The Roof

When I was seven years old, I discovered for the first time that the window of my childhood home opened to the roof. If I jimmied the window just the right way, it allowed me to slip out and crawl carefully from the safety of my bedroom to the unknown land of the roof. I had decided to run away. The window seemed the most melodramatic way to do it. But instead of making my way to the ground, I got preoccupied by the power I felt while suspended at the outdoor level of my bedroom. It was June.

When my childhood dog died, I was twelve. We had basically grown up together, in a way that my older brother had never really been around to do with me. When I learned of the tragedy that had occurred while I was at school, wasting away in a classroom and learning about the life cycle of earthworms, I crawled out my window to my place on the roof. In my hurry to get to the safe space above the ground, I had thought only to grab a small stick. It seemed like something he would’ve liked to have, and I didn’t have his collar anyway. We had lost it when we took him swimming at the river the week before.

I took my first drink at thirteen. My older brother always left small liquor bottles in his bedroom, and he was rarely home, so one night my curiosity got the best of me, and I stole one. The label said it was supposed to taste like cherries. I spit out the first sip, coughed after I forced down the second. I threw the half empty bottle off the roof, hoping for a satisfying crash as it hit the pavement. Unfortunately, it was only a plastic bottle, and so the crash was more of a clatter. My dad ran the minivan over the bottle and spilled the rest of its clear-colored contents all over the asphalt. I don’t think my brother would’ve noticed if the bottle had hit him on the head after I threw it.

I had my first real crush when I was in high school. I think I was fifteen. She didn’t notice me, but then again, I barely noticed me. I remember taking sharpies and writing a blend of her name and mine all over everything. I even wrote it on one of the shingles on the roof next to my bedroom window. A few days later, humiliated, I attempted to scratch it out. All I did was chip the shingle and ruin my fingernails.

When I was seventeen, a rusty green van rolled to a stop on the street next to my driveway. My older brother fell out of it a few moments later, slamming the door behind him. The van drove away. My mother ran to him from the house. My father walked quickly to the mailbox, discovering that it was still empty. My brother smiled wickedly. None of them saw me on the roof.

I moved out of my childhood home when I was twenty. While I packed the boxes, my mother frantically putting together frozen meals and boxes of granola bars, my brother walked by. He didn’t say anything, just went into his room and closed the door.

A few hours later, I was just lifting my first leg over the windowsill when my brother appeared again in the doorway. It wasn’t the first time someone had caught me climbing out the window, but it was awkward as though it had been. Without any words, he followed me onto the roof. We sat in silence for a while, until finally, he spoke.

“Mom’s made tons of food for you. You better eat it all.”

I nodded.

“Don’t forget to pack condoms. And always carry jumper cables. If not for you, then for someone else.”

I didn’t look at him. “I think jumper cables are standard issue in most cars. People don’t even know they’re there, because most of the time they don’t even need them.”

He sighed. “Someday I hope you look back on your life and realize that you didn’t need to be so hard.”

I swallowed. “I’m not moving that far.”

“I know.”

We sat in silence for a few more moments, and then my brother started to get up. In an instant he was on the ground beneath the kitchen window. My realization of what had happened came slowly, then all at once. Not knowing what else to do, I stayed on the roof. My mother appeared in the front yard, ran back inside, appeared once again. She paced, biting her fingernails. A few moments later, an ambulance stopped on the sidewalk next to our driveway, and collected my brother’s fragmented body. I sat on the roof as my mother walked quickly with the paramedics. I decided not to leave without the boxes of granola bars.

After a few hours, my mother reappeared in the front yard. She stopped short and shifted her eyes directly onto mine. “Your brother broke his hip. He has a minor concussion. Are you still leaving tonight?”

I shook my head. She sighed. “Come on inside, I’ll order some Chinese food.”

As we waited for the delivery, my mother slowly began packing the frozen food back into the freezer.

I left the following morning. It was a thirty-minute drive to my new apartment, and as I opened the door for the first time, I took a deep breath. I took a small box into my bedroom, and then sat on the bare floor, my back pressed against the doorframe. When I finally took a moment to recognize my surroundings, I glimpsed the fire escape outside my bedroom window.

Immediately, I began to jimmy the window open, and found that I could easily slip through onto the hard metal stairs. The breeze from outside felt crisp on my skin. I pulled the old stick out of my pocket intending just to hold it for a moment. It slipped through my fingers, landing softly in between a hole in the metal stairs of the fire escape. I laughed, deciding to leave it there. I went back inside to unpack the rest of my things.

Lasagna

When I broke up with my third boyfriend, he asked me to call his mother. “She loves you.” he said, as if that were enough explanation. She’s all alone in that house, and Lord knows I can’t be there for her all the time.

He and I had been together for a year and a half. I had only been to her house twice. “Okay,” I said because there was no other way to reply. It seemed a simple enough request. We hung up without recognizing that it was probably our last phone call. He never stuttered over an accidental “I love you”, but, neither did I.

I put off calling her for two days. I had almost forgotten, but after looking at the phone in my kitchen I remembered why I wished I no longer had it. I didn’t even have her phone number—I had to search for her existence in a phone book. She was, thankfully, the second one in a long list of identical names.

“Hello?” she said after a ring and a half. She couldn’t possibly have been expecting me, but I pretended that she had. It was better than thinking that she had just been sitting alone, staring at the phone as she prayed for it to ring. Wishing she had the courage to call up an old friend.

“Hi, it’s uh, Jessie. Jeremy’s uh—”

“Oh, hello! It’s so great to hear from you sweetie. How are you? How are things with Jeremy?”

“Oh, I’m doing fine. Things with Jeremy are okay. How are you doing?”

“I’m doing fine! Haven’t heard from Jeremy in a while, but he’s busy, I understand. I’m sure with his job even you barely get enough time to see him, right?” she chuckled. “It’s always great to hear from him, when he gets time.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. He is always busy with work. We’re actually thinking about moving in together, we were just talking about it today. We looked at a few places online, but nothing seems worth the asking price.” I swallowed.

“Oh, that’s wonderful! I’m so glad to hear it! Listen, sweetie, why don’t you come over for dinner sometime? I’ll prepare some lasagna, and you can show me some of the places that you and Jeremy have looked at. I’m sure he won’t be able to come, but of course invite him anyway.”

“Yeah, I doubt he’ll be able to come. But, uh, what about next week? Maybe Tuesday? I don’t work on Tuesdays, so my evening is pretty much free. Does 6:30 work?”

I could feel her smiling through the phone. “Sounds great! I’ll see you then! Talk to you later, dear. Take care, and thanks again for calling.”

“Oh yeah, of course. Talk to you soon.”

I wasn’t entirely sure what had made me lie to Jeremy’s mother. There wasn’t a single part of me that wished I were moving in with Jeremy, and he had never asked me to go to dinner with his mother—just call her. She hadn’t even pressed me. I had volunteered myself to eat her lasagna on Tuesday. Now I would have to make a list of a few places that Jeremy and I would have liked, if we had ever discussed moving in together.

On Monday I spent two hours looking up recipes for simple desserts online. Any woman who was willing to make lasagna for her guest’s first visit, I assumed, would expect a contribution to the meal. A box of brownies felt cheap. I finally settled on lemon squares.

I’m not necessarily angry that neither of my parents taught me to make lemon squares in my youth. I only wish that there had been some sort of mentor in my kitchen at some point while I was growing up, who perhaps could have warned me against chasing a recipe that sent me to the grocery store two separate times in order to replenish ingredients as I methodically wasted them. Eventually, with flour all over my kitchen and my clothes, I produced a batch of lemon squares as close to tolerable as I could make them. It was 5:45 on Tuesday evening. It would take about twenty minutes to get to Jeremy’s mother’s house. I ran my head under the faucet in the sink, ignoring the fact that there were dishes there and that my hands smelled like an old sponge. I ran upstairs to change.

It was just beginning to get dark when I left my house. I found it hard to concentrate on the road when the sky was so willingly changing from pink to black. At a particularly dangerous intersection, I slammed on the brakes, and in a reflex, pushed my hand to protect the imaginary passenger next to me. It was something Jeremy had always made a joke of when we drove. He said it was an excuse to touch my boobs, and I would laugh in a way that wasn’t entirely forced. This time I slammed my hand straight down and into the pan holding the lemon squares. I decided to wait to do damage control until I got to Jeremy’s mother’s house.

As I pulled up, I noticed that the drapes on her kitchen window were decorated with small orange carrots. They didn’t have cartoonish faces drawn on them, but I pictured faces there anyway. As I approached the door, I wondered how many knocks she would wait before opening the door. It was 6:32.

I knocked one and a half times, and Jeremy’s mother opened the door brightly. She was dressed in what I can only call baby blue slacks and a kind-looking white button-up. Over this she wore a simple black apron, the kind you would expect to see a busboy wearing in an old family restaurant. There wasn’t a speck of food on it.

“You’re just on time!” she said, not glancing for a watch. The lasagna needs about three more minutes. Come on in, sit down!”

I joined her at a small table in the kitchen. We sat positioned strategically under a ceiling fan with an attached overhead light. There was a small television playing some local news station with the volume at about half audible. The room was cozy, and I nervously clutched my lemon squares.

“I brought dessert.” I said quietly.

“Oh, you did? That’s so kind! I made some lemon squares, but I would much rather try whatever goodie you brought. Here, let me take that.” She reached out and took my old casserole dish. “What do we have here?”

“Oh, uh, it’s just uh, I actually made lemon squares too. I’m so sorry.”

She just laughed. “Well, in that case, let’s eat some of both. Maybe we can get rid of all of them, together.”

She put my lemon squares in the fridge on a shelf with a large empty space. I wondered if she had assumed I would bring something, or if she had left that space open for the lasagna leftovers.

We sat in comfortable silence for two and a half more minutes, and I pretended to be interested in the local news station, though I couldn’t hear a word of it. The oven beeped quietly, and Jeremy’s mother turned to it and slipped on a pair of oven mitts decorated to look like lobsters. She pulled out a large pan covered in foil. She smiled in a private way, and I looked back at the television. “Dinner’s ready!”

I stood up to walk to the oven and make myself a plate, but Jeremy’s mother stopped me. “Sweetie, I’ll serve you, sit.” Not sure what else to do, I slowly lowered myself back onto my chair. I watched her simple black apron as she placed a steaming plate of lasagna in front of me. She hurried back to the oven and quickly made herself a plate, bringing it back and smiling at me.

“Do you mind if we pray before we eat?” I shook my head. She took my hands and bowed her head, apparently preparing to pray silently. I stared at my lasagna plate. The edges of it were decorated with small red barns.

After a moment, Jeremy’s mother raised her head, and let go of my hands. She picked up her fork, and so did I. We ate for a few moments in silence, both of us engaged in the motion, and glancing dutifully at the television. It felt like a bad time to tell her that until today I had been a vegetarian. It was something Jeremy had gotten me into. It felt good to let go of him just a little bit more.

A nanosecond after finishing my first piece of lasagna, Jeremy’s mother asked if I wanted another. I said no, that I wanted to save room for the pile of lemon squares we had ahead of us. She laughed and took my plate. “Well, if you’re ready to get started on those, I’ll get them right out!” She turned toward the fridge. I turned again to the television. It was playing Jeopardy.

When I heard Jeremy’s mother laugh lightly, I turned to look at her. She was staring at the lemon squares in my casserole dish. I glimpsed an indent and immediately knew that there was a large handprint glaring like a judgmental child after she has been punished for something about which she feels no guilt.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “There was a red light, I reached out to make sure it didn’t fall off the seat…”

“Honey, it’s all right. I’m sure they taste just fine.”

They didn’t. Still, Jeremy’s mother dutifully scooped them out of the casserole dish and pushed them one after another onto both of our plates. Neither of us had the heart to admit that we would rather eat her lemon squares. We silently watched Jeopardy, pretending without fail that we could hear the subtitles as if they were just as good as the volume on the television.

When we both silently admitted that we were finished eating, Jeremy’s mother stood up and cleared our places once again. As she began to wash dishes, I offered help, but of course she declined. Blessedly, she appeared to have forgotten about the houses Jeremy and I had theoretically looked at together. She asked me if I would like to play some Scrabble before I left. Unsure of what I really wanted, I said yes. She asked if I could grab it from the other room. I dutifully obeyed.

In the living room, I stumbled across a picture of Jeremy and his brother. In it, they were both smiling in the truest way, their arms encircled around each other and their eyes squinted from the sun. Jeremy’s brother wore his uniform, although it wasn’t the same one I saw at his funeral. Jeremy wore a suit with a loosened tie. Their mother wasn’t in the photo, but I assumed she was the one taking it. I swallowed the lump in my throat and grabbed the Scrabble board.

Jeremy’s mother was staring at the television when I entered the room. I set the board on the table, and she turned to me. “Great! Are you ready to play?” I nodded.

I think the game took about thirty minutes. She beat me by thirteen points, but I didn’t mind. Scrabble had never been my favorite game. It seemed important that I had gotten the chance to play with Jeremy’s mother at all.

As we collected the tiles and put them away, I glanced at my phone. “I suppose I should get going.” I said quietly.

“Oh, darling, of course! I’ll get you your leftovers, if you wouldn’t mind putting the game away?” I nodded. She stood up and moved to the fridge. I put the rest of the game in the box and took it to the living room, making sure to avoid seeing the picture of Jeremy and his brother again.

As I came back into the kitchen, I noticed that Jeremy’s mother had put the rest of my lemon squares and her own lemon squares into my old casserole dish. She had covered it with plastic wrap, and on top of it had placed a large piece of foil that housed an enormous piece of lasagna. She handed them to me as part of a hug. “Thank you so much for coming sweetie, I hope everything was okay!”

“Everything was great, thank you so much. This was really very nice. I think I’ll call again soon, if that’s all right.”

Her face lit up. “That would be just wonderful.”

She walked me to my car, and helped me find a secure place on the floor for my leftovers. “Drive safe, sweetheart.”

I nodded. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

On the way home I had to pull over for a few minutes to catch my breath. I imagined her walking slowly back into her house, gently turning off the lights in the kitchen, and padding quietly upstairs. I imagined that she would fall softly asleep in a bed that had long ago grown too big for her.

I called Jeremy three times, but he didn’t answer. I didn’t feel right leaving him a voicemail, and, anyway, I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say. When I got home I carefully placed the leftovers in a vegetable drawer in the fridge. I couldn’t bear to look at them for another minute. I left the dishes in the sink and collapsed into my bed fully clothed.

I woke up at 2:37, and walked downstairs with zombielike purpose. I pulled the lasagna out of the fridge and stuffed every last bit of it in my mouth. After pathetically few swallows, I opened the lemon squares. I ate every single one, and, with powdered sugar on my face and the fridge door still open, I fell asleep facedown on my kitchen floor.

Something About Studying In Africa

I wonder if the same people who claim the absolute beauty of the universe when they see the wrinkles in an old African—or wherever she’s from—woman’s face are the same ones who touch their own faces in fear of their own wrinkles when they see an old man with a cane walk down the street. I wonder if when they hear a man say that the people who live in the tiny shacks in townships, the ones who are facing a garbage strike that means garbage littering their makeshift streets, floating down like the dusty roads are filled with water and the garbage is just part of the flood, feel just as skeptical of the idea that these people living underneath and surrounded only by tin and the heat of the other six bodies around them, are able to keep their children’s school uniforms clean and keep their children smelling clean and reliable.

I suppose it’s a natural reaction to feel either ecstatic by the photos taken with little black children at one’s feet (or on one’s shoulder, as the case may be) and post it to the hordes of people who haven’t experienced it first hand, or uneasy at the competitive nature of the peers being approached by the children. A picture is certainly worth a thousand words, and I often can’t help but feel jealousy at the absolute gems that some of my friends have gotten with the friendly little children who are just as awestruck by our foreignness as we are at theirs. But I also can’t fully subscribe to the cynicism of the people who write articles with provocative descriptions of how inhumane it is to live with such a naïve view of humanity. the creators of the white savior barbie in Africa types.

The reason that I haven’t gotten a tattoo here yet is fairly simple: I don’t want to have to take two weeks off of surfing. And perhaps there is some underlying part of me that, because I don’t know what to get, doesn’t want to make a permanent decision on a whim. Although I think that’s a faulty explanation because I did just that only a few months ago.

perhaps it is because this place feels so far from a final destination for me. I love it here for sure, and am certainly going to want to come back, but more than anything, I feel like this place can only really be labeled as a jumping off point. it can only be the place that marked a transition in the way that I do things. in the way that I think about my future.

Untitled

it’s hard to explain, but here goes anyway

sometimes you feel like you know yourself in a whole new way

like you’ve become this cool girl who knows all the right things

who did things the old her was always afraid to do, you know?

and it becomes this cycle of being somebody you’ve always

wanted to be and sometimes it’s the most beautiful feeling

it really is

you feel like you’re doing things so right

and all you’re doing is things you’ve wanted.

but then sometimes you get this feeling like

you’ve left a big piece of yourself behind

and it’s only in glimmering moments that you remember that piece

it’s not necessarily a bad thing

 but

you listen to this song and you can

see the trees pass by

through the seasons and you’re in a car

with the seatbelt that always made itself

too tight

and you’re on your way to a horse farm

and there’s this feeling that there are apples

and brown fences

and dirt

and everything is alright.

you know?

you’re listening to this song

and you remember what it felt like to be so

desperately desperately

willing to please and so

invisible.

you’ve become this girl who is unforgettable to so many people

right you’ve had that proven to yourself

but like

you’ve been the girl who has been forgotten

and it’s so easy to discount those feelings because they’re so old

and this new feeling is so damn new

but there have never been feelings that have been so strong

they have utterly and completely cancelled out

the other powerful feelings of your life.

I don’t know if I necessarily use other people to define myself

wholly and constantly,

but it’s definitely something I have noticed

and it’s something I don’t particularly like.

I’ve had some glimmering moments of clarity

when I just know I’m doing exactly

exactly

what it is that I want and that I am supposed to be doing

but those moments never last, you know.

I wish they would

but I find myself more often in a place of

that weird psychological, analytical thinking

that we all seem to do

and all seem to think we are good at

putting my thoughts into everyone else’s heads.

and not listening to that tiny little voice

in the back of my head

the one telling me I should forget what someone else is doing

and should go be by myself.

I guess I get attached too easily

But in a life where I have always been either the shimmering star

or the wallflower,

how could this not be the case?

I have an idea of what’s going to happen when I get home

but I suppose I don’ really have any idea

I hope I do what I’ve been talking about

and get out

and just go.

I’m a bit surprised by how easily I got over Cinnamon’s death

I suppose the reasoning behind why it happened that way

has something to do with the lack of surprise.

I think I always had an idea it would happen this way.

And perhaps the things that upset me the most

are the things that surprise me.

I don’t necessarily dislike surprises, I mean I do like surprise parties

but I don’t like to feel dumb, and

I don’t like other people to know something I don’t.

Sometimes I miss him.

And a lot of the time I have dreams that

he is still alive

and I get these mixed feelings of relief

and of dread because I know

that the hard part hasn’t happened yet

sitting on that couch in jock safari lodge

trying to understand why the zebra fur (or faux, I don’t know)

on the couch pillows isn’t softer

that wasn’t even the hard part

he’s still here

still here, but not for long.

It makes me the saddest to think that I won’t see him again.

maybe not never, but

not at home again.

and I don’t really want to have my house be home anymore

anyway

so I suppose that’s why I’m so okay with it.

things change

and I’m constantly battling within myself to understand that

and to remember it.