Babel

babel is a collection of nonfiction essays in which I explore a female twenty-something’s crossdimensional dilemma of spirituality, racism, art, and love in the wake of Bible-belt hipsterdom. I board the train that is human pride, that great metal snake by which we essayists craft our lives, and measure out my stories by cities and coffeespoons—dotted with dark roast, preferably. The train of my collection glides through the first ‘burg and its Godlike aspirations, Babel; travels a ways to Virginia, specifically Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University and Prince Edward County, which was the hotbed of the Civil Rights in Education Movement; says hello to Bowling Green; and emerges a world away, in a mosaic of people on cow-peppered Indian streets. This master’s thesis—as a tangible fixture of my own words in a realm where greater folks have preceded me and still fallen (far and hard as Icarus)—is prideful, exploratory, and ultimately human. The titular pun may be taken more or less seriously. Hear the train whistle. It is our attempts at the Divine, a nexus of journeys and somehow in itself too a destination