Senior Portfolio: Personal Essay
By: Kailey Warner
Knees
When I was seven years old, I rode an adult-sized tricycle.
This tricycle was rather suave and sophisticated – a sleek body with seductively wide rear wheels that balanced the aesthetic. I liked it, even though it was purple.
My parents tried to get me to ride a two-wheeler. They took the training wheels off my Barbie bike, not so much because I wanted them to but more so because they thought I was ready. When I left it in a dusty corner of the garage, my parents bought me a new big-girl bike complete with streamers. They took turns pushing me through the grass in our backyard because I refused to ride over concrete. When I felt them let go, I planted my feet on the ground, and I straddled the bike, waddling rather than pedaling. That’s when my parents bought me the adult-sized tricycle.
I would have rather removed my own intestines and grilled them for a succulent dinner than learn how to ride a bicycle. Tottering, leaning, wobbling – God forbid, falling – I knew I would end up underneath that metal contraption, bleeding, concussed, in all manner of ways maimed. I knew that if I fell, I would never get back on a bicycle again, so I never let myself pedal fast enough to find my balance. I stuck my feet down every time.
As for tricycling, I was a pro. Nothing was out-of-control with my tricycle.
When my cousin Alexis, who rode a two-wheeler, wanted to ride around the block with me, I agreed and saddled my tricycle. Alexis rode slightly ahead of me, and as we neared the end of the street, she asked,
“Which way do you want to go?”
I’ve always wobbled in my decision-making. As a child, I waited patiently for grown-ups to tell me what to do, and now I wish that I had taken to defying them more often. I wish that I would have fearlessly taken their reprimands for jumping off the swing set, or for talking in line, or for anything I chose to do, rather than comply with their rules on default. But I knew that if I followed the rules, I could find myself at the top of the class, earning stickers for my perfect worksheets while the other kids were still figuring out how to be quiet enough to line up for lunch. As an adult, I rely heavily on authority to balance my decision-making, because I still struggle with my childhood fear of bicycles – abstract bicycles, that is. I’m afraid of getting into situations that are out of my control, where I don’t feel an immediate sense of mastery. Following the rules is as easy as riding a trike.
When Alexis asked me which way I wanted to turn, I found myself riding an abstract bicycle. Though I pedaled forward smoothly on my trike, inwardly I wobbled. I tried to defer the decision to Alexis, but she asked me again,
“Which way do you want to go?”
I kept pedaling straight, she turned, and we crashed.
The trike fell on top of me, crushing my body underneath the weight of its rear wheels. I was lying on the street, crying and screaming at Alexis: “Go get Mom! Run!” Alexis, her eyes wild and anxious, glanced backward at me as she ran.
My knees were stinging. I looked down and noticed the blood, the bits of gravel embedded in my flesh, the pieces of my skin dangling from my shins. I was shaken by the fall, but I was okay. Still, I waited at the end of the street for my mother to carry me back home and bandage my wounds.
After that crash, I never rode my tricycle again.
Boobs
When I was nine years old, my mother tricked me into bra-shopping.
She took me to the mall, pushed me into a department store, and herded me toward the girls’ section. When I saw her start to fondle the A-cups, I felt the blood drain from my intestines and flood my head, leaving me with an intense nausea and vertigo that I could sufficiently describe as blinding rage.
My mother says that I knocked over an entire rack of bras, but all I remember is snatching the bra from my mother’s hands, throwing it on the ground, stomping on it, and kicking it, which caused the hanger to get snagged on my shoelaces, which caused me to feel more embarrassed as I ran from my mother, tripping and tearing the bra from my feet. My mother claims she was preoccupied with putting the bras back on the rack (and I have no idea how they got de-racked). When she looked up, I was gone.
I had found a place remote enough to crouch inside a shelving unit. I hugged my knees to my chest and waited.
I heard an announcement over the intercom for a missing child named Kailey.
I heard an employee call my name as I watched her shoes shuffle past me.
I knew I shouldn’t have run from my mother, but I couldn’t face her with bras in her hands. She might as well have been offering me shackles.
I didn’t like being reminded that I was a girl. I watched my mother. She worked shifts at odd hours of the night and came home to cook, clean, and take care of my step-dad, who didn’t seem capable of holding a steady job and complained that we didn’t have enough money. He came home sweaty, grease-stained, and proud, feeling entitled to his shower, his plate at the head of the table, and his recliner, where he propped his feet in front of the TV for the rest of the night. Even though she quickly yielded to him, I saw that my step-dad could easily, if he wanted to, talk down to my mother – my mother, who thought more highly of other people’s self-respect than her own, who smelt like sugar-free suckers and tongue-depressors rather than sour oil and dirt. I felt that as a girl, and later a woman, these burdens would be bestowed upon me because I would grow boobs.
I didn’t want to bear what I saw my mother bearing, so I definitely didn’t want to wear what I knew my mother was wearing – yet it was coming for me. Seeing my mother with a bra in her hands reminded me that I was turning into a woman. That bra was confronting me with my fear that a confirmation of my femininity would confirm a sense of powerlessness within me forever.
I decided to leave my hiding place once I felt my mother had been punished long enough.
Hands
When I was eight years old, I talked with my hands.
I was no ventriloquist, and I didn’t own any puppets, but I named my left hand Bob and my right hand Joe, and I practiced moving my fingers to create expressions: a mouth wriggling in disgust, a chin bulging in thought, a head hanging in shame. My third-grade teacher, Mrs. King, allowed me to stand in front of the class and talk with my hands. I took the place of our story-time, and the children watched one of their own create dialogues on wrestling entertainment, frozen foods, and other stand-up material that welled up from her inner-self and flowed through her hands.
The first time I asked Mrs. King if I could tell a story to the class, I brought accompanying illustrations that I drew and labelled in crayon: one was an acorn, one was the world-as-seen-from-outer-space, one was a pickle jar, and one was a green-faced alien with a squiggly mouth and yellow antennas, whom I called “SUBJECT WEIRD GUY.” I remember the plot but vaguely now. What I do remember, and what is extraordinarily real for me, is the telling.
I stood in front of twenty third-graders, talking slowly, pointing to my drawings – and as the story grew, my voice broke with laughter and the kids howled with delight, doubling over in their chairs.
Then a teacher from the classroom next door stuck her head into our classroom and asked if we could quiet down because her students were taking a math test.
The moment I remember is artwork: twenty kids still teetering on their chairs, faces like color on canvas – neon pink and blue and daisy yellow and green spring meadow and pale eggshell and oranges deep like western canyons– light and animation, life unbordered, paints opened and with one squeeze emptied.
I surveyed this portrait, those laughing faces, and I realized: I created this.
That intangible moment of swirling joy had sprung from my hands.
Heart
The heart is a muscle that pumps blood through my body, carrying oxygen to my tissues, carrying away the poison of cellular wastes, making me strong, keeping me alive.
It’s funny that we connect our emotions to the heart, saying things like, “I’m heartbroken,” when all we know is that we are experiencing a pain that attacks the softest, most vulnerable part of ourselves.
The heart touches every cell in the body – at least metaphorically – by providing a literal circulation of blood, where most elements necessary for life travel as if on a major river that connects the different ports, or members, of the body.
I like to think that my cells drink from my blood-supply and can distinguish by the after-taste what emotions have been flavoring my heart. For the brief moments that I jump on the trampoline with my seven-year-old brother, I wonder if I can’t taste the slightest bit of bubble-gum at the back of my throat. Other times, I’m sure this is the case when my throat tastes bitter, like a used kitchen sponge, because I’ve used words that later I wish I hadn’t.
But broken or whole, the heart is the strongest muscle in our bodies.
I feel mine beating still, the steady thump thump thump rhythm that should reassure me that something within me is strong.
Paradoxically, the heart is the strongest and the weakest part of ourselves.
At least that reassures me I can still somehow find strength in my weakness, power in my powerlessness.
Kailey Warner is an English/Writing/Honors Humanities triple major. Upon graduation, she will be joining a penguin colony to harvest talcum powder from the moon. Or she will write children's books. Whichever option is more feasible. She loved working at the Ink Well, and she enjoyed the all-tutor meetings at the beginning of each semester where the veteran tutors would do an improv mock session. She loves improv, but of course her heart belongs to Sebastian. Arrg, matey.