I just want my bathroom to be white
bright flashes of wavelengths reflected in beams
the way childhood Bible stories depict entering the gates of heaven
illusion prevails
so-called Crusaders shed blood under the guise of so-called holy wars
ethnocentrism, xenophobia, bigotry
Jesus was a white man with blue eyes, light brown hair
no he wasn’t
no He wasn’t
and I’m still so small
all I want is a blinding white bathroom
to ease me out of sleep, to muffle my bad dreams
bleach, Q-tips, crevices
Amazon Prime a new shower curtain
mildew resistant, no chemical odor
no signs of life, nope not here
a behemoth brand service evolves into a verb
securing its place in the social lexicon
because things are moving quick-quick-quicker
but illusion prevails
as oceans take on packaging, plastic, bubble wrap, cellophane
the way cheap shampoo makes my hair smell like fresh laundry
sodium laureth sulfate, dimethicone, hexylene glycol
apple fruit extract for good measure
coco-betaine for suds
and illusion prevails
and illusion prevails

My mom was a babe back in the day. I find her beautiful now too, all linen and long necklaces and a waterfall of silver hair. Back in the day, though, she was the poster child for ’60s-era swag. She ironed her dark brown, waist-length hair—with a clothing iron—to get it silky, shiny and straight. She wore short skirts over long legs and tank tops just snug enough. She drank Sprite from the can and captained her high school cheer squad. And yes, she wore white lipstick. She kept it around long enough that I played with it as a child, dressing up in her pearls and gowns too.

When my mom’s mom died in February 2016, my born family of four—mom, dad, sister, me—took a collective step toward death. My grandma was my last remaining grandparent. Save the unforeseeable, my parents will go next. This makes me think. About texts I fail to return, about the fact that I’ve lived states away since graduating college in 2004. About what all that means, and how it’s perceived.

My parents, having learned from theirs, are in the slow process of clearing out their basement. Years ago, it housed a lifetime of memories. Books from my childhood, board games, dance costumes, Easter dresses. Bibles. Embroidered cotton napkins. Journals, mine and my mom’s. All the salvaged things that tell stories words never could.

I wish they hadn’t tossed everything. But I know why they did. They didn’t want me and my sister to have to wade through box after box of…stuff. Stuff. They envisioned estate sales preceded by long Sunday afternoons in a basement, weeding through things that would remind us that, oh yeah, our parents are dead.

For my parents, the stuff was just that. But for me, the stuff meant memories. Things I kinda can’t believe got pitched into the garbage like leftovers kept in the fridge a day too long.

Then, I think: it’s like a song, your favorite song. You’ve haven’t heard it in awhile. But the chorus kicks in, and you pick it back up. Before you know it, you see you never actually forgot. Then you realize, you never actually could.

Sometimes, you have to force yourself to do things that are uncomfortable simply to prove to yourself that you can. You might know you can do it, intrinsically. But you won’t know you can do it until you actually do it. What I mean is, you can tell yourself that you can do it, day after day after day. You can even really believe it. And maybe that’s enough. For awhile. Until it’s not anymore. And then you have to do the thing to quiet that voice flirting with the dangerous thought of shit, maybe you can’t.

When you silence that voice with action, it feels like a coming out of sorts. A declaration. Hello, world. This is me. You don’t have to like it, but it’s Who I Am. And I happen to like it, so you can fuck right off.

Now, that box is checked. I’m free to shift my vision toward new goals. I have a specific reach that is more intense, and without a public face. But for now, right this second, I’m just proud. Of me.

Lately, you study me. You watch what I do. You know I’m a winter baby, born in the season of a muted world during a month that’s neither here nor there. Unpredictable, too. Feathery flakes, dirty slush, ice cold rain, spring’s blue-sky breakthrough—it’s anyone’s guess.

You’re a summer baby, born in the rolling heat of late August when even the pavement sweats. You look at me. Do you trust me? Do I trust me? This will be our lifelong match. “You can tell me anything, always,” I say. You nod. But you don’t tell me much. That’s ok. That’s not the important part. The important part is that you know you can.

I eat my broccoli. I’m ok with broccoli, but really, I just want you to eat broccoli. I don’t do that thing where I emphatically proclaim, “Gosh, this broccoli tastes good!” I’m quiet about it. Measured. I know you’re watching. I know what I do means more than anything I say. You ate broccoli with dinner last night. Didn’t complain or flinch or say anything at all. Ate it. All of it.

I used to think I had to birth all the babies in the world to make up for the women who couldn’t. For the women like my cousin, who enjoyed a joyful pregnancy for six months before cradling her stillborn baby for hours, until they made her stop. I can’t change that.

But we’re here now. We’ve sat by the fire on biting winter nights. We’ve rescued summertime ice cream cones from melting to the ground. We’ve known all along there are no guarantees, but that we’ve got all the love in the world.

Historically, clear liquor has been the liquor for me. Vodka, gin, tequila, yes. It always seemed purer to me, which I know sounds ridiculous considering the body recognizes most alcohol as poison. It’s true, though, that brown liquor contains more methanol than clear liquor. Methanol—which, as evident from my two-second research, breaks down into formaldehyde and formic acid—tends to make a hangover worse. So, in a sense, clear liquor is purer, depending on your standard.

Lately, though, I order Old Fashioneds. I order Manhattans. I find myself reaching for Bulleit bourbon from my brass bar cart more often than my trusty Hendrick’s gin. There’s an edge to it that I like, a little twist that doesn’t appear on the resumé of my clear beloved friends.

It could also just be that I’m so accustomed to clear liquors that they no longer have the desired effect. It could totally just be that.

There are three words that, if occupying a public-facing role at a Walt Disney theme park, you are not allowed to say to customers: I don’t know. Uttering this phrase is grounds for termination. You can say things like, “Let me find out,” or “That’s a great question!” but to admit total ignorance is a grave mistake.

If you occupy a public-facing role at a Walt Disney theme park, you are not an employee. You are a cast member. You do not interact with customers. You interact with guests. And your sole responsibility is to preserve the magic—to never, under any circumstance, allow the seams to show in the seamless experience that is Disney.

Spending a day at a Disney theme park is, for many, anything but magical. The crowds are overwhelming at best and unbearable at worst, with some 50,000 people visiting each park daily. The heat takes a toll, despite several under-shade resting spots that dot each pathway. Children are tired, crying and whining. Parents have reached their limit. Souvenirs are overpriced—hell, everything is overpriced, from lemonade to keychains.

Whether pleasurable or not, the entire experience is, by all standards, tightly controlled. You won’t see gum sticking to the streets as unsightly, dirty blobs, because Disney parks don’t sell gum for that reason. You won’t see uniformed security guards, because they’re disguised as tourists—and they’re everywhere, always on the lookout for raucous behavior. You won’t see trash on the ground, because trash cans are meticulously spaced every 30 feet. Why that number? When designing the park, Walt Disney observed that most people were willing to carry their garbage up to 30 feet before disposing of it (usually on the ground).

You’ll also never see trash itself, thanks to the underground system of tubes and tunnels that transports everything from garbage to gift shop inventory to costumed characters— who, incidentally, are absolutely required to stay in full costume while “on stage” in the park. Playing Donald Duck and need to throw up? Do it in the mask, then signal to another cast member—by covering one eye and raising one hand—that you need to exit immediately.

Cast members who work the attraction lines also don special clothing, and when directing guests on and off the rides, they always use two fingers—index and middle—to point. One finger is considered rude in some cultures, and besides, using two fingers simply appears more polite.

“The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” To me, this quote, often attributed to Aristotle, summarizes the hallmark of an open mind. We are human. We are limited. We are intelligent, sentient beings, but we exist within boundaries that we either refuse to recognize or simply fail to grasp. As a species, we are capable of breathtaking acts of compassion and innovative strategies toward progress. We are capable of unspeakable evil.

In Disney’s mind, we are one, and we exist in a purgatory of sorts that straddles the real world and that of cartoons. In Disney’s mind, a layer of reality is stripped, removed, discarded and hushed over. And whatever the case may be, whoever we are and regardless of what we encounter, we can never say that we don’t know.

For me, Christmas this year was akin to waiting in a long line for an amusement park ride that in the end, kind of sucked. A lot of time for a little thrill. A month of looking for deals, spending money, wrapping gifts, attending parties, avoiding parties, getting dressed up, eating bad food, drinking too much, all for one measly day that stretched on forever and ended up, as usual, being pretty fucking boring.

Then, it was over. Like it never happened.

I feel guilty saying this because I have a child. Parents are supposed to make Christmas magical for kids, right? Not just the day itself, but the whole season. I remember that feeling—the tree lights at night, stockings on the mantel. Going to the movies with my dad, who took two weeks off his corporate job to be with his family. The whole thing was special, joyful, comforting.

I tried. I decorated the mantel, put up a tree. Haphazardly framed a window in white lights. I bought him lots of things. Stuffed his stocking with candy. Set out cookies and milk for Santa, blah, blah, blah. But the day itself just kind of…came and went.

Today, the day after Christmas, all the stores, cafes and restaurants are open again. Things feel normal, which I appreciate. But are they supposed to, already? Did I do it all wrong? Should I try harder next year? Does any of this matter? If so, why?

I don’t like Christmas.

For a while, I was on a fake-eyelash kick. They look killer. You can choose from three styles: natural (people probably wouldn’t notice you have fake eyelashes at all, just that you look fucking great), glam (a little more over the top), or super glam (Kardashian). I always went for natural. They defined the shape of my eyes really well, and they replaced both mascara and eyeliner. They were good.

But they were costly and time consuming, to the tune of $100 EVERY THREE WEEKS. You could stretch it to four, and sometimes I did. But that annoyed my lash lady because there’d be so many more lashes to replace, one by one.

She was a character, my lash lady. A short, overweight woman with dark curly hair and cold hands. She smoked, which was kind of unpleasant when her fingers were so close to my nose and face.

I’d always get my lashes done early on Saturday mornings. The process typically takes just under two hours. They try to make it nice. You lie on a heated bed. There’s music playing. It’s peaceful, but you know, your eyes are taped shut. If you try to open them, you can’t. That’s an odd sensation, one that feels vaguely life threatening if you were to encounter a life threat.

Plus, there’s an intense, bright light shining right on your face so the lash person can assess what they’re doing. I’m certain that from the outside, the whole thing looks like interrogation.

That was all fine with me until one day, several months into my relationship with fake lashes, something strange happened during my appointment. I fucking flipped out. First, I started blinking uncontrollably—as much as one can blink with their eyes taped shut—and my lash lady asked if I was ok. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so. I need to sit up.”

She set down her tools and brought me a glass of water, but by then I was in the throes of a classic panic attack: heart racing, palms cold and sweating, short of breath, sure of impending heart attack/death/doom. I did what I know you’re supposed to do. I placed my hands on my stomach and focused on breathing. In, out, all that. It kind of worked, but I couldn’t finish the appointment.

From that point on, my lash appointments just weren’t the same. I never experienced another full-blown attack, but there were a couple of mini ones—and perhaps worse, always the fear that another big one would strike. You never expect them, you know? They come from nowhere, and as I learned, are made worse with taped-shut eyes and a bright light.

Ultimately, I gave up fake lashes, pretty much only because the appointments made me freak out. I don’t know what changed—why for months I was fine, and suddenly I wasn’t.

I’ve returned to my trusty Maybelline mascara. I miss the look of fake lashes. I don’t miss spending that much money that often. I don’t miss waking up early some Saturdays just for the sake of vanity. And I absolutely don’t miss lying still for two hours, wondering if a panic attack was about to pounce.

The other day, without effort, a “how to deal with life” technique just…came to me. Though it might already officially exist, somewhere, I can affirm in good conscience that the thought was original in my mind. I refuse to Google it. I’d rather live my days believing that if I wanted to, I could patent the notion, author a self-help book, and move to small town nestled on a Portuguese hillside. But only if I wanted to.

I’ve deemed my idea the And So technique. Here’s what you do. Think of a challenge in your life. A problem, an issue, an obstacle. State the challenge out loud. I’ll start:

“I have a hard time managing money.”

Then, say it aloud again, except this time, add the phrase, “and so.” Like this:

“I have a hard time managing money, and so…”

Those two simple words—five little letters and a space!—nudge your brain to reach a conclusion. And the way the new sentence is phrased, the natural completion is a potential solution. This helps re-route the complaint from simply that—an idle lamentation—to a suggestion for action, or at the very least, a more mindful approach and perspective. To wit:

“I have a hard time managing money, and so I’m going to create a weekly budget.”

“I have a hard time managing money, and so I’m going to refrain from buying new clothes for three months.”

“I have a hard time managing money, and so I’m going to pay more attention to my daily expenses.”

I’ve also found the And So™ technique to be helpful in deciphering whether life matters are meaningful or bullshit. For example:

“My coworkers were gossiping about me.”

Revised:

“My coworkers were gossiping about me, and so…”

And so…what? My job is in jeopardy? (No.) My boss will overhear and believe them? (Unlikely.) My coworkers won’t ask me to do things with them? (Who the fuck cares?)

Since popping into my head, And So™ has helped me more than once. I wonder if the Portuguese market down the road from my someday house sells the kind of bread I like.

You know the feeling. You think you see someone in a crowd, someone you’d actually like to see. It’s not them. You scan the radio and identify what you believe are the first couple notes of a song you love. It’s something else. You glance at your phone and see a text, convinced for a brief moment it’s someone you want to hear from. It’s not.

Oh, little neurons. Take a seat.