#four & twenty blackbirds reject being baked in a pie

[julianplum]

🐦‍⬛🫐 🥧 🐦‍⬛ ✨ prompt 12 // pie & feast // gouache on hot press paper

[blackbirds-cry-blog]

25

One - Curious and wide-eyed, I took my first steps into the wild world.

Two - I was diagnosed with asthma whilst on a family vacation. Bummer.

Three - My creative spark began when I picked up a crayon and started to draw. I sat on the kitchen floor drawing for hours, mostly vacuums and toasters and suns with faces.

Four - Against my will, my parents put me in swim class and I learned how not to drown.

Five - I had a “pet” rabbit named Carrot (how original) that lived in our yard and I loved leaving vegetables out for her. One day, I saw her doing bunny things and with childlike glee, I crept up to her. Spooked, she darted across the street and was tragically demolished by a small, blue car. I screamed and erupted into tears as the driver frantically jumped out to see the damage. The poor woman. She started crying too as my dad shoveled Carrot’s mangled body off the road. He and I buried her in the backyard with a large stone marking her resting place. That stone didn’t move for years.

Six - Next came piano lessons and while I never caught on (and still haven’t) to time signatures, this is when I learned how to play by ear.

Seven - Being the curious explorer I was, I found myself outdoors picking flowers, catching toads, and looking under rocks for bugs. In fact, I kept a collection of insects in a shoebox tucked away in my closet. My whimsical child brain didn’t understand the concept of preservation and so the specimens rotted.

Eight - Despite battling asthma and a couple near-death experiences, I joined a soccer team. I was an absolute lousy player but I never cried taking a ball to the face.

Nine - I often spent hours helping dad in the garden. Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, figs, tomatoes - it was an edible paradise! One of my favorite memories is when we would pick berries together and mom would bake them into pies. "Triple berry pie" as we called it.

Ten - This is the earliest memory I have of when I started singing and songwriting. It originally began as a coping mechanism to make sense of my childhood and release what I bottled up inside. I never imagined music would become such a powerful force in my later years.

Eleven - There was a quiet girl at my school that didn’t have many friends; the other girls rejected her from the group. We hung out on the front steps of school and I often shared my lunch with her when she had nothing to eat… This was the first time I realized that, like her, I didn’t fit in either.

Twelve - First day in public school… I was sent to the principal’s office for dying my hair blue.

Thirteen - I cut my hair pixie length and haven’t grown it out since. I have been bullied by kids and adults for having short hair.

Fourteen - I started wearing eyeliner… like too much eyeliner. I grew more angsty and started rebelling more (sneaking out of the house, scaling buildings at night, drinking).

Fifteen - Time froze the morning I watched my dad take his life.

At fifteen years old, I didn’t fully understand the magnitude of a father’s presence in a child’s life. Every year it hit me harder as I had to face battles on my own. Life without him has been hard on my soul and I never knew true loneliness until his absence. But we were always kindred spirits and each day that I hear or see something that reminds me of him is a beautiful day.

Sixteen - My friends put together a surprise birthday party for me and I learned that it’s hard to breathe when you’re face deep in cake. That year, I also gained the courage to perform at an open mic for the first time. While singing, I remember thinking about how my legs wouldn’t stop shaking. That night, a liquid rage flowed through my body and I became hooked on the spot light.

Seventeen - Sometime around 1 A.M., my friends and I were playing hide-and-seek at the “Abandoned Mansion” when the police showed up. As it was pitch-black inside, I couldn’t find my way to the front door. I wound up jumping out a window and tuck-rolled into the grass. An officer called my mom for her to escort me home (I had taken her car… whoops) and she. was. LIVID. Not so much about me getting in trouble, but because she was woken up.

Eighteen - By taking college courses every Saturday, I graduated high school a year early and with honors. The same year, I was sexually violated and I buried the incident and blacked it out from memory for years.

Nineteen - By this year, my self-worth was heavily damaged. I had mistakenly believed in the words spewed from a hateful man for so long. After being assaulted and emotionally abused, I gained strength to leave the toxic relationship.

Twenty - Having abruptly left my hometown in North Carolina, I felt unsettled and alone in the new city. But St. Petersburg slowly became a place of healing for me; it is the first place in my life that I truly felt belonging.

Twenty-one - I met my best friend - my dog, Echo.

Twenty-two - Nothing too significant stands out in my memory for this year. Probably because I was consumed by long nights of studying organic chemistry and drinking too much caffeine.

Twenty-three - I completed a B.S. in Biology with Magna Cum Laude honors and traveled solo to a foreign country for the first time. I also finally decided to get help for my anxiety and depression.

Twenty-four - After years of wavering on career choices and trying to find my niche, it dawned on me that I was born to teach. I was accepted into a Master’s program for microbiology which begins August 2018. A new adventure awaits!

Twenty-five - Today I am twenty-five years old. Twenty-five years wise. Twenty-five years strong.

Within this snapshot of time that I have existed, I have experienced an abundance of love and adventure both with my family and within myself. I have known life at the happiest moments and I have seen life taken away in seconds. I have learned that there are troubled souls who will steal your light if you let them. I have learned that as long as you keep going, you’ll get there, and that there’s always something to smile about. I have learned how to love myself over and over and over again, and that sometimes the only friend you need is yourself. I have learned that the greatest power is kindness and that living a life others don’t understand is okay. I have learned that there is still so much to learn.

One of my goals is to have many stories to tell by the time I’m 100 years old and so far, I love what has been written...

 - Blackbird’s Cry