by kelli russell agodon
— Port Townsend, Washington
Imagine this: it’s the day before Easter and beautiful if you love sun and birdsong and egg hunts, but not if you’re wishing for rain, if you think Jesus is a distraction from real life and birdsong is the unexpected alarm now waking you before 6 a.m. But it is, beautiful, the day before Easter and you have to drive forty-five minutes to watch your daughter at a two-minute Easter egg hunt, but that is three hours from now and right now, you’re in a room typing a poem. Imagine this: It’s the week before Easter and you’ve planned a writing retreat with friends, to go to a haunted apartment to write for five full days, five full days, because there is nothing more you want to do than lose yourself in your words. But you’ve learned to stop saying “retreat” and use the term “residency” because others think you’re on vacation, some sort of girl’s weekend with wine and pedicures. No, this is where they’ve become confused. This is where a friend says, It’s so nice your husband can watch your daughter as if he’s not related to her, as if he’s not responsible for her care. And there was this week I found myself annoyed because my daughter’s teacher wrote me after my husband went on a field trip with her class: Your husband was a wonderful chaperone. Thank you for sharing him with us. And I wanted to hit reply say, Dads get points just for showing up. Imagine the teacher ever writing my husband to say, Thanks for sharing your wife with us. Thank you for not only being a dad who showed up, but also a Filipino dad, you’ve added so much diversity to this busload of white kids. Imagine this: It’s the day before Easter and I’m beautiful and not bitter that my generation is still stuck between women who live for their men and the girls who expect more. Maybe they will resent their husbands for caring too much about hairstyles, for using product. There’s an Easter Egg hunt in less than three hours and I’m frothing about relationships, about already having drank my first cup of coffee and it’s empty, instead of realizing I’m still here, in this room looking out to a forest of blackberry bramble, of trees with moss on the north side, just like in the Camp Fire Girl book I had as a child when I believed that good deeds created beads and patches and I could rename myself Kekoa because it meant Brave One, because I would grow up to be thankful for my ability to start fires when the other girls fumbled with their flint. And while in this town, Jesus is a distraction because he’s walking up the street in a tiny toga with an Elvis in wings singing, Hunka-hunka burning love during the Easter parade because it’s hippie-dippie here. I know where I reside best and how I can leave last minute from a beautiful day-before- Easter-morning to arrive back into my life of family members who forget to drag the garbage down to the corner and be thankful I only start fires because someone needs warmth but otherwise, I can leave the flint in my pocket and no longer create spark just to prove I’m the best.