Stars glitter above me. In the winter, the brightest star isn’t a star at all. Jupiter sits in our skies outshining the rest. Mars glimmers red and venus makes an appearance just before the moon fully rises. And they dance across the sky.
Stars sit in stasis. The North Star, Sirius, remains guiding lost travelers and Betelguese keeps Orion in place. They are always there. They are stars. No matter the season or time of year, come night, you will find them, waiting. The planets move, stars do not.
I often wonder if I am like the stars. Standing. Watching. Remaining in place while the brighter planets traverse the sky. Wondering if tonight will be the night I finally move forward or if it will be the night I disappear all together.
No one missed me when I left my school of 10 years. I made little impact on people’s lives. To them, I was just there: a random person that tagged along. It wasn’t quite their fault. I was unable to follow all the words they said or the games they played. I couldn’t join in the dance. So, I watched. And then I disappeared from their lives and no one took notice.
If Sirius were to die, he would do so in an explosion–a supernova–strong enough to a black hole. It would be a spectacle of the ages. But we wouldn’t know. We wouldn’t know until 9 years later when he would shine brighter for a moment before extinguishing forever. He could be dead right now and we’d have no idea.
I could be dead right now and you’d have no idea.
I expected things to change as I arrived in a new school. I was moving forward, finally. So, I tried my hand at becoming a planet. I imitated their shine, their dance. Yet it came off stilted and unsure. And they saw through me. So I was back to watching from 9 years away.
If Jupiter were to die, it would only take 45 minutes for us to know. He would light up the sky before vanishing. And the whole world would mourn for the loss of the King of Planets. Yet the sky in the summer would not change. For the planets move; stars do not.
People orbit in space. They take up the sky and the hearts of others. They swing around with each other laughing at jokes I’ll never understand. And they keep moving and meeting and making friends. They are seen. They look upon each other with such wonder and love, engaging with each other as a family or a solar system. And when one of them disappears, they outwardly mourn their loss.
I often wonder if I am like the stars. Standing. Watching. Remaining in place while others rarely look at me. If I were to fly across the sky, would they see then? After all, planets and stars look the same from Earth. Or would it take my death and 9 years for them to notice? For them to mindlessly look up at the sky–look at me–and think, ‘huh, I wonder where they went’ before continuing on and pointing their telescopes at shining Jupiter, red Mars, or lovely Venus.
Maybe that would be enough. I used to think this while sitting in my room at 16 staring at the pill bottle full of tablets. Taking one was supposed to make me a planet. Taking them all would make me a black hole. Just like Sirius when he dies.
It’s been four years and I still wonder if I am like the stars. Every winter night, I look up and find Sirius. It’s easy. He’s always there and I give him a little wave. Then I look at all the other stars I can see in the sky. Jupiter may be brighter as he dances but I don’t ever point my telescope at him. He gets enough attention anyways.
I used to pray I could forget. I packed everything I owned at eighteen and ran as far away as possible trying to forget. But then I stopped running, and walked. I walked and saw that everything around me would always remind me of that thing I was trying to forget, and all I could remember was that I was supposed to be forgetting. Why was I plagued with remembering? Shouldn’t I feel lucky I had a choice not to forget?
I remember I met Maddie on the first day of the third grade. She had the longest legs of anyone I’ve ever met. They made her self conscious, but I thought they made her like a God. An above average height, third grader God. She always walked a little fast because of her long legs, so I had to walk faster to keep up. I still walk fast now.
I remember I met you at the beginning of high school. I am not speaking your name, just in case this ever gets back to you, but I’m writing it to you. I try to forget how you and I met.
I drank with a girl from Miami, standing on the wet grass outside the Art Museum. I was at a party, and after I couldn’t remember why I came, I walked home, down the road next to the lake. I know this road so well it shows up in my dreams— I am trying to estimate how many times I’ve walked this road, but I am beginning to have walked around here for so long that I don’t know what number would be correct. I stumble down a hill to get to my favorite bench. My feet touch where the land and water meet, and the geese keep me company. I know this bench because three weeks into college I had covid, and ate all my meals here. Now it’s years into college, and the bench is still here, but I’ve plowed through haircuts and heartbreaks and I’m still mulling over what I was trying to forget. I know this bench because I sit here and remember how your oboe honked like a goose, and try to remember if we had conversations about lakes or geese or benches or hills or roads or walking. I remember the flat taste of the air in my mouth because our high school had no windows and we both were gawky because we were fourteen but you were really talented at the oboe and I wanted to compliment you I just needed some way to talk to you and you later told me you felt the same and now I refuse to speak to you or even let your name exit my mouth.
In high school, I couldn’t drive. I still can’t, and it’s embarrassing. Other kids were learning to drive, and I was stuck still learning to walk, just getting really good at it. I walked home from school everyday. I had crappy wired headphones and I blared my music too loud and walked fast. I didn’t know it then, but that was my meditation. That route is where I did my best remembering. That route is so clear in my mind. Right out of the towering metal gate is the Mormon seminary, technically off campus as to not be affiliated with the school. I remember I thought one step off campus was not enough grace to declare something “not affiliated.” Then, I walked down a hill so steep that, because I walked fast with music blaring in my crappy earbuds, I braced myself a little. Then I crossed a crosswalk, which I kinda want to forget because once a boy told me he liked me here and I wasn’t sure what to say because I was freshly fifteen and he was a bit older and nobody had said that to me before and now I wonder why I am trying so hard to forget growing up and being naive and everyone in the past that made me who I am now maybe it’s because some people just grow apart and now I’m stuck remembering you.
Once I crossed that forgettable crosswalk of forgettable boys, I walked past the back gate of Maddie’s old house. This house scares me. Not that anything about is inherently spooky, but rather the idea that I still remember every square inch of a house I haven’t stepped foot in in almost a decade. It scares me that the house looks the same, minus a paint job. The gate has not changed, and the tree that always blooms into pink blossoms every spring has kept up this act spring after spring after spring. A lot of my childhood memories are a struggle to remember, especially in vivid detail, but not Maddie’s old house. The house was always warm. We stuck our little fingers in the melted wax of the glowing aroma pot. The walls were a rust red, and never an overhead light on, but glowing lamps and candles, making the red even warmer. Her dog Gracie always had soft, long fur, and would always run out in the mud and bark through the gate, coming into the sanctuary of a home all muddy. But it gave the place a charm. There is no longer a Gracie. Maddie hasn’t lived in that house in years. But I still walk past and see the tree blooming every spring.
I walk around the lower lake on campus. Me and Rebecca sat here early on in college, and probably talked about geese, and also love. We would mention our favorite goose of the pack, what our life would be like as a goose, and the suffocating crush of heartbreak and rejection. And how the break of a friendship is even worse. When I first met Hailey, we walked around the other lake and I got us lost in the woods after bragging how I had excellent woods navigation due to my Oregon roots. When I first met Gaby, we walked under her umbrella in the September rain back to her dorm, musing on first loves and Fathers.
Thanks to you, I always fear who I might deliberately not speak to in a few years, but I try to forget. I remember how I walked these same milestone steps with you, and I feel the dagger twist all over again and the flat taste of that high school air has gone even more stale. I can’t forget how I met you.
Once I walk past Maddie’s gate, I turn and then turn again. This street was me and Maddie’s rendezvous spot as kids. We would wear horrible, neon tank tops, embellished with rhinestones and glitter and we were Gods. I would never dare to forget the rendezvous spot. But at the end of this street is a spot I’d rather forget, where that forgettable older boy who told me he liked me gave me a forgettable first kiss, that was salty and slimy and I squirmed away with a badge that I’d come of age. Maddie said the second kiss is better but I didn’t dare walk there. I turned around in class and gossiped about it with you. You cringed at the thought of a boy using tongue on the first kiss. I am so curious how your love life is now, but I’m more curious how free I would feel if I could just forget.
The last time I walked with Maddie was a couple months ago in December. We walked downtown and talked about majors and apartments and serious relationships and strained relationships with our family and what we were buying our moms for Christmas and how we would never, under no circumstances, stop being friends. I feel blessed and chosen, because Maddie is still a God, and she made me walk faster, walking city to city, coast to coast. I don’t want to forget, because what about that aroma pot and the hot wax and the rusty walls and Gracie I would never forget Gracie especially because she’s gone but the whole house is gone to me except for that blooming tree in the backyard and the wooden gate we would scale which maybe they should replace because last time I walked there I noticed it was rotting a bit and sometimes it’s okay to let go of things over time when they run their course which is what I did with you.
If I don’t want to forget, then I guess I must remember you. Yes, that means I have to remember your distance and resentment and the lists of everything we were supposed to do that will never be done because I have to remember I haven’t spoken a word to you in almost two years now, after talking everyday for such a long time. But I remember it wasn’t all that bad. I remember you were one of those kids who did learn to drive and we flew through the country roads in your giant white truck and the sun made your blonde hair look heavenly and the summer air tasted sweet and I felt more free than I ever had. I remember we had every sleepover at your house and your mom was polite but overbearing and you had two dogs until you had one and there were Bible verses hung across the toilet but your room was a sanctuary and we would laugh in your bed until 3 am. In remembering your bed I now remember how you slept talk and I would transcribe your words and read them back to you in the morning and we would laugh until 12 pm. I remember you had a really good laugh. And when you laughed, you had dimples that I was always jealous of. I remember the last thing you said to me, congratulating me on my college decision. You said I’m sorry for everything and I didn’t understand what exactly you were saying sorry for and I still don’t. You and Maddie go to the same college, and as much as I want to visit her, I don’t because I’m scared I’ll run into you and I don’t know what I would say to you. Maybe I would repeat everything I remember and we would reminisce about good times, like that time when you backed the white truck into a forklift and the tailgate was impaled and left a hole and it was one of those things that was funnier not in the moment but after, and you would remember that too because how could you forget something like that. I always wonder if you remember me, or choose to forget.
Maybe we both remember. You remember when we first met, and how you searched through your mind to start a conversation. Every time you come back to our hometown, you see all our spots too. You remember.
I walk around the upper lake. This is my favorite place to walk on campus. I remember my first fall at college, the trees around upper lake exploded into scarlets and ochres, and I was in awe and that’s something I would never want to forget. I see a blonde girl riding a pink bike, and I remember me and Maddie biking in circles in front of her house. I remember the part of this trail where I led Hailey astray the first time we walked. We’re closer than ever. I remember when you and I were closer than ever, and laugh about that stupid forklift. I remember your overbearing mother interrogated me over it, and thought of us as irresponsible teens, which we probably were. I don’t want to forget those days. I walk and I remember. I pray that my genetic predisposition to dementia never rips me open and forces me, against my will, to forget. I’m lucky, so I choose to remember.
In 4th grade, I discover that the peak hour of flirtation with Crush is not during school, but during the sacred hour of mass. Because everyone knows mass is for staring at boys and daydreaming about boys and praying for a boyfriend.
As I walk through the huge wooden doors with my parents in my Justice floral dress and black flats I have my eyes immediately peeled for who is there. Maybe Crush is there this weekend. I don’t see him. My head turns at the sound of the large wooden doors opening again and again, hoping Crush will appear. Old person….old person….ah! A boy! Not my boy, but a boy— good enough.
This is where I run into problems. I can’t just daydream or pray about things— no, I need to take action. Not only do I need to attend mass, but I also need to be employed. If I simply attended mass, then all I could do was stare and dream. Altar serving is it! It is a cool job. It’s cool because everyone watches you and you get to wear a cool white robe and a cool colored tie rope thing and get communion before everyone else and all the popular kids do it. And, if Crush becomes an altar server, since he is cool and popular and would also want to have a cool and popular job, then obviously he will be an altar server too. and we would have to work together and consequently spend time together and fall in love. It’s a foolproof plan.
To become an altar server, one must be in fourth grade or older and attend rigorous training. You had to memorize the parts of the mass and all the objects used in the mass. Chalice. Pall. Corporal. Book. Wine. Water. Towel. The list goes on. The training takes place once a week after school at the church. I attend all of them.
At the final exam to determine my fate, an old lady hands us a worksheet and I must match all the images of the objects to their names and descriptions. There were 50 objects we had to memorize. I got a 50/50. I signed up to work every Sunday mass in hopes of working with Crush as if it were some kind of lottery.
Aside from Sunday mass, we are required to attend school mass on Wednesday mornings before any of our classes start. By 5th grade, everyone knows that I have a crush on Crush. I think even Ms. Smyth knows. But I don’t care! We go outside, all of us clamoring and chatting while being told to quiet down and line up for mass. With exact precision, counting, adding, and subtracting, I and all the other girls strategically devise a way to end up sitting next to our crushes. This is seriousness. I am switching frantically with my friends as they tell me to move down the line past one more person. And just like that, Crush gets shoved right next to me by Ms. Smyth and we all giggle. I end up sitting next to Crush during every Wednesday morning mass, without fail, holding his hand while we pray the “Our Father” and telling him “Peace be with you” after the priest says “And now let us offer the sign of peace.” I am a professional at this.
6th grade is a travesty and I have to accept that all hope is lost. Crush is in the other class. The other class!!!! I desperately need to be there! If I am not, then he is bound to fall for some other girl! Another girl who is prettier than me and who is probably blonde with fresh highlights. I shrink into my plastic navy blue chair and the ends of my hair get caught in the little screws on the back. I rip them out in frustration.
I’m in 8th grade, well basically a high school freshman, sitting in a foldable chair with 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 and not in a ponytail. I have blonde highlights. They give me an award for being the best Catholic or “Spiritual Seeker” I think they called it. I was the only girl that got it. They reward me with 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 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 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.
I’ve never been good at having a “competitive spirit.” It’s the reason I quit playing tennis as a kid. I didn’t possess the same fierce tenacity as my peers, nor did I especially want to strive to get better. However, this was also back before I learned how to “lose gracefully.” This may sound contradictory, and it is. I wanted to win, but at the same time, I didn’t want to put in the actual work to improve. That is not the same thing as having a competitive spirit. All I wanted was for every game I played to go exactly as I planned, and if it somehow didn’t, then that meant it had to be the fault of someone else on my team, because I was simply too amazing and talented to have lost without someone intentionally sabotaging me! Surely, it couldn’t have been because the other team just happened to play better! But, when you’re in a physical area with other people, you can’t exactly say that kind of thing without humiliating yourself.
I shifted over to video games later on down the line. I started playing Overwatch, a competitive first-person-shooter, when I was thirteen. The game pits you and a team of five other players against an enemy team of six more players, and has each team try to complete an objective while fighting the other team to try and prevent them from completing theirs. Just like tennis, winning a match relies on a mix of skill and teamwork. Unlike tennis, however, players will likely never meet their teammates or opponents in real life. The cloak of anonymity they have on the internet removes most social consequences they may face otherwise, giving them the freedom to turn Overwatch’s fanbase into one of the worst video game fanbases out there.
As a beginner in the game, I found out very quickly just what I was getting myself into. Even as I was still getting used to the controls, my teammates would give me no time to learn. Any mistake I made would be heavily scrutinized; if I wasn’t pulling my weight in the exact way I was expected to at all times, I would be called trash and be blamed for the team performing badly. If I picked an unpopular character or died even once, I’d be called trash. If a teammate died, they would most likely shift blame onto whoever was playing the team’s healer. Oftentimes, it seemed like these players were just looking for reasons to put their teammates down to try and rationalize why the team as a whole didn’t do well. These players are commonly called “toxic.”
This environment made me incredibly afraid to make mistakes of any kind. Like many Overwatch players, I became obsessed with my personal statistics: public values on my profile that showed off my average win rate, kill-to-death rate, and rank. I strived to keep those values as high as I possibly could, just for the bragging rights. I also became addicted to the game’s reward system: one that places a very high value on winning. I wound up associating “fun” with the rewards and the numbers rather than the experience. In order to have fun, my team simply had to win, and if we didn’t win, then I would not be having fun.
Whenever my computer screen was graced with the big, red “DEFEAT” text, I would not simply chalk it up to “Can’t win ‘em all.” Instead, I would immediately try to rationalize our team’s loss in a way that did not involve me owning up to any mistakes I might have made. I had been prevented from getting my well-deserved reward of made-up in-game currency and fake silly outfits for my characters to wear, and someone besides myself just had to take the fall! Maybe someone on our team was intentionally sabotaging us! That had to be the only explanation as to why we performed so badly! I would immediately act on impulse, pick whatever teammate was playing the most unpopular character, and blame them for our team’s loss. There, my ego was preserved. Or maybe the game simply paired us against a team of pros by chance! Maybe they’re only good at the game because they do nothing else, and just play video games all day in a basement! Perfect! Something to put them down for, justify our loss, AND counteract the blow that my ego took from losing! I would impulsively and shamelessly break out the chat and begin to type. “sweaty tryhards go take a shower haha” That would show them! Right?
I eventually took a break from Overwatch, since I wasn’t really having fun with it. During my time off, I did some self-reflection. I asked myself questions that had never occurred to me before. Did I really expect to win every single game I played? Did I really need any of the rewards I earned? What was insulting my peers going to accomplish? How would I have felt if I was in their position? Did I expect my insults to have any effect other than making myself look like a complete baby?
This wasn’t tennis. I wasn’t in a physical area with my teammates and opponents. No one knew who I was, and they most likely never would. I only had the gall to lash out at them because of the lack of social consequences. Nothing I said could be traced back to me in real life, so that gave me complete freedom to act on my very angry impulses… and it turned me into a brat.
In order to have fun again, I knew I had to learn to care less about the statistics and more about the experience. This did not happen overnight. In the early stages of this “withdrawal,” I would lose a game, fully type a rude message into the chat box directed at either my team or the opposing one, and just barely stop myself from hitting “Enter.” I would be angry and frustrated that we lost, naturally, but once I started asking myself if these rude remarks were worth it, I would reel myself in, take a deep breath, delete the message, replace it with a simple “ggwp” [good game, well played] and take my anger out on a pillow or something instead. Was I frustrated? Yes. Did I need to make that fact known? Absolutely not.
The game continued to try and get me to care about my rank, my rewards, and my personal win-to-lose ratio. Slowly but surely, I learned to see those statistics as unimportant nonsense. I learned to take deep breaths after losing a match, and tell myself that it was a silly thing to be mad at. I would gradually get into a mindset where all that mattered was doing my own personal best while trying to have a good time. Occasionally, I would be put into an incredibly fun, unforgettable match that I would greatly enjoy my time in, even when I didn’t win! I found that the numerous matches that weren’t much fun ended up making the fun ones even more memorable. Unfortunately, the points and rewards system never changed, and the fan base remained as toxic as ever.
My mom sometimes worries about me playing video games online as a woman. She has read numerous stories of female gamers undergoing constant and brutal harassment, and is concerned that it may be happening to me. I don’t blame her for worrying. The value that so many competitive games have placed on winning has proven to bring out the very worst in people, my own behavior in Overwatch being a key example. While I am glad I managed to both move past it and avoid the worst of it, I don’t see the toxicity of fanbases for competitive games dying out any time soon. It’s why I prefer not to play competitive games anymore.
For the past few years I have been limiting myself strictly to games that are either single-player or exclusively cooperative. Cooperative games normally don’t display endless public statistics about how good or bad you are at the game, and they don’t hinder your progress when you take a loss. The best cooperative games reward players for working together to accomplish goals, even when they don’t win. By tricking people into being helpful, and making the act of cooperation a requirement, it establishes a sense of camaraderie between teammates that I have found brings out the very best in people, including myself. Cooperative games are not without their own toxic players, but they tend to be few and far between. The ones that are there tend to have a habit of whining about numbers, wins, and a rewards grind that doesn’t even exist. Not everyone is accustomed to playing games just to have fun, and I suppose it takes competitive players some time to get used to it.
Video games get a bad rep since so many parents think they cause violence. They can certainly make people angry. Not because they’re violent, but because they’re hard. In that sense, video games are a good way for people who don’t play physical sports to learn about sportsmanship and humility. We’re all flawed human beings who are just trying our best, and video games can help people feel less alone in that. They certainly helped me.
I hold in my hand an object that has no beginning.
It has existed forever – on my father’s cluttered desk, in the bottom of a childhood jewelry box, and, most recently, atop my dorm room dresser. It is a brooch that used to belong to my father and at some point came into my possession, likely when I was scavenging his apartment for the remnants of happier days. It has the flashy appearance of costume jewelry but is unique in that its focal point is not a gem, but the Buddha – seated, with eyes closed, in deep meditation. He is cast in artificial jade which has grown rough to the touch. A halo of synthetic jewels enshrines him, and around it a second halo of gilded metal has become worn and dull at its edge. In contrast, the jewels are still so luminous that I feel they could be visible in total darkness. The largest jewel, which sat atop the Buddha’s head, fell out many years ago. Sometimes I stare into the metallic void left in its place.
The brooch currently serves no purpose. At one point I suppose it could have been worn on clothing, but for as long as I have known it its pinning mechanism has been broken. It is somewhat dangerous, as without the intervention of duct tape the sharp part would hang about recklessly, waiting to stab unsuspecting handlers. It was pacified long ago, however, and can now rest comfortably in my palm. I consider the Buddha on the brooch to be a passive observer of my life. No matter what I am experiencing, he sits there in complete stillness, frozen in a perpetual state of bliss.
I have been afraid of stillness my entire life. My mother told me that when I was a baby, she would often have to drive me around in the car for hours to get me to fall asleep. I don’t remember that, but I do remember the distinct panic I felt when she would turn to leave after saying goodnight to me when I was a child. Her presence would linger, however, and the orange glow from my night light made everything look friendly in the dark. When I had to sleep in a less familiar place the panic was more prolonged. I remember sitting at the top of my grandmother’s carpeted staircase long after I had been sent to bed, listening to my family members chat in the living room downstairs and trying to make as little sound as possible. I wanted nothing more than to run downstairs, jump into my father’s arms, and bury my face in his chest so I wouldn’t have to see the look on my grandmother’s face.
My fear of sleeping at night has only intensified since childhood. Now, I sleep best when I’m not supposed to. Sometimes I’ll catch a few hours during the day, but I often wake up in a pitch black room with the feeling that I’ve slept through a season. When I have nothing to do, I’ll wait until the hazy green of dawn fills my room – the same green as my plastic Buddha. I seem to take comfort in the fact that, outside my window and my existence, the world is beginning again. I count the seconds between the cars that pass by my apartment building as a sort of meditative practice. When the pavement is wet with rain, the sound of their tires lingers for a long time. I enter the unknown alongside them.
It’s 4:00 am. My alarm clock casts an ugly green tint on the walls of my dorm room. It makes the emptiness of the space more pronounced and I feel uneasy. I try to dig up a memory of a time I was tired. I fail. I decide that I should stop torturing myself and listen to something. I think of hypnosis, and I wonder if feeling as though I am relinquishing control would help me at this moment. I search for “sleep hypnosis” on Spotify and play the first thing that pops up. At first, it is pleasant enough. A man, speaking in a low, drawn out voice, tells me to get comfortable and take deep breaths. Generic ambient music plays in the background. I feel calm but not hypnotized, to my disappointment. He then goes on to say that I should pay attention to my body. I tense up a little. He says to mentally move from one area of my body to the next, relaxing each muscle as I go. I take off my headphones.
I lie in bed listening to the whir of my fan for a while. I know I will not be falling asleep any time soon, so I decide to try and understand why I am so afraid. I realize that it is not sleeping I fear, but the state that precedes it. I am afraid of the moment before everything goes blurry – the moment when it is all clear. I am afraid of being aware of my body. Stillness causes a level of awareness that is uncomfortable to me. Not just physical stillness, but mental stillness. Whenever I feel my body and mind growing tired, I busy myself with some unimportant task. I convince myself that I am being productive. I try to run away from the inevitable.
I want to drift into the galaxy and become a star, as bright and shining as the synthetic crystals on my father’s brooch. But my condition binds me to my body. I am a non-consenting observer of the here and now.
I want to exist outside of my body. I don’t want to be reminded that I can’t be free from it as long as I am alive.
I hold my Buddha in my hand and wonder if I will ever stop running from stillness.
Thou Shalt Not Steal (not even from Walmart)
As we walk into Walmart, Jennifer tells me she’s excited to be back home from Taiwan because she can steal again. She informs me that it is basically impossible to steal in Taiwan for some reason I don’t quite remember. Something about cameras or collective responsibility or whatever. We make our way to the nail polish.
We’re not kleptomaniacs or anything like that, but who wants to pay ten dollars for Essie nail polish when you could slip it into my pocket for free? It’s small enough to clutch in your fist and it digs into your skin; the raised glass “Essie” logo brands your palm. You move from one camera to another, and maybe that throws them off; the employee you imagine could be watching.
I worked as a Walmart cashier for a summer and I learned you’re not allowed to accuse someone of stealing. It’s a convoluted and complicated process to really catch someone. As someone getting paid barely over minimum wage, I would never put in the effort, not that I care anyway. So you talk casually to your friend, admiring another product, and slip the polish into your pocket or bag. And if I see it, I’d let you go, but I don’t see it, because you are good at this, and I don’t get paid enough.
Me and Jennifer reassure ourselves by saying it’s ethical to steal from big corporations, “What is ten dollars to Walmart or CVS? They make a billion a year, probably!” We don’t look it up, it’s the principle of it all. The Bible says it’s a sin to steal; in fact, it’s one of the famed, all-important Ten Commandments. Surely God wasn’t thinking about the mega corporations of the future when he said that. But sometimes I worry that God was thinking about Walmart. I mean, he must’ve known Walmart was coming, right? But perhaps, Thou shalt not steal…except it’s probably okay to steal sometimes from huge corporations because they are the antithesis of the people and deserve to fall, wouldn’t fit on that stone Moses brought down. I could understand that.
I don’t remember when I started to steal which is kind of odd because I remember when I wasn’t stealing. I didn’t steal as a child. It seems like a lot of people have childhood stories of stealing candy bars and immediately being found out by their parents. But I never dreamed of stealing. Morals, sin, it was just wrong! You can’t just take things, that’s not how this works.
I do remember the last time I paid for nail polish. The summer before my Junior year of high school, I went to Walmart, looking to purchase a new nail polish for the summer. I saw a bright yellow with a twinge of orange, named, “check your baggage,” Foreshadowing, perhaps, but this baggage would indeed be checked. Then I saw a green polish vibrant but deep. The name was romantic, “willow in the wind.” Decisions, decisions. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes. I can spend a long time deliberating when it’s ten dollars. I decide on green, swayed by the promise of a willow in the wind. I cough up ten bucks. This is heavy stuff.
So I go home, paint my nails, admire them, put on my favorite summer dress, notice the small yellow flowers on the dress, the exact same shade as one I had seen earlier, stare at the flowers, stare at my nails, stare at my ceiling as regret washes over me. I know I’ll never get over it, so I drive the ten minutes back to Walmart, and I cough up ten more dollars. 20 dollars to paint your nails. Unacceptable. Little did I know that would be the last time I paid for nail polish.
So maybe that’s when it started. Or maybe it was when Nakole took the friendship key chains off of the Claire’s purple cardboard because we didn’t need all five of them. “Problem solved,” she said, indifferent. Or maybe it is when Jennifer reveals that, when she is working, in the apparel section of Walmart she pockets the discarded makeup she is supposed to return. It’s a slow realization I can have whatever small treat I want, and it’s sweet. Tsk tsk, God disapproves. So what?
In college, I meet Indigo, who says she was a sort of kleptomaniac when she was a teen. She would go out with her friends and fill tote bags with stolen merchandise. Mostly stuff she didn’t need, stuff she didn’t even want. A hundred-dollar tote bag heist. Once, she was chased out of a store and threatened with police calls. Indigo says that she can’t steal anymore, it makes her incredibly anxious. She confesses to me that when her friend Lydia steals from a store they are at together she starts to panic. I wonder if I will ever feel this way. It only takes one failure to ruin everything. Maybe one day, God will get fed up and remind me, shaking his head, No stealing means no stealing period! None of your weird anti-capitalist bullshit. It’s the principle!
But for now, Jennifer and I look at the nail polish. When you know you’re just going to take it, the choice of color feels fun, not dire, regretful, or important. I pick one up and tell her that this one is pretty. It’s a dark indigo blue. I check the name, “to me from me.” Ironic, I could laugh and I do. Jennifer looks up from the rich purple in her hand, “OMG that is so cute!” She exclaims. I slip it in my pocket and we walk out, indifferent. I paint my toenails blue and I don’t feel guilty. It does not match the color of any of my summer dresses.
December 23rd, 2010; Maple Grove, MN; Forecast: Snow
I stand suddenly, as if possessed, and walk straight to the door. From the security of my house, I glance outside to pure white. The cement is covered in snow, the sky is flurried, the trees are dusted, and the grass is sparkling like a thousand tiny Swarovski crystals. It’s shining like a beacon. I am trapped in its angelic claws. I never want to look away — I never want to move from this spot. The white bursts and spreads to every corner of my vision. The light swells with it, overwhelming me. I blink and open my eyes to the floor tilted sideways. It’s disorienting. Where there should be white there is only deep pine. Suddenly my head erupts in pain. I stare into the white light, caught in such a trance that I see nothing but expanding, glistening radiance right before I see black.
April 14th, 2014; Devon, England; Forecast: Overcast, 100% Chance of Rain
I think to myself that there is no place damper and more miserable than an English field. There is nothing worse than raindrops sliding off a windbreaker as you stand outside someplace you did not even want to visit. There is something cruel in the sky’s tears falling while birds scream around you. Something is misaligned in the universe. I wish I was home — Minnesota is never this disappointingly gloomy. At the sanctuary, I get to hold an owl but all I can do is shiver while the bird ruffles its feathers in annoyance. I shake my legs to try and free them from the constraints of soaking wet clothes.
It’s green there but you never see it. It’s too cloudy, too rainy to glimpse the vibrant colors. The rolling hills are ocean waves that you can hardly see through the salty mist. A falcon flies for a show and briefly disappears into the dull gray. It’s fascinating but my socks are soaked through. There were a lot of birds, spectacular birds, adorable birds, big and small birds. I know this, I’ve seen the photos. It was miserably wet and cold. Soaked to the bone, shivering and dramatic. I remember my mother’s coat was a dark green when she gave it to me. She made me feel dramatic — it never occurred to me that the misery of the onslaught didn’t discriminate.
November 21st, 2014; St. Paul, MN; Forecast: Extreme Cold Warning
I shiver and wrap my arms around myself. There’s glorious snow out of the small gap between the plane and the jet bridge. Everyone outside is wearing winter jackets and I remember that I don’t have one anymore. I left my turquoise coat in the Goodwill in South Minneapolis when I was transplanted across the country to California. But it’s marvelously cold outside and the grin on my face is wider than it’s been in months.
My eyes stung a bit, from the chill or out of the sagging weight of finally offloading months of too-warm exhaustion and longing, I did not know. I did not care. My hands shook a bit. I had goosebumps again. I hadn’t seen them for months. I thought I may have lost them forever. But I was back home, back where I stayed mentally even as all my belongings sat across the country in the heat of a drought-ridden Californian coast.
Californian air is warm, but it’s November and the last thing I wanted was warmth. The frigid air feels like comfort and safety. The coldness sweeping into my bones is enough that I finally feel at home again.
November 17, 2016; Foster City, CA; Forecast: Fog
I gaze at the cerulean canals that connect my home to the bay. They’re shrouded in saltwater fog, but their dance is still mesmerizing. The levee is emptier than normal but it’s sort of nice —it makes this place feel solely mine. My feet are carrying me nowhere in particular— a sort of requiem tour of the place that I just learned to love. The clouds are closer than normal, it’s like they know I’m leaving, it’s like they’re saying goodbye. I dread North Carolina; after all, I love politics, it’s 2016, and I always hold a grudge.
Across the wooden bridge, there’s a small Japanese restaurant that always serves the best tempura. It was the first sit-down place we went to when we moved here, and it’s been my favorite ever since. I pick at a scab on my lip with my teeth as if I’m eating there right now. In that little shopping center, the sidewalks are rainbow and always covered in abandoned shopping carts. It’s the place where I learned that others could love me the way that I am — it’s where I learned to love myself too. Down the road, there’s a park that I always walk to on warm days. We held a going away party for my friend who moved to Singapore under the painted ivory gazebo.
But through the murky grey, I can’t make out what I know is there. It’s stuck existing only in my memory. Soon it all will just be a memory. Vague outlines of buildings will be the last I see of my little city. I stare hopefully towards the San Mateo Bridge — I always gazed at it as we ran by in P.E. class — but it’s misty and the bay is unrelenting. Fog’s a characteristic weather forecast for San Francisco. It’s a characteristic forecast for my gloomy mood. But it’s a painful forecast for reminiscing.
May 11, 2019; Wake Forest, NC; Forecast: Sunny
I squint my eyes — even through the sunglasses it’s still so searingly golden. It’s brighter than it has ever been. I’m vaguely worried about my sunscreen fading and my skin slowly turning pink. I’m vaguely worried about the headache I have from constantly narrowing my eyes. I’m vaguely worried about how my races will go. Mostly I’m focused on the height of my leg when I A-skip down the turf. My attention is on the bend in my elbow as I swing my arms in step with the bounces. I concentrate on my pursuit of warmth, and I thank the universe for the sunny day.
I told myself when I was younger that I would only run well if the sun was out. In the rain, I give up before the gun even goes off. I don’t mean to, but something in me folds when there’s no gold left in the sky. Heat radiates from above and I let it soak into my legs. The rays feel like shining liquid energy, and I feel purely athletic. The pre-race anxiety settles in my chest like a cat stretching out sleepily in a warm patch of sun.
The blocks are warm to the touch, the metal shining in the light. The spikes on my feet are bright. The track is open, lines defined, and beautiful. The small reflective patch on my singlet’s shoulder seems to glow. The starting gun shines too and in that moment, it appears more gold than silver. It goes off and my mind clears. There is nothing but movement and the golden, blinding sun. It feels as if its fire pushes me forward. I’m propelled by its warmth and intensity. I feel alive. I feel at peace. I’m so used to the movements that this feels like coming home. Everything is aligned, exhaustion doesn’t touch me as I speed by it like I am light itself. I cross the finish line before I thought I would and as I decelerate, I turn my gaze to the sun and blind myself for just a second. It’s soft and stinging on my face. Even though my cheeks are burning, I can’t stop smiling.
August 22nd, 2021; I-95, Central NC; Forecast: Heat Advisory
I can barely keep my eyes open but when I do, they’re blurred by tears. It’s sweltering in the North Carolina heat but the AC blows on my upper arm incessantly. It’s too much. I’m hot all over but uncomfortably cold in that tiny spot. I flick the fan away from me with sharp nails and a little too much force to be justified. Now I’m just hot all over. My heart feels ready to leap from my chest and my hands spasm as if determined to reach for the fan again. I force them to stay resting on my warm, sweating legs, splayed out and tense.
I can taste the hasty pancakes we ate before we left. The sweetness of the syrup swirls crudely with the salt of tears. My mother does not look at me. I am turned away from her. The car is deadly silent in every way that matters, even as Dolly Parton sings fiercely into the air. My father drives behind us — “poorly,” my mother comments. I pretend to laugh as my face burns.
It is as if one arm is tied to my house in North Carolina while the other is anchored to the car that I sit in. I’m being stretched thin; soon I will split down the middle and my entire being will spill onto the sweaty leather seat. Whether that will happen in North Carolina, Virginia, New York, or even our destination, Mount Holyoke, I have no way of knowing. I’m still so hot.
For some reason, I cannot acknowledge what I feel. I turn away from it like a moth to the cold. I think nothing of the loss of home and the nerves of college. I only think of the plainness of the fields and the pick-up trucks blasting by. I think nothing of the solitude of the car. My attention is caught on the blue of the gas and restaurant signs on I-95 North. Nothing in me turns to the texts I sent the previous night while lost in the alcove in my too-cold room, surrounded by books I never read and plastic trophies I barely won. No, my eyes glisten because of the fan blowing unforgivingly away from me. I shake at the thought of it. I’m cold for a flash. It’s sweltering as we cross the border to Virginia.
The rocky mountains and green terrain, stacked up houses, motor bikes, blue waters crashing on the shore covering sea urchins in the sand, and pavement that has seen it all.
She was always misunderstood.
1492…1789…1804…1825…2010…2014…2015…2023…
Her ground shakes and trembles in anger. Not knowing her effects. Justifiably so, how could she not be? How many centuries must she suffer for? Never asked, always done, never pitied, always scorned. Stood her ground and was shunned, alienated for her independence and strength.
So much beauty to take in yet rubble, gangs, and instability swallow it up as if her religious history came back to haunt her. For safety we leave, running into the same hands that balled into fists and tried to make her unrecognizable.
She brought the community together for a Fritay, unity and celebration. A cup of oil is missing and without the oil there is no Fritay. She goes around cautiously asking everyone, who marched in to reassure her that all they wanted to do was provide the best for her, looking out for her wellbeing, they would be sure to share. Looks to the left, overseas, rigged her elections, planted officials, occupation. Looks to the right, overseas, spewed demands of reparations for the loss of profits because of her freedom. Maybe near is better? She looks at her neighbor to the right, racism, colorism, division. She comes back empty handed.
Frustrated, she shakes again.
But learning how to find solutions when the odds were not in her favor was never new. She makes way. Celebration was a success. Feelings of happiness and gratitude overwhelm her and stretch across like warm rays of overpowering light. In the midst of it all there was always time to sit, celebrate, and appreciate the God-given landscape that fiercely denounced media portrayals.
8 responses to “ESSAY (Tues)”
“A Planetary Dance”
Stars glitter above me. In the winter, the brightest star isn’t a star at all. Jupiter sits in our skies outshining the rest. Mars glimmers red and venus makes an appearance just before the moon fully rises. And they dance across the sky.
Stars sit in stasis. The North Star, Sirius, remains guiding lost travelers and Betelguese keeps Orion in place. They are always there. They are stars. No matter the season or time of year, come night, you will find them, waiting. The planets move, stars do not.
I often wonder if I am like the stars. Standing. Watching. Remaining in place while the brighter planets traverse the sky. Wondering if tonight will be the night I finally move forward or if it will be the night I disappear all together.
No one missed me when I left my school of 10 years. I made little impact on people’s lives. To them, I was just there: a random person that tagged along. It wasn’t quite their fault. I was unable to follow all the words they said or the games they played. I couldn’t join in the dance. So, I watched. And then I disappeared from their lives and no one took notice.
If Sirius were to die, he would do so in an explosion–a supernova–strong enough to a black hole. It would be a spectacle of the ages. But we wouldn’t know. We wouldn’t know until 9 years later when he would shine brighter for a moment before extinguishing forever. He could be dead right now and we’d have no idea.
I could be dead right now and you’d have no idea.
I expected things to change as I arrived in a new school. I was moving forward, finally. So, I tried my hand at becoming a planet. I imitated their shine, their dance. Yet it came off stilted and unsure. And they saw through me. So I was back to watching from 9 years away.
If Jupiter were to die, it would only take 45 minutes for us to know. He would light up the sky before vanishing. And the whole world would mourn for the loss of the King of Planets. Yet the sky in the summer would not change. For the planets move; stars do not.
People orbit in space. They take up the sky and the hearts of others. They swing around with each other laughing at jokes I’ll never understand. And they keep moving and meeting and making friends. They are seen. They look upon each other with such wonder and love, engaging with each other as a family or a solar system. And when one of them disappears, they outwardly mourn their loss.
I often wonder if I am like the stars. Standing. Watching. Remaining in place while others rarely look at me. If I were to fly across the sky, would they see then? After all, planets and stars look the same from Earth. Or would it take my death and 9 years for them to notice? For them to mindlessly look up at the sky–look at me–and think, ‘huh, I wonder where they went’ before continuing on and pointing their telescopes at shining Jupiter, red Mars, or lovely Venus.
Maybe that would be enough. I used to think this while sitting in my room at 16 staring at the pill bottle full of tablets. Taking one was supposed to make me a planet. Taking them all would make me a black hole. Just like Sirius when he dies.
It’s been four years and I still wonder if I am like the stars. Every winter night, I look up and find Sirius. It’s easy. He’s always there and I give him a little wave. Then I look at all the other stars I can see in the sky. Jupiter may be brighter as he dances but I don’t ever point my telescope at him. He gets enough attention anyways.
“A Meditation on Walking”
I used to pray I could forget. I packed everything I owned at eighteen and ran as far away as possible trying to forget. But then I stopped running, and walked. I walked and saw that everything around me would always remind me of that thing I was trying to forget, and all I could remember was that I was supposed to be forgetting. Why was I plagued with remembering? Shouldn’t I feel lucky I had a choice not to forget?
I remember I met Maddie on the first day of the third grade. She had the longest legs of anyone I’ve ever met. They made her self conscious, but I thought they made her like a God. An above average height, third grader God. She always walked a little fast because of her long legs, so I had to walk faster to keep up. I still walk fast now.
I remember I met you at the beginning of high school. I am not speaking your name, just in case this ever gets back to you, but I’m writing it to you. I try to forget how you and I met.
I drank with a girl from Miami, standing on the wet grass outside the Art Museum. I was at a party, and after I couldn’t remember why I came, I walked home, down the road next to the lake. I know this road so well it shows up in my dreams— I am trying to estimate how many times I’ve walked this road, but I am beginning to have walked around here for so long that I don’t know what number would be correct. I stumble down a hill to get to my favorite bench. My feet touch where the land and water meet, and the geese keep me company. I know this bench because three weeks into college I had covid, and ate all my meals here. Now it’s years into college, and the bench is still here, but I’ve plowed through haircuts and heartbreaks and I’m still mulling over what I was trying to forget. I know this bench because I sit here and remember how your oboe honked like a goose, and try to remember if we had conversations about lakes or geese or benches or hills or roads or walking. I remember the flat taste of the air in my mouth because our high school had no windows and we both were gawky because we were fourteen but you were really talented at the oboe and I wanted to compliment you I just needed some way to talk to you and you later told me you felt the same and now I refuse to speak to you or even let your name exit my mouth.
In high school, I couldn’t drive. I still can’t, and it’s embarrassing. Other kids were learning to drive, and I was stuck still learning to walk, just getting really good at it. I walked home from school everyday. I had crappy wired headphones and I blared my music too loud and walked fast. I didn’t know it then, but that was my meditation. That route is where I did my best remembering. That route is so clear in my mind. Right out of the towering metal gate is the Mormon seminary, technically off campus as to not be affiliated with the school. I remember I thought one step off campus was not enough grace to declare something “not affiliated.” Then, I walked down a hill so steep that, because I walked fast with music blaring in my crappy earbuds, I braced myself a little. Then I crossed a crosswalk, which I kinda want to forget because once a boy told me he liked me here and I wasn’t sure what to say because I was freshly fifteen and he was a bit older and nobody had said that to me before and now I wonder why I am trying so hard to forget growing up and being naive and everyone in the past that made me who I am now maybe it’s because some people just grow apart and now I’m stuck remembering you.
Once I crossed that forgettable crosswalk of forgettable boys, I walked past the back gate of Maddie’s old house. This house scares me. Not that anything about is inherently spooky, but rather the idea that I still remember every square inch of a house I haven’t stepped foot in in almost a decade. It scares me that the house looks the same, minus a paint job. The gate has not changed, and the tree that always blooms into pink blossoms every spring has kept up this act spring after spring after spring. A lot of my childhood memories are a struggle to remember, especially in vivid detail, but not Maddie’s old house. The house was always warm. We stuck our little fingers in the melted wax of the glowing aroma pot. The walls were a rust red, and never an overhead light on, but glowing lamps and candles, making the red even warmer. Her dog Gracie always had soft, long fur, and would always run out in the mud and bark through the gate, coming into the sanctuary of a home all muddy. But it gave the place a charm. There is no longer a Gracie. Maddie hasn’t lived in that house in years. But I still walk past and see the tree blooming every spring.
I walk around the lower lake on campus. Me and Rebecca sat here early on in college, and probably talked about geese, and also love. We would mention our favorite goose of the pack, what our life would be like as a goose, and the suffocating crush of heartbreak and rejection. And how the break of a friendship is even worse. When I first met Hailey, we walked around the other lake and I got us lost in the woods after bragging how I had excellent woods navigation due to my Oregon roots. When I first met Gaby, we walked under her umbrella in the September rain back to her dorm, musing on first loves and Fathers.
Thanks to you, I always fear who I might deliberately not speak to in a few years, but I try to forget. I remember how I walked these same milestone steps with you, and I feel the dagger twist all over again and the flat taste of that high school air has gone even more stale. I can’t forget how I met you.
Once I walk past Maddie’s gate, I turn and then turn again. This street was me and Maddie’s rendezvous spot as kids. We would wear horrible, neon tank tops, embellished with rhinestones and glitter and we were Gods. I would never dare to forget the rendezvous spot. But at the end of this street is a spot I’d rather forget, where that forgettable older boy who told me he liked me gave me a forgettable first kiss, that was salty and slimy and I squirmed away with a badge that I’d come of age. Maddie said the second kiss is better but I didn’t dare walk there. I turned around in class and gossiped about it with you. You cringed at the thought of a boy using tongue on the first kiss. I am so curious how your love life is now, but I’m more curious how free I would feel if I could just forget.
The last time I walked with Maddie was a couple months ago in December. We walked downtown and talked about majors and apartments and serious relationships and strained relationships with our family and what we were buying our moms for Christmas and how we would never, under no circumstances, stop being friends. I feel blessed and chosen, because Maddie is still a God, and she made me walk faster, walking city to city, coast to coast. I don’t want to forget, because what about that aroma pot and the hot wax and the rusty walls and Gracie I would never forget Gracie especially because she’s gone but the whole house is gone to me except for that blooming tree in the backyard and the wooden gate we would scale which maybe they should replace because last time I walked there I noticed it was rotting a bit and sometimes it’s okay to let go of things over time when they run their course which is what I did with you.
If I don’t want to forget, then I guess I must remember you. Yes, that means I have to remember your distance and resentment and the lists of everything we were supposed to do that will never be done because I have to remember I haven’t spoken a word to you in almost two years now, after talking everyday for such a long time. But I remember it wasn’t all that bad. I remember you were one of those kids who did learn to drive and we flew through the country roads in your giant white truck and the sun made your blonde hair look heavenly and the summer air tasted sweet and I felt more free than I ever had. I remember we had every sleepover at your house and your mom was polite but overbearing and you had two dogs until you had one and there were Bible verses hung across the toilet but your room was a sanctuary and we would laugh in your bed until 3 am. In remembering your bed I now remember how you slept talk and I would transcribe your words and read them back to you in the morning and we would laugh until 12 pm. I remember you had a really good laugh. And when you laughed, you had dimples that I was always jealous of. I remember the last thing you said to me, congratulating me on my college decision. You said I’m sorry for everything and I didn’t understand what exactly you were saying sorry for and I still don’t. You and Maddie go to the same college, and as much as I want to visit her, I don’t because I’m scared I’ll run into you and I don’t know what I would say to you. Maybe I would repeat everything I remember and we would reminisce about good times, like that time when you backed the white truck into a forklift and the tailgate was impaled and left a hole and it was one of those things that was funnier not in the moment but after, and you would remember that too because how could you forget something like that. I always wonder if you remember me, or choose to forget.
Maybe we both remember. You remember when we first met, and how you searched through your mind to start a conversation. Every time you come back to our hometown, you see all our spots too. You remember.
I walk around the upper lake. This is my favorite place to walk on campus. I remember my first fall at college, the trees around upper lake exploded into scarlets and ochres, and I was in awe and that’s something I would never want to forget. I see a blonde girl riding a pink bike, and I remember me and Maddie biking in circles in front of her house. I remember the part of this trail where I led Hailey astray the first time we walked. We’re closer than ever. I remember when you and I were closer than ever, and laugh about that stupid forklift. I remember your overbearing mother interrogated me over it, and thought of us as irresponsible teens, which we probably were. I don’t want to forget those days. I walk and I remember. I pray that my genetic predisposition to dementia never rips me open and forces me, against my will, to forget. I’m lucky, so I choose to remember.
“Lord Hear My Prayer”
In 4th grade, I discover that the peak hour of flirtation with Crush is not during school, but during the sacred hour of mass. Because everyone knows mass is for staring at boys and daydreaming about boys and praying for a boyfriend.
As I walk through the huge wooden doors with my parents in my Justice floral dress and black flats I have my eyes immediately peeled for who is there. Maybe Crush is there this weekend. I don’t see him. My head turns at the sound of the large wooden doors opening again and again, hoping Crush will appear. Old person….old person….ah! A boy! Not my boy, but a boy— good enough.
This is where I run into problems. I can’t just daydream or pray about things— no, I need to take action. Not only do I need to attend mass, but I also need to be employed. If I simply attended mass, then all I could do was stare and dream. Altar serving is it! It is a cool job. It’s cool because everyone watches you and you get to wear a cool white robe and a cool colored tie rope thing and get communion before everyone else and all the popular kids do it. And, if Crush becomes an altar server, since he is cool and popular and would also want to have a cool and popular job, then obviously he will be an altar server too. and we would have to work together and consequently spend time together and fall in love. It’s a foolproof plan.
To become an altar server, one must be in fourth grade or older and attend rigorous training. You had to memorize the parts of the mass and all the objects used in the mass. Chalice. Pall. Corporal. Book. Wine. Water. Towel. The list goes on. The training takes place once a week after school at the church. I attend all of them.
At the final exam to determine my fate, an old lady hands us a worksheet and I must match all the images of the objects to their names and descriptions. There were 50 objects we had to memorize. I got a 50/50. I signed up to work every Sunday mass in hopes of working with Crush as if it were some kind of lottery.
Aside from Sunday mass, we are required to attend school mass on Wednesday mornings before any of our classes start. By 5th grade, everyone knows that I have a crush on Crush. I think even Ms. Smyth knows. But I don’t care! We go outside, all of us clamoring and chatting while being told to quiet down and line up for mass. With exact precision, counting, adding, and subtracting, I and all the other girls strategically devise a way to end up sitting next to our crushes. This is seriousness. I am switching frantically with my friends as they tell me to move down the line past one more person. And just like that, Crush gets shoved right next to me by Ms. Smyth and we all giggle. I end up sitting next to Crush during every Wednesday morning mass, without fail, holding his hand while we pray the “Our Father” and telling him “Peace be with you” after the priest says “And now let us offer the sign of peace.” I am a professional at this.
6th grade is a travesty and I have to accept that all hope is lost. Crush is in the other class. The other class!!!! I desperately need to be there! If I am not, then he is bound to fall for some other girl! Another girl who is prettier than me and who is probably blonde with fresh highlights. I shrink into my plastic navy blue chair and the ends of my hair get caught in the little screws on the back. I rip them out in frustration.
I’m in 8th grade, well basically a high school freshman, sitting in a foldable chair with 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 and not in a ponytail. I have blonde highlights. They give me an award for being the best Catholic or “Spiritual Seeker” I think they called it. I was the only girl that got it. They reward me with 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 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 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.
“How Video Games Taught Me Humility”
I’ve never been good at having a “competitive spirit.” It’s the reason I quit playing tennis as a kid. I didn’t possess the same fierce tenacity as my peers, nor did I especially want to strive to get better. However, this was also back before I learned how to “lose gracefully.” This may sound contradictory, and it is. I wanted to win, but at the same time, I didn’t want to put in the actual work to improve. That is not the same thing as having a competitive spirit. All I wanted was for every game I played to go exactly as I planned, and if it somehow didn’t, then that meant it had to be the fault of someone else on my team, because I was simply too amazing and talented to have lost without someone intentionally sabotaging me! Surely, it couldn’t have been because the other team just happened to play better! But, when you’re in a physical area with other people, you can’t exactly say that kind of thing without humiliating yourself.
I shifted over to video games later on down the line. I started playing Overwatch, a competitive first-person-shooter, when I was thirteen. The game pits you and a team of five other players against an enemy team of six more players, and has each team try to complete an objective while fighting the other team to try and prevent them from completing theirs. Just like tennis, winning a match relies on a mix of skill and teamwork. Unlike tennis, however, players will likely never meet their teammates or opponents in real life. The cloak of anonymity they have on the internet removes most social consequences they may face otherwise, giving them the freedom to turn Overwatch’s fanbase into one of the worst video game fanbases out there.
As a beginner in the game, I found out very quickly just what I was getting myself into. Even as I was still getting used to the controls, my teammates would give me no time to learn. Any mistake I made would be heavily scrutinized; if I wasn’t pulling my weight in the exact way I was expected to at all times, I would be called trash and be blamed for the team performing badly. If I picked an unpopular character or died even once, I’d be called trash. If a teammate died, they would most likely shift blame onto whoever was playing the team’s healer. Oftentimes, it seemed like these players were just looking for reasons to put their teammates down to try and rationalize why the team as a whole didn’t do well. These players are commonly called “toxic.”
This environment made me incredibly afraid to make mistakes of any kind. Like many Overwatch players, I became obsessed with my personal statistics: public values on my profile that showed off my average win rate, kill-to-death rate, and rank. I strived to keep those values as high as I possibly could, just for the bragging rights. I also became addicted to the game’s reward system: one that places a very high value on winning. I wound up associating “fun” with the rewards and the numbers rather than the experience. In order to have fun, my team simply had to win, and if we didn’t win, then I would not be having fun.
Whenever my computer screen was graced with the big, red “DEFEAT” text, I would not simply chalk it up to “Can’t win ‘em all.” Instead, I would immediately try to rationalize our team’s loss in a way that did not involve me owning up to any mistakes I might have made. I had been prevented from getting my well-deserved reward of made-up in-game currency and fake silly outfits for my characters to wear, and someone besides myself just had to take the fall! Maybe someone on our team was intentionally sabotaging us! That had to be the only explanation as to why we performed so badly! I would immediately act on impulse, pick whatever teammate was playing the most unpopular character, and blame them for our team’s loss. There, my ego was preserved. Or maybe the game simply paired us against a team of pros by chance! Maybe they’re only good at the game because they do nothing else, and just play video games all day in a basement! Perfect! Something to put them down for, justify our loss, AND counteract the blow that my ego took from losing! I would impulsively and shamelessly break out the chat and begin to type. “sweaty tryhards go take a shower haha” That would show them! Right?
I eventually took a break from Overwatch, since I wasn’t really having fun with it. During my time off, I did some self-reflection. I asked myself questions that had never occurred to me before. Did I really expect to win every single game I played? Did I really need any of the rewards I earned? What was insulting my peers going to accomplish? How would I have felt if I was in their position? Did I expect my insults to have any effect other than making myself look like a complete baby?
This wasn’t tennis. I wasn’t in a physical area with my teammates and opponents. No one knew who I was, and they most likely never would. I only had the gall to lash out at them because of the lack of social consequences. Nothing I said could be traced back to me in real life, so that gave me complete freedom to act on my very angry impulses… and it turned me into a brat.
In order to have fun again, I knew I had to learn to care less about the statistics and more about the experience. This did not happen overnight. In the early stages of this “withdrawal,” I would lose a game, fully type a rude message into the chat box directed at either my team or the opposing one, and just barely stop myself from hitting “Enter.” I would be angry and frustrated that we lost, naturally, but once I started asking myself if these rude remarks were worth it, I would reel myself in, take a deep breath, delete the message, replace it with a simple “ggwp” [good game, well played] and take my anger out on a pillow or something instead. Was I frustrated? Yes. Did I need to make that fact known? Absolutely not.
The game continued to try and get me to care about my rank, my rewards, and my personal win-to-lose ratio. Slowly but surely, I learned to see those statistics as unimportant nonsense. I learned to take deep breaths after losing a match, and tell myself that it was a silly thing to be mad at. I would gradually get into a mindset where all that mattered was doing my own personal best while trying to have a good time. Occasionally, I would be put into an incredibly fun, unforgettable match that I would greatly enjoy my time in, even when I didn’t win! I found that the numerous matches that weren’t much fun ended up making the fun ones even more memorable. Unfortunately, the points and rewards system never changed, and the fan base remained as toxic as ever.
My mom sometimes worries about me playing video games online as a woman. She has read numerous stories of female gamers undergoing constant and brutal harassment, and is concerned that it may be happening to me. I don’t blame her for worrying. The value that so many competitive games have placed on winning has proven to bring out the very worst in people, my own behavior in Overwatch being a key example. While I am glad I managed to both move past it and avoid the worst of it, I don’t see the toxicity of fanbases for competitive games dying out any time soon. It’s why I prefer not to play competitive games anymore.
For the past few years I have been limiting myself strictly to games that are either single-player or exclusively cooperative. Cooperative games normally don’t display endless public statistics about how good or bad you are at the game, and they don’t hinder your progress when you take a loss. The best cooperative games reward players for working together to accomplish goals, even when they don’t win. By tricking people into being helpful, and making the act of cooperation a requirement, it establishes a sense of camaraderie between teammates that I have found brings out the very best in people, including myself. Cooperative games are not without their own toxic players, but they tend to be few and far between. The ones that are there tend to have a habit of whining about numbers, wins, and a rewards grind that doesn’t even exist. Not everyone is accustomed to playing games just to have fun, and I suppose it takes competitive players some time to get used to it.
Video games get a bad rep since so many parents think they cause violence. They can certainly make people angry. Not because they’re violent, but because they’re hard. In that sense, video games are a good way for people who don’t play physical sports to learn about sportsmanship and humility. We’re all flawed human beings who are just trying our best, and video games can help people feel less alone in that. They certainly helped me.
“Running From Stillness” by Isabelle Hettlinger
I hold in my hand an object that has no beginning.
It has existed forever – on my father’s cluttered desk, in the bottom of a childhood jewelry box, and, most recently, atop my dorm room dresser. It is a brooch that used to belong to my father and at some point came into my possession, likely when I was scavenging his apartment for the remnants of happier days. It has the flashy appearance of costume jewelry but is unique in that its focal point is not a gem, but the Buddha – seated, with eyes closed, in deep meditation. He is cast in artificial jade which has grown rough to the touch. A halo of synthetic jewels enshrines him, and around it a second halo of gilded metal has become worn and dull at its edge. In contrast, the jewels are still so luminous that I feel they could be visible in total darkness. The largest jewel, which sat atop the Buddha’s head, fell out many years ago. Sometimes I stare into the metallic void left in its place.
The brooch currently serves no purpose. At one point I suppose it could have been worn on clothing, but for as long as I have known it its pinning mechanism has been broken. It is somewhat dangerous, as without the intervention of duct tape the sharp part would hang about recklessly, waiting to stab unsuspecting handlers. It was pacified long ago, however, and can now rest comfortably in my palm. I consider the Buddha on the brooch to be a passive observer of my life. No matter what I am experiencing, he sits there in complete stillness, frozen in a perpetual state of bliss.
I have been afraid of stillness my entire life. My mother told me that when I was a baby, she would often have to drive me around in the car for hours to get me to fall asleep. I don’t remember that, but I do remember the distinct panic I felt when she would turn to leave after saying goodnight to me when I was a child. Her presence would linger, however, and the orange glow from my night light made everything look friendly in the dark. When I had to sleep in a less familiar place the panic was more prolonged. I remember sitting at the top of my grandmother’s carpeted staircase long after I had been sent to bed, listening to my family members chat in the living room downstairs and trying to make as little sound as possible. I wanted nothing more than to run downstairs, jump into my father’s arms, and bury my face in his chest so I wouldn’t have to see the look on my grandmother’s face.
My fear of sleeping at night has only intensified since childhood. Now, I sleep best when I’m not supposed to. Sometimes I’ll catch a few hours during the day, but I often wake up in a pitch black room with the feeling that I’ve slept through a season. When I have nothing to do, I’ll wait until the hazy green of dawn fills my room – the same green as my plastic Buddha. I seem to take comfort in the fact that, outside my window and my existence, the world is beginning again. I count the seconds between the cars that pass by my apartment building as a sort of meditative practice. When the pavement is wet with rain, the sound of their tires lingers for a long time. I enter the unknown alongside them.
It’s 4:00 am. My alarm clock casts an ugly green tint on the walls of my dorm room. It makes the emptiness of the space more pronounced and I feel uneasy. I try to dig up a memory of a time I was tired. I fail. I decide that I should stop torturing myself and listen to something. I think of hypnosis, and I wonder if feeling as though I am relinquishing control would help me at this moment. I search for “sleep hypnosis” on Spotify and play the first thing that pops up. At first, it is pleasant enough. A man, speaking in a low, drawn out voice, tells me to get comfortable and take deep breaths. Generic ambient music plays in the background. I feel calm but not hypnotized, to my disappointment. He then goes on to say that I should pay attention to my body. I tense up a little. He says to mentally move from one area of my body to the next, relaxing each muscle as I go. I take off my headphones.
I lie in bed listening to the whir of my fan for a while. I know I will not be falling asleep any time soon, so I decide to try and understand why I am so afraid. I realize that it is not sleeping I fear, but the state that precedes it. I am afraid of the moment before everything goes blurry – the moment when it is all clear. I am afraid of being aware of my body. Stillness causes a level of awareness that is uncomfortable to me. Not just physical stillness, but mental stillness. Whenever I feel my body and mind growing tired, I busy myself with some unimportant task. I convince myself that I am being productive. I try to run away from the inevitable.
I want to drift into the galaxy and become a star, as bright and shining as the synthetic crystals on my father’s brooch. But my condition binds me to my body. I am a non-consenting observer of the here and now.
I want to exist outside of my body. I don’t want to be reminded that I can’t be free from it as long as I am alive.
I hold my Buddha in my hand and wonder if I will ever stop running from stillness.
Thou Shalt Not Steal (not even from Walmart)
As we walk into Walmart, Jennifer tells me she’s excited to be back home from Taiwan because she can steal again. She informs me that it is basically impossible to steal in Taiwan for some reason I don’t quite remember. Something about cameras or collective responsibility or whatever. We make our way to the nail polish.
We’re not kleptomaniacs or anything like that, but who wants to pay ten dollars for Essie nail polish when you could slip it into my pocket for free? It’s small enough to clutch in your fist and it digs into your skin; the raised glass “Essie” logo brands your palm. You move from one camera to another, and maybe that throws them off; the employee you imagine could be watching.
I worked as a Walmart cashier for a summer and I learned you’re not allowed to accuse someone of stealing. It’s a convoluted and complicated process to really catch someone. As someone getting paid barely over minimum wage, I would never put in the effort, not that I care anyway. So you talk casually to your friend, admiring another product, and slip the polish into your pocket or bag. And if I see it, I’d let you go, but I don’t see it, because you are good at this, and I don’t get paid enough.
Me and Jennifer reassure ourselves by saying it’s ethical to steal from big corporations, “What is ten dollars to Walmart or CVS? They make a billion a year, probably!” We don’t look it up, it’s the principle of it all. The Bible says it’s a sin to steal; in fact, it’s one of the famed, all-important Ten Commandments. Surely God wasn’t thinking about the mega corporations of the future when he said that. But sometimes I worry that God was thinking about Walmart. I mean, he must’ve known Walmart was coming, right? But perhaps, Thou shalt not steal…except it’s probably okay to steal sometimes from huge corporations because they are the antithesis of the people and deserve to fall, wouldn’t fit on that stone Moses brought down. I could understand that.
I don’t remember when I started to steal which is kind of odd because I remember when I wasn’t stealing. I didn’t steal as a child. It seems like a lot of people have childhood stories of stealing candy bars and immediately being found out by their parents. But I never dreamed of stealing. Morals, sin, it was just wrong! You can’t just take things, that’s not how this works.
I do remember the last time I paid for nail polish. The summer before my Junior year of high school, I went to Walmart, looking to purchase a new nail polish for the summer. I saw a bright yellow with a twinge of orange, named, “check your baggage,” Foreshadowing, perhaps, but this baggage would indeed be checked. Then I saw a green polish vibrant but deep. The name was romantic, “willow in the wind.” Decisions, decisions. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes. I can spend a long time deliberating when it’s ten dollars. I decide on green, swayed by the promise of a willow in the wind. I cough up ten bucks. This is heavy stuff.
So I go home, paint my nails, admire them, put on my favorite summer dress, notice the small yellow flowers on the dress, the exact same shade as one I had seen earlier, stare at the flowers, stare at my nails, stare at my ceiling as regret washes over me. I know I’ll never get over it, so I drive the ten minutes back to Walmart, and I cough up ten more dollars. 20 dollars to paint your nails. Unacceptable. Little did I know that would be the last time I paid for nail polish.
So maybe that’s when it started. Or maybe it was when Nakole took the friendship key chains off of the Claire’s purple cardboard because we didn’t need all five of them. “Problem solved,” she said, indifferent. Or maybe it is when Jennifer reveals that, when she is working, in the apparel section of Walmart she pockets the discarded makeup she is supposed to return. It’s a slow realization I can have whatever small treat I want, and it’s sweet. Tsk tsk, God disapproves. So what?
In college, I meet Indigo, who says she was a sort of kleptomaniac when she was a teen. She would go out with her friends and fill tote bags with stolen merchandise. Mostly stuff she didn’t need, stuff she didn’t even want. A hundred-dollar tote bag heist. Once, she was chased out of a store and threatened with police calls. Indigo says that she can’t steal anymore, it makes her incredibly anxious. She confesses to me that when her friend Lydia steals from a store they are at together she starts to panic. I wonder if I will ever feel this way. It only takes one failure to ruin everything. Maybe one day, God will get fed up and remind me, shaking his head, No stealing means no stealing period! None of your weird anti-capitalist bullshit. It’s the principle!
But for now, Jennifer and I look at the nail polish. When you know you’re just going to take it, the choice of color feels fun, not dire, regretful, or important. I pick one up and tell her that this one is pretty. It’s a dark indigo blue. I check the name, “to me from me.” Ironic, I could laugh and I do. Jennifer looks up from the rich purple in her hand, “OMG that is so cute!” She exclaims. I slip it in my pocket and we walk out, indifferent. I paint my toenails blue and I don’t feel guilty. It does not match the color of any of my summer dresses.
Forecast Memory (Addison Heintz)
December 23rd, 2010; Maple Grove, MN; Forecast: Snow
I stand suddenly, as if possessed, and walk straight to the door. From the security of my house, I glance outside to pure white. The cement is covered in snow, the sky is flurried, the trees are dusted, and the grass is sparkling like a thousand tiny Swarovski crystals. It’s shining like a beacon. I am trapped in its angelic claws. I never want to look away — I never want to move from this spot. The white bursts and spreads to every corner of my vision. The light swells with it, overwhelming me. I blink and open my eyes to the floor tilted sideways. It’s disorienting. Where there should be white there is only deep pine. Suddenly my head erupts in pain. I stare into the white light, caught in such a trance that I see nothing but expanding, glistening radiance right before I see black.
April 14th, 2014; Devon, England; Forecast: Overcast, 100% Chance of Rain
I think to myself that there is no place damper and more miserable than an English field. There is nothing worse than raindrops sliding off a windbreaker as you stand outside someplace you did not even want to visit. There is something cruel in the sky’s tears falling while birds scream around you. Something is misaligned in the universe. I wish I was home — Minnesota is never this disappointingly gloomy. At the sanctuary, I get to hold an owl but all I can do is shiver while the bird ruffles its feathers in annoyance. I shake my legs to try and free them from the constraints of soaking wet clothes.
It’s green there but you never see it. It’s too cloudy, too rainy to glimpse the vibrant colors. The rolling hills are ocean waves that you can hardly see through the salty mist. A falcon flies for a show and briefly disappears into the dull gray. It’s fascinating but my socks are soaked through. There were a lot of birds, spectacular birds, adorable birds, big and small birds. I know this, I’ve seen the photos. It was miserably wet and cold. Soaked to the bone, shivering and dramatic. I remember my mother’s coat was a dark green when she gave it to me. She made me feel dramatic — it never occurred to me that the misery of the onslaught didn’t discriminate.
November 21st, 2014; St. Paul, MN; Forecast: Extreme Cold Warning
I shiver and wrap my arms around myself. There’s glorious snow out of the small gap between the plane and the jet bridge. Everyone outside is wearing winter jackets and I remember that I don’t have one anymore. I left my turquoise coat in the Goodwill in South Minneapolis when I was transplanted across the country to California. But it’s marvelously cold outside and the grin on my face is wider than it’s been in months.
My eyes stung a bit, from the chill or out of the sagging weight of finally offloading months of too-warm exhaustion and longing, I did not know. I did not care. My hands shook a bit. I had goosebumps again. I hadn’t seen them for months. I thought I may have lost them forever. But I was back home, back where I stayed mentally even as all my belongings sat across the country in the heat of a drought-ridden Californian coast.
Californian air is warm, but it’s November and the last thing I wanted was warmth. The frigid air feels like comfort and safety. The coldness sweeping into my bones is enough that I finally feel at home again.
November 17, 2016; Foster City, CA; Forecast: Fog
I gaze at the cerulean canals that connect my home to the bay. They’re shrouded in saltwater fog, but their dance is still mesmerizing. The levee is emptier than normal but it’s sort of nice —it makes this place feel solely mine. My feet are carrying me nowhere in particular— a sort of requiem tour of the place that I just learned to love. The clouds are closer than normal, it’s like they know I’m leaving, it’s like they’re saying goodbye. I dread North Carolina; after all, I love politics, it’s 2016, and I always hold a grudge.
Across the wooden bridge, there’s a small Japanese restaurant that always serves the best tempura. It was the first sit-down place we went to when we moved here, and it’s been my favorite ever since. I pick at a scab on my lip with my teeth as if I’m eating there right now. In that little shopping center, the sidewalks are rainbow and always covered in abandoned shopping carts. It’s the place where I learned that others could love me the way that I am — it’s where I learned to love myself too. Down the road, there’s a park that I always walk to on warm days. We held a going away party for my friend who moved to Singapore under the painted ivory gazebo.
But through the murky grey, I can’t make out what I know is there. It’s stuck existing only in my memory. Soon it all will just be a memory. Vague outlines of buildings will be the last I see of my little city. I stare hopefully towards the San Mateo Bridge — I always gazed at it as we ran by in P.E. class — but it’s misty and the bay is unrelenting. Fog’s a characteristic weather forecast for San Francisco. It’s a characteristic forecast for my gloomy mood. But it’s a painful forecast for reminiscing.
May 11, 2019; Wake Forest, NC; Forecast: Sunny
I squint my eyes — even through the sunglasses it’s still so searingly golden. It’s brighter than it has ever been. I’m vaguely worried about my sunscreen fading and my skin slowly turning pink. I’m vaguely worried about the headache I have from constantly narrowing my eyes. I’m vaguely worried about how my races will go. Mostly I’m focused on the height of my leg when I A-skip down the turf. My attention is on the bend in my elbow as I swing my arms in step with the bounces. I concentrate on my pursuit of warmth, and I thank the universe for the sunny day.
I told myself when I was younger that I would only run well if the sun was out. In the rain, I give up before the gun even goes off. I don’t mean to, but something in me folds when there’s no gold left in the sky. Heat radiates from above and I let it soak into my legs. The rays feel like shining liquid energy, and I feel purely athletic. The pre-race anxiety settles in my chest like a cat stretching out sleepily in a warm patch of sun.
The blocks are warm to the touch, the metal shining in the light. The spikes on my feet are bright. The track is open, lines defined, and beautiful. The small reflective patch on my singlet’s shoulder seems to glow. The starting gun shines too and in that moment, it appears more gold than silver. It goes off and my mind clears. There is nothing but movement and the golden, blinding sun. It feels as if its fire pushes me forward. I’m propelled by its warmth and intensity. I feel alive. I feel at peace. I’m so used to the movements that this feels like coming home. Everything is aligned, exhaustion doesn’t touch me as I speed by it like I am light itself. I cross the finish line before I thought I would and as I decelerate, I turn my gaze to the sun and blind myself for just a second. It’s soft and stinging on my face. Even though my cheeks are burning, I can’t stop smiling.
August 22nd, 2021; I-95, Central NC; Forecast: Heat Advisory
I can barely keep my eyes open but when I do, they’re blurred by tears. It’s sweltering in the North Carolina heat but the AC blows on my upper arm incessantly. It’s too much. I’m hot all over but uncomfortably cold in that tiny spot. I flick the fan away from me with sharp nails and a little too much force to be justified. Now I’m just hot all over. My heart feels ready to leap from my chest and my hands spasm as if determined to reach for the fan again. I force them to stay resting on my warm, sweating legs, splayed out and tense.
I can taste the hasty pancakes we ate before we left. The sweetness of the syrup swirls crudely with the salt of tears. My mother does not look at me. I am turned away from her. The car is deadly silent in every way that matters, even as Dolly Parton sings fiercely into the air. My father drives behind us — “poorly,” my mother comments. I pretend to laugh as my face burns.
It is as if one arm is tied to my house in North Carolina while the other is anchored to the car that I sit in. I’m being stretched thin; soon I will split down the middle and my entire being will spill onto the sweaty leather seat. Whether that will happen in North Carolina, Virginia, New York, or even our destination, Mount Holyoke, I have no way of knowing. I’m still so hot.
For some reason, I cannot acknowledge what I feel. I turn away from it like a moth to the cold. I think nothing of the loss of home and the nerves of college. I only think of the plainness of the fields and the pick-up trucks blasting by. I think nothing of the solitude of the car. My attention is caught on the blue of the gas and restaurant signs on I-95 North. Nothing in me turns to the texts I sent the previous night while lost in the alcove in my too-cold room, surrounded by books I never read and plastic trophies I barely won. No, my eyes glisten because of the fan blowing unforgivingly away from me. I shake at the thought of it. I’m cold for a flash. It’s sweltering as we cross the border to Virginia.
“Haiti, My Love”
The rocky mountains and green terrain, stacked up houses, motor bikes, blue waters crashing on the shore covering sea urchins in the sand, and pavement that has seen it all.
She was always misunderstood.
1492…1789…1804…1825…2010…2014…2015…2023…
Her ground shakes and trembles in anger. Not knowing her effects. Justifiably so, how could she not be? How many centuries must she suffer for? Never asked, always done, never pitied, always scorned. Stood her ground and was shunned, alienated for her independence and strength.
So much beauty to take in yet rubble, gangs, and instability swallow it up as if her religious history came back to haunt her. For safety we leave, running into the same hands that balled into fists and tried to make her unrecognizable.
She brought the community together for a Fritay, unity and celebration. A cup of oil is missing and without the oil there is no Fritay. She goes around cautiously asking everyone, who marched in to reassure her that all they wanted to do was provide the best for her, looking out for her wellbeing, they would be sure to share. Looks to the left, overseas, rigged her elections, planted officials, occupation. Looks to the right, overseas, spewed demands of reparations for the loss of profits because of her freedom. Maybe near is better? She looks at her neighbor to the right, racism, colorism, division. She comes back empty handed.
Frustrated, she shakes again.
But learning how to find solutions when the odds were not in her favor was never new. She makes way. Celebration was a success. Feelings of happiness and gratitude overwhelm her and stretch across like warm rays of overpowering light. In the midst of it all there was always time to sit, celebrate, and appreciate the God-given landscape that fiercely denounced media portrayals.
Rich culture, Carnival, Coconut Trees,Waterfalls, Catholicism, Christianity, Voodu, Creole, French, Portuguese, English, Konpa, Electric-Guitar, Drums, Pâtè, Plantains, Pikliz, Joumou, Goat, Black, White, Brown, Respect, Power, Resilience.
In times of need, actions speak for those words.
Chéri Marie, they will never get the chance again.
2010. 2020.