reading and writing for my life

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

A review by Chloe Strickland

This novel had an interesting concept and the potential to really analyze the human condition, its relationship to meat, and view of humanity, but it had absolutely no development and arguably little to no arc. It did paint the meat industry clearly and detailed how “special meat” is utilized by a dystopian society as a corporatized product, but that’s all it did well. No character change. Marcos is exactly the same at the end of the novel as he was at the beginning: complicit and demoralized. The inner monologue of Marcos leads the reader to believe there will be a dramatic change in his view on the current state of the cannibalistic society, but in the end he commits atrocious acts against the female he names Jasmine. The reader is left sick to their stomach and disappointed in the character they followed on a contemplative journey. Perhaps that was the authors intention, but there was no bridge between the changing nature of Marcos and his final decision of refusing to change at the end of the novel.

Personal essay written for Align Magazine

Written by Chloe Strickland

I. Genesis

The first lesson the Christian church taught me was obedience.

Honor thy father and thy mother. Love thy neighbor. Thou shalt not steal. The Lord detests lying lips.

In the beginning you are taught to be good.

I was raised Christian; I was baptized in the Nazarene church that my parents met through and were married in. My childhood was filled with memorizing Bible verses, sitting silently in rows of dusty pews, Sunday school, and prayer circles. I attended a Christian school until the fourth grade, and spent my summers at Vacation Bible School. Every waking moment of my childhood revolved around God.

Among the virtues Christianity teaches, the main one is obedience. To listen, behave, be truthful, be kind, and be good. And I was.

I was an obedient child. I was described as mild and reserved, and although I was quiet and polite like God wanted, it wasn’t out of sheer devotion, but out of fear.

There were countless nights when I was little where I would lay awake and weep not because of the monster that was hiding in my closet, or the fear of the dark, but because of the dread and terror I had about spending eternity in Hell. I would tally everything I did during the day that could be seen as bad or sinful and beg for forgiveness in my nightly prayers.

I would beg God to forgive me for everything. I thought everything I did was going to send me to Hell.

When my family switched to a non-denominational church, the fear didn’t go away.

This church praised enthusiasm, and the ones who showed the most eagerness for being at church were given the invisible badge of loving God the most.

At this point, I had been led to believe that being a good Christian meant to keep my head down and silently follow instruction, but I wasn’t being rewarded for that anymore. Now, I was being judged by how devout I was.

The workings of the world were explained to me as black and white, good or bad. All I knew was that I had to be on the good side, and this ideology was poison to me.

II. Rebirth

III. Reckoning

I was around seventeen when I stopped going to church regularly. The Church had stopped making me feel good. What used to bring me some semblance of comfort now made me feel worse every time I sat through a service.

At this point, my whole belief system was to be seen as and thought of as good. I did everything I could to fit the mold of a good person, but I was always left feeling empty— not good enough.

When the church taught me the fundamentals of being good, they also taught that people are inherently bad, but that we have the choice to be better. Although I hadn’t yet connected this to my religious background, this concept corrupted good and bad for me as a child, and as a teen and young adult, sent me into a spiral of self-hatred and low confidence.

I was no longer crying myself to sleep out of fear of going to Hell, but rather I was staring at the ceiling for hours contemplating my morality. I didn’t know how to be a good person when I was taught that I was innately bad.

I didn’t start contemplating my religious identity until I entered my twenties and was beginning to figure out who I was. This was where I struggled the most, actually. I had separated myself from Christianity and was trying to find solace in myself, but I only felt adulterated without religion as a foundation.

This inherent evil was looming over me and there was no way to cleave it from myself; I was stuck with it. It was this thought process that sent me into a spiral of unhealthy coping skills and depleting mental health.

This period of time forced me to rebuild. The structure that had been assembled for me to be a good person crumbled, and I had to dig myself out of the rubble.

Writing and literature were comforting to me at this time. I put my pondering thoughts to paper and allowed myself to question everything, even if it felt sinful in and of itself. I sought a lot of comfort in Transcendentalism and delved into mythologies from many cultures which taught me different ideologies of selfdiscovery and transformation.

Only after I gave myself the freedom to explore did I connect my childhood in the church to my conflicting identity. I started unraveling what I had been taught and how it polluted my perspective of myself. I didn’t realize how it subconsciously stayed with me or how my whole character had been twisted and molded to fit into it.

Once I identified the origin of my insecurities, I was able to correct my course, although it wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Even today I still struggle with the idea of if I’m a good person or not.

My whole childhood was built on the premise of being a good person. I was given the Bible, told to follow its rules, and when I broke them, confess my sins and ask for forgiveness.

My upbringing in the church gave me a lot of good things. It built my moral code and gave me good values to take with me in life, but it also built the foundation of a belief system that would become detrimental to my personal growth.

I don’t dwell on my religious trauma or the things in Christianity that I disagree with, rather I focus on my personal healing and growing away from the skewed perception of the world I was taught. I still believe in divinity and a higher power, but I believe a person could be good without it.

My experience with religion brought me more fear than peace. I strived for goodness out of fear that badness would damn me eternally, but really I was damned from the start. Until I severed myself from that fear, I found that you aren’t a good person just because you tell the truth, because you follow instructions, or because you’re not a thief.

A collaborative feature story on comfort foods written for Flux Magazine

How do college students find solace during the most stressful years of their lives? Some turn to meals that remind them of home and simpler times.

College, while it may be some of the best years of someone’s life, can also be the most stressful. Different students find different ways to feel closer to home and find peace. Ivan Moncure, Zoe Brown and Kaitlyn Wood are three University of Oregon students who have different meals that they turn to when feeling overwhelmed or upset. Their stories (and favorite meals) are all different — though not as different as you might think.

IVAN MONCURE KEEPS THINGS BASIC

Excerpt written by CHLOE STRICKLAND

Hailing from Long Beach, California, Ivan Moncure comes from a foodie family that has taught him how to cook many hearty meals. When cooking his comfort food, Moncure likes to keep things simple.

Moncure’s comfort food consists only of Italian sausage, russet potatoes and sweet onion topped with salt and pepper. “[The meal] is a classic staple,” Moncure said. “It’s really cheap, nutritious, warm, savory and spicy.”

The ingredients are chopped up in bite-sized chunks and put in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for three hours. The spices and grease from the sausage crisp the potatoes and onions and spread flavor throughout.

Moncure says this dish is his comfort food because it’s something simple that he doesn’t have to put much thought into. Because of the basic recipe, the dish can be curated to last a long time, leaving Moncure to focus on his responsibilities without worrying about what he’s going to have for dinner.

“When I’m stressed out by life, and I want to get my life organized, I can make this and I won’t have to cook again for a week or two,” Moncure said. “And when I’m stressed, I find I crave saltier, fried foods, and this kind of hits the ‘French fries’ kind of itch, but it’s not so awful for you.”

Moncure’s memories of this dish from back home aren’t so much of the cooking process, but the gathering of the ingredients. He recalls going to the deli shop near his house with his dad to pick up high-quality sausage. They would also get lunch from the deli and spend time talking in the parking lot.

Feature story written for Flux Magazine about Covid's effect on socializing and training recently adopted puppies by Chloe Strickland

Emma Garner trains their seven- month-old pitbull mix, Crew, to not jump at strangers when she gets overexcited.

In a spacious, grassy backyard in Eugene, Oregon, Emma Garner held onto a dog leash for dear life. At the end of the leash was Crew, a 7-month-old puppy who jumped and lunged excitedly as unfamiliar faces entered the space. Garner, standing at 5 feet, 5 inches tall, held the 50-pound black pitbull mix at arm’s length as they worked to distract the puppy from the new people.

To keep Crew from unleashing her excitement on the visitors, Garner planted a foot on the slack of the leash and waited for the dog to calm down and lose interest. Once Crew was disengaged, Garner rewarded the dog with cheese from a treat pouch. Garner flooded Crew with words of praise and pats on the head before the pup noticed the strangers again.

A few weeks earlier, Garner was unable to distract Crew when the puppy was introduced to new people. During the pandemic, when Garner first adopted her at 10 weeks old, Crew would jump on people as a greeting and couldn’t be stopped.

“We had this puppy that would jump up to your chest when we came home,” Garner said, “and it was really overwhelming and hard to introduce her to people.”

Garner has plenty of company when it comes to becoming a pandemic dog owner, a special breed of pet parents. A survey by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) found that between March 2020 and May 2021, more than 23 million American households — approximately one in five — adopted a dog or cat.

With a majority of pet adoptions coming from animal shelters, the newly acquired pandemic pets brought with them pre-developed behavioral problems such as house training issues, separation anxiety and hyperactivity. While the convenience of working from home made these issues tolerable at first, pet owners grew fearful for what the future held.

The ASPCA survey also found that 52% of respondents were concerned about caring for their pet when COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, and 35% were struggling with their pets’ behavior. Since the world has started to reopen, shelters in Eugene and Springfield, Oregon, have seen some of the previously adopted dogs return with a complete lack of training and socialization.

Megan Burroughs, the community engagement and humane education manager at the Greenhill Humane Society in Eugene, said at the start of the year the shelter had a waiting list of more than 50 people who wanted to surrender a dog — that is, owners giving their adopted pets back to the shelter — and almost all of the dogs had behavioral issues.

“The surrendering of an animal that has major behavior issues is going to affect the long-term outcome of that dog or cat,” Burroughs said. “It does dissuade certain people who would more likely adopt that animal if it didn’t have behavior issues, and a lot of those issues stem from lack of training, structure and boundaries as a puppy.”

On a weekday last winter, Burroughs walked through the kennel space where the shelter keeps its dogs; barks echoed through the facility. Adoptable dogs of all breeds wagged their tails and jumped up excitedly when they saw Burroughs. In a fenced area outside, prospective dog owners mingled with shelter dogs to see if there was a bond before adopting.

With Greenhill’s hefty waiting list, the shelter must grapple with a rise of behavioral problems in its surrendered pets, according to Burroughs. The lack of healthy socialization — exposing a dog to new experiences to boost its confidence and make it comfortable in different situations –– is a leading cause of behavioral problems in dogs. When the COVID-19 lockdowns forced pet owners inside, the lack of socializing with people and other dogs intensified these issues. 

“People are surrendering dogs that haven’t been left alone once in their life, and it is really hard to adopt an animal that can’t be left alone,” Burroughs said. 

Burroughs has to make tough decisions regarding surrendered animals. The shelter has been forced to turn away some animals. According to Burroughs, the shelter cannot always accept a surrendered animal when it shows aggression toward strangers or is overactive.

“When an animal, especially a dog, is harming humans or is a threat to humans, that’s when we would recommend behavioral euthanasia through a veterinarian,” Burroughs said.

Burroughs speaks from personal experience; she put down her own dog because of its aggressive behavior. She explained that locking an animal in a kennel out of fear of an accident is not a way for it to live. “We want to do what’s best for the animal,” Burroughs said, “and that might mean giving them peace and dignity to go without a tragic situation.”

Owners of pandemic dogs have turned to dog trainers to remedy behavior issues and avoid surrendering or euthanizing. Garner said they always intended to find a trainer when they adopted Crew, but the task became more urgent when Crew proved to be overexcited. Even as Crew became a challenge, Garner said they have never considered surrendering their puppy.

“We were so committed from the beginning,” Garner said. “That’s like a worst case scenario, but I can’t even fathom not having her, or having to surrender her.”

Garner searched for the perfect trainer to meet Crew’s needs before finding the Eugene-based Well Mannered Dog. The facility’s founder, Debbie Schaefer, has been working with dog owners to remedy their issues caused by poor pandemic socialization. According to Schaefer, a dog with unhealthy socialization is more likely to react with aggression, barking or by chewing furniture and other household items when they are afraid.

“Socialization is about the dog’s choice to interact with the things that are in the environment,” Schaefer said. “People got the idea that they need to expose their dog but forgot that it needs to be a positive experience and a confidence booster.”

Garner contacted Schaefer last December to arrange training for Crew. After a few weeks of taking Schaefer’s “Polite Greetings” class, Crew learned the training games and was able to greet new people politely.

“I feel like I’ve learned how to communicate with my dog,” Garner said, “which feels powerful and comforting when we’re in public spaces.” 

At a weekly beginners’ class last February, Schaefer stood in the middle of the room with a microphone clipped to her mask so her clients could hear her. Owners led their canine students to their assigned spaces of the room before Schaefer began her lesson. Schaefer’s training style consists of games that owners play with their dogs to help build the dog’s confidence and develop cues to listen to. 

While some owners start training before their dog’s behavior worsens, others turn to trainers as a last hope.

Schaefer’s training assistant, Courtney Reinen, owns a 2-year-old black pitbull mix named Bert, who is highly reactive to other dogs. Before Reinen became Schaefer’s assistant, she was worried about the fate of her dog, whom she adopted at the start of the pandemic.

While on a walk one day, Bert lunged at another dog. Reinen tried to pull him back, but Bert bit the other dog and Reinen in the process. The incident resulted in Reinen paying a pricey vet bill and a medical office reporting the bite.

Overcoming a difficult past, Bert and his owner, Courtney Reinen, found help through behavior classes that allow him to better interact with other dogs.

“I was worried that someone was going to tell me to put him down,” said Reinen, who also feared she would be sued by the other dog’s owner. Reinen also considered surrendering Bert if his behavior didn’t improve.

As a last resort, Reinen reached out to Schaefer. Because Bert can’t be around dogs, Reinen trains with Schaefer via Zoom. Since training began in March 2021, Bert is in a much better place. Reinen doesn’t have to worry that he’ll chew up her shoes or furniture or start a fight with her cat while she’s gone. She still avoids taking him to places with other dogs to avoid potential conflict, but is hopeful Bert will be able to coexist with his canine counterparts.

“I am primarily a people trainer, not a dog trainer,” said Schaefer. “And part of that is helping them understand how the things they are doing now are going to help them meet their future goals for their dog’s long term.”

On a sunny spring afternoon, Bert trotted beside Reinen as she led him by the leash to her front yard. She rewarded him with treats after asking him to sit, jump and shake her hand. He lunged into the air when she tossed a treat for him to catch. As a couple walked past, Bert stayed focused on his owner. His ears perked up when he heard the neighbor’s dogs barking across the street and his eyes searched for the sound, but he stayed by Reinen’s side.

This wasn’t possible before training with Schaefer. In the past she would have had to hold Bert back to keep him from running after his distractions. Now, Reinen can peacefully sit in the grass of her front yard with Bert beside her and not worry.

“I don't think you realize how strong you are, because sometimes strength isn't swords and steel and fire, as we are so often made to believe. Sometimes it's found in quiet, gentle places.” —Rebecca Ross, Divine Rivals

This duology was a transcendent journey about loss in many forms, love in the wake of war, and removing one piece of armor, one person at a time. Ross paints the world of Oath beautifully, enveloping the reader in an industrial revolution with sprinkles of magic and spinning the story of Iris Winnow and Roman C. Kitt like poetry from another time. The historical atmosphere, paired with the magical mythology of the Enchantment world, transports readers to find themselves lost between the typed words—flooded with images, sounds, and emotions that Ross effortlessly embeds into their minds. The reader hears the clacks of the beloved Alouette typewriter, sees the flicker of candlelight bounce off the walls, feels the cold of the ground while sitting in the trenches, and cries tears of mourning during tragedy—only to gasp for air when the pages shut. Divine Rivals is a divine read.