Tag: bookcoach
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on finding “om”
Yesterday I went to a yoga class where we began and ended by chanting “Om.” The first one, after only five minutes of meditating, was dissonant. It sounded like everyone had picked their own pitch, totally ignoring everyone else. The final “om,” though, after 55 minutes of hatha yoga, was completely in tune. Every single…
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80s rock & an andean reverie
In 2022, three friends and I went to the Sacred Valley. We stayed in Cusco, the capital of the Inca Empire, and spent the week exploring the Andes, Andean towns, Macchu Picchu. I was in awe: these staggeringly sophisticated people had invented agricultural methods that produced more than half the food products the world eats…
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up, but not north
There’s a moment in the novel Flatland after the Square comes back from his foray into the 3D world — the land of Cubes — and he’s trying to remember what it was like. The memory fades, so he clings to the only phrase he can think of to describe it: “Up, but not north.”…
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on what to do with weakness
The other day my friend was telling me about her acting woes. She’s auditioning a lot, she said, but none of the roles felt “right.” “It’d be better if I wrote my own parts,” she said. “But I can’t see myself actually writing. And I’m not a self-starter. I just know myself – I’d never…
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on observing
If you’ve ever been to yoga class, you’ve probably — hopefully — heard some variation of this: “Just notice.” “Don’t judge.” “Just observe the sensations that come up.” This is the core essence of yoga, as I understand it. (I used to think it was getting super flexible and doing cool arm balances that I…
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on self-trust
In 2013 I won a major writing contest. The editors called to gush over my story. “Tell us about yourself,” said one. “You’re only 25 and you wrote this incredible story. Where did it come from?” I panicked. Any minute now, they were going to find me out. They’d notice I was not national-prize-winning material,…
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why writing is like air travel
I really like airports. Going through security doesn’t bother me. It’s kind of fun to hunt through the terminal for a chai latte. I find it satisfying to refill my water bottle at those little fountain things that are only at airports. I don’t mean airports are good places to hang out for no reason.…
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to reveal, or not to reveal?
“I don’t know whether I should write about my affair,” one of my memoir clients said recently. “Without it, the choices I made after don’t make sense. But I can’t imagine my ex-sister-in-law reading it…She might not forgive me.” This kind of dilemma comes up a lot with my memoir clients. They want to write…
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a beast in my soup
One afternoon I was having lunch with my friend Misha. We were gabbing about who-knows-what when she stopped and said, “There’s a beast in my soup.” I looked over and sure enough, swimming around her soup was a jade-green beetle. We erupted into giggles. “What is the other word?” she said, wiping a tear. She’s…
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the thing about peru
People often ask me why I live in Peru. For years, I’d give an almost-answer: “I like learning Spanish, I love the people, my friends here, the food, the history, the culture.” Those are all true, but they don’t add up to the full reason. Only recently have I understood the real “why.” * In…
Kimberly Bunker, MFA 