I'm back. Like Jordan. Like the Spice Girls. Like 80's florescent colors. Like the high fade.
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I have been working feverishly on this now, figuring out if it will be a short novel, or memoir. I have decided to put a portion of the first chapter here online, and hopefully I will get some feedback. And yes, I know, there are grammatical errors, I am well aware.
When I decided that I would paint her toenails today, there was no doubt in my mind as to the color. I leave my home at ten o’clock in the morning, the same time I do everyday, and head down Pico Boulevard with a kit full of products used to beautify ones finger and toe nails, with a shade of polish so vibrantly pink, that many, upon seeing this color, may immediately think of the color adorned so famously by a doll named Barbie. I knew it was perfect. I knew she would approve. “The color is definitely pink enough, the color is Melissa,” I thought as I nod my head in awareness of the parking attendant I have become so familiar with lately that I even notice that he has changed the part in his hair today. I gather up the nail file, clippers I found in my bathroom, polish, cuticle oil, pedicure scrub brush, and geranium sage and peppermint lotion. “If only she knew what I was doing,” I thought, hoping to somehow convince myself that today was perhaps a bit more normal than usual. I inhale from my cigarette deeply one last time, and as I blow the smoke out of my lips and into the warm air of this September morning, the light breeze not even cooling down this day, I flick it to the ground, and step on it as I climb the steps into the hospital and into the cool air conditioned lobby of the UCLA medical center. Couches outline the walkway to the elevators, where anxiously awaiting family members and new patients sit. I walk through this runway, clutching my nail products until I arrive at the elevators where I find myself standing and waiting with a herd of medical staff, children holding balloons, and a few elderly women in wheel chairs. I turn around and walk back toward the lobby and into a doorway that leads me to the stairwell. There was no way I would be able to stand patiently. Not today. I start running up the steps, as if I am training for a triathlon. Images of people running up bleachers at football stadiums on Saturday afternoons come to mind as I briskly pass doctors going up and down from floor to floor. Climbing seven flights of stairs would normally be quite the exercise, but today I am adamant about getting to her as quick as possible. I reach the seventh floor in less than sixty seconds, not even feeling the slightest bit out of breath. I enter the hallway of the seventh floor and turned to my right. My hands tense slightly, and I feel my fingers tighten, forcing me to pull them apart one by one as I began to move down the hall. I walk until I pass the nurses station on the left, under the sign that reads ‘Neuro-Science, 7th Floor West Wing,’ and into room 768. My heart begins to throb rapidly, and I take one, drawn out, deep breath as I enter into the room. I notice a new flower arrangement on the windowsill, and for a brief second I think her eyes track mine. No. Not today. 5 weeks and I am still fooled by this beautiful yet brutal apparition. “Hi meliss, its me,” I say as I walk close to her and kneel next to the hospital bed. I do this daily, kneeling at her hospital bed. I kneel at her hospital bed as a man would kneel when asking for a woman’s hand in marriage. She is sitting up right today, her back at a forty-degree angle or so, her head tilted slightly to my left. A pillow keeps her head propped up, preventing her from completely resembling a rag doll, and her eyes open every so slightly, as if she is peeking to see who it was that entered into her room. The cut in her lip, probably from the seizure, and the subsequent fall into the bathtub has healed, and the swelling in her face has subsided. The tremors in her arms and legs are not as severe as the day before, which I am glad for, and she only twitches ever so slightly. Her arms and legs are in constant motion, never taking a moment to rest. A constant, unmethodical movement. But she looks beautiful. Her skin is clear and soft, and to think, she hasn’t used any products or facial scrub in quite some time. Even when her eyes are open, and even though they do not look at anything in particular, her oval shaped brown eyes, tinted with a slight amber tone, causes me to stare at her, as I did on so many mornings, anxiously awaiting for her to rise from her slumber. Her hair, a natural color of chestnut and mocha, with small waves of a lighter shade, similar to the sand found on the beaches close to our apartment in Santa Barbara, had been put up in a pony tail, and knowing she would find it bothersome, I take out the rubber-band and let her hair exhale as it collapses down to her shoulders. Her lips, corresponding puzzle pieces with mine, created to fit perfectly, are smooth and full, resting gently. I take my hands and press my palms to her cheeks as I kiss her forehead softly and then sit down on the hard plastic chair next to her bed, keeping one hand on hers as I sit.
When I decided that I would paint her toenails today, there was no doubt in my mind as to the color. I leave my home at ten o’clock in the morning, the same time I do everyday, and head down Pico Boulevard with a kit full of products used to beautify ones finger and toe nails, with a shade of polish so vibrantly pink, that many, upon seeing this color, may immediately think of the color adorned so famously by a doll named Barbie. I knew it was perfect. I knew she would approve. “The color is definitely pink enough, the color is Melissa,” I thought as I nod my head in awareness of the parking attendant I have become so familiar with lately that I even notice that he has changed the part in his hair today. I gather up the nail file, clippers I found in my bathroom, polish, cuticle oil, pedicure scrub brush, and geranium sage and peppermint lotion. “If only she knew what I was doing,” I thought, hoping to somehow convince myself that today was perhaps a bit more normal than usual. I inhale from my cigarette deeply one last time, and as I blow the smoke out of my lips and into the warm air of this September morning, the light breeze not even cooling down this day, I flick it to the ground, and step on it as I climb the steps into the hospital and into the cool air conditioned lobby of the UCLA medical center. Couches outline the walkway to the elevators, where anxiously awaiting family members and new patients sit. I walk through this runway, clutching my nail products until I arrive at the elevators where I find myself standing and waiting with a herd of medical staff, children holding balloons, and a few elderly women in wheel chairs. I turn around and walk back toward the lobby and into a doorway that leads me to the stairwell. There was no way I would be able to stand patiently. Not today. I start running up the steps, as if I am training for a triathlon. Images of people running up bleachers at football stadiums on Saturday afternoons come to mind as I briskly pass doctors going up and down from floor to floor. Climbing seven flights of stairs would normally be quite the exercise, but today I am adamant about getting to her as quick as possible. I reach the seventh floor in less than sixty seconds, not even feeling the slightest bit out of breath. I enter the hallway of the seventh floor and turned to my right. My hands tense slightly, and I feel my fingers tighten, forcing me to pull them apart one by one as I began to move down the hall. I walk until I pass the nurses station on the left, under the sign that reads ‘Neuro-Science, 7th Floor West Wing,’ and into room 768. My heart begins to throb rapidly, and I take one, drawn out, deep breath as I enter into the room. I notice a new flower arrangement on the windowsill, and for a brief second I think her eyes track mine. No. Not today. 5 weeks and I am still fooled by this beautiful yet brutal apparition. “Hi meliss, its me,” I say as I walk close to her and kneel next to the hospital bed. I do this daily, kneeling at her hospital bed. I kneel at her hospital bed as a man would kneel when asking for a woman’s hand in marriage. She is sitting up right today, her back at a forty-degree angle or so, her head tilted slightly to my left. A pillow keeps her head propped up, preventing her from completely resembling a rag doll, and her eyes open every so slightly, as if she is peeking to see who it was that entered into her room. The cut in her lip, probably from the seizure, and the subsequent fall into the bathtub has healed, and the swelling in her face has subsided. The tremors in her arms and legs are not as severe as the day before, which I am glad for, and she only twitches ever so slightly. Her arms and legs are in constant motion, never taking a moment to rest. A constant, unmethodical movement. But she looks beautiful. Her skin is clear and soft, and to think, she hasn’t used any products or facial scrub in quite some time. Even when her eyes are open, and even though they do not look at anything in particular, her oval shaped brown eyes, tinted with a slight amber tone, causes me to stare at her, as I did on so many mornings, anxiously awaiting for her to rise from her slumber. Her hair, a natural color of chestnut and mocha, with small waves of a lighter shade, similar to the sand found on the beaches close to our apartment in Santa Barbara, had been put up in a pony tail, and knowing she would find it bothersome, I take out the rubber-band and let her hair exhale as it collapses down to her shoulders. Her lips, corresponding puzzle pieces with mine, created to fit perfectly, are smooth and full, resting gently. I take my hands and press my palms to her cheeks as I kiss her forehead softly and then sit down on the hard plastic chair next to her bed, keeping one hand on hers as I sit.
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