I Will Start Here
Each time I enter, the room has changed. The creaking of the door sends the birds scattering to the wind before settling again on the branches of memory. I’m aiming for clarity, but this is only the story I tell myself, only the narrative of a mind that’s been muddied, but I want to try my best. I want to get it all down, decide what is solid and set it, so I can go on naming the rest. I will start here, at the only beginning I know.
The first time I was fully present in my body I had been Earthside and called by name for over three years. I was in my first bedroom in our first home since leaving the place of my birth, the religious community where my parents had met, wed and had two daughters. The bedroom, an extension off the kitchen, must’ve been intended as a pantry. The hallway’s width room only space enough for a twin bed on the floor.
My sister was lying there as I sat on the edge waiting and watching for my father to come home, praying that he would before my sister woke or mom stirred or hunger beckoned. My mother was nowhere, sleeping, hiding, crying, floating in that space between hope and grief, consumed by her position, and the small apartment was silent as I twirled the yarn hair of my doll, waiting, wondering, awakening.
A flash, a blur, an eternity passed and before I knew it I was bounding, unsupervised, across the apartment parking lot to be wrapped up by the man I called my “Abba” where he gave me the first gift I can recall receiving. He pulled from his jacket’s inside pocket a Cookie Monster stuffed toy with a voice box that giggled and shook when I hugged him. I didn’t know who Cookie Monster was, had never watched a television, and I was in love. This was only my third toy ever, my second since leaving the community, and I believed that he was pure magic, believed my father had found me some long lost friend.
That little blue monster tethered me to my body at just over three years old. I can still remember the smell of him, the feeling of his thick short fur between my tiny fingers, the way his plastic eyes tasted when I chewed them. I remember the feeling that he was truly alive because of that battery powered voice box belly. I remember introducing him to my baby sister, and then to my only other friends, that stuffed lamb kept secret and hidden until leaving the community and my Raggedy Anne doll of forgotten origin. He didn’t try to comfort or calm like the others, but instead inspired fits of giggles. He was my daily dose of silliness, my companion in laughter and loud expression.
On that day, I entered this life. I recognized my body as my own. I had a sense of pride in my new friend, a sense of protection, a sense that I could stick around and try living, try being the name I had been given. I was Meleah for the first time, and I loved being her, and I especially loved my own two hands, for I knew they could hold dolls and monsters and sisters.