a thousand tiny disco lights

the best kind of box is the kind that is filled with things from your childhood. even better if you've not looked at the contents for years and years. best if you have no idea of what might be inside.



my parents came to visit this past weekend and just before they left to go back home, they unloaded two enormous plastic bins from their car. my dad set them both down with a thud and I could see hints of sequins, old drawings and record albums inside. ava and me, we dug right in. I couldn't pull things out fast enough. no more than five minutes had passed and there we were, knee deep in my childhood. we sat together in a pile of tiny baby dresses, wrinkled dance costumes and letters from old boyfriends. we pulled out rainbow stickers, stickers that read, 'barf me out' and 'gag me with a spoon' and 45s like 'pass the dutchie', 'the tide is high' and 'double dutch bus'. there were the nesting dolls that my dad brought me back from russia, the party book I bought with my own money in first grade and studied from cover to cover, the black fingerless gloves I wore to prom, and a broken rhinestone crown that my mother once wore as may queen. but what I loved looking through the most were the drawings and paintings and stories I'd written. I wanted to go back to that place where I was so free with color, so uninhibited with line and shape. genuinely authentic and alive, just like ava.



she's been trying on the costumes since yesterday afternoon but the clear hit was the bright pink one with all the sequins and fringe. I never actually wore it on stage. I think my mom picked it up at a yard sale for a quarter. always my favorite, it is as spectacular as I remember-- unapologetically pink with sequins that sparkle like a thousand tiny disco lights and fringe that screams 'shake me shake me shake me'.

so, we've been doing some shaking. and twisting and jumping and twirling and kicking. and although I have a million things to do before I leave for new york, I've been doing a lot of sitting around and remembering.