Page 11 - 2019 EMERGING WRITERS FELLOWSHIP ANTHOLOGY1

To My Fellow Fellows and the Fellows Who Follow

Quiet as it's kept, I’ve always tried to make myself small. In high school, I claimed the

outer left-hand desk of every classroom, determined to be close enough to catch the action
but far enough on the outskirts to disappear when needed. When I am most anxious and

can feel my heart drumming my chest, I catapult myself into large thoughts of the universe
to calm myself down. Sometimes I’ll put on Planet Earth while my hand rests on my chest,

imagining myself as a blade of grass in some African paradise or a speck of dust hovering
around an unfound planet in another galaxy. On one particular afternoon, I found myself

in an Uber cruising on California’s winding coast, small and hidden by a demanding ocean
on my way to Esalen.

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I never learned how to swim because I could not float. I am one of one million people who
says the same thing and has the same story about one million people trying to teach them

how to swim and failing. I could not float; not because my body was incapable, but because
I had never lived a life where I trusted my body enough to let go of it. So many loved ones

have pressed delicate hands to my back underwater, quietly promising “I got you, trust
me.” To which I nodded, hoping to float and let this ancient water magic happen. Every

time, I lied, part of me hoping this time would be different but another part of me knowing

myself well enough to accept that it would not happen. I even did that thing I always do
when I need validation; turn to Google. Whenever people asked me why I couldn’t swim,

I gave them some bullshit fact about the density of Black bodies resisting the buoyancy of
water. It was much easier to rely on false science then to say out loud: “the water is the

only home that has tried to claim me by pulling me in.” I am afraid of places that ask me
to let go.

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