The First Three Days

Memories Within a Writing Challenge

I wanted to share my writings from the first 3 days of the writing challenge. I might just do three at a time to not overwhelm your inbox, maybe I will add more. But, the first 3 felt like a series in themselves.

Thank you for following along, reading my work, and seeing where this challenge goes.

Day 1: Write about where you come from and how it shaped you.

I was surrounded by death as a child.

Death and corn.

I grew up right next to a national historical park, where the turning point of the Revolutionary War took place. One of the national cemeteries was less than a mile from my house. We would walk there in the spring, with the cornfields waving next to us, and the flags raised high.

I *tried* to learn to ride a bike next to the graves of fallen soldiers. It’s where I drove for the first time, through the winding roads, leading up to the bell of the USS Saratoga. Eventually, I parked a car right next to the entrance for my first ever hookup, only to have to push it out of the mud, shaming all those that served our country.

About 23,000 souls watched me grow up.

I would try to thank them whenever I entered their space. Sometimes I would go to ask them for guidance. It was there I learned to find spirit in the wind.

When my grandpa passed away I was five, and would try to talk to him during nap time because I could never sleep. I liked to believe that the closest you could be to those that passed was during rest, so I liked to think it was our time to chat together. I didn’t want to fall asleep and miss it.

But just because I was around death most of my childhood, doesn’t mean I was comfortable with it.

I was always scared.

When families drive by graveyards, kids try to hold their breath so they don’t “breathe in the souls,” but I was suffocated by them. If it wasn’t the national cemetery, it was a private graveyard to the right, or a Quaker burial ground to the left. I would try to hold my breath only to exhale and discover a new grave.

I was afraid of the dark, dreaming of soldiers around my bed. I was afraid of the basement, the air always felt too dense. I was afraid of the woods outside, and what I might find if I strayed too far.

I remember one day my dad found a full cannonball while metal detecting in our backyard, and decided to keep it in the den right near my bedroom. I became afraid of that room too.

I was so afraid, I became afraid of my fear.

Was this just what children do? Would I grow out of it? Or would this feeling haunt me, no matter where I go?

I think that’s part of the reason I decided to move away when I did. I needed to know if there was a place without this fear.

It didn’t help that my dad was really into those ghost hunter shows and my sister and I were interested in the occult. Or you could hear the squirrels that got in through the gutter, scratching in the ceiling above you. Or that you’d hear stories about monsters hiding in the cornfields to kidnap kids as they walked by.

It would almost be crazy not to be afraid as a kid.

Whenever I start doubting myself or what I’ve accomplished, I try to think about that fear the little girl had while growing up. How she came to, not befriend, but respect her fear and the stories it tells her. She learned to hear her fear, without it guiding her fully. She learned fear can be an ally. That fear holds wisdom, if you learn to turn towards it.

I’m happy to find that I’m no longer afraid of the dark, but I do still hold my breath while driving by a cemetery.

Day 2: Turning Point – Describe a moment that changed your life.

The liminal space – a moment of in-between.

You are in the process of ending your old life and just about to enter into the phase of your new one.

Things are not so final, but they also haven’t begun.

You are just floating in the potential of your own experience.

After nearly three years, I had decided to move back to NY from Australia. I left America at the end of my teen years and was returning as an “adult.”

I was devastated about leaving behind my life there, trying to support a sick parent, grieving a relationship, leaving a job, and coming to terms with the fact that I needed therapy.

In all senses of the word, the transition was intense.

The trip from Brisbane to Albany, New York can take upwards of 22 hours, even more if you have connecting flights or are flying into NYC and then driving the 5 hours back to my hometown.

In the haze that was blowing up my life, I did choose a small kindness for myself — I decided to spend three days in Los Angeles for my layover.

When I got in my cab, the driver picked up my very slight — as if I was trying to prove I was an expat — Australian accent on me and asked what brought me here. Apparently a lot of Australians ended up in LA to pursue acting, with even more ending up at the shitty hotel on South Sepulveda that I would be staying at. Great spot for Australians I guess.

I had gotten into the city early enough that I didn’t want to miss out on any time exploring, so I threw my entire life into that hotel room and walked to the train station and went to the place every tourist wants to visit. Santa Monica Pier.

I walked from the pier all the way down to Muscle Beach and back again, about 3 miles each way. I talked to the vendors along the shore and attempted to capture street performers mid backflip.

Looking back, I don’t know how I walked through LA so freely.

Maybe it was the fog of that in between, keeping me safe. When you are in the middle of the ending and beginning, it feels like nothing could happen. It would just get lost within the smoke.

The next day I explored The Grove and somehow went on a date with one of the winners of a famous dance competition. He picked me up in front of CBS studios and I thought the pier was the most LA thing I could do, but turns out, fucking a reality star is probably number one.

On the third day, I laid in bed for as long as I could before I knew I’d get charged for an extra day.

I had my whole life in these two luggages, not wanting to drag it around with me through LA, so I headed back to the airport. I was about to say goodbye officially to Australia, to exit the fog and enter into my life. I was quite literally existing in the liminal space, or at a terminal.

I remember sitting at the terminal like five hours early, journaling about this release and what might await me. Those two and a half days weren’t earth-shattering. In fact, they were mostly underwhelming to the trip I had been hoping for leading up to it. Los Angeles was not as beautiful as the Gold Coast. The beaches were frankly depressing. My reality star date quickly became a fun story rather than a lasting experience.

But, those mediocre days were mine. They were my complete expression of free will. I wasn’t making choices around my education, my job, my parents, my partners. No one knew me, or cared what I did really. Every choice was mine.

Sitting there, looking around as if it would be my last time in this airport, and writing “I could see myself living here one day.”

I got back to NY in August, and decided to fly back out in February to give LA a shot for a month. One turned into three, and three months slowly turned into another two and a half years.

During that time, I met family I didn’t know existed, and now couldn’t imagine a life without. I drove up and down the coast so many times that led to me expanding to driving across the country.

I had moved out of LA, back to NY, only to find myself back again and spending another three years in California, only this time in San Diego.

I started painting when I moved to LA at 22, and haven’t stopped since.

I cultivated a community and friendships that I never thought possible.

And now as I am about to enter into my 30s, I can say that I have spent the majority of my 20s all throughout California, and each year, I find myself more drawn to calling it my home. I never thought I’d end up here, but I am so grateful that I did.

All because of a three day layover.

Day 3: Memory – Recall a childhood experience that still lingers.

To our parent’s dismay, our memories are not found in the pages of our textbooks, or the awards we accumulate. They are found with our first friend at recess or our first crush in Math. They are found in the whispers and games and heartbreak that teach us who we are when no one is waiting for us to perform.

One of mine was found in the outfield of a softball game.

Not in playing the game. It was Lassie League and I think we had just graduated from T-ball to batting an underhand toss from our coaches – we weren’t ready to pitch ourselves yet.

Easily distracted, though I told myself it was because of my strong arm, I was placed in the outfield, where almost no ball would end up. Sadly, I was no Jennie Finch and no miraculous plays were made that day. But, I didn’t care. I had ground to cover.

I waved to my mom who was sitting in her lawn chair holding some tea and glanced at my dad coaching with that classic sports-dad patience.

I scouted my patch of grass with the eye of a detective, always reminding myself to check the batter every so often to avoid getting hit in the face, again.

I fed blades of grass to the ants trudging towards their home. *check up*

I followed a fuzzy caterpillar, trying to find the courage to touch it, and failing every time. *look up*

Before the inning ended, I searched the grass one last time.

A four leaf clover.

I think I was young enough for this to be my first ever four leaf clover – out in the wild. Surely, there were older folk who had never come across one.

I picked it quickly, holding it within my mit. Way better than a fuzzy caterpillar.

Right before I ran back off, I scored another clover. I double counted to make sure.

I ran over to my mom so she could keep them safe and then continued on with my game.

At the end of the game, I was holding onto 6 four leaf clovers.

I felt invincible. Was I the luckiest human on the planet? Was this my superpower? Was I about to unlock some portal into heaven?

I remember laying out the clovers and wondering what one child needed with that much luck.

I plucked one, walked over to my friend and handed it to her. I gave one to my dad, my mom, my sister.

By the time I finished, there was no clover for myself, and when my mom asked why I didn’t want to keep one, I told her that if I was so lucky to find that many clovers, then giving them away wasn’t going to stop my own luck from flowing.

At least that’s what I think I said. And I know that’s what I felt.

It was my first experience with magic. And my first time truly trusting in myself.

Sometimes, when life kicks me in my teeth, I worry that I did actually give away all of my luck that day.

And then just as quickly, magic finds its way to me again.

The second time I moved to California. I was living between my friend’s couch and was waiting to hear my fate about a job offer. With my last bit of hope, I drove up to my cousin’s in San Francisco to spend 4th of July up there. I had packed everything before I headed up there, deciding that if I didn’t get the job, then I would make my way, defeated and as slowly as I possibly could, back to NY.

The morning after I arrived, I had gotten up, walked to get a coffee, and came back to sit on their deck to let their dog patrol the backyard.

I was grazing over my patch of grass, enjoying the sun and trying to forget that this may be my last few days in California.

I saw a patch of clovers, bent down, scanning. And there it was – a four leaf clover. And not just one, but four. Four, four leaf clovers.

I plucked them, my inner child cheering, and thought that maybe I didn’t give away all of my luck after all.

Before I went back inside to show my cousin, I thought I saw one more.

I had to double count, just as I did in that outfield. But, instead of a four leaf clover, this one was a five leaf.

I ran inside and gave away my four leaf clovers to my cousin and her roommates, keeping the five leaf for myself.

That day, I not only received the call offering me the job that I still hold today, but also signed a lease on an apartment with a roommate who is now my family.

Maybe luck isn’t real, and I was in the right place at the right time with the right expertise.

But, I’d be lying if I said I don’t still look for four leaf clovers wherever I go.