Recycled Recipes: Checkered Board Watermelon

And What My Daughter Wish I Wore

Hello, the time seems to pass these days, and my son has now blown out a second candle stuck inside a cut lemon and called it my birthday candle-cake. My daughter lays her lengthy body across her temporary bed in the gray room at The Mae House and complains nothing of the sweltering heat, but instead insists I turn off the fan oscillating around the room. The sound of the motor annoys her more than my voice. Maybe, more than the outfits I wear. More specifically, more than the ones she has not approved.

Today I am reflecting on my 34th year on this earth before I turn 35 sometime tomorrow morning. I have been told recently by my mother it was 2 a.m. So now I can stop willing for a boost of energy to go down to the Office Of Vital Records and receive, finally, a birth certificate that shares when I actually arrived on this ever-shaking earth. 

I have read nearly a thousand poems this year. I have worn hundreds of outfits. And in them, I have expressed varying moods. Some that have aligned with the true one. Other times, what I wish to be and hope to share.

Can an outfit be in and of itself a manifestation?

A call forward and in?

R took these photos on my film camera the other day. As she snapped one of the three frames, a woman walked by and said with a smile, “I make my sister take photos of me too!” For which I replied, “I know, my mom makes me put her to work!” To which R responded, “MOMMY, ughh. NOT FUNNY!!” as her arms began flailing with the camera about. 

We all laughed… eventually. The joke is only partially funny and halfway gratifying. 34 has been about loving. But it has also been about finding my place. Ideally, one outside my teenage daughter’s head. I am someone’s daughter. Yes, I am someone's mother. And yes, I am a person who is very much still—however old I get—finding herself. 

It is trying and it is beautiful…