For one through three, go here.
Four: We are living on base in Virginia while my father is still with the Navy. We live in a pseudo-condominium military house, located in a cul-de-sac of sorts. Our neighbors are an older white man and his very young bride. She, Saimai (Sy-My), is a very exotic-looking woman whom, being naïve, I will refer to as being Chinese (she is Thai). Saimai lets me sleep over often and always has interesting new foods to try. The night before we move to yet another new state, she lets me share her bed while her husband is away on a tour of duty. She dotes on me, as she is childless, and I know, while she sings me a song in her native language and my eyelids grow heavy, that I will do everything in my power to find her some day. I still haven’t, but if you’re back in the states, Saimai Overton, please, please contact me.
Five: We move to Colorado due to a job transfer for my father. We have to live in a hotel for four weeks while my parents wait to close on their home. The hotel is very nice and does not allow pets, but we sneak in our beloved family dog, Einstein, for the time-being. Einstein ends up destroying all the carpet in our hotel room and one day, he uses the spot directly in front of my bed as his personal bathroom. I rush to tell my mom that the dog had just “shit” on my floor. I still remember the taste of the soap she used on my mouth.
Later that year I am in kindergarten and instantly drawn to the only “oriental-looking” girl in the room. Her name is Amber and I ask her in my very boisterous manner if she’ll be my friend. She looks over my Beauty and the Beast purple outfit and decides I am worthy. I go home from school that day to exclaim to my mom that I met a “Chinese” girl and I demonstrate, with my fingers, how her eyes are shaped. Amber and I will remain best friends for over ten years.
Six: I’m sitting in a chair I am entirely too small for, staring at a doctor I don’t want to know. Her eyes are ice blue and though she is friendly, I feel like I am under a microscope when she squints over me and I stutter my answers. The relatively young therapist looks at me with raised eyebrows over her bright red eyeglasses and asks me to draw two pictures: one of things that I like and the other of things that scare me. She ushers me out, alone, into the waiting room to confer with my mother, handing me a large white drawing pad and a pack of crayons. Being the precocious child I am, I know exactly what the doctor wants me to draw for my second picture so I oblige her, wanting the entire series of sessions to end as soon as possible. My mom senses this and though I probably needed to continue therapy, this will be the last session I attend. And as my mom absently strokes my hair that evening during cartoon hour, I can’t help but feel that the whole thing was my fault.
