hello all,
as it was in it’s short-lived past, this is going to a random assortment of thoughts.
i’m 22 now, and everything is different and the same. i’ve vomited. i’ve had a yeast infection. i’m no longer a student, no longer a resident of allston, no longer a part time worker. i’m a nanny now. this means my closest person, my boss, and my charge is 5 months old. according to a man on the street, she is beautiful, and i’ll have to be careful with her when she gets older.
I write down details about her I know i’ll want to remember when she is big, and she has no idea who I am. her nose is abnormally small, so much so that the doctor pointed it out when she was born. the result is a constant snorting and snuffling. when she eats, with milk caught in the back of the throat, she’s a dragon. when she wakes up from her nap, always smiling, her arms up in her sleep sack, she’s a starfish. she’s a turkey, a monkey, a ham. she’s every good animal. her head smells like honey, and her favorite song is twinkle twinkle little star. she loves pulling my hair and grabbing under my eye until it’s raw.
when people ask if she’s mine, i always say yes. i like to see the horror pass over their faces and turn into smiles. on my first day, she got milk on my shirt, and i thought i’d started lactating. i cried. my boobs stung and ached. it was phantom of course. the tears were real.
( yellow by anne sexton)
when I first moved, my hair was never clean, no matter how well I washed it. a set of strands at the back were matted and sticky, and the whole lot had a sheen of something, the direct opposite of the silky look we all aspire to. I considered buying clarifying shampoo to strip it down to nothing. start over. I thought the water might be hard though I doubted it was any different from my old place– twelve minutes away by car, twenty six by bus, forty eight by foot. I don’t know how the reservoirs are divided.
life is all about having a new bedroom with bare walls that no one who has hurt you has ever step foot in. picking yourself up, trying to believe it will get better, wiping fog off your car windows. commuting and liking it. i felt at peace with this on the esplanade the other day, with the sun in my eyes and a breeze blowing through me. that was until I saw my former class crush, from back when I took classes, cuddled up on a hammock with a blonde in pink pants. then I felt hopeless again and wondered if any of it would get lighter. I am always carrying a satchel of something painful and heavy that’s changed me for the worse.
(a beautiful building in the north end i like to walk by)
xoxo Anna