I used to write inside the dresser drawers. First on the white paper liner, later lifting the protection and coloring beneath. Dark smooth wood. I’d scribble green and red and blue and then close it away. A hidden rendevous with beauty. A hidden wrong.
The mind is a drawer of remembracnce…
…hidden stories that rub off on clean clothes, that seep subtly into everything—a cuff stained with a fleck of red, a blue tinge on your favorite shorts.
Occasionally, in just the right weather, the dresser shakes and the drawer rumbles open, the story flies out in a kite full of gestures, paper and colors against wood and wind, soiled sox tailing the tempest, truth diving and circling the syllables.
Listen. There’s more.
Now it’s your turn. Confession is a story with a line of sorrow, the updraft of forgivenss.
It takes two. An indelible connection. No matter how dark, how closed.
Awesome (: Really Really Beutiful Photographies
I know nothing, NOTHING about the lipstick. Let's blame N for that too. Or we could blame L. She wasn't even born yet, but why should that stop us. I do remember you yelling at me for coloring over your beautimus drawer drawings, but it just wasn't as much fun to color in my own drawer. In fact it still makes me smile thinking about how fun coloring over your picture was. Worth every bit of the swat and early bedtime. Ya. Good times. Good memories.
Oh, I think this gene skips a generation. My kids color on any flat surface and are completely impervious to punishment. I just found a few more streaks of Sharpie on the end of our table the other day and you should have seen Craig when they tried to decorate the outside of the house with Sharpie last spring. Here I thought they were just out sweetly playing in the sunshine. I should have known it was all too quiet. Little did I know this gene goes WAY back!
I don't remember being punished for coloring in the drawers. Yelled at, but not punished. BUT twasn't me who scratched the headboard. I was into color and hiding. The headboard presented none of that. Better ask N….
And as long as we are at this, who was it that go the lipstick on the antique quilt… we all got spanked for that one because no one would confess…
Hey! I found those scribbles on the paper and beneath in that dresser we shared and figured since my older, wiser sister was doing it, it was OK for me to do it too. Not so. I got caught in the act and I got punished BIG time. I don't think Mother believed me when I told her I didn't do it all. Did you ever get punished for your portion? And what about the artistic scratches on the old twin headboards? I KNOW I didn't do all those either, but I paid a heavy price there too. You feelin guilty over that one too?