UNBECOMING

"Maybe the journey isn't so much about becoming anything. Maybe it's about unbecoming everything that isn't really you so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place." - Unknown

Making It Right

Jaime Pollard-Smith

Mar 19, 2018
4 min

Making It Right

“She didn’t know how to fix herself….” -Bryn Chancellor, Sycamore I love the idea that we find in a book what we need to see or hear at that particular moment. I just finished re-reading Sycamore by Bryn Chancellor. It is the first selection in our campus-wide book club, Levine Reads. The first time I read the book, I had a purpose in mind. I was trying to solve the mystery that unraveled throughout the pages. There was a missing girl—a crime to be solved. I needed the answer

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Malfunctioning Minimalist

Jaime Pollard-Smith

Oct 2, 2017
3 min

Malfunctioning Minimalist

And I want to tell her to do more than just believe it, but to enjoy it! That changing your mind is one of the best ways of finding out whether or not you still have one. -Taylor Mali, “Like Lilly Like Wilson” I started off in January declaring 2017 to be my year of minimalism. My best friend also adopted this goal. Well, she won. She swept through her entire house in less than a week. She made a budgetary plan to minimize spending. A third of her belongings were at Goodwill

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Pros and Cons

It's Just a Phase

Birth Coach

Change the Weather

Jaime Pollard-Smith

Apr 10, 2017
4 min

Change the Weather

“WE CAN CHANGE THE WEATHER IN OUR FLAT!” My husband does not even flinch when I burst into his office with a grand idea or revelation. I confess that I am an enthusiastic, “Guess what?!” type of person. But on this occasion, the wheels were really turning. I was reading Zadie Smith’s latest novel, Swing Time. The narrator states that her parents got divorced and “the weather changed in their flat.” I could immediately relate to the image. This is a universal truth beyond divo

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The Should Jar

Line Them Up

Elephant Work

What I Learned about Life in a Watercolor Workshop

Jaime Pollard-Smith

Dec 26, 2016
4 min

What I Learned about Life in a Watercolor Workshop

This past week we were given a rare opportunity. Faculty members were offered two hours of professional development credit for attending a watercolor workshop. It was taught by a resident artist. He opened the presentation by explaining that painting with watercolor was a lot like a cat. You can tell it what to do, but it is going to do whatever it wants to do. What? Oh, HELL NO. How am I going to relax through a creative outlet that I CANNOT CONTROL? I have two children; I d

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My #nomakeupmovement

Jaime Pollard-Smith

Dec 6, 2016
4 min

My #nomakeupmovement

“There’s a part of me that likes shoes, and likes dresses, and likes makeup, and likes books, and likes to write. I think that’s the case for many women. But our culture makes us think we have to choose slices of ourselves that we’re comfortable showing the world.” -Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie As often happens, our family dinner conversation took a strange turn. We were discussing cultural grooming practices. “Female shaving has been used historically to keep women in a visually

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