A to Z

A

Air Bud series

Rahul and I wake up around seven am on Saturday mornings and watch Air Bud. We pad downstairs to the family room, to the couches with gray-gold laced cushions. We do not brush our teeth with Colgate toothpaste or change out of our flannel, red-and-green pajamas. Our parents are sleeping in the master bedroom upstairs. So, we whisper to each other, play the movie on low volume, sink back into the cushions, Buddy’s floppy ears waving on the screen. Rahul keeps the remote, and I don’t argue. I’m six, but I know this is delicate. We decide we want our own golden retriever puppy after the first movie in the series when Buddy plays basketball, his snout pushing up against the orange leather. The two of us sit cross legged next to each other on the couch, our knees touching. We laugh at the same jokes, and then shush each other. We’re usually halfway through the movie when we hear the wood stairs creaking, my dad’s heavy gait and my mom’s light one. We keep watching the movie as my dad pours pancake batter onto the griddle, and then we run into the kitchen, sit at the gray marble island, blast Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” out of the white, circular speakers pinned on the yellow-painted ceiling. Rahul and I sit next to each other as we eat our pancakes, and some mornings, he pours Aunt Jemima’s maple syrup onto my pancakes for me.

B

Bike rides

For my fourteenth birthday, my grandparents buy me a Trek hybrid bicycle, a color like purple, like the sky right after sunset before dark blue washes everything out. The first time I use it is March 20th, 2020. I remember because it is exactly seven days after school went online. I bike with two kids in my neighborhood. When they pull up to my driveway, I wheel my bike out, my sweaty fingers gripping the rubber handlebars. Sometimes, Rahul steps outside onto the porch, barefoot and shirtless, and makes kissing noises with puckered lips. I ignore him. The first day the three of us bike together, we discover a local jumps park off the trail, buried in a thick cloud of trees. My heart speeds up just looking at the jumps, so I usually bike over them slowly. Afterward, we weave through the winding dirt paths to the shallow river, where we balance on the slick rocks, pretend everything else is lava. Sometimes, our sneakers slip on the bright green moss, and we fall into the ankle deep water, our socks squishing, the river sliding around inside our shoes. We crouch down on the sandy banks, dip our phone cameras an inch into the water, capture in blurry movements the seaweed and tadpoles, and ourselves, in warped panoramas where we each have three heads.

C

Candy

My mom brought me along trick-or-treating with Rahul, pushing me in a stroller. I was dressed as a pumpkin, my chubby frame swallowed by orange fabric, a bright green stem rising behind my shock of brown hair. My brother, dressed in a forest green dinosaur onesie, ran from house to house, collecting Sour Patches and gumdrops and Twizzlers until his wicker basket was overflowing. “We can just leave the candy here,” she told my brother, scooping up a handful of candies from his basket and dropping them onto my gray stroller tray. She then turned back to him, gripping his grubby fingers in hers as we crossed the street, the sun sinking lower in the sky, shadows stretched out and dark against the asphalt. When she looked back at me, chocolate was smeared across my lips, hands sticky. All that was left on the tray were wrappers, colorful and vibrant, scattered across the gray plastic.

D

Diwali

The blue sequined sari is itchy against my skin, and I almost burn myself lighting a clay diya, the flame jumping close to my thumb. My grandmother, Nani, walks over, carrying jars of orange and green sand and flimsy stencils. I crouch down with her, pouring out the color, creating designs on the gray stone on our driveway, a galaxy of stars. I look over at the slab of stone in front of Nani. Her images are filled in and complete, no sand outside the lines. My star is scattered, one side stretching further, sand scattered outside the stencil, from when my dog stepped on it. I change to sweatpants and a t-shirt as soon as everyone leaves. In the foyer mirror, I see my dad frown.

E

Escalator

I don’t like riding on escalators in airports because I’m usually dragging a black, four wheel Tumi suitcase, my purple L.L.Bean backpack, and a duffel bag, and then I can’t hold onto the black railing, and when I step onto the first stair, I think I might fall forward, topple down the steps like a figurine toy, and collide with the old lady ahead of me. My dad walks fast in airports, and he’s always the first on the escalator, his suitcase by his side on the step, so I know I would hit him first.

F

Froot Loops

We stop buying Froot Loops when I turn ten. Too much sugar, my mom tells Rahul and I, and our family switches to Smart Start, a box with a baby blue background, electric red scribbles. It’s not the cereal that tastes too different, but the two percent milk left at the bottom of the plastic Ikea bowl. It doesn’t taste sweet or candied, like the Froot Loops milk. I eat all the cereal but when my parents step out of the room, I dump the milk down the drain before I put my bowl in the sink.

G

Grand Steinway piano

“Did you practice this week?” my teacher would ask me. Yup, I would tell her, nodding enthusiastically. But she could tell as soon as I pressed down on the first few polished white keys that I hadn’t touched the piano since the lesson before. My legs swung from the bench, not quite reaching the orange carpet below me. Even though I’d played for nearly ten years, it was easy to quit. Rahul also played, dreaded lessons as much as I did, and when we told our parents over a dinner of pesto pasta one night, they shrugged, said sure. We still have the piano, and my mom pours water into it every few weeks, when the yellow light blinks on. When we have guests over and they see the piano, they often ask us who plays. No one, we say, shrugging. The first time my cousins came over, I lifted them onto the black bench, and lifted their sticky, little fingers to the keys, dirt under their fingernails. Their eyes would light up when they pressed down on a key and a clink sounded, sliding into the air. Sometimes I would wake up in the morning to the sound of discordant notes echoing through the house. I would pad downstairs to see my cousins on the edge of the black bench, legs swinging, grins on their faces, my dog lying beside them. I picked them up under their arms so they could see how pressing a key lifted a part of the inner machine. They watched, captivated, their eyes following all the thin, golden strings.

H

Horizon newspaper

I love layouts. I spend the entire weekend at school, sprawled out in the computer lab with the other editors, adjusting text boxes and images on InDesign, editing articles on an upcoming field trip or a club’s recent activities, eating glazed donuts and drinking fresh squeezed orange juice out of plastic red and white cups. The other editors complain, rush through their work to leave as soon as they can. But sometimes, I work even slower, savoring the time spent with the team, our focus solely on the newspaper, on the black-and-white pages in front of us. I pencil layout weekends months ahead into our family calendar. One time, my parents accidentally scheduled a trip to Annapolis during a long weekend, and I forced them to cancel. “It’s layout weekend,” I told them, rolling my eyes.

I

Igloo

It’s actually pretty big, big enough for us to sit inside, cross-legged, slightly hunched. Our puffy winter jackets brush against the sides, shedding skins of snow onto the ground. My arms ache from all the digging, but I watch my brother, his gloved hands probing further, his boots pressed into the snow, dark hair wet and covered in flakes. My fingers are numb; I can see my breath in front of me when I exhale, shifting air that breaks into tendrils. We can hear our mom’s voice coaxing us inside from the porch. “It’s cold,” she calls, her voice like music, like the clinking of my keychains, “I have hot chocolate waiting for you!” I’m tempted, imagine the warm liquid filtering down my throat. When I peek out of the igloo, I see my mom standing by the door, a smile on her face. “Stay out here,” my brother whispers, “The igloo will melt soon, and we spent hours making it.” He draws our names in the snow, each letter deep and full, grins at me. He’s never this nice, I think, and I feel something run through me. We spend the next hour in the igloo, throwing snowballs at each other, carving out holes in the wall to make windows, space where the light breaks in and bathes the white ground in gold. The next day is sunny, and the igloo partially collapses, a muddled mess of dirt and slush. A day after, there is no trace of the igloo at all.

J

Jokes (Dad’s)

After I spent two weeks in Ohio for a writing camp, we’re driving home from the airport. “I met such a good friend,” I tell my parents, leaning forward in my seat to pull out the key chain I bought the day before, my fingers tracing the smooth, cool metal, “Her name is Hazel.” My dad glances at me in the rearview mirror, “Is her last name ‘Nut’? Because if it was, she would be Hazel Nut!” He bursts out laughing and slaps his leg. My mom twists around in her seat to look at me, and we roll our eyes at each other.

K

Knife

I’m eleven and slicing cucumbers on a pink cutting board. I’m using a white knife with a smooth black handle, a gift from my grandmother. It’s a kid’s knife, a duller blade than the others in our knife block. Taylor Swift blasts through speakers, her voice floating through static into our kitchen. The marble island is cluttered with keychains and Old Navy receipts and yesterday’s newspaper. “The blade isn’t that sharp,” I say, loudly, to my mom and Rahul, who are sitting at the circular table, scrolling on their phones, the blue light shining on their faces. To prove my point, I press the pad of my pointer finger to the tip. I feel the slightest pinch of pain. I shrug, wag my finger around, “See? I told you! I felt nothing!” But then a blob of blood pops up on the surface of my skin, bright red like grenadine syrup. I start shouting, waving my finger around. I wrench on the tap water, run my finger under the icy stream, tears welling in my eyes. My brother laughs from the table and my mom holds a grin back as she walks over to me. I start to giggle, but I also feel stupid. It’s never the actual pain, it’s just the bright red, the color of emergency, of something not being right.

L

Loud

We’re sitting at Asia Nine, the cloth white napkins draped across our laps, our faces washed in dim lighting. I’m telling my parents about class that day. “And then we built these huge robots that moved across the carpet insanely fast!” I tell them, a huge grin on my face. People at a few of the neighboring tables glance at us, and my parents shush me.

M

Mummy

For the first eleven years of my life, I called my mom “Mummy.” Until one night, as she was leaving my room after tucking me in, when I said, “Good night, Mom.” It just slipped out. I saw her stop in the doorway, her silhouette against the chipped purple wall, her hands deep in her sweatshirt pockets. The next day, she forwarded me an email about my soccer roster, signing off as “Mummy” like usual. For a few months, I straddled the line. Most of the time I called her “Mom,” but when I wanted something, I called her “Mummy.” A few months later, I stopped calling her “Mummy” entirely, and eventually, she stopped signing her emails off that way.

N

NYT Crossword Mini

I’ve started doing the New York Times mini crossword every morning. I’m so impatient though that if I don’t know the answer to a clue as soon as I encounter it, I click to reveal the word, so I’m usually not solving that much. I tried once to do the New York Times full size crossword, but my attention waned before I even reached the fourth clue, and I closed the tab to take my dog on a walk.

O

Oasters

The name of our camp group chat. I’m not sure who came up with the name or who took the profile picture of my friend crossing her eyes, her tongue dipped in a glob of chocolate ice cream. Before we left, we promised we would text regularly, send photos, updates, and schedule time for calls to catch up. It’s been three weeks, and the chat is silent. I bought a keychain with the camp name engraved in yellow on the metal, and every time it clinks against the wall, I’m reminded of late night card games and frozen yogurt outings.

P

People I love (sometimes)

1. Rahul. I love him when we play ping-pong, and as the whitish blue ball is bouncing toward me, he asks me how school is going. I love him when he sits down with me at the dining table to teach me the rules of logarithms. I don’t love him when he tells me to shut up or talk quieter at a restaurant if other people are looking over at us.

2. Papa. I love him when he makes his pancakes on Saturday mornings, dunks them in syrup for us, or when he finds a fun movie for us to watch at our family movie nights on Fridays. I don’t love him when he compares my AP scores to Rahul’s.

3. Mom. I love her when she bakes King Arthur chocolate chip cookies and plays Settlers and Ticket to Ride with me, the two of us sitting around the coffee table. I don’t love her when she snaps at me for asking a question while she’s typing out an email.

Q

Questions I’ve had for nine years and still don’t know the answer to

1. Why does the moon follow me home each night, right to my doorstep? 2. How do derivatives work?

3. If I cross my eyes, will they stay that way forever?

4. Why does my dad love my brother more than me?

5. How do I get Rahul to like me, not just love me?

R

Races

I live across the street from a playground and a parking lot. Usually, the parking lot is crammed full of cars, narrow pathways between them to walk. But during the pandemic, it became empty, a vacant loop. The perfect race track for me and my friends in April of 2020. We find a discarded piece of white chalk on the ground and scrape it across the asphalt, a starting line. We count down from three, pushing our black and yellow pedals down, and our bikes rush forward. The turns are sharp, and a few times, I think my bike tires will slip on the asphalt, and I’ll crash down. But I move fast, the oak trees and purple monkey bars streaking by me, my braid slapping my neck. On my front lawn, my dog watches us, her barks cutting the morning air. One of my friends wins our first race, his handlebars passing the chalk line a second before mine. He shoots his hands up and whoops. I frown. “Again,” I tell them, and we line up a second time.

S

Service dog

Our golden retriever, Nala, isn’t actually a service dog. My dad paid thirty dollars for a certificate that looks real enough that she can pass as one. Wherever she is, she’s really calm, just lies down, her furry head on her paws, and stares at us, big eyes finding ours. Everyone loves her at the nursing home, not just my grandparents, and the staff save beef treats for her, hold them out for her on their palms. At restaurants, she never barks or whines, just sits under the table, her black, wet snout poking out. Occasionally, I slip her a piece of chicken, her tongue leaving saliva on my hand.

T

Tent (party tent)

We beg the adult leader to let us sleep in the same tent for the upcoming campout at Pohick Bay. “The rule is two per tent, not five” he says, but his smiling eyes tell us he’s going to give in, “As long as you stay quiet after lights-out, it’s fine.” We use Dia’s tent, a five person tent we coin “the party tent” and when we arrive at the campsite, we press our sleeping bags close together, a quilted patchwork of blues and reds and greens. We left the campfire early that night, stepping carefully through the leaves and dirt, pulling our hiking boots off before we climbed into the tent. We spend the next three hours playing Spoons and Who’s Most Likely To and Paranoia, talking over each other and laughing, our voices drowning out the buzz of cicadas drilling holes into the evening.

U

Uncle Julio’s

The waiter carries out the piñata, a sphere of chocolate draped in caramel sauce, adorned in strawberries, hanging from a wooden frame with a white string. The waiter hands me a small bat. My parents and friends sing happy birthday, my hands itching with excitement. As soon as they reach the end of the song, I wind back and whack the chocolate ball. Shards of dark chocolate fly across the rectangular table, and the raspberries and blueberries spin out, landing on the polished wood floor. Our table explodes into laughter. Nala dives at the food, and my dad uses his leg to shield her from it, her furry face pushing against his jeans. “You’re supposed to hit it from the top, not from the side,” my brother rolls his eyes, but he’s laughing too. “Five second rule!” my dad calls, and we all scramble to the ground, picking up pieces of chocolate and fruit and stuffing them into our mouths.

V

Vaseline

My lips are always chapped. I lick them so much that there is a thin line of white above my upper lip. I learn to leave a travel size of Vaseline in the cup holder of our cars, my jackets, and my backpack’s small front pocket, where it clinks with a keychain or the charm bracelet of my dog’s name spelled in blue and red beads. Every morning and evening, I smear a thick coat of Vaseline onto my lips. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night with bloody noses, my throat thick with swallowed blood, or a drop of blood drops onto my paper during a math test at school, right on top of my circled answer. I rub thick globs of Vaseline into my nostrils. I can feel the pressure against the wall I’ve made, the blood pushing against the cream to spill out.

W

Ways I show love

1. Acts of service. Example: We’re watching a movie, and my mom is curled on the couch. She’s thirsty, so I go downstairs to the basement fridge to bring her a lemon and citrus seltzer.

2. Gifts. Example: For Father’s Day, I buy my dad a Life is Good shirt that says “Either you love dogs or you’re wrong” in yellow text above an image of a golden retriever with her tongue out. He wears it every week.

3. Quality time. Example: I visit Nani in her nursing home almost every week. Even when I am bored of the games, we play Boggle and Phase 10, sprawled out on her carpet, because I know they are her favorites.

Ways I receive love

1. Words of affirmation. Example: When my teacher shares that she loves my excitement and enthusiasm in class every day, I read her email seven times and copy her words onto a document to save.

2. Quality time. Example: The afternoon is open. My dad asks me if I want to go on a hike at Locust Grove with Nala. I jump up, and I’m ready by the front door with Nala’s water bottle and leash in four minutes.

3. Physical touch. Example: My mom crawls into my bed on Saturday mornings, light falling across the covers. She cuddles with me, traces my back, makes patterns across my shoulder blades.

X

X-Ray

I’m stuck between the claws of metal machines, my thin body at the center of a maze. The nurses tell me to bite on a piece of plastic. It tastes like rust, like blood. I wear braces for two more years because of an overbite. I wear them for a year longer because I don’t use my rubber bands at night.

Y

Yesterday

I spent thirty minutes on the phone with my parents, crafting slogans for a new company my dad is investing in. It’s called CloudChef, and it uses technology to make food. We come up with “RecrEATING any dish, anywhere, one byte at a time.” My brother tells us the “A” and the “I” in recreating should be highlighted, which I think is the smartest idea I’ve ever heard. Our phone call is so much fun I ask my dad to invest in another company for us to brainstorm slogans for.

Z

Zoom school

I miss in-person school, when I could just shout out, I didn't even need to raise my hand. I always forget to unmute, so I’m talking and my mouth is moving and I can hear my own voice, but if no one can hear me, it’s like I’m not saying anything. Encyclopedias never really end. There are so many more words to define. Maybe I’ll just start at the beginning again.

Tara enjoys adopting other forms of writing (like an encyclopedia, in this case) to tell her stories. She finds that the new form gives her space to play and experiment on the page, while at the same time, offering a confined structure. In creative nonfiction essays, she tries to explore different pieces of her identity, delving deep into vignettes or memories to put readers in her place.