We get into the Seattle airport at three in the morning, drunk on Jack Daniels. Our flight was delayed six hours and our eyes are red and raw, pinched and muddled at the corners. There are no cabs in the taxi line, so we take a group limo into downtown, buzzed and tired and mesmerized by the ceiling lights as if it’s prom night. The hotel is on a sloped hill with a view of the lake, or the bay, or the sound. I don’t know: there is so much water, so many bridges and ferries and overpasses, that it’s impossible to tell sometimes where water ends and land begins. People here will never know what being landlocked feels like; they will always know the comfort of looking into that oceanic abyss.
The next day it is freezing: legitimately, honestly, East Coast freezing. I buy a hat even though it looks silly on me. We go to the original Starbucks and drink clover brewed coffee. We go to a French bakery and eat chocolate macarons. Everyone here is so nice; they have grown used to rain, learned to cope with its emotional partner grumpiness, and so when the sun shines they are giddy like children. A random woman walking down the street smiles at me and says, “I like your hat.”
In high school I was too embarrassed to go to my family doctor for birth control. I knew that I would be soon consummating my relationship with my high school boyfriend, and I knew that in addition to condoms, in order to protect myself from pregnancy, I needed to go on the Pill. I knew this because of Planned Parenthood’s informed, objective materials. Our middle school sex ed classes were nothing but hour-long smirk sessions, so the Internet was my sex education class. If it hadn’t been for Planned Parenthood’s website, I may never have found a comprehensive resource that gave me honest information about all forms of birth control–abstinence included!
When I finally told her, my mother was unwaveringly supportive. Many teens don’t have this luxury. I was 17 years old and I was mature and responsible about it. I knew that if I was going to have sex I needed to go on the Pill. Where did I procure this Pill? From my local Planned Parenthood Center. Yes, even middle class white girls who have their parents’ support use Planned Parenthood. Why? Because it’s a health clinic, one with informed medical personnel who withhold judgment, one with prorated prescription plans, one that I knew I could trust even more than my family doctor.
The first boy I ever had a crush on very rarely took off his Chicago Bulls hoodie. We lived in Pennsylvania, so location-wise this fandom didn’t make much sense. He occasionally swapped it for a Pittsburgh Steelers pullover, but now when I picture him it is always with his gangly, pre-teen boy silhouette hugged by the Chicago Bulls logo.
We never forget the first people we fall innocently for, especially because they are often times the first people to teach us about rejection. I was a precocious 8-year-old, a mop-headed know it all, always raising my hand and telling other kids “that’s against the rules” and taking the teacher to task when I thought the day’s lesson material “wasn’t important.” I had a sweetness that lay close to the surface but was often masked by my academic competitiveness. My first crush taught me that being smart is unattractive, and that being outspoken is unfeminine.
Once at a meeting for the 5th grade yearbook, I overheard several of the mothers–including his–talking about who their sons should date. They voted unanimously for Molly, a lithe, golden-haired dancer with a soft, lispy voice. When one of them said I was too loud, it was the first time I learned what girls were supposed to be like: not tree climbers or math whizzes, not Pokemon card collectors or strong-willed superheroes. Girls were supposed to be like Molly, all delicate angles and quiet grace.
When I was 19, the thought of having to spend the summer after my freshman year of college at my Dad’s house working at the paint your own pottery studio and fighting with my sister about the car was, in one word, unacceptable. As soon as February melted into March, I began thinking about places to escape to that summer. I wanted to stay in New York but I couldn’t afford the housing. I contemplated renting a room in an old Victorian house in San Francisco run by a man with a Hotmail e-mail account, but I was a little too intimidated by that idea. Instead, when my Aunt and Uncle told me they were taking a two month vacation and needed someone to watch their house in Los Angeles, I jumped at the offer. I flew there in the beginning of June and shortly thereafter they left me with a stack of $20’s and instructions to “help yourself to the liquor cabinet.” I was 19 and it seemed too good to be true.
I am just a kid and my family and I are walking to the playground near my elementary school. We are at the top of the hill that overlooks the baseball fields, the volleyball court, the squat one-story school building. Just beyond the school you can see the tops of the jungle gym equipment and the trees that lead to the murky pond nearby. I am walking my dog, who I insisted on bringing with us even though he is poorly behaved, constantly yanking on the leash and chasing imaginary birds. As we round the crest of the field there is a loud crash, the unmistakable sound of metal smashing skin. Suddenly, my mother is running. I can’t remember ever seeing her run before, but now she is bolting towards the noise.