I was called sand.

My family and I didn’t travel to beaches full of it. We couldn’t. Being Iranian in the 1980s and 1990s came with a label: terrorist.

My nickname didn’t come from a beautiful beach.

It came from hatred.

Dear Ezra,

I know we’ve never met…

And yet my hungry mind keeps feeding me

slow-burning images of you in your kitchen.

December 22nd

One day after winter solstice

Five hours, forty-four minutes and twenty-seven seconds of daylight

Sunrise: 10:13 a.m.

Sunset: 3:41 p.m.

LOVE
noun | \ lev : an intense feeling of deep affection; a great interest and pleasure in something.

LUST
noun | \ lest : very strong sexual desire.

One dreary winter day, nearly two years into dating, he ended things rather oddly: “I don’t think you’ll be okay if we break up,” he explained, “which is why we have to break up.” Though confounding, I suppose it was not surprising—he often resented how much I seemed to need him.

A mass of white caps on a disheveled sea crisscrosses the horizon, the aftermath of a hurricane that skidded up the western face of Baja from Cabo past Punta Hughes. The storm made a westerly turn on its northern trajectory, just far enough off the coast to send a small amount of rain and mountainous surf to our small pueblo. Wave after wave, a tight fetch. a disorganized army of marching swell lines with little space between them, and out the far points, close-out walls of water.

Midlife doesn’t announce itself with milestones — it arrives in contrasts. One moment, you’re lighting candles for a graduation. The next, you’re watching your mother shrink into a hospital gown.

When I was a kid, my gender and race lived together, tightly tied in a braid on top of my head. My brothers and I share a skin tone that is pale in the winter, and cinnamon in the summer. Our father was the only black person in our rural town, and as far as we knew, we were the only mixed-race kids on Earth.

“Any requests?” my daughter asks from the backseat of the car. I’m driving up Connecticut’s Merritt Parkway to drop her off for her first year of college. She plays DJ while my husband and younger daughter count passing Teslas. Through New Jersey and over the GW Bridge, we listen to their mix of Phoebe Bridgers, Kimya Dawson, and Big Thief. We’re all a little nervous, unsure about what life will be like once we say goodbye.

"Don't you think it's kinda weird, not showing your face for like, 229 months?" Bunnie, an anthropomorphic rabbit, lightly chided me. She wasn't wrong. I hadn’t booted up Nintendo’s original Animal Crossing game in nearly twenty years. 

In purple light of my daughter’s first concert, lyrics wrangle with all the fears, hopes, and possibilities of growing up. Light-up stars glow into the darkness as pictures of the artist as a young girl flicker behind her. A young pop star sits at the baby grand, singing into a purple haze. I glance over at my girl, singing along, and in her profile, I see her at age twelve. I see myself at twelve too. I remember and imagine her at twenty, all of the ages I have been and she will be. A little girl voice calls out to us, and tears well up as we search for ourselves there, among the stars. 

The sun was a golden coin that afternoon — if only it had never set. For her 10th birthday, Robin’s mom let her have a friend over for a sleepover. She chose me. Robin’s grandma came, and so did her uncle. He was very nice.

She opens the cupboard above the sink and stretches her body as far as it can go. The glasses and bowls have moved closer to the edge of the shelves since I was here last.