Fog

I went to an elementary school where one of those Open House Nights happened at the end of the school year where you show all the work you've done throughout the year and parents also kind of shop for next year's teachers. I was going from second to third grade and my mom and I walked into this one empty classroom at the tail end of the evening and the teacher ended up being the guy my mom would marry the following summer. He hid from her the fact that he was an alcoholic bi-polar addict with a lot of anger issues stemming from ultimately feeling abandoned by his biological parents as he was also adopted, plus a lot of other shit.

This motherfucker had juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust enough masks stored up on his nightstand to wear one a day until it was too late and they were married. He brought the clouds. In all of the ways. 

I went from living on a block in a town that was diverse, filled with sun, my childhood, and zero conditions, to the opposite of all those things when my mom got married. It was the eighties, I was the flower girl, it was before the days of including the soon-to-be step-children in the actual ceremonies with promise rings and bullshit kiddy vows. 

And I will trust my gut over everything forever because that day was fucking sad. My grandma was sad, I swear my mom was sad, and the sun was sad because she declined  the invitation.

I lived my life thinking that because I was never sexually molested or physically abused, that that meant I had a "good" childhood. When in fact an abuse did exist. It was abuse of my spirit, my magic, my light, my sun. And the entrance of my mom's husband into my life was a soul-crushing experience. Because how do you name the event where your little gold soul shrinks to quarter capacity as a child? Is it the first time you experience him losing patience, yelling, and throwing a plate in the sink after some coded arguing at the kitchen table? Is it the way he would make your already struggling in math brain make you calculate what the change would be before he would hand over the amount owed to the cashier? (I remember on one of these occasions even the guy behind the counter watching my obvious shame accompanied by beet red cheeks saying, "Come on, give her a break.") Is it watching him grab your mother's wrist while she's on the phone because he's uncomfortable with the conversation she's having? Is it being told, "Get out of the mirror Alex" because I was caught doing something like looking at my reflection in the living room. Bitch I am an only child I consider mirrors to be homies.

Or is the general dis-ease he brought into our lives. The facade which he could no longer maintain. The micro-aggressions, the tension. And my mother, who for whatever the reason, probably mostly pride, didn't cut us the fuck lose upon realizing she married a manageable monster.

I am done minimizing the ways in which I had to recover from the loss of my  childhood.

Sun

I was raised in the sun. From birth to 7 I lived at 1825 Eucalyptus Street in Seaside, California.

 
The sun was in me. 

I dream about this house more than any human or place. 

The deck that I pretended to paint with a bucket of water and a paintbrush. The sun won  every time I turned around to check my dark mahogany progress; faded now back to butter brown. Josephine would watch All My Children first and then Days of our Lives while napping on said porch in those licorice looking braided plastic lawn chairs. She'd watch with her ears only while I painted, or played, or daydreamed, or dressed up, or did any bright thing. Do I idealize this time because it's so far away? I don't think so. On bikes til the auntie street lights came on. Rainbow striped carpet with cats and dogs and love only.

I have been shown photo albums of this chapter of my life. I am always not just smiling, but beaming with wonderment. Big eyes, big cheeks, steady open pout. When I have moments, and there are many of these moments of deep-wave sadness, I think about those photo albums, and all that joy, against today's politics, war, genocide, colonialism, corruption, this fucking revolution which everyone I know feels on the brink of. 

But that's the thing about the sun, you can receive it whenever it shows up like the house in my dreams. And I'll always have that house. Years untouched and so compact that it's as if the day he came into our lives, the clouds came in.

When Your Grandma is Your Religion

Anyone will tell you to get someone's name tattooed on your body is the swiftest route to excommunication. Except when it's your grandma. Josephine was a woman I was in part raised by.  A woman who I got a bitter streak from, whilst my nineteen year old neo-hippie mother encouraged me to "use my words." A woman who didn't like you until she liked you. One of those; beautifully, one of those kind of women. I was witness to consistent dichotomies in the two faces of the women with whom I spent my most formative years. Old world, first generation Armenian immigrant in my grandma, versus bright-eyed idealist sixties baby in my mom.

My mother and I lived with her until I was eight years old. It was the three of us under her roof with the occasional long term visit from one of my uncles. The bond that she and I shared was one I still palpably feel today. We were probably a sight to be seen, my blond haired, blue eyed-ness next to her olive skin and pronounced nose.

Her passing in our living room while I held her hand at the age of ten was a moment that excelled me into many emotions, ones which alter and dampen the sun of childhood. And I am aware now in my adulthood that she had a lot of dark times; none of which I ever sensed. I think I was a kind of magic for her back then as she is for me today in my dark times.

Josephine is someone I pray to. I see her in sunrises, but mostly sunsets. I think she indirectly taught me the way I wanted to be. I imagine what my grown woman self would have to say to her. Who we would talk shit about, what soap opera characters  we'd root for. What she'd think of my choices, my husband, my life. And I imagine she wouldn't think too highly of my tattoos. Except for maybe the one that says Josephine.

Are you Spanish or an Alcoholic

I love wine. I love funny ecards about wine. I love the sense of comfort I feel driving through wine country with a backdrop of rolling, manicured vineyards sponsored by Mother Earth (and the back-breaking work of those employed to tend them). I was fortunate enough to spend a year in La Rioja, Spain, better known as the country's wine region, at a pivotal point in my early thirties. A girlfriend and I left our jobs, cars, apartments, shitty relationships, and basically Eat, Pray, Loved (post-book, pre-movie) ourselves through one of the richest experiences of my life.

Living in the wine region of any European country will eventually leave you unphased by five year olds sipping from their father's wine cup on crisp winter evenings to stay warm, or by watching old men having a 'copa' with their breakfast omelettes at the café. I didn't meet or hear of anyone who 'didn't drink' a' la AA. Wine was as much a part of the culture where I was living as was the food, music, dialect. And so, it also became customary to finish up an evening of  pinxchos or dinner, accompanied by what turned out to be a few glasses of wine per person. Like about four. Four glasses in a bottle. So there's that math. And that became my new Spanish normal. Not every night.  But definitely the fun ones. 

Looking back on my time there, now about six years out from the experience, I can say I imported an appreciation for wine. But it's what it represents. The food, the culinary experience, the merriment, the social aspects. I drink about a glass of wine a day. And when I have two or more it's usually on the weekend. My American girl still checks in with my inner Spaniard, and my inner Spaniard always says, "Chin Chin."

On being a two legged mermaid

It's an issue for those who long for sea salt in their hair, feel naked without a sprig of sequins, or those who simply find their wanderlusting souls preoccupied with thoughts of oceans and magic. I grew up, like many people raised in coastal towns, at the beach. I also saw the movie Splash in theaters at the beautifully impressionable age of 6. Naturally I've thought of myself as being part mermaid ever since. And not the frilly, pink kind with a seashell bralette. I covet the idea of a muscular, iridescent-skinned, stream lined gypsy. She competes with her shark finned contemporaries and wins. She is the muse of pirates and poets. She stays elusive enough to be fantasized about by the masses.

So I know women whose eyes sparkle. And those who salute the moonlight when it's full and reflecting shimmers on the surface of the deep blue sea. These are my fellow two legged mermaids. I'm glad you're all here.