Granite Mirror Gazing

By Abbey Leroux

“James!” I yell as loud as I can, hoping the wind will be on my side for once and carry my voice upward. I wait as its howling response assaults my ears and pushes my body to the side. “James!” I call again.

“Yeah, hold on!”

Okay. Faintly through the rush of wind in my ears, I can hear my own panting breath. I glance down at my cramped toes, checking to see it my footing looks as stable as it feels.
Stable is an overstatement, to be sure. The sight of the tip-toes of my green climbing shoes pressing down on two slivers of granite, while a little less than a thousand feet of space dominates the view between my feet, does not inspire as much confidence as I would have liked.

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Posted by The Better Blog on 09/29 at 09:00 AM
Filed under: Abbey Leroux • Non-Fiction •

The Return of the Iron Goddess of Mercy

By Abbey Leroux

I never knew I needed an alter-ego until I saw those words strung together on a tea menu.

Iron Goddess of Mercy.

It was like someone from another dimension was calling out my long-lost name! Who is she? What does she look like? How does she roll? Somehow I knew. Those three powerful words explained it all. She is strong as iron, unlimited in her divine gifts and powers, and yet sweetly understanding and merciful upon all those she encounters—especially the dudes; the dudes who have been less-than-merciful unto her.

For some reason, the dudes are not immediately fond of this name when I reveal it. Some deeply intuitive part of them does just as the Iron Goddess of Mercy would expect: they tremble in fear. They scoff. They look at me like I might be a little bit more dangerous
than my small frame and generally sweet disposition suggests.

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Posted by The Better Blog on 08/21 at 10:18 PM
Filed under: Abbey Leroux • Non-Fiction •

I Feel Good, I Feel Great, I Feel Wonderful

By Abbey Leroux

There is one damn good reason that I don’t mind that my face today looks as speckled as the egg Lindsey Lohan hatched from. It is because I spent the weekend fulfilling a dream; a cleverly devised dream that allows itself room to stretch and grow and evolve. It is because I spent this weekend learning to surf.

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Posted by The Better Blog on 07/14 at 09:58 PM
Filed under: Abbey Leroux • Non-Fiction •

Flowers in a Shit Field

By Abbey Leroux

Wearing a white cotton skirt embroidered with flowers and a pinky gauzy blouse, I feel like a dumb little flower growing in a shit field.
Blonde hair flowing, freckle-faced and dressed up, my pretty appearance completely betrays my feeling that there is constantly a war happening – in my history, in our history, into the present and the future – and that a thick rope connects me to it, tied up to a pivotal point in my chest. The rope jerks me back, inward. Makes my heart nauseous. There is a dark whirlpool of Vietnam muck where the rope winds through; a wormhole, spinning deep deep in my chest like an eternally flushing toilet.
Careless, walking steadily down the Manhattan sidewalk with no land mines blowing my feet out from under me. No distant battle rumbling the ground, at least not literally. Ready to break down and sob and kiss the filthy cement. Ready to call my dad and tell him I was a soldier too.
But I look like a flower. I fit in this garden. But my heart… it’s in the shit field.

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Posted by The Better Blog on 07/07 at 09:05 PM
Filed under: Abbey Leroux • Non-Fiction •

Scratching the Big Itch

By Abbey Leroux

I stared out the window, squinting into the blinding light, and let myself cry. Only a couple of tears actually fell, but I felt the familiar brow-knit face-scrunching that accompanies a major sob lurking beneath the surface. All this over a seemingly inert mass of dirt and frozen water. A mountain. Instead of the typical girl crying over the heart-wrenching separation from her long-distance lover ("We’ll be together again before we know it” he says into her hair as she weeps in his gentle embrace), I am the girl gazing from the airplane window trying to keep it together over Mount Rainier.

           I can’t explain what brash and brave force of nature churned within me the moment of our approach the day before in Mt. Rainier National Park. Something beyond my control and comprehension caused me to immediately declare “I wanna climb it. I’m going to climb it.” But knowing two of my best friends’ ears were at my disposal quickly made my statement, which may have seemed flippant to people who don’t know me as well, a Mission Statement. 

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Posted by The Better Blog on 06/07 at 12:13 AM
Filed under: Abbey Leroux • Non-Fiction •