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John, The Illustrator.

You drew my face once, but I never got to see what it looked like. We were waiting for the talk to begin. The tables were covered in brown paper, like the kind used to make lonely supermarket bags that never get chosen.

I was sitting across from you when you picked up a small piece of charcoal. It was after the third sketch-and-look-at-her motion that I realized what you were doing. I sat there. I  didn’t necessarily try to keep still; I was quite comfortable in that position before you started drawing.

You tossed the charcoal in front of you and I was out of my chair. Then you erased it befre I could make my way over.

I have a thousand memories like this stored away in my mind. Little moments of things we shared that I have come to learn meant nothing. It’s just as well I suppose. I’m not sure why I saw anything in these things that transpired between us. Perhaps it is because I’m a woman and my natural reaction is to assume I’m being pursued.

However, I think of how things would be if I were a man. This gesture, as trivial as it was, seemed so romantic. The way a mid-century painter is taken back by the sight of a noblewoman in the marketplace. Struck, as soon as their eyes meet, by the glance of a goddess in  passing. Alas, what a terrible plague of Shakespearean arrogance I am sickened with.

I can still hear you playing the guitar…

This one time, when I was three…

The earliest memory I have is from when I was three. I lived in New York until I was four, in some place called Yorktown Heights which no longer exists. 

This memory of course is much less like an actual recollection and much more like something I remember having experienced. Much like how one remembers going to high school, but cannot recall the specific events of each day they attended.

My memory begins with my mother and a pair of sea foam green, corduroy overalls. I was furious that she wanted me to wear them. It was however sometime in the winter, so in retrospect I harbor no resentment towards her for forcing me into them. I don’t remember anything about making it outside, but I remember playing in the snow. I don’t remember what anything looked like. I don’t remember what the air smelled like, nor can I describe the house I lived in, although I know I was on the lawn. 

But there was a flower. It was small, and purple, with a yellow center. I know I looked at it for a while. I know I wondered what it was doing there. I knew flowers weren’t supposed to be out that time of year. That little blossom of tenacity and adventure; that hue of premature splendor. 

I’ve always wondered why I have so few memories, but I’ve never questioned what presses certain moments into our minds until writing this. I’d like to think that even at my youngest, I’ve been instinctively drawn to explaining things. That I naturally marvel at the unordinary. Maybe I was born a seeker of truth…