Cammie is a CNF student at UCLA, workshopping a memoir about being raised by disabled parents and living off the grid in Yosemite. She lives with her husband, daughter & cat, Foofa, in Half Moon Bay.
Porcelain
CW: This essay discusses miscarriage.
by Cammie Clark
“Yours is the light by which my spirit’s born;
you are my sun, my moon and all my stars.”
~ e.e. cummings
This is a letter to the tile floor in my bathroom––hexagonal and white, grouted a dingy grey. I sit on the toilet, connecting imaginary shapes in the inch-sized pieces beneath my feet. Maybe the tiles are porcelain––they’re always cold––but they’re original, laid into the home about 100 years ago. I live here with my husband and daught...
The Joy Contained Within
When a lifetime of poverty collides with the Marie Kondo movement.
The Audacity of You
It will be a day like any other in 1984, the sun of the California foothills will bite your skin while you hobble out of your old pickup truck, teetering on one bony elbow weighted against the door set ajar to one carefully outstretched foot. Your 8-year-old daughter, nimble and agile, will bounce out of the passenger side, something you will make note of in the emptiness of your gut.
You will be acutely aware of the fiberglass back brace that extends from your armpit to your hip, and also of...
The Death of Artemio Cruz
A novel written in 1962 found its way into my hands for the first time during the summer of 1997.
The Death of Artemio Cruz, written by Carlos Fuentes, was my first experience with Latin American writers; it was the perfect segue into a genre of literature that would essentially send me down my own writerly path. In the fourteen years since I first opened its cover, I’ve re-read this novel and countless passages throughout my life on an as-needed basis, which equates to mostly weekly, sometim...
3rd Annual Trashion Show at Sunol Glen
EVENT DATE & TIME:
FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 2012
FIRST SHOW TIME: 12:10PM - 12:40PM
FINALE SHOW TIME: 1:00PM - 1:35PM
"SUNOL GLEN SCHOOL 3RD ANNUAL TRASHION SHOW EVENT"
SUNOL, CA, APRIL 27, 2012 – The Third Annual Sunol Glen Trashion Show is an event culminating a variety of week-long environmental activities hosted during Earth Week, April 23-27. The goal of this extremely popular event is to get students at this Bay Area K-8th Grade school thinking differently about waste in order to create positi...
Sunol Glen students pass along Earth Day knowledge
Did you know that almost 20 percent of the cold air inside your refrigerator escapes when you open the door?
Sunol Glen Elementary School eighth-graders Courtney Beddome, Charlotte Boag and Shaan-e Zehra passed on this and many other interesting facts about conserving and wasting resources in a PowerPoint presentation at the school’s first Earth Day celebration.
The student council-organized event had several stations set up around campus, each managed by a group of two or three leadership st...
Author knows his superheroes
SUPERMAN has the rippling muscles of a body builder and the leotard to match. Wonder Woman is bound in brass cuff bracelets with a lasso of truth resting firmly at her hip, not-so-subtly hinting at a world of fetishism. Even Batman’s nocturnal mask has conjured many a coquettish fantasy.
Is it really no wonder these superheroes were born from the minds of red-blooded teenage boys?
Or how about from a generation of young Jewish immigrants looking to assimilate into the unknown world of 1920s A...
Around Sunol by Cammie Clark
IF YOU HAVE EVER TAKEN a drive into the town of Sunol, you’ve probably traversed the majority of its downtown roadways, being that it is made up of just the four tree-lined streets of Main, Bond, Foothill and Kilkare. And while the drive around town would take you all of a few minutes, enveloped at the center is the Sunol Community Park, so neatly tucked away by the trees that even those on foot or bicycle miss its existence.
Created almost 15 years ago by the Sunol Business Guild, the park h...
Around Sunol by Cammie Clark
THE MONTH OF MAY HAS GIVEN way to June, and in Sunol, this means the bustling excitement of school children anticipating summer vacation, tourists stopping by to visit the town shops, and the frequent ringing of the local church bell welcoming new marriages.
Sunol has been aflutter with loads of activity, with plenty more on the horizon.
Early in May, Sunol Glen School welcomed the return of Heroes Day, resurrected by Alameda County Fire Commissioner Nick Chapman, a member of the Sunol Busine...
Group keeps Sunol park in tip-top shape
IF YOU HAVE EVER taken a drive into Sunol, you’ve probably traversed the majority of its downtown roadways, being that it is made up of four tree-lined streets: Main, Bond, Foothill and Kilkare. And while the drive around town takes all of a few minutes, at the center is Sunol Community Park, so neatly tucked away by the trees that even those on foot or bicycle can miss it.
Created almost 15 years ago by the Sunol Business Guild, the park has been managed and maintained in the past two years ...
Don’t forget to pack — and prepare — the kids
YOU’VE SCHEDULED your move in. Check. Called the movers. Check. Cleaned the junk out of storage and sent in your change of address. Check. And you’ve prepared your children for the big moving day.
Oops. You have told them, haven’t you?
A major part of a child’s growing experience is learning how to accept changes to their routines, and moving is a big one. During a move, don’t be surprised by the last-minute tears of your teenage daughter or the potty-training setback of your once-advanced 2-...