On Change
I wanted a table again.
Cassie Westrate (’14) graduated with a double major in writing and international development studies. She currently lives in West Michigan, where she works as a writer, hangs out with her pet bird, and fights crime by night. Just kidding about the crime.
What Love Looks Like
I’m not always good at saying what I mean to say, so here: Mom likes to tell me how you could soothe my crying as a baby by carrying me around the house, pointing out people in picture frames, and telling me stories about them.
How the Church Talks
And you know what happens next? An adulterous Samaritan woman becomes history’s first recorded evangelist. Church, can we talk about that?
Here’s My Dirty Laundry
While I may have left the country a little more informed, I was mostly confused and overwhelmed about how to live life in a broken world with eight billion people who all needed food, clean water, shelter, education, and community.
How I Accidentally Became a Woooo! Girl
But one day at work, I was proofing an email and realized I sounded really excited about a new art exhibition. Too excited.
Potato Salad Diaries (Volume II)
November 19, 2014
I blew strawberry gelatin mix out of my nose today.
I don’t want to talk about it.
Let’s Talk About Gas Stations
Gas stations are where lives intersect, ever so briefly, before going back out into the world.
Expectations vs. Reality
I look at my expectations from a year, or two, or ten ago and realize that I never would have been able to create a reality so bittersweet, so full of wonder, and drowning in grace.
Four Cheeses for You, Glen Cocoo: Semi-Definitive Ratings of Romantic Holiday Movies on Netflix
The scale runs from zero to five cheeses, with five cheeses reigning supreme for the lamest pick up lines and most predictable plots. Warning: contains spoilers.
If Dog is Real
Isn’t there a certain bit of wonder involved in math when it’s stripped down? Even when solving proofs, the first line is given.
On Conquering Fears
I am irrationally afraid of concrete horrors, like clowns and spiders and people impersonating Talking Elmo, but those veins of fear are hardly the heart of the matter.
Enough / Not Enough
Still, grace is not always a shout. Sometimes, it’s a whisper. Sometimes, it’s day zero, rather than the third day.
‘Dracula, the Musical?’ (A Review)
Throughout the performance, I can understand eighty percent of what he says and forty percent of what he sings because, well … because of his teeth.
I Found Michigan’s Abandoned Dinosaur Park
I come to a dead end and turn around in defeat. I have officially walked every visible path I can find in this park, and the T. rex is nowhere to be found. I begin walking back.
How Things Shake Out
“Are you happy with how things shook out?” he asked me.
I Am Sadness
Sadness drives me toward community in a way joy never has. Sadness bids for honesty, serves as my greatest ally in empathy, checks my anger, and encourages me to look at another side of the story.
A Series of Honest Postcards
There is something about watching people pick out spaghetti sauce, and knowing they will cook and eat a meal together, leave dirty dishes in a sink together, that makes me ache.
Why Karaoke Is Oddly Empowering
Confidence is less like a characteristic trait for me and more like a fluid scale influenced by several external variables that I have a bad habit of internalizing.
… and now I’m the “Crazy Bird Lady”
I have a significant other. His name is JJ, and he’s a bird.
The Weight of Nothing
“It’s just that because the universe is expanding, that means it goes on forever, and forever makes now seem pointless,” I told Luke one day.
And Yet, Still Religious
When I’m confused, I need the motions. I need to plant the mustard seeds. Watch them grow, and even watch them die.
The Elephant in the Room
But the elephant is still there. Always there. And on day four, my co-worker and I decide that we just need to talk about it.
Ghosts We Know
Hi. My name is Cassie. There’s forever a part of me stuck in the loop of crawling in and out of bed.
Everything I Needed to Know, I Learned from a Drive-Thru
The woman in the white sedan will go home, call her best friend, and say: “I started crying in the drive-thru today, and they gave me extra napkins.”
When the Gulls Descend
Seagulls—by land, sea or any other name—are seagulls. They’re annoying birds, but they’re honest ones.
On Wonder
When I tell people that the high schoolers painted a building, cleaned up weeds and replaced broken doors, people ask me what the building is for. “Nothing,” I say.
The Coffee Chronicles
Because once you’ve been compared to mayonnaise, things can only get better.
How to Swing Like a Child as an Adult
Let the sky be wide open and full of good possibilities. Wonder why the sky is blue. Wonder how the earth suspends in space. Wonder how you came to live under this beautiful blue sky in this small corner of the universe.
I Joined Online Dating
Every time I have doubts, I ask myself where the line is between settling and compromising. Is this really not working? Are we really not right for each other? Or am I just unrealistic, idealistic, and CRAZY?
Small Fish
I’m twenty-four and should move somewhere far away and then move again once I’ve grown familiar enough to know exactly where to find packets of yeast in the store.
