Redeeming Her

When I was around ten years old, I started drawing the woman I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted her to be edgy so I drew her with gages in her ears and midriff. I named the woman in my drawing Skyler Hawk, she was a surfer/skater somehow related to Tony Hawk (I know) who dated strictly rock musicians, and was the frontman of her own band. She was the life of the party, or belle of the ball—everybody wanted her around. She also spoke three languages. I was convinced, if given the chance, that I could be this imaginary woman. 

 Ms. Hawk was conjured with Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt, playing sometimes 3 times over in a drawing session from the CD player by my head. I overplayed it and wrote or drew until my elbows were red. The early symptoms of a longing for fame and image, there on the page of my drawing book. Gwen of No Doubt’s red lip, raw voice and beautiful scowl had imprinted on my little mind’s eye.

I placed my character Skyler in Los Angeles. The place probably most different (within the same state) from the small mountain town where I grew up. 

Though I longed to be in on the glamor of southern California, my childhood near Donner Lake in the north was never lacking. I spent long winters trudging up sled hills waist-high in powder, with my three little sisters and a big dog, mom and dad seldom far away. July, when the snow finally went, was spent at the lake: lustrous and blue, wet dog Sam in the car. Feet tough by pine needles, dirt and granite.  

In those warm months, it was a party trick of ours to summon bats from the dark. They are private creatures, uninvolved in the noise of the day. We never saw them except for when we did this. At dusk we would be in the middle of the street, throwing pine cones in the air as high as we could, and they’d silhouette against the purple sky and crash down on the pavement. A swooping, hunting bat would appear and follow one down, stopping only inches above the ground, startled by the crash. Then it would fly back up, dinnerless. And we would do it again and again.

Once after this pastime, my sister and cousin and I ran up the road to a neighbor’s yard, hearing they were making s’mores. We arrived at an extended family party much like the one we had left, only full of strangers. We sat in their circle around a fire, and a woman with big red hair told us about the curse of the “monkey’s paw,” firelight on her face and Jeffrey pines looming behind her. Dark settled into the forest, and after her story it was silent. The sense of being watched crept in, walking home without a flashlight. And the feeling was forgotten by morning, because the same forest alight and full of blue jay screams and gray squirrels rendered the fear of the night childish. But every time it cycled back.

I can see our front yard, a plastic bowl from the kitchen sits cold and still, full of “nature soup” that was probably made a week ago. The only edible thing floating in the mossy water were pine nuts we could pry from their cases, which spun down from the tree like little brown helicopters. We were proud to harvest them on our own. Beside the soup bowl, a bite-sized tombstone we made for Chloe’s deceased rolly polly named Little that read: RIP Little.

Truckee was abundant with birdsong—the owl near our room hummed us to sleep, and we never even saw it. In the spring, a creek flowed so loudly we could hear its many whispering voices. The natural world around me was fascinating, but did not fulfill me. Behind a closed door I spent hours studying the lifestyle of surfers, skaters, musicians, models, with whatever means I had.

My study continued into early adulthood. I skated, surfed, dated musicians, and all three are as difficult as they are fun.

I am still pleased to think of skating, the buzz of carving around a bowl and airing out of it as high as I could, sweat beading on my temples, a heart-pounding slam and roll over concrete, getting up not that hurt. Immediately trying to repeat success because a trick landing doesn’t count until the second time.

Surfing now is like breathing or drinking water.

Dating musicians is a habit I hope to break. An ex’s song in someone’s car or a coffee shop sometimes pulls me out of a lovely moment, one I would like to stay in.

I find myself compensating for my unappretiation of the solitude of Truckee. Last summer I drove two hours every weekend to be in a body of fresh water, in a forest again. I wanted to be totally alone, so I found a quiet river swimming hole where the sun rests like a lazy dog, five hours of gentle heat. Nobody is there. The water is cool, clear, deep enough to swim down and twirl around. A summer breeze brushes the redwoods towering over, and green flora drape around the rocks and sandy bank. In June, thousands of lady bugs gather.

But even after finding this secret little place I was bothered by the itch to share it. I had to have someone to show it to. Someone who would play his music for me on his porch and hear my own. Someone to see my new sundress.

Often, when I show people old photos of me, they laugh, and I laugh too. I had oval glasses and an overbite, big front teeth and bushy eyebrows. I know she is me, and we are the same. I still listen to Tragic Kingdom, I still romanticize everything, I still remember “Skyler Hawk.” But when I focus on getting what she didn’t have, redeeming her in a sense, I can’t truly love her.