I witness the world. Inhabiting all there is and all there was. I exist in the sky, bright in the day and dark in the night. I live in the seas from east to west and north to south. I rest in the flowers gently blowing in the wind. I hang from the vines until you swallow the sweet and sour tang. You have created a version of me. A doppelganger of sorts. It looks like me but is false and too vibrant. We reflect light the same, but we are not. I am the world, the sky, the seas, the flowers, and the berries. Am I so unnatural that you seek to clone me? That when you see me above you, you think “why is blue so uncommon in nature?”
Nature is blue as much as it is green. I, you, we are all blue.
When home, I apologize with several pots of pasta, showing my gratitude and appreciation. I go out to eat, “what are your pasta entrees? Any specials?”.
Round like a cauldron, that perfectly distributes heat for a nice boil and reduces cook time. Set the water to a boil. With an insulated handle, sturdy and not too far or too close to the pot. Yes, my pasta pot. Small yet large enough for two portions but justifies one portion easily.
My house is always stocked with Penne, ricotta, tomato sauce, parmesan, and red pepper flakes. Rigatoni, Penne, Linguine, Farfalle, Macaroni, Orecchiette, Shells, no Vegetable Rotini.
Pasta. The variety, complexity, and simplicity.
You’re hungry, that’s alright, I’ll go and grab my pasta pot.
Macaroni and cheese was my main source of food when I was younger. Sick? Mac and Cheese. Healthy? Mac and cheese. Sad? Mac and cheese. Happy? Mac and cheese! When we host or aid in hosting family gatherings, no mac and cheese means there is no meal.
Blanch, even though plain pasta is “plain” it should not taste plain! Where is the salt, at least, that accentuates the “plain” pasta taste, good pasta can be flavorful without sauce or meat and I will stand by that!
Although I have an unconditional love for pasta dishes, I am not easily pleased. Not everyone knows how to make a good pasta dish.
Involuntary betrayal *sigh*.
Not many options for me so plain pasta, okay I’ll manage, sauce, nothing notable. Even their parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes have a weird texture and taste, chalky.At home pasta is a highly rated cuisine, at school pasta is my last resort.
I would never deny her, we go together.
After decades, feels like cheating. When I turn in my Southern card every 5 months. Not by choice but by force.
The river got hungry and almost swallowed the town and us with it that day.
We watched the little pink house float down the street.
I have since been carried on that river to places near and far.
Farthest: Ecuador. On the plane ride, I look back at the red sunset and think about that girl who passed away recently. She was three years younger than me and already smarter.
Closest: My own heart. The arteries connected to it, clogged with memories. Jo Ann says: “Plasma is blood”. Chris says: “Exactly”.
In-between: Somewhere in Western Massachusetts. Sitting in a room, trying to remember what it is like to touch soil. Missing the way I disappeared between the rows of snap peas. I can still feel those juicy pods between my teeth. A crunch like no other.
(Reference: “The Fourth State of Matter” by Jo Ann Beard)
This is before. I am in the kitchen [i see her in the kitchen]. This kitchen has a lot of cows because I love them, their spots of love [i know this. but then i wonder if i really know you and what you love]. I love to nurture; I have four children [even me?]. I am in my cow kitchen, washing my hands at the sink with a shelf of cute cows gazing back at me [i packed those away. i ran farther away. but i rushed back many times these last months]. I am cooking a roast or something for my husband [you are a housewife]. He loves my cooking [i am a housewife in a different but ultimately same way]. I cook a lot of German recipes from my mother in this oven [do you miss her? i only ask because you two were very different. she was intense].
I miss her [i am assuming your thoughts because doesn’t everyone miss their mommy]. She makes me value my relationship with you and miss you more [don’t cut me open like that. it’s cruel]. But don’t feel guilty, I ran away too. Everyone has to [i wonder about you]. [i keep a lot of secrets from you. i don’t know so i write but make up fantasy].
Being a twin was an all-consuming part of my childhood. There was really nothing that was not impacted by me being a twin. Emma was my everything. She was my best friend. My parents did not allow us to be in the same classes because I used to talk to her whenever the teacher called on her. Even so, we spent most of our childhood together outside of the classroom. We shared a room where we would spend all day playing with our toys and games, making up imaginary games together. Being a twin is having a best friend and a sister at the same time. Growing up as a twin is amazing but unexplainably hard sometimes. We were always compared to each other. Who’s taller, who’s smarter, who’s pretty? People did not have to ask these questions for us to feel the weight of the other’s presence in everything we did. Trying to find out who you are as a person is hard when everyone attaches you to another person. It is hard to gain confidence on your own when another person with your face goes around being a person in a way you would not. Like an uncooperative left arm.
I was born in Riverside California on May 20, 2002, at 12:10, one minute after my Emma twin sister was born. My older sister Lily, Emma, my parent, and I lived in Riverside California until I was five years old when we moved to Salem Oregon. I spent the rest of my childhood there. I played many sports, such as soccer, swimming, and gymnastics, all with Emma by my side of course. I was even on a bowling league for a little while but volleyball in middle school and tennis in high school were the biggest sports for us. My mom was a Professor while I was growing up so she drove to be very academic. In high school I was in many clubs, and honor classes as well as really into government studies. Emma did not like politics like I did. She liked the health sciences. She wanted to become a nurse. As our interests diverged, our relationship became closer. We shared a friend group in high school and began to be in some of the same classes again, making our connections and issues even more prevalent.
Once at Mount Holyoke, I began to become more of my own person. I started studying politics and made some amazing friends. No one here knows that I am a twin unless I tell them that I am. It does not impact the person I am here or how people perceive me. Even when Emma comes to visit me, she is seen as Rachel’s sister, rather than as the twins. Every time I go back home, I am reminded of the complexity of our relationship. Since leaving high school our relationship has changed. We are not together anymore, not living lives that bound us to each other. Yet every time I am near her, we fall into similar patterns of our twin relationships. I am a whole person in a way I never am without her.
If you had asked me back then in the moment, I would have just wanted the experience to be over. I wanted to get out of the noisy airport. I wanted to stop coughing. I wanted to get a change of scenery and walk around. I wanted to go home and see my dog. Everything about the experience should have been miserable. I should be looking back with disgust… not with laughter. How is it that I can look back at this inconvenient, dumb experience in my life and laugh?
Me and Dad have been sitting there in the airport for four hours already. It would eventually become six hours. My patience is wearing thin and my headache is flaring up. I could have screamed in frustration. Then, Dad pipes up. He tells me that this is not the first time his flight has hit a long delay. In most of the other experiences, however, he is alone. No one to share the insufferably long moment with. He is glad that we can spend the day together, even if it takes place entirely within the airport.
I imagine if I had been alone in the airport, I would not be looking back in amusement. There would be no relief, no comfort, no one to talk to. Having someone I love there with me to spend the day with made it easier to get through. It made that strange day easier to look back on. I often think fondly of the chaos of the airport, with the two of us in the middle, sitting and munching on Starbucks egg sandwiches.
I watch from the water as she walks slowly along the shoreline, back bent and neck craned, tirelessly searching for sharks teeth. As much as I wish I could join her, I am happy where I am, bobbing in the gentle waves. She can stay in that horrible position for hours now, but someday she’ll be just like her mother, and will have wished she heeded my warnings. I should shout at her to put more sunscreen on her back; it’s doubtful she’ll listen. I think she’s spotted something because her hand shoots into the water. She inspects whatever got dug up in the palm of her hand, but after a few seconds, rinses them off.
I’m sure she’ll find one soon, or maybe I’ll tell Max to give her some.
You grew up surrounded by warm royal waters and the crash and music of waves on sandy shores (I grew up surrounded by mountains of snow that reached above my head and humid summers spent staring with dread at disgusting lakes)
If we are being honest, you have more experience with the ocean than I do (If I am being honest, I spent only a few years by the ocean and I barely touched sand)
You have more of a right to it (I don’t think I have a right to it outside of memory and symbolism)
But this place is more me than you — I mean, you’ve never been here (But this place is mine and I cling to it with claws even though you’ve never tried to take it from me and the whole point of this is to share somewhere that matters to you)
The sand isn’t soft or warm — it’s not really sand at all (The sand where I live now is soft and warm, but it holds little to no meaning in my heart, so I choose to forget it)
It’s jagged, sharp rocks (It’s jagged and sharp when I think about leaving you behind on that warm and soft beach)
And it’s not really the ocean either but a cousin, an offspring — it’s the bay (And it’s not really mine but it represents something greater, the image of a past worth remembering)
It’s frigid and dirty and breathtaking (It’s frigid and dirty and breathtaking when it snows in the North and I miss it too, just like I miss the bay)
I used to see it every day out of the classroom windows (I used to see you every day)
It called to me (It called to me — the idea of something)
I used to run on its levee during P.E as it glistened in constant movement (I used to run laps when I was too stressed to think, laps too fast to catch my breath, and laps too fast for the things chasing me to catch up)
I never ran as fast as I did on that pathway, I’d never run with anything so beautiful until we met (I never ran as fast as I did that year we became friends, but I met you then and then I met you years later and my whole brain is confused about the past and present and where it all meets)
A creak echoed through the back kitchen as I pushed the cold iron door open. I heard a chime ding above me, signaling my entrance. Here I was, ready to start my shift.
It was 7:50 on a Friday morning, meaning today I was working a sauce shift with my friend Mike. I liked sauce shifts, they were peaceful, customer free, stress free overall. Mike and I just sit in the back, either telling stories to each other and laughing or just sit and bathe in the silence, consumed by our own thoughts.
I walked through the back kitchen through the big red swinging door that said employees only. There was a little window on this door where you can see if anyone is coming into the back kitchen, or vice versa, to try to ensure no one gets hit by this huge wooden door. This window isn’t the only thing that saves us from that pain. We always yell “door” as we push through it, just to make sure all are aware. Sometimes when its a busy night, you just simply forget to look through the window. It’s not fool proof and I have been hit multiple times, but most of the time it works. This door opened into our hallway, two bathrooms to the left and the office and a little closet we like to call “the employees lounge,” to make it sound extra bougie to the right. I make my way into the front kitchen. Pablo’s has one of those exposed front kitchens where customers can see us physically make their food. They see us roll out the dough on the wooden table, put that dough on a screen and throw it onto the makeline where we put the ingredients on the pizza. After that we then throw that pizza into our huge 500 degree oven. It was kind of cool to watch, especially as a kid, as a lot of my coworkers have gotten the pizza dough tossed into the air trick down. Kids always stare in awe when someone gets a lot of airtime on a dough. I don’t have the trick down quite yet but maybe one day.
I press my terminal numbers into the computer and clock in, 7:53, a little too early in the morning for my taste but it does mean I am done for the rest of the day.
I walk back to the back kitchen, grabbing an apron from the employee closet on the way. Placing it around my neck, I was ready to get the day started.
Trip and I put my head on the glass of the Arizona desert. My girls singing on a CD. My girls. The lyrics are just sounds, so I’m hard to make out. I’m electronic. Probably singing.
Crabs turn into crabs turn into crabs. So the great wheel of nature turns, and what gets caught in the cogs comes out different when it hits back to the earth. We pick apart what is left over, now different, and separate it from what it is not. Crabs turn into crabs turn into false crabs. True crabs turn into crabs turn into crabs.
claws turn into claws, smaller now; shells turn into shells, rounder now; legs turn into legs, shorter now; until some form of equilibrium exists. Take what is evolutionarily unfashionable and shift it sideways again and again and again. Do not let it sit. A reminder to those who once looked similar that there is some form of perfection waiting around the corner. A perfection that can be yours in some odd-million years. And what is the waiting really? What is the waiting at all?
Crabs turn into crabs turn into crabs. The true and the false do not know one from the other. The kings are false, and their subjects do not know that they are ruled. A sociable hermit can be found under any nearby rock. The true are smug and superior, as they too share the same fight to survive. Wielding the same weapons, though theirs were won sooner.
I’m in 8th grade. The end of it. I’m basically a high school freshman. I’m sitting in a foldable chair. I have my makeup done for the first time because graduation is the only time we are allowed to wear makeup. My hair is long and curled. Not in a ponytail. I have blonde highlights.
They give me an award for being the best Catholic or something like that. I was the only girl that got it. They gave me a bible and $100. I could spend it on more makeup.
I graduate without a boyfriend. I step outside of the church and the sun beams on me. I’m ready for summer. I stare at the large building and marvel at its beauty. This is the last time I’ll ever go to this church. I’m moving and my parents and I have to go find one closer to our new house. New church means new boys.
I see Crush. He looks at me, like actual eye contact like seriously. He’s still so cute. My heart stops and everything that I’ve ever wanted is happening to me and the sun melts me into the ground. I am literally acting so natural right now. He approaches me and tells me that he likes the leis that I’m wearing. I’m speechless. He hugs me and says bye. I’m floored. This is the best 8th-grade graduation gift a girl could ever ask for. Maybe in high school, you will bless me with a boyfriend.
Sometimes I stop trying. I sip and think to myself, my tastebuds were just more sensitive back then. In essence, I remember being small. What I wouldn’t give to continue being small. Not young, necessarily, but I fill up too much of my own space now. I’m hot air, not ice. I don’t let new places feel new, and it’d be a challenge for me to write fondly of another gray day, besides this one that comes to mind, unjustifiably dazzling.
We parked by the icy lake and ate bad sandwiches he packed in a cooler. Somehow, I couldn’t see how terrible they were through the fog of this labor of love. Years since, having tried turkey and cheese again without sauce or much else, I’ve learned. For now, all I could think was “my dad packed a picnic,” and “this day must be special.” That was all it took.
My dad didn’t tell me where we were going, but I knew the long westbound road between rounded, emerald green mountains, white caps, and the miraculous sight of cattle only a six-year old could understand. I knew the bumpy pattern to Burlington like braille, traversed by a gray Toyota Matrix, a car we had way longer than we should’ve. I remember the thin, airy sound of Windy by The Association playing from our CD player through cheap speakers, and I loved its melody that day far more than I would for sixteen years, probably for the rest of my life.
When we got to the skating rink, I remember the sound of Coldplay from speakers on the ceiling melding into ice shavings and metallic sounds slicing the floor. Everything in my psyche felt a fresh snow, the color white. You just want to follow those mysterious slivers and retrace a stranger’s path, but you can’t before the next set of lines thwarts your plan.
The ground still falls out from underneath me, but I don’t laugh anymore; my bruises don’t land somewhere funny, and I can’t make it into a beautiful dance, despite how “strong” people tell me I am. My dad held my arm the entire time that day, because I don’t know how to skate (I still don’t), and he told me I could have anything I want from behind the counter. I ordered a root beer.
13 responses to “Experimental Prose—02 Tuesdays”
“Blue”
I witness the world. Inhabiting all there is and all there was. I exist in the sky, bright in the day and dark in the night. I live in the seas from east to west and north to south. I rest in the flowers gently blowing in the wind. I hang from the vines until you swallow the sweet and sour tang. You have created a version of me. A doppelganger of sorts. It looks like me but is false and too vibrant. We reflect light the same, but we are not. I am the world, the sky, the seas, the flowers, and the berries. Am I so unnatural that you seek to clone me? That when you see me above you, you think “why is blue so uncommon in nature?”
Nature is blue as much as it is green. I, you, we are all blue.
When home, I apologize with several pots of pasta, showing my gratitude and appreciation. I go out to eat, “what are your pasta entrees? Any specials?”.
Round like a cauldron, that perfectly distributes heat for a nice boil and reduces cook time. Set the water to a boil. With an insulated handle, sturdy and not too far or too close to the pot. Yes, my pasta pot. Small yet large enough for two portions but justifies one portion easily.
My house is always stocked with Penne, ricotta, tomato sauce, parmesan, and red pepper flakes. Rigatoni, Penne, Linguine, Farfalle, Macaroni, Orecchiette, Shells, no Vegetable Rotini.
Pasta. The variety, complexity, and simplicity.
You’re hungry, that’s alright, I’ll go and grab my pasta pot.
Macaroni and cheese was my main source of food when I was younger. Sick? Mac and Cheese. Healthy? Mac and cheese. Sad? Mac and cheese. Happy? Mac and cheese! When we host or aid in hosting family gatherings, no mac and cheese means there is no meal.
Blanch, even though plain pasta is “plain” it should not taste plain! Where is the salt, at least, that accentuates the “plain” pasta taste, good pasta can be flavorful without sauce or meat and I will stand by that!
Although I have an unconditional love for pasta dishes, I am not easily pleased. Not everyone knows how to make a good pasta dish.
Involuntary betrayal *sigh*.
Not many options for me so plain pasta, okay I’ll manage, sauce, nothing notable. Even their parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes have a weird texture and taste, chalky.At home pasta is a highly rated cuisine, at school pasta is my last resort.
I would never deny her, we go together.
After decades, feels like cheating. When I turn in my Southern card every 5 months. Not by choice but by force.
The river got hungry and almost swallowed the town and us with it that day.
We watched the little pink house float down the street.
I have since been carried on that river to places near and far.
Farthest: Ecuador. On the plane ride, I look back at the red sunset and think about that girl who passed away recently. She was three years younger than me and already smarter.
Closest: My own heart. The arteries connected to it, clogged with memories. Jo Ann says: “Plasma is blood”. Chris says: “Exactly”.
In-between: Somewhere in Western Massachusetts. Sitting in a room, trying to remember what it is like to touch soil. Missing the way I disappeared between the rows of snap peas. I can still feel those juicy pods between my teeth. A crunch like no other.
(Reference: “The Fourth State of Matter” by Jo Ann Beard)
Mothers [mommy]
This is before. I am in the kitchen [i see her in the kitchen]. This kitchen has a lot of cows because I love them, their spots of love [i know this. but then i wonder if i really know you and what you love]. I love to nurture; I have four children [even me?]. I am in my cow kitchen, washing my hands at the sink with a shelf of cute cows gazing back at me [i packed those away. i ran farther away. but i rushed back many times these last months]. I am cooking a roast or something for my husband [you are a housewife]. He loves my cooking [i am a housewife in a different but ultimately same way]. I cook a lot of German recipes from my mother in this oven [do you miss her? i only ask because you two were very different. she was intense].
I miss her [i am assuming your thoughts because doesn’t everyone miss their mommy]. She makes me value my relationship with you and miss you more [don’t cut me open like that. it’s cruel]. But don’t feel guilty, I ran away too. Everyone has to [i wonder about you]. [i keep a lot of secrets from you. i don’t know so i write but make up fantasy].
Being a twin was an all-consuming part of my childhood. There was really nothing that was not impacted by me being a twin. Emma was my everything. She was my best friend. My parents did not allow us to be in the same classes because I used to talk to her whenever the teacher called on her. Even so, we spent most of our childhood together outside of the classroom. We shared a room where we would spend all day playing with our toys and games, making up imaginary games together. Being a twin is having a best friend and a sister at the same time. Growing up as a twin is amazing but unexplainably hard sometimes. We were always compared to each other. Who’s taller, who’s smarter, who’s pretty? People did not have to ask these questions for us to feel the weight of the other’s presence in everything we did. Trying to find out who you are as a person is hard when everyone attaches you to another person. It is hard to gain confidence on your own when another person with your face goes around being a person in a way you would not. Like an uncooperative left arm.
I was born in Riverside California on May 20, 2002, at 12:10, one minute after my Emma twin sister was born. My older sister Lily, Emma, my parent, and I lived in Riverside California until I was five years old when we moved to Salem Oregon. I spent the rest of my childhood there. I played many sports, such as soccer, swimming, and gymnastics, all with Emma by my side of course. I was even on a bowling league for a little while but volleyball in middle school and tennis in high school were the biggest sports for us. My mom was a Professor while I was growing up so she drove to be very academic. In high school I was in many clubs, and honor classes as well as really into government studies. Emma did not like politics like I did. She liked the health sciences. She wanted to become a nurse. As our interests diverged, our relationship became closer. We shared a friend group in high school and began to be in some of the same classes again, making our connections and issues even more prevalent.
Once at Mount Holyoke, I began to become more of my own person. I started studying politics and made some amazing friends. No one here knows that I am a twin unless I tell them that I am. It does not impact the person I am here or how people perceive me. Even when Emma comes to visit me, she is seen as Rachel’s sister, rather than as the twins. Every time I go back home, I am reminded of the complexity of our relationship. Since leaving high school our relationship has changed. We are not together anymore, not living lives that bound us to each other. Yet every time I am near her, we fall into similar patterns of our twin relationships. I am a whole person in a way I never am without her.
If you had asked me back then in the moment, I would have just wanted the experience to be over. I wanted to get out of the noisy airport. I wanted to stop coughing. I wanted to get a change of scenery and walk around. I wanted to go home and see my dog. Everything about the experience should have been miserable. I should be looking back with disgust… not with laughter. How is it that I can look back at this inconvenient, dumb experience in my life and laugh?
Me and Dad have been sitting there in the airport for four hours already. It would eventually become six hours. My patience is wearing thin and my headache is flaring up. I could have screamed in frustration. Then, Dad pipes up. He tells me that this is not the first time his flight has hit a long delay. In most of the other experiences, however, he is alone. No one to share the insufferably long moment with. He is glad that we can spend the day together, even if it takes place entirely within the airport.
I imagine if I had been alone in the airport, I would not be looking back in amusement. There would be no relief, no comfort, no one to talk to. Having someone I love there with me to spend the day with made it easier to get through. It made that strange day easier to look back on. I often think fondly of the chaos of the airport, with the two of us in the middle, sitting and munching on Starbucks egg sandwiches.
I watch from the water as she walks slowly along the shoreline, back bent and neck craned, tirelessly searching for sharks teeth. As much as I wish I could join her, I am happy where I am, bobbing in the gentle waves. She can stay in that horrible position for hours now, but someday she’ll be just like her mother, and will have wished she heeded my warnings. I should shout at her to put more sunscreen on her back; it’s doubtful she’ll listen. I think she’s spotted something because her hand shoots into the water. She inspects whatever got dug up in the palm of her hand, but after a few seconds, rinses them off.
I’m sure she’ll find one soon, or maybe I’ll tell Max to give her some.
You grew up surrounded by warm royal waters and the crash and music of waves on sandy shores (I grew up surrounded by mountains of snow that reached above my head and humid summers spent staring with dread at disgusting lakes)
If we are being honest, you have more experience with the ocean than I do (If I am being honest, I spent only a few years by the ocean and I barely touched sand)
You have more of a right to it (I don’t think I have a right to it outside of memory and symbolism)
But this place is more me than you — I mean, you’ve never been here (But this place is mine and I cling to it with claws even though you’ve never tried to take it from me and the whole point of this is to share somewhere that matters to you)
The sand isn’t soft or warm — it’s not really sand at all (The sand where I live now is soft and warm, but it holds little to no meaning in my heart, so I choose to forget it)
It’s jagged, sharp rocks (It’s jagged and sharp when I think about leaving you behind on that warm and soft beach)
And it’s not really the ocean either but a cousin, an offspring — it’s the bay (And it’s not really mine but it represents something greater, the image of a past worth remembering)
It’s frigid and dirty and breathtaking (It’s frigid and dirty and breathtaking when it snows in the North and I miss it too, just like I miss the bay)
I used to see it every day out of the classroom windows (I used to see you every day)
It called to me (It called to me — the idea of something)
I used to run on its levee during P.E as it glistened in constant movement (I used to run laps when I was too stressed to think, laps too fast to catch my breath, and laps too fast for the things chasing me to catch up)
I never ran as fast as I did on that pathway, I’d never run with anything so beautiful until we met (I never ran as fast as I did that year we became friends, but I met you then and then I met you years later and my whole brain is confused about the past and present and where it all meets)
A creak echoed through the back kitchen as I pushed the cold iron door open. I heard a chime ding above me, signaling my entrance. Here I was, ready to start my shift.
It was 7:50 on a Friday morning, meaning today I was working a sauce shift with my friend Mike. I liked sauce shifts, they were peaceful, customer free, stress free overall. Mike and I just sit in the back, either telling stories to each other and laughing or just sit and bathe in the silence, consumed by our own thoughts.
I walked through the back kitchen through the big red swinging door that said employees only. There was a little window on this door where you can see if anyone is coming into the back kitchen, or vice versa, to try to ensure no one gets hit by this huge wooden door. This window isn’t the only thing that saves us from that pain. We always yell “door” as we push through it, just to make sure all are aware. Sometimes when its a busy night, you just simply forget to look through the window. It’s not fool proof and I have been hit multiple times, but most of the time it works. This door opened into our hallway, two bathrooms to the left and the office and a little closet we like to call “the employees lounge,” to make it sound extra bougie to the right. I make my way into the front kitchen. Pablo’s has one of those exposed front kitchens where customers can see us physically make their food. They see us roll out the dough on the wooden table, put that dough on a screen and throw it onto the makeline where we put the ingredients on the pizza. After that we then throw that pizza into our huge 500 degree oven. It was kind of cool to watch, especially as a kid, as a lot of my coworkers have gotten the pizza dough tossed into the air trick down. Kids always stare in awe when someone gets a lot of airtime on a dough. I don’t have the trick down quite yet but maybe one day.
I press my terminal numbers into the computer and clock in, 7:53, a little too early in the morning for my taste but it does mean I am done for the rest of the day.
I walk back to the back kitchen, grabbing an apron from the employee closet on the way. Placing it around my neck, I was ready to get the day started.
Trip and I put my head on the glass of the Arizona desert. My girls singing on a CD. My girls. The lyrics are just sounds, so I’m hard to make out. I’m electronic. Probably singing.
Crabs turn into crabs turn into crabs. So the great wheel of nature turns, and what gets caught in the cogs comes out different when it hits back to the earth. We pick apart what is left over, now different, and separate it from what it is not. Crabs turn into crabs turn into false crabs. True crabs turn into crabs turn into crabs.
claws turn into claws, smaller now; shells turn into shells, rounder now; legs turn into legs, shorter now; until some form of equilibrium exists. Take what is evolutionarily unfashionable and shift it sideways again and again and again. Do not let it sit. A reminder to those who once looked similar that there is some form of perfection waiting around the corner. A perfection that can be yours in some odd-million years. And what is the waiting really? What is the waiting at all?
Crabs turn into crabs turn into crabs. The true and the false do not know one from the other. The kings are false, and their subjects do not know that they are ruled. A sociable hermit can be found under any nearby rock. The true are smug and superior, as they too share the same fight to survive. Wielding the same weapons, though theirs were won sooner.
I’m in 8th grade. The end of it. I’m basically a high school freshman. I’m sitting in a foldable chair. I have my makeup done for the first time because graduation is the only time we are allowed to wear makeup. My hair is long and curled. Not in a ponytail. I have blonde highlights.
They give me an award for being the best Catholic or something like that. I was the only girl that got it. They gave me a bible and $100. I could spend it on more makeup.
I graduate without a boyfriend. I step outside of the church and the sun beams on me. I’m ready for summer. I stare at the large building and marvel at its beauty. This is the last time I’ll ever go to this church. I’m moving and my parents and I have to go find one closer to our new house. New church means new boys.
I see Crush. He looks at me, like actual eye contact like seriously. He’s still so cute. My heart stops and everything that I’ve ever wanted is happening to me and the sun melts me into the ground. I am literally acting so natural right now. He approaches me and tells me that he likes the leis that I’m wearing. I’m speechless. He hugs me and says bye. I’m floored. This is the best 8th-grade graduation gift a girl could ever ask for. Maybe in high school, you will bless me with a boyfriend.
Sometimes I stop trying. I sip and think to myself, my tastebuds were just more sensitive back then. In essence, I remember being small. What I wouldn’t give to continue being small. Not young, necessarily, but I fill up too much of my own space now. I’m hot air, not ice. I don’t let new places feel new, and it’d be a challenge for me to write fondly of another gray day, besides this one that comes to mind, unjustifiably dazzling.
We parked by the icy lake and ate bad sandwiches he packed in a cooler. Somehow, I couldn’t see how terrible they were through the fog of this labor of love. Years since, having tried turkey and cheese again without sauce or much else, I’ve learned. For now, all I could think was “my dad packed a picnic,” and “this day must be special.” That was all it took.
My dad didn’t tell me where we were going, but I knew the long westbound road between rounded, emerald green mountains, white caps, and the miraculous sight of cattle only a six-year old could understand. I knew the bumpy pattern to Burlington like braille, traversed by a gray Toyota Matrix, a car we had way longer than we should’ve. I remember the thin, airy sound of Windy by The Association playing from our CD player through cheap speakers, and I loved its melody that day far more than I would for sixteen years, probably for the rest of my life.
When we got to the skating rink, I remember the sound of Coldplay from speakers on the ceiling melding into ice shavings and metallic sounds slicing the floor. Everything in my psyche felt a fresh snow, the color white. You just want to follow those mysterious slivers and retrace a stranger’s path, but you can’t before the next set of lines thwarts your plan.
The ground still falls out from underneath me, but I don’t laugh anymore; my bruises don’t land somewhere funny, and I can’t make it into a beautiful dance, despite how “strong” people tell me I am. My dad held my arm the entire time that day, because I don’t know how to skate (I still don’t), and he told me I could have anything I want from behind the counter. I ordered a root beer.