by Roberto Ascalon
(This article is reprinted with permission from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods Front Porch project. Read more works by Seattle poets and community members in the series “Reimagining Seattle,” at the official website.)
Content Warning: This article mentions some details about the killing of George Floyd.
Reading books to my son before bedtime taught me to cry well. For the first few years of my son’s life, I cried a lot. I mean really cried.
Those first few years I learned to cry without using all the muscles of my face. I’d get all pink-faced over his bedtime story and silently, silently, ever so silently take a single deep head-nodding sob in between words. I felt like this big-ass bald-headed Quasimoto hunching beside his crib hissing, “Don’t look at me!” And it’s not because I don’t want him to see me cry. Quite the contrary — “I’m gonna teach that boy to cry if it’s the last thing I do! Muahahahaha!” No. That’s just a joke. It’s because watching your dad work out existential issues can be trying, and I believe in trying to reduce the amount of PTSD I dole out just before bedtime as much as I can.
Continue reading My Fearless Imagination, or How Reimagining Seattle Is a Question Better Asked of Fire