Twenty-nine years later, Helminski tries not to dwell on the most traumatic moment of her past. But she also doesn’t forget. Every morning, as she takes her service dog, Zoey, out for exercise—sometimes a run, sometimes a walk, sometimes a racewalk and sometimes a combination of the three—in their neighborhood, she sees the sneakers sitting beside her front closet door. “They empower me to put one foot in front of the other,” she says. “They empower me to accomplish what I want to accomplish.”
That November’s race was supposed to be her first marathon. Her time would determine whether she would qualify for the United States Olympic Trials in racewalking. Aspirations of competing on a global stage have long since faded. This Sunday, however, Helminski will look to finish what she started three decades earlier and race in the New York City Marathon. She had to relearn how to walk and relearn how to speak after her attack. Now, she’s trained herself once again to compete. “It’s worth it,” she says. “Having the courage to step out of my comfort zone and say, ‘I’m going to approach this, even though it almost cost me my life.’”
Last week, Singapore became the first country to approve the commercial sale of a protein grown “out of thin air”, according to its marketing tagline. Solein, a yellow powder resembling grated parmesan, is the product of microbes that are fed gases – carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen – and nutrients. According to its developer, the Finnish company Solar Foods, it will be used in products such as plant-based meats, breads and spreads.
Singapore has emerged as a global hotspot for the alternative protein industry, with startups flocking to the island to develop and launch animal-free alternatives to traditional meat products.
These islands have been turned over again and again in the search for more knowledge about their past. And the amazing thing is, that they probably have still much more to reveal.
Implied inner palpability as transpersonal dictation
all works composed as a musical ark
as if rowing in an isthmus of lightning