For as long as I can remember, I've felt an obligation to testify, in the most basic sense of the word: to make a statement based on personal knowledge or belief : to bear witness. When I was a little girl, I wrote poems about the things that happened in my small world—seasons, teachers I admired, friends and relatives who died, holidays. As a second grader, I composed a letter to my Aunt Sherry telling her about how my friend had gone to the doctor and found out her breast was growing. "And I found out I had the same thing!" I explained, as if the breast bud were a tumor or an infection. This was no coincidence; for weeks I'd noticed that I could no longer lean my chest against the dash of my mom's van without wincing, which I saw as a sure sign that something malignant was growing inside my body. Then, as now, I always assumed that it was only a matter of time before I contracted the terminal disease that was coming to me. When I got my first period, even as an eleven-year-old, my first thought ran like this: Of course. Cancer. Even though the secret ate me up, it still took a full 36 hours before I could tell my mom. I don't know why. I think I believed I was really dying this time, and I felt ashamed, because I knew I must have done something terrible to deserve it.
Monday, April 1, 2013
to do it justice
For as long as I can remember, I've felt an obligation to testify, in the most basic sense of the word: to make a statement based on personal knowledge or belief : to bear witness. When I was a little girl, I wrote poems about the things that happened in my small world—seasons, teachers I admired, friends and relatives who died, holidays. As a second grader, I composed a letter to my Aunt Sherry telling her about how my friend had gone to the doctor and found out her breast was growing. "And I found out I had the same thing!" I explained, as if the breast bud were a tumor or an infection. This was no coincidence; for weeks I'd noticed that I could no longer lean my chest against the dash of my mom's van without wincing, which I saw as a sure sign that something malignant was growing inside my body. Then, as now, I always assumed that it was only a matter of time before I contracted the terminal disease that was coming to me. When I got my first period, even as an eleven-year-old, my first thought ran like this: Of course. Cancer. Even though the secret ate me up, it still took a full 36 hours before I could tell my mom. I don't know why. I think I believed I was really dying this time, and I felt ashamed, because I knew I must have done something terrible to deserve it.
march photo-a-day challenge
It's my one year photo-a-day anniversary! Here are the month's themes:
And here are my photos:
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