Status: Enjoy.
Popcorn-Popping Sun
1/1
My mother and father religiously watched the local news. Every night, Dad would rush in from a busy day as a factory foreman. Mom would pop (and nearly burn) the bag of off-brand popcorn. I was supposed to be in bed, but I liked watching them sit together on the fraying coach. It reminded me of a couple of birds, settling into a nest of loose kernels and crocheted pillowcases.
They’d always add their commentary with each fleeting story. If there was a gang shooting, my father might say, “Those kids...” while shaking his head in disapproval. If there was a car accident, my mother may comment, “Oh, Al, those poor people.” MUNCH, MUNCH, MUNCH. The crunching of the late night snack turned every somber event that took place in the Valley into a source of entertainment for a bored housewife and her husband.
We never saw the two spheres overlapping. Our lives, simple and filled with blue raspberry Jello and trips to Disneyland in the summer, could never clash with the lives of the ones covered by the news network: sad, victimized, and dangerous. I never realized it, but even at a young age I believed it so.
A girl in my 3rd grade class had lost her mother. The teacher didn’t say anything to us, probably because she wanted the girl to find normalcy in the arts and crafts and simple geography. But, everyone found out. It was so exciting to us. We wondered what death was like, an idea seemingly so distant from ourselves. The girl was very lonely that year.
I think I know how that girl must have felt. For so long, I had no clue what real pain was like. I thought it was a bunch of sloppy tears, dripping off the tip of Hollywood plastic-surgery noses. Or maybe avenging your father through killing his murderer with short victorious sword prods. Or maybe pain was just a running montage of all the crashes of drunk drivers, spiraling on an asphalt road. Crinkled up like aluminum foil.
One day, afterschool in 8th grade, I came home to something I had never before witnessed: the angry screams of my mother, and the crashing of china plates against tile floors. My father spoke softly but with urgency. When I walked through the door, I was hoping they’d say, “Hello sweetie! We were just practicing for an audition in the city college play. We sound realistic, don’t we, eh?” But that never happened, and I scampered off scared to my bedroom.
Since I was 12, I should have known what was going on from the downstairs shrieks. That my father got off work at 5:00pm, not 8:30pm. That there was an added contact on his cell phone under the conspicuous listing “Melissa ;).”
The walls of my bedroom, plastered with boy band posters, were more comforting than ever. The fighting would never encroach upon my bed, my tasseled curtains, or my quaint bookshelf. But, I couldn’t hole myself up in there forever. Eventually, I’d have to come down for food and water. Eventually, I’d have to come to grips with the situation.
That night, the T.V. remained off for the first time since I could last remember.
Pain comes in different forms. It’s not always a cinematic experience with an orchestra in the background and beautiful crying virgins. Real pain comes in the forms of hidden love letters, secret meetings, and the duplicity that hurts so many bored housewives and their overachieving children.
Now, I live in a world where we know where we are in relation to the sun. It gives us life energy while burning us up simultaneously. It pops our bags of holier-than-thou popcorn, while giving us sunburns that never fade away.
The Internet has told me the finalizing of the divorce is the heaviest cross for the kids to bear. Yet, I never felt that way. There’s a freedom in knowing where you are, and where you are going: be it Disneyland or out of a failing marriage.
They’d always add their commentary with each fleeting story. If there was a gang shooting, my father might say, “Those kids...” while shaking his head in disapproval. If there was a car accident, my mother may comment, “Oh, Al, those poor people.” MUNCH, MUNCH, MUNCH. The crunching of the late night snack turned every somber event that took place in the Valley into a source of entertainment for a bored housewife and her husband.
We never saw the two spheres overlapping. Our lives, simple and filled with blue raspberry Jello and trips to Disneyland in the summer, could never clash with the lives of the ones covered by the news network: sad, victimized, and dangerous. I never realized it, but even at a young age I believed it so.
A girl in my 3rd grade class had lost her mother. The teacher didn’t say anything to us, probably because she wanted the girl to find normalcy in the arts and crafts and simple geography. But, everyone found out. It was so exciting to us. We wondered what death was like, an idea seemingly so distant from ourselves. The girl was very lonely that year.
I think I know how that girl must have felt. For so long, I had no clue what real pain was like. I thought it was a bunch of sloppy tears, dripping off the tip of Hollywood plastic-surgery noses. Or maybe avenging your father through killing his murderer with short victorious sword prods. Or maybe pain was just a running montage of all the crashes of drunk drivers, spiraling on an asphalt road. Crinkled up like aluminum foil.
One day, afterschool in 8th grade, I came home to something I had never before witnessed: the angry screams of my mother, and the crashing of china plates against tile floors. My father spoke softly but with urgency. When I walked through the door, I was hoping they’d say, “Hello sweetie! We were just practicing for an audition in the city college play. We sound realistic, don’t we, eh?” But that never happened, and I scampered off scared to my bedroom.
Since I was 12, I should have known what was going on from the downstairs shrieks. That my father got off work at 5:00pm, not 8:30pm. That there was an added contact on his cell phone under the conspicuous listing “Melissa ;).”
The walls of my bedroom, plastered with boy band posters, were more comforting than ever. The fighting would never encroach upon my bed, my tasseled curtains, or my quaint bookshelf. But, I couldn’t hole myself up in there forever. Eventually, I’d have to come down for food and water. Eventually, I’d have to come to grips with the situation.
That night, the T.V. remained off for the first time since I could last remember.
Pain comes in different forms. It’s not always a cinematic experience with an orchestra in the background and beautiful crying virgins. Real pain comes in the forms of hidden love letters, secret meetings, and the duplicity that hurts so many bored housewives and their overachieving children.
Now, I live in a world where we know where we are in relation to the sun. It gives us life energy while burning us up simultaneously. It pops our bags of holier-than-thou popcorn, while giving us sunburns that never fade away.
The Internet has told me the finalizing of the divorce is the heaviest cross for the kids to bear. Yet, I never felt that way. There’s a freedom in knowing where you are, and where you are going: be it Disneyland or out of a failing marriage.