True Florida Stories
It was a sunny February day when my family began to open Christmas presents. The Christmas tree became a plain tree, then became a Valentine’s Day tree. My mom couldn’t stand to take it down before my dad got to see it, so she redecorated as the weeks passed to have something to do with her stricken hands as the months trudged on … Read moreTransplant
I rolled down our car’s window and extended my gloved hand. Another gloved hand gave me a high school diploma, and a muffled voice congratulated me. My mom drove out of the bus loop where our graduation ceremony was hosted in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The brown brick buildings that housed the final years of my adolescence shrunk in the rear view mirror for the last time. Ahead of me: the real world … Read moreA love letter to odd jobs
A grizzled man smoking a cigarette in his Confederate flag adorned pickup truck was the first time I saw a Florida stereotype in the flesh … Read moreWarming up
The yarn slips through my fingers with a whisper, my hands following the memory of thousands of stitches looped, checked for errors and redone again. Soft cotton or bamboo works best, the gentle tug of string against the crochet hook providing just enough texture to allow a good grip on the task at hand. Ignore the ache of panic behind my eyes; focus on the stitches … Read moreKnotted thoughts
To know me is to know the color of my bedroom walls. Not the ones in my college apartment, so plastered in torn magazine covers and fading photo booth strips and stolen Home Depot paint swatches that the beige underneath is barely an afterthought. The ones in my South Florida bedroom, where I started high school and turned 18 and drafted my graduation speech in the dead of night … Read moreRaised on sunshine, addicted to the rays