(no subject)
>
1995
Liz
As the plane was coming closer to kissing the sky, I was torn between wanting to kiss it too, and wanting to leap down, back to New York City, and keep it just the way it looked from my airplane seat. I wanted to keep it as the tiny Polly Pocket any city, I wanted to reach down and put Broadway in my pocket. I could set up my own New Yorker Polly Pockets and make them buy tiny pretzels and wear tiny fuzzy hats from a tiny Bloomingdales when it snowed New York snow.
Eventually the airplane window lost sight of New York (but does anyone really?) and no other views were as exciting. There were no other views or other places that filled me with so many different feelings, and all the feelings seemed to stick around and make me realize that I was born a New Yorker. When I was young and had only been there in movies and dreams, I could still close my eyes and place myself in NYC. I always knew that I belonged there. I could picture myself in the place of one of those Polly Pockets, in a fuzzy hat and black peacoat, holding a coffee and letting the snowflakes stick to my nose and eyelashes. And if you looked down you could see my face in the busy parade of winter New Yorkers.
I was on the plane to Courage, giving up a NYC Christmas in place of a three-year awkward family reunion. I was trading in the big apple for a small town that smelled like fish.
I had never liked Courage. My whole life there I felt like a thing in a cage, a teenager in the middle of a fight that had been pulled back by three worried friends, and now all she was was angry thoughts and heavy breathing. Always struggling inside and always about to spring back and start fighting again.
But the first minute I came to NYC, the first minute I stretched out my arms and spun around at Times Square, the latch on the cage dissolved. The three worried friends let go but I decided to shake hands and give a kiss on the cheek.
The woman sitting next to me reminded me of mom before she found Michael. She had dank hair and sunken in eyes highlighted with black circles and blue eyeshadow. Her clothes were hanging off her. She looked like she needed a cigarette. Or maybe that was just because I needed one myself. I had been smoking since I was sixteen, the exact day after my dad had died. I had seen that cigarette as a friend. Now it turned out to be a pirate in disguise with a black eye patch and a smoky after taste.
I decided I could face Courage. I could face it with the letter in my pocket that Richie gave me before I got on the airplane. I already missed them, my New York family, the ones who called me Apple. Richie and Matilda, their boyfriends Kenny and Ben. How I never felt like a fifth wheel, I was just Apple. How we were that crazy hipster group that took over NYC and soaked in the city like five young sponges. We were going to have our own holly jolly New York Christmas with egg nog and parties and elf shoes and chai tea and homemade Christmas cards with glitter and magic marker and studio apartments and Saturday Night Live and Time’s Square. At least I would get back for New Year’s, I would walk in the room with a balloon and streamers and a whistle.
I had a Polaroid of the five of us in my wallet. We were all jamming on a bright yellow couch. I was sitting in the middle, the bottoms of my chestnut pudding hair flying off in different directions. Matilda had her knobby elbows rested on my shoulders, her long sleek black hair like silk on her back and her beautiful cat eyes piercing the Polaroid paper, almost burning two holes through the instant film paper. Richie and Kenny were popping their heads out from opposite ends of the couch. They had the same mischievous eyes. Kenny’s rainbow dreadlocks were sticking out from his head. Ben was standing behind Matilda, staring in a loving trance at her silky hair.
On the plane I dreamed about Bing Crosby Larsons Christmases past, the feeling of safety and love we all had that was now scarce and forgotten.
When the plane landed I was still half-asleep. My eyelashes were bitten with sticky dew and everyone had a friendly glow. I would love to always live through these eyes.
I had a small black carry - on when I left. It was decorated with felt stars and red ribbons. I picked up my large brown suitcase with travel stickers and I waited on a lonely bench for the tired travelers and the ones who didn’t have people to meet them at the gate. I had someone, but they were always late.
Ruthie. She was always late. I still found it funny that she was old enough to drive. I was more butterflies - excited to see my Ruthie - love than anyone else this Christmas. I hadn’t seen her since I moved to New York three years before, but we had compulsively sent crazy, girly sister love letters almost every day. It was almost like I had been there with her, and in some ways I was. I was with her when she graduated high school, when she got into college, when Kurt Cobain died and when she fell in love. She had described it all in her fast, hipster, free spirited words in grapevine scented letters. Her words jumped off the page and gave me sister kisses.
If I had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have recognized her when she came in. She was looking more and more like our mother, except for the laughing freckles that speckled her nose and cheeks and arms. She had either gotten thinner or taller, and she wasn’t the grunge faerie she was before. Her black curls were somewhat tamed and didn’t spiral out like snakes anymore. Instead they slithered down her back. She looked stronger, more wise. Although I could tell she hadn’t changed when she gleefully ignored me and began purchasing a pack of candy floss. I caught onto the game of sisters and I stood beside her, looking at a rack of glossy magazines. Ruthie inched closer to me, and eventually, at the same time I turned around to face her snake curls and happy freckles, she threw her candy floss into the air like Mary Tyler Moore throwing up her hat, and gave me a giant hug. We stood there hugging for about five minutes, holding on to the warm feeling that we had starved for, for three years.
Erin
I was bringing my new kisses to Christmas. This time my kisses were tall. They were basketball playing kisses. I was guaranteed one every time a powerful netted basket caught a ball from my kiss’s hands. My new kisses reminded me of elementary dodgeball games, and bottles of water at halftime.
I never liked sports.
I had had lots of kisses. Sporty kisses that tasted like Gatorade showers, artsy kisses that smelled like acrylic paint and kissy kisses that tasted like kissy kisses full of kissy dew and kissy eye batting. When it came down to it, they were all kisses. Kisses from kisses who for some reason loved Erin kisses. If they knew all of her, they wouldn’t stick around. There would be no point. Kisses were kisses were kisses. What I felt was relief for being seen with a kiss.
Along with my new kisses at Christmas, I was also bringing my Miss Amber Kelly. Miss Amber Kelly had a heart shaped love head and curly golden love curls and red heart shaped lips that had been deprived of kisses. Miss Amber Kelly and I, and my most recent kisses always planned to go to Europe. It was finally coming. It was the last year of plastic high school days and after we got our diplomas we would hop into Miss Amber Kelly’s sunshine power yellow car and drive, throwing our hats into the air. I wondered who my kisses would be by then. I couldn’t keep them for very long.
But right now it was wintertime. Snowflakes danced down to the ground and mingled with the creatures who didn’t remember how to fly. The whole world was sugar coated. And for now, Miss Amber Kelly, Basketball Kisses and I drove in Miss Amber Kelly’s sunshine power yellow car down six streets to my Courage Queen Mother and her new king’s palace.
The palace was gignormus. There were royal princess plants guarding the family and the sun seemed to shine just so it could help show off the perfect modern glazed windows and the whirly Popsicle tower. The palace had creamy white pillars that were the kind for Gene Kelly to spin around in the rain, and pixies to twirl their flowery vines around.
The three peasants with royal family connections (I never was a real princess) stepped into the palace. We took off our high top shoes and plunked down brick - like backpacks. When our sound was heard, the Queen rushed down to the door, her pink heels tapping against the shiny new floors. She let go with a piercing screech of happiness and she locked her daughter in a royal hug.
My words were squeezed out of me by arms covered in fancy sleeves and silver bracelets as I questioned the excitement.
"I know I saw you four days ago, darling, and it made me very happy! As I am now!" the Queen was suddenly aware of the tall Basketball Kisses. She raised her finely waxed eyebrows at me.
"Who are you?" she asked directly, already knowing the answer.
"My name’s John." Said Basketball Kisses, peeling off a dark blue jacket the same color as his jersey.
"Well Erin, Velma told me you had a new luvuh. Good choice this time. Oh… hello Amber! Well, everyone come in. Michael’s making crepes. Now John, what kind of a crepe - head are you?"
Basketball Kisses didn’t even know what crepe - heads were.
My mom came to the kitchen and sat on a rainbow colored stool, crossing her legs. "We have strawberry and powered sugar crepes, potato and cinnamon crepes, and also my personal favorite, the cream crepes." She leaned over to Basketball Kisses, sharing a devious secret. "They’re really just Twinkies, but we’ve sprinkled them with a very fancy pink sugar."
Basketball Kisses decided to just have water, while Miss Amber Kelly and I indulged ourselves in the spicy pepper crepes and the Twinkies. Miss Amber Kelly and I shared a very large love of food. Our favorite was cookie dough. Sometimes at school we would share little green containers of cookie dough and eat it with wooden spoons with long root beer float handles.
1995
Liz
As the plane was coming closer to kissing the sky, I was torn between wanting to kiss it too, and wanting to leap down, back to New York City, and keep it just the way it looked from my airplane seat. I wanted to keep it as the tiny Polly Pocket any city, I wanted to reach down and put Broadway in my pocket. I could set up my own New Yorker Polly Pockets and make them buy tiny pretzels and wear tiny fuzzy hats from a tiny Bloomingdales when it snowed New York snow.
Eventually the airplane window lost sight of New York (but does anyone really?) and no other views were as exciting. There were no other views or other places that filled me with so many different feelings, and all the feelings seemed to stick around and make me realize that I was born a New Yorker. When I was young and had only been there in movies and dreams, I could still close my eyes and place myself in NYC. I always knew that I belonged there. I could picture myself in the place of one of those Polly Pockets, in a fuzzy hat and black peacoat, holding a coffee and letting the snowflakes stick to my nose and eyelashes. And if you looked down you could see my face in the busy parade of winter New Yorkers.
I was on the plane to Courage, giving up a NYC Christmas in place of a three-year awkward family reunion. I was trading in the big apple for a small town that smelled like fish.
I had never liked Courage. My whole life there I felt like a thing in a cage, a teenager in the middle of a fight that had been pulled back by three worried friends, and now all she was was angry thoughts and heavy breathing. Always struggling inside and always about to spring back and start fighting again.
But the first minute I came to NYC, the first minute I stretched out my arms and spun around at Times Square, the latch on the cage dissolved. The three worried friends let go but I decided to shake hands and give a kiss on the cheek.
The woman sitting next to me reminded me of mom before she found Michael. She had dank hair and sunken in eyes highlighted with black circles and blue eyeshadow. Her clothes were hanging off her. She looked like she needed a cigarette. Or maybe that was just because I needed one myself. I had been smoking since I was sixteen, the exact day after my dad had died. I had seen that cigarette as a friend. Now it turned out to be a pirate in disguise with a black eye patch and a smoky after taste.
I decided I could face Courage. I could face it with the letter in my pocket that Richie gave me before I got on the airplane. I already missed them, my New York family, the ones who called me Apple. Richie and Matilda, their boyfriends Kenny and Ben. How I never felt like a fifth wheel, I was just Apple. How we were that crazy hipster group that took over NYC and soaked in the city like five young sponges. We were going to have our own holly jolly New York Christmas with egg nog and parties and elf shoes and chai tea and homemade Christmas cards with glitter and magic marker and studio apartments and Saturday Night Live and Time’s Square. At least I would get back for New Year’s, I would walk in the room with a balloon and streamers and a whistle.
I had a Polaroid of the five of us in my wallet. We were all jamming on a bright yellow couch. I was sitting in the middle, the bottoms of my chestnut pudding hair flying off in different directions. Matilda had her knobby elbows rested on my shoulders, her long sleek black hair like silk on her back and her beautiful cat eyes piercing the Polaroid paper, almost burning two holes through the instant film paper. Richie and Kenny were popping their heads out from opposite ends of the couch. They had the same mischievous eyes. Kenny’s rainbow dreadlocks were sticking out from his head. Ben was standing behind Matilda, staring in a loving trance at her silky hair.
On the plane I dreamed about Bing Crosby Larsons Christmases past, the feeling of safety and love we all had that was now scarce and forgotten.
When the plane landed I was still half-asleep. My eyelashes were bitten with sticky dew and everyone had a friendly glow. I would love to always live through these eyes.
I had a small black carry - on when I left. It was decorated with felt stars and red ribbons. I picked up my large brown suitcase with travel stickers and I waited on a lonely bench for the tired travelers and the ones who didn’t have people to meet them at the gate. I had someone, but they were always late.
Ruthie. She was always late. I still found it funny that she was old enough to drive. I was more butterflies - excited to see my Ruthie - love than anyone else this Christmas. I hadn’t seen her since I moved to New York three years before, but we had compulsively sent crazy, girly sister love letters almost every day. It was almost like I had been there with her, and in some ways I was. I was with her when she graduated high school, when she got into college, when Kurt Cobain died and when she fell in love. She had described it all in her fast, hipster, free spirited words in grapevine scented letters. Her words jumped off the page and gave me sister kisses.
If I had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have recognized her when she came in. She was looking more and more like our mother, except for the laughing freckles that speckled her nose and cheeks and arms. She had either gotten thinner or taller, and she wasn’t the grunge faerie she was before. Her black curls were somewhat tamed and didn’t spiral out like snakes anymore. Instead they slithered down her back. She looked stronger, more wise. Although I could tell she hadn’t changed when she gleefully ignored me and began purchasing a pack of candy floss. I caught onto the game of sisters and I stood beside her, looking at a rack of glossy magazines. Ruthie inched closer to me, and eventually, at the same time I turned around to face her snake curls and happy freckles, she threw her candy floss into the air like Mary Tyler Moore throwing up her hat, and gave me a giant hug. We stood there hugging for about five minutes, holding on to the warm feeling that we had starved for, for three years.
Erin
I was bringing my new kisses to Christmas. This time my kisses were tall. They were basketball playing kisses. I was guaranteed one every time a powerful netted basket caught a ball from my kiss’s hands. My new kisses reminded me of elementary dodgeball games, and bottles of water at halftime.
I never liked sports.
I had had lots of kisses. Sporty kisses that tasted like Gatorade showers, artsy kisses that smelled like acrylic paint and kissy kisses that tasted like kissy kisses full of kissy dew and kissy eye batting. When it came down to it, they were all kisses. Kisses from kisses who for some reason loved Erin kisses. If they knew all of her, they wouldn’t stick around. There would be no point. Kisses were kisses were kisses. What I felt was relief for being seen with a kiss.
Along with my new kisses at Christmas, I was also bringing my Miss Amber Kelly. Miss Amber Kelly had a heart shaped love head and curly golden love curls and red heart shaped lips that had been deprived of kisses. Miss Amber Kelly and I, and my most recent kisses always planned to go to Europe. It was finally coming. It was the last year of plastic high school days and after we got our diplomas we would hop into Miss Amber Kelly’s sunshine power yellow car and drive, throwing our hats into the air. I wondered who my kisses would be by then. I couldn’t keep them for very long.
But right now it was wintertime. Snowflakes danced down to the ground and mingled with the creatures who didn’t remember how to fly. The whole world was sugar coated. And for now, Miss Amber Kelly, Basketball Kisses and I drove in Miss Amber Kelly’s sunshine power yellow car down six streets to my Courage Queen Mother and her new king’s palace.
The palace was gignormus. There were royal princess plants guarding the family and the sun seemed to shine just so it could help show off the perfect modern glazed windows and the whirly Popsicle tower. The palace had creamy white pillars that were the kind for Gene Kelly to spin around in the rain, and pixies to twirl their flowery vines around.
The three peasants with royal family connections (I never was a real princess) stepped into the palace. We took off our high top shoes and plunked down brick - like backpacks. When our sound was heard, the Queen rushed down to the door, her pink heels tapping against the shiny new floors. She let go with a piercing screech of happiness and she locked her daughter in a royal hug.
My words were squeezed out of me by arms covered in fancy sleeves and silver bracelets as I questioned the excitement.
"I know I saw you four days ago, darling, and it made me very happy! As I am now!" the Queen was suddenly aware of the tall Basketball Kisses. She raised her finely waxed eyebrows at me.
"Who are you?" she asked directly, already knowing the answer.
"My name’s John." Said Basketball Kisses, peeling off a dark blue jacket the same color as his jersey.
"Well Erin, Velma told me you had a new luvuh. Good choice this time. Oh… hello Amber! Well, everyone come in. Michael’s making crepes. Now John, what kind of a crepe - head are you?"
Basketball Kisses didn’t even know what crepe - heads were.
My mom came to the kitchen and sat on a rainbow colored stool, crossing her legs. "We have strawberry and powered sugar crepes, potato and cinnamon crepes, and also my personal favorite, the cream crepes." She leaned over to Basketball Kisses, sharing a devious secret. "They’re really just Twinkies, but we’ve sprinkled them with a very fancy pink sugar."
Basketball Kisses decided to just have water, while Miss Amber Kelly and I indulged ourselves in the spicy pepper crepes and the Twinkies. Miss Amber Kelly and I shared a very large love of food. Our favorite was cookie dough. Sometimes at school we would share little green containers of cookie dough and eat it with wooden spoons with long root beer float handles.