A Hatred of Clover
2022; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 43; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/fro.2022.0029
ISSN1536-0334
Autores Tópico(s)Diverse Educational Innovations Studies
ResumoA Hatred of Clover Olivia Acosta (bio) There was a park on the same block as my childhood home, nestled between a white, suburban street and a white, suburban cul-de-sac. Here, I used to make chains of stupendous length out of scores of clover flowers. You know the type: tiny, shapeless, white; relevant to adults only in their correlation to bee stings. They grew in abundance in my neighborhood park, in the patchy yard of my elementary school, and on the soccer field where my parents discovered, to their disappointment, my incompetence and disinterest in the little league. I was a champion flower-tier. My family had three daughters, as did the family two doors down, and among the six of us, I had the nimblest fingers, able to connect even the shortest of stems without them snapping. I made bracelets and crowns for everyone, and once even a jump rope. The others became flower-gatherers, or (in my mind) subservient crown-makers. Our combined efforts transformed us daily into six bedecked flower princesses, complete with braided hair and dirty, bare feet. The day of my high school graduation was grey and threatened rain for hours before eventually opening up on the outdoor ceremony. My classmates and I zipped dozens of iterations of the same black puffy jacket, donning our blue robes over them and appearing, for the moment, a bizarre parade of literate teletubbies, marching two by two past a crowd of wind-battered faculty and abuelos. I didn’t want to go. Ceremonies, I declared high-mindedly, are pointless (an opinion I still hold). I had no desire to attend a celebration glorifying an experience which, for me, was interminably tedious despite occurring in a minefield of self-doubt, toxic double standards, and, worst of all, other people. Plus, it was going to rain. My best friend, through a combination of begging [End Page 138] and inducing guilt, convinced me to go. She wanted us to walk together. It was sentimental for her. I capitulated. As we queued up for the ceremony, someone had to run to their car. Eager for an excuse to evacuate the soggy gymnasium, I tagged along. As I reached the parking lot, ridden with cracks and littered with cigarette butts and bits of mylar balloons, I noticed the tufts of grass growing up the base of the chain link fence that separated the lot from the stadium. Among them were dozens of the tiny white flowers I had loved as a child, optimistically poking their heads into the grayness of the day. I felt, for the first time, a little sentimental. I picked a few and wove them into my braids. Back then, my hair was long and thick, and held the flowers easily with all of its ornery hispanic might. I hustled back into the gymnasium to meet my best friend. “You look pretty,” she said. Five hours later, I was merrily ingesting drugs and alcohol at the drug-and-alcohol-free party thrown for my class by the PTO and local Lions Club. I sat at a folding table with James, a transfer from Minneapolis, whom everyone referred to as “James from Minneapolis” and never just “James.” James from Minneapolis had striking features. He was impressively articulate and unquestionably gay, qualities which I envied, as I was blushingly inarticulate and my gayness was still quite questionable. He handed me a pill and I swallowed it. It was blue. The memory of that night is blessedly dampened by the vagueness of intoxication. I recall the unsensually glaring lights of the venue and the tongue-numbing thirst induced by grocery store cupcakes and too much small talk. Then, the towering warmth of a blurry-edged seraph, a stable-legged counterpoint to my increasingly noodlelike form. I recall the swelling curve of a prodigious tricep, and recognizing, by the slightly increased thickness of the cotton under my hands, a men’s tee shirt. A chest wide enough to intercept a stumble, cloaked in the cloying odor of vaporized nicotine. These are the beings we allow to pass for men. It was in the bed of this creature that I woke up at...
Referência(s)