Sometimes I fantasize about what my life was life before the trauma. Before the depression. I reminisce. I think about summers and comfort and smells. They are cheaply recreated at times. It never feels the same. I just want to feel. I don’t want to think. I just want to do, I just want to live. I can read about this feeling, talk about it, maybe even get a sliver of it. I want so bad to feel what I felt that summer before 8th grade. Visiting grandma for a week. Puberty was my main internal struggle back then; being sexy enough to finally get a boyfriend was my prerogative. But none of this mattered that cloudy, summer morning. Everything was possible back then. My spirit hadn’t been tainted. I was fragile but prepared to weather the storm. In fact, I was looking forward to it. So much so, that I quite literally sat back and watched the rain pour. My grandmother was in the kitchen making breakfast, while I sat cozily on her bed. The static of the small box tv set soothingly massaging my ears. Then the sound of the raindrops joined. Soft and constant; matching my breathing. I looked out the window next to her bed for what seemed like hours. I was in a trance; hypnotized by the dance of the warm summer rain. It poured, down and onto the pavement in grandma’s backyard. Pooling up in the crevices of the concrete. The rainwater made little streams that were almost indistinguishable as they were fast moving and clear. The rain continued; getting heavier and more coarse as its source came closer. Clouds moved in. I spoke no words; had no thoughts. However, I felt everything. I was in those droplets. Every single trillionth of a billion droplet that came washing down onto earth that day, was me. Will I get more moments like this? Will I just think about getting more moments like these? Will I just write about them?

 

Laura Medina is a Boston resident. “I have lived in Boston pretty much my entire life, but I was born in Colombia. I am a proud first-generation Latina immigrant. Writing has always been a part of me growing up. Writing has become a healing, meditative state for me.”

Glenn Bowie is a published poet, lyricist and photographer from the Boston area. He also owns and operates an elevator company that supplies custom-built elevators for clients from New England to Hollywood. Author of two poetry and photograph collections (Under the Weight of Whispers and Into the Thorns and Honey) on Big Table Publishing, he donates all profits from his books to various charities for the homeless and local animal shelters.