Jamie
Not My Yellow Wallpaper
From the time when I reached ten, maybe thirteen, the walls of our apartment only grew thicker, or maybe they caved in on themselves, I don’t know. I learned how to share my room; then eventually didn’t get a room, but either way, we used our space economically. I could blame it on the fact that the square meter per person ratio was way out of proportion, but everyone else seemed to be doing fine. On special days, light filtering through summer leaves would fall on our wooden floor boards, but most other days, the yellowed wallpaper cracked with mould and fray – it wasn’t pretty. At some point, the walls seemed to take over, displaying its meaty insides, a different exhibit each time. I more than willingly turned away from them; they weren’t welcoming either. My friends’ homes offered themselves as lovely retreats, but I was never allowed sleepovers.
Those were the more carefree days, when most afternoons and things just crawled: the year when we used the plastic syringe to water the guy who was watering fake grass many floors down, and another year when I forgot all the strokes that make up my Chinese name. At the time, I was too young to notice that my dad was playing the competitive version of Monopoly, where his dreams manifested in coloured paper and red wooden blocks. We visited Boardwalk under very different circumstances years later.
My mom’s cooking was the one thing that always lifted my spirits. She loves experimenting with new flavours, and we love the stuff that comes out of it. Weekends were the best; we each had our favourites that we’d ring in for, some of which I’m sure have slipped past us over time.
When my mom’s pair of helping hands left, the kitchen had set the stage for a one-man cooking show; feeding everyone turned into a chore more than a hobby. She then set quite a few records of devising the fastest meals ever.
The biggest contender was her Emeril’s braised chicken thighs, which she had, one afternoon, decided to make again. I distinctly voted against it. I felt the weight of Emeril’s chicken thighs long before dinnertime, and I may have expressed it rather pointedly that day. It didn’t change how I bulged with one more portion of it the same night.
After months of feasting with Emeril, I am convinced that the mix of thyme and paprika set itself into the powdery walls of that apartment, contoured in waves of badlands for construction guys to later admire. I had hoped that the walls would stay clean the next time we moved.
More from Creative Nonfiction & Fiction: Read What About Rosa? by Jamie
