Statues We Painted in the Kitchen
memoir poetic prose (excerpt from my work-in-progress book)
it’s February 10th. i’m ten. playing hooky with Ema
we celebrate our shared birthday by going to the clay shop on the Santa Monica Pier
we get statues
she gets a goddess
i get a cherub
she always gets a goddess
i always get a cherub
we take them home and paint them in the kitchen
i like yours better, she says. i like yours better, i say
It’s our birthday, she says. It’s the best day, I say
she tells me that one day she won’t be here for our shared day and that i shouldn’t be sad because it will still be my day
i won’t be sad, i lie
it’s July, a Sunday, i’m 25 and i’m alone in my first apartment solo
i go to the farmer’s market
the aisle where the crystals sparkle
take home a quartz, an amethyst, kale, 8 jalapenos, two bags of peaches and fresh sour cream
i go home
i make a meal
i invite the neighbors i don’t know to join me
i live alone for the first time and i need to impress
someone. anyone. maybe them?
they come over for a ritual of crystallized peppers
i invite them to taste the healing powers of my home
i make sure the peppers are crispy
the peaches are soft
the crystals sharp and
we gather around
the table
we eat the sweet
and the sharp
the hot, the bitter
all at once
and we chew and swallow
we laugh and cry
and we nod our heads in agreement
it’s good to be with people
even though it won’t last
or because of it
It’s the summer I’m 19 and I’m traveling solo to Costa Rica, i meet an older man at a club in San Jose who wants to make me a tea with a leaf he had picked from a nearby tree. he held up the leaf, “this will make you feel special.” i put the leaf in my purse even though i already feel special
i and keep dancing
the man is very tall and very aggressive, so i sneak out while he’s still dancing and take a cab back to my hotel—A resort. I won this trip on the late-night dating game show, MATCHMAKER! I was supposed to come here with the guy I “won” and a chaperone, but the guy was too high to make a plan and I didn’t have the patience for him to get it together so I went without him
The phone in my room wouldn’t stop ringing. The man from the club found me. he was downstairs, asking to be let up. he wants to make me Costa Rican Psychedelic Leaf Tea
I tell the front desk to make him go away
I take the leaf out of my purse and make tea myself.
tea for one
I turn on the TV. River Phoenix in The Mosquito Coast. His talent was all lit up like he’d go on shining forever. It got me thinking about how after i heard the news I cried at the liquor store in Reseda where I bought my Fritos and wine. The man who ran the place was taken aback by my tears, I put my Fritos and wine on the counter and cried,
River Phoneix died in front of the Viper Room!
Many years later I ran into the drugstore owner and he said, “I remember you. You’re the girl who cried when River Phoenix died.”
a note is pushed under my door from the man from the club. it’s not my first note. it won’t be my last note. but i don’t know that then. i throw it away, finish the tea, finish the movie and after a while…
my mind becomes a wild wonder
can cracks close?
do clouds forget?
will my parents always be paper dolls?
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My celebration of women artists, She Made That🖌️ will return next week. In the meantime…
here are a few recent paintings.
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