SHORT:
I talk to a gay senior citizen on the phone every week.
This week he told me that he is doing Nutrisystem, and he is so hungry he might eat the boxes that the meals come in.
I told him that my brother is 6'2'' and he asked if my brother was single.
He also told me that has no room in his pantry, so he keeps the Nutrisystem packages in his dishwasher.
I hope he does not accidentally turn the dishwasher on.
MEDIUM:
One time at a diving meet in Pasadena I missed my visual cue during a two-and-a-half off the seven meter platform and landed flat on my back. When I broke through the surface of the water, I was spitting blood.
My coach pulled me out of the pool and promised that I never had to dive platform again if I finished the meet. I dried off, did my last two dives, and placed second to last.
That afternoon, I cried face-down into an Einstein Brothers bagel. My mom strapped ice to my blackened legs and muttered, shocked by the bruising-power of pool water.
My coach made me dive platform again three weeks later.
Shortly after that, a 12-year-old’s mom said that we were “distracting her son” by wearing bikinis to practice. My coach outlawed 2-piece swimsuits, but one day we wore them anyway and called it “the 2-piece revolution”.
I talk about all of this in job interviews. Usually goes well. People like soaking wet trauma.
LONG:
We went to Santa Cruz for the migration. 300 Monarch butterflies hung in the air. You cried at the sight of it. I prayed for the moment to pass. You tried to hug me and I ran away.
When you see a butterfly, it reminds you of your grandmother, Florence Seaman, who wore a butterfly pin on the left side of her cardigan every day until she died. Florence loved sponge cake and playing solitaire on her desktop computer. She passed away in the bizarre winter-heat of the San Fernando Valley at age 92. Her husband David died less than 48 hours prior. Upon hearing the news, she shut her eyes and said, “I have to go with him.”
When I see a butterfly, it’s a bug.
I’ve come to realize that this newsletter is not as much about storytelling as it is about detangling. Brushing, de-knotting, and refashioning. A grabbing of memories– placing an elastic around a bunch and shouting “I am Vidal Sassoon!” – the way my dad would in the morning before school. He would tie my hair up, throw his head back, and in a booming, almost-regal voice, proclaim: I am an artist! A stylist! An organizer of the stuff that stems from people’s little heads! Hear me! See me! Watch me do my miraculous work!
And it was miraculous. Those mornings, the hairstyles, the way I’d jump up on my little painted sink stool and see what kind of blue my eyes had chosen to be. I liked how they changed shades depending on the kind of shirt I was wearing.
He’d sing to me as I brushed my teeth. I’d dance and spit into the basin, foam exploding from the corners of my mouth. I looked like a rabid dog. A monster. I bit down hard and studied my jawline. Thought about what would happen if I grew my bangs out all the way down and over my nose. My chin. I’d be like The Phantom of The Opera. Cousin IT.
A year later, I would grow my bangs out to match the rest of my hair. I started wearing high ponytails, pulling everything away from my nose and cheeks. People told me that, “not in real-life, but in pictures? I looked like a boy. If the photo was taken from the right angle. When my hair was pulled back.”
I used to get angry. Refused to take photos. People would have to grab me by the shoulders and push me into frame. I preferred to be the family photographer. I like capturing things.
When I was first born, you’d sing “Rockabye Sweet Baby James” to help me fall asleep: “Goodnight you moonlight ladies, rockabye sweet baby James, deep greens and blues are the colors I choose…” I like the name James. James and greens and blues. I listen to James Taylor when it’s cold outside. I walk and think about how you never know whether to sing an octave above or an octave below James’s original pitch. “It’s just in such a weird part of my range”.
A few years after the James Taylor nights, Dad pulled us out of bed to watch the Red Sox win. “You’re never going to see this again in your lifetime,” he said. “Big Papi!” He put big “reverse the curse” t-shirts on us. We hugged our knees to our chests inside the big Hanes dresses and watched them win. They were victorious again in 2007. And in 2013. Each time they’d’ win, we’d dance around the room. Jump up and down and shout “SWEET CAROLINE, GOOD TIMES NEVER SEEMED SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!”
Caroline is still my celebration and James is still my comfort and somewhere in the middle of it all is the booze-infused Toby Keith album that Dad played during high school carpool. We’d sing “go west, young man, haven’t you been told, California’s full of whiskey, women, and gold” as if we weren’t already in California, as if there was some far-off California even further West of us. A place in the Pacific full of guitars and debauchery.
You never understood why I wore makeup to my all-girls high school and neither do I. There was no need and nobody forcing me to spend hours on eyeliner and cover up. But there I was– in the half-dark bathroom, constructing little layers of powder, gel, and ink.
“You look fine.”
“I know.”
“We’re late.”
“I know.”
Despite the obsessive grooming, I refused to turn the lights on. I’d leave the door cracked open so the hall lamp would throw a bit of warmth on my face. I was embarrassed back then, and I am embarrassed now. I don’t know why I care about appearance the way that I do. I still can’t really look in a mirror.
Before there were mirror-obsession mornings, there were Donny Osmond-obsessed nights. I watched Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on VHS for a year straight. Donny played a naked, long-haired Joseph who cradled the faces of chorus kids as he crooned “Any Dream Will Do.” I was eight years old and enchanted. I don’t know if I wanted to be him, if I wanted to be one of the singing kids, if I wanted to be the narrator, or if I just loved the spectacle of it all. It was an explosion of noise, light, movement, and sentiment. It was Jewish but a mainstream palatable and powerhouse iteration of a story I’d heard over and over again in my Day School classes. The coat was too flashy for me, but I loved the story. The sex and glitz and glam – rock n’ roll Judaism.
I’ve been thinking about why I was so frustrated when I shared a room and bathroom with Alli. I think it was because she was so able to communicate, connect, and show her love for you and dad. She was femininity. She let you touch her, kiss her. She talked about her crushes with you. She promised to take care of you when you grew old.
Seth was the boy I couldn’t be. Competitive, brilliant, whip-smart, and honest. There are no walls with him. Just power, joy, and an almost saintly-altruism. The two of them could connect with you— physically embrace you without a rush of irrational anxiety.
I performed warmth and joy in school plays. I demonstrated physical power and prowess at diving practice. But meets often led to tears, and plays would end in my deflecting hugs, flowers, and compliments. I was everything and nothing: athlete, art-freak, hard, soft, powerful, vulnerably, girly, tomboy, happy, sad, shy, confident, and nobody could touch me. It was as if one touch could make everything that I’d constructed from age 1-18 tumble to the ground. I was human Jenga and worried that the pieces would fall to reveal nothing. I still sometimes fear that I'm nothing more than an air bubble.
I lie awake at night and think about what it would look like if we pulled our insides out through our ears and laid them on a big patch of grass. Would my wiring and your wiring look like twins? Fraternal? Flattened insects? Yours would probably look like your grandmother and mine would look like a butterfly that’s supposed to mean something.
I’m not going to wear a butterfly pin on my cardigan when I get older, but maybe I’ll look at a small bug and think about you. I’ll drive to a beach with my kid and see 300 insects in a tree and cry and let myself be touched by it all.
Did you enjoy this? Did you hate this? Do you want me to create more of a through-line in these word blobs or are the random anecdotes enough to keep you going?
-Meg
Social- @megspope @mpopetweets
Venmo- @mpope-venmo-26
Website- meganpopework.com
Donate to The Audre Lorde Project
Movie Of The Week: This week I watched Transhood and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Promo Of The Week: Instead of reveling in Thanksgiving culture, follow and support these 25 brilliant indigenous comedians.
Thought Of The Week:
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