For a recent writing exercise, I had to think of the earliest memory that came to mind in the moment and landed on the multicolored shag rug in the corner of my second grade Long Island classroom where, for some reason, I was weaving away, bundles of yarn strewn across the floor, my wooden loom on my lap, my school crush’s pale knees brushing against my already wispy-haired brown thighs as we competed in what I can only assume was some kind of art contest, though I’m not sure a second-grader should be hammering nails onto wood or maybe that’s the age for nails and hammers, who knows. Anyway, he was my crush for many reasons, all valid, of course. For one, he had this three-letter first name and three-letter last name and when you said it in full, he sounded like a superhero. He had these juicy rose-colored lips, too, and they always made me thirsty because they reminded me of an unsealed Capri Sun. But above all, _ _ _ _ _ _ was really good at looms. And he picked some bold colors, royal purples and deep-sea blues and black! Wow. I was more of a peach and pink and white-with-sparkle yarn gal. I knew he was the boy for me, this master weaver with hands like God and the pluck to pluck the most devastatingly dark of strings. The loom competition, from what I now recall, was of our own conjuring. This was no school-sanctioned event, just a silent understanding between two friends who loved weaving together. It was the most wonderful and most disappointing moment of my second-grade career, the moment my thumb pulled under and over and under and over and under and over the final row. He looked down to see he was still two rows behind, then turned red, royal purple, and red-hot again. He would never love me, I knew it then.
—fiza