words & art by shé

bookshelf

listening to love

  • Trespassing

    “Can I help you?” the man stands near the freshly parked pick-up I’ve just walked by. A woman watches from the house, unsmiling. I stop and turn, the exit a stone’s throw away. “I don’t think so.” “Private property,” he says, not advancing. “I thought these were vacation rentals.” Indeed there are no Private Property…

  • Ganesh

    Did you know that elephants can swim? Even float! Their trunks are built-in snorkels. I have not seen this with my own eyes, but saw a photo in one of Dr. Sylvia Earle’s books about the ocean: the image stuck. How many things seem impossible, but aren’t? Like surfing, or writing a book, or pirouettes.…

  • Filling

    My dentist looks like a Bollywood star. Again. The first time this happened, I was living in Hermosa Beach, and Dr. Bhalla was her name. Not only beautiful, she was kind, sensitive, and listened well. Dr. Ameer, on Kaua’i, is the same, though a different gender. They both have gentle senses of humor. When I…

  • Villainess

    The relatives continue to bash me, sending regular give-me-your-inheritance communiqués. But my reactions are changing: Pain and Sorrow are taking a back seat to Anger and Humor. Anger says, Block the mo-fos! So I converse with Hope, point out that it’s been ceaseless for six months, mention previous egregious behavior, and she finally concedes. Humor…

  • Straight to the Ocean

    I was conceived in the Bahamas, on my parents’ honeymoon. Nine months later, I emerged in Arizona, a desert fish. Despite my surroundings, I managed — always — to find water to splash in, swim in, and play in. Waterbaby, they called me. My first ocean was the Pacific, off San Francisco. I was four,…

  • Muertos

    They are holding hands, leaning back and spinning. Their twirling (or maybe their laughter?) generates light. Around and round, faster and faster, gazing at each other, eyes on the prize: mother and son. There is only Love. It was time: five months after she left her body. She began the process on Johnny’s birthday, May…

  • Hungary 1989

    I got the part in Howling V. Hunh. I was sure they’d give it to the blonder cheerleader frequenting the Mary Lou callbacks, but no — I’m going to Budapest. For years I’d been saying my last name was Hungarian (it isn’t), now I’d be there — filming! — for five weeks. Got my passport,…

  • Shark

    Three feet below me, dark-skinned, about four feet long, swimming along the bottom of the sea, tail moving side to side: shark. I disagreed with, and eventually laughed at, my biological father today. I was trying to understand why he sent his bizarre attack email, but he refused to explain. He called me irrational, and…

  • Backward

    On the north shore, there’s a particular reef full of many species of fish, large and small. Sometimes I also see turtles. To access it, I rappel down the cliff, holding onto ropes with both hands and stepping backward. The beach is at the bottom. I also travel backward in time, looking hard at the…

  • Wahines on the Waves

    Bethany Hamilton. At Maureen’s this morning, a break I surfed all February, March, and April. Wow! I grew up in L.A, so celebrities don’t usually thrill me. But I am still smiling hours later after watching this professional surfista paddle out one-armed. Part of it has to do with gender. I didn’t know any girls…