Tag: memory

The Woman in the Window

graceovsLeave a comment

When I was the age of 9, or maybe 10, I lived in a little bungalow on Montgomery St. It had wooden floors, no AC, and a backyard littered with spiky oak leaves. I would sweep these leaves off my trampoline before jumping to the sky. Bounce, squeak, bounce, squeak. Flinging my limbs into various shapes, I would flip and glide through the air.

One day, one bounce, I spotted a face. Over the fence, in the window of the old people’s home next door, a woman sat watching. She was old with a face creased like tissue paper and a fierce black mane of hair. We held eye contact for the second I hung suspended in the air. Bounce, I smiled. Squeak. Bounce, I waved. Squeak. Bounce, she smiled back. Squeak.

PC: https://www.westend61.de/images/0001194761pw/pensive-mixed-race-older-woman-looking-out-window-BLEF05671.jpg

Her eyes remained sad though, and even as I lay in my bed that night with trampoline-skinned knees, I couldn’t stop thinking about the woman in the window.

The following morning, I got out a thick black sharpie and several sheets of blank paper. I headed outside and, with resolve, started tracing out big letters. “Hello,” I wrote. “My name is…” I climbed up the ledge of the fence, and sure enough, the woman in the window spotted my paper messages.

I felt as if I had made a friend.

I don’t remember when it was that I first noticed the blind in the next-door window had been drawn. I was used to regular ambulance sirens outside the old people’s homes, but when my friend’s room was left empty, it affected me personally. Wherever she was now, I hoped her sad eyes had regained a spark of joy.

Poetry Pt. 2

graceovsLeave a comment

A collection of unrelated poems of mine:

to be perfect

i’ve always liked numbers, the way they add up perfectly

with only one answer, one solution. i used to wish all things were as perfectly

organized. i wished i were organized as perfectly,

wish i looked it, dressed it, acted it.

wished all my problems could be solved perfectly.

set equal to zero and isolate the x: a mechanical

procedure taught from a textbook. perfectly

scoring academic tests is easy enough

but answers in life don’t add up as perfectly.

people don’t work like 1, 2, 3, experiences aren’t

scored alphabetically, and i can’t live this perfectly,

because i am not.

i am not perfect or close to it. but i am perfectly –

imperfect.

summer rain 

i take her hand,

bare feet slipping on the soaken grass.

we watch the rain as it falls 

and speckles the pool surface.

“one, two, three”

interlaced fingers and shrieks of laughter 

as we fall with the raindrops.

two skinny bodies in polka dot underwear

crashing through the water.

together, we tilt our heads towards the clouds

and drink in the summer rain –

nothing has ever tasted so good.

untitled i

you kept me afloat for so long,

        when you drifted away

     i forgot how to swim.

untitled ii

i wonder if being

in love

will make me feel any less

incomplete.

untitled iii

i think it’s strange 

no one likes a caterpillar

but everyone likes a butterfly.

PC: https://media.istockphoto.com/id/89288958/photo/monarch-and-caterpillar-on-milkweed-plant.jpg?s=612×612&w=0&k=20&c=ID3GSnp161j8jHkye0GQhkOk1etXnlJktqOxsj-xhfw=

Homesick

karolineticoLeave a comment

“Do you miss home?” “Do you miss your parents?” As an international student, these are the questions that I receive most often from people. My answer has always been no, and inexplicably, I’ve never missed home while I’m in a foreign country.

But that answer has changed recently.

During Christmas break, I lived near the LA area, where large Chinese community exists. There, you can find almost anything from China and other places in Asia. I never knew that there could be such a place in the US.

When I had authentic Chinese food in one of the restaurants, I suddenly realized that I do miss home. Or more precisely, the two years of my life in China before I came here. I miss my old school, my friends, and my hometown Nanking. I had a sudden urge to book a flight and go back at that moment. But after 5 seconds, I remembered that my friends are not in China either, they are in Germany, Ireland, Canada… just the same as me.

The feeling of nostalgia was something that I never experienced, and I now I finally understood how other people felt when they say they missed home.

Photo Credit: https://www.welikela.com/

Do You Remember That Time… 2020…

ojaipizzaLeave a comment
Photo Credit: Tuscaloosa News

Do you remember when we got an alert about the new virus, the Coronavirus (COVID-19), and we were all so scared about it in 2020? People die every day, plus, we know nothing about this new virus. We stayed home and used Rubbing alcohol to spray everywhere when we got home right away. We began to lose the ability to connect with the other person. Sometimes we call our family or friends saying Hi to them and talk about how they are doing recently just to try to imagine we were talking to a “real” person. After a year in online class or work, we lost the motivation to do anything, we only have that little energy left to keep scrolling on our phones. Watching the public prank videos on Youtube from years before, and started to imagine when am I going to talk and meet new friends after the pandemic. At last, we all laughed and cried to celebrate the 2021 new year at home.

It’s only been two years but feels like it happened a long time ago.

When Omicron came up almost at the end of  2021, it didn’t scare anyone much. I noticed that people started to see this type of virus as a common cold. People don’t wear masks around, even gather with another person in the same room. People tell others that they have COVID, but they don’t care about it as long as they know they are fully vaccinated. Time has changed the way we see or think about the virus. The Covid deaths have begun to spike quickly after people gathered to celebrate the 2022 new year without putting their masks on. However, I wish we could go back to “normal” life when we all go to school or the amusement park without having our masks on.

Photo Credit: ABC News (2021)

Limited Time

smalltownhumanbeingLeave a comment

Now that spring has begun and the air is faintly smelling of orange blossom filling the valley air in the brisk mornings, I can tell my time here is coming to an end. The morning and afternoons driving up and down the weaving road into the campus atop the hill. There are so many fond memories that will last more than a life time.

But now I am counting the weeks left in this beautiful place that I have spent the last four years of my life. In one way, this place is kind of all I have ever known, but it has made me want to branch out and go explore. I have learned so much academically, but also as a person.

I’ve learned what to expect from people and how to protect myself and control emotions, I’ve learned how to make true life long connections with people but most importantly I began to learn who I am.

All of these small simple lessons have been learned simply from waking up and going to school every morning and giving it all I could every day.

So now I have realized I have limited time left, and that is in fact scary, but it is leading me to a new adventure.

Photo credit : Ojai Valley School

foggy memories

icaruswithwarmwingsLeave a comment

the oaks

wrinkles,

white walls

metallic beige

flying roaring

,cutting,

white walls;

warm animals 

in half motion

motioning

in motion.

you latch on

to these moments, these images,

as they race in your head,

as they take tight turns,

as a force like gravity pulls and pulls you away.

you find yourself empty save the quiet conversations and the warm silence. the moments that make you you. but how ‘bout I move them? 

how ‘bout i reorganize the pantry,

pull the back towards the front,

pour it all out?

how ‘bout when you feel those candlewarm memories

in your stainless vaccum

you feel them.

you feel the road, the car

the pull,

you feel the moment, the memory

fading

into the fog.

from pintrest

Ageing

smalltownhumanbeingLeave a comment

Some things really do get better as they age, and the little old house that sits at the top of a hill is the perfect example.

This little house is strong and mighty, and it has seen its fair share of heartbreaks, makeups, first moments, last goodbyes, tears, smiles, storms, fires, spring rain, and much more.

It sits atop a hill, with a view of the mountains surrounding and a window through the trees to look down into the valley surrounding below it. This little house has aged, but it has a story to tell.

The house has sat atop the same hill for over seventy years, watching multiple families grow, being a safe place for kids to run to after the rain starts, a place that is not just a house, but a home.

Even though the white picket fence with the red fence is tipping over with chipped paint, the porch does not keep the rain out, the wood floors inside are warped and worn, the ceiling leaks, and the doors do not keep the winter chill out, it has aged beautifully.

Although those little details seem off-putting to most, to me they make that little ageing house a home.

Image Credit: https://pixels.com/

August 27, 2019

horseman69Leave a comment

“So I did my calculations, there are 93 days before Thanksgiving, 93 long days until I can see April again. To those that don’t know April, she’s my companion…”

I read Hemingway’s A Fairwell to Arms a couple of days ago… ‘They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they kill you…” They do kill you, I’m telling you.

I didn’t care for writing any journal yesterday. Tired and dulled by all the handbook rules they were announcing last night, I went to sleep quickly. I need to get out of this place, maybe I’ll get kicked out so that I’ll see April back in China again? But deep inside, I know I’m not going to do that. Men are selfish.

I really miss April.”

Because of the virus now I can’t go back to her again. It’s basically the same scenario all over. But this time, I’m willing to get kicked out for her. (not saying I will and definitely not confessing to anything)

I really miss April.

Photo Credit: aprilgame.itch.io

Itchy

icaruswithwarmwingsLeave a comment

I have a bad case of itchy foot

The itchy foot runs through my leg

When I itch the itch it numbs my toes

Through my foot it goes

And all the way into my calf

It feels like the beginning of poison oak

The sweltering alergic reaction

That has plagued me since days old

I feel the familiar itch

The friendly ooze

The glorious disgusting hot irritated mess that is poison oak

But not quite

It’s just one singular bulb

One little plague bubonic

A tiny little boil

A reminder of bare feet in mosquito territory

A reminder like a cracked phone screen

Or a scar on your arm

Something you see everyday

A reminder of something you forgot

Like her face in my camera roll

Like looking back at just how perfect it has been

Because so often I took photos when things were good

When I wasn’t staring at a blank google doc

An image stamped in my skull

When it was incredible

Or when it was supremely funny

Or when it hurt like a mountain insurmountable

And when I scroll back and see these myrtle memories

For an instant I feel that excitement that takes me back

That yearning for days old

But not for a million dollars

Not for an ounce of that love that I felt

Would I miss a second of the now

It’s weird

But I scratched the itch

And honestly it doesn’t itch anymore

on arrival

icaruswithwarmwingsLeave a comment

Decisively led and decisively fought 

He galumphed well ahead

The war won

The battles overthought

To his werriwinkle eyes

In their bleary sockets

Victory had begun to melt into rose gold tapestry

The ride home was as merry as it was raucous

The steel by his waist sweltered with pride

Gold in his face beamed gaily wide

But on his arrival

The earth that had been trodden

By his gate

Since his adolescence

Was sown with salt

And marred with pestilence

Photo Credit: pinterest.com