before i could remember

part 1

~nothing~

Something even the Greeks couldn’t understand. The pulsing of my mother’s womb—turbid and hollow; slick like the sound of a pallet struck against a gong. Empty. Pristine. 

It was like coming out of a vacuum where the white silence that cloaked you in the womb was drowned out by the obtrusive somethingness, the presence of hands that dared touch you, lift you, name you.

You. 

The day you became someone. From nothing.

~one~

Too scared to walk, but too restless to sit still. You sucked your fingers like they were coated in sugar. Mother held your baby skull like a navel orange in the palm of her hand. You lay on the wooden floor. On the carpet. Buried yourself in grass. Too scared to walk, but too restless to sit still. 

~two~

An era of melancholy, as you crossed the threshold from slithering forward on your stomach to walking, from being cradled, to pining after the plastic dolls all the other girls clasped against their chest. Your twos were never terrible. You sat there and tarnished barbie hair with Crayola markers and scissors—content for once in your life.

Your mother brought home a new doll, this one more lifelike than the rest. You watched in fascination as her eyes scoured you with curiosity. 

Your sister.

~three~

You watched your mother hold your sister’s baby skull like a navel orange–reliving your childhood vicariously. You slowly regressed through the eyes of this marvel, till you once again were a newborn baby. 

You would lie on the floor next to your sister, both longing for the attention of your mother. Both of you: heads pressed against the floor side by side, like ripe asian pears. 

~four~

A fleeting memory of sitting on the floor next to your sister, and watching strangers speak Sanskrit in an unfamiliar house, giggling at the cousins who towered over you.

Then there was a service hall in which the floor was covered with ants and women ate on banana leaves, telling tales of those long deceased. You sat on your father’s shoulders, squealing at the hordes of black ants scampering across the floor.

~five~

You asked your father in the car: why is the moon moving farther away?

He explained parallax.

You weren’t satisfied with his reply.

~six~

Multiplication tables you thought you’d never learn, but you somehow did. Friends who taught you how to rummage in the wild and seek whimsy in every corner. Magic is real, you told yourself. 

You still tell yourself.

~seven~

The age where your sister suddenly became a child, and you held your head tall, declaring with the pompousness of a princess, I’m seven. 

The year you and your sister were like Elsa and Anna in the tundra of Arendelle. 

~eight~

You switched schools and grew comfortable in silence, with the pages of books sandwiched between your hands. You lingered in corners, spoke only if spoken to. Not shy, just quiet.

Then you met two girls who spun you around and around on the tire swing till you got dizzy with laughter. Being eight wasn’t so bad. It was beautiful.