Click here to read a story I wrote for The Blue Doors, the alumnae magazine for the Nightingale-Bamford School, a girls’ school on the Upper East Side in NYC. The piece is about three young alumnae who climbed the Matterhorn in July, 2006.
February 23, 2008
Going home?
Last weekend I went to California to visit my parents. I told my friends and coworkers in New York that I was going “home.” Later, when it was time to return to New York, I again announced that it was time to go “home.” This is the perfect allegory for a dilemma many of us twentysomethings face. Where exactly is home? Is it the place you grew up and subsequently left behind with childhood? Does it cease to exist except in our memories? Or is it the place we currently inhabit, makeshift and transitory as it may be? It’s also possible that “home” is somewhere out there in the future, when we finally decide to stick somewhere and buy expensive furniture. Maybe it’s all of these.
January 27, 2008
My First Job in College
I recently attended a basketball game at the YMCA.
The contest featured twelve-, thirteen- and fourteen-year-old girls. Despite the fact that most of them are in the midst of the biggest transition their bodies will ever make, none seemed the least bit physically self-conscious as they dribbled, passed, and shot the ball. It reminded me why sports are so important for women. Our bodies are constantly being objectified, but when we play sports we forget all that and transform into powerful instruments of athleticism.
On a lighter note, the game also reminded me of my first job in college as an intramural referee. My sister had been an IM ref in college and it seemed like a good idea. So when I saw an advertisement in UCLA’s Daily Bruin for indoor soccer referees, I applied. I had played soccer for twelve years growing up and knew most of the rules. When I heard back from the recreation department, they said they had filled all the spots for soccer, but would I consider refereeing women’s basketball?
January 27, 2008
Pride of the Upper West Side
I do not exactly fit the demographic of an Upper West Side New Yorker. I am neither married, nor do I have children. I am not an Orthodox Jew. I do not collect Social Security. And yet I feel completely at home living just west of Central Park in this community.
It’s difficult for other New Yorkers my age–particularly “downtowners“–to hide their disdain when I tell them where I live. Some of them try, saying things like “That’s okay.” Others simply ask outright, “Aren’t you afraid you’ll get run over by a stroller?”
January 3, 2008
Triathlete Magazine December 2007
Click here to read a short piece I wrote about volunteering as a watergirl at the 2005 Ironman World Championships in Kona.
December 31, 2007
T+L Golf November/December 2007
Click here to read a story I wrote on Chambers Bay Golf Course in Tacoma, WA, which was selected as T+L Golf’s Best New Course of 2007.
Click here to read a piece I ghost-wrote for Annika Sorenstam on her favorite golf course, Pine Valley. I interviewed Sorenstam briefly when she was in town for the HSBC Women’s World Match Play Championship in June.
Click here to see my mug on the Contributors page of T+L Golf.
September 19, 2007
SI Latino Spring 2007
Click here to see a profile I wrote of Herculez Gomez, a star striker for the Colorado Rapids with one of the coolest names EVER. This was part of a campaign for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which ran in the Spring 2007 issue of SI Latino. Unfortunately if you want to read it, you have to know Spanish. But you can see my name at the bottom “Con Jessica Shambora.” While I’d like to say I wrote it in Spanish, I didn’t.
September 18, 2007
Spooky
September 18, 2007
T+L Golf September 2007
Click here to read my first piece for T+L Golf. It’s about Carmel Valley Ranch, which was voted the most underrated Golf Resort in the West for 2007 as part of T+L Golf’s World’s Best Golf Resorts annual reader survey.
September 15, 2007
Badges II
A while ago I wrote a post about how surviving a difficult breakup is like a badge. I was never a girl scout but I like the idea. In fact my younger brother had his Eagle Scout Court of Honor a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t go home for it, but looking at the photos of him in his uniform and dark green sash with all those patches–the badges–I felt a deep admiration for him. Not only for the badges, but for the way he wore that (silly?) uniform, so earnestly. It was less like the pride you feel for a younger sibling and more like the respect you feel for someone older, who has a accomplished something great. I’ve never really felt that way about my brother before. After all, he is eight years younger. But I expect–and hope–to feel it more and more.
As we come to the close of another muggy summer in New York City, I’ve been thinking about how the ability to endure weather is another badge. One of the first things people ask me when they learn I’ve moved here from California is, “How do you like the winters?” or less often, but often enough, “What do you think of this humidity?”
I’m not really sure what’s behind these questions, but they sound like a challenge. I wonder if my inquisitors relish the idea that this fragile Californian might be broken by the extreme Northeast–dramatic rainstorms and cloying heat in summer, biting winds and merciless sleet in winter. I derive some enjoyment from explaining that I spent a year in Montana, which whether or not they know about the heavy winters simply scares New Yorkers who were unsure such a place really existed (Is that a state? where is that exactly?).
