When you asked for volunteers for the “Worship Leader” position,
The child inside my mind saw
The nun at the end of the hall,
Pale as chalk, lips like a bird’s beak,
Who called us “dearie” instead of learning our names.
The priest striding through the parking lot,
Black-clad and stalking his way into my bicycle dreams.
The child saw a rosary, fought over,
And a candy cane thief.
The child heard a voice without identity,
Habited, enraged,
Cutting down one who called them by name.
“Let me know if you can help.”
The child, watchful, lets the beads scatter.
Tag: journal
Day 35: Shoebox
I helped my daughter clean out her bedroom closet today.
We cooed over old Halloween costumes and counted seven crocheted baby blankets. I found a pair of angel wings, the kind made of wire and white pantyhose. She put them on, along with the gold mortarboard she wore for her graduation from kindergarten. Our dog ate some feathers from a pink boa, and I cleaned out purses with goldfish crackers hidden in their pockets.
I opened a small orange box, and inside was a pair of leather infant shoes. “I’m keeping those,” she said, and put them on her bookshelf.
Day 34: Forgiveness
For my college degree, I had to take Studio Art classes. My Life Drawing professor gave us explicit instructions to never throw failed art works away. “Even if it’s terrible. Even if it’s experimental, and failed horribly. I need to see all of your work. I’ll be kind,” she said.
Of course, I didn’t do what she asked.
Self-portrait, in the garbage. Awful action pose using cross-hatching, tossed away.
For some reason, words work differently. I don’t throw away what doesn’t work, or what’s been abandoned, or what’s been crossed out in confusion. It’s easier, with words, to be kind.
Day 29: Alive
I spent some time today watching a movie about a man whose plane had crashed in the Arctic. He was alone for days, then rescued the co-pilot of a search helicopter who was injured and hardly regained consciousness.
It was, for me, a horror movie.
Instead of a hatchet killer, the horror was the specter of profound human fragility. To emerge from the plane shell, clumsy and frail as a just-hatched bird, the sun never setting, wind never abating. There’s frostbite and bears. Dwindling fuel. Each frozen step (or the alone-ness) asking, “how badly do you want to stay alive?”
Day 27: Language Barrier
Living with a teen-aged girl feels like an immersion foreign language class. Words are introduced through normal conversation and soon, through repetition and context, one catches on to their meaning and usage. “Salty” is a word I particularly enjoy; my husband is good at using “ratchet” and “savage” unironically.
“Main character” is a term that’s harder to parse. On car trip, while listening to an atmospheric playlist: “This is main character vibes.” A cute, cool girl waiting in the parking lot: “She’s the main character.” I get it, but don’t. Confidence? Groundedness? I catch a whiff, but then it’s gone.
Day 25: Seventeen
My best friend got a black Mustang convertible for her seventeenth birthday.
“Mustang Sally,” my dad called her from then on. She was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen up close. I wanted to touch her impossibly smooth cheek, twist her curly coffee-colored hair between my fingers. She’d pick me up and we’d go for ice cream, the movies, or the diner; we’d come home stinking of cigarettes even though we’d ride with the top down all the way.
The radio played Skid Row or Sting, and she’d sing off-key, her one endearing imperfection, crooked notes trailing behind us.
Day 23: Madalyn
My mother’s mother was the oldest of four sisters. She was a mean card player and ate popcorn and candy bars for dinner. She never told me she loved me, but wept as we drove to the airport.
She called me “sis” when she wanted to get my attention. “Sis, either pay attention or don’t play,” when I’d goof off at Rummy. “You’re tracking sand in here, sis,” when I didn’t rinse off my feet from the beach. And our last phone call, when I told her I’d gotten engaged. “Don’t get married, sis.” A cough. “Men aren’t worth it.”
Day 21: Bridge
A friend of mine died of cancer in November. She lived in my chat apps; we shared texts, photos, and voice memos, but never met in person.
This morning, a video popped up on TikTok of a girl playing bass along to Duran Duran’s “Rio.” After a ten second debate with myself, I sent the link to my dead friend. It was a tiny celebration, the easy, ecstatic talent of the girl playing a song we both loved.
Twelve-year-old me sang along to MTV, alone in the basement; almost forty years later, the song dances across the river to her.
Day 19: At Eighty
One of my favorite things to do is drive grandmothers around.
They’re not my grandmothers, of course, who are both long gone. But they are someone’s.
I open the passenger door for them, though they fuss at me not to. I turn on the heated seats and I help with the seatbelt, which can be cranky. I drive slowly, giving us room.
Questions I’d like to ask are: Who loved you most? Who did you love most? Who did you wish to love that you couldn’t?
I don’t ask, of course. But somewhere, lodged underneath their words, are the answers.
Day 18: Teacher
My first grade teacher had blonde hair in the front and brown in the back, with a middle part and Farrah wings. She often wore brown plaid bell-bottoms and a cream-colored blouse.
She chose me as her helper, clapping erasers or distributing papers. I was a good reader and listener, but, looking back, I suspect she could see how desperately I needed to please adults.
She’s likely gone now. A Google search returned nothing, since I don’t remember her first name. I’m thinking of her today, appreciating her and the dozen other women who raised me outside of my home.
Cynthia Hamill 