2007 - Vol. 4, Issue 4

(Lights up. A living room. MAE is sitting on a couch leaning close to the left side of it. ZIGGY is sitting in a chair to the left of the couch, writing in a notebook. In an occasional chair, positioned near the right side of the couch, sits SARA, MAE and ZIGGY THORNTON'S daughter. They are waiting for dinner to finish cooking.)

SARA

It's been a long time.  .  .  .  It's all just like I remembered though.  .  .  .  Any news? Because, (Pause) I have some.

Dear Paul,

I have so much to tell you. It's hard to know where to begin. Typing this e–mail on my laptop while the Number 6 rattles down Anacapa Street makes for slow going. But we have some time now  .  .  .  at least I hope we do. I'll start when my life took its second major twist.

I was in the seventh grade then, and the kids called me Coffee Bean because my skin is dark, and they said I smelled funny. But I ran faster than most and was a scrappy little fighter, so they didn't say it to my face. Then I got sick, and they didn't call me anything. By the time Mom pulled me out of school, it was as if I'd already gone. Maybe I should back up.

Some years winter sneaks up like a small child; other years it rolls over everything in its path and blows the cold air so hard into the spaces between the windows and the wall that I think it will surely break the entire pane of glass right out. This year, winter did a little bit of both. The first few weeks were glorious and warm. The sun danced, and I walked my child to and from school every day. The baby, strapped in his stroller, reached his hand out to grab falling leaves. He squealed with delight when he saw his brother running down the gently sloped pavement path from the kindergarten doors to the street where I stood, waiting. We talked all the way home, laughed at the other children, and arrived home with rosy cheeks, ready for an after–school snack and homework.

John: Where did you grow up?

Arden: Lafayette, Louisiana

Where do you live now?

I split my time between Roanoke, Virginia, for school and Boston, Massachusetts, when school is not in session.

What aspects of you define your identity?

I think everything that makes up me defines my identity, but I'm most conscious of the elements that differ from the majority as being defining. So, I am more conscious of my (queer) sexuality more than my (white) race, even though I believe they are both equally important. I strongly feel the aspects of my queer, genderqueer, transgendered, and disabled identity. The disabled part has been the hardest for me to incorporate because of the way in which my symptoms come and go. They vary from completely hidden to an all–you–can–stomach buffet of anxiety, paranoia, hallucination, and angst. There are also the more fun aspects of my identity: poet, writer, reader, athlete, mountaineer, and other things that slip my mind when I make a list.

It's a trick with numbers

I make everyone outside disappear
I start with the ground zero of reality
And count furiously towards the infinity of outer space

I cling violently to my world of digits
They will lead me to safety
I see no one
I hear no one