twenty-four

Comparative Literature, Modern European History, Free, Lunch, Theory of Knowledge, Calculus. I promised I would not skip class. During my free period, I take my laptop outside to the Cave. The Cave is the place people go when they want to be left alone. It’s the campus blind spot. Every high school has one.

Adam and I came here to take secret portraits, our first experiment in guerrilla photography. I wanted to be a documentarian, like Dorothea. Adam wanted to find the Americans, like Robert Frank. He said this is where people hide, and the only thing people hide is the truth, and man did we love the truth. Back then I was always looking for people and their insides. I wanted to find their dreams and name their pain, like the portraits in yesterday’s books. Now I wait until everyone’s asleep and snap up the leftovers, like a vulture.

We called our subjects “pilgrims,” and justified our breach of ethics by telling ourselves we were documenting our times: anxious, hopeful, lonely. We came out here three of four times a week for almost a year. It’s basically what we did with the second half of freshman year.

Some days we would get nothing, and other days we’d walk back with real treasures, too giddy or guilty to even boast. Hunter, the badass, reading Harry Potter and smoking Lucky Strikes. Justin cheating on Sammy with the smartest girl in our grade. Kalima rolling out a prayer mat on a bed of rotting leaves. Carla making small cuts above her ankle with a bright pink Bic blade.

Miriam, art vandal and pumpkin thief, I sit on our rock, open up my laptop, and start typing. I am officially a pilgrim.

Dear Mom and Dad,

First of all, I would like to say sorry for everything I’ve put you through. After all, you did push me on the swing, and you gave me my first camera, and you paid for me to go to a school where the counselor gives you tea and knows when you skipped one class. I know I’ve been a bit of a shmuck lately and here is why.

Try again.

Dear Mom and Dad,

Remember this summer when I came home early from Elliot’s house? And I called you from the station and you asked me what happened and when I said nothing you just asked me what I needed? That was really great. I really appreciate that. I was so scared and it smelled pretty bad on the train and my bathing suit was still wet from the ocean and all I wanted to do was get home. You guys looked so tired when you picked me up. And then we got some Lebanese food and we ate and you asked me a million unrelated questions and I just told you we broke up and Mom asked why and Dad, you said, we don’t have to know why, it doesn’t matter why, and I was so jealous of you because you are a man.

Not quite.

Mom and Dad,

I’m trying to tell you the truth about everything because I literally don’t think my body can take it anymore, but I don’t know where to start. You know the Picasso sculpture at the Hirshhorn? Well, I knocked it down. That’s why I was late to the bus. I don’t think it broke. Anyway, this girl saw me do it and I went to meet her because I was lonely, I think, and scared and so so angry. It’s nothing you guys did. Really. I was just feeling like you were looking for me all the time, and not finding me, like I was hiding in some closet and you wanted to yank me out. But I was there the whole time, Mom. I am still your Miriam. Do you see that?

Shit.

Dear Mom and Dad,

After the summer, Elliot came to say he was sorry. We slept together for the last time, and then he left me. I thought I was pregnant. Then I pushed the Picasso and met a girl who is in trouble, and I don’t know how to help her, but I want to. I also stole your pumpkin for her little brother. I’m not pregnant.

God fucking damn it.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I pushed the sculpture, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t want everything to change, but either way it does. I think it already has. I miss you. I love you. Don’t tell Adam.

I save all the letters in a folder I call TRY AGAIN and then drop that folder between old essays, internship cover letters, and term papers. I missed lunch, but I have a bag of pretzels in my bag, so I eat them on my way back to Theory of Knowledge, where we explore the “big questions” of philosophers who tend to die tragically. Socrates was sentenced and drank himself to death; Descartes caught a really bad cold; Spinoza inhaled glass dust; Foucault died of AIDS. I have to make it through the day. Let’s see what the ancients can do for me.