Read Woolf’s Moments of Being excerpt and write a brief/flash essay evocatively describing 1 moment of being in your life, however you define this, in as much detail as possible in the present tense of the moment; bring it alive in language.
12 thoughts on “Moment of Being”
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It’s raining but it always rains here. A motherland, but a mother that did not want this child. The temple glows by candlelight and a golden Buddha smiles down on us. We stand next to each other, foreign and familiar, my twin sister on one side, my best friend from home on the other. A monk walks by us and our shorts feel sacrilegious. Lightning flashes but it does not deter those who have come to seek comfort amongst the deep reds blues greens of the temple and the lanterns that flicker above. Above us on the steps they bow—the more bows, the more devout the wish. In each of our hands is a colorful votive carved with the animal zodiac from the year we were born. They beg us to write our wishes on them, but we are too shy to respond to their calls. I hold the ram’s head in my hand, knowing exactly what is written on my heart. I hide it anyway and write down something paltry. Still, I turn it away so they don’t see.
Somehow I am alone, and even though the grass is wet I will lay on it, and even though the stars are clouded and the sky is more orange than black and already it is much too late, I will lay and let the cold damp crawl fresh into my scalp. What is, is. Smell of grass, smell of dirt smell of kalachuchi blossoms just now starting to fall, smell of sharp softened earth in the rain, and the hazy, heightened shadow-world of rain, backdrop for what must be a maya’s opening night, showy trills and lilts to the bats’ muted percussion, rustling somewhere in the trees, hungry. Rumor has it that right as he graduated, a senior set his pet tarantula free in the woods, and now there is a colony. Do boarding school spiders follow curfew? Little things with little legs skitter across my limbs and I shiver, eyes shut. Then, eyes stubbornly open, search for seeing stars. Time waltzes peacefully by, and there is nothing but my breath. What small god granted this small miracle? I pray next for the apocalypse. Then a shooting star, coming ever closer, a guard and his flashlight, come to call me home.
Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Looks like clock is mocking me. I have been at this for hours. It shouldn’t be taking me so long to finish this project. I have worked on projects much harder than this one and finished them faster. Surrounded by LEGO pieces of a variety of colors and shapes, I am sitting in the center of it all, wondering what my next step is going to be. I look at the manual and begin working. Oh great, another missing piece. Why did these pieces have to be so small? Rummaging through all the pieces, the search for this tiny, yet crucial piece begins. Where could this piece go? I haven’t moved from my position at all. That’s when it catches my eye, a tiny brown LEGO block, camouflaging with my dresser. Oh look, it’s 2 AM. I am nowhere close to finishing my model of the Empire State Building. That’s when it chimes: Tick Tock, Tick Tock. Looks likes the clock is mocking me, again.
Ring, Ring, Ring. A beat of silence while I stare at Livie waiting for him to answer. Ring, Ring, Ring. Another silence falls as my heart beats faster. He answers and we stare at each other nervous, but also so excited. Having finished my assignment, this was my reward and yet I was so scared. The awkward giggles erupt from my throat as Livie shoves me to start a conversation. Hi, Hey, Hi *giggles*. Livie interrupts to say hi to him, stopping me from saying hi yet again. Me, a blushing mess next to them, not knowing what to say or even ask. Livie and I begin talking like normal, not even thinking about him being there on a Facetime call. The easiest way for me to get used to him hearing my voice. The call lasts hours, hours after Livie leaves and we fall into a rhythm of talking to one another.
The ball came flying from the half way line. Shit the offense lost the ball again. Patience. I watch the ball bounce towards me. I charge forward, bounding one leg in front of the other, flying. I was 20 steps ahead of the other team and the ball was mine. One step that’s all it took.
Crack.
I felt my body shifting with my momentum towards the ball, but my foot stayed rooted to the turf. A twist that defied the physiology of the human body; my knee snapped. The ball bounced to my left now unreachable and I watched the other team run by me unattested as I laid on the ground and cried. I curled into a ball, tears streaming down my face, shaking from shock. I nearly threw up. Moments later I was met with my coach and trainers who’s optimism made me want to throw up even more. I knew something was wrong. Loose ACL, the words of Dylan the trainer. I was carried to the sideline where I watched the game play on from the bench. A single tear rolled down my cheek as I pulled myself together, but I felt as though I had been punched in the chest and my heart ached. It felt like I had already lost a part of myself.
I stand in the doorway, wood creaking under my feet. A soft emerald hue emanates from the room, aided by the foliage found outside the windows and the greenery printed on the bed sheets that always smelled acidic and salty, like lemongrass. Like lemon detergent and the ocean we refuse to wash off. My sisters are giggling, fighting over a flash of pink cardboard packaging. I have to investigate. As I jump onto the bed, their hands find tentative agreement, holding the parcel so I can see it– it’s an invisible ink pen, still in the package. As soon as I register what it is, their truce breaks and all of a sudden they are fighting to open it. It tumbles onto the floor, where I pick it up and turn up to face the wooden slats on the underside of the top bunk. The pen seems to move on its own, and all of a sudden I am writing a message to the next person with a black light– evidence you wouldn’t find without any clue to look, but it was evidence no less, evidence of our rebellious glory.
Crunch, Crunch, Crunch, Crunch, CRUNCH. My friend is eating flammin hot cheetos across from me in the Haven study. As she stares into my soul with her red fingers, random thoughts intrude my mind: There is a movie about those chips, they are too spicy for me, and crumbs land everywhere. Ew.
Boom, Boom, Boom, BOOM. Someone is making so much noise above me that I can’t think. They should wear slippers, not army boots.
Bang, Bang, Bang, BANG. An enemy has arrived? NOPE! Fulana bangs on the door repeatedly as she tells us about her tango class. She proceeds to take her phone out and spends the rest of the night on tik tok.
Mom brings both of us a cherry-flavored popsicle from the convenience store. My brother finishes his in three big bites and tells me to hurry up. I ignore him and slowly work away at my treat with my tongue. But the sweat of sugar merges my fingers with the wooden stick and red erodes through the blockade of my palm and runs down my arm. I have no other choice. I resort to gnawing off chucks of the popsicle with my teeth. My eyes quiver and shake as the chill penetrates my brain and my mouth waters with urgency. Even still, I am too slow. The red drips drips drips down my elbow and onto the whites of my favorite t-shirt. My brother laughs at me. I kick him in the shins. I shove the rest of the popsicle in my mouth and feel its syrup glue my tongue to its roof as he howls in pain. I am the victor.
Standing at the crest of a blinding white sand dune, squinting into the horizon, I try to distinguish the shapes and depth of the desert around me. Massive clouds move above my head, and miles away I can see the haze of a rainstorm over a small town. My father is on the slope of another smaller dune a few hundred feet away from me, peering through binoculars. I notice small movement at my feet and I look down, careful not to move my limbs; a small lizard, sliding across the windward side of the dune we stand on. My eyes burn from the light, but my arms have goosebumps from the chill. I carefully twist the cap off of my camera lens and snap a photo of the small lizard, struggling with the lack of color and depth through the viewfinder. It crawls across the brink of the dune before disappearing, and I focus back onto the clouds in the distance. I’m beginning to feel cold, and I start to trudge across the sand to where my father stands.
Hop, Hop, Hop. One step in front of the other, I navigate my way through the heaps of suitcases, sprawled clothing, and spiders on the ground. A cockroach swerves in front of me as I purse my lips to muffle my tiny high-pitched screech. The coast is clear, I think. I hesitantly open the metal door, click, and hear it screech against the concrete floor. I desperately look behind me, only to hear my parents’ calm breathing that signaled their undisturbed sleep. I open the creaky door. A waft of fresh air strikes my face, the wind blows against my messy ponytail, and I am exposed to the raw earth.
I raise my hand to cover my blinded eyesight from the light. Birds chirp in conversation with each other while a rooster perches itself on wooden posts and sings. Metal wires with spikes wrap around the wooden posts, creating a fence to fend off cows, goats, and horses. I take a step forward, hearing the dry leaves crunch under my every step, and look to my sides in search of a small, frail woman.
I peek behind the wall and see her taking small strides with her hands clasping onto baking sheets. I tip-toe behind her as the sweet smell of bread follows her every move. My arms reach to wrap around her thin figure. I giggle while squeezing her and enjoying the feeling of her warmth against mine.
Scared that I might destroy her artwork, she swerves the bread to her opposite side and gives me her free hand. This is what it feels to be at ease, I think. We walk down the concrete path together and I begin to bombard her with stories about my adventures.
My room exists in a state of chaos, a life of academia, dance, and rest crammed into one space large enough for the last item but not for the others. The silence of it permeates, to the point that I feel like static personified and scrambled until I am unrecognizable to myself. Filling the silence with sound is the solution, the thing I keep coming back to.
I have YouTube open on my personal laptop again, my ears plugged into it as they have been for the past six months. On my school-issued crisis laptop, with its protective rubber peeling away from the shell, is the queue for the next class I’ll have to join. I flip back to YouTube, eyeing the other open tabs staring me down with thoughts of homework and college, but I press play on the video playlist and stare at the visualizer.
These girls, the four band members, and a cake, all doused in a monochrome palette. It’s from a photoshoot, with the original album cover photo evident in the footage but pulsing just erratically enough to hold my attention. Four hands grab at the pristine white cake and squish it, pulling it apart in a spiral motion until there’s nothing left. They pose behind a translucent setlist, holding a lighter to the edges and burning a hole through it. It plays in cycles over each song, over and over, until I want to shove my hands into that cake and watch the flame flicker and turn the edges of the plastic black.
As we leave the hotel, I feel my stomach rumble. As we pass an ice cream stand, everyone can hear my stomach rumble. My jean shorts and t-shirt, damp from the Shanghai humidity, cling to me uncomfortably. It’s nearly 100 degrees and I’ve had enough. We duck into a little convenience store, where I am easily placated with a fruity ice cream bar. I spy a pack of gum at the checkout register. Mom is counting out cash to pay the clerk, dad is soothing my crying baby brother. Good, the coast is clear. Before anyone notices anything is amiss, my arm shoots out and swipes the pack of gum. It’s strawberry flavored.