Meredith ap Robert

Category: Uncategorized

  • Let the world flow around you like water

    Let the world flow around you like water

    Remember as a kid when you had teachers tell you, “You have to learn to work in a group because you’ll be working with others for the rest of your life”? Fair enough. But for many of us, it’s a lesson in how to fade into the background and dim our light.

  • Quiet Revelations: a journey toward self-acceptance

    Quiet Revelations: a journey toward self-acceptance

    The body and subconscious mind possess a wisdom that will help guide you, if you’re willing to listen. Accepting myself as non-binary was revelatory; a discovery of something that had been hiding in plain sight for an entire lifetime.

  • Helen Bass Williams: Purdue’s one-woman civil rights movement

    Helen Bass Williams: Purdue’s one-woman civil rights movement

    Reflecting on a lifetime of service The below article was written for Purdue University’s School of Languages and Cultures’ summer 2023 graduate student newsletter. I want to express my gratitude to the staff of the Purdue University Archives and Special Collections for their generosity in helping me navigate their resources. I am also deeply appreciative…

  • A letter on higher education

    Originally written for and published in the Calvin University Chimes in November 2020 in response to proposed cost-cutting measures undertaken by my alma mater directed largely at the humanities. In 2018, I volunteered to help with a mock interview day at Purdue University. As a rule, the students I interviewed were very impressive. I scribbled,…

  • Lake Superior Circle Tour, 2022: The drawbacks (and joys) of traveling by the seat of your pants

    Lake Superior Circle Tour, 2022: The drawbacks (and joys) of traveling by the seat of your pants

    In the spring of 2022, I ticked an item off my bucket list: taking a circle tour around Lake Superior—the wildest, most remote of the Great Lakes. I started my trip in Houghton, Michigan, and drove westward in a clockwise circle. After crossing the border to Ontario, my trip took an unexpected turn. I got…

  • Women’s March, six years on

    Women’s March, six years on

    Six years ago today, I was in Washington, D.C., for the Women’s March. As soon as I heard it was on, I planned to attend. I requested the time off work and started brainstorming what to write on my poster. Many were shocked by the outcome of the 2016 presidential campaign. I can’t pretend I…

  • Taking the Long Way

    Taking the Long Way

    After the year I’ve had, I’ve made the Chicks’ The Long Way Around into something of a personal anthem. A year ago August, I told my partner of 10 years that I was leaving him. It was one of the most painful things I’ve ever done. Writing about it is still painful. But last summer,…