As I grab the little step stool so I can see over the counter, I see flour flying around the kitchen while my grandmother’s arms move in an aggressive, circula...
At the end of CONTRA-TIEMPO’s joyUS justUS, the entirety of the stage and audience is dotted with stars. Beams come from above, freckling our faces a...
“Just go with it, just feel it out,” Joey insisted. I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t keep up with the furied chords. The sound of my snare grew faint, the thud of my kick drum dulled. I looked up desperately for a saving gaze, but it was too late – my stiff arms and gnarled fingers said no more. I stopped playing. Now all eyes were on me. Flush-faced I whispered, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” My drum sticks clacked on the concrete garage floor.
Nowhere to hide, I cried silently in my friend Kaitlin’s musty Taurus. She was the keyboard player for this band, as well as the instigator of this whole ordeal. On the car ride home she looked over and gave me a pity pat, “It’s okay, you’ll get it next time.” But she was wrong, I didn’t get it next time or even the time after that. I actually didn’t get it for a really long time....
My family used to live at 15 Olivier Place, Kingston 8, Jamaica. I wrote it at the top of all the letters I penned to my little sister, Lisie, who shared a bedroom with me. I spent 11 years in that grey townhouse, one of about one hundred similar to it....
When I returned to California, I brought my diaries into the backyard every afternoon and read them through sequentially, with the hope of learning more about the years before my brain injury....
