FamilyEducation Blogs

September 22, 2009

My first crack deal

I heard my mother calling me. "Lia."
I walked into the living room. "Yes?"

"I want you to go downstairs to meet someone for me. Give her this." My mother placed a piece of crack in my hand. It was presentably packaged in a plastic sandwich bag. [more]

September 18, 2009

Christmas memories

I plugged in the Christmas tree lights, took my Barbie dolls out of an old shoe box, and placed them underneath the tree. I imagined the Christmas lights were those of Times Square on New Year's Eve.

Imagination allowed me to get away from what was real -- another Christmas without presents. [more]

September 17, 2009

He’s still there.

My mother shook my body until I woke up. "Nana’s downstairs. She wants you to spend the night with her." I got out of bed and took a quick look at the clock. It was after eleven! I got dressed.

We walked from our apartment to the public housing project where my grandmother lived. It was dark. I was half asleep. Nana tightly held my hand. I wasn’t aware of crossing streets or going through the park. Several times Nana called out, "Talia!" Startled, I opened my eyes. I was veering off. [more]

May 8, 2009

Wormologist

The best time to make a sand cake was after the rain has settled down. The sand held together better when it was soggy.

This week has been rainy. I walked toward school, looked down, and saw worms crawling on the sidewalk. I stopped to remember the days I would pick up a worm, put it into a paper cup and poke at it with a stick.

I smiled, stepped over the worms, and walked into the building. [more]

April 15, 2009

Spare Me My Childhood

We assume our childhoods are past, that we have grown to maturity. Until our childhoods confront us.

Recently, childhood memories I locked in a black box at the back of my mind are finding their way out. [more]

March 26, 2009

The Little Girl

The therapist asked me for my earliest memory of myself.

I remember at age four standing in the middle of our living room floor wearing an extra-large, bright yellow t-shirt. If it is true that our brains are patterned after our childhood, than I am an adult that has simply grown into a t-shirt that was once too big.

If a child never learned to swim, do we expect him as an adult to hold a mouthful of air and dive under water? [more]

March 24, 2009

Bloody love

I opened the email. I read. It caused a memory that nearly paralyzed me.

“AM I RIGHT OR WRONG!?”

He screamed at my mother, squeezing his hands around her throat.

Before he blackened her eye blue, before her face swelled, before she surrendered to be beaten, he demanded an answer.

She never answered.

And I couldn’t reply. [more]