Tawnya

It was the first day of Kindergarten and I couldn’t have been more excited. Brand new things to learn and new people to meet. Energy leaked out of me with every bounce.

We all mingled in the first room, taking in the toys and books and tables and carpets and SO MANY THINGS! Some kids cried, while I physically pushed my parents away. “You can go now!”

And then I saw the prettiest girl I’d ever seen in my life. What else could I notice first but her pile of espresso curls upon curls upon curls? That many curls a girl could only pray for, especially a girl like me with ashy brown, pin-straight hair. Nobody would die for my hair. But hers?

She was dark and beautiful with huge brown eyes and a bashful smile. I wanted to be just like her, I just knew it.

I don’t recall how I approached her, but I must have pounced. Eventually, or suddenly, I said, “Let’s be best friends.” To which she smiled and replied, “Okay!”

And then we were.

We were completely opposite, yet joined at the hip. One of us shy, the other precocious, both of us quick to giggle. We both wanted the other’s hair. I was sure she was insane for wanting mine, naturally not understanding the challenge of such a mass of curl.

Yet while I had always thought we were poor (and by most standards, we were), her family lived in near poverty. They moved often, between trailers and hotel rooms and even unfinished houses her father was building. She often stayed over and her family spent many holidays with mine.

I was too young to understand how much older than me her life made her. All I knew was I wanted her to be happy and, over the years, I did my best, constantly hamming it up to make her laugh.

My childhood is a blur of memories with her. Sitting next to each other on field trips as we whisper back and forth. Sleepovers where we cackle late into the night, waking my mother over and over and over.  Getting our faces painted. Sharing clothes. Endless games and make believe. Cheeks pressed together for a photo.

About the sixth or seventh grade, she pulled away. Who knows why? Maybe I wasn’t cool enough for her anymore or she found new friends or maybe I just knew her too well. I mourned our friendship for far too long. Such losses are devastating, let alone in junior high where even the smallest snub meant the end of the world.

I see her now on Facebook, her children with the same big eyes and gorgeous curls. She looks happy. That's all I could ask for.

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: Your assignment for this week is to write about a memory of yourself WITH someone else. Remember, it’s MEMOIR, so it needs to be about YOUR experience with this person and it needs to be TRUE. Let’s keep it to 600 words or less.

the kind of girl

I’ll admit that I was beginning to have feelings even though I’d told myself I wouldn’t.

He really wasn’t my type and we really didn’t have anything in common, including a common city. The 2 hour drive definitely made things difficult, but I was just beginning to feel it was worth it.

I’d held back as long as I could but was beginning to crack, to let him in, to really care.

He’d been in town the weekend before, which had been good. Blissful even.

I went for a run and came back sweaty and happy. Sprawled out on my living room floor, my head pulled to my knees, really deep into the stretch, my phone rang.

A smile immediately found me. “Hey, you.”

“Hey.”

We shot the shit for a few minutes. Talked about our days, work, the weather.

“Sooo when will I see you next?” Flirty, yes.

“Look. Things are getting busy at work and I don’t think you understand how demanding my job is. I’m a busy guy and you work a lot too, I know. You’re a lot of fun though. It’s just...”

It suddenly dawned on me what was happening. This wasn’t my first rodeo. “Are you dumping me?”

“I guess I am.”

“Over the phone? Seriously?”

“...”

“I just thought I deserved a little more than that. You were just here and you waited until now?”

“Look, don’t get crazy. I thought we were really getting along.”

“Um. Yeah. I thought so too. So I don't understand...”

“You’re a cool chick, totally fun. But you’re not the kind of girl you have feelings for.”

Despite my best efforts, a small gasp escaped me. Not the kind of girl you have feelings for? How does anyone hear that and respond?

In that instant, he stripped away from me my worth and tossed it aside like a dirty rag. Left me naked and broken. 

He spoke finally. “Look...”

I sucked up every last bit of strength and dignity. “I’m done here.” And pressed end with my thumb. End indeed.
 
Not the kind of girl you have feelings for. Two years later, it still haunts me.

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: We all have them. Memories that we wish we could forget…things that we wish we could banish from our minds. Imagine that writing down your worst memory will free you of it. What is it? Why does it haunt you? What could you have done differently?
Write it down and let it go. Let’s keep it to 600 words or less.

Her Namesake

She had a reputation for her brilliance, so the first day she did her best to scare as many of us off as she could. That way, only the best would stay.

I knew instantly that I liked her, would eat up every word she taught, would learn more than I’d ever learned in my young life thus far.  She was the quintessential feminist hippie, in her broom skirts, long hair wavy hair, and large glasses. She used words like specious and tremulous and prescient in her everyday speech. She had a laugh that filled the room and infected all within. I was smitten.
Turned out, she had the same name as me, Andrea.

I’d landed in community college heaven.

I knew she’d challenge how I thought, what I knew, but she’d also challenge my skills, my words, my writing. Over the next two years, I took every class of hers I could, from literature to writing courses. She’d joke that soon I’d have a degree in her.

She began calling me her namesake.

In her rhetoric class, I sponged up every morsel of argumentative writing and debate technique. My own ideals were challenged fiercely as I learned to sway others to my side with a well constructed argument. I relished loud classroom debates despite to whom victory went. She pushed me to learn the rules of writing so that I could properly break them. On a piece about Indian gaming, she gave me the third perfect score she’d given out in her teaching career. I was over the moon.

I began calling myself a writer.

She convinced me to be a writing tutor.

I was devastated when her World Literature 1 class conflicted with a class I needed to graduate. Math, I think. But the next semester, my last at the college, I was the first to sign up for World Literature 2, which would be my introduction to some of the most powerful pieces of literature and began my love of writers like Dostoyevsky, Baudelaire, and Borges.

As a graduation gift, she gave me her personal copy of a world literature anthology which she used to teach her World Literature 1 class, the one which I had missed. It was full of her own notes and dog-eared pages, which I read voraciously and lovingly.

For two years, I was nurtured and stretched, pushed to the limits of my abilities and then pushed to grow even more. I was praised and rewarded and learned to appreciate my talents.

I was changed wholly and irreversibly.

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: Everyone remembers that first inspiration or mentor in their lives that made them want to be or do something in their lives, whether you actually followed through with it or not. Tell us about that inspiration/mentor. How did they affect or change your life!

Backseat

All I hear is the boom boom boom of the speakers in time with the pound pound pounding of my fifteen year old heart.

Heat. Heat outside and inside. So much heat.

Windows rolled up, both my head and the car foggy from smoke.

Eyes closed. The taste of Boone’s Fuzzy Navel and saliva. My back pressing into the seat belt. Legs falling asleep. Head wedged at an impossible angle. Jeans still zipped. Shirt being worked upward by callused hands I barely know, by a smile I saw at a party, a smile I was surprised noticed me at all.

Speakers pound as if both disconnected and dictatorial. Trunk subwoofers overwhelm every object pervasively. Everything pounds along obediently, including my head.

He moves against me. Jeans against jeans. Hands fumbling, squeezing in time. Tongues wrestle.

Exciting and scary. Stupid and irresistible.

This is not the fantasy of a young poet, yearning for romantic meter and the magical seduction she’d pictured.

Not this smoky backseat of an old Mustang deaf with noise, no room but for the booming. Not the sounds of breath or sighs or even a moment for a compliment.

Yet it was not without caprice and my body was certainly not saying no.

I was not entirely saying yes either, but for now somewhere in between felt good. I’d give over to the intoxication of the night, of the heavy pulse in the thick air.

I never have to say no and he wouldn’t have heard me anyway. Eventually climbing off me. I tug my top down. Suddenly shy.

No words spoken, he ruffles his disheveled head and we climb into the front seat. As he drives me home, the windows down, wind rushing through the car, the sound pouring out, performing for the stars, he shouts mysterious words at me.

Words swallowed into sheer sound.

I shout, “WHAT?” but can’t even hear my own voice.

Home, the silence is disorienting.

I still move with the boom boom booming.

 

This was a post for the RemebeRED prompt: Write about a time that rhythm, or a lack thereof, played a role in your life. And don’t use the word “rhythm.” Maybe it’s a time that you danced to a special song. Maybe it’s a period of your life during which the days were marked by a distinct pattern. Or maybe it’s a time that you couldn’t catch your breath because life just kept coming at your randomly. It’s up to you. Let’s see if you can convey that rhythm using your writing, and not the word itself. Word limit is 600. 

Halftime

As if our Chiquita Banana costumes weren’t bad enough, these black crushed velvet jumpsuit monstrosities complete with colored ruffle sleeves and a satin sash around our waists, we weren’t nearly practiced. The routines were shaky at best and the dance girls and the drill girls were not getting along. And no one was happy about throwing flags. 

Yet there we were. The first football game of the season and we didn’t have a choice but to perform together. We’d power through. Hopefully not humiliate ourselves. Or kill each other.

This was going to be painful.

Halftime show.

Ready?

The first number was a blur. Count count step step toss catch step. Don’t forget to smile. Don’t hit the trumpets with my flag. Watch the drum major. Stay on time. Don’t slip on the grass. Hope we’re all remembering the steps and don’t look like idiots.

Whew. First number finished. All I had to do next was kneel, set my flag down and pick up the swing flag in front of me. So simple. One would think.

Kneeling down, the slick grass under my front leg betrayed my jazz-shoed foot and the next thing I knew I was face down on the ground.

The only sound in my ears the cackles of the cheerleading squad sitting in front of me, my ex- boyfriend among them. A laughing pile of uniformed, beautiful people, rolling all over themselves, taking utter delight in my small humiliation.

Then the next song began. All too soon.

Mortified, picking my sorry ass up, grabbing my swing flag, not looking anyone in the face for fear the tears would come, limping slightly to favor a twisted ankle, smiling so large it hurt to favor a bruised ego, what choice did I have but to continue on?

Mortification churned into anger and suddenly I was dancing the hardest I’d ever danced. Tossed that flag high. Flicked my head and flashed my smile. Pointed my toes and swayed my hips. Every second of the next two songs was precise, palpable.

Oye Como Va. Shake those hips, ladies.

Sure we still kind of sucked and my ankle was aching, but I would be damned if I’d let those laughing assholes make it worse. They could kiss my clumsy, limping, skinny ass.

Besides, later I had a sweet boy to get me nachos with extra cheese and carry me to the car even though I insisted I could walk on my own.

 

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: Know what's NOT funny? People laughing at you. Did someone embarrass you, your parents perhaps? Or did you bring it upon yourself? Are you still embarrassed or can you laugh at it now? Take us back to an embarrassing moment in your life.

Miss Susie

“Miss Susie had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell. Miss Susie went to Heaven, the steamboat went to...”

Pigtailed girls slap hands in perfect timing. Slap slap slap.

“Hello operator, please give me number nine and if you disconnect me, I'll paddle your...”

Little hands, dirty fingernails, slap slap slap in quick-paced rhythm, a soundtrack to the  playground cacophony. Slap slap slap.

“Behind the 'frigerator, there was a piece of glass. Miss Susie sat upon it and broke her little..”

Innocent voices know the naughty words by heart. Giggles syncopate between breaths. No mistakes are allowed,. Don’t mess up. Slap slap slap.

“Ask me no more questions, tell me no more lies. The boys are in the bathroom pulling up their flies...”

Standing in the bright sun on the concrete, LA Gears on our feet, chalk outlines beneath us, wrinkly hypercolor T-shirts moving with our little bodies. Slap slap slap.

“Miss Susie and her boyfriend are kissing in the D-A-R-K-D-A-R-K-D-A-R-K. DARK, DARK, DARK. Dark is like a movie, a movie's like a show, a show is like a TV screen and that is all I know.”

Collapsing in a fit of uncontrollable giggles. Glances at the proctor, Miss Haskins, to see if she heard. Success!

Pigtailed girls pull themselves up, pushing bangs out of eyes, sitting cross-legged across from each other. Hands in position.

“Okay. Ready? Go!”

“Miss Susie had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell. Miss Susie went to Heaven, the steamboat went to...”

 

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: This week, as the school year is wrapping up and we're on the cusp of summer, we've decided to go easy on you. We want to know what, from your childhood, do you still know by heart? Is it a story? A jump-roping song? The number of rungs on the ladder to your treehouse? How much money you had to save to buy something you really wanted?

What happens in Vegas

“Call.”

“Pair of nines!”

“Aw, you win again.”

“Daaaad...”

I giggled. I knew he was letting me win, but I’d put up with that until I got better. Then I’d really win.

Mom was downstairs with her roll of nickels, playing slots.

Dad hunched over our cards. He sat in the cushy, deep armchair and I kneeled on the hotel bed, my little butt bouncing up and down on my heels, the round table between us.

Every now again, I’d lean over and sip my can of root beer out of a bendy straw without using my hands. Dad sipped cheap coffee from the hotel mug even though it was past my bed time. He was old and tough, he said, so he could drink coffee at night.

He wasn’t teaching me the betting or anything. That was too hard for now. Just the different hands and what beat what. I was getting good at remembering what hands were good but kept forgetting what hands were called.

“What was the difference between a flush and straight again?”

And he’d explain patiently. Pull the cards out and show me what was what. Then assemble them back together and shuffle them in a seamless arc that seemed magical to me.

“Can I shuffle?”

“Sure.”

I spread all the cards out face down on the table and moved them around with my little hands until I was positive they were sufficiently mixed to my taste, my dad chuckling at my antics.

“Don’t bend the cards, now.”

“I wo-on’t!”

“Do you want to deal?”

“YES!”

And he walked me through dealing out one for each of us until we held five cards each. I was good at fanning them out in my hand so he couldn’t see what I had.

“I’ll take two cards, please.”

“Here you go, sir. I’ll have two as well.”

“Dealer takes two?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Call.”

“Four threes.”

“Four of a kind? That’s a good hand! You win again. Oh well.”

“Da-aaaad, show me your hand!”

“Nope. You win. Trust me. I had nothing. Do you want to deal again?”

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: This week, we want you to recall the games you played when you were young. Did you love Monopoly, Yahtzee, or Uno? Or did you prefer backgammon, Trouble, or Scrabble? Write a piece that explores one of your memories.

J'ai fumé

Paris held boucoup des choses pour moi.

Bridges and architecture. A pink setting sun over the Seine. Sitting in a cafe, drinking café from a minuscule cup with a cube of sugar on the saucer. The glow of the Sacre Coeur from my flat window. Battling roving Frenchmen hands in the metro. Fresh, warm baguettes smothered in brie. A glittering Tour Eiffel seen from everywhere in the city. Hours studying Le Langue Français and hours drinking the language away in wine. Wandering winding streets and losing myself in museums. Quartier Latin for class and Le Neuvième for home. Delectable pastries and cigarette smoke.

It seemed to me smoking was as integral to French culture as hot dogs and apple pie are to Americans.

Paris for me was a young man dressed all in black, jaywalking in the middle of impossibly dense traffic, no hat or umbrella, smoking despite and to spite the heavy rain, a “fuck you” look on his face that he was born with.

It was four course meals, including a cigarette course, snaky trails enhancing bitter espresso and long conversation au Franglish, sips and drags and laughter.

It was spoken word performance, a cigarette in a poet’s hand, swirls of smokey air tinging each word with poignancy, murky air carrying the metre, hazy breaths punctuating each pause and stanza.


It was loud jazz music in the park on a warm, humid, summer night. Syncopated notes mingling with smoke and setting a delicious scene in my memory, a souvenir all its own.

It was Vogue cigarettes, endlessly long and thin in my fingers, making me feel like fucking Audrey Hepburn or Brigitte Bardot, the rose flavor sucked down with relish, the whorls emanating pure, smokey sex, no matter what the surgeon general says.

J’ai fumé. I smoked shamelessly in Paris. Perhaps it was an effort to fit in. Perhaps it was a deluded way of feeling more Française. Perhaps I was just giving myself over to the culture, letting my preconceived notions and cultural taboos go for a bit, opening my mind and experiencing something new. Savoring a different way of living that centered around truly, truly living, setting aside my endless worries and enjoying a meal and good company and conversation and the sweet buzz of a cigarette.

J’ai fumé à Paris, but I quit several months after I went home to California. I wasn’t prepared for the culture shock of going back to a place that had been home for 26 years. And smoking wasn’t as acceptable any longer. Didn’t hold the appeal. Didn’t punctuate poetry or enhance experience, didn’t ooze sex Français.

I still have the last box of Vogues, half empty, sitting in a box of French memories, nestled next to maps and postcards and metro cards. That’s how smoking will always be for me. In my box of memories of Paris. The experience its own souvenir.

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: Write about the first (or second) memory that comes to mind when you see this:

Dust Devil

When most people think of sand, they think of warm, white beaches, burning their feet as they race into cool, frothy ocean waves.

I think of desert sand.

I was raised in the Mojave Desert of Southern California, a place of tumbleweeds and Roy Rogers, of quail and Joshua Trees, of cacti and cowboys. Of wind and sand.

The wind and sand are inextricably linked in the desert. The wind blows mild or fierce 360 days a year. The wind makes it all the more freezing in the winter, burning your ears as you walk to school. It makes it hotter in the summer, blowing the 110 degree air into your lungs. It spooks the horses and rattles the windows. Most of all, it blows the endless supply of desert sand.

Blows the sand into your homes, leaving a permanent dusty film on every surface. Sand climbs under your nails and no matter how much you wash, you’ll always find a dark line, a reverse French manicure. Sand embeds in the creases of your skin and rides on your eyelashes.

I was a tiny little thing. The kind of tiny that made friends tease and older cousins toss me around. “Light as a feather.” The kind of skinny that made nosey adults cluck at my apparent malnutrition.

I was simply walking to class. It couldn’t have been that far from the chain link fence to the second grade classroom, but in the wind, the hot Santa Anas, it felt like miles (Though I’d yet to reach that grade where you learn just how long a mile actually is. But a mile seemed like an awfully long way.).

I struggled to walk upright, my tiny body practically a plastic bag blowing in the wind. I stuck my head out first, my eyes on the ground, my body at a diagonal, being forced back a step for every two I trudged out.

And then I saw it. They say that tornadoes only exist in the Midwest, but the desert has its own twisters: dust devils. Truer devils than any devil I learned about in Sunday School.

Everyone, boys and girls and teachers alike, screamed and scattered hoping to avoid the sandy demon, but some of us weren’t so lucky. It hit me with its full fury, blasting sand into every part of me, every bit of exposed flesh assaulted with the cruel, sandy sting.

My hands instinctively covered my face lest the sand set up permanent residence in my eyes. My bare legs and arms stung with the kind of torture reserved for prisoners of war. My hair flew about me, possessed by the wind. My clothes whipped my skin mercilessly.

And just like that, it was gone. Dissipated. Blown away to torture another little girl.

Gone, but the sting would last for hours. I would be shaking sand out of my hair and clothes, digging sand out of my ears and from under my nails, picking sand out of the corners of my eyes, for hours and days.

I’ve never liked the sand or its best friend the wind.

 

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: So this week, we want you to write about sand. Yes...sand. It doesn't have to be summer-related, but the impending summer and my proximity to Lake Michigan and it's glorious beaches are what inspired me to tell you to write about sand. So. SAND. GO.

A long time coming

I was miserable. I was sitting in what was possibly the most uncomfortable chair in the history of chairs. Sweating through my black gown, the sun baking my face, I thought I might pass out. I really wished I’d said fuck it and carried a water bottle. The guy behind me was moaning as his hangover kicked in and I threatened him with bodily harm should the back of my gown be decorated with the churning contents of his stomach.

Yet it was one of the happiest moments of my life thus far.

Out of high school, I’d taken a different path than most of my friends; I never expected to finally be there, accepting that symbol of years of hard work and accomplishment.

Now there I was, baking in the Greek Theater, 9 years wiser, the proud owner of two Associate’s degrees, and finally at the last door to that club called the Bachelor’s.

To say it hadn’t been easy is is a huge trivialization. There is a reason people go to college when they’re eighteen. That’s when you have the energy to study and work and maintain decent grades and some semblance of a social life.

Yet I had powered through, worked several jobs to pay my rent, and took out enough loans that I probably won’t pay them off until I die.

I’d absorbed inhuman amounts of knowledge, slogged through hundreds of novels, wrote thousands of words, delighted and detested Faulkner as he plagued me through my honor’s thesis, and forgot what the word sleep meant.

I was the eldest in my study abroad program, but I came home richer in wisdom and having something akin to fluency in French.

I’d driven myself slave-like for two and a half years and somehow sustained a 4.0 and a love of the written word, not to mention invaluable friendships with both professors and peers.

At last the time came for the Literature majors to stand and march across the stage. Hearing my best friends cheer for me as I accepted my fake diploma, I was particularly careful to smile for the camera as I inwardly laughed.

I dawdled on the stage, hugging each of my professors, and thus reaching the stairs at the same time as the girl after me. After her, I was too excited to pay attention to silly things like rails and tripped a bit down the stairs. Catching myself before a most embarrassing and potentially painful fall, I recovered like a champ.

Hours later, after the turning of the tassels, it truly sunk in. Yes, walking across that stage was symbolic. Yes, that diploma in my hand was fake and my real diploma would arrive later in the mail. I’d actually finished after my last final exam. I’d really achieved my degree after my professors had posted my final grades. But it hadn’t felt real until wearing that gown and motor board, shaking hands with the president of the university, turning my white tassel.

I was a graduate.

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: Tell the story (without any trivialization or modesty) of something in your life that you are proud of.

I was happiest to have water.

Bonus photo (so you can see how sunburned I got that day).

 

Goes to My Head

 This post contains juicy, juicy, scandalous behavior. If you're new to this blog and you're easily offended by the caprice of youth, don't read on. You've been warned.

After an hour of wandering windy Florentine streets, the four of us finally found the Tuscan restaurant Gianni recommended. It seemed only seconds between the time we were seated, menus scoured, food ordered, and the carafe of table wine emptied.

Soon the conversation flowed as easily as the wine down our gullets as we got to know each other.

Earlier, just off a train from Rome, Alice and I had drug our bedraggled behinds to our hostel, a small flat with one large room full of impossibly ancient bunk beds and twin beds pushed together.

We immediately befriended The Twins from San Diego, Jim and Carrie, dumped our bags under our beds, and headed off to find sustenance.

Over spicy risotto, antipasto and, of course, glass after glass of dulcet vino guzzled like juice from tall thick glasses, the four of us filled our bellies and let the laughter fly.

Aided by the crimson courage only wine can lubricate, sexual tension flew between me and Jim. He was entirely too young for me, but whip smart and oh so pretty. I wasn’t exactly hard up. I’d just left Giampaolo in Rome who was probably working his way up another favorite American girl’s skirt at that moment. But what the hell.

Jim was innocent and as the evening wore on, he became more and more tempting.  It soon became clear Alice was attracted to him too and, though it wasn’t my style to compete, suddenly I was an Olympian and Jim was a gold medal. He would be mine, at least for tonight.

Back to the hostel, with one stop at a liquor store for more wine, and the evening was just beginning. More wine. Hours of antics. More wine. We girls compared boob sizes and flexibility and we each shared embarrassing talents, including my imitation of a Howler Monkey and Tiramisu face.

Soon pajamas were changed into and we found ourselves settling in, ready to pass out. On a whim, I announced I’d be a twin sandwich and crawled between Jim and Carrie. Suddenly I was captured, pulled under the covers and subsequently under a half naked man.

Between kisses, he nervously whispered that he couldn’t do this in front of his sister. We hushed and the only other sounds in the room were the giggles and sighs of Carrie and Alice coming from one bed. Seemed she didn’t have the same hangup.

I awoke the next morning to a goodbye kiss, a view of a room full of empty wine bottles and grape-stained glasses, and The Twins leaving to catch a train to Amsterdam.

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: “Give me a memory of the color red. Do not write the word 'red' but use words that engender the color red when you hear them. For example: a ruby, a tomato, fire, blood. Writing has the elegance of mathematics. Try to write economically. A red cherry is redundant. Cherry is enough unless it’s one of the yellow ones from Washington state. Then it’s a yellow cherry. But, otherwise, cherry immediately wakes up the color red in the mind.”

My Tiramisu face, while demonstrating how flexible I was, on a dare.
I never share photos for RemembeRED, but couldn't resist sharing this one.
Sorry, Jim.

Showdown

It began, as it almost always does, innocently enough.

I’d moved to a house with a space to garden and a bed of bedraggled rose bushes which I was exuberant to nurture to their potential splendor.

I purchased a long, green hose with attachable nozzle, which came with a plethora of speeds and pressures, for ease of watering my grass and plants and rose bushes, nothing more.

Little did I know this innocuous apparatus would serve as a weapon that I would use to defend my space and my life in a battle with a most gruesome end.

The first time I saw her, I nearly fell over in fright, giving a small scream and dropping my garden shears.

I’d know her anywhere. I’d seen her face before. I’d seen her in my nightmares.

She stared at me malevolently and her fat, black body sat completely still as if in defiance of her trespass.

But this was my home and her kind was not welcome here. I grabbed the hose, switched the nozzle to “jet” and sprayed her right in her evil little face. She immediately scuttled away and hid.

It had done its job. For the time being.

She appeared again several more times over the next couple of weeks, always creeping up on me while I was gardening all alone, unsuspecting. She’d get too close for comfort and I’d  hit her with a blast of water until she lost her creepy little grip and fell down in the dirt. I was never quite sure if I’d killed her or not. But I suppose not, since she kept coming back. Like a damn zombie.

Then came the fateful day. I got home from work and changed into jeans and walked out into my garden. I peeked into a hanging plant, looking for my newest friend, a baby Praying Mantis (I think he was a baby), a tiny bright green little guy that would greet me every day and make me smile. I named him Ernie.

But what did I find? A tiny green Praying Mantis corpse.

I knew instantly it was her. She had murdered Ernie. In cold blood.

That bitch. She was going to pay.

I got a broom and with the long, wooden handle, bashed at the bushes until she came out, all pissy, fangs dripping with venom, her red belly taunting me.

I was scared, I admit. But this time it was personal.

I sprayed her dead on with the fullest blast of water my spigot would allow, but that bitch held on with all eight legs and the will power of a demon.

I gave up on the hose. It was simply not powerful enough for her. I grabbed the broom handle and took aim. The timing had to be perfect and I couldn’t miss. I had just one shot.

I took it. I smashed the wood handle into that Black Widow spider. She wasn’t going to die easily, but I wasn’t going to let her crawl up the handle and seek her revenge upon me. I squished and squished and then I sprayed again, making sure she was truly and completely dead.

At last, it was finished. I was soaking wet and exhausted.

But I’d won.

I wiped my brow, tossed the hose onto the grass, placed the broom back in the house, and released a long sigh of relief.

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: This week, we're giving you a photo to take you back in time. In 700 or fewer words, show us where your memory takes you.

Remember that this image is merely inspiration. Your piece needn't have a hose in your piece, but we need to easily see how you were inspired by it.

Chemical Tinged Air

I can be doing the most innocuous of tasks, cleaning tile or walking past a YMCA, and suddenly the powerful scent will hit me and I’m instantly back. Back to every day of every summer I can remember.

I love the feel of the morning stillness, cool enough to feel pleasant before the assault of the desert sun reaches full force. I follow my mom as she unlocks the gates and then into the office, the chemical tinged air comforting only to me.

I strip down to my Care Bear suit, work my sun bleached long hair into a braid, and slather SPF 25 over my tan skin. When I move the straps to smooth in the lotion, it’s like I have on a white suit underneath.

Mom’s first class is for grownups and I don’t feel like getting in yet so I settle on a plastic  lounge chair with a book, watching the shade inch further and further up my body until I’m sitting fully in the sun, the soundtrack my mom’s high pitched shouts of, “KICK KICK KICK.”

Then I help my mom with her Mommy and Me class, helping the toddlers push off my legs with their little feet and paddle to their moms. Then my class starts. I’m the best in my class at stroking all the way across, my long limbs kicking and pulling, my lungs pumping.

Lunchtime means I wrap a big towel around me and settle on the scalding deck with a hot dog, my braid dripping on the concrete, making dark splotches that disappear within seconds.

My friend Megan and I spend endless time in the deep end, taking turns seeing who can dive the deepest, holding our breath until we burst, pushing off the bottom and shooting to the surface. When a diving class starts, we migrate to the shallow end and put diving rings around our ankles, pretending to mermaids. Submarine flips and handstands. Tea parties on the bottom, trying to guess what the other is saying.

We play long into the day until the sun wanes behind the mountains and it’s time to go home. Flips flops slide onto my feet and my towel wraps around my lanky body.

The door handles to my mom’s big blue land yacht are scalding as are the seat belts and leather seats. I sit on my towel to protect my flesh. Since the car has no AC, Mom and I roll down all the windows and let the oppressively hot air blow over us, drying our wet suits, the smell of chlorine still clinging to our skin.

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: This week, your memoir prompt assignment is to think of a sound or a smell the reminds you of something from your past and write a post about that memory.  Don't forget to incorporate the sound/smell of your choosing!

I also added the additional challenge for myself to not use the word “swim” once, even though it’s all about swimming. What can I say? I’m a dork.

I'm not good at zippers

I fidget in my red plastic chair. The little metal bumps dig into my back and my bottom is kinda numb. I pull one corduroy leg under me and kick the other around, staring at my new red shoes with the velcro straps (I like the sound of the velcro).

 It’s only my third day at preschool and I don’t have many friends yet. I’m kinda shy.

“Craft time!” Teacher tells us it’s Safety Day and we’ll be making pictures of seat belts.

She passes out the paper and glitter and glue and crayons and scissors into the center of the long tables we gather around.

I select a bottle of glue, blue glitter, some construction paper, and a pair of purple plastic scissors and organize it all in front of me until it all looks perfect.

I chose blue because our car is blue and so it has to be blue. 

Then I draw out the seatbelt outlines with a grey crayon on the thick, white paper, making sure the square center where it buckles is colored in grey too, like metal. Then I take the glue and smear it with my fingers (ewewew) where the straps are.

Oh look, something white on my fingers. I instinctively lick it off. EWEWEW! That was glue. Ew. Ew. I smack my tongue, trying to get rid of the bitter, sticky taste. I wipe my fingers off on my pants. Gross.

I sprinkle the blue glitter everywhere the glue is. It’s finished! Almost perfect. There’s a lot of glitter and the lines are kinda wonky, but I like it. It looks just like our car.

Teacher tells me to write my name on it so it doesn’t get mixed up with the other kids’ when I go home. I’m not very good at writing, but I know how to spell my name. With a blue crayon, I spell out each letter:

A N D R E A

The R is the hardest, but it’s okay.

We take our seat belts to a big table by the door so they can dry and the teacher tells us to go get our coats for recess. Teacher says to make sure we zip up our coats because it is cold.

I squeeze between two boys to get my bright pink puffy coat off of its peg in the cubby closet. I work my arms into it and try to zip it up, but I’m not very good at zippers. I struggle to get the bottoms to line up and I just can’t make it work. But teacher said to zip up, so I keep trying.

All of a sudden, it’s dark in the cubby closet. I look up and find my way out into the classroom.

A little light comes in from the windows by the ceiling. Empty. No kids. No teacher. I’m all alone.

I go to the door and pull at the metal handle, but it’s locked.

All alone.

The light switch is too high for me to reach.

My bottom lip quivering and my eyes watering, I sit on the rough, musty, brown carpet indian style and wait for someone to come get me. I grab at my braids I brush the ends against my wet cheeks and wait, all alone in the dark.

This was a post for the RememeRED prompt: Remember kindergarten. If, after thinking about it for a while, you can't recall anything, move on to first grade. Mine your memories and write about the earliest grade you can recall. What was special? What was ordinary? What did you feel? Hear? See? Smell?

Of course I HAD to write about this memory, even though it's from preschool, which I started pretty young. I must have been 3 when this happened. But it's one of my most vivid memories. And yes, they really did lock me in the classroom and never noticed. They found me after recess. Needless to say, my parents yanked me out of this school and a few others before I ended up at Montessori School. 

Instead of writing this from what I think adults would like to read, I really tried to stay true to my memories and write how I would have explained it back then, (with slightly better grammar and vocab of course), keeping my voice young. Some stuff I fudged, but most of it is exactly how I remember.

I missed her

Her email address was staring at me brazenly. My breath captive in my throat. An email. From her.

The last time I'd seen her was almost a year ago, sitting in her car, the dashboard illuminating our distorted faces with a macabre glow, the both of us overcome with sobs at the revelation of what she’d done.

I’d never felt so betrayed. So heartbroken.

I'd said never. She broke the rules. Her chance had passed. 

But I missed her. I missed her terribly. I missed her before I even slammed the heavy car door that night, the word slut howled into the chilly air.

I missed her down into my toes.

I ached with the absence of her. Every significant moment lacking because I couldn’t share it with her.

Overwhelmed with emotion, I held the mouse under my fingers. I don’t know how I expected to feel, but I felt it all. Apprehension. Joy. Anger. Relief. I was excited and I was terrified. The butterflies must have been chased away by the bees buzzing in my stomach. My throat convulsed with a thousand nerves.

With shaky hands and without even noticing the subject line, I clicked.

So much.

Tears immediately welled.

So much.

Words of contrition and sadness and remorse. Words like selfish and sorry and I miss you. Words that seeped into the gaping wound in my heart and filled it with warm light.

I read without reading, just letting the fact of their existence sooth my aching soul.

Then I read again.

I read each word ravenously with the gaze of a hungry beast, not wanted to miss one delicious morsel of apology and hope and love. Her voice, which I’d somehow forgotten yet remembered, was clear and honest and so reassuringly her.

With each phrase, forgiveness overtook me. With each expression, I let her back into my core. As I read, I suddenly knew I’d forgiven her before she’d even asked, but knew that what I needed from her was just that: to ask for my forgiveness.

Just that simple act. That offering of apology.

And I was mended. We were mended. Our friendship of ten years reclaimed and salvaged, now stronger than before. A friendship more important than rancor. A friendship worth forgiveness.

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: This week's prompt is about forgiveness. Forgiving others, forgiving yourself. Write about a time of forgiveness. I wrote this about an event that happened maybe 5 or 6 years ago. The friend in the story is one of my closest friends still today. We're stronger than ever.

It tasted pink

He ate one every Sunday morning, the comics lain spread out in front of him in their full color glory. I’d sit on his lap and we’d read together as he peeled away the pinky flesh like an orange and I’d inhale the smell of pink and newspaper print.

He’d always make a slit in the peel with a knitting needle, infuriating my mother, and make a pile of the thick husk on the classifieds. I was always mystified that the outside of the peel was so soft and pink but the inside so white and messy.

Then he’d pull it apart with his big hands and take each juicy wedge and pop it in his big mouth, citrusy liquid dotting his mustache.

It always seemed so foreign to me. So grownup.

Cereal and bananas were what I had for breakfast, not this exotic fruit that my Daddy seemed to like so much. But now? I wanted to taste some.

“Can I have one?”

“Sure, Panda.”

He separated out a small pregnant pink wedge, a little juice spurting onto my lap, and handed it to me.

I held it for a bit, touching it. The clear skin was rubbery and that just didn’t seem right. Eating rubber. Gross.

So I pulled away the skin carefully and methodically, exposing the dense city of perfectly pink little juicy tadpoles, all nestled together just waiting to rupture juice everywhere. I liked the site of it. So intricate and perfect. So much there to see and taste.

I bit into the wedge and the juice of it exploded on my tongue and dribbled down my chin. The intense tart flavor became surprisingly sweet as it worked its way back my tongue and down my throat.

With each bite, little fruity tadpoles danced around my mouth and I mercilessly captured each one and burst it with my tongue, little pops of zing.

This is what pink tastes like. It bit more than a grape. In fact, it wasn’t like a grape at all. But it wasn’t like an orange or a lemon. It was too sweet. It was something new. Something new and I liked it. 

I finished it with intense relish and let my juicy lips overtake my face with a silly grin as I licked my fingers.

“Can I have another one?”

“You like it?”

“YEAH!”

Laughter.

“Okay. Well, here’s the last one. I’ll have to buy more now.”

After that, my dad and I shared pink grapefruit every Sunday. He’d peel them for us and we’d eat as we read the paper, first the comics then we’d scour the print for typos and spelling or grammar errors as juice drippled onto the crisp pages.

Years later, I was surprised to learn most people eat grapefruit with a spoon and even sugar.

I still prefer peeling it. It tastes differently on a spoon. Not quite as pink.

 

This was a post for the RemembeRED prompt: This week, we'd like for you to write about your favorite fresh fruit or vegetable. Share a memory of when you first tasted it, where it came from, when you last had it, a favorite way to prepare it, and such. As you write your piece this week, think of it as writing a scene. Be sure to engage our senses, make us feel, see, taste, hear, and smell. Pull us in with your description.

I just need to move

I’ve been looking forward to this all day. I shove a burrito down my gullet, grab my bag, and make my way into class. If Lynn catches me eating a burrito, she’ll tease me endlessly about how the young think they’ll be thin forever, so I gulp it down and throw away the wrapper.

Dropping my bag in the corner and kicking off my flip flops, I pull off my sweats and pile my hair into a messy bun on top of my head.

I find a spot on the hardwood floor and plop down as ungracefully as possible. Other girls are wandering in and we gossip as they find spots in front of the mirror. I spread my legs out spread-eagle style and begin a good, cool stretch. 

With my arms leading, I pull my head down to my knees and grab my bare toes. My feet point and flex and point and flex and I feel the power of each tendon. I stretch my back and arms and ass and muscles most people don’t even know they have.

Lynn turns on an African beat, and we chat with her as she begins the warm-up. She leads and we follow along to the syncopation that resonates into the floor. The movement is a language all its own. 1 2 3 4 relevé, turn, plié, forced arch, relevé, tendu, turn, battement attitude, contract, release, and return. Again. Again.

After warm-up, we settle on the floor to stretch again. Fully warm muscles move into even deeper stretches and we groan as Lynn pushes further into our limits.

20 minutes at the barre in pain and agony as we focus on technique and feet and ankles and hips as we tendu and battement and round de jambe.

“Isn’t this fun?”

“Masochist!” we laugh back at her.

Time for choreography we’ve been working on for weeks. We take our places and Lynn starts the music. She counts us off but most of us know our cues. Immediately, my mind lets go and my body takes over. I cease to exist and my body is all there is of me. I can’t think about anything else. Only movement and music. 

My mind is gone and my muscles know each step. Bare feet slide and jump and mark time as fingers stretch, toes flex and point, legs and arms fly deliberately around, finding the floor and then up again, rolling, spinning, leaping, extending, and tilting.

I breathe into the movement. Ahhh ooh AHH shh oooh ah sss AH. Knees knock on the floor, toes scrape, muscles pull, but I don’t feel any of it. I just feel the steps, the movement, the pull of the dance from every inch of my body into my soul.

We repeat it over and over until class is over and even though I’m drenched with sweat and  my hair is a tangle and my lungs are threatening to burst and my muscles might just abandon my body for a much more sedentary host, I wish I could keep going.

Nevertheless, I pull on my sweats and flip flops and wobble out to my car a happier person.

Dancing is happiness. My whole life, no matter who I am or what is happening, I can forget everything and just move. It’s all I ever really need. Always just what I need.

This was a post for The Red Writing Hood RemembeRED prompt: Imagine you are meeting someone for the first time. You want to tell them about yourself. Instead of reciting a laundry list of what you do or where you're from, please give us a scene from your life that best illustrates your true self. This is an exercise in showing, not telling. You need to show us why this particular moment defines you, or why you want someone to know this truth about you. Be descriptive without bogging us down in extraneous details.