Back Under the Stars
A retelling of the story with a few more details so you can situate yourself in my story better. I welcome feedback.
A Quote
On writing the hard parts
“Yeah. I’ve said it’s like pulling out shards of glass. I would come up to these things and not want to write them, and I would have to force myself to do it. It felt like I was pulling something out inside of me. I did that probably a thousand times.
I sort of equate it to, like, hell. Like going to Mordor, if you’ve seen Lord of the Rings.” Kerry Rawson, Slate Interview
Under the Stars - A Retelling
Because I didn’t situate you in the story…. Let’s back up.
The four of us lived on the second floor of a college apartment building in Cornell Courts—my twenty three year old mom and twenty seven year old dad. Seven year old me. Five year old sister. One year old baby brother. My parents were ambitious. Moving us to Ypsilanti so they could attend Eastern University and become something more than the Prince-ish band they were apart of a few years earlier, to become something more for us.
My father studied electrical engineering. I thought he was a genius. I learned later my mother studied microbiology or something like that. While my dad poured over books and talked a language of numbers far removed from my second grade lessons, my mother poured over nappy heads, home cooked meals, and shiny floors.
She stood in the courtyard, making small talk with other moms while we dug for China in the sandbox, while we played cops and robbers, learned to skate and chased boys on our bikes, while we made dandelion crowns and made art with sidewalk chalk.
In this courtyard, the one directly in front of our place, the one with the single swing set and nothing else, I had my first and only birthday party. It was the year I turned 7 and my sister tried to take my first, black barbie from me. In this courtyard we slid down slip and slides and ran through sprinklers. Who did these things belong to? Not us. But every summer afternoon was a party and everyone was invited.