by the Coconut Girl on May 8, 2012
Everyone who drives turns left sometimes. It’s a beautiful thing to do, and it’s even more beautiful to see. A driver waits for a gap in traffic, yields, and leans in. Light glints off the grille if it’s sunny; wheels swish if there’s rain. Muscles flex with the spin of the wheel, an earring swings with the look up the lane. You know how the steering wheel pulls through the tube of your hand. Your eyes dart exactly the same way, gauging the distance. The pull of Gs is as great as the undertow or a mountain peak, but it’s right here, in your city, on your street, in that driver, who you’d help in need and who’d help you, too, red or blue.
by the Coconut Girl on May 4, 2012
It’s good to get an injury now and then, just a little one to remember the sting of a scrape or the itch of a scab. I bandage my children’s knees, pull ticks from their necks, and extract splinters from their thumbs. If the razor grazes my ankle every now and then, it reacquaints me with hurt and empathy.
“How’d you do it?” my husband Joe asked late Tuesday night, poking his head into the bathroom. He’d come to investigate the sound of running water. My finger was bleeding a lot for the size of the cut. “The glass on a picture frame snapped when I was putting it together.” Another of my too-many-projects: hanging new art in anticipation of weekend company. I looked at the orange drops scattered evenly across the sink like dots on sheet candy. Orange? Was that me? My blood mixed with water looked so different from the crimson paint I’d diluted earlier in the day for a watercolor.
I returned to the ruined picture frame on the dining room table. The drawing had been almost ready for the wall, full of brilliant circles conjured by someone named “Artis” from Louisville. When I first read the name I thought it said “Art is,” and swam in the open-endedness. But I misread, and bent the glass. Some materials are good in compression, and others in tension. Glass is. Good in neither. The frame came from far-away IKEA. The mat had been custom-cut at an art store. Chards dotted the tabletop where the children would eat their eggs come morning. With a length of white artist’s tape, I safely gathered the tiny, clear discs. There they were again, dots on a sheet. Not candy, not neat rows. But still a strange, sweet remembrance for the next time I tend another.
by the Coconut Girl on May 1, 2012
The charge in the air hasn’t changed at school yet. Next week, though, it will. Sound waves will crest higher and dip lower. Knees will itch to jump. There will be more of everything at pick-up time. More tears and clumsiness. Meaner scuffles over sandbox toys. Heartier laughs, and wider smiles.
Thirty days hold off the start of summer vacation. They’ll tear away like calendar pages in an old black and white film. Parents already feel the frenzy. Local churches and camps have been winding us up for weeks with their ads in the grass islands of parking lots. “Vacation Bible School” they announce. Cartoon jungle animals hug the bright red font on the signs. Instead of writing the number down, I picture windowless church activity rooms with painted concrete block walls, fluorescent lights, and vinyl chairs. A list of summer childcare to-dos jams my mental switchboard while I idle at the stoplight.
The children learn that school’s winding down because of the special events that take place. Mother’s Day lunches, school concerts and plays all signal a growing culmination, a sort of Spring harvest of intention, effort, and realization. Kids overhear their parents talking about summer trips and swimming lessons. It’s a bittersweet transition, especially for those graduating, or otherwise moving on.
So this is the week I grab my camera and arrive a little early to pick up my children. I sit on the bench unnoticed because they’re not looking for me yet. Both of my son’s feet press firmly on the pedals, and my daughter’s gaze stays fixed on her book. Soon we’ll have a wonderful summer, and a photo album of the way we were at school.
by the Coconut Girl on April 26, 2012
The woman stands on the grass instead of the sidewalk. I pass her on weekdays, when I get my children from school. Twelve years ago, she and I lived in the same apartment building. Now she’s near sixty, and heavier than she was. But her face looks much the same, her hair still red, her eyes kind, her lips constantly moving, whispering a mystery.
Where is her family? Far away, by death or by distance. I’ve only ever seen her alone. She dresses in clean, pressed clothes and comes to this place, in the shade between bus stops, and rocks from toe to heel.
Dappled around her are the long-ago prayers of her mother and father, and perhaps a brother. Of strangers kneeling in Venice and crowds making the hajj. Prayers of protection for the vulnerable. “Who is that lady talking to?” my young son asks. The traffic stops and frames her in his window like a portrait. His curiosity sees without judgment and blesses her. My well-wishes, always thumbing, hitch a ride on his innocence and pass through the glass. “To God,” I say. The brake lights dim and we roll on, looking for a destination she’s already found.
