Alchemy Maya Baranovsky I twirl my necklace, barely aware of the points pressing against my chest. Exiting the elevator, my eyes meet hers as she stares out from the photograph that’s plastered on the wall. Her bony arms wrap around her thin legs to keep warm; Her eyes are full of hope, but also fear […]

The hot California sun was beating down on my skin. The orange and yellow rays hit the waves and made the ocean glisten. I sink my pretty pink toes into the sand, letting the waves crash among me. Shells were spread all around the beach, poking up like little rays of light. I smell the […]

After slowly climbing higher and higher and higher, I was finally there. I stopped to get a drink from my half empty water bottle and leaned against a boulder, resting my tired, aching legs. It was flattening out and only a few little trees and shrubs were growing through the cracks in the rocks. A […]

My arrival to the ever-sunny Hanauma Bay was greeted with wide expanses of cream colored sand, embracing gleaming, crystal clear, glasslike, aquamarine water. No, not water- they were liquid diamonds, converging, constantly swaying to the ocean’s song, waves beating down onto the shore in unexplainable rhythms. My first tentative steps were mesmerizingly cool, comforting in […]