I missed my family yesterday. I missed the holidays the way they used to be back when ours was a great love story. Theirs was even greater…
I wasn’t sure if she liked me at first, but then I am most often insecure for at least a moment at every party, especially a new party. I hardly knew anyone there and the idea was unnerving. It’s like stepping on stage and I don’t mean that in the way of pretending, or putting on a show. I mean that life is a judgement of character and public is a bearing of scrutiny. There are days I don’t leave my house because I like that it is familiar and forgiving. Walking out my front door is a petition to congress.
AMBER GARIBAY
GUILTY or INNOCENT ?
DESERVING or WASTE ?
KEEP or DISCARD ?
IMPORTANT or IRRELEVANT ?
WINNER or LOSER ?
GOOD or BAD ?
BEAUTIFUL or UGLY?
I arrived to the party knowing I am all of those things at once, and left to my own devices there were two voices telling me very different things. “Just be yourself,” one whispered. While the other screamed the contrary, “ABORT! Don’t you dare be yourself. Keep your f*cking mouth shut.”
I decided to go with the first, starting polite conversation upon introduction and abandonment. The gentleman who had invited me to the party introduced me to his mother and left. I certainly was not going to sit there awkward and mute. I made a comment about the beauty of the day, but it fell flat because it was too obvious. This was a fourth of July celebrated by perfect weather. She nodded, saying simply, “Yes, it’s nice…”
The clouds hung to smother the overcast of the pause that followed. The two of us sat silent through dead air. I became a kite when she heard me mention growing up “in the sticks.” At first I thought it was off putting. She let out a “Hmmm….” and turned away from me. I was like a child with her fingers stuck through a door jam. She could slam it closed and break them off. I invited her to, “Where did you grow up? In the city?”
She turned back to me slowly, but this time her eyes were twinkling. “I grew up in the sticks… and you couldn’t possibly understand unless you’ve been there. You can’t even imagine it’s real. I grew up in the sticks of North Carolina, lived there until my husband took me away at sixteen. I am an only child. I remember feeling so lonely.”
“My closest friend was a tree,” I said in complete relation. “I understand the feeling of isolation, but I promise that having a sibling wouldn’t have helped you much. I have a little brother and the country just helped us beat the snot out of each other without any witnesses. I used to pray to God that a coyote would eat him. I would have given anything to be an only child. We always seem to want what we can’t have.”
What happened next was pure magic because we stopped speaking English and started speaking country. “My best friend and I used to walk miles to see each other,” she said giddy with nostalgia.
I was elated, “Mine too! Friends since the first grade. Kim Perez lived fives miles up. We used to play “Rock, Paper, Scissors to pick who was walking….
TO BE CONTINUED
