In Montreal

I suppose I should have gotten a hint from the drawings plastering his stand. Some colored and some simple charcoal-on-white-paper, all bore an undeniable likeness. All at least semi-sexualized, most depicted similar-looking women in fishnets and low-cut dresses standing on tiptoes, their seductively pursed lips bursting from the page. I supposed I should have had a different expectation about how he would warp and re-create my brother and me. But I didn't, and Nathan and I sat down across from the soft-faced, cherubic man with thick silver hair and a worn navy blue baseball cap. He didn't say much but seemed to know exactly what he was going to draw even before we were seated. I suppose the fact that he didn't take a good look at our faces and features before he began should have clued me in. But it didn't, and we laughed at the cracks my dad was making in the background, at the ridiculous mental caricatures he was painting for us as the physical one was being swiftly sketched in confident black sweeps. The soft-faced man worked quickly and surely, looking more at the page than at his two posing customers. Whenever he did look up at me I could feel my arms closing tighter around my body, hands stuck self-consciously between my knees. Next to me Nathan basked in the morsels of attention, body loose and shoulders dipped, an easy smile spread across his freckled brown face. His laugh, pouring out of his throat, rippled the dark red shirt draped over his torso. I laughed a little too hard, amused at Dad's jokes, amused at the scene, but really wishing the man would shout "Voila!" and be done with it.

Dreams from My Father Journal 1

Dreams from My Father is written in a lyrical, colorful, yet straightforward manner. Barack Obama could surely be writing frilly or philosophical phrases, but instead writes to the general public using quietly sophisticated, evocative words. His descriptions of people are detailed and often lets other characters paint the picture of each person. He begins with a description of his father based on his mother and grandparents' stories. Their tales present the reader with multiple accounts of Barack Sr.'s behavior. 

" "So the fella took another look, and shook his head again, and that's when your dad picked him clear off the ground and started dangling him over the railing!" Gramps lets out a hoot and gives his knee a jovial slap...

"He wasn't really holding him over the railing, Dad," my mother says, looking at me with concern, but Gramps takes another sip of whiskey and plows forward" (7). 

Instead of presenting his formulated idea of what his dad was like, Obama allows the reader to get to know his father the same way that he did – through stories, the only means available on which to learn about him. 

Obama includes a lot of dialogue (most of which is likely paraphrased). This has the effect of making the memoir read like a novel. This book is not a reflection; rather, an account. It follows the chapter in his life during which Barack was seeking answers to the unanswerable questions brought to light by his father's sudden death: How should his son feel upon hearing the news? Did leaving his son mean that he did not love him? What were his dreams? Who was he?

This story is proving to be a fascinating, detailed, and easily-read depiction of Barack Obama's thoughts and tactful observations on a society overcoming social racial obstacles and his personal growth along the way to discovering his father. 

Hair, Continued

A young impressionable  girl, and desperate to have flat hair, I convinced myself that what I really wanted was a flatiron to torture the stuff into heat-induced submission (although I didn't see it that way at the time). Proudly I went to the drugstore and picked out the cheapest one I could find that still looked like it might work. Excitedly pressing my hair through it for a good twenty minutes, I emerged from the bathroom sporting a semi-straight head of hair.

"Well, my dad said matter-of-factly, "It is pretty flat. But isn't that bad for your hair?"

I didn't care. I took showers in the evenings so it would dry and I could straighten it for the next day of school. It was great.

...Until I gradually started to realize that my miraculous hot stick was not a permanent solution. In the battle, this was merely an armistice, a brief period of peace between me and my hair. The more I slid that scorching stick through my overly lively locks, forcing them to life lat, the more I noticed problems with my newfound "solution". My bangs, once soft and wavy (the waves drove me nuts) were frizzy and dry after being burned by the stick. Looking in the mirror one day, contemplating my hair after a bout of vigorous disciplining, I suddenly realized that my hair was flat. I mean, I knew it was flat but it was flat. Limp. Straight. Droopy. Lifeless. Kind of staticky. Boring.

Boring?

Boring is one thing I've never wished to be. But it was true. Once straight, there was little I ould do with my hair except let it lie, straight, boring, or put it into a ponytail. A straight, perfect, boring little ponytail.

It took a little time, a little acceptance, a little burn-stick-weaning, but I learned to just leave the fibrous protein sprouting from my head alone. It still poofs, still frizzes and dries with weird creases and energetic waves protruding from the mass on my head. I learned how to control it while refraining from furiously pinning it to the back of my head. I learned to live with it, to love it sometimes. Really, I figure, who am I to restrain the vibrant life sitting on top of my head?  To force it to be boring? What a cruel way to rule a head of hair.

Just yesterday I discovered the dusty flatiron hiding in a corner of my room. I threw the damn thing away.

Hair

It's been chopped, grown, snipped, touched, pressed, curled, washed, dried, loved, hated, manipulated, and finally, accepted. I used to have a short bob until I discovered that all of the girls in Mendoza had long, sleek locks. I grew it out, trying to make it long enough to rest over my shoulders in dark brown waves. In fifth or sixth grade my hair, always having been gently wavy but decently straight and controlled, started to turn on me. It fluffed out in uncontrolled puffs with unattractive and maddening persistence. I would carefully smooth it, attempting to flatten the billows I knew would inevitably erupt from my head as it dried. Time and time again, I was forced to tie it up in tight buns or knot it into braids to conceal the relentless frizz. 

This was war.

Onions and Cheese, Then and Now

2000.

I walk to the door and hear Savage Garden faintly through the wood. I knock. Dad opens it, wearing his blue checkered apron, smelling of onions and cheese. The music is loud now, the boom box blaring from the kitchen. I love coming home, to this. The house is small and warm, not half the size of our home in the U.S. but equally comfortable. Our legos in the living room, and Magic Cards scattered on the floor. Beary on my pillow, a keyboard to play, Backstreet Boys and Shakira tapes to listen to, and my family to talk. Every comfort. Except it does feel a little different, because I feel different. It's all the same but different. Everything is. 

2006.

The black cast-iron gate, the chipped white door - these are the same. But walking inside, I find my house's smell is absent. A sweeter, softer, unfamiliar smell greets me. This is not my house. It bears no semblance to my house. Nick's room, once full of light and Coca-Cola cans and stray clothes, has been converted into a storage space, jammed with boxes, shades drawn. My parents room is stale, void of the easy life it once held. Seeing my lively little house so changed makes me sad. Only one person lives here - she doesn't use it like we did. We sit down for a cup of mate in the kitchen to catch up on missed years, and as she spoons tablespoons of sugar into the gourd, the familiar gaudy blue pattern catches my eye. Our old plastic tablecloth, on which our boom box blaring Savage Garden used to sit, on which Dad chopped up countless onions and blocks of cheese, remains quietly in its place. Smiling, I reach for the outstretched gourd, one hand resting on my table.