I found this old book of my writing, it seems to be notes for a book. True to my young and idealistic form there are butterflies doodled all over this document…I had a thing for butterflies and poetry.
8/28/2001 “yes I love you” is another doodle of sorts, I don’t think I knew what love was back then, I am not sure I do now.
‘As the sun dances outside my door I find myself yearning for the wind to blow over my head and through my heart. Sitting pretty with a clogged performance. So sleepy with few hours on my locks, I tread in shallow water. Daydreaming, as usual, about cowboy, now absent from my life, yet I feel no regret. I gave him too many chances. “A butterfly always reminds us that there is always beauty at the end of all the pain.”
Never loved that house for it’s worth. I guess I just assumed I would live there forever. Parkwood, where spitting on the sidewalk got you a week of lunchtime detention, although I have to say, by the end of sixth grade I kinda liked sitting in the conference room. It looked out at a tiny courtyard with a statue of an angel that had been donated in tribute to a boy who died of a seizure.
The halls still smell the same, a few years ago I had to pick up my cousin from a class and all the memories came back. The smell of kids is one smell that just can’t be articulated with words. We lived directly across from the school, the field was within a few steps across the street, and a boy that I grew up with who also lived up the street and I made a lovely hole in the fence where we could cut across the field to the toys before school. I hung out with all the boys on the block. Except for Rebecca, my next-door neighbor, I had mostly boys as friends. I saw her at the mall the other day, after years of bad looks and stares we are finally able to talk like mature adults. We loved to dance, and play make-believe of course – we even had a name for our group ‘The Red Hot Rebecca’s’. Yeah, we were a hit in the neighborhood, we charged .25 or a piece of candy to those who wanted to see us perform.
I went through many friends as most people growing up do. I started middle school and drifted from the girls who got A’s and hung out with girls who walked on the wild side. But they were not without heart; two I remember well, two girls, twins actually. We used to climb to the top of our school, scale the roof on weekends, and during the week, smoke cigarettes and skip zero periods. Back then I was still caught in tom-boy mode, never a leg in sight. I was always self-conscious about my body. I quit soccer about this time to let go of my boyish nature, I started wearing skirts but never tank tops, always more coverage on top. The summer of 8th grade was an interesting one – got caught sneaking out with Sharon and Leia, and we got sneaking into a Garbage concert! I did modeling, and kept with ballet… the first day of the ninth grade was epic, I had a tan and bleached hair from a summer in Arizona with my folks. My brother left for college in Vegas that summer too, I thought of suicide a lot, and lost a lot of friends after becoming very very ill. Nobody called or seemed to care that I missed most of 9th grade. Even up until senior year I felt resentment toward most of them.’
That is the end….more doddles of butterflies, hearts, and quotes, I was so poetic back then, I am not sure when I lost that sense of, well I certainly was a hopeless romantic and felt so deeply. It’s both sad and fun to look back at my pictures of my younger self, the poems, and remember, as cryptic as I did and still write, I can tell who I was talking about. Cowboy was Dave, I thought way too highly of him, he was quiet and unintelligent. The straight-A friend that I left behind was Yasmin, I never forgot her, her mother was a single mother and was amazing. She cooked Indian food for us after school and worked 2 jobs. Yasmin died giving birth to her 2nd child a few years ago, she was a doctor and at her funeral, her husband told me he liked what I wrote in her memory book – I said I was sorry for not being a better friend, that I never forgot her and I didn’t mean to abandon her. I am still unpacking that conversation. What decisions did we make to lead to where we are now? What butterfly wings flapped to send us in a different direction, I think I know, although I cannot go back and change a thing I can still honor that change in the wind, the sound of the wings, I’ll never forget you. I remember I wanted a butterfly tattoo back then, it was to be my first – I wanted it on my lower back THANK GOD that I did not listen to that flap of wings 😉
-B
