Winry Ember
Bio
Computer scientist by day. Musician by night. Delightful ball of existential dread constantly.
Insta: @winry-ember
Achievements (1)
Stories (8/0)
3 Zen Life Lessons from a Global Crisis
"Are you sitting on your bench today?" It's one of the first things my therapist asks me when we start our phone session each week. I haven't seen him in person since March, and it looks like that's not an activity I'll be resuming any time soon.
By Winry Ember4 years ago in Motivation
- Second Place in Confession Corner Challenge
"Hello, my name is Not Real."Second Place in Confession Corner Challenge
My first poetry open-mic was as a literal breath of fresh air. After years of working as a musician, the experience of entering a well-lit bookstore stood in comforting contrast to the suffocation of cigarette smoke, liquor, and sexual advances from inappropriately older men. Still, I felt over-exposed without the soft buzz of bar chit-chat to hide behind. The thought of performing for a seated and attentive audience was to me as exciting as it was nerve-wracking.
By Winry Ember4 years ago in Motivation
On Quasars, Childhood Trauma, and You
Humans have spent thousands of years staring up at the heavens to make sense of the equally infinite depths of our own minds. Science and our expanding knowledge of the universe can seem to dwarf the grandiosity of our humble existence inside of it, but our expanding knowledge of the cosmos also has the power to make our own lives more expansive and fulfilling, too. I'm going to show you how exploring the universe can teach you how to navigate the depths of our emotional landscapes: how looking up can help you look within.
By Winry Ember4 years ago in Motivation
The Zen Art of Making Dumplings
Mindfulness practice is all the rage these days. You've probably heard of the benefits of seated meditation, yoga, and Qigong. But have you tried making dumplings? Nowhere to be, nothing to do— just delicious filling, doughy wrappers, and you.
By Winry Ember4 years ago in Feast
Dear Mom... It's Complicated
As I'm writing this, tomorrow is Mother's Day. I'm fully prepared to give my mother the sanguine "Norman Rockwell" style holiday that every mother dreams of. We'll walk to her favorite restaurant, grab takeout, and have a picnic in the park. I'll hand her the crochet doll I've been delicately crafting since December. Her grandmother taught her to crochet, and then my mother taught me to crochet, and now she holds in her hands a hand-crafted effigy of this deep maternal bond.
By Winry Ember4 years ago in Families
It's the Little Things
Ever have one of those moments when your world starts to shake and suddenly you feel the world spinning beneath your feet and remember that we’re all just milling about on a rock that’s hurtling through space at 67,000 mph? And you're struck by the infinite complexity of the world and feel your consciousness dissolve into the cacophany of the universe? And the world goes black as you stare into the abyss and it stares back at you with the haunting reminder that nothing matters?
By Winry Ember4 years ago in Motivation
Oh, Star
Night and day, light and dark— what a poetically tragic and poor mistake to call them two sides of the same coin. The sun does not rise; the earth merely turns. And the night does not fall, it consumes, a chilling reminder that the universe is dark, and always will be. The light exists not as a dichotomy to the dark but bursts forth from a strange ripple of cosmic absurdity until it dissipates and disappears into the cold, black expanse of the universe. And when all of the light from all of the stars in all of the universe has finally exhausted itself, when the world becomes cold, then everything will go on being dark, just as it always has.
By Winry Ember4 years ago in Poets
One-Hundred and Twelve Decibels
The air is thick with cigarettes, sweat, liquor, and the slightest hint of urine. It’s well past 9pm, but the world is hardly ready to be quiet. This is Dirty Sixth Street, the largest entertainment district in Texas, heart of Austin’s night-life. Gobs of tourists and bachelorette parties traipse about the streets with only two missions: they come to drink and they come to dance. I’ve come to entertain. I’m relaxing in the protective cocoon of a single-stall bathroom of a dive bar as I metamorphose from the androgynous roadie that unloaded my gear moments before into the fiery front-woman who will soon take the stage. It takes a bit of finesse to put my finishing touches of eye-liner on over a sink full of vomit— only one of many bizarre skills I’ve developed over the years of working as a performer. I use my fingertips to comb the knots in my split ends and tug at the edges of a slightly undersized hot-pink vinyl dress. Inhale, exhale— show time.
By Winry Ember4 years ago in Beat