Tag: Non-Fiction

Karina Castrillo: “The Case of the Missing Earrings”

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The Case of the Missing Earrings

By Karina Castrillo

I first noticed their absence when I put down my writing journal on my nightstand. They were supposed to be there. It was one of those heirlooms that anyone would cherish – which I did. These golden hoops with sapphire gems that my Nicaraguan grandma had kept all her life. “They’re Italian,” she said. Whenever she wanted to denote a worth on some person, place, or thing, she emphasized it was European. Remnants of colonization in a tiny gift box.

My first thought was to blame the other patient. I was at a rehab facility, a mental health one, and my new roommate was, well, unknown to me. She was an older lady with long grey hair, and a bad smoker’s cough. She said she hadn’t slept in five days. I don’t know how that’s possible, but that meant that she was probably awake the night before when I assumed her sleeping and mumbled to myself in my bed. No… it wasn’t her…

I could hear my grandma now, the way she would sigh of “throwing away all that money away” when I lost the pearl necklace or “all those years of taking care of something” when I lost the diamond tennis bracelet. I ought to cherish these things – which I did. 

I thought to blame the technician who made the rounds every morning at 6am waking us up for vitals. The earrings could have gleamed in the night, and she could have snatched them. Then I thought to blame the cleaning lady who walked in without knocking and consistently saw me naked as I hurriedly slipped into something after shower time. I cringed; my classism was showing.

I could hear my grandmother now, the way she always blamed “the help” when she lost something. And it was always her misplacement. Why is it that our reflex is to judge others before we look at ourselves?

As I contemplated my moral discipline, a semblance of light illuminated my memory. Had I stored it somewhere before going to take my meds? Had I placed it in a jean pocket or a sweater or a jacket? Maybe I placed it in my denim jacket before I slipped it off at the pool?

I chased to the little mahogany closet to whip out my jacket. I dug my hand into the left pocket now. Oh! It was in the right-hand pocket. I unbuttoned it. Oh! My earrings. 

I held them in the palm of my hand and fingered the clasp of the hoop, still sturdy after 50 years in an old vanity drawer. I put them on, inserted the stick in my ear hole and clasped in the gold bar. They were pristine and beautiful. I took them off. I wouldn’t dare wear them again.

For once I wouldn’t lose the Italian heirlooms. I tucked them into a cloth pocket and pulled the strings to enclose them in.

And then I realized how many centuries had come to land on this rapid-fire moment, when I realized I was no better than the ancestors before me – blaming others for my own shortcomings.

About the Author: Karina Castrillo is a freelance writer for Women’s Health Magazine, and a communications specialist at a labor union based in New Jersey. Born and raised in Miami, she speaks Spanglish, and enjoys Cuban pastelitos. You can find her vintage shopping in Brooklyn, at a picket line or a protest, or walking her chihuahua Enzo – who’s tiny but has a big bark. Instagram/Twitter: @Karinainthecity 

Image Credit: “Hoop Earring” Public domain image from Wikimedia. Creative Commons CC0

“Impressions from the Land of Vanished Beautiful Things” By Stephen Mead

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Impressions from the Land of Vanished Beautiful Things

By Stephen Mead

 

As I type the words Living Room that occasionally perverse, peculiar voice from a darkly comic, mad quadrant of my brain asks: “Yes, well what about other rooms?  Aren’t they for living too, and what would be the opposite?” Come into the Dying Room, dear, you’re looking a bit a peaked.  See these nice shiny vials of embalming fluid? Just relax and we’ll fix you right up in a jiff.  

There were several entrances to the living room of the farmhouse I grew up in, all but one being offshoots from other living quarters, and one in particular which had the capacity for a allowing a person the semblance of a grand entrance.  This was the large space from the dining room which had two recessed sliding wood doors that I never saw opened the entire time I lived on the farm. These were kept hidden by a horizontal pole running along the top, used mainly for clothes on hangers (either hung there for drying or waiting to be put on for “dress-up” occasions), the pole itself bolting the doors in place with tarnished black screwed in metal clasps.  During the times we asked my mom if we could take out said clasps to at least see these intriguing doors she would respond, “Hell, no. They are dirty and full of dust. You’d have an allergic reaction. Don’t even think about it.” Thus these doors, that had the imagined potential of sliding back with dramatic gossamer magic, as if for the Loretta Young show, remained mysterious with their central gold plated slots where you could push a button and, presto, pewter handles would pop out.  “Quit playing with that!”, was the accompanying admonishment mom’s preyed-on-nerves would spout as if by rote whenever we did this.  Actually, even without access to the doors, there were a few times I can recall when my siblings and I put up sheets on this dining entrance pole and thus had makeshift stage curtains for brief plays and musicals we’d improvise.  (What can I say? We didn’t live in the suburbs and had to come up with some means of fending off the delirium borne of boredom during shut-in days of inclement weather.)

Now that I’ve started to write about it I see that trying to describe the living room is like trying to describe a water color painting in process.  Memories and emotions overlap transparently while nevertheless creating layers, this way, that, which shifts the substance of the views welling and disappearing first over here, then, over there.  In order to frame the canvas so-to-speak, a person has to find a way to ground the surface plane, center it, and then see what details are strummed forth. Continue reading ““Impressions from the Land of Vanished Beautiful Things” By Stephen Mead” →