Have you ever been injured and gone through physical therapy? Maybe it took several months, or longer, of doing routines that evolved based on your situation before you started to feel well enough to forget to do your routines. After a while, the ache might come back and you realize it’s been far-too(only a week, I swear)long since you did your “daily” exercises. No? Yeah, who does that? Anywhoozle. Lately, I’ve been focused on understanding…
Begin the day by landing it My morning begins with the vibration on my wrist. 4:45 am my watch gently shakes me from sleep. It will not stop until I tap it. Usually, I do so with my eyes mostly still closed. I am not awake enough for ritual. This is instinct, this is habit. This is routine. 4:50 and the moon starts to glow on my nightstand. Not the literal moon. A lamp I’ve…
There’s a meme going around that nails how many of us feel about practically everything happening in the world right now, especially the climate crisis: One of the problems this creates is that it’s hard to get traction when you’re vacillating wildly between hope and nihilism. It’s exhausting. For a while now, I’ve been trying to figure out a way forward. One that creates a sense of hope that’s rooted in action, awareness, and understanding.…
First and foremost, the transition into awareness each morning. The knowing that I am breathing and alive. And that when my eyes open, I can still see. Blurry though it may be some days. That next to me is my amazing wife and that we are waking into a life we have dedicated ourselves to building together. For the morning flurry on workdays because we each have work to get to and enjoy spending our…
Like a convention of drunks, we weave our way from car door to church door, navigating islands of relative dryness among seas of sunken grass and slippery clay. The women struggle with sinking heels, even while working hard to maintain the appearance of not working hard at all. I remind myself to care about staying clean, to quell the impulse to puddle jump and become one with the filth. Mamita’s tight grip on my upper arm reinforces the reminder.
and guns and moving the furniture in front of the peg-board wall displaying his collection of knives. With the green recliner creating a barricade in front of the bayonets and machetes, she stops in the hallway and stands there, not moving but not quite still either. Like she’s part of a cadre of soldiers on the battlefield nervously staring each other down, waiting for the signal that sets chaos into motion. Only whatever enemy she is facing, it’s not visible on the field.
The woman from the island has called again. She has visions of me, arms outstretched, barely one, smiling and teetering toward my father.
I am marked.
She calls again: My father dressed in uniform in the Korean jungles. My father boxing for the Army.
He is marked.
It took some time after we moved in with Frances for me to get used to being watched. When school started back up, I was dropped off and picked up, often by Frances’ teenage daughter. On occasions when I couldn’t be picked up right away, arrangements were made for me to stay at a friend’s house with her and her parents until Dad or Frances could get me. And my evenings on the roof were replaced by Frances turning off my bedroom light, telling me to sleep tight, and closing my bedroom door. It was strange and made me feel like running.
The first house we moved into together was at the end of a red clay road. When it rained, as it did every summer afternoon, the clay became slick and fast and far more fun than a slip and slide. Frances, who I would be calling mom soon, made it clear that girls didn’t get dirty. But that glorious clay was irresistible, and I knew I wasn’t meant to be categorized as a girl. So I learned how to hose off after practicing my best slide moves and hearing that imaginary crowd roar as the also imaginary ump yelled, “safe!” Technically, I wasn’t dirty. For whatever reason, Frances didn’t push the issue and that clay became my haven.
From the moment my father returned from his trip and discovered that I had been abandoned, I was shuffled from family member to family member like a hot potato with everyone praying that the music did not stop. It was clear that I was different from my family, although I did not yet know why. With my freckled skin and hair that fell somewhere from reddish blonde to chlorinated-pool blonde, I stood out among my…