I saw the rejection letter and, naturally, a poem recited through my mind. I hadn’t read it in years, but always knew it by heart: What happens to a dream deferred? When we studied Harlem Renaissance literature in 8th grade, I memorized this poem by Langston Hughes in just a few days. Something about the …
When I was a teenager, I had only one desire: to sing. But it wasn’t just a whimsical, delusional desire. I had an urge to sing that consumed my entire being. Music was the only future I imagined for myself. Mother says that as a toddler I insisted she repeat the same cassette tapes when …
I’m very young—maybe 4 or 5—swimming in the pool with Mimi on a warm summer day. Standing in the shallow end near the stairs, I watch as she floats on her back, her arms and legs spread out, water lightly lapping against her limbs, relaxed and weightless. She plunges under completely before resurfacing. Mimi looks …
We lay in the room at the High Noon in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. It’s one of the last nights I’ll ever see him. We are tired and warm from a day in the sun, playing on the beach and taking silly pictures with an underwater camera in the hotel pool. There’s a talking parrot in the lobby …
I scramble around my teenage bedroom, looking for something to wear. Clothes pile on the floor as I discard item after item, irritated I can’t find something that I think looks good. “Honey, are you in here?” My grandmother walks in, the energy of her smile matching her bright blue eyes. I called her Grammie …
