body on the ground no longer lives; I cannot tell of the life the animal had, but my eyes stare at the body hoping that, just maybe, we too may know what it knows.

The mother deer stamps her foot at ’Lula and me, guarding her children, and after returning our stares, she turns and leaves with her fawns at her side.

There, down below, Mr. Landenberger’s pond is dark—black as tea—but reflective enough to see the loom of trees in the sky on its leaf-dotted surface. The wind up top hardly ripples its water—only tempts it, to change the flatness of its canvas. ’Lula walks in triangular patterns around me, never straying too far. I ask her, “Where are you going, ’Lula?”

She continues without noticing, perusing the ground and bushes for their aromas. I look at the ground below my feet, at the light pinks, browns, and reds that envelop the soles of my shoes: the basswood, oak, elm, ash, and maple. These leaves and their trees change for the seasons becoming part of the floor, making up the surface of the woods. The hills and soils do too, but they’re much slower. They take in only what changes the leaves and trees bring to them; the seasons have little effect on their composition. I think I’ve changed like the leaves and trees; every season of every year affects me in a new way. Maybe I change like the hills and the soils, preserving the composition of my inner-being, slowly uncovering what it is as I experience the changes to the leaves and trees of my surface. I stare again at the surface of the pond: richly dark and intensely ominous—the eyes of the deer—where the mysteries of life are held in their grasp. I think they’re held in mine and hers, too, whether we are aware or not—these are ours and theirs: our places and theirs.

“Where are we going, ’Lula?”

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EncapsuledAunna Ruiz

Your pink shell holds molecules which unleash eyes

showing us how to see. Frame by frame. Beyond reality, beyond conformity. Except

not on your own. Secrets maintained by another force. Fleshy substances

with bigger illusions looking for answers.

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GriefRachel Dee

If I blink I might miss that final glance, that final chance to say farewell. Your delicate hand is cold like a stone. I squeeze, you squeeze thus show our love. I remain composed, afraid to cry. It would make this true: antiseptic, wheezing breath, salty droplets. I look in your eyes and know you will find your way home.

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Jonathan BergerVictorian Death Portrait, inkjet print

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Namrata Raghvani Personality Cover, digital print on paper

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Adrienne BaileyBras, ink and charcoal on paper

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Cody BouwmanRed Seat Repose, pastel and ink on paper

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Adrienne Hershey Apple Diptych, oil on canvas

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Rebecca RedmondUntitled, painted clay

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Scott DroesslerSaffron-Gatherer, fused glass

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Sarah EkwallUntitled, acrylic, ink and glue on canvas

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Aunna RuizOyster-scapes, photo etchings on paper

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Kate TillSelf Portrait, charcoal on paper

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Travis Schaufenbuel London Fish Cage, ink on paper

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Caleb UpahWall Street, oil pastel on paper

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A PortraitSara Jacobmeyer

‘De Mirijian, New York’ the only clue to who you are— embossed in the lower left corner in the shadow of your cupid’s bow and those sultry eyes—innocent drama in a fur coat. Cracked sepia darling of the Jazz Age, of the small stage— holding your breath behind broken glass and trapped in a gilded frame plagued by decades of waiting to be noticed: brooding and silent.

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Mindful of ArtCody Bouwman

“It’s for your own good.” I’ve heard this phrase on many occasions when I’m reluctant to invest time in a potentially beneficial endeavor. I tell myself these same words those Sunday mornings when I walk down the dorm sidewalk steps to the parking lot. The birds are chirping, the fall foliage creates an almost palpable mix of warm colors, and the sun is a cherubic orb of delight in the sky, but I couldn’t give a damn. I’m a controlled mess who’s feeling sleep deprived and severely doubting any good to come from this. My hair is greasy because I didn’t take the time to shower. My eyes are bloodshot, perhaps to distract from the bags underneath them. I’m carrying a large 14-by-17 inch sketchbook under one arm, a plastic carrying case crammed full of art supplies under the other, and a coffee mug is clenched in my teeth. I do a balancing act that would make the Ringling Brothers proud in order to open my back passenger door. After a short jaunt down Seventeenth Street to First Avenue and a few successive right turns, I arrive and park. The Coe Arts Building stands before me—it’s time to do work. For almost two semesters, I’ve taken the same fifteen minute drive to Coe College’s three-hour, ten a.m. Sunday Life-Drawing Session. The supplies I use and the people who decide to show are always different, but the basic premise remains the same: one nude model, six to eight one-minute drawings, four or five twenty-five minute drawings, and one thirty-five-to-forty-five minute drawing. You pay about an hour before the session is done: free for Coe Students, eight dollars for outsiders, four dollars for

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other college students. I shudder to think how much has been spent cumulatively for my four-dollar sessions. Then again, it is probably a better alternative to sleeping one’s life away every weekend, I suppose. Not to mention there are far worse things that money could have been put into: fast food, drugs, illegal firearms, and interpretive dance come to mind.

I’ve always tried to be five minutes early; even just five minutes late would mean missing the quick drawing poses, which would be terrible because quick sketches are the best way to get my hand all loosey-goosey. Relaxed gesture is always preferable to stiff, over-thinking reaction, at least in my book—a book that could admittedly use a bit of editing.

Tables are arranged in a rough circle around a small central stage-like area where the model resides. Lights are positioned on an octagonal structure hanging from the ceiling that encircles the central stage, allowing for easy and versatile adjustment of light source. Usually the veterans of this activity are already positioned in their spots of choice by the time I walk in. Consequently, I’m most often left facing the entrance, also known as “get-ready-to-draw-the-backs-of-bodies-land.” True, interesting shadows can be cast on the back and spine, but this is little solace to an artist bereft of the opportunity to draw most of the model’s defining features.

At first, the models I drew didn’t vary widely in size and shape. In fact, the first few months of nude drawing for me can only be recalled as a non-stop stream of drawing borderline overweight to morbidly obese women. Not that this ever really mattered—God knows it has never been my intention to use drawing time as a convoluted ploy to gawk at women. The nude individual is just an object to render, like a lamp or a toaster in a still life. When an artist is concentrated on capturing the line, value, and form, the person as a whole becomes an afterthought, relegated to the end result.

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I’ve considered posing as a figure in the past. That may sound strange to some who know me as something of an introvert. But the prospect is easier for artists to consider because they have the most familiarity with talking to and working with nude models. Yes, I’d be without clothing, but that doesn’t mean I’m “laying myself bare” for everyone, so to speak. The appeal is there: standing, sitting, kneeling, or lying in one spot for a few hours and getting paid decently to do so. I could think of more demeaning jobs with one’s clothes on. As the subject in a life drawing session, I’d be like the statue of David, or The Thinker, or a skeleton in an anatomy lab—really just a means to an end for fellow visual artists. That being said, at age twenty-two, I’ve yet to make any tangible commitment to trying it out. Sometimes words and thoughts are very different from final action.

Fatigue is all I feel when first sitting down and pulling out my supplies: pencils 8H to 8B, charcoal, erasers, ink, pastels; what is used depends on a whim. Some artists come with an exact system and medium; they lay out their supplies and rigorously apply that one form of mark-making to hone their craft. Others, mainly the students, pull out a sketchbook and plug away with pencil or charcoal. Some come to it with far more conviction than me. Others look as though they are waiting to fill the “sketch quota” necessary for them to leave.

Drawing begins: the quick sketches are jagged awkward messes, for me anyway. Hesitancy in mark-making tends to rear its ugly head. Great difficulty comes in making a long, sweeping line and sticking with it. I work in pen to fight off the urge to erase mistakes. Lines cascade out from my gesture in rapid sequence. My internal monologue confounds me: “Don’t think about the time”; “Pay attention to what you’re doing”; “Don’t stiffen up. Stay loose: that’s what these gesture drawings are for”; “Time’s up. Already? I hadn’t even started on the head! Too bad, move on, press

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forward; you are not your artwork”…or so I’ve been told.I wonder if Manet, Caravaggio or Currin ever had this

problem: not finishing the heads or feet of their models by the time a session concluded. Maybe there is a secret underground bunker of headless masterpieces hidden underneath the Smithsonian or something. Perhaps there will be a big exhibition of those works in Chicago or New York someday. I could probably get a whole room to myself: “For exceptional adeptness at rendering nearly all the essential parts of the human visage, we salute you sir!” It would spark a whole new trend of people getting paintings done of them and their cats or dogs or families without the faces. The portraitists would probably be out for my blood.

Maybe I should do what Priscilla does: draw a leg this time, an arm the next time, a head later still. It could serve my purpose of improvement pretty well. Knowing me, though, I’ll probably lose the left knee and right elbow and be set back weeks from completing a single piece. She must be really organized for that; she says her studio is full of “body parts.” Ha! Only an artist and a mortician can get away with saying stuff like that. That should go on my “list of things that aren’t okay to whisper to other people,” right up there with “I like children,” and “shovels are really useful.”

Wait! Stop! Focus on the task at hand. Drawing is why I’m here; concentrate on the woman with the shoulder tattoo that says “Fear.” Why did she get that I wonder? Is it to remind herself that fear is a thing to be overcome; or is it to symbolize fear always being at our backs? Dammit, I’m doing it again!

The twenty-five minute poses begin. They are less dynamic, less expressive. They have to be: the model isn’t Wonder Woman—able to hold herself up on a single leg like a statue for hours on end. I switch to pencils—time to breathe, time to make mistakes and erase them from

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existence or at least from memory. Working with pencils has always, in my mind, given me the license to screw up a bit. Ink and watercolor can be so unforgiving; a few too many incorrect lines or value shifts and you’re sunk. Pencils were also much easier to come by as a child. After all, what kid doesn’t come to school with at least a single pencil? Add to that equal parts boredom during class and a notebook and POW! Experience with one visual arts medium is born.

I start to lay out the rough, light outline of the standing figure. Ideally this process should only take five to ten minutes—a goal rarely achieved. The proportions are challenging, especially on women, where subtlety is key. I extend my arm and look at my pencil through one open eye, I measure the head length; the body is divided into units based on that length. The average person is six to six-and-a-half head-lengths tall. The measurement can be exaggerated depending on the purpose; cartoons typically reduce the number of head-lengths to four or five while comic books make an increase to seven or eight. In real life the head rests on the shoulders; in drawing everything else rests on the head.

My misery at being up and about on a Sunday might continue throughout an entire session, or it can be extinguished in an instant if a longer drawing is going well. It’s a rush to have all the marks come together in a pleasing way, see my creation reach some semblance of fruition, and make the transition from the mind to the paper. Even more than a really fine cup of coffee, a good drawing can turn my whole morning around.

It harkens back to some ingrained sense of purpose and accomplishment I had when I was a child doing the same thing, though admittedly with very different subject matter. For hours on end, the eight-year-old version of me would mark away with crayons, markers, pencils, pens or whatever could be found to place an image on white paper.

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There was no forethought, just a spontaneous overflow of creative force. How many pictures? How much jovial time was spent turning synaptic impulses into hectic, youthful motion, in a process and end product that I believed had merit? I can’t say. I only know I lost some part of the youthful exuberance in years past—when creativity and motivation were staunched by my own critical gaze. I’m still trying to regain the full joy. But enough; time is wasting.

We’re reaching the end, and the forty-five minute drawing begins. The model lies down—the time is far too great to stand as she might pass out holding such a pose. We instruct her on the adjusting of arm position, the twisting of hips; lights are repositioned or turned on and off to create desirable shadows and contrast. Some people move to different locations in the circle; a reclining pose, when positioned nearest to the feet or head, lends itself well to practicing foreshortening. Some wish to capture this. Others avoid it like the plague.

I’m feeling adventurous: I take out my orange marker and a bag of pastels. The initial sketch goes down in orange, ultra fine-tip marker. It’s impossible to erase, but also so bright that it blends into the white paper—barely visible. Pastels are layered down next. I ponder about what colors to choose. Peach? Brown? White? Blasphemy! The human skin doesn’t abide to such strict color confines. What’s more, the eye is capable of seeing well over two million colors; why restrict the palette options? I place down violet, crimson, and dark umber in the shadowed portions of the body while sea-foam green and cream take up the role of pale, light-drenched flesh. I mix and rub the hues and values together with my thumb and index finger while placing down additional layers; new colors come out from the amalgamation of others. My page isn’t big enough. The body wants more room. Great difficulty comes to me in placing small details with thick colors on a one-inch

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tall face. A muddled blotch exists where the face should be—an addition to my collection—but the shading on the body looks well enough done. Time comes to a close. The others begin packing up; they close their sketchbooks and portfolios and put away their own tools of the trade. I usually linger for a bit, finishing up some detail that would bring the last drawing of the day one step closer to being a finished work. Nothing is ever really “finished” though. One of the biggest lessons for an artist to learn is when to say, “I’m done with this piece; it is as good as I can make it right now.” A far easier task when I’m satisfied with the end product.

If a Coe drawing time goes well for me, I walk away alert, excited, and feeling as though I made solid progress in improving my artistic skills. Art transitions from an idea waiting to be captured to a physical reality on the page. My internal self may then reflect the external world’s bright disposition or outshine it if the weather decides to be gray and dreary. There is comfort in knowing that my abilities and creative process have been engaged. On those Sundays, the phrase “It’s for my own good” genuinely resonates in me.

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Thunder, Water, WomanAaron Ostrenga

Amorous affection wings as the doves soaring to the heavens.Tossed hair, over shoulder, blond simmering seductionscreaming at me seemingly glitters.Smooth skin appeals to me in soft solicitationsfor the blessing of a thousand caresses.Clouds shower fresh and wetdescending silent progress over her bodylike the soil as the wet drops of earth’s tearsfrom the skies that shudder with thunderousapplause for creations full of passionsdamp and flowing in a slow crawlquests over ample hills and glidingthrough, down, inspecting depths of fathomless valleysseeping, leaking, filling, falling throughthe lands and dirt and moist earth into the dirt.Until the sky ceases to crack the lighting whip,the land accepts every last drop of torrential fury.

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WinningJessica Joens

As I drive on down the highway in my beat up Chevy truck my hair is blowing in the wind and I don’t give a fuck Charlie Sheen is in the back seat shouting that I’m winning while the world closes in around us and my mind keeps on spinning I’m about to pull a Thelma and Louise when Charlie shouts from the back be brave my beautiful goddess your life will get back on track I’m not sure if I should trust him if his rambling is just a delusion but I get back on the road of life as I try to figure out my confusion

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SaturdayRobb Tigan

Warren

Can someone please remind me why I do this? Every fucking year it’s the same shit. Seriously. Every. Fucking.Year. I hate doing this. They treat us like shit. We’re treated like (somehow smellier) cattle. It’s five ’til. I’m gonna have to plug in to block out the mooing (’cause I ought to be ashamed I associate myself with this mass of people-bacteria). Oh magical iPod please, dear God, give me something good to get through these next five minutes of fucking absolute hell. Should I kill myself? Because I just realized that both the fellow next to me and I are wearing the same shirt—though his has a nice Dorito-ey orange sheen to it.

Dearly beloved we are gathered here todayto get through this thing called lifeElectric word life. It means forever and that’s a mighty long time.

Thanks iPod, I can work with this. The Minnesota Midget has a point—forever is a very long time. That’s how long I feel like I’ve been here. I wish I would’ve gotten press passes like my shit-friends; but for some reason the new guy got mine. I’ve been doing this for like ten years; he sees one movie and he thinks he can live in this world. The new guy doesn’t even work on the podcast and you know who cuts that shit together? This guy. Ed is too nice—that’s

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all there is to it. Oh snap. The Green Shirts say two more minutes—bony elbows don’t fail me now! Move, random out-of-place Goth chick! Hey, maybe she’ll discover brown while she’s here, and next year I’ll be elbowing random out-of-place Steampunk chick. Move out of my way, fat Logan. Nobody fat looks good in a wife beater. Fact. Dear guy dressed as ‘The Crow’: you’ll be sleeping sitting up in the lobby to keep that Mohawk in shape. I would not want to be in your car on the way home. Front of the line. Let’s do this. Feel that? That’s the feeling of coming home. It always takes me until this moment every year to remember why I do this. That’s a once in a lifetime feeling. Hey guess what, it’s eleven, and they are actually opening the floor. That’s pretty prompt compared to previous years. Here. We. Go! Take me away!! Indeed. Mr. Nelson. Indeed.

Ed

It’s so empty in here. These press passes make me feel like the last man on Earth. I lost Jimmy when we walked in. That kid’s like a butterfly. Why did I think that it was a good idea to invite him again? I’m here because I made a horrible mistake. I want to become an artist for one of the companies here. My first choice would be Marvel because they seem to let their artists maintain some personal style, unlike DC where all of their artists have to be Jim Lee clones. Blech! I lost my respect for Lee somewhere between “Hush” and “All Star Batman and Robin.” I mean, really, finish an issue, dude. The ‘King’ was on like eight books a month back in the day, and he finished them on time. You can’t even finish a three-issue mini on time. I remember back when I got into the game. You were the golden boy back then. You and the rest of The Splash Page Boyz (why the z? ’cause everything was EXTREME!!!!!!!!!!! back then) formed Image and released, what, eight different number ones for every book?

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It took me years to find guys like Ditko, Colon, Grell, Perez, and Adams. It took Kirkman’s “Skybound” stuff to make Image a competitor again. Crap! I just realized I said half of that stuff out loud within earshot of Rob “Tiny Ankles and POUCHES!!!!” Liefeld’s table. I hate you Rob. I hate you so very, very much. He’s looking at me. I was shaking my fist in the air like Kirk, wasn’t I? Yeeeppp. I was. How do I get out of this situation diplomatically? Should I just throw my earbuds in all casual like and run like hell? Thank you gods of irony. Oh thank Crom: they opened the floor up to the general public. Time to get lost in the crowd.

Jimmy

The fellas were so nice to invite me to come with ’em to this thing. There’s so much to see here! It’s so big and empty. It’s kinda nice; the stillness pervades every molecule of this place. It’s a serene silence—one that I’m completely comfortable in. Not like that car ride up here. That was a VERY tense kind silence. Most of it was directed my way. Warren clearly hates me. I said I liked Watchmen, you know, the movie. He tried to stab me in the throat with a Panda Express fork. I am picking up a good number of the “DCnU” titles, and when I said I liked Barbara Gordon as Batgirl more than as Oracle, Warren tackled me and put me in a figure four leg lock. That hold hurts. Ed had to rabbit punch him like eight times to get him to let go. I’m clearly an outsider among outsiders, and I don’t mind that. I’m going to walk the floor some before the crowds disrupt this calm silence. I think I’ll go look for those Green Lantern trades Ed was telling me about. This is my first time up here. I’m pretty excited. I’m really quite open to anything as far as books go. Like I said: Ed was really helpful when I asked for his recommendations. But so far, the things that he has pointed out look horrendously dated (art wise). I

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wonder if I brought enough money? I guess we shall see.

Hello darkness, my old friendI’ve come to talk with you againbecause a vision softly creepingleft its seeds while I was sleepingand the vision that was planted in my brainstill remainswithin the sound of silence.

Warren

So, my friends, it’s another Con Sunday. I’m hungover, walking the floor, waiting for Jimmy James over there to get done seeing everything. I know Con Sundays are usually a waste. The kid will get there eventually. Ed is Tetris-ing bags into the car. He has been banned for today because he fought with the talent. He saw Rob Liefeld in a bar and accosted him verbally. He was very drunk. Liefeld said Ed’s art is probably shit. So, I’m off to throw “How To Draw the Marvel Way” at him because: number one: Ed is my friend. Two: I want to hurt somebody, and three: fuck that guy for Deadpool and all his other shit. That’s why I stole some kid’s V/Guy Fawkes costume. I don’t want to get caught. I would hate to be banned like my dumb friend. But hey, if I do get banned, it’s no big thing; this is the kind of dumb thing one does for a friend. Alright, here we go: “Suck on this you fuckin’ hack fuckin’ artist!”

Oh. Looks like I didn’t even make it onto his table, let alone hit him. Shit. Time to disappear into the crowd. Where’s that fuckin’ phone? “Ed! Get the plane up! Get the plane up! We gotta go! Now! I got smoky on my tail!”

Have I mentioned I love this?

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AwashRachel Dee

Rain plinks and trickles down tin of squat farm houses. Grime slides, awash in wet pearls—a new day.

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41°53°16°N, 91°3°33°WStephanie Russell

My story began on Plum Avenue.A gravel road divided fertile soiland our home. A place unknown to peopleof celebrity. Even presidentObama himself could not pinpoint thisspot on a map, and that’s okay with me.

The owner of the local restaurantknows how to make your favorite sandwichjust the way you like it. Turkey on wheat.

Clarence, Iowa. My hideaway fromthe rest of the world. A place where you canscream at the top of your lungs and not asingle soul can hear you. A place where thesidewalk contains not only your handprints,but those of your father and his father.

A place where everybody knows your nameand your business, and that’s okay with me.

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BreatheSara Jacobmeyer

Adrenaline left me thinkingthat maybe I shouldspend my working years checkingarterial blood gases and skippingevery lunch to respondto a code blue.I knew from experiencethat the rise and fall,the unconscious, life-givingmovement, becomes dearestwhen slipping under the surface.And as I made conversionsto benefit the livingand praised the elasticityof healthy alveoli,I remembered a dream,obscured by droplets of humiditystuck in the ridged tubes of ventilators,that, after all, left me rather hungryfor the spidery script of OldBailey magistratesand the hidden humorof doctoral dissertations.

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So Many QuestionsJessica Joens

What were your dreams as a boy? Was it to be a business owner? Or did you want to fly to the moon? Maybe be the next Elvis. What did you think of Mom the first time you saw her? Was she the most beautiful woman in the world? Was it her smile that pulled you in? Or maybe her infectious laugh? What was it like being a father? Was it everything you thought? Or was it better? Perhaps worse? What was your last thought before dying? Was it of your children? Or the first time you met Mom? Was it the dreams you had as a boy?

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Love Is Kristine Kouba

They fall in love over a cup of hot tea lazy steam floats from the cup as frustrated fingers fumble with chopsticks as chipper Chinese music seeps through overhead speakers as he sits across from an unknown creature Love is there in the deserted restaurant and smells like sesame chicken sweaty palms and a new beginning Love is there in a wind turbine in the vast fields in western Illinois The blades turn with an easy and incessant motion and the structure never falters Love is the vast fields under the wind turbine each field stretches for miles and its end can never be seen The beholder can only hear the rustle of the crop leaves but cannot see where the leaves cease to exist She has never been to Myrtle Beach to see the ocean nor has she been to Solona Beach to see the ocean but she has seen the ocean She walks in a back yard with him to watch the leaves of bean plants create green waves as the western wind blows on that August afternoon she soon realizes that after three years

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love is there by the field and sounds like silent beans posing while he snaps a steady picture Love is still here in tea, turbines, telephone calls and it tastes like sesame chicken

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StorytellerLaina Pilkenton

I stumble along the gap-infested trailthat lies before me. I am plagued byhalf-empty coffee cups, crumpled sheets of paper, dried-out pens,broken promises, half-written sentences, whiny side characters,discarded dialogue, forgotten notes, the pattern: “write, revise, edit.” The forecast is cloudy, the journey is long, but one-by-one,I leap over them all.

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Creative Writing Contest Winners

Mount Mercy University congratulates Brennan Bogert from Regina High School for winning our second annual Creative Writing Contest for high school juniors.

Mount Mercy University would also like to recognize the following writers:

Second Place: Sarah Mork, Marion High SchoolThird Place: Marissa Bouska, North Fayette High School

Honorable Mentions:

Natalie Bonthius, Regina High SchoolCatherine Boyle, Columbus Catholic High SchoolMichael Clapp, Regina High SchoolXena Fitzgerald, Mount Vernon High SchoolKatherine Jamtgaard, West Hancock High SchoolKassie Kittredge, George Washington High SchoolElizabeth Schwendinger, Woodward-GrangerKimberly Shiu, Regina High SchoolNicole Tuttle, BGM Community High SchoolElizabeth Wilson, Regina High School

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My Neighbor’s DaughterBrennan Bogert

My landlord says quality of life is appliances and landscaping. He says it is cheap renovations to a façade to give the corner charisma. His aim is to please passers-by, to make the square kind to the eyes. From the corner, you can’t see the structure rotting, the foundation buckling, or mold expanding its fingers behind a wall. My landlord says satisfaction is appearances. His satisfaction is superficial, but he is satisfied because the lease was signed and initialed. However, quality of life is not the clearness of your skin, but how the world caresses it.

Quality of life is the quiet kisses of my neighbor’s daughter. Kate makes me happy. We don’t care where we are kissing just as long as we are alive. We live in the corners of our eyes; we live on the bumps of our spines. This satisfies us. Our seven-hour conversations, one hour for each holy day of the week, satisfy me. Quality of life depends on only one thing: that we are living.

Sometimes we claim we are misunderstood. Our parents ask why we come home caked in mud after dancing through the woods. The neighbors say the carpet will have to be dry-cleaned or steamed because we got dirty while we discovered what they forgot. We learned that there are still stars in the sky, and this satisfied us. The young man across the hall will pound his fists into the walls, telling us to quiet down. So we whisper until our breath builds up inside and we laugh.

Sometimes we fight. We get jealous and tired of straying glances. We shun each other’s touches and conversational

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advances. Sometimes we yell. We get violent. Or worse, when we get envious, we get silent. We besmirch each other until an apology becomes an edict. Then our arms continue to say I’m sorry, and we are vernal again.

Now Kate is away at college, and our kisses cannot carry that far. But we still call, send packages via snail mail, and sign long-distance hugs through Skype.

Her landlord is the college. Kate is happy where she is. And this satisfies me. Her landlord says quality of life is education while having a good time. I cannot disagree. Still I feel the sting when she is far away, but we still have each other and memories. This satisfies us both. My love convinces me that Kate’s education will change the world.

I cannot complain about our old home, the hallways we share when Kate is around. I can’t complain about the cold water while Kate is with me because somewhere around the corner, there are children bathing in manure. There is a woman paying for our LCD TVs with carcinomas shaped like coins, washing off the sting of battery acid in the same pot she will cook in. This is not the way they should be living, but they are. But this does not mean there isn’t happiness in their lives. This does not mean that the boys bathing in dirty water don’t, like me, have some girl that makes their faces widen every time they see her. The woman with cancer can still be proud of her baby, smile as she watches it walk. Some things are the same across all borders. What we calculate the quality of life to be for town hall meetings and insurance claims is not the same quality of life for the life we are just living.

Satisfaction is learning what quality of life is. It is not about façades or building an artificial skin. It is not about the leaks under the kitchen sink or the creak of stairs. It is not dressing a grave, making it look nice. We fill this lonely structure with each other, with photographs, letters, shadows of holding hands. We kiss and tell. We keep

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each other like water from a well, always there when we need. Satisfaction is laughing at the natural rhymes that flow easily. It is laughing because it is so easy to tease me. Satisfaction is wishing each other sweet dreams in the night because in the morning, we wake up to the real state of the square and the true quality of life.

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Notes on ContributorsAdrienne Bailey is a junior Art Education major.

A local of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Adrienne loves to watch Bollywood movies and spend time antiquing. This summer, she will have the opportunity to participate in a five-week art internship in Germany. Once she graduates, she plans to teach for a few years and then focus on her art.

Jonathan Berger is a senior Fine Arts and Graphic Design major. He approaches his artwork as a “behavioral scientist,” utilizing the scientific method to systematically interpret collected data. He often utilizes multiple media, such as photography, video, found object, and performance, in a single work. He hopes to attend graduate school after a year of exploration.

Brennan Bogert, a junior at Regina High School in Iowa City, is the winner of Mount Mercy’s second annual High School Creative Writing Contest.

Cody Bouwman is a double major in Fine Arts and English. He was born in northwest Iowa, the fifth of six children, and lived on a farm outside a small town called Alvord. His artwork leans towards the mediums of drawing and painting, with an emphasis on figurative and representational subject matter. He hopes to find a writing job, producing freelance artwork on the side, though he plans to pursue creative outlets wherever he can.

Ivory Davis is a senior English major and a Cedar Rapids native. She lived in Tacoma, Washington for six years, but upon graduating high school, she decided to

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return to Cedar Rapids in order to attend Mount Mercy. She loves to write poetry and prose, and wishes she had more time to do so.

Rachel Dee is a senior English Major and Creative Writing minor. She is originally from Cedar Rapids. After graduation, she would like to find a job close to home and finalize plans for her July wedding. She loves to read, travel and spend time with her family, especially her brothers Jacob (20) and Jordan (18).

Scott Droessler is a senior Fine Arts major from Des Moines, Iowa. His daughter is his inspiration for his current work. Becoming a father has been the greatest experience of his life. After graduation, he intends to focus on his glasswork and coach high school sports.

Sarah Ekwall is a senior Graphic Design major who is currently working on a Fine Arts-oriented senior thesis. She enjoys going for walks and making her way to parks. After graduating this May, she plans to get work experience with a museum and narrow down her interests for graduate school.

Christopher Emery was born in Columbia, Missouri, and after moving to Cedar Rapids, became a graduate of Washington High School. He enjoys drawing and sketching with a variety of mediums. His aspirations include possible careers in the llama ranching field, cartoon show production, or naturalistic writing/art. Chris is currently a dedicated pool technician at Pool Tech Midwest, Inc.

Adrienne Hershey is a freshman Fine Arts major from Alburnett, Iowa.

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Sara Jacobmeyer is a senior History major from Cherokee, Iowa. When not scouring various media for delightful historical obscurities, she enjoys spending time with her kitties and guinea pigs. Future aspirations include graduate school with an emphasis in British history and a special interest in all things Londonian.

Jessica Joens is a senior English major with minors in Film Studies and Creative Writing. She is the President of English Club and a former staff writer for the Mount Mercy Times. This past summer, she interned for The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, where she learned what it takes to put a television show together.

Maddy Jones is a sophomore Communications major from Hudson, Iowa. She keeps busy by being a member of the University volleyball team and by being the sports editor of the Mount Mercy Times.

Kristine Kouba is a senior Education and English major. Wyoming, Iowa is her hometown, and she graduated with a class of 47. After graduation, she hopes to find a job in the teaching profession in the state of Iowa. In her free time, she enjoys traveling to the east coast, working at Tabor Home Winery in Baldwin, Iowa, and reminiscing on memories of her dog, Molly.

Aaron Ostrenga is a senior English major. Before transferring to Mount Mercy, he received his associate degree from Kirkwood Community College. He has a wide variety of interests, but enjoys writing above the rest. He writes for the Mount Mercy Times, but also enjoys the creative elements such as script, prose, and poetry. After graduating in May, he plans to work in a writing field or attend graduate school.

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Laina Pilkenton is a senior English and Secondary Education major from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She plans to become a high school English teacher. In January, Laina enjoyed traveling to England to see the many historical sites that contributed to the British literary canon. Laina’s time at Mount Mercy University helped further her passion for the written word, which she hopes to pass on to her future students.

Namrata Raghvani is a senior Graphic Design major who is currently interning at Mount Mercy’s Marketing and Communications Office. She comes from Nairobi, Kenya. She is an avid reader and enjoys volunteering her time at the Cedar Rapids Art Museum. She is excited to graduate and anticipates finding a Graphic Design position in the United States.

Rebecca Redmond is a sophomore Marketing and Fine Arts major. Rebecca has variety of interests; apart from art, she enjoys sewing and dancing. She is also this year’s Art Club president and a member of the Mount Mercy Drama Club.

Aunna Ruiz is originally from Omaha, but grew up mostly in Cedar Rapids. This is her first year at Mount Mercy; she transferred from Kirkwood, and is a junior. After her time at Mount Mercy, she will transferr to art school to earn an MFA in printmaking. She enjoys anything to do with the arts and is looking forward to being an art professor.

Stephanie Russell is a junior English major and Legal Studies minor. She grew up in a small farming community in eastern Iowa and plans to stay in the area after graduating. Stephanie is an active member of the

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Mount Mercy University Choir, English Club, and softball team. She would like to attend law school after earning her undergraduate degree.

Travis Schaufenbuel is a senior Graphic Design major from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Nevin Snyder is a junior working towards an English major. He is from Vinton, Iowa, and plans to travel the world. Having an open, curious mind is what he strives for. Nevin believes that writing is one of the best forms of expression and that it can unlock potential in people that they never knew existed.

Amy Stourac is senior English major. Amy hopes to become a paid, published writer and to start a professional music studio where young local musicians can produce, perform, and learn under the tutelage of more seasoned local musicians. Amy has four children: Trevor (20), Jesse (18), Crystal (15), and Grant (9).

Alison Swanson is a senior English major and a Cedar Rapids native. She likes to read, eat, sleep, work, and travel. Ali is Vice-President of English Club and serves as a Resident Assistant on campus. She is looking forward to moving to Austin, Texas for a yearlong AmeriCorps term.

Maria Terzopoulou is a senior Graphic Design major and Business Administration minor. She comes from the small island of Aegina, in Greece. Maria has an interest in Art History, and that is the reason why her senior thesis is about the Byzantine iconography of the Virgin Mary found on the island of Aegina between the fifth and fifteenth centuries. When graduating in May, Maria will be working in the Graphic Design field and hopes to start taking Russian courses.

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Robb Tigan is a junior English major from Marion. His hobbies are reading comics, watching movies, and enjoying other general nerdery. He really hopes to find a job in the creative arts after college.

Kate Till is a freshman Fine Arts and Education major with an English minor. From Andrew, Iowa, she is involved in many activities on campus, including the volleyball team, the Drama Club, and Band Club.

Caleb Upah is a junior Art Education major from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

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Paha was composed in 11 point Iowan Old Style andprinted on Cougar Opaque Natural 70 lb. text.

80 lb. Sinar Glass Text and 80lb. White Sinar Glass Cover.The printer was Welu Printing Company.