words & art by shé

bookshelf

Tag: short personal essay

  • Translations

    I looked up a phrase in Spanish recently: Si me toca, se mato. Translation: If you touch me, I kill you. No more sweet and nice with these people who assume they have the right to my time and presence. It’s never worth the stress and irritation. A boatyard guard slides around a corner toward…

  • The Cure

    “You suppose you are the trouble, but you are the cure.” —Rumi Transitions are tricky. Plate glass tabletops shatter into millions of pieces. The clothesline is dirty, so the sheet is washed again. Canines loudly wonder what you are doing in their ‘hood. The apartment owners may need boundary lessons. On the scarier side, a…

  • El Mirador

    The viewpoint. It can be different. Fact: The Bod does not like high heat and humidity. Fact: It’s been 90°F at night in the boatyard. Fact: Dry-docked Habibi retains the day’s temperature despite two fans and an air purifier. Fact: A different perspective from the industrial/red light district in which I’ve resided for eleven months…

  • Tehani

    I still remember the day I clapped eyes on Tehani. I looked up from my desk as she walked into the animation studio behind my boss. There’s my new best friend. Both wise-cracking women with terrible taste in men, we clicked immediately. She was an actor too, and had been on Magnum, P.I. We schemed…

  • Frightening & Magical

    “There’s something frightening, and magical, about being on the ocean, moving between the heavens and the earth, knowing that you can encounter anything on your journey.” —Lynne Cox, Grayson: a Memoir Anxiety attacked recently, and I finally figured out (it’s hard to think when she’s screaming) that it’s been a year since I left Topolobampo,…

  • Respect Your Self

    Years ago, Mom heard of a restaurant she wanted to try, so we took a taxi after that day’s Jazz Fest. It was hot and humid in New Orleans, and we were wearing shorts and t-shirts, like the majority of concert-goers. Disapproval radiated from the owner-chef. There was a dress code. We didn’t meet it.…

  • I’ll Be Seeing You

    “They [feelings] are chaotic, sometimes painful, sometimes contradictory, but they come from deep within us. And we must key into those feelings and begin to extrapolate from them, examine them for new ways of understanding our experiences.” –Audre Lorde Beguiled by a garbage truck, Valiente—the leader of the Little Yellow Dog Gang—hurtled into traffic after it, barking insults. “No!”…

  • Letting in the Wind

    “Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.” —Audre Lorde. Change can be difficult. And, possible. Emotions are clues, perseverance necessary. Like so many, I struggle with inherited behaviors. In the middle of the night, after hours of hot air currents gusting through the cabin, I closed the hatches. The sound of whistling wind…

  • Lagniappe

    The storm blew me past the busy port of Guaymas, where I’d intended to anchor and check out boatyards, and then San Carlos, several miles north. Next thing I knew I was passing an island in the dark, in high chop and higher winds—30 knots with stronger gusts. The navigational system shows tankers in the…

  • Pura Vida

    Oh, metallic blue paint at the office supply store! Oh, canvases and silver hue! I hold my sunglasses in my teeth, the better to pile art supplies into my arms. Was hard to leave the quality paints behind on Kaua’i. Back aboard Habibi, these treasures now take up three shoeboxes in a cubby and a half. Satisfaction.…