Selected Pleasant Memories
When I was about 8 or 9 I was on a trip to visit my mother’s parents in Boulder, Colorado. My grandfather, my little cousin, and I were on a walk outside of town. We reached an opening with a fenced enclosure. In the large fenced space were horses. As I approached the edge of the field, a white horse came galloping over, right up to the fence, so close I could reach out and touch its face. It probably thought I had something to eat.
When I was in 7th grade. I was “elected” treasurer of the student council. I didn’t really have any interest in actually participating in student council, but my friend was class president and wanted a friend in her cabinet. I ran uncontested; I didn’t even have to campaign. I don’t think I even knew what a treasurer was when I was “elected”. I was tasked with helping set up the valentines day dance. As I was hanging up streamers a boy I liked ran up to me and handed me a singular pig in a blanket without explanation.
When I was in 8th grade, I took an enormous dead roach from my parents' infested basement and brought it to school in a little wooden box. When I found the opportunity, I dropped the dead roach into the backpack of a boy I disliked
I was 20 years old when I cried the whole way home back to New York from Philadelphia. I don’t know what made me so upset. On the F train, the final leg of my journey, an old Turkish man began talking to me about the book I was reading (a collection of Franz Kafka's short stories). At one point, he reached into his bag and pulled out two Coronas. He opened both and handed one to me, and we drank them as the train rumbled over Caroll Gardens.