Big Beautiful Feelings

Big, Beautiful Feelings

Today, I am not in love.

I am nineteen, it is Christmas for another hour and a half, and I am not in love. Like almost every single woman in America (North America, the world), despite my feminist post-modern liberalism, there is a tiny voice inside of me that says, insistently, that this is a bad thing.

That I have somehow been paying attention to all the wrong aspects of my life. Like, for example, my dog. She receives more of my affection than a boy has in any relationship that I have ever had, to this day. They have never quite measured up to her. They probably never will.

My society tells me to fall in love, and importantly, be loved. Be loveable. This is the endgame: a boy who is completely and totally smitten with me. This is the mission we are all handed at birth: find somebody to love, and make them love you back. Ready, Set, Go.

But I was born with an active mind and raised with a healthy dose of social justice, and I think more often and more passionately about politics and world affairs than the boy across the dormitory hall.  I prefer to talk about the book I am reading for class than the random guy who added me on Facebook. The truth is, love is worthwhile, but literature is more interesting.

About a month ago, on a Saturday night, a boy broke up with me. By Monday morning, we were friends. By Tuesday, I would go so far as to say close ones. By Wednesday? Bros.  Today we remain the kind of buddies who laugh at one another’s shortcomings and always hug each other goodbye.

This scared the shit out of me. Here is why: Because I should have been more upset. Right? What was wrong with me? I had lost my chance at something beautiful. At “the future”. I wouldn’t have anniversaries, Valentine’s Days, long passionate kisses goodnight. I wouldn’t have a boy who was smitten with me.

But what I still had was this: girlfriends who let me sleep curled in their arms.  Poetry. Music to listen to. The news to read. A lot of homework to catch up on. A life to live.

But I was scared, because I wasn’t in love.

I wanted a Hallmark romance, and Big Ugly Breakup—because Big Ugly Breakups prove Big Beautiful Feelings.

What if I had some kind of defect? I could see the title in some medical journal, myself as a freak of nature:  “Girl Born without Capacity for Romantic Feeling, Miraculously Alive”.

 But then I got to really thinking about it, and this is what I realized: I had those romantic feelings, but I had about two dozen other things to feel joy about, too. A boy would probably never change my happiness significantly one way or the other. I had too much else in my life. He wasn’t going to be my savior, but he sure as hell wouldn’t be my destroyer either.

What I am trying to say is this: I don’t think romance is my endgame anymore. Do I want to love and be loved? Please, sign me up. But I’m not going to look every day. I have other things to do, you understand. I have other Big Beautiful Feelings to attend to.

And that is perfectly alright. 

In Flux

Name: Casey Marie O’Brien, Yes, spelled with an e, not an a, Yes, a C, not a K.

Age: 18 years old, nearly 19, not nearly grown up.

Height: 5’5”, just a hair’s breadth above average.

Dress size: 6, approximately.

Hair color: Brown, a healthy hint of red.

Eye color: Brown, “chocolate” if you’re trying to flatter me.

Identity: shifting

Identity:

Reshaped by

Playing truth or dare at 2 am,

Always picking truth because

Vulnerability is exhilarating,

And I am drunk on the open air against my own bared heart.

Reshaped by

Books read by window filtered sunlight

Ideas hand delivered by black ink stamp letters.

Idenity:

Reshaped by

Opening night jitters

Closing night tears

A bouquet of flowers, a card with love inside

Reshaped by

Goodnight kisses

Fingers curled in my hair.  

Goodmorning hugs

Legs touching beneath the table.

Reshaped by

Ripples of laughter like waves in the ocean        

Lastly,

Importantly.

Identity: Reshaped by

Friends who finish my sentences

Friends who hold me up when I didn’t even know I was falling.

Friends who lift me higher than I knew we could go.

Casey Marie O’Brien

Identity: Shifting.

Where I Was Born

Where I was born fog welcomes new babies like  a swaddling blanket

And the Redwoods stand over their sleeping forms like grandparents.

The ocean sings newborns lullabies

And the tall golden grass on the hills dances for them.

Where I was born a tall mountain stands tall and lonely above us all

There’s an Indian legend that says there’s a princess tucked in that mountain, its green curves her own, and I always liked to think

She watched over me,

slightly amused smile playing across her deep emerald silhouette

Where I was born deer stand startled in the front yard, surprised to see me.

Where I was born hawks wheel in the sky like acrobats

Their endless spirals begging the question

Why ever go straight.

If I walk down the street from my childhood home ,about four blocks, turning left    at the new yellow house that hasn’t been new in years,  I  find  myself in a forest of trees more ancient and more patient than I will ever be.

These trees taught  me to stand tall and to provide a place

for leaning.

They taught me to be proud and

stoic

but always to

let my roots tangle.

I find sometimes I prefer their quiet company

to the radio chatter of spoken conversation. .

When I was born  the redwoods lent me the deep chocolate color of their trunks for my hair

And the sea foam lent me its splash for the sparkle in my eyes

I’m built of this and more

I’m built to be

Wind swept

Seaworthy

Boulder strong

and no matter where I go,

As my feet skitter across states, countries, continents

I carry in my heart

A land of ocean and wild fields,

A land of misty valleys and wise beings

I carry

Where I was born.

Equilibrium

Hello all,
This post is about writing but what it's really about is passion. We all have something that we cannot live without (if not several things). I love to do a lot of things, but  my relationship to this craft is bigger than that.

My life without words would be empty---writing sustains me and has made me who I am today. This is more than loving something. This is being made of something. This is surviving because of something. I hope sincerely that all of you feel this way about whatever it is that you do, and I hope you do it all the time.

Without further ado...Enjoy!

Equilibrium

Somebody asked me yesterday,

“So you write for fun?”

No.

I write the way you breathe.

It's involuntary.

It’s a bodily response to stimuli, stimuli being

Sunset

Rainy day

Teacup

Curve of a shoulder

Delicate secret tuck of hip.

But so much more than that too

Isn’t it?

Because

Because

I hear God in a pen’s scratch

And  find love

In the

perfect

order

of

 lined paper.

I wish I could  explain that sometimes I think I would die without this

Without words

I am afraid, so afraid of who I would be without a pen in my hand, without my fingers

 tiptapping

on a keyboard to tell me where I belong

To say

Here

Here

Here you are.

I recognize myself in my words

That’s me,  there she is, I found her.

Because sometimes I wake up in the morning and my reflection in the mirror looks unfamiliar

My hair parts to the right at night, while I sleep

Moved I guess by unconscious dream fingers

And then in the morning my symmetry is reversed and the world feels flipped on its head,

Like standing up too fast.

And the only way it ever looks right again is

To write it all down.

 So  I guess

You could say I write for

Balance

I write for

Equilibirum

This is my stasis.

Aristotle wrote about the idea of final cause.

He believed that all things had a purpose and a place and we would get there, somehow.

This is my final cause.

Midnight on a Thursday,

Listening to the whirr of the fan and the soft beat of my own heart telling me I exist, yes

I think therefore I am,

I write.
I write, therefore

Therefore

I must be

Yes, yes.

I am.

Lap Swimming

 Hi Everyone, I arrived for my college orientation just a little over three weeks ago, and already, my life feels immeasurably different. This post is about change, growth, and new beginnings.  Enjoy!

Lap Swimming

Free lap swim until six o'clock

Pink painted toes curl against white tile

Hesitant to leave solid ground.

But I take a deep breath and spring forward

My feet splash through the cool clear blue

And I’m on my  way.

My heart is beating to the rhythm of a breaststroke

And there’s nothing left to think about,

Just legs propelling, arms pulling, lungs breathing

Progress.

I’m beginning to wonder if college is a little like lap swimming

Because no matter how prepared you are,

Towel and flipflops and Speedo,

Eventually, you just have to jump in

And when you do,  no matter how ready you are, you’ll still sputter when you swallow chlorine.

Your arms will get tired and by the end of fifteen laps you wonder how is this only halfway

Your legs will want to rest and you’ll be sick of holding your breath.

But then.

Then you’re at sixteen, eighteen, twenty

And you’re strong and lean and deliciously refreshed

When you get out the sun’s  on your back

And you know you’ll come back and do it all again.

I’ve only just leaped in to this new adventure

And I’m still only on my first lap

Trying to remember where my anthropology class is

And what day they come for the recycling.

Just trying not to miss Sunday afternoons in the wine country

Trying to laugh even when I’m tired

And the joke isn’t funny.

But I’m getting there.

I’m stronger already

I’m past wishing I could put my feet down

And I’ve started to kick.

I’ve started to

Stay up late

Accept compliments

Relish long hugs.

I’ve started

To swim. 

Finding Treasure

The natural world is always nearby in CR,  wildness reaching its fingers always into civilization, as if trying to take it back. Reclaim it. The jungle sings all night. Rain falls on my jacket in sheets,  the tendrils of hair that escaped my hood soaked and sticking to my face. In the pool a massive toad sits, enjoying  a night time swim. He is displeased when we disturb him to get in ourselves. Within the rainforest, life exists more vigorously, more intensely, than anywhere else on earth. Every square inch is carpeted with layer upon layer of organic material, living and dead. Leaves, bugs, butterflies, birds and mammals and strange lizards, hibiscus so big they could be worn like hats, heliconia flowers and birds of paradise in bright candyshop colors.

Walking back to my hotel room one afternoon, I see dark shapes in one of the trees. Climbing silhouettes. I ask the handyman if they are monkeys and he smiles at me, a gaptoothed grin that cracks his leathery face in two, eyes twinkling.

Si, claro. Monos. Yes, of course! Monkeys. As if this is the most ordinary thing on earth. They jump and swing with a strange sort of grace. I stand there in my bikini watching them, and the handyman chuckles and heads off to finish his work, amused by the American girl transfixed on the lawn.

Not just monkeys, in fact, but howler monkeys. They call to one another loudly, dolefully, and their noise is the most savage and bizarre thing I have ever heard. The Costa Ricans are unfazed, because to Ticos, nature’s glory is part of the everyday. They take great care in protecting it, respecting it. There is no place the monkeys are not allowed to howl. A few days before the end of my trip, I saw a young man not much older than me, maybe twenty, in faux gangster clothes (beanie, long gold chain) take off his flip flop, put a land stranded puffer fish in his sandal and hand deliver it to the ocean--fully clothed.

The result of this stewardship is a country filled with tropical wonders, amazing discoveries hidden behind each bend of their rocky unpaved roads. IIn two weeks in CR,  I  walked on a suspension bridge above the rainforest canopy and saw thirty shades of green beneath me. Swam in a thermal river, warmed by forces beneath the earth so that the water is as hot as any jacuzzi. The water was colored by jewel toned algaes, torqiouse and emerald.  I  rubbed  thick gray mud on my skin, and when I washed it away,  felt my face  smooth and soft,  made new. I   hiked to the top of a mountain and saw before me not one but two volcanoes, distinguished and strong. I flew over the jungle on a zipline 700 feet in the air, and  felt what the birds must feel. I have swum in the clear Pacific, watched the palms sway and the children play in the sand, bathed in sunsets painted in red, gold, lavender.  Every day, I found something new in Costa Rica, that little country endowed with so much to share. I became rich with memories, and each night I fell asleep to the sounds of the cicadas in the dark, and I dreamt of the beautiful things that little paradiso had to show me.

Little Gringa in the Inca Heartland

Nosotros no nacido a ser triste. We are not born to be sad. I heard a Peruvian priest  recite this to children in a Cathedral in the country's bustling capitol, Lima, and have since regarded it as a prime example of the Peruvian attitude---a sort of determination, dogged and unrelenting, to make joy, make happiness. They are not bubbly people, per se. They are not like, for example, Brazilians, whose dispositions, in my experience, have always been sunny. No. They work at happiness, and they do not allow it to sip them by. They are polite and friendly.  I, the little gringa with the skin white as a cloudy day and a digital camera hanging from my wrist, I watch them and learn from them and their country. I have found a new piece of myself in their beautiful spanish and their quick smiles and the Inca legacy they hold.

I like to watch the women and the children. I think babies and mothers are often the key to a culture, the essence of it distilled. The women here are small and often delicate, but still they carry their babies tied to their fronts in slings of colorful cloths, the children looking oversized against thier chests. They dress them in thick, warm footed suits, better suited to the arctic than Lima's moody white fog. This seems to me a message to their infants: I will prepare you and protect you against all weathers, and with me, you will be warm, safe and perhaps a lite smothered. I will not let the cold winds f the world touch you even if it means you stride out into the day looking like a misplaced Eskimo.  The babies are beautiful, dark eyed, smooth skinned, chubby cheeked. They cry very little, because there are always aunties and mothers and papas and siblings surrounding them, ready to soothe their fears and worries before they even know they are there. They are precious.

Peruanos do not consider old age to be a sad thing, like we do in the States. It just means they have had more time to do the work that needs doing. They are an active and busy people and well into their golden years the women still dance the salsa, knit alpaca wool sweaters, hawk their wares to tourists in the Inca capitol, Cusco. Their long black braids knock against their backs and tall bowler hats sit on thier heads. They stuff their round old lady feet into alpaca stockings and practical brown loafers. They seem to live forever.

Peru is not a wealthy country and poverty is always on the edge of the tourists’ photos, grubby children holding out cheap hats and mate candies, calling, Senorita, Senorita. When I tell them no, their eyes go liquid and sweet  and they ask me, “Porque no?” I find it hard then to resist buying their silly souvenirs or their pineapple or their chewing gum, whatever it is.

The past is everywhere here,  the  ancient Incas as much a presence as the living Peruvians. The streets of cusco are lined with their canals; one of its largest cathedrals once housed the Inca spiritual center, the most important temple in their vast empire. Walls of it still remain, and tourists come to see both.  One famous set of ruins, a citadel on a hill outside the city, sits opposite a huge, open armed statue of Christ.  Children slide irrevrently down one smooth, curved wall in the fortress, laughing, slipping, tumbling down, playing on the bones of the past. The Peruvians do not mind the ghosts of the Incas lurking in every corner. They welcome them. They are proud of them.  This is one of many things I admire about them.

They have much to be proud of.Upon seeing Macchu Picchu I felt an awe so deep it made my heart leap to my throat. It is so beautiful it beggars belief. It is also brilliantly designed, like so much the Incas did. In Inca architecture and culture, patterns are everywhere. The whole world is full of hidden wisdoms if you view it through their lens.  Everything has a  purpose,  a reason, a story. It is a remarkable way to live.

This country has inspired me. It has made me realize yet again that I must always travel, always see the world. It has also made me see that my soul is fed by the Latin world, that the sounds of Spanish being spoken around me and the sight of corn vendors on the street and colonial cathedrals in the sun make me feel joy rush through my body like a drug. I am a different version of myself.   I am Maria. You see, my name makes no sense in Spanish. Casey doesn’t translate--at best, it sounds like a mash up of que, meaning what, and si, which means yes. At worst, spanish speakers cannot even pronounce it at all. For this reason, my mother suggested I use my middle name, Marie, here, and go by Maria. I like this idea. I need a spanish name, because I have realized that my soul just might be Latina. In my heart there is warm bread, cobblestone streets, plazas and green jungle and tall Andean peaks. In my heart I am Maria.

We are Young Today

The wind blows my hair

And my bare feet cling to the rock

And I gaze out at a view so breathtaking, so expansive, it is almost unimaginable.

The waves crashing  gently against the shore far below, the birds wheeling, the sun sinking

Beauty incarnate.

But what interests me more is

His smile, winning, boyish, quick.

Her hand, warm and dry against my own

Or watching her look at things, the quiet way she observes

 Or the sweet welcome in her eyes.

He laughs and shows off his muscles, teasing, impressing

his audience of girls,

Girls with easy laughter

And we give it freely.  

We nest like sleeping birds

And one strokes my hair

I am calm and safe and happy

I am light like a child, my heart rising like  bubbles in a soda can.

Love is like a rope

It holds together and it binds and it carries

And with someone behind it, it pulls.

And I feel ours pulling me towards the future

A future filled with moments like this

Until they begin to feel almost ordinary.

Almost.

Until second glance.

The way their faces glow,

The music of their voices floating high into the air.

And then those moments will  feel anything but.

We are young today and the night and the rest of our lives  stretch before us

A winding, snaking path

A path that for now,
we walk together. 

Embers: Full Length

I started this short story a while ago and have been posting bits and pieces of it. here is the full version! 

Embers

The fireman who found her was young, inexperienced, a little bit afraid. His uniform was slightly too large, and he always followed the rules.  He was determined and earnest. He was the kind of young man that mothers say is a sweet boy and fathers say is a good kid.

In short, he was unprepared for what faced him.

It was an old house, rotting, ugly, dark. Falling in on itself. They were going to tear it down. The fire was a blessing, in a way.

A big yard, filled with tall weedy grasses, dry and wild. A tinderbox.

They didn’t even bother to wonder what started it—a kid’s dropped cigarette, a spark from someone’s barbecue a few houses down. What did it matter?

No one lived there anyway.

Abandoned for years, that’s what everyone said. Hadn’t seen anyone come in or out for as long as they could remember.

So it was meant to be easy—they weren’t trying to save anyone, weren’t trying to protect anything. Just spray it down, keep it from spreading down the street. Contain it.

Contain the beast, the licking orange flames. That’s all. Not vanquish, not defeat. Only contain.

They sent a few guys in once it wasn’t raging to see if there was anything still needing to be dealt with—no missed spots, no chance of a reignited fire.

And that’s when he saw her.

A child. Naked and tiny and screaming.  He could barely hear her over the flames, the sound of the house dying. But he saw her, and he ran towards her as fast as he could.

There was no blanket near her, no clothes, no bottle, nothing.

No clues to where she came from, or why she was here, in a house that no one cared about anymore.

Naked and tiny and screaming.  Eyes screwed shut with the effort of it.

A newborn, no more than a few hours old. So small and red and very very alive.  He picked her up, as gently as if she were a fragile ornament that he might break.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. Her eyes were an amber color he had never seen before, and they were beautiful. He looked back. His heart skipped a beat. He suddenly felt painfully warm, and he reflexively shook his fire-retardant coat, certain he was burning.

He remembered himself then, remembered that they were in a building that was about to collapse. He wrapped the baby in his jacket, ran outside, performed his job. And their miracle, their magic amber moment, it was over.

 The young fireman never saw her again after that day, but he remembered those eyes, the look she gave him the day she began.

  …

The Ashby family was enjoying the pool and each other. Mid-june, when the air itself is full of promise.

It was a beautiful day, bright and optimistic.

Tina Ashby was watching her little girl play in their pool, the sun  glinting off her tight curls, splashing , pretending she was a mermaid, and she smiled to herself.  She liked looking at Lyla when she didn’t know she could be seen, getting to look into her world. And she was so heart-breakingly beautiful, her daughter, her features so unusual. Skin the color of copper, hair the exact shade of rich red clay in the earth. Eyes like a tiger’s, a deep gold. When they first brought her home, Tina’s father looked at her and said it looked like  they’d rolled her in cinnamon. He’d called her that ever since, his little cinnamon bun. She loved him unconditionally and fiercely, the way only grandparents can be loved.

Tina sometimes felt that Lyla was more lovely a girl than she and Peter could ever have created on their own, by the force of their collective genetics. She seemed beyond that. Tina had so often wondered who it was who made her this child and where they came from. Whose DNA coiled like a secret in Lyla’s cells? Who wrote the complex book of instructions that built her daughter, this one-of-a-kind masterpiece? It was like owning a beautiful  painting  with no signature.  It pained her deeply.

But  then, Lyla would say “melk” instead of “milk” just like Pete. Or she would  crawl into Tina’s lap and settle into the soft nook of her shoulder, the one that seemed built for her. And in those moments,  Lyla was theirs entirely. In those moments, Tina just looked at the painting; she didn’t search for a name hidden in the corner. In those moments, she didn’t need to know.

“Momma, can I have some lemonade?”

Lyla, dripping, looked up at her.

“Of course, sweetheart.”

She grabbed a towel off of the chaise lounge by the pool and bundled Lyla up in it. She  filled her a plastic cup from the pitcher on the table and when it dribbled  on her chin, she wiped it for her.

She was so distracted by this task that she didn’t even notice the red mark on her daughter’s left hand.  It was so small, after all. But that night, after Pete got home from work, he decided that he would bathe Lyla.  Have some quality time. She could make him cappuccinos out of the bubbles and serve them to him in the blue sippy cup Tina left in the bathroom for her to play with, tell him stories.  They could be together.  Lyla was still young enough that her naked body was an innocent thing, and he wasn;t uncomfortable with it yet. She was barely more than a baby.

She was laughing at the soapy beard he had put on her chin, making faces. He made some back. Added a tower of bubbles to her head as he shampooed it. It was such an average night. So comfortable.

He made a monkey face and wiggled his fingers at her. She imitated him, and that’s when he saw it. In the center of her palm, a burn.  It was so oddly shaped he did a double take—the irritated skin that must have been burned formed a perfect triangle, snow white.

“Honey, did you touch something hot? Does that hurt?” .

“What, daddy?”

“That,on your hand.” He pointed.

“A little.”

“Where did it come from?”

He imagined some creep burning his daughter’s soft flesh and he felt angry, so very angry. How could Tina and he not have seen it? How long had it been there?

“ I was at school sitting with Gracie and Ms. Leonard gave us popsicles for a special treat because it was the last day, and I had strawberry and Gracie had green, and it was so fun, but then..then it got really ouchy.”  What, eh wondered, had “really ouchy” entailed? Who had touched her?

“Did someone hurt you?” He says this gently even though all he feels is rage and fear, so much fear.  

“No. Nobody. I just…it was too cold. And then I got this “

He sighed, perplexed.

“Too cold?”

“Yes, Daddy. It hurted me.”

Another time he would have thought her grammar charming. Now he is just confused. She must, he decided, be mistaken. Children can be mistaken.  

“Daddy, I’m cold. Can you dry me off now please?”

He nodded, picked her up in her hooded ducky towel. Drained the tub and rubbed the towel down Lyla’s arms and in her hair, all without saying a word.

“Do you want Daddy to put some ice on it, babe?”

“No! I don’t want ice. Ice is too cold.”

Not so unusual, he supposed. He had hated ice packs on his skin as a kid. They hurt, if they weren;t wrapped in a washcloth. His mother never bothered. She said that defeated the point.

 Probably, Lyla had touched the stove and didn’t remember. That seemed far-fetched, but Lyla’s own explanation--her popsicle—made no sense. He tried to forget it, and Tina told him not to worry about it, it would probably go away in a day or two.  But when he tucked Lyla in and turned off the light, her hand lay open on the coverlet, and he could have sworn the triangle glowed.

Pete went about his next weeks the way he always did, and in the simple rhythm of work and dinners and childcare he forgot all about Lyla’s hand. Tina looked at it briefly and wasn’t worried. Lyla went to summer camp, Baby Ballerinas. She had a recital. She swam in the pool. She took off her floaties. She went in the deep end. She grew a quarter inch. Tina got a promotion. They went to Hawaii.

It was a wonderful summer, and it turned it to a brisk fall, the kind of days that make a person want to work hard, to go hiking, chop wood. Industrious days.

Normally, Tina just took Lyla to Spirit in the mall to look for her Halloween costume, but this year, she felt adventurous, and she asked Lyla if she wanted to make it with her.

“it could be a project, for you and me. We’ll make it ourselves.”

Tina had always felt intimidated by those efficient, wholesome women who sewed things and baked from scratch and had gardens, women who seemed to be taunting her with their domestic prowess. This year she would beat them at their own game. This year they would make it. She had images of them sitting at the kitchen table together, cutting fabric, laughing, bonding.  Yes, Tina decided, that was just what they would do.

So she dug her almost untouched sewing machine and went online to look for patterns. There were plenty of amazing ideas, most of which she couldn’t imagine actually being able to complete. The blogs she looked at said things like “and then sew on the zipper and you’re all done!”, as if sewing on a zipper was something that Tina would inherently know how to do, something that needed no instructions. She felt inadequate and frustrated.

Then she found a blog called “Simple Sewing Fun”—a good sign, in Tina’s view—that had a whole list of toddler and children’s Halloween costumes, with step-by-step directions written in language a kindergartener could understand.  She was pleased.

She started scrolling through the links, looking at the names and the first few directions, scoping out a manageable pattern.

The Fairy Queen looked too elaborate, and the Ghost much too pedestrian. The Little Red Riding Hood  story scared Lyla, so that one was out. She was on the edge of despair when, at the bottom of the page, she saw one more costume—“Ice Princess”, it said.

The pattern looked relatively simple, and Lyla loved Princess dresses.

“Honey,  how about this for your Halloween costume? Come see!”

Lyla came running in; Halloween was her favorite holiday.

“Which one, which one, which one?”

“This one, baby girl. You can be an ice princess, would you like that?”

Lyla stopped dead.

“No! I can’t be an ice princess. I’ll die, Momma!”

Tina knew toddlers could be irrational—she’d seen it dozens of times—but this was different. Lyla seemed so sure of herself. Like she knew something. Something bigger then her 3 years and 54 pounds could ever explain.

“Why, honey?”

“Because I am allergic to ice.”

“You’re allergic? Lyla, that isn’t possible. Ice is just water. I put it in your juice earlier, honey.”

“No. That’s okay. I can eat it. It’s okay if I eat it because then my tummy burns it up. But if it touches me I get hurt. ”

She points to her middle as if this clarifies it all.

Lyla begins to cry the frustrated tears of a child who is misunderstood, the way a hungry baby cries  when someone tries to change its diaper instead of getting a bottle. She looks at her mother in despair.

Tina is torn then. She considers heading t the ice machine and fetching a cube, running it along Lyla’s skin just to prove a point. But is that cruel? Perhaps.

“How do you know you’re allergic, honey?”

“I…I had a popsicle. It touched my hand and I got this.  The cold part touched my hand and…ouch.”

She holds up her hand, the white scar from the previous spring planted there.

“But honey, that burn isn’t from your popsicle.”

“It is! The popsicle was too cold, Mama. It happens with  extra cold things. Like ice.”

It was all too strange for Tina to comprehend.

“I’ll put ice on me and you’ll see, it doesn’t hurt.”

She fetched ice from the machine and rubbed it slowly on her arm.

Lyla, incredulous, replied, “That’s because you aren’t allergic.  That’s why it doesn’t hurt, silly.”

Lyla walks over to her mother.

“Give me that. I’ll show you.”

Tina, surprised at the three year old’s initiative, handed over the ice cube, which was melting slowly now.

“Ow! See, my hand is ouchy already.”

Lyla was not done, however. Lyla had a point to make.

Her small face turning red and contorted before Tina’s eyes, places the ice cube on her forearm.  Suddenly, strangely, the skin begins to bubble, redden, hiss. It turns white.   Lyla screams out.

“Stop! Lyla, stop it! “

Tina grabs her daughter, takes the ice and flings it across the room.

She holds her then, shaking, the two of them crying together, crying at the odd horror of it.

Lyla looks at her mother, her eyes serious and wet.

“It hurts, Mama. “

“Okay. Okay, honey. I’m so sorry, baby girl.”

Tina has no idea how to tend to this, this unfathomable injury. But she gets some aloe. Aloe for burns, right? She rubs a bit on the whitened spot.

“No! That’s worse. Too cold too cold!”

Tina has an idea then, a strange idea. An oxymoronic and bizzare idea. She turns on the tap and sets it to the hottest it will go,  so it hurts a little against her fingers, and she fetches a washcloth, runs it under the warm water. She places this, this makeshift heating pad, against Lyla’s burn.

Slowly. Almost imperceptibly. The white skin fades slowly to grey, to pink, finally to its natural copper brown. The bubbled flesh recedes and smoothes. It doesn’t look so angry now. Lyla’s face relaxes.

“That’s better.”

Tina doesn’t know what to say then. This is no ordinary ailment. This is something that no doctor, she expects, will ever be able to explain.

“It’s okay, Momma. It doesn’t hurt at all now. I feel good.”

She pats Tina’s arm, smiles. She had always been so sweet.

Tina lifts her up, kisses her.

The night passed remarkably normally after that. Pete worked late and left early and he saw neither of them. She is glad. She wouldn’t have known how to explain.

The next day while Lyla napped---a blessing, that she still napped—Tina did some research.

She searched, futilely, for things like “allergic to cold” on Google. She begins to feel as though she is going insane.

Finally, she decides to try something else.  She types, “Healed by heat” into the search bar. Some ads for saunas pop up and a Wikipedia article on hot stone massage. But at the bottom of the page, there is another link—“Greekmythology.com”. She clicks it. “The phoenix”, the article heading reads. She skims. An ancient greek mythological creature, reborn by heat.  Recreated.

Her little girl, small and perfect. Her little phoenix.

Tina looks into Lyla’s room, stares at her as she sleeps. She sees it then. Red hair, red skin. Golden eyes. Cinnamon bun. Cinnamon, spicy. Hot. Hot as flame.

Her little girl, born of fire.

She runs  for the file folder they keep in her office, the thick one, that has every detail of Lyla’s disvovery and adoption. She rifles through court documents, the ones that made this little human hers. She goes back to the very last paper in the stack, a thin photocopy of a police report.  That one piece of the puzzle they never solved.

“Child found, newborn, approx. five hours of age, in wreckage of home, 33 Elm St. No evidence of arson. No identification with child.”

No identification. That had always bothered her, the fact that Lyla was so unmarked, so unknown. That no one had even bothered to stick her birth certificate to a blanket and wrap her up. But then, that was irrational, wasn’t it? Because anyone who left a baby in an abandoned house was beyond  the ordered world of documentation, itemized and labeled birth and death. She had always thought Lyla’s mother must have been  some kid, fifteen or sixteen, a frightened child. She had always thought that she must have been so scared, that girl, as she walked away. But now Tina’s eyes jumped to a different phrase, her mind to a different scenario, a previously unimaginable possibility, strange and beautiful.

Child found. No, child born. Born, tina realized. Not discovered, made. Born in 33 Elm St. Born of flame.

Her daughter had been found alone because she had come into the world that way, with no mother but the ashes of that crumbling house. She saw in her mind embers fusing together, sparks flying. A face forming, a little body forged from the licking flames.

A phoenix,  rising from the ashes. Rising to meet her, Tina Ashby. Rising to become her greatest love.

She began to cry then, slow, warm tears. Tears at the wonder of it  all. She cried for her noble little fire girl. Her myth made human.

My Mirrors

It has been an inspiring week for me as a writer--I graduated high school a week from tomorrow, and the literary anthology who published my short story "Lost and Found, British Museum" arrived yesterday. I wrote this poem to acknowledge the people in my life who have helped me most to grow--my family. Thank you to Devin, Molly, and Joseph for being my friends and partners, and of course lots of love my two incredible parents. 

Enjoy :) 

People say,

You can’t pick family.

As if they arrive as a boxed set on the front stoop,

Vaccum-sealed and plastic wrapped.

. If that was the case, I would have one brother only, just the pair of us.

I haven’t.

 I am rich in loved ones.

I have two brothers, and a sister.

They drifted into my life from other homes, broken places.

It wasn’t always easy ,

Trying to find my  niche between their loud voices, their easy confidence.

Middle children, psychologists say, spend their lives searching

I was no exception,

Did my fair share of pushing, shoving, begging, fighting for a place.

Feeling as though I wasn’t one of them.

My big brown eyes looking, always looking,to where I could fit.

But I realized, eventually, that there had been a place all along, a chair waiting for me at the dinner table, a space cleared on the couch, a stocking hung by the tree.

Four of us,

Four, I always thought that was the perfect number, so even, so fair.

We are woven together like a friendship bracelet, the handiwork of a summer day, tied for life.

I think of them laughing,

Of her tickling his chubby baby feet or braiding my hair,

of those boys shooting at me with a water gun, mock tears.

They are the mirrors I hold myself up to,

Because who am I if not a reflection of them?

The older two my protectors, the younger my playmate.

I think of my big brother, serious at eight years old,

telling the lunch lady to send me inside, I had a cough, couldn’t she see?

I think of my sister wrapping a brownie in a crisp white napkin, helping me hide it, giggling at our contraband.

I think of my baby brother tossing a basketball, grinning at his perfect slam dunk.

I think of them all.

And sometimes I felt as though our colorful family photos must be a mistake,

As though we were breaking the rules,

And I longed for the simplicity of my friends’ families,

matching t-shirts, lookalikes, no need for explanation.

But then.

Then I think of them laughing.

And I realize

They were chosen, they were given, and every day they are a reminder

Of how blessed it is

To belong to a tribe.

A Playing House

The house I grew up in is open, sunny.  Big windows, few carpets.

It is a playing house.

It is a house where there is space to dance all the way across the hardwood floor if you want to,

A house where the plants are tall and a child could hide behind them.

A house with a wild unkempt garden like a jungle

And three rooms all in a row  where three children, all in a row, laughed together, hid together, yelled and fought and loved one another.

It is a good house.

I am about to leave it.

My room is the second of the three, just like  me, and it is a lovely room, a room for reading, staying up late.

I am about to have new rooms, a new home, and this one, this one will be given away.

I will start my new life,  cast off high school like a too-small coat and start again,

And this house will not be waiting for me, this playing house with its wrought iron gate and its blue door that speaks of hope.

That’s okay. I don’t mind.

Houses shouldn't wait, it is so lonely for them. They like to be filled.

My family can fill it no longer, we have grown and dispersed and explored

So  someone else will.

I imagine a little girl, about eight perhaps, moving into the second room. I imagine her painting it yellow, I had a yellow bedroom once, a long time ago. I imagine her unpacking dolls and books and I imagine her saying to her friend at school, I moved to a new house, come over and see, I want you to see.

I hope she will like this house, that little girl.

I hope she learns that the sneakiest hide and seek spot is at the foot of the bed in the first room, no one can see you there. I hope she learns that even on the darkest nights no one ever jumps through the big picture window in her room. I hope that she learns that sitting in front of the living room fire place on Thanksgiving after the pie is the best feeling on earth, and that under the deck there’s a cave where there are cement blocks and planks and maybe monsters, just maybe. I hope she climbs up on the roof and looks at the stars with her best friend, wrapped in a blanket, speaking in hushed voices, as if she is at church. I hope she kisses a boy right beneath that blue door frame. I hope she bakes cookies in the oven and remembers to put it to a few degrees below the recipe, it runs hot, that oven.

I hope she does.

I am ready to give it to her, this house.

I am ready to let someone else laugh and sleep and cry here, someone else’s memories to paint these walls.

Just as long as she agrees:

She must play here. This is a playing house. 

Little Man

He used to like it when I ruffled his hair.

He had a buzzcut often, hair like peach fuzz, and I loved to touch it, staticky against my hand.

He doesn’t like me to touch it now, afraid  I’ll mess it up. He keeps it blowdried in a perfect coif.

His around my waist were like a lifesaver, and I was pulled to shore by his innocence, his happiness, his kid-brother antics.

Always the antics. Always the mischief.

A cellphone thrown out the car window, forty dollars flushed down the toilet.

A laughing little demon.

A wonderful, giggling little devil he was.

He has a deep voice now. His voice was the first thing to grow up.

His shirts match his shorts and he wears a clean one every day, and he smells like Axe cologne.

Girls laugh high and shrill when he is around. He likes that they do. He likes them.

He has always loved girls. He had crushes on my school friends when I was in elementary school, following them around, demanding to be heard, to be loved by them. They thought him charming.

He was an emotional whirlwind, a wild thing. He would cry, scream, kick. I was scared by him.

But I would sit with him sometimes and stroke his sweaty red face and he would be soothed.

I would tell him that I loved him. I did, and I do.

Sometimes he would wake at night, and I go to his room, next to mine, and tell him it would be alright. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. I felt brave for doing it.

I miss how much we touched, he and I. His pudgy baby hands in mine, kisses on his round cheeks.

I still hug him goodbye and I still tell him I love him, but now it is a quick and awkward pat.

 I don’t know what to do with him, this growing boy.

He says it too, that he loves me, confident like a man. He tells me to have a good day. I tell him I will. He strides out into the world, scrubbed and grinning and ready for the ladies.

I love him so.

I will miss him so, when I go.

He will miss me too, my little man, not so little anymore.

 There is something tragic but lovely too about boys becoming men.

Not so little anymore. 

The Common Denominator

I love children

I have loved them since I was one of them myself, loved holding the hands of someone smaller, hauling someone’s baby around.  Loved their soft bodies and starfish hands, their smiles  bright as a camera flash.

I have taken care of many children, numerous new people, small humans  of all shapes and sizes and places.

Sometimes, I mind little ones who live in homes that are large and beautiful, homes with big paintings and expensive furniture.

These children have rooms filled with toys, and they show them to me as if we are in a museum, taking me on a tour of their possessions. They always seem hard to please, these little aristocrats. Life bores them already. They walk away from their dolls, leave them abandoned, limbs splayed on the couch.

Sometimes I take care of young ones who live in cramped apartments,  whose toys are few and worn and well-loved, and who are very poor, but do not seem to mind.  Their smiles are wide and uninhibited, and they never look like they are posing. Their dolls stay in their arms, protected. Held close, so that they cannot escape, cannot be lost.

But all the young souls I have known, no matter if their mother is a maid or a PHD, all the children are the same.

In a few essential ways, they are the same.

They all like long hair, hair they can gather with their fingers and tug at.

They like it when I let them crawl on me, and they nest in my lap like  birds.

They like silly faces, especially when  they are unexpected, when they surprise them.

They like to explore.

They like soft cotton fabric, and they like to lay their heads against it, especially when there is a body beneath it, warm and inviting.

They like sweet things, but not too much, because then it overwhelms them and the world is manic and bright. Just a little, just one cookie, maybe two. They like that.

They like the sound of a voice reading, sharing a story.

They like to play, to create worlds. It takes so little for them to escape, one cardboard box, a rocket, a home, a boat.  They laugh like they have a secret.

It makes me happy, to see that at least when we are small we have a common denominator.

I see kids on the news and in my books that are homeless, or underfed, or hurt, or alone.  Their eyes are big and dark,serious. They have no doll to hold.

I want to help them.

And I know I can, I can, because they are children.

And children, children I know.

I know how to hold them, and sing to them, and talk to them.

So I will go to places that need people to  hold children’s hands and make them feel safe, and I will do that.

Because in some essential ways,

They are all the same. We are all the same. 

Rail Travel

Some people see time as a unit of measurement, simple and inanimate and standard. An hour, a second, a year. Chopped up segments of life.

But  I think time has a personality, an essence, and sometimes, it changes.

And in the last week, as spring slides towards summer in a riot of wildflower color, it has been energetic, forceful.

Sometimes it is quiet and lazy, lounging in the sun,

But his week, it has been loud and riotous,

And the days have slipped from my fingers like silk, impossible to hold on to.

My eyes are wide open but I still feel as though there are things I am not seeing.

I stay up late and wake early

But still the hours collide into one another,bouncing, crashing, bumper-cart moments. 

I am filled with the kind of manic excitement that is one step away from heart-pounding fear,

And I know that nothing will ever be the same.

That each of the routines that govern my life are about to be tossed away like last Sunday’s paper.

I will use an alarm clock instead of my father’s steady voice,

And I will take a shower with flip flops on, my shampoo in a plastic caddy

I will walk to class  across a foggy morning quad instead of driving,

And no longer will my mornings resound with the smooth dark chocolate voices of an NPR news show.

In four months, 120 days,

These things will happen.

And this week I began go realize how fast it all may go,

That time may not sit back for me to say my goodbyes.

That the railroad tracks of my days are pounding with the sound of my future rushing to meet me, 

About to let out a harsh train shriek of arrival.

I will have to trust in God and myself,

And I will  have to begin.