Before we started officially dating, Lloyd and I did the all-important dance of the souls: We exchanged mixed CDs. To pop that CD in and drive around town listening to songs someone had chosen just for you–to reveal part of themselves that they wanted you to see–felt as intimate as staying up all night talking about our childhood. [Read more…]
When I was a little girl, I felt light, I felt free. I ran through the woods with my wild curly hair swinging around me and my conch shell tied to a leather strap from my neck. I blew it ceremoniously when I came across a sight that delighted me or when I encountered a dead animal that needed a witness to its passing. I choreographed dances and slid across the wood floors in my house. I scrunched my nose and smiled. I twinkled. [Read more…]
I just knew I was having a girl. I felt it in my heart. I sat in the sun on the playground one day watching my students run by in a blur, and as their 10-year-old energy swirled around me, I had this anchoring feeling that I was having a girl.
Imagine my surprise when the ultrasound tech said, “And that’s a penis. You have a boy. Congratulations!”
“A boy? Are you sure?” As much as that little cocktail weenie nub floating on the screen looked undeniably like a part of a boy, I was shocked. I am a highly intuitive person. I thought I would sense the sex of the baby growing inside my body. I thought I would be able to sense the presence of a penis within me. [Read more…]
I still drive by the apartment where I lived with him. I don’t go there just to see it; I love to walk and drive in that historic, hilly neighborhood. When I pass it, I look at the building with curiosity, like a reincarnated person might upon sensing familiarity in a place from a past life.
Someone is growing flowers outside there now, pots and pots of thriving plants. Ten years ago I was a flower cut from the ground and slowly dying there. [Read more…]
When the world around me is quiet and I am alone, this is where my words begin.
I get tired of telling the same stories about myself over and over. After awhile, you can feel like you’re reading a script about a person who is no longer you–someone who is a stranger. One day you may even realize that it’s not worth telling that story anymore because you’ve outgrown it.
There’s one big ugly story that I can’t highlight in my narrative and control-v forever.
I wrote most of this on November 9, 2016, the day after the presidential election.
This morning I woke up and felt numb.
From the moment my eyes opened, I could feel the weight of the night’s events lying heavy on my chest. I walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My “Salute me I voted” sticker looked just as chipper as it did the day before, clinging to my shirt with the California bear walking on a rainbow. The bear, the rainbow, the stars and stripes. They held a hope that now rotted. I wasn’t ready to peel the shirt off and admit it was over. That would mean that what had happened was real, and it was time to move forward.
When I finally undressed and got in the shower, I felt the same shock, denial, fear, confusion, and sadness that I felt years ago on the day after the rape. The water rushed over my body, and I gasped as the tears came to the surface and trickled down. [Read more…]
