Apple pie on my shoulder. Why was there apple pie on my shoulder? Confused, I looked at my sister sitting next to me. There was apple pie on her window. The plate and fork were still in her hands, but there was apple pie was all over her. She gasped for air, the seat belt still burning into her skin.

Panic. But not yet. Maybe no one will notice if I just drive off. If the car would start.

Resigned, I went to check the damage. Distractedly jumping out of the car, I slammed my ring finger in the door. Visions of the police showing up to arrest me with my finger stuck haunted me enough to yank it out.

No, the car wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was the little blue Geo Metro, fatally parked in the spot my car now possessed.

Luck was not on my side, even if apple pie was. Lights went on in houses. People came running. My forehead was bleeding, they said, sit down on the curb. Word was sent two blocks down, where our little white church sat full of people still eating their apple pie.

Still breathing hard, my sister sat next to me. “No,” she said indignantly, “I did not throw up apple pie.”

Emergency room or jail, I wasn’t sure where they would take me. I was stupid enough to look down, turning the steering wheel in the process. Do they take you to jail for that? Maybe they would feel sorry for me—I did have a big knot on my forehead.

Bright lights and an ambulance. No, I wasn’t going in there—I was going home. But Sister Parran had her way, as she drove me to the hospital. Sister Parran always got her way—that was how the world worked, I thought sullenly. But she did make good apple pie.

**

My first day of school. First day of get out of bed, go to school, be on your own all day long. Then home to tell stories. I thought I was so big. I laid out my clothes the night before. Did all my “Back to school” shopping and filled my pencil case. My binder had horses on it.

The ride to school took FOREVER. Long enough to sit and worry. Worry about the teacher, my classmates, school work…I’d been warned about horrible homework. I got lost trying to find the classroom. I tried very hard to not look lost.

With four chairs per table, and I sat in the first one, closest to the teacher. I was ready to be teacher’s pet. Mr. Bowke. Sideways, he reminded me of a triangle, with his tall, straight back and then middle that came out to a point. Mr. Bowke was big. From where I sat, he was even bigger.  

One student had a piece of candy. I listened to every crinkle as they unwrapped it and slowly swirled it around their mouth. I couldn’t wait for lunchtime. Reaching for my pencil, I knocked the pencil box up and over. My face flashed red as it was raining pencils. All was quiet: even the candy stopped clicking against the boy’s teeth. Mr. Bowke stopped the class.  He walked over to me, picking up the pencils. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me it would be all right. I believed him.

Maybe your first day of school was similar. Perhaps mine was different. I bought my own clothes for the first day of school. I drove my own car to my first class. Being homeschooled from kindergarten through high school,  my first day of school was in college.

My mother’s hair shined in long, deep brown waves. It stuck to her forehead in thick chunks when she spent 30 hours delivering me. I wrapped it around my finger, stroking it like a teddy bear, claiming it as my security blanket. She cut her hair when I learned to walk, after I grew accustomed to latching onto her hair, pulling myself up like the prince trying to reach Rapunzel.

As I grew, so did my mother’s muscle problems. Her hair was one part of her I could touch without causing her pain. I added barrettes, covering her with multicolored plastic animals facing every direction. I saw her curly hair surrounding her like thick thunderclouds, as she lay in bed, too sick to finish our home schooling classes. I closed the door, took my books to the next room, and watched my own straight hair fall forward as I leaned over to finish my lesson as she slept.  

At 11, I was still short enough to have to stand on my tiptoes to see into the mirror at my grandparent’s butterfly brown bathroom. With one long, cold snip, the hairs slipped to the carpeted floor and I stooped to pick them up before anyone saw them. They noticed well enough as soon as I rolled back the door—my bangs were only a half inch long. It was my hair, I had control. It would grow back, along with the tingling hope that one time I would cut it and the reflection would look just like one of those girls in the magazine.

Long hair was pure, fluid, graceful, and religious. When I picked up scissors I was letting legalism fall in circles around me, some still sticking to the back of my neck and telling me to take another shower to stop the itching. Cutting hair was letting go. I felt lighter, leaving responsibility in the dustpan for the trash man to take away. Cutting hair was a gift.  Donating to Locks of Love transformed an object of selfish beauty into eternal glory.  Growing and cutting became a cycle, a habit, a transformation.

“Lice.” The hairdresser said, as she smacked her gum. “I can’t cut your hair because of LICE.” Every head jerked up from their magazines to look at me. The girl with lice. I could have explained how I worked at an alternative school, trying to give every child the love I knew they did not receive at home. But I left, without looking anyone in the eye, and walked home.

It didn’t help that I was white, with skin that rejected melanin. That I liked boy’s flip-flops instead of girl’s high heels, and my basketball shorts and t-shirts yelled “I am American.” That short hair seemed sensible for a summer in the tropics. I woke up drowsy from layovers and missed flights to find many eyes staring at me. Eyes that belonged to girls with bronze skin, revealing tank tops, and stunning shoes. Girls that tossed their long hair and walked away before I could see their condemnation. My hair was not long enough to hide behind.

Northeast Brazil is known for its beautiful wind. My previous experience with wind was cold Indiana winters blowing through five layers of clothing. This was a new, liberating experience of relief from the hot temperatures that come from living near the equator. I relished the wind running through my hair, pushing and pulling it wherever it wished. Who cared about tangles—I was free.

I heard his voice before I saw him. All grown up, I hadn’t been home in months, but my father’s voice still made me laugh and come running. Stopping in mid-step, I controlled my facial expression, asking, “What happened to your face?” Months of scraggly whiskers moved to reply, “I was waiting for you to come home and trim my beard.” I had become the family hair-cutter, after a weekend of training years ago. I quickly stepped back into my responsibilities.

I tentatively reached out to touch one perfectly white curl, but I couldn’t do it. I returned to my seat next to the rest of my grieving family as they closed the casket. I would never again see my laughing grandmother’s eyes, or feel her soft hair as she leaned in to give me a hug. Hair grows even after you’re dead, or at least it looks like it does.

“Choose one song to represent you, your life, your dreams. When you are ready, stand up and sing.”

Me? The one with a new favorite song every week? Music feeds me with new ideas, with new ways of expressing myself. It deepens meaningful moments and breaks silence with sound. Only one song?

“I’m like a bird, I’ll only fly away. I don’t know where my soul is, I don’t know where my home is… (Nelly Furtado)”

Sitting on the cool tile floor, trying to hide from the Brazilian heat, I heard the lyrics once more. “That is me,” I thought. “I can’t figure out things. I can’t make big commitments yet, because I just don’t know.” I didn’t know—that over the next six years I would spend three of them in that beautiful foreign country I would learn to call my second home. My transition song. From one place to another.

“It seems to easy to call you “Savior,” Not close enough to call you “God”…I want to fall in love with You… (Jars of Clay)”

I looked into the night sky and saw unfamiliar stars. Nothing felt familiar except the song playing on a borrowed walkman. Another eight hour layover on my way home from Brazil. Was Brazil home or was where I was born home? Or maybe, was this Savior I was learning to call my God where my home was. My call for love, and to be loved.

“I love you, I have loved you all along. And I forgive you for being away for far too long. So keep breathing cause I’m not leaving you anymore…(Nickleback)”

The car was stopped, but I left the engine running to hear the rest of the song on the radio. My tears fell in my lap, but it felt good—so good—to let go. I had fallen in love with God. I knew I loved Him and He loved me. But time and space and life happens. I forget. And I wake up wondering how the heck I got to where I was. How long was I sleeping? My me and God song.

“We are reaching for the future, we are reaching for the past…We are desperate to discover what is just beyond our grasp, but maybe that’s what heaven is for…(Carolyn Arends)”

My sister delicately pressed the piano keys as I turned the pages. The microphone seemed a bit awkward, because we normally just sang in our living room, but we managed on that Sunday night church service. I had been singing in church since I was 13, but I liked it best with my sister playing the piano. There was something special in how she played. Something that sounded like family and home. My cry for belonging.

“Hush my dear, lie still and slumber, holy angels guard thy bed…lullaby…go to sleep my love, my dear…God will keep thee ever near…(Mr.Rasback)”

We stood at attention with our hands at our sides. I tried to think glowing thoughts to make my face look radiant. Maybe someone would notice me in the third row, left hand side of the choir. It was our annual Christmas concert, and we were singing the song our director had written. We knew, as always, that at the end he would choke up and tell the parents how wonderful we were (except for Robert). My favorite lullaby.

“We like to have fun and we never fight, you can’t dance and stay uptight, it’s such a supernatural delight, everybody was dancin in the moonlight…(Van Morrison)”

“This song reminds me of you.” He said with a smile, driving down the road. “Really?” I thought. “Good.” Because I want to dance. I want to celebrate and enjoy. I want to remember how to be lighthearted and know that I won’t save the world, but I can make my little part of it smile. My smile song.

“But I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more, just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door…(The Proclaimers)

The movie played on repeat, showing pictures of my cousin and his new wife—but I was captured by the music. “I want that.” I said to myself. “Someday.” My love song.

 “Let’s  get rich and give everybody warm sweaters and teach them how to dance, let’s get rich and build a house on a mountain making everybody look like ants from way up there, you and I, you and I…(Ingrid Michaelson)”

Repeat. Yes, this was the right song. I would sing the girls part, he would sing the guys part, and then all the guests would join in the chorus, snapping and clapping. That is the song I want at my wedding. That is the kind of wedding I want to have. Someday.

 “I can only imagine what my eyes will see when your face is before me. I can only imagine…(Mercyme)”

I stopped in the middle of the song to translate again. The words meant so much to me—and I felt like I couldn’t get them into the small vocabulary that I knew of her language. Angela—my angel. I didn’t know that would be the last time I would get to sing for her, holding her hand as she laid there in bed. It was her heart, you know—her heart was so full of love that it couldn’t hold the rest properly. Now she is my angel in heaven. My future song.

“I want a moment to be real, want to touch things I don’t feel, want to hold on, and feel I belong…(Googoo Dolls)”

Treasure planet. I sat mesmerized in front of the Disney cartoon, rewinding and playing the song again. It was perfect. It captured me and wanting more. It held the emotion of growing up and standing on a place that was yours. It was what I heard the kids on the street saying every day, hidden behind their curses and ghetto attitudes. My growing song.

“Look up, look up, look up and see the sky, love, you see that moon shining so high up above us? It rolls around on account of a bunch of scientific stuff. I like to think it does just because He loves us…(Bradley Hathaway)”

“Genius.” I thought, as I stared up at him singing on the stage. I didn’t like most of the other songs, but he struck gold right there. He was right about my age, with much of the same story. He’d started out writing poems—I’d met him at a writing workshop. Now he was morphing into songs. I had a lil crush on him until the girl in front of me made such a spectacle of herself, fawning over him that I decided that was the end of that. I wouldn’t join that group. My night song.

I stood, and I sang.