I mostly enjoy the first paragraph of this piece.
Primary Colors
To think back on it, the room of my childhood was filled with primary colors. There was the blue plastic covering of my baby chair, a cheap ordeal covered in letters of the English alphabet that to me at the time were but undecipherable, meaningless squiggles. I admired the curves and edges of these exotic letters—they were so unlike the boxed shapes and uncompromisingly straight lines of my native language—but I would truly become friends with them only a year later, an ocean away. Breathing warmth into the room was the red of the low sofa that took up the length of the left living room wall. Originally, its hue could only be fairly described with the cliché “fire-truck red,” but as with all things it faded. I imagine that the color eventually became a part of me, little specks of red coming off on my shorts as I rolled around.
It seems to me that I was always wearing shorts and a T-shirt, no matter how much I begged for one of those frilly skirts my friends wore to school. Dresses were an “an-a-chron-ism, now say it back to me,” Mommy said, though grandma would always bring one or two, defiantly pink, as gifts whenever she visited. Grandma would sit on the sofa, mixing yet more sugar and milk into her instant coffee, and politely mutter that she was sure I would grow up to be a feminist whether my mom let me look like a girl or not.
The fabric of the sofa she sat on was relatively rough and most certainly cheap. I wonder if today I would call it ugly. But regardless, many nights I fell asleep nestling my cheek against its bumpy texture, wanting to be awake when Daddy came home. I always fell prey to the lulling tick of the living room clock, and would only distantly feel my father prying a storybook from my fingers before carrying me to bed.
Though I could only push the magic power button with my mother’s permission, we did have a small television, which, when it was on, most often showed the latest Korean period drama that had Daddy hooked. The low TV stand that supported the magic box contained a few precious Pokémon video tapes (“gotta catch ‘em all” was the theme song of my childhood) but was mostly crammed with picture books. I don’t remember having an unmanageable amount of quite anything as a kid, but I never wanted for a book.
Primary Colors
To think back on it, the room of my childhood was filled with primary colors. There was the blue plastic covering of my baby chair, a cheap ordeal covered in letters of the English alphabet that to me at the time were but undecipherable, meaningless squiggles. I admired the curves and edges of these exotic letters—they were so unlike the boxed shapes and uncompromisingly straight lines of my native language—but I would truly become friends with them only a year later, an ocean away. Breathing warmth into the room was the red of the low sofa that took up the length of the left living room wall. Originally, its hue could only be fairly described with the cliché “fire-truck red,” but as with all things it faded. I imagine that the color eventually became a part of me, little specks of red coming off on my shorts as I rolled around.
It seems to me that I was always wearing shorts and a T-shirt, no matter how much I begged for one of those frilly skirts my friends wore to school. Dresses were an “an-a-chron-ism, now say it back to me,” Mommy said, though grandma would always bring one or two, defiantly pink, as gifts whenever she visited. Grandma would sit on the sofa, mixing yet more sugar and milk into her instant coffee, and politely mutter that she was sure I would grow up to be a feminist whether my mom let me look like a girl or not.
The fabric of the sofa she sat on was relatively rough and most certainly cheap. I wonder if today I would call it ugly. But regardless, many nights I fell asleep nestling my cheek against its bumpy texture, wanting to be awake when Daddy came home. I always fell prey to the lulling tick of the living room clock, and would only distantly feel my father prying a storybook from my fingers before carrying me to bed.
Though I could only push the magic power button with my mother’s permission, we did have a small television, which, when it was on, most often showed the latest Korean period drama that had Daddy hooked. The low TV stand that supported the magic box contained a few precious Pokémon video tapes (“gotta catch ‘em all” was the theme song of my childhood) but was mostly crammed with picture books. I don’t remember having an unmanageable amount of quite anything as a kid, but I never wanted for a book.