Curate, connect, and discover
In the backyard sat a camper van, spacious enough to fit a family of eight, a trampoline, and a large above-ground pool. Their house was one of those rich, suburban houses, with a white mother and father and their three children- two boys and a girl. Seven bedrooms, three bathrooms, a decked-out kitchen perfect for hosting holidays, and a special living room for hosting Bible Study on Wednesday nights. Toys piled up and the latest video games were always around. It was a house my family dreamed of living in, and we did live in it. Downstairs sat an uninhabited basement, fully finished with a small kitchen and living space, and three of the house’s bedrooms. This was where my family of seven moved. The best part about the house wasn’t the pool and it certainly wasn’t the trampoline; it was that we were not homeless for the five months that family allowed our stay.
On a hot summer afternoon, after a day of playing in the sun but before retiring to play video games, my mother would always shower. She loved spending time with us on those rare free days when all five of her girls were home, and she wasn’t working one of many jobs she held down simultaneously to provide. Our job was to set the living room up, since she didn’t understand and wasn’t willing to learn how to work the equipment. She would emerge in a puff of steam and a waft of perfume. Unwilling to wear shorts outside, those days she was even willing to don a light summer nightdress. We each peeled off at different times in the night, smart enough and independent enough to dictate our own bedtimes. With a yawn, I’d announce my departure. My mother was never short on hugs, pulling me in and holding me, understanding of the importance of that contact. Rich vanilla and rose and a creamy, heavy shea butter: the last things I’d smell for the night.
When riffling through the cabinet before moving out, I discovered the exact lotion she would use. Her ‘yes’ when I asked to take it was distracted, unaware of the significance. Although, I don’t use it much.
In a cinderblock bathroom an hour’s bus ride out of the inner-city, there’s a full-length aluminum mirror hanging by two screws. Unrelenting rain pounded on the roof as a girl, twelve, peered into it. Her arms shook, weak from the exhaustion of pulling her way up cliffs. Amelie was on a hiking field trip with her quirky charter school, who believed that traipsing through forests during a spring rain storm was more of a teacher than a chalkboard. The laces of her only pair of tennis shoes lay untied, dripping with mud, but her fingers had grown too icy in the rain to tie them up again. The hem of her jeans was torn where another student had stepped on it while Amelie helped them up a ledge. Her only jacket was dripping onto the floor and torn in several places from burrs and the scrapes of passing sticks. Luckily, Amelie’s shirt was unharmed, but was too flimsy to stop the creep of cold from chilling her to the bone. Her stringy curls would certainly take hours to untangle. Amelie shivered, and looked into her own eyes. Truly the star of the entire appearance was Amelie’s wide grin and the bright, wild look in her eyes that only true adventure could bring.
Forever Writing,
quill rose
There were several things about mini-me that were embarrassing. First of all, I was held back in kindergarten for being “too small.” My teachers were worried that me, a tiny brown girl with curly hair bigger than her head, would get bullied if I wasn’t the same size as the other kids. I waited the extra year in hopes of catching up, but I got bullied anyways. Secondly, I was a nerd. Not a cute quiet nerd, mind you, but an obnoxious, always-carrying-a-book-and-reading-aloud-to-herself type of nerd. Finally, and probably most insufferably, I was known as the teacher’s pet. If all of that wasn’t enough, I was that kid. I was the kid in school who peed her pants.
After the first few accidents, Mom found that I was simply unable to ‘hold it’. She chuckled as she wrote the note to my teachers that made it official: I had to go when I said. Because my hand was annoyingly stuck in the air anyways, it made notifying teachers easy. Once I hit middle school, my reputation preceded me. When I wiggled around in my seat like I had ants in my pants, and waved more fervently that normal, the teachers would sigh and point to the door. My wiggly dance down the hall was a sight to see.
Tiny me thought this worked pretty well. I was getting out of class as much as I could want, no questions asked. Since I was a ‘good kid’, I never took this for granted (Of course I did, how could you believe a child?!). Mom and the doctor had other plans for me. Something about getting a diagnosis for what made my bladder weak, but I think the word they were looking for was ‘Loser’. I peed in a cup seven times before starting treatment. Most people never have had to pee in a cup once. I’m jealous.
Homework was not foreign to me. In fact, homework was my favorite pastime (I told you I was insufferable), until the doctor gave me bladder homework. Did you know you could educate your bladder? After weeks of this at-home ball-squeezing and hip-flexing homework, I went back in for testing. My new routine was: get to the pee doctor’s, drink as much water as I could hold, get the cup from my mom, and send my pee away for Science. That day held other plans, for which my mom promised me McDonald’s. Before I even processed how these new plans would help me exactly, five extremely sticky nodes were attached to my butt.
If you’re wondering how terrible it is to be hooked up to the Butt-o-Matic, I couldn’t tell you because I promptly zoned out for the rest of the visit. All I knew was that I was being rewarded for this discomfort with salty fries and a thick shake. I pictured bringing my meal in when I was dropped back off at school, flexing on my classmates with the greasy bag. For once, I would lord over my class.
After a half an hour of doing the exercises with nodes hanging off my butt, I was finished. On my way out, I was offered a Princess Jasmine sticker. Letting my face show my sadness and, blinking at the doctor, I asked if I could also have the Princess Ariel one. The doctor’s face shifted into one of pity. She gave me both stickers.
Mom fulfilled her promise, swinging by the Drive Thru while pulling her Aldi’s employee sweater on. The water I’d had from the water fountain was starting to make its appearance and, since I hadn’t peed in the cup, I had critically miscalculated. As she pulled to the first window to pay, I leapt out of the car, slamming the door shut on my mom’s surprise. I barely made it in time. She was laughing when she swung the car around the front of the building and I came out. “Welcome back, Sticky Buns,” is all she said before driving me the rest of the way to school.
I sauntered into the building with the aromatic McDonald’s bag swinging from my grasp, my tattered Percy Jackson book in the other, and my buns still slightly sticky.
Forever Writing,
Content Warning: self-inflicted violence
Estrella refused to look away from the sky, especially once she made her last wish on the star that shot across. She waited for another. Too late; her breath quickened. Starlight streamed down hollow cheeks. Estrella refused to take her eyes off the sky, even after the trigger was pulled.