Mr Jaquez, Seventh Grade, and Free Writing

And an unreleased song, Let The Mermaids Sing

You can either hear this letter as a podcast or read it below! The audio version includes an unreleased song at the end. So, if you’re reading and want to hear the song when you’ve finished, just fast-forward to the end of the podcast! Thank you to my paid subscribers and longtime champions. Writing, recording, and formatting this letter and podcast took about six hours. I think it’s important to be transparent about this because there are a lot of subscriptions, Patreons, and fan clubs out there in the world. If I join something, I appreciate knowing that the maker has put in the thought and time to create what they are sharing with me. You have given me the time to make this. Thank you.

And here’s the newest letter! Enjoy!

When I was twelve, our family moved from Watertown, Massachusetts, to Las Cruces, New Mexico. It was a big shock. I’d been used to subways, mountains of dirty snow, and lots of scratchy sweaters and corduroy trousers. I had no idea how pale I was from living in a northern climate. When I got to the middle school in New Mexico, other students would press the skin on my arm to watch it go red and then translucent while saying, “So pale, güera. You need sun.”

Oh, seventh grade. Here I am at the end of the year ready to go to the school dance and jitterbug. I loved gold and silver shoes back then!

I went home and looked at myself in the mirror to discover I could see the blue vein under my paper-thin skin running up from my eyebrow into my hairline. Seventh grade is an emotional minefield at the best of times, but I was in for a bumpy ride. Enter Mister Jaquez. He was our seventh grade English teacher. He was also part mime, part children’s television show host, and unabashedly eccentric. He had a giant green comb – yes, a comb for hair – about two feet long which sat in the corner of the room which he would wield like a magic wand.