These authors give an inside, exposing look into their industries and lives.

Insiders

Prostitution is found in almost every culture, yet the topic is still taboo, and people still look at sex workers as heinous criminals. Society holds biases against people like me who do sex work without ever trying to know about the reasons we do it. 

Many sex workers choose to participate in sex work to explore and express their sexuality, while some participate in sex work due to its flexible working conditions. Some individuals don’t have the luxury of choice and pursue sex work due to poverty, inadequate education or lack of an economically viable job. 

I do it because I am really good at what I do. It makes me feel alive. Like any job, my work requires skills like creativity, emotional intelligence and time management. 

Often sex workers are respected confidantes, making sex work one of the more acceptable forms of therapy for stressed-out professionals. My clients have always respected and valued me for my services. During, and even after, the physical intimacy, they respect my body and my feelings and want to make sure I’m comfortable with what they want to do. 

It can be a very strong bond that we form with our clients. Many of mine struggle emotionally because they have lost loved ones or are going through a rough relationship or career crisis. They need someone else's perspective on life, with whom they can be honestly themselves, and let someone else be in control of their existence for a moment. 

Society has historically used words like “sex worker” and “prostitute” as insults, a way to treat individuals as second-class citizens. They treat us as not worthy enough to even glance at, let alone talk to. 

Even normal tasks like getting an apartment are very challenging for us. I am completely devoid of a social life—nobody wants to be my friend, nobody wants to even have a normal conversation with me. It’s hard. Having to depend on oneself for everything, and not having friends and family to talk to, is emotionally debilitating 

In the Netherlands, which legalized its sex trade in 2000, all sex work is performed through businesses, and the rights of employees are very well respected. It’s perfectly legal for driving instructors to offer lessons in return for sex, as long as the students are over the age of 18. 

Like it or not, there’s nothing inherently wrong with prostitution. What is wrong is how people like me are treated in places like India, where sex workers are often labeled as less than human, both in cultural attitude and in public policy. We are often forced to operate out of dingy houses in seedy neighborhoods, without proper protection or oversight.

Society's judgments and biases are reserved for sex workers, and not for the people who pay for sex. There is a huge demand for it everywhere—in India, in London, in New Zealand, in Australia. In the pre-pandemic era, clients used to have to book my services two months in advance throughout the year.  

During the pandemic, when there are so many becoming unemployed or jobless, nobody is talking about the situation for sex workers. Just like other jobless people, we are also suffering financially to cover our basic expenses. All my savings of the last five years are on the verge of being exhausted. I have no idea how I’ll survive if the pandemic continues for much longer. 

I imagine a world where we will be treated as normal humans, worthy enough of the respect given to others and the right to live with dignity. Individuals can help sex workers by not devaluing our work and the effort that we put in. This means not using derogatory terms, like calling people a whore for the way they look or the sex they have. It extends to not saying things such as, “Ugh, I’m going to drop out of university and become a hooker,” because our work is not easy, and for some people in our industry, it isn’t empowering or enjoyable, but a necessity in order to feed ourselves. 

Of all the ways to respect sex workers, the most effective might be just listening to our stories and experiences and thus empowering our voices. Sex work is work, and sex workers are workers. 

I'm a Sex Worker and We Deserve Love and Respect

If you found yourself waking up one morning as an 18th-century tradesman looking to make an unconscionable quicketh bucketh (observe my linguistically correct approach to the era’s slang), you’d have to embark on a perilous journey at sea, shoot cannons and actually risk death before being able to expand your business geographically. Today, however, all tech companies have to do is enable Stripe payments in a local currency and translate a few support articles to effectively growth-hack their way across the globe. 

But just like in old colonial times, this often comes with dire consequences—especially for those who live in an area that Silicon Valley has identified as “high-growth potential.” I worked at one of the leading fundraising tech companies and, one morning, I got a literal and figurative wake-up call (a wake-up text if you want to be precise about it): “I’m in danger, please help.”

The company I worked for provides digital platforms that let users raise funds for special projects, which range from the creation of sassy, enamel pins to the development of technological solutions that could potentially solve the world’s environmental issues. It’s hugely popular. In Asian countries, hardware projects have especially taken off in recent years, prompting the company to open up for business in places like Singapore and Hong Kong. These places aren’t like the United States, however. Things work a little differently there when it comes to politics. 

The social unrest in Hong Kong was at its peak when I worked at my company’s downtown Asian office. Some creators had just launched a project that criticized the city’s leadership and police force. But as it became hugely popular overnight, the creators hadn’t realized their verified ID names would be visible publicly on the website, alongside their controversial project. After an explosion of online speculation about their identities and whereabouts, one creator became so concerned for their safety that they considered committing suicide. A young Hong Konger who had expressed sympathy for the movement on Facebook had just disappeared at the border, and protestors were being arrested at scale, so this creator was certain of their impending doom.

As already mentioned, politics works a bit differently in Hong Kong than in the United States. Whereas a lot of American supporters saw the movement in Hong Kong as a means for an individual to express one’s discontentment with the government, the local authorities saw it as a form of domestic terrorism. 

People tend to forget that it’s a Western right to protest—a right which isn’t exported as easily as Pop-Tarts. Just last year, a Singaporean man and his wife got detained for offenses under the public order act. Their crime? Wearing a t-shirt to a sports event calling for an end to the city-state’s death penalty.

Protesting is also dangerous in America, as we recently saw with Black Lives Matter activists getting maced in the face to make room for a presidential photo-op. That’s in the country where free speech is protected under the constitution. Imagine what it’s like in countries where protest or political dissent is forbidden by law, and you can get arrested for wearing a t-shirt. Should American companies profit by expanding to these countries and offering tools that make it extremely easy for people to break these (admittedly egregious) laws?

This is not about reshaping politics and protest rights. It’s about questioning the business of exporting Western culture into other geographic spaces that don’t operate on the same legal grounds. It’s also about taking responsibility. 

Back home in Hong Kong, the situation I faced kept snowballing and involved more and more people. Not only did the creators leave behind a big, fat digital footprint for the authorities to follow, but literally thousands of other users had supported the project by donating and submitting their personal information. After completion of the fundraising project, the creators (as is standard protocol) received a plain Excel file with everyone’s personal details—depending on your perspective, these were supporters of a good cause or advocates for domestic terrorism and separatism. I, for one, wouldn’t want to have my full name and address on a list that lingers inside a Hong Kong laptop.

The company I worked for took the issue seriously, but the c-suite’s romantic Western dreams of global democracy meant that the project wouldn’t just be deleted, as requested by the creator. During one of our crisis meetings, I remember an exec saying they thought the project was really cool, which sent shockwaves through my body because it showed how radically different we looked at this situation. While the creator and I thought of all the ways this could go horribly wrong, leadership at the company saw it as a great example of the site supporting democracy in Hong Kong, turning a user into an unwilling martyr. The reluctance to stop projects like these from endangering foreign users was seen by some as a testament to the company’s values, while others, including myself, saw it as reckless. I felt it wasn’t our place as Americans to enable users to do things that would change their lives forever—if not cut them short altogether.

The company ultimately took measures to protect the identity of the individual creator, but images of the project still circulate online, and that Excel file with thousands of names remains out there. A new sweeping national security law has since passed in Hong Kong, making any form of protest relating to this issue severely punishable, and nobody knows what has since happened to the people who implicated themselves by supporting this project.

So why does this happen? Surely, the incredibly talented people working in tech don’t want it to, right? As problematic as Facebook is, I’m pretty sure the people who work there didn’t foresee the genocide they helped enable in Myanmar. But the fact that they didn’t foresee how it could have happened is precisely the problem.

Westerners grow up with the notion that our democratic way of living is inherently superior to all other forms of governing and society. Heck, we can even invade a country if we want to bring them democracy and plant the seed of freedom. Unfortunately, history has taught us that when the white man shows up to a foreign harbor, it hardly ever turns out well for the local population. Tech companies have similarly turned into digital imperialists, taking whatever they want, and only offer hollow consolations and best intentions when shit hits the fan. Some might find this uncomfortable to hear, but there is this deeply-held belief, especially in Silicon Valley, that we are these brilliant people everyone can learn from, that wherever we show up with our slick software, we can change things for the better. Locals or foreign, yet-to-be-converted users, just don’t know it yet. When Airbnb first entered Europe, many did not foresee it leading to skyrocketing rents for residents, and pushing out low-income tenants who suddenly found themselves living in a building that would soon become an unregulated hotel.

Centuries ago, the Brits hooked Asian people on lucrative opium, ultimately leading to colonizing Hong Kong. It was a long and bloody battle, but at least we can hold history’s colonizers accountable by knocking over their statues and denouncing their actions today. Digital imperialism is much more invisible—all it takes is a few lines of code and a celebratory Slack message to learn a new country has been added to global operations. When things don’t work out in a certain market, tech companies quietly withdraw, but the damage to people’s lives who were misfortunate enough to come into contact with these unadapted services isn’t any less real.

I’m not saying tech companies don’t have the right to expand geographically. They just need to be held accountable. Whether this means disabling certain features and enabling others (switching off the ability to download a backers’ personal details and switching on increased anonymity in certain parts of the world) or integrally adapting the product to comply with local laws, human lives must be valued above profits. That seems like a basic tenet which we could hopefully all agree on.  

So, if you work in tech, the next time you’re about to victoriously roll-out your expansion plans, please consider the impact your product might have on those foreign to the world from which you sip your Bevi and write your code.

Science & Technology

Think Big Tech Is a Danger in the U.S.? American Tech Is Far More Lethal Overseas.

For over five years, I have been working inside a police department. I am not a sworn officer, but I work with them every day. I’m also educated in their field; I know more about the history of law enforcement and the criminal justice system than the majority of the cops with whom I work. It has been no secret that I lean to the far left of politics. I am the political opposite of most of my coworkers. I have always been able to get along and be professional. I mostly stay out of political conversations. When those conversations happen around me, I know that it is often meant to get me to react, so I simply don't give them what they want.

I have witnessed a lot of the stereotypical microaggressions you would expect from cops that they would deny. Sexism, bigotry, racism, classism: They are guilty of all of it. When confronted, they usually excuse it as "blowing off steam" or "dark humor" because their jobs are so stressful. I've worked with some of the most heinous cases: child abuse, forcible rape, domestic violence, homicide, suicide. I see many the same horrors they do because I am often on the scene with them as a first responder.

A couple of months ago, shortly after the murder of George Floyd, a friend of mine posted an article supporting law enforcement—the "we aren't all bad guys" type of essay. I commented that self-proclaimed good cops needed to speak out against the corrupt ones, that their silence and hiding behind their thin blue line made things worse. I said that there are evil and racist cops in every agency. Not ten minutes after I made these comments, a supervising officer sent me a text message on my personal phone berating me for my comments. He said there are no corrupt or racist cops in our agency, that I should be ashamed for implying so and that he would be informing the chief of police about what I said.

I told him I would stand by and explain my words if asked. He confronted me about who I thought was racist and corrupt in our department and, at that point, I decided the conversation had gone far enough. I know cops well enough that he was trying to set me up. You see, I'd already had multiple conversations with other officers in the department who mentioned in informal counseling sessions alleged corruption, but exposing those confidential conversations would not only risk their careers but possibly their lives. Those officers didn’t know enough details to make an official report. And the supervisor I was speaking to? One of the most racist people in the department. It’s not hard to understand why he took my comment so personally.

Almost immediately, officers I had long-standing, good relationships with blocked me on social media and refused to take my work-related calls. Some even stopped referring clients to me. Luckily I'm very good at my job and noticed immediately what was going on. I confronted a few officers who claimed it was merely an oversight. The atmosphere inside the department was tense but manageable.

About a month later, I was pulled into an internal affairs investigation as a witness and grilled about who I suspected was racist and corrupt in our department. This lasted for two hours. I had no attorney and no other type of representation present. They said I did not need anyone because I was a witness and not subject of the investigation.

COVID-19 protocols were still in effect, and since I am high-risk due to a heart condition, I wore a mask. I was in a small office with an internal affairs sergeant sitting less than three feet from me. He was not wearing a mask and reeked of cigarette smoke—he laughed at me and said I could take my mask off. I didn't; it seemed to annoy him.

I told him I did not know about any specific incidents of corruption but had witnessed multiple racial and bigoted statements over the years. I also presented him with a particular incident involving a sergeant. I did not see the event myself but heard other staff gossiping and laughing about how it was "so racist." I explained why I felt this was a department-wide problem. At the end of the interview, he told me, "You understand we have to investigate when someone uses the word 'corruption' towards our department in public, or we look corrupt." Internal affairs investigations aren't public information, they aren't even internal department-wide information, so I found that statement really odd.

A few weeks after this interview, my access to our internal information system was revoked. I've had access to this system the entire time I have worked in the building, and the position has had access for over 20 years. I was given no notice. I was locked out for a week before receiving a curt email from a lieutenant that for “security reasons” I could no longer have access. Revoking access has been detrimental to my ability to my job. I lost all access to client information and history, creating safety and treatment plans. I believe this was all done in retaliation for my social media comments, and because I’m very supportive of local protests and reallocating some of the department's budget to social-based services. I've spoken at city council meetings and work closely with our local Black Lives Matter group to give them insight on how law enforcement operates locally.

What’s worse to me is that I am not the only person in the department who feels this way: There are probably a half-dozen officers and records staff who are also politically left, supporting BLM and justice system reform. Most are too afraid to say anything because they don't want to deal with the harassment that would come down from the majority. Our Black officers probably have it the worst. I've spoken to them privately to check in and see how they are doing, and many say they have learned to just be quiet and do the best they can as professionals. It is highly toxic and despite knowing this, I have chosen to stay. I know my role within the department is extremely rare and the work I do is the type of work police reform advocates are calling to be increased.

If I’ve learned one thing in my time working behind the blue line, cops will almost always be for other cops. I’ve held up countless examples of police brutality to coworkers and the response is usually: "I wasn’t there so I can’t say what I would have done in that cop’s shoes." Even the most blatant of abuse of power is met with a reluctance to say anything critical about another officer.

Cop mentality is a real thing; anything that challenges their power or threatens their livelihood is met with resistance and, as we've witnessed at protests across the country, sometimes violence. There’s a general contempt for the public they are supposed to serve. Some people might wonder if it's just this one department, but I assure you it is not. I've attended countless trainings and conferences with police officers; they almost all have the same mentality and outliers are ostracized. Any department with a high turnover rate of new young officers is not due to money or because the job is hard. It’s because new officers went into the field thinking they would be helping people, and, after months of field training, realized what they actually got themselves into. The ones who want to help people usually don't last. The ones who wanted to become cops for power and authority stay.

The "thin blue line" is not about protecting the public from the evil people. It's a shield that's between the public and police officers. It's symbol of solidarity between cops, not with their communities. It's them versus everyone else. And that's the truth.

Justice

Racism in My Police Department: Behind the Thin Blue Line

It should be clear that the world of the arts—whether television, painting, writing, film, photography, poetry or otherwise—is like a casino.

The impoverished sit alongside the famous alike. There is no in-between, no middle ground. You may know the game but whether you win or lose is down to chance, luck or something in the air. There are no guarantees.

The world of the arts is also erected on misinterpretation. Allow me to let you in on a secret: Women in the arts are both woefully misrepresented and underpaid. Statistics bear this out, as does my personal experience.

In the United States alone, nearly half (45.8 percent) of visual artists are women, and on average earn 74 cents for every dollar made by male artists. In a 2016 study of the creative industries here in the United Kingdom, women earned an average of £239 a week less than men. And according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, women accounted for 12 percent of directors working on the top 100 grossing films in 2019.

But why are women questioned over men in their arts careers? Why is there an issue with gender in the arts, as if being in the arts in the first place wasn’t hard enough?

At school, I saw girls who worked harder than boys. However, later, while I saw the obvious successes of men, I could not see a link between the male auteurs of films that I admired and the strange, grubby boys who earlier had sat in my class.

It wasn’t until my late teens that I realized gender and career are not shackled together. I also realized that not all boys are the same. But as I could see, gender biases still lingered in the arts. At the age of 18, by then attending art school, this opinion fused itself to my mind.

A male fashion student studying alongside me came in every day either high or hungover, sometimes both. He hardly worked and could barely form a sentence before 12 p.m. But his hair was glorious and his outfits were effortlessly homeless-looking—in a fashionable way. On the other hand, for over half the week, I would just look homeless.

I worked non-stop, got ill, produced work, stopped producing work and then produced work that didn’t feel like my own. I grew sicker and I couldn’t take the morning train without crying or having a heaving session behind the ticket-office. I was told I wouldn’t make it to graduation. The ethereal lifestyle that was sold to me had not quite manifested as I’d hoped.

I ended up with a 98 percent pass rate, which at this school was rare. Perfectionism had swallowed me whole. I had a breakdown that sparked my struggling art career.

That male fashion student with the glorious hair climbed to the summit of fashion, working in Paris ateliers and creating a notable brand. I thought, is it because he’s male? Naturally talented? Maybe it’s his nonchalance? Maybe he cares; maybe he doesn’t. Either way, what has this one man got to do with the whole of the arts? A lot I say. I’m not here to gain pity. This is not a secular story, but a minor speck on the window to the wider issue.

Another wrench was thrown into the works when COVID-19 hit earlier this year, reinforcing in me the belief that a man’s work is to be taken far more seriously than a woman’s. I’ve battled with this sentiment for years, but let me give you this example.

It’s 2020. I’ve signed a year-long contract in a theater job. I’m making films and I’m writing. I’ve found my feet in theater. It’s a little more forgiving and a lot more inclusive. I’m finally tying together all my studies and all the opportunities and experiences that I’ve had over the past seven years. My partner of 18 months has moved a few hours away and has bought a house. It’s temporary, but integral to his career and that’s wonderful. We’re both happy and making it work.

Since people found out about this move, though, the questions started flooding in. This was inevitable, but more so once we began self-isolating in our separate cities. I can speak for myself only, but people stopped asking me about my work, or the implications of the separation on my work. However, they did ask me why I hadn’t packed up and moved in with him in isolation.

Has no one asked me about whether that’s plausible in terms of my work because I am merely “a frivolous woman in the arts who can work from ‘anywhere’,” while he has a “proper job”? (This is also not the first time someone has told me to move and get a “real job.”)

Sometimes I wonder if it’s the fact that he has a house to himself, which is more than what I have. Working in the arts, I still live in my childhood home with my parents. My bedroom-cum-office isn’t ideal, but it works.

COVID-19 aside, living away from London right now could compromise my entire career. To me, London is the central focus of all things artistic and my love affair with London is far from over.

I understand people who suggest that I move away into his house. However, I’ve not heard anyone ask me why he had to move to a different city.

Our work is often exploited, as is our time. I’ve never stopped working, and I keep my bank account away from minus figures. In a world where I seem to have done everything right, why does it always feel like I’m wrong? My later teens and my entire adult life have been showered by the meteors of disparaging comments over my career.

I plan to move in with my boyfriend temporarily at some point before he moves back to London. But until then, I am a woman in the arts, and I’ve worked too hard and with too many regrets. I’m not ready to compromise all that for a boy.

I love my boyfriend. I love who we are together. In an ever-romantic way, I want to spend my whole life with him. Surely, I can postpone being with him right now? Our Skype dinners are suiting me just fine.

Women

I’m a Woman in the Arts, Fighting for Equality

Drugs & Alcohol

Up, up and away! Time to get out of the house with The Doe.

Travel

Stories that can only be told from the land of the free, home of the brave.

American Stories

LGBTQ Voices

Motherhood

Earth Day or any day, let's celebrate our planet. 

Mother Earth

Tearjerkers

The Doe celebrates its authors this Black History Month.

Black Voices

Extra, extra, read all about it! The news-media industry has shifted dramatically over the last decade—heck, within the last two years. Between print journalism, podcasting, social media and infotainment, The Doe turns over every rock in this evolving ecosystem.

Media

Stories of starting over and finding the fresh.

New Beginnings

The ol' nine to five has changed quite a bit in the past couple of years, from working remotely to, well, not working at all. This month we take a look at how cash still does rule in our capitalist society and what the future of business and money might just look like.

Money

The Doe's editorial team takes a look back at the year and shares its favorite narratives.

Best of 2021

The clear, sunny sky and unforgettable sounds of the waves crashing into the shore always had a way of humbling my existence. The city by the sea felt so peaceful as kids ran through the salty breeze and into the cool green water while innocently squirting each other with neon-colored water guns. Long Beach was never known for having the cleanest beaches, but that still didn't stop this from being home.	

Everything has ups and downs, and Long Beach was no exception. The city is known for being diverse and embracing other cultures—which politicians would proudly highlight—but this wasn’t the truth in the ’80s and ’90s. The murder rate was high, crime even higher, and the idea of unity between the Black and brown community was a far-fetched fantasy. Violence, rage and hate fogged up the city with the perspective of “that’s just how it is.” Kids roamed the streets as parents battled through their own struggles of making ends meet by working multiple jobs or fighting their addictions that the prettier side of the city just didn’t understand or simply didn’t seem to care to understand.

Eventually, I traded my hopes and dreams for the belief that life was just unfair and was constantly trying to murder me. I normalized the severity of my environment by telling myself, “That’s just the way it is.” With that belief came my strong need to survive and do anything necessary to achieve it. Instead of questioning or entertaining other options, I went on to what I knew. I joined a gang at the age of 13. Not because I wanted to be labeled a member of a disruptive group but because I wanted to feel fully appreciated, acknowledged and supported. No matter how violent the act, I was willing to do it for approval.

I was a teen when I was arrested for three counts of attempted murder. A law was passed that allowed the Long Beach court to charge a teen from the ages of 14 to 17 as an adult. That’s exactly what happened. I was sentenced to multiple life sentences and sent to some of the most violent adult prisons in California to serve my time.

I spent my first decade in prison blaming anyone and everyone but myself for what felt like the result of my life. The gorgeous city of Long Beach was at the top of my list of what I considered the reason for choosing to harm and traumatize human life. I couldn’t explain my “why” and I was lost in not being emotionally intelligent enough to put into words the emotions that I was taught to bury deep within myself.

Then, the Success Stories Program came into my life. It gave me the space to speak about what’s most important to me and taught me that vulnerability is not a weakness but a strength. Most importantly, I was finally empowered by being able to address my “why,” and the transformation began. I learned that my distorted definition of what a man was stopped me from me being my truest self. It’s this important knowledge that led me into a life of building a better community from within prison walls.

I served 18 and a half years in prison before Governor Jerry Brown commuted my life sentences. The first thing my fellow inmates asked me after receiving the call from the governor was, “Are you going back to Long Beach?” I responded, “No,” with firm confidence. At that point, I realized that I hadn't dealt with the resentment that Long Beach brought up for me. I felt that the city I grew up in had turned its back on me and threw me in a box to be forgotten.				

I’ll never forget the day my brother picked me up from the prison entrance that I never thought I would exit. It felt so unreal. Driving down Route 101 with no cuffs or shackles overwhelmed me with emotions. I traveled California throughout the majority of my life being escorted by prison guards and for the first time in a long time I was free. The highway seemed so familiar. No matter how far I was from home, it always felt close.					

The night was coming and my brother had set up a motel room. He asked if I would like to go to Long Beach. I declined. But he insisted, pointing out that times had changed. I didn’t have it in me to say no. The day felt dreamlike. Why wake up? I stood in front of the ocean that forever humbled me and tears ran down my face as I stared in awe at the Queen Mary ship. I made it back and couldn’t help but feel at home.

For so long I was blaming the city, along with the people in it, for the many choices that I decided to make. The truth is, there is goodness in this city that is bettering itself through the people that live in it. There was a point in time that I never wanted to see this Long Beach again because I was ashamed to face the communities that I once destroyed. But I’ve fallen in love in so many different ways with this city, and that has led me into dedicating my life to being a part of the solution, especially when others may be quick to label people “the problem.”

I once thought that life was about being a man, but thanks to the many lessons that I've learned in prison, I now know that life has nothing to do with being a man. It has everything to do with being a human and valuing others as such.

Nostalgia

After 18 Years in Prison, I Rebuilt My Relationship With Home

At a young age, I learned that sometimes the meanest remarks are made out of naivete.

“I heard that Black people are that color because they’re dirty. I wanted to see if it was true.”

My classmate knew that what she had done was wrong, somehow. She looked sheepishly at her fingertip, still clean and pink, and then back at me. We were eight, waiting for the gym class warm-up to start.

“Oh, well, I showered yesterday…” 

I probably tittered nervously as I said it. It’s a habit everyone in my family shares. And then class started, and I never told anyone about the exchange.

I grew up in a small town on the East Coast. It had less than 5,000 people, an "excellent school system” and a development that mixed cookie-cutter cul-de-sacs with 200-year-old farmhouses (sometimes with the farms still intact!). The town has great beauty. Driving down county roads, you can see rolling hills stretching out over the horizon dotted with trees and houses and fields. You understand why some folks stay there forever. Other times, driving down the same county roads, you come across a stop sign with a swastika spray-painted onto it. You understand why some folks are desperate to leave.

At 25, I like to say I'm a New York City “seven” and a hometown “three.” It took me a long time to realize that attractiveness is not an objective quality.

At 14, I started overhearing the boys in my class, who were all white but one, asking each other whether they liked blondes or brunettes. This was a little puzzling to me—are Black girls brunettes? My dad asked, a little harshly, why I cared what they liked. Was I trying to attract white boys? 

At 16, I looked in the mirror and generally liked what I saw. I wasn't "hot" (if you can even apply that word to a 16-year-old kid), but I thought I was cute! And I had a group of friends whom I loved and who loved me. I was having a good time going to football games and school dances, even if I overheard things I didn't like while I was there.

“I can’t believe Melissa’s dating a Black guy. You know how they get at this age.”

“On Friday, someone at Brett’s party called Rachel and her sister the N-word, so they left! I thought the two of them were being a little dramatic, honestly.”

“Well, of course, she’s super good at track; she’s, like, the only Black person on the team.”

By 17, I had a driver's license. My friends had driver's licenses and boyfriends or girlfriends with whom to drive around. Behind the wheel, I had a sneaking suspicion that I would never get a date in high school (I was right). I was starting to realize that race does matter, actually. Not just in a macroscopic, societal sense but very personally. 

When I was 18 and applying to college, my mom and I went away for a weekend to tour schools. I was one of five in my friend group who had never been kissed. That Saturday night in my hotel room, I looked through Snapchats from friends, dancing and drinking and getting up to general shenanigans at a party in someone's barn. “Wiggle” by Jason Derulo pumped in the background as they twerked across my phone screen.

"I hope I get to go to the next one," I thought as I drifted off to sleep. 

The next morning, I woke up to a text from my friend Liz. Four of the five remaining unkissed had paired off and made out with each other at the party. Obviously, I was devastated. I was the only Black girl in the group, and now I had the only virgin pair of lips. "Omg no way, congrats!" I texted them. 

"What the fuck, why doesn't anyone want to kiss me???" was the message I wanted to send. I was irritable and rude to my mom for the rest of the trip. Also, by now, I knew why no one wanted to kiss me. It was because I was “other,” strange, taboo—Black. Good enough for a friend, but not enough to be let into a family. 

I think I always understood that separation on some level, but it flashed into sharp relief during my senior year. I stopped thinking about who I could date or who might like me. I focused on platonic friendships, leaned into sports and hobbies that I liked, learned that I loved going to concerts. Basically, I found the contexts where the internalized racism of others had the least impact on their interactions with me. It was a great survival tactic.

However, I see it was doable because soon, I would go to college in a city, and I hoped that there, I would get to date people who found me and my Blackness to be acceptable. I always say, "My town is a great place to grow up," and in the same breath, "Thank God I don't live there anymore."

I’m a Black Woman From an All-White Town; These Are My Memories

Take a number, sit down and wait. When your number is finally called, you’re greeted with disdain and any request you make is treated like an inconvenience. They know you need them, and they don’t need you; they certainly aren’t there to serve you, but you’re at their mercy. Is this a description of a trip to the DMV or to your local building department? The same building department that is not only funded through your permit fees but also the one that is responsible for enforcing the building code and ensuring the safety of the buildings we occupy daily?

As a structural engineer, I have designed hundreds of buildings, creating construction documents for permits and construction. So I may have had more encounters with building departments than most, but I find this to be my experience at most building departments. Now, as a forensic structural engineer, I investigate building failures to determine the causation and duration of the failures, and unfortunately, as you are about to find out about the Surfside condominium collapse, they are always rooted in negligence or incompetence of some kind.

On June 24, 2021, the Champlain Towers South building, a 12-story beachfront condominium with an underground parking garage, located in Surfside, Florida, collapsed. At the time of posting, 60 have died and 80 remain missing while rescue efforts are—after heroically searching through unpredictable piles of rubble crumbling under every step—coming to an end. This collapse is not typical in a developed nation and can be attributed to many factors, including subpar construction detailing and poor building maintenance, along with an incompetent condo association and a negligent building official.

Water flows downhill, steel rusts and concrete cracks. Some things in life are fact and, in this tragic and avoidable accident, all applied. In the State of Florida, with the high water table, basements are not a common occurrence. But if you ever had to find parking in Miami, you will put a garage anywhere you can, even underground at a beachfront condo. With an underground parking garage and second-floor pool, the need for waterproofing the structure is imperative. 

For some time prior to the collapse, there were reported pool leaks and standing water in the underground garage at the Champlain Towers South building. The building was constructed with reinforced concrete, a heterogeneous combination of steel and concrete, which can last a long time under one condition: Proper maintenance of the structure is performed. When the concrete cracks, as it inevitably does, it then exposes the rebar to the outside elements of water and salt. Continuous exposure to these various elements ultimately corrodes the steel and it expands as it rusts. During the expansion of the rusting steel, it pushes on the brittle concrete, which ultimately breaks off in a phenomenon called spalling. Spalling not only increases the exposure of the rebar to the elements but also reduces the area of concrete available to support the structure above. 

With enough spalling, the structural integrity of a reinforced concrete member is compromised and it will fail. With proper maintenance, the effects can be slowed or mitigated to ensure a safe structure lasts long into the future. But proper maintenance requires at least a basic understanding of the needs of a concrete structure—an understanding a resident-led condo association may not have.

The Champlain Towers South building was constructed in 1981, and as such, it was due for its 40-year recertification this year, a process that focuses on the structural integrity and electrical safety of the building. While elevators require an annual inspection, the building it services, and ultimately is supported by, only requires an inspection after 40 years and every 10 years thereafter. It is also important to note that U.S. government buildings, state buildings and schools are exempt from this recertification. 

Something to consider when deciding to file a permit online or go into the office directly: it may be safer to do so from home. Portland, Oregon, for example, has many old buildings made of unreinforced masonry, construction that performs extremely poorly during seismic events. As such, the city is pushing to require these buildings to be retrofitted to better perform in seismic events and require owners to hang a plaque explaining the dangers inside. I believe buildings, especially public buildings, should be more transparent about when they’ve last been inspected for structural integrity and, more importantly, the dangers that have been discovered during previous inspections that have not yet been repaired. 

You may see a large "C" in the window from the health department if cockroaches are roaming in the back, but what kind of warning do we get if the foundation is failing? I want to know what risks I am taking when entering a building since it is now apparent it may cost you your life, as it has for many in South Florida.

In 2018, the Champlain Towers South condo association hired an engineering firm to perform a structural evaluation of the building. During this evaluation, it was found that there was “major structural damage” to the concrete slab and failure to make repairs would cause the “concrete deterioration to expand exponentially.” The condo association provided the report to the Surfside building official, Ross Prieto, and invited him to attend the next association meeting where he, according to meeting minutes, reviewed the engineering report and stated, “the building is in very good shape.”

This is a building official directly contradicting a licensed professional engineer—and not contradicting the engineer to be more conservative and safer, but just the opposite: taking on more risk and alleging that a 12-story building with significant cracking and spalling in the basement foundation was “in very good shape.”

Why would a building official ever do that? Is it incompetence, negligence or just a complete lack of accountability? Prieto had filed for bankruptcy in 2002 and then again in 2012, telling the court he had accumulated $1.7 million in debt. His previous employment also reports that he was frequently late or missing from work. In 2013, the city of Surfside decided that was their guy to be the building official. But why not? They have nothing to lose. The town ordinance directly states in regards to liability, “The building official…or employee charged with the enforcement of this code…is hereby relieved from personal liability for any damage accruing to persons or property as a result of any act or by reason of an act or omission in the discharge of official duties.” Or in layman’s terms, they have no accountability for their actions during official duties. 

As engineers, we are taking on liability for every email we write, calculation we run and report we stamp. One of the biggest costs of running an engineering company is the professional liability insurance due to the high risk of work and the responsibility to society to design safe structures. I am OK with that responsibility and the faith put into me as an engineer; it keeps me up late reviewing work or studying material so that I can ensure that I am putting out safe and efficient products. But that liability needs to be applied to all parties in the process—not just engineers and contractors but also building officials. We must demand higher-caliber public servants in our building departments. They are not just pushing paper; they are ensuring that the buildings in our neighborhood are safe to use. 

Long before the wind blows and the ground shakes, engineers, contractors and inspectors are protecting the public. Appreciate them, but also hold them to be accountable for their actions. Our lives depend on it.

Collection

I’m a Structural Engineer: The Surfside Condo Collapse Never Should Have Happened

It’s something I’d kept telling myself any time something didn’t feel right inside. People would give life and limb to celebrate their birthday jetting privately between three club gigs in three cities on two continents in one epic night spanning more than 36 hours with the reverse time zone travel factored in. They’d love to call it just another day at the office. But the impossible irony is that you only need it until you have it, at which point you need more of it. If you’re paying attention, you might catch yourself in this predicament, and only then do you have a chance to transcend it—to move on to the next level instead of just doing lap after lap around the same course trying to get a better score. 

This is a story about coming to know yourself outside the image reflected back to you in the window of a private jet, the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of a Las Vegas suite or the lens of a camera broadcasting that image to tens of thousands around the globe. This is a story about transcending what they told us we wanted in search of ourselves. 

This was supposed to be it. The dream. A chance to work with the hottest label in the best city in the world, the one I always wanted to live in. Money, power, respect. I had only ever set two goals for myself in my life: the first was a full scholarship to a university, and the second was a self-sustaining music career in my dream city by the age of 25. I achieved the latter with a few weeks to spare, shipping my car full of stuff on a truck and hopping on a flight to Las Vegas with a laptop and a backpack. I took the train to the label’s headquarters, which had exactly two people working there at the time. 

My philosophy during this time was to say “yes” to everything, which was a lot considering that I had just arrived in one of the busiest music capitals in the world. A random Tuesday night might bring in a budding new act playing a boiler room in a tiny unfinished warehouse just a 10-minute walk across the train tracks.

One afternoon, I came home to find a random gaggle of creepy photographers, who had stumbled in off the street, conducting a photoshoot with a half-naked and almost disturbingly young aspiring “starlet” in the living room—which I subsequently learned had been financed by the poor girl’s father. Did she like the way she looked reflected through the lens of those cameras, or later pinned up on their Instagram accounts like a trophy? I digress. 

I worked hard, partied about equally as hard and soon had a small squad of a dozen or so team members assisting me as the label continued to grow, blossoming our global fanbase from the thousands to the millions. I earned more and more money, accumulating savings quickly with little living expenses beyond the daily coffee, salad, tacos and weed. I also learned during this time that studies show any increase in happiness stemming from an increase in one’s earnings dissipates substantially with each increase over about $75,000 per year, the average median household income in America. 

The statistics tell us that money only makes you happy insofar as it can cover your basic needs—beyond that, statistically speaking, money has little bearing on happiness. As the label grew, so did my social influence and proximity to The Artist who owned it. An uneventful Monday afternoon at the office might bring an unexpected phone call imploring me to join Him in Rome for the week where He would be making a cameo in a certain sequel in a classic film series, filming during the night and sleeping during the day. I loved the way I looked in those dimly-lit mirrors at the posh Hotel De Russie overlooking the Piazza del Popolo in the heart of Rome, with its cavernous and carefully fragranced hallways emanating opulence. 

Life was good. So why the hell was I so depressed any second of the day I wasn’t distracted with work or women or weed? Why did it seem futile to get off the couch on a Saturday afternoon? Why was I seemingly unable to recognize myself outside of my own reflection? There had to be more. 

During one Coachella, my cleaning lady would confirm my suspicions. The festival fell on Easter that year, something none of us realized, insulated in our own industry bubble. I became aware of this when I phoned my cleaner, asking her to work at my place while I was away. She informed me that her family would be visiting from her native country for Easter, but despite my protestations, she insisted on cleaning my house anyway, even volunteering to bring her family to help. I was mortified at the idea of her visiting family cleaning my apartment on Easter Sunday and was embarrassed at the idea that it was even being discussed. But I was also aware she must need the money, or why would she insist? So I set off for Indio, or Palm Springs, or whatever, to hang out, have fun and support our performing label artists.

By that point, I had become so jaded by this sort of thing that I was no longer excited about the prospect of an all-inclusive weekend at Coachella. I saw it more as something I was obligated to do. People would kill for this, I tried to remind myself. But halfway through the weekend, I could no longer bear the blathering, vacuous boasting and posturing, the social jockeying and transactional relationships and the endless requests for guestlists.

You’re probably thinking “what a spoiled brat,” complaining about an experience so coveted as Coachella. It could have been much worse, indeed. Many families are without food, and there’s a never-ending war in the Middle East. But I beg of you to consider how depressed your faithful writer must have been in order to derive only misery from an experience like this. It had been years at this point, and I was no longer enamored by the glitz and glam of it all. I felt like a rudderless empty person surrounded by other similarly afflicted. I hated how I looked in the mirror of the green room at the Hilton Palm Springs, surrounded by unopened Grey Goose bottles and social climbers on the hunt for Sunday artist wristbands. 

So, on Easter Sunday, I bailed on Coachella early, gave my wristband to a random reveler at a pre-party a few doors down, and began the journey home. When I arrived, my cleaner, busy at work in my kitchen, greeted me joyfully with a big smile and an enthusiastic inquiry as to my time in Indio. I was caught off guard by this seemingly misplaced joy; after all, wasn’t I supposed to be the happy one? Wasn’t she, the person cleaning houses for cash on Easter Sunday, supposed to be the miserable one?

The dichotomy hit me like an oversized corporate energy drink canister on wheels barreling toward the Las Vegas Speedway, and something changed in me at that moment. I saw true happiness, embodied in a woman doing nothing more than earning her living with her family by her side and a smile on her face. I saw gratitude and humility, and something else I wouldn’t recognize for years to come—the exuberant inner glow of self-love, radiating outward to all those within range. This woman wasn’t looking in the mirror at all. Her joyful existence was being reflected back to her constantly through the people she helped, the family she supported and, in a way, the glass windows she made spotless. This woman had attained the mastery of life that had eluded me—the simple solace of service to others.

As the corporate energy drink of life barreled on into the fall of that year, I found myself on a plane to Japan for some leisure time before a string of performances in Asia. Little did I know I’d soon begin the final descent of my journey to find my real self, outside of the external constructs of any of the aforementioned accouterments. The penultimate act in this play commenced with me taking a crap in a crudely carved crater in the ground in an impossibly sweaty nightclub in Manila, just minutes before my own globally live-streamed performance on the world’s biggest event-streaming platform during the city’s busiest music weekend. 

Later that trip, we’d pass through Ibiza for an epic week of partying and performances, then to Mykonos to play for an extravagant birthday celebration for the son of Croatia’s wealthiest man. He’d flown 100 of his friends in on four private jets to take over the most opulent resort on the island, where everyone had their own butler. What could top that? I soon found myself so burned out and exhausted that I began to remember something a mentor had told me: “You must go to Kerala in India,” the birthplace of Ayurvedic medicine, he’d said. “It would be a great place for you to reconnect with yourself.” I started looking into traveling there and planning a much-needed vacation from this life that had, at one time, been a vacation in and of itself.

I arrived at the Ayurvedic resort in India and was disappointed by the bland food and modest accommodations. But I was blown away by the insight of the medical staff. With one look into my eye, a young doctor I’d just met recalled the sports concussion I had suffered 15 years prior, and with a gentle hand on my artery, he described with chilling accuracy the nature of my personality. How did he do it? We began discussing my lifestyle and physical and mental ailments. He knew I was a smoker because a certain spot on my forearm was tender when he gently pressed into it with his finger. 

Knowing my time with him would be short, I asked him to outline for me the most important pillars of a healthy lifestyle. What were the main things to focus on? He told me if I ate clean, exercised, drank water and slept adequately and in accordance with the phases of the moon, I wouldn’t have much to worry about. Oh, and there was one more thing: Meditation, he said, would bring me back to a state of inner peace and wholeness, grounding me in my own being, helping me weather the storm around me. Reflecting on his unparalleled body of knowledge, and the benefits of Eastern medicine and meditation, I resolved I would open myself to the possibilities of channeling this into the music industry, and towards artists specifically.

Shortly after arriving back home, I managed to get up the courage to take the ultimate leap of faith. I walked away from this dream job in this dream city with no plan other than to learn more about myself and the collective self, in pursuit of that pure inner joy my housecleaner had exhibited the year prior. I sold or gave away almost all of my possessions, bought a one-way ticket to another continent, and as I untethered myself from the social and career structures from which I had derived my self-image, I began to feel the wind whipping in my hair as I half-flew, half-free-fell off the proverbial cliff into the unknown. 

The next few years weren’t easy. They were undoubtedly the most difficult years of my life. Trying to find yourself with no mirrors around can be deeply, existentially unsettling. I traveled the world, spent all my savings in search of myself and ultimately wound up right back where I started. As I write this, I’m even involved with a new label—but instead of it defining me, it has provided me an outlet for creative self-expression and genuine connection to those who resonate with it. Today, while I might be living in the same city and doing the same work, my outlook and approach are completely new. The years of soul-searching, initially sparked by the apparent emptiness of a material lifestyle, taught me that everything I was looking for was within.

I don’t look in the mirror as often now, because I’ve learned the face staring back at me has nothing at all to do with who I am. Mirrors only show skin and bones. When I need to remember who I am, I just sit back, close my eyes and let the bliss of meditation return me to the source.

Adventure

I Got My Dream Job Globetrotting in the Music Industry and I Hated It

Before I’m even out of the hospital, I have a plan to buy drugs. 

If I could have dope delivered to me in the ICU, that’d be perfect. I’m half-asleep in a Chicago hospital and there’s an IV in the exact vein that got me here. My body’s frail and I’ve been wearing the same jeans for two months. Five years from now, I’ll be three years clean of heroin, which means there are still two years left of this bullshit, and it’s going to get worse. 

Rock bottom wasn’t death; it was change. I romanticized my toxic behavior and convinced myself this was my path, a pilgrimage to becoming something. I was meant to be a forgotten soul. My entire life, I’ve been trying to write the perfect excuse and suicide note.

My sense of self was entangled in addiction. It caught me in my prime and I struggled to breathe. My conscience decided our salvation wasn’t coming.

Once you’ve convinced yourself that you’re a bad person, your brain does everything it can to keep that sense of identity. I spent six years killing off any possibility of redemption. When I tried drowning the person I was, I felt myself disappear. If I’m not a disappointment, then who the fuck am I? I’m not a successful person. I’m not a happy person. I’m nothing. Trying to become anything other than that would have been a lie.

Whenever I tried to get better, I self-destructed. I sensed myself fading away. If I got better, then what? Would I be forgiven? Would I be responsible? The expectations that come with being a good person don’t outweigh the hell that dope sickness brings. Why get clean? If everyone already thinks I’m lost, why try proving them wrong? I was content being no one, but I wanted to be someone special. I just didn’t want to put in the work. It’s a junkie’s paradox. I wanted to get help, but I’d rather get high in a South Korean bingo hall.

When I wake up in the hospital, I’m alone. I had no idea what hospital I was in, or who brought me there. The only thing I could see out of my window was a brick wall. I have a song by Karen Dalton stuck in my head. Dying while the sun is still out feels derisive in a way. I think about people yanking out their tubes and storming out of the hospital, clothes in hand, ass peeking out of their hospital gown. The thought crosses my mind, but I figure I’d get to eat if I stayed.

I have to get to Chinatown at some point to see Bea. I don’t know if that‘s her real name, but I know I can get a bundle of cheap, decent dope from her. At this point, I’ve already been to rehab twice, and I still wasn’t interested in getting sober.  My short-term memory deteriorates when I’m going through withdrawals, so I couldn’t answer any questions about what happened earlier that day.

A nurse hands me some bullshit pamphlet about addiction, where it said how difficult it is for addicts to accept praise for getting clean. I’ve never been good at taking compliments. I imagine it’s hard for any children of abused children. You never believe you’re good enough. You lose your passions, your sense of purpose. 

That’s where I was. My father came from a physically abusive family, and my mother’s mother was an addict. She was a big fan of O.J. Simpson and was adamant he was innocent. I don’t know what that says about my Mimi, but she was probably right. She smoked slims and wore a lot of gold. 

I’ve been conscious in the hospital for about 30 minutes when I decide to bail on free food and check myself out. I don’t have my ID, so I figure they won’t have my information. While I’m gathering my shit, I’m trying to figure out what I can pawn. I can never find time to get a job, but I can con and steal like a fucking Bond villain.  

I loved drugs, but part of me loved buying them even more. Every day felt like a coming-of-age movie. How was I going to get across the city with no money but still get high? I could try to find a purse or wallet to snatch, but I’d been arrested a couple of times for stealing credit card information, so I wasn’t going that route. I’m leaving the hospital and realize I’m not that far from Chinatown. I won’t have to spend money on a train or bus now.

Whenever new Apple TV devices would come out, they were oddly easy to steal. For some reason, Best Buy and Target didn’t lock them in cases or anything. So, if you were wearing a loose enough jacket, you could snag about four of them. Also, if you walk around a stockroom like you know what you’re doing, no one really fucks with you. Never underestimate the power of a nice red shirt. At the pawnshop, you could get about $50 for each of them. 

The relationship between addicts and pawnbrokers is complicated. It can be parental at times. They know what you’re doing there but they want you to be safe, but they also want you to come back. It’s similar to the addict-dealer affair. There was a point when my drug dealer told me I was her best customer. I was the best person she knew…at buying drugs. I’d finally been recognized for being talented at something. It felt like she cared. That was the most affection I would receive for months at a time. For me, a major part of addiction sprawled from loneliness and lack of confidence. I think, subconsciously, I started using to feel better about myself on an egotistical level. If I hang out with junkies and coke whores, I’ll feel better about myself. At least I’m not as bad as them, right? Eventually, I’d pass them up. 

I always want to be higher, to get as close to death as possible. It's a temptation. It’s the apple. It’s losing teeth and selling things that aren’t yours. It’s taking advantage. It’s being fucked over. It’s lowering your standards. It’s creating a complete lie to get yourself in the door. It’s coming home and leaving in the middle of the night. It’s telling your family to leave you to die. It’s making them sorry they didn’t. It’s wrecking your car and leaving any job that gave you a chance. It’s not texting back and canceling plans. It’s getting pissed off when your friends won’t help. It’s loving someone for the weekend. It’s bringing poison and poverty into their life. It’s dead bodies. It’s the unknown. It’s the emptiness. It’s all just shit.

It’s not being able to tell if I’m lying to myself. It’s crying for bad people. It’s panic and empty promises. It’s being done. It’s being tired and weak from running.

I Always Want to Be Higher: Inside the Mind of a Drug Addict

I’m on an 18-foot inflatable raft. The river is a milky, opaque gray-brown color, heavy with glacial silt. It winds around and between mountains, still young and jagged, deep green at the bottom with spruce trees and dwarf birch. As the mountains slope up, the green becomes sparse until disappearing altogether, giving way to bare rock. There’s wind between the mountains, which are still young and jagged, deep green at the bottom with spruce trees and dwarf birches, and as they slope up, the green becomes sparse until disappearing altogether, giving way to bare rock. The sun beams down on the boat and bakes me inside of my drysuit. I drip with sweat inside of this teal-colored, expensive and glorified trash bag as I push the oars.

“I wanna fall out! Swim a rapid!” I’m brought back to reality as the rowdy guys in my boat talk about their ambitions for the trip. This is my last but third trip of the day and it’s past 6 p.m. I’m tired, I’m hungry and my arms ache. By the end of this trip, I’ll have rowed 33 miles today. You’d think after rowing that many miles every day, your arms would eventually adjust.

I smile at the guy who wishes to fall out, “Yeah, it’s not really that fun. I can vouch.”

All the guys laugh and talk amongst themselves about how it definitely would be fun to swim a rapid. One of them says, “Yeah, I wanna fucking flip!” He looks back at me.

I smile, politely. “Again, not really as fun as you’d think. Some rivers, that can be fun. This is a really high-volume river and all of this water was glacial ice yesterday. It’s maybe 33 to 35 degrees.”

I tell them about how a light body floats much faster in water than a raft, especially with this amount of water—how if we flipped, everyone would go flying fast in a different direction. How with water this cold your muscles start to seize up pretty quickly and you almost instantly lose your breath. 

But, they don’t see this as a warning. Instead, it's a challenge. The guys probably don’t remember that we’re in Denali National Park. For a portion of the trip, we are not near a road. Or about how the closest hospital is a couple of hours away. But, my job is to keep others safe while maneuvering through rapids on a glacial river—and I think about these things all the time.

The person who assigned this group to me was probably trying to do me a favor. Pairing a group of rowdy, overly masculine men with the only female raft guide on the trip can be smart: she can flirt, give a big smile and receive a hefty tip in return. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.

From the moment they came over to my boat, I could tell they were disappointed. They had hoped to have been paired with the guy with long dreads or the dude with wild eyes and a beard but instead got assigned the woman. I could also tell by their eyes and attitude that they were doubtful I could row through rapids or row at all. The top tier of the layered cake is that I, a woman, would be rowing them through the rapids, and what an emasculating experience that is. Apparently.

Knowing this, and perhaps trying to stomp my foot down to prove them wrong (anything you can do, I can do better…), I toy with uncertainty a little more than usual. Not because I want to flip, or I want any of them to swim —I don’t—but because I want to show them the force of the river. I want the waves to smack the boat and jumble these boys around. Plus, I know this river (as much as a river will allow one to know it). I know where flirting with uncertainty is OK, and where it’s not.

After a couple of warm-up rapids, we enter Ice Worm, one of the river’s Class IV rapids. I briefly explain our “line” to them and the river sucks us into boiling water. As far as Class IV rapids go, Ice Worm is fairly easy. It’s only rated so because swimming the rapid is especially dangerous. The moves are not hard to make in an oar raft, but if you were out of the raft you’d be sucked down, punched around, pulled every which way by the water.

“Forward two!” I yell to them, and they paddle as I row. We ride a pillow of water directly adjacent to the Mouth. I shout out to them, over the roaring rapid, pointing with my head, “That there’s the Mouth. If we went in there, it’d eat the boat alive!” The boys look over, wide-eyed, staring into the massive hole as we power by, flirting with the edges. Looking into the Mouth—a whirling vortex larger than our 18-foot inflatable raft, churning and swallowing the surrounding water—it’s easy to imagine being eaten alive.

I break their trance and yell “Forward two more!” as we punch through Liquid Linebacker, a stout, ever-standing wave. The men get bounced around in the boat and laugh and shout, elated. They’re enjoying themselves, and while they are still overly confident, with a conquering-type attitude toward the river, they have at least shut up about wanting the raft to flip. The Mouth will do that to a person.

Soon enough comes Cable Car, the second of the Class IV rapids. I do not like to toy with uncertainty in Cable Car. In fact, I don’t like to toy with Cable Car at all. It’s my least favorite rapid on the river and makes me sick to my stomach. I get the bad kind of butterflies and sweat and I shake a little. Every day. Even if I run the rapid three times in a single day. 

There are two ways of passage through Cable Car: the centerline, which is the easier of the two, and the left line, which requires ferrying across the river partway through the rapid, making your way from river right to the middle-left. I hate the right line, and I always fear that I may not make it. However, whoever is leading the river flotilla chooses which line to run, and today the guy in front wants to run right, which means I’ll have to as well.

At the top of Cable Car, there’s a hole about three times the size of the raft – a hole that even could swallow the Mouth. When entering Cable Car, you can’t let the raft get caught up in the "fun" entrance waves, because that behemoth hole is directly where the waves will take you.

I use my strength to pull the boat backward, ferrying across the entrance waves to reach the river’s left side. “Right side back, left side forward!” I yell to the men in my boat, doing the same with my oars to turn the raft around. My heart races as we glide past the hole, and I yell over the gurgling, frothing water that I’m happy we’re not in because it’s the last place on this river I’d ever wish to be. I angle the boat to ferry across the river and shout “All Forward!” over the river’s rumble with as much gusto as I’ve got. 

My heart attempts to break through my sternum and I can feel my hands shaking on the oars as I stand up to get more leverage, pushing with my arms, using every bit of strength I can muster. In the center of Cable Car, there’s another hole, not nearly as big as the first, but steep and possibly more violent. I know that hole has caused many a boat's demise in this rapid. On more than one occasion, it has almost been my own demise. I know I shouldn’t stare at it—never stare where you don’t want to go, always stare in the direction you aim to head. But I can’t help it. The hole is mesmerizing. Chalky, glacial water rooster-tails up at the bottom, crushing back in on itself. The hole is utterly terrifying.

My breathing quickens and sweat is pouring down my face as I yell again, “Keep it forward, together and hard! Use your bodies, guys!” I don’t think we’re going to make it, but there’s still a slight chance. “Come on guys! Keep it going!” Nope, not happening. We’re definitely going to hit the right side of that violent hole.

“Stop! Right side forward!” I do the same with my oar, straightening us out. The only chance we’ve got to make it through the hole right-side-up is to hit the hole head-on—never, ever, ever hit a hole sideways, every river guide learns early on. I shout for the guys to lean in, and as much as I want to close my eyes, I know I can’t, so I give one more power push as hard as I can—V for victory, we call it, arms pushing the oars up together in front of my face—as we smash through the hole. Or, as the hole smashes us. I fly forward a bit, and the guys in the front are knocked into the middle of the raft. Today, the river gods have allowed me safe passage. Hopefully tomorrow they’ll grant me the same.

After Cable Car, the guys in my boat are oddly quiet. They no longer dream of wanting to flip the raft or even swim. Instead, they seem entranced by the water, the way it rushes through the steep walls, carving through mountains.

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