Three Works of Creative Nonfiction

My Guide to Slumber – A short essay of my grandmother 

When I was a kid, in a household of nine and only a couple bedrooms in a small house on Reaney Avenue, I slept with my grandmother. Forget the fact that I had bladder problems and couldn’t hold in my pee while I slept, wetting the bed pretty much every night, with my grandmother changing the sheets into whatever blanket she had stored in her closet, my grandmother has always been my place of comfort. My person.  

To fall asleep, I would caress her earlobes to slumber. My grandmother’s ears were always soft, tender, and slightly cold. A flesh of skin with a lengthy puncture from countless years of wearing earrings. My grandmother’s ears were my guide to heavy eyes.  

My grandmother wore heavy gold earrings that would poke into her skin during her daily naps. Odd shapes would always take place behind her ears. She always wore these dainty, slightly dangling earrings that had a cone-shaped front with short hanging pieces that glistened, and an s-shaped backing. It was so heavy, it would drag on her skin, stretching the holes of each earlobe. To bed, my grandmother would take them off, allowing her earlobes be the toy for me to fondle with.  

As I grew up, I lost my attachment to my grandmother. I would always ache whenever she traveled far away and I couldn’t go with. I ached as much as a little kid could. One day, she was gone for two months. During those two months, I couldn’t bear sleeping without her next to me, so I slept with my older sister. When my grandmother came back home, I wouldn’t sleep with her anymore. In some way, even as a little girl, I knew a part of her was deeply saddened by this. I will never know the real reason why I stopped sleeping with my grandmother. Maybe I began growing an attachment to my sister. Maybe I was punishing her for leaving me for so long. Maybe I was just growing up.  

Over the years, she eventually stopped wearing earrings because they were pulling on her ears too much. Her earlobes would flap against her jaw every time she walked, feeling free after years of carrying such heavy things. Giant gaping holes were visible every time she walked by.  

I don’t go home much now, being so much older and being so far away for college. But when I do, I sleep with my grandma. She would always ask where I will be sleeping; my sister or her, and when I say I will be sleeping with her, she will have the tiniest smile on her face and the softest little voice telling me, “Los nrog kuv pws mas.”  

I went home for Spring Break, sleeping with her for a week. When I got home, I noticed grandma was wearing earrings again. But not the heavy gold ones that I remember, not the ones I find myself somehow missing, but big silver clusters that extended bigger than her earlobes.  

When we went to bed, she did not take them off to sleep. When was the last time I rubbed her ears to slumber? I do not remember. 

 

Plastic Bags  

Plastic bags crunched every time he walked through piles of snow. 

He walked on snowflakes that covered all the dead greens, walked through the streets, walked into mushy walkways and snow puddles. 

In my broken sled, caused by one of my many naughty brothers, I held onto the edges for support as my dad dragged me home.  

I loved that sled because it was pink and it matched my jacket. 

My dad wore a long-knitted hat with strings hanging down by both ears. 

Pom poms were attached at the ends, just dangling along as he stomped.  

Sometimes those pom poms would hit his face, but what was one more hit to his flesh if the freezing wind already did so? 

I looked down and took notice of the lights that lit up on my feet.  

Admiring the flickering of them, and how excited I was to bring it to show & tell tomorrow. 

They were boots. Real boots. 

I looked at my dad’s feet, observing his bland, transparent ones. 

Shoes. Plastic bags over shoes. 

My dad has always been resourceful. 

He would give us everything he had even if it meant he didn’t get to have new or even nice things. 

To give us what we wanted, he sacrificed his own needs. 

We wanted sparkly things, pink on pink.  

He needed boots. Real boots. 

 

Chicken Leg vs Chicken Wing 

My sister and I, my mother and grandmother set the table for lunch or dinner, depending on when you woke up.  

Strong herbal chicken fills the room, teaming with the fresh pot of rice waving in the air. 

We sit. I, closest to my grandmother on the left, my sister, closest to my mother on the right. 

My brothers come down from their rooms to sit, one by one, as the table is done setting up for lunch or dinner, depending on when they woke up. 

My mother gives each of my brothers a chicken leg. 

I watched as my sister sigh as she and I are given the wing. 

Colorful dishes are pushed to the front of their eyes, while my sister and I stay wondering where on the table our eyes should lie. 

After lunch– or was it dinner? 

We hear our brothers stomping up the creaky stairs using the energy from the chicken legs they shared. 

And, wanting to copy, my sister and I are stopped just behind them, with my mother shrieking, “Where do you think you’re going?” 

We stack the empty dishes into the sink, floating between kitchen and table, using the chicken wings we spared. 

We both sigh in hunger, but at least we had chicken wings together.