The act of breathing in memories

What did your childhood smell and sound like?

For me, memories of childhood are of blue skies peeking out from between towering pine trees.

Childhood is the sound of girl’s voices echoing and bouncing around me like a tornado of sound.

The sound makes its way to my ears reminding me that I am in a world that we have created

It is a world where we are free to be girls

Free to be weird and loud, to walk with our arms around each other and whisper secrets and share stories about the women that we want to become

Memories of those days flow together in an endless stream of images of inside jokes and insane laughter

 In my memory, I run around in the warm summer air, leaping from rock to root not caring about properly placing my feet or worrying about being thrown off balance and crashing down to the ground

In my memory; I am simply me

I am not too fat or too loud.

I am the size and volume that I am supposes to be

There is no worry of my placement in the world

There is only the joy of playing in the sun and being surrounded by the love of a community of women and girls

And girls becoming women

My childhood was emulating girls who were older than me

It was a female thing

It was about comparing them to the woman that I wanted to be

I was a girl who clung to my childhood while being intensely aware if the fact that it would end one day

That I would be catapulted into adulthood

And I knew exactly what I wanted that to look like

But I have never been able to fully let go of the world that I created and reveled in as a young girl

So every summer, I return and return to hide myself in the shade of those same trees that sheltered me as a little girl

I crave that fresh air of Pine needles and wood

I Claw and Scrape at my memories and ignore the sweat and tears of exertion as I try desperately to keep this world intact

Because I want to share it so that I never have to leave it

 I listen to the breeze in the trees and the voices of girls calling to each other

I pretend that I am still that girl

But I have grown

And being here is no longer the same because my world is not here for me anymore

It is a new world for a new community of women

I have to find a new world to create and to shape

This world is my childhood

I found it and made it my own and

Now I treasure it and how it shaped me

We created each other

And to leave it is to leave behind a part of myself

And make room something new

The first day of the Rest of Your Life

            Anthony sighed and looked sideways at his best friend, Chris, who gave him a weak smile that was probably meant to be reassuring. He had come so far to get to this point.  He had sacrificed so much and knew that there would be more to atone for once the day was over. But he just couldn’t bring himself to care about that right now. Because right now, in this moment, he knew that he had to stay strong and focus on the task at hand.

            Without his permission, his mind began to wander back to the events that had led him to this point. Going even further back, he admitted to himself that his life had never been easy but that it seemed to all have led up to this moment. Now. Here. If he succeeded, it would all be worth it. If his plan backfired, then all would be lost and he would never ever recover from the shame and heartache. This moment of anticipation was so bittersweet, not yet knowing whether he would tumble into oblivion or rise from the ashes like the mythical phoenix that he had always so admired.

            This was Anthony’s last moment with his heart before it would officially belong to someone else or be crushed, withered, and useless forever. For Anthony was in love, he was in love like no one had ever been in love before. In all of his nine years on this rotating rock that we call planet earth, Anthony had never felt like he felt right now. Not even on the first night of Chanukah, taking a moment to just look out at the eight gloriously mysterious packages all waiting just for him, did Anthony shake so with the joy of anticipation. Not even the first day of elementary school (big kids roaming the halls and actual assigned homework!) filled him with such worry and suspense. Not even the joy of slowly, oh so slowly, pulling out that wooden block with sweating fingers wondering whether this would be the one to cause the whole tower to fall apart with the humiliating cries of “Jenga” shouting in his ear balanced him so delightfully on the precipice of clear thought and pure chaos.

            Anthony loved his parents and his grandparents. He loved his dog and his Spiderman backpack. He loved the smell of potato pancakes and he supposed he even loved his sister (when she was being nice to him instead of slamming her door in his face.) But nothing, nothing, felt quite like the love that he had in his heart today. It was a love that had started to grow inside him last week when she shared her pudding with him for the first time because he told her that his mom only ever packed him healthy snacks. And it had begun to escalate as she shared that blue was her favorite color too.  But when he heard her argue with Chris about their favorite characters on Avatar, he knew he was a goner for sure.  Her name was Hannah and she was better than last Chanukah and his Birthday combined.

            On Monday, he made funny noises in class so he could get a timeout because he had heard his sister giggling with her friend about how much they loved a guy who “had the whole bad boy thing going on.” Tuesday he complemented her on the height of her pigtails after listening to his mother complain to a friend that Anthony’s father never said anything nice about the way she looked anymore.  Wednesday he gave her all the diamond tangrams because he had seen a movie where a woman said that diamonds were a girl’s best friend.  And Thursday night after soccer practice, he had enlisted Chris, the only one he could trust with such a sensitive matter, to help him in completing his grand gesture.

            For hours, he and Chris had sat in his room to plan and scheme. They pulled together all their possessions to use as bartering tools for the extra help that they would need. Billy had taken two packs of double bubble gum to let them use his pastel chalk. Jimmy had taken Anthony’s Clone Wars comic to keep their teacher Mrs. Smith out of the way.  He even asked Hannah’s best friend, Jenny, to keep her busy so she wouldn’t notice how weird he was being. She agreed to do it for free.

            So that was how he had arrived at this point. During lunch, he had raised his hand to leave and use the bathroom, but instead he had snuck off to get started with the rest of his life. His friends had all given him subtle nods as they filed back into the room after lunch, letting him know that everything was in order and the plan was a Go. As he looked away from Chris and towards Hannah, he took another breath and waited to see if all of his hard work would pay off.

            Mrs. Smith pulled up the hanging map to display the blackboard underneath, just like she always did after lunch to start their math lesson for the day. But this time the equations she had prepared were erased and in their place were words written in bright neon. In the center were the letters “AS LOVES HB.” Around his declaration of love he had written statements and short sentences for her. “Because you share whatever you have.” Was off to the left. “Your hair looks really pretty in the sunlight” was written across the bottom. “One time I was sad because Danny told me I looked stupid, but you said I didn’t look stupid but that Danny was stupid but that stupid wasn’t a very nice word” had taken a long time to write neatly. He admitted that he had never really liked poetry and would probably never be a very good writer. But he watched her eyes grow wide as they darted across his work to take in all the words.

            Mrs. Smith was angry. She was demanding to know who had erased her hard work and she was using her loud voice. They were never allowed go talk that loudly, but adults never had to use their “indoor voices” for some reason. Anthony wasn’t listening to Mrs. Smith at all. And he knew his friends would never tell on him because when he bought their cooperation he had also bought their silence. Anthony didn’t care what Mrs. Smith thought; he only cared about Hannah and what she thought. She hadn’t looked at him yet and he was getting nervous.

Finally, Mrs. Smith said that she would have to redo the math equations so they could go into the reading corner or sit and their desks with a book while she worked.  Anthony held his breath and watched Hannah get up from her chair, grab her book, and turn to look at him. He held his breath and looked up into her eyes, her growth spurt had hit before his but he was determined not to let that bother him. This was it. He didn’t breath again until he saw her face break out into the biggest smile he had ever seen.

             “Finally! I was running out of pudding!”

            He grinned back at her and felt his cheeks flush with happiness and embarrassment. He offered her his arm and invited her to retire to the beanbag in the reading corner with him and when she giggled, he felt it all the way down in his toes. He gave her the good bag that still had all its beans and smiled at her over his copy of “If you Give a Mouse a Cookie.” Years later, they would not remember exactly what he had written on the board, only how happy they both were that he had.

Non Fiction is a stupid way to say This is the Truth

Old home videos show me laughing and dancing
This is how my father still thinks of me
When he worries out loud that I don't understand the real meaning of the financial impact of student loans
When he thinks that I don't truly appreciate the the glory of not paying rent and simply suffocating under the weight of living half in/half out of another family
He sees the freckles that appear amusingly quickly at the mere mention of sunlight and dark curls bouncing just above a tiny waist
He imagines the carefree daughter that tucked a doll into her bed as a child before going to a sleepover party so he would not feel sad at the sight of her empty bed after returning home from a long day of work

But I don't recall ever being all that carefree
I worried about my dolls being lonely or disliking me behind my back
I fretted over ways to spend more time with my brothers
And I vividly recall running and jumping into bed at night, positive that if I didn't make it by the count of three than the monsters would be allowed to creep in
I remember sitting huddled under the covers, shaking and terrified of the shadows
Cowering until I could conjure up images of my mother's comforting shape sitting with me in the dark

I have always been good at putting my fears and anxieties aside and living in the moment for an hour or so while in the company of others
But when left alone to sit and think, my worries always etch away at my calm exterior
Causing others to point sympathetic sighs my way and ask me whats wrong
"Nothing." I always reply. "This is just my thinking face."

These days, my mind feels like a kept rodent, running some in a race on a stationary wheel that no one will ever win
It turns circles of questions about money and the future and occasionally the past
Can I afford the choices I've made? Are they the right choices? Can I keep my sanity and my jobs? Did I make a mistake? A misstep? Was I too quick to bring my belonging back East? Is a happier me living in some dimension out West right now? Why am I still here when I want desperately to be somewhere else? Why am I so ashamed when I run into people I went to Hight School with? Is this all fruitless? Pointless? Too expensive? Inevitably something to regret?
You would think that after having these questions as a constant white noise in my head literally. All. Day. Long.  that at night, I would be silenced into exhaustion
But the noise raises to a deafening volume.

When I cannot drown it out with NPR or my Sleepytime Mix, I drag myself out of bed and stumble around searching for my journal and a pen
And I write.
I write this.

And the scratching of the pen is a new soundtrack to listen to
And the letters become droopier as my eyelids finally, finally start to feel heavy
Is this being an adult?
Still afraid of the dark and wishing for my mother to come to the rescue
But rather than huddling in the dark afraid of the emptiness and unanswered questions, I turn on the light and make something
I dont feel any less scared or any more sure
But if writing is what gets me to sleep
And finally, finally slows my heart to a normal pace
And makes it feel stronger and more whole
And even as a child, I knew that there was a reason that so many people suggest that a main character just follow their heart

The Emerson story.

There are several checklists, written on notebook paper, and stuck to the doorframe in my bedroom. I put them there over a year ago when I was in the middle of applying to Grad school. The bottom sheet of paper has a list for every day of the week. Tasks are written in bold letters with my own made-up icons to designate varying degrees of importance. They are crossed out once, twice, and a third time with a satisfied flourish.

I stuck them to the wall, one on top of the other so I would see and take notice of them at the beginning and end of each day. The top piece of paper has a label on it that says "I love my job." I smile as I remember the day I cleverly made that piece of plastic. It was one of two that I printed out at work. The first read "My name is Marcy." I stuck both to the bottom of my skirt and grinned as I showed both to a friend and said "Only one of these is true. Guess which."

This is all from a time when I was incredibly stressed and it was making me frazzled and unhappy. I only applied to one Graduate school because it was the only one I really wanted to attend. When I got the rejection letter, I started planning a new escape. I decided that I just needed to go. I wanted to become one of the characters that I had always admired, the one who needs a change and so they just pack their shit and leave. I decided that I would move out West. It was terrifying and I loved just the act of planning. I packed, sold, and donated everything that I could do without. I notified, networked, and prepared to say goodbye. And throughout the whole process, I found that I was breathing deeper than I had in months.

I planned a party with my partner in crime to say Goodbye to all our friends at once. One week before the departure date that we had been obsessing over for more than a year, we got as many people as possible together at one bar. I drank and cried and discussed my plans, feeling a familiar big grin spread across my face. It was the grin I always had when I spoke about my move to California and the road trip that we would take to get ourselves out there. I came home looking forward to getting into my pajamas and climbing into bed. I barely paid attention to the letter that was sitting in front of the door leading to the stairs up to my apartment.

One year after not getting into Emerson's MFA in Creative Writing program, they reconsidered me and my application. Always one to give in to an opportunity to display my flare for the dramatic, I half laughed and half cried while my friend read out loud to me the words in the acceptance letter. I calmed down enough to leave my parents a calm and stable voice mail. They were on the West Coast for a wedding so I knew they would still be awake. When they called back, I walked into my bathroom to answer the phone and let my friend sleep.

There, perched on my closed toilette with my feet on the edge of my tub at 2 am, I told my parents the news. I listened to my mother cry and my father's shocked Congratulations. My mind was not made up, I wasn't sure that I could afford this financially or that I was ready to give up on California yet. As my parents drove around California, their GPS constantly shouting out about missed turns, they talked me into changing my plans.

A little over an hour of talk and a hot shower later, I finally got into my pajamas and climbed into bed. Where I stared at the wall and thought. The next day, I was in charge of two small children. I am ashamed to say, I let them play Wii for hours and enjoy the Photo Booth on my lap top while I went back on to the Emerson website to try to imagine what fall would be like. I didn't want to tell people because I was still convinced it was a fluke. But when my best friend called and said "I know we haven't had a chance to talk in a while but I felt like I had to talk to you today" I took it as a sign to tell her everything.

I confirmed with the admissions office and sent in my enrollment fee. I changed my plans and settled in to the fact that I would spend the summer continuing my path of the last three years. But in the fall, I will go back to school. I so rarely talk about fate or destiny; I think these are thing we have to create on our own. But suddenly I am able to fill in the big blanks of my future that used to be hazy question marks. I know who and where I want to be in three years. Though, if this experience has taught me anything it's that you don't want to plan anything in advance too thoroughly. Or: plan, but be prepared for life to get in the way and do some scheming of its own.

I dont need Emerson to give me some self worth or tell me that I can write. I have always written and I never planned to stop. But now I have the means to make my life what I want it to be. I applied to Emerson on my own but apparently I was a just a bit too early. And the best part is, it makes for a really great story.

You and Me

You only begin to understand who you are once you remove yourself from your home

When the world outside your window stops being predictable

And even the road signs are new

They warn of falling rocks and flooded highways

The familiar highways and turns are long gone

The Country opens up when you go out West

Speeding down a highway, you play music and sing out loud,

Eyes wide as you try to take it all in and commit it to memory

Predicting the days that you will tell children with familiar eyes, noses, and perhaps a constellations of freckles about the days when you too were young and curious anxious to see everything

Suddenly you are recalling terms from 7th grade Geography class because they are hovering in the distance and looming around every bend

You take a friend and have to re-learn each other

Because this is not the same friendship you had at school and in the city

You are sharing a space and often sharing silences

You are singing together and making decisions

Weighing smart decisions against the craving for an adventure

Framing how you will tell the stories to your friends and wondering which details you will remember differently

One is looking out to the desert and the other watching the sky

But this You is not You

It is me.

You can watch the Road trip movies and read the books

You can read this poem and ask me about it later

But until you get on the road

Until you watch the mountains leap up and marvel that the GPS is telling you not to turn for another 500 miles

Until you understand that this part of the world is older than you can imagine

You cannot know how you will feel

If you will feel small and young or scared and insignificant

Maybe you will feel powerful and proud of the roads sandwiched between cliffs and cactuses

I am in awe of this country

I am young and my eyes are open

I am seeing a new world and I will bring it home with me

I will share it with you and remind you repeatedly that it is here

Waiting for you

That we may build skyscrapers to feel strong and bold, but the mountains were here first and they will be here after

and they will change you if you let them.

Dreaming

I grabbed a book to read before bed,

And as my eyes slid shut,

the pages took a nose dive down to slump on my chest

The words slid through my skin and into my dreams

They were words of adventure

Beauty and ink forming tales of passion in my mind,

Stories of a world where the hero can take any shape

And tonight that shape is mine

I had returned to the comfort of a classic to spend some time before sleeping

Asleep, I still knew the story inside and out

The words bled through the layers of the real world and into my imaginary one

Asleep, I watched as the letters reform into shapes,

creating a new world for me to explore

I wake, still feeling the weight of a sword at my hip and the breeze of adventure on my face

There is a desire within me, responsible for pulling the words in as I slept

I am a reader and writer who longs to put the paper down and become the character

I want to live in the sea of letters that that I devote so many hours to reading and writing

I read along as Peter and Wendy fly, fight, and duel

I sigh as they accidentally fall in love, being too young to understand how it will change them

I am too busy daydreaming to see the possibility of experiencing love with my eyes open

I envy the magic written for my favorite characters rather than creating and living my own

When I wake up, I fill blank pages with words that create worlds

I cling to my dreams just a little bit longer by reforming them and sinking them into the pages with my pen

As I scribble, I wish that the pages would fill themselves

I want to witness magic, so I write it

and re read it

And wait to fall back asleep into another adventure