On this Valentine's Day, I'd like to pay tribute to all those girls from my past who made a deep and lasting impression on me, but who exited my life before I was able to know it or acknowledge it.
To Edna, for her pink velcro sneakers and sharing cookies in our hiding spot
To Han-Lin, for her braided pigtails and yellow jumpers
To Rachel, Molly, and Jen--true outcasts who accepted me as one before I lost my way
To Lauren, most of all for her laugh, but also for her grandmother's wooden sculptures and the serene beaches of Big Sur
To Michele, Mich, Michelle, ma belle, for defining my teenage years (and all the Manic Panic)
To the girl in my summer photography class, for her sad but brilliant eyes and her striking resemblance to my mom
To the girl in denim who took my photo the following summer
To Marie, for lending me her copy of Rilke (which has traveled with me to many strange places and still sits on my bookshelf like a stolen treasure)
To the girl in comp lit with the stunning hair and boots, who flew back to Korea, I think
To Rose, for her antics during choreography class, her red leotards, and her effusive love of Titanic
To my study abroad roommate from Japan and her mother, who sent me a scarf
To Adrienne, for her musicality and for giving me a chance
To Cynthia, who will always be as cool and as beautiful as she is elusive, for her unwavering sense of style and self
All of you together are a patchwork of innocence, awkwardness, confidence, confusion, intensity, vulnerability, vulgarity, joy, restlessness, calm, immense beauty, and fierce intelligence.
I wonder where your life has brought you, and if who you were then is still a part of who you are today. I hope so.
Thank you for entering my life, and thank you for leaving a mark.
1 comment:
this is breathtakingly beautiful and really haunting. I've never seen anyone write something like this before, and its both the visual sketches you create and the reasons why you love that's filled with so much, and yet so much unspoken.
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