Making Sh*t Up

Thank you for holding my hand even when it’s cold and clammy or dripping with sweat.

Thank you for grabbing that book from the top shelf that I was too short to reach.

Thank you for reading and editing my fifteen page paper at three in the morning especially since you had your own paper to finish.

Thank you for greeting me and asking if I needed help even though you knew I wasn’t going to buy anything.

Thank you for making me smile even though you don’t say a word.

Thank you for showing me that you don’t need a special occasion to put on jewelry and makeup.

Thank you for driving me to school so I wouldn’t have to be late for my final exams due to the train not running.

Thank you for calling me to set up a follow-up appointment a week after I was at the hospital.

Thank you for never failing to financially support me.

Thank you for teaching me to think more critically about history.

Thank you for telling me that I have a talent in writing.

Thank you for complementing me that day I felt less than attractive.

Thank you for giving me an employee discount even though I don’t work there.

Thank you for accompanying me to the bathroom during an embarrassing emergency all the while not making a big deal out of it.

Thank you for reassuring me that I would be fine for an interview I was really nervous for.

Thank you for understanding the pop culture references I always add to the conversation.

Thank you for filling in the tiny bald spot on my eyebrow with eyebrow pencil even though you didn’t have to.

Thank you for carrying me when I was in too much pain to walk.

Thank you for tolerating my irritability and overly emotional self.

Thank you for helping me learn to love reading.

Thank you for embodying beauty without accepting the standards of what society dictates is meant to be beautiful.

Thank you for protecting me from that aggressive homeless person that kept calling me his wife.

Thank you for letting me float on water.

Thank you for showing me where the aisle with toilet paper was located.

Thank you for saving me from what could have been a potentially massive butt spanking.

Thank you for allowing me to be myself.

Thank you for loving me.

Thank you for teaching me that it’s important to say thank you.

Thank you for the extra chips and salsa.

Then…children laughing, children crying, conversations in Tagalog, dogs barking, rooster crowing, cars rumbling in the distance.

Afterwards…American television, phone ringing, doorbell sounding, radio playing, microwave beeping.

Sometimes…woman crying, dogs barking, fists connecting, silence.

Now…dog contently sighing, cable car bell ringing, computer humming, lovers laughing, playful bantering, keyboard typing, boys talking loudly across the hallway.

Wake up.

Shower. Pick out scrubs to wear.

Pack food. Eat a little bit.

Put on shoes. Lock the door.

Drive. Freeway traffic.

Park. Enter through sliding doors.

Greet coworkers. Chit chat.

11 pm. Clock in.

Sixteen patients. Deep breathe.

Vitals check.

Prep patients for surgery.

Bathe patients.

Ignore patient’s erect genitals while being toweled dry.

Scandalized, Disgusted. Move on.

Help restrain aggressive patient.

Get told they don’t want a chink nurse.

No time to correct being labeled the wrong ethnicity.

Unfazed. Move on.

Lunch break.

Heat up food. Chit chat with friends.

Whispers from other workers wishing all nurses

Spoke English.

Go back to work.

Check vital signs again.

Help lift 250 pound patient.

Back shoots with pain. Move on.

Patient code brown. Shit everywhere.

Three layers of gloves. Clean in no time.

More patients being admitted. Deep breathe.

Call light. Patient needs assistance to the bathroom.

Remind patient that they are wearing a catheter.

Moment to rest feet. Joke with a coworker.

Call light. Patient requests blanket.

Humor patient by accepting marriage proposal.

Last check of vital signs.

Make final rounds.

Clock out.

Say goodbye to coworkers.

7 AM. Sleepy. Tired. Feet and back aching.

Stay alert on drive home.

Come home.

Sleepy. Must cook food for later.

Pork. Okra. Eggplant. Green beans. Simmer.

Lay on couch. Watch TV.

So sleepy. So tired.

Do it all again the next night.

Twenty-one years in the same skin and you start noticing the little things

The quirks, tiny deformities, the asymmetry,

only someone living in the same body would notice:

how one eye has an extra fold, making it seem smaller than its partner,

how the top of the skull form two peaks, causing hair to stick out after laying down,

how the hair on the left side curls out, and the right curls in;

nails that grow seemingly over night,

hair that return after being plucked

the tiny dark dots that appear after another year exposure to the sun,

newly developed scars and healing scabs showing signs being alive.

So much time spent on examining these outside aspects,

One forgets about the goings-on in the inside.

How the usage of oral contraceptives has caused my body to believe something has gone awry,

Begins fighting an invisible infection;

Causing pains in my stomach, intestines.

The effects deep and long ranging, reaching the contours of my psyche.

Never to be the same again.

One can think of the body as simply a shell, a meat bag to hold bones and organs.

Not realizing that it is a whole universe,

Complicated solar systems and fluid stars in the form of infinitesimal plasma and molecules.

We forget to nurture our selves, and to love our bodies well.

I am learning to love you again, my body.

You have worked so hard to repair yourself,

even during times when recovery was a distant thought.

All those years of wanting to change you,

the little abuses I acted out on you,

I have paid for it through illness,

And you have mended my insides as a gesture of forgiveness.

I am trying my hardest to see the beauty in you, body.

To love you, all of you.

Harry Fitzgerald Brown

I suspect you came to the Philippines during the turn of the 20^th century.

Riding in the coattails of the United States and Manifest Destiny

You were an engineer, I am told

Perhaps helping usher into the country an erroneous sense of progress

You met a Bikolana and had a child with her—

Beginning a legacy of mixed messages.

What happened after your mixed blood son was born, Harry Brown?

I’m not so sure myself.

I heard that you hid in the jungles during the second World War,

Smuggling your grandchildren to safety,

covering their skin with coal dust so as not to attract the Japanese.

But in another story, I heard you abandoned your Filipina wife,

Returning to a home somewhere in Utah

where your only family was a spinstered sister.

…Or so, this is what I hear.

I might never know.

All evidence of you in photographs and documents has disappeared in a house fire.

What we’re left with is your name and the traces of your genetics in our phenotype —

A family of light skin and tall statures.

Each measurement of blood tied to you, no matter how small; a fourth, an eighth,

Is looked upon as valued molecules of white man blood.

The surname, “Brown,” a name your descendants have willingly used in exchange for their perfectly good Tagalog names,

In hopes that the utilization of these Anglo-fied characteristics

Will somehow make them more superior to their full blooded neighbors.

Children born displaying darker skin are looked upon with pity,

Because they become more removed from your legacy.

I am a product of you, Harry Brown.

And yet, I know nothing about your history, your other family.

Were we your secret souvenirs from your trip to the Islands?

Hidden across the Pacific from the judgmental eyes of your family back home?

I hunger for more information, but even these are scarce gems,

As the older generation that knows the most are slowly dissapering,

Along with their memory of you.

What have we got to show of your influence, other than the shade of our skin

And an American name?

Who are you, Harry Fitzgeral Brown?

Your great, great granddaughter wants to know.