The Light

A short story about learning to keep your inner child alive.

“You look like ‘The Grey Woman.”

Her words echo in my head as we sit down for coffee. I’m 21. It’s November in Seattle. My eyes are heavy from lack of sleep. I stare out the window and see boxy condos and construction cranes on the horizon. The sky is overcast—heavy and lifeless with its usual winter haze. Talk about grey.

“The Grey Woman, mom? What does that even mean?” Sipping her latte, her wolf blue eyes lock with mine. “Someone who has lost her spirit.”

She wasn’t one to sugar coat. And after hundreds (maybe thousands) of dollars in unpaid parking tickets, an ever-changing rotation of apartments, and a yet-to-made decision to return to college after taking a year away, I wouldn’t say my spirit was particularly vibrant. Out the window, we watch a car almost get rear-ended on a busy intersection. I think about the city pulsing in the background—the crowds, the pace, the noise, the routines, the rules. All the rules.

She says, “Remember, you can always come home—we can help you find it again.”

Home. Orcas Island. Population: 4,453. As far north west as you can get in the contiguous US. Accessible only by boat or by plane. One-lane roads. One public school. An average class of about 35. Cars were never locked— most of them with their keys inside. No traffic lights. No traffic. Instead, deers and rabbits were the biggest hazards of the road.

In many ways, my parents were rule breakers in the game of life. Both were college dropouts. Both pursued careers out of their childhood passions, as a clothing designer and music composer & engineer. So, when it came to raising children, they had to do it with their own unique way. They found a cheap piece of land in the woods and moved my sister and I from the bustling streets of LA when I was four.

“To keep the light in our eyes alive,” my dad told us.

They built a house nestled in trees on the side of a mountain. Wilderness was our backyard. My little brother was delivered on the bedroom floor. My sister and I read Berenstain Bears in the adjacent room as we listened to my mom push and pant.

In keeping with this unconventional upbringing, we were also homeschooled. When I explain this, the first question people always ask is: Did you have any formalized education? The answer to that is: somewhat. If you count two hours a week with our math tutor who wore patchwork Hammer pants and would have us do interpretive dance as a warm up to our times tables. The second question people always ask is: Did we have a social life? The answer to that is: not exactly. To put homeschooling on Orcas in context, the only other homeschooled kid we knew refused to wear footwear of any kind.

This meant that my sister, Miel, was my closest friend and we made our own schedules. On any given day, we might be building a fort deep in the forest with our trusty dog Homer, inventing new games to play with each other, or making fairy offerings of seeds and spices on an aging stump behind our house. While this might seem unstructured, there were a few lessons embedded within it all:

Curiosity

Questions were always encouraged. We were never talked down to or given the “kid-version” of an answer. As an unsuspecting 5 year old, I asked “Dad, where do babies come from?” He gave me an exact anatomical breakdown. In keeping with this, he also went above and beyond to let me know that in case I wasn’t attracted to men down the line, sometimes women are attracted to other women, and that’s ok too, though it won’t make babies. Curiosity getting the best of me, I asked “But then how do two girls have sex?” to which he gave his honest response “Well, I’m actually not sure about that.”

Creativity

Creative endeavors were aplenty. As a kid, I developed an unhealthy obsession with drawing, going through a pad of paper a day—doodles everywhere. It could be an important business deal of my dad’s or my own body, my pen never stopped. Instead of trying to stop this obsession, my parents built “the cave”—a tiny room nestled under the stairs, that only kids could fit in, where I was actually encouraged to draw on the walls. And thankfully, I didn’t get marker poisoning or ruin any more of my dad’s business deals.

Expression

My mom also gave us journals and free license to express ourselves however we wanted. I mostly used to use mine to write profanities about my sister. Of course, my sister eventually snuck into my room and tattled. My dad called me into his room, the journal open to a page that read “Damn it! Fuck Miel. She’s such a bitch!” I folded over with embarrassment, explaining that I didn’t mean it—I was just upset at the time. He responded, “Now Minnie, I’m only going to tell you once...”

“You might think that ‘DAMN’ is spelled, D-A-M, but when it’s a curse word, there’s actually a silent N at the end. And ‘BITCH’, has a T between the I and the C. If you are going to write these words, at least know how to spell them.

But it is your journal in your room. You can write whatever you want in private, and as long as you don’t hurt or say these things to your sister, you can process your anger however you need to.”

This was life. Asking questions, getting answers. Guided by whimsy & imagination. Figuring the world out one experience at a time, with an open mind and encouragement to do so.

My first lesson in assimilation was when I was 10. I told my parents I was ready to try public school. Nervous, uncertain, making zero eye contact, I walked into the 5th grade classroom with my boots from the hardware store, unbrushed hair, and Guatemalan poncho, and sat in the back. I asked one of my childhood friends what she remembered upon first meeting me, to which she recalled, “I honestly thought you were homeless.” (little did anyone realize boho chic would make a comeback decades later).

Over time, my peers taught me how uncool these characteristics were. Because of this, the identity I developed in public school was unrecognizable from the one I had roaming the mountain. Shy and uncertain, I was a different person. When I finally began piecing together friends, I tried to shed the homeschool persona I could as quickly as possible. Copious use of Sun-In, eyeliner, and push up bras helped.

I remember a day when I was 14, looking back at old photos with my family and… there she was—staring back at me. A photo of my little home-schooled self. Feeling a rush of embarrassment, I went to rip it up. My dad stopped me. Uncharacteristically stern, he said:

“Don’t be ashamed of that little girl. She has made you who are you. She is a part of you and always will be. Instead of hiding her, hoist her onto your shoulder and be proud to show her to the world.”

Taking this to heart, the community and support from the island helped me thrive in my remaining years there before setting off for the next chapter.

The transition to the mainland however, posed a whole new set of obstacles. It started with a bang. Literally. Just months after moving to the big city of Seattle, 12 bullets were fired into my house. What was intended to be a small dinner party, turned into dozens of unintended party crashers. These guests did not take kindly to being asked to leave and fired a round of shots into our home as they sped away.

Even though no one was badly injured, I was engulfed in a wave of fear. The world outside Orcas Island wasn’t such a nurturing place. While this initial jolt of reality shook my trust in the world, it was actually the small obstacles of society that started to chip away at my spirit.

I remember wading through a sea of thousands upon thousands of nameless faces between classes. I felt sad that that nobody was smiling. Sitting in a large florescent classroom, I would watch my professor close her blinds to the world outside as we started another lecture. I would come out to my car and seeing another parking ticket atop my windshield, and felt it was a direct reflection of my character and incompetence to navigate the rules of the city.

While I maintained solid grades and enjoyed learning, I often chose not to go to class simply because I hated being trapped inside all day, being surrounded by a sea of strangers, or risking another run in with the meter maid. I kept asking myself — how can I savor each moment the way I had as a child? Curiosity, creativity, and expressiveness didn’t seem to have a place throughout an average ‘adult’ day.

I moved four times that first year thinking a change of scenery would help. I avoided parties and social events, and the idle small talk that came with it. I was tired. I’d often fall asleep in my car outside our apartment at the end of an overly stimulating day of school and work. The bounce in my step faded. I stopped asking questions. At the end of the year, I decided I needed a break from school altogether—the monotony wasn’t working for me, but I couldn’t tell you what was.

I thought about “the light” my dad had mentioned. Was I losing it? Would I even know if it was gone?

Then, on that winter Seattle day, my mom helped me realize what I already knew. I was becoming the grey woman. Something had to change.

I went home that night and asked myself, what would little Minnie be doing right now? What used to make you happy that you’ve somehow lost? The answer to that was simple: I'd probably be making something. The next day, I re-enrolled in as many art classes as I could cram into my schedule.

Spring came and I stumbled into a class ambiguously titled “Art 166: Design Foundations” I still remember an early assignment: create a visualization to music. No rules. No formula. No right answer. Just listen to music and see what you can make.

I sat alone in my room with Dr Rocket’s “Looprode” on repeat and poured various ingredients in a big clear bowl. Food coloring, plants, oil, pieces of glass. I shined a flashlight into the concoction.

Swirling these translucent colors in a bowl, listening to this music, and in the peace of my own room, I felt a familiar feeling. Something clicked. This small moment helped me realize: Creativity could be found anywhere.

I started sketching again at the same rate I had as a kid.

I took on causes I cared about through playful experiments in nature.

I was reclaiming my love of craft in my own “grown up” way.

I realized that despite the seemingly oppressive structure of the “adult” world, there were opportunities to be creative, curious, and expressive in even the most mundane moments.

Even dreaded parking tickets started to become fun. I began responding to all my tickets. I would handwrite them, using it as an opportunity to practice my personal font. I would smile as I thought of an interesting tale that might touch a lonely parking officer quiet in his cubicle.

And shitty things like breakups could be an opportunity to be creative. To console myself, I started a little infographic about the various people I had dated, using icons and colors about what was good or not so great. It somehow made things feel less heavy and more playful.

Over a decade later, I’m still searching for both big and small ways to nurture that light everyday. Getting to be creative for a living doesn’t hurt. But I still revel in finding unexpected ways to make the mundane feel just a little more creative or unexpected—a quick race to my car in the morning rather than walking, responding to a question in the form of a song, or swinging on a playground for just 5 minutes in the middle of a run.

I try to check in with little Minnie too, that awkward homeschooled girl that sits on my shoulder, as my dad put it. Would she be proud of me? Would she be having fun right now? The best part is, she’s always there.

It just took awhile to realize she never left.