Welcome back to me! It's been awhile since I've posted, but I was in Palm Springs for the weekend, and the internet cost $1mil per minute.
Today I am posting pictures of myself and my family. I don't LIKE these photos, but when I look at them I feel a knot - and as fellow Canadian Margaret Atwood says: "Good writing begins where there is a knot."
So let the kneading (needing?)begin:
You are Katherine Hepburn, you are Marilyn Monroe, you are Meg Ryan and Cindy Crawford. You perch in a windowsill, awaiting your cue. You watch Cassie recite her line, and bow to the audience (your mom, your dad, and your aunt sandy). A bug lamp sways from a stray branch, and you wonder if it’s working.
You are readying yourself for high school and all that it entails.
You watch Cassie drag her paintbrush across the page, and with her lip held between her teeth she creates something beautiful, something stunning. Amanda paints like she thinks, and makes a watercolor resembling a photograph.
But then there’s you, attempting the impossible, trying to paint abstract notions of love and justice, sorrow and magic – and you are 16, what do you know?
Runny patches of primary colors bloom on your page, and the whole image cries long, sodden, lachrymose tears.
The person taking the picture is about to leave, and with your squinting eyes you press them through the door. Your sister sits beside you, pushed up in her chair, happy to be playing cards.
The person taking the picture is about to leave, and with your squinting eyes you press them through the door. Your sister sits beside you, pushed up in her chair, happy to be playing cards.
You want to laugh with out thinking: am I too young for this, am I too old for this?
You smile BIG for the camera. Your sister poses with her spoon as a prop.
Behind you Lake Simcoe’s surface shakes, dips and peaks like a shaken out blanket.
The day is fading, leaving only memories and farmer's tans testifying to its isness.
You are leaving for a foreign country, and your friends are there to see you off. You are only seventeen, (echo: only seventeen? sevenTEEN? SEVENTEEN?)
You will your heart to stop frenzily beating, you will your pulse to slow down - because if it doesn’t stop soon you know the courage will leak from you like air escaping from a balloon.
“See you in a year!”
To everyone: where are your knots? What memories make you cringe (with a smile)?
10 comments:
love it.
i cringe when i see pictures from third grade. it was pretty bad, but sort of funny now.
I just read some of Little Bird's writing from academic institutions and it is beyond fantastic. I am a published author but my talet isn't even up to her boot straps. She moves effortlessly between subjects in a natural poetic fashion. Some people only see stars she sees an ebony black bowel of night embedded with a million stars on a cold rainy night. She thinks and speaks in poetry. Recently when I read her resume it did not surprise me that she received so many academic honors while in school. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MIND!
LOVE this.
beautiful words.
i *hear* you--
my sticking points are
remembering how tightly i held onto things, people, ideas, my-self;
the decision to go to law school (i could write a book on that knot);
the ramifications of saying 'yes' when i mean 'no.'
(all knots lead back to the first, i think.)
*)
When I look at pictures of myself from Junior High, I cringe. I was so awkward, legging, and unsure of myself. And it showed in photographs. Phew! I'm glad that phase passed.
Kelly, I am with you, I have felt everything you mentioned - ESP the ramifications of saying "yes" when I mean no. Is that a universal, woman thing?
1218, nothing is worse than middle school. nothing.
In elementary school, I let my brother cut my hair the day before graduation ...
Great post.
I have many knots. Most around thoughts of my dad.
I cringe the most when I get wrapped up in thoughts of high school and the beginning of college. I.E.Why the HELL did I cut my hair like that anyway? Or of pictures with exes that I can't believe I could have ever fell for but did. You know that sort of thing.
My roommate and I were talking about high school (he is 6 years older than me, so there is much to talk about as far as 90s youth culture and the different perspectives we had). I realized that I had yet to process my high school years, that they are still too close for comfort. It has been four years now, and I can now consider the time with some perspective.
you do have a beautiful mind robin ! so lucky to be your sis.
Post a Comment