stand

I grew up at the bottom of a hill, on an oak tree lined street in the Highland Park neighborhood of St. Paul. We lived in the corner house, the exact place where the median age changed from 80 to young families, from Jewish grandmothers to Catholic schoolgirls with scraped knees and a ring of sticky red juice around their mouths. Our family was different. I was a little black/white girl, too chubby and too tall.

Mom helped me drag the coffee table down to the end of the driveway next to the full lilac bush. I spent an hour carefully bubbling letters onto the page with bold colored Crayola markers: "Koolaid, 15 cents a glass." I waited patiently. The iced melted. Josh, from across the street, passed on his skateboard. My stepdad watched this agony for an hour, then placed two coins in my 3 year old brother's hand.