Roar for the Ages
by Andrea Jarrell
Twenty-nine
I’m hungover but not from drugging or drinking. Partying of a different kind. I go over the details of the night before: the sparkling conversation, the tinkling glasses. Did I laugh too loud? Shine too bright? Kiss, kiss on each cheek to her and him and him and her and? Having too much fun to remember to reel myself in. Was I too big for my britches, revealing too much of who I am, forgetting to keep myself in check in the middle distance of my mind’s eye as if screening a movie ready to yell “cut” when my lines aren’t just right?
Eleven
“It’s not polite to sing at the table,” my mother says. Caught now, my bright yellow songbird beats its frantic wings, searching for a way out of the dark tunnel of my throat. A whiff of light and sky somewhere up above, it flaps and waits just behind my tonsils. Suppressed but protected – as if pinned in a dentist’s chair, lead blanket shielding the possibility of future births.
Six
For the longest time I was just trying to get back to my first-grade self. That audacious girl who introduced people to her mother through open car windows at traffic lights. First grade was long red ponytails and a basket on my bike with a small dog that looked like a fox. A first grader doesn’t think whether she’s brave or not. She just is. This first grader went from brave to not in a heartbeat that stretched from family of four to mother and me. A down-the-rabbit-hole fall from house to apartment to netherworld wondering how to rise again, how to return to my once brave self.
Twenty-five
My boyfriend and I are in the grocery store. We’ve just moved in together. Progresso and Campbell’s soup cans on either side of the aisle, I think it’s safe to be myself. A muzak version of “Burning Down the House” fills the air with a beat you just have to move to. At least I do. My hips gyrate towards him and I lift my arms overhead, the pretty girl at the party enjoying her own flirty display. “Stop that,” he says, hushing and harsh. His eyes not on me but on the old man behind me watching. My arms hang loose and limp as we push the cart past frozen waffles, paper towels, boxes of dried pasta. It will take two more years to realize any man who wants to quiet my hips is not for me.
Thirty-one
At first I sit in the back row in church basement rooms, crying like so many other daughters and wives, mothers and girlfriends. Months go by until I raise my hand. Tell my story, unremarkable yet mine. The girl with the long red ponytails shaped by addiction – father, uncles, stepfather, grandmother, boyfriend, husband and her own. The flutter of wings, slowly as if newly born, shaking off the wet, until, yes, I am singing. I am singing my heart out.
Thirty-seven
I go back to school, learning how to get my stories down on paper. I start a business. People seek me out. My voice is one they listen to. As my business grows, I think back to the early days when my husband and I rolled pennies and quarters, watching “Ren and Stimpy” and eating scrambled eggs. But now. Now we have enough in the bank to send our kids to college.
Forty-nine
My song becomes a body song – dancer, wheel, half moon, headstand, handstand, flying crow. Audacious once again, I take to the sea. The Pacific Ocean laps over my thighs as my husband, son and I wait for the next wave. Belly to my board, Venus rising I stand, arms outstretched, fall, suit full of sand and surf, climb back on, paddle out, try again.
Fifty-three
We rescue Hurley. He is a Chihuahua-Beagle mix that makes him both yapper and bellowing hound. Found in the Maryland woods, he was eking out his living on a beaver damn. At first, his ribs showed through his tawny close-cropped coat. Now he’s as fat as a little sausage. When we arrive home he rolls on his back, paws in the air bay-shrieking his delight. My husband says, “He can’t even.” And it’s true. Hurley’s cup runneth over. I sit beside him, perched on the steps of our entryway, stroking his velvety throat. Then together we throw back our heads. Our wild howls of love for this life of ours echoing and rising. We can’t even.
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Andrea Jarrell’s essays have appeared in Narrative Magazine; The New York Times “Modern Love” column; Memoir Journal; Full Grown People; Brain, Child; The Washington Post and several anthologies, sites and publications. Her memoir I’m the One Who Got Away will be published in 2016.
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The Roar Sessions is a weekly series featuring original guest posts by women of diverse backgrounds and voices. Read them all.
Powerful and beautifully written! Thank you for sharing.
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Thank you for reading, Tara!
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When I saw your name, Andrea, I clicked right on over, eager to hear your roar and I fell headfirst into this lovely lyrical life story, a skim over the top that manages to dive deep down. Beautiful. Can’t even.
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Thanks so much, Dana! I really appreciate it. I hope we connect IRL some time! xo
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Exquisite, dear Andrea! So on-point and powerful and poignant and REAL!!! Thanks so much for posting!! xo
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Your comments always mean so much to me, Leah. Thank you for reading! xo
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I love this series and I’m a big Andrea Jarrell fan. Thank you both. xox
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Thank you, Lindsey! I hope we can connect IRL one day. That would be so fun.
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Oh wow I loved this. Hints at so much and then hits it head on. Amazing!
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I really appreciate that coming from a writer I so admire. Thank you, Daisy.
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This is a wonderful writing. The way it starts from fear of over-the-top to diving down into childhood to constraints to a 6 year old full freedom and a near-enlightenment then back up to finding new controls with boyfriend to facing addiction (something I’ve had to do in a similar painful way) to pushing up to freedom and personal strength. The songbird lives. Success is found in magnificent writing and work. It is a joy to read you, Andrea. Thank you for putting it all out there with such a sense of what’s most true to you. And an encouragement to anyone who reads this.
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Daniel, your comment touched me so much. I appreciate you reading the piece and the way you’ve framed it. Thank you!
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Beautiful and powerful! Thanks for sharing this!
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Beautiful writing, i cant even.
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beautiful and inspiring. thank you!
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Being just a rookie to writing, can’t comment on ur writing but the roar u made was loud and clear enough for all to here u out…Loved it…Thanks for sharing..!
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“It will take two more years to realize any man who wants to quiet my hips is not for me.”
Love this so much.
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Such a refreshing way to write. Poignant, brief paragraphs full of life and honesty.. telling it how it is :) very lovely!
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Captivating and artistically written
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I love this format, it flows like thoughts do, flicking from one thing to another until you settle on a meaning for that collection. Great inspiration to write something myself today, thanks for sharing.
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great post
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So excited to see you write memoir! I’m especially drawn to the genre and love to find others who are as well. Truly inspired by this post and would love to see more of yours.
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so inspiring, thank you for sharing.
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Thank you for these beautiful snapshots into your life. <3
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Awesome post
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Wonderful
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Wow!! Love the flow in your writing! It makes the reader grasp the emotion!
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Incredible http://www.fabloshope.wordpress.com
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At first I Thought it was just numbers only to comprehend it’s was age…The pieces fell in place and complete
Amazing
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I’m new here and I’m so glad to have found your blog. This series is amazing.
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Lovely piece. This line in particular I found powerful and super emotive. “It will take two more years to realize any man who wants to quiet my hips is not for me.”
My British autocorrect doesn’t like that ‘z’ in realise, but I can’t wait to read more!
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So beautifully constructed. The economy of words, and how much cash be conveyed so simply and so profoundly is breathtaking.
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Reblogged this on Old Murky Heart and commented:
Great little post, you oughta read.
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You are able to tell your stories beautifully. Wonderful job.
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This is interesting…especially because women will turn down anything with the word ‘age’ in it…
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This is beautiful!!!
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A super interesting yet personal depiction of key moments of realization in your life. It’s always nice to read a post and come away feeling a little more inspired than you were before you started. Thanks
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“her memoir I’m the one who got away”? after reading through this pap I am certain there is a dude somewhere wiping the sweat off his brow about dodging this bullet
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I LIKE very much. So fun and intriguing to read. I love the image of the bird in your tonsils. Wow.
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You write so beautifully of woman-ing, and of freedom. I read somewhere that prose written well, is often better than poetry and that seems to be with the case with you. Your ideas resonate with women all over, all over we feel the flutter of our own yellow songbirds. So, thank you.
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So much passion!☺️ I know this girl, sh lives inside me 😌💜💖
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*she
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Beautifully expressed. Your writing has inspired me.Thank you.
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Lovely. Only just discovered you and I will stay tuned.
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So lovely.
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Love this reflective art. I’ve been meaning to decompress my memories in three same way and really enjoyed the writing displayed here, especially how it wasn’t chronological; loved it. Thank you so much for sharing such an inspirational piece.
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very interesting and awesome emotional sense of what it is all about :)
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This is beautiful and beautifully written! What a wonderful thing, as we grow into who we are meant to be! Thanks for sharing!!
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I love the imageries, very beautifully written.
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I wish I read something like this 20 years ago. Beautiful and honest.
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beautiful written and inspiring really, for upcoming writers like myself
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Nice post.. Thanks for sharing.
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This is so good :)
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Beautifully written.
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when the commentary takes longer to read than the story you know you’ve done something very right – or very wrong. Amen to your prose.
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love this, love the out-of-order telling, the snapshots. Now we know about all the wing-clipping. But then, oh, then. our dear girls.
I’ll venture that it wasn’t (just) the household downsizing at 6 that shut down First Grader. I went through the same transition despite all appearances of mom, dad, and sibling family – from confident assertive girl, exploding into the world at school, so curious and brave, to Something Else in the next two years. Someone who was very careful what she let slip around other people.
brava!
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how did you get that popup??
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Nicely written!
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Ahh you’re beautiful … I will have the Pacific Ocean run over my body again soon …
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