I divide life into four seasons, the same year I learn to cut out paper hearts. The mountain in front of my house reveals a different personality with each season. I sense its cycle.
Nothing remains the same for long.
I am part of the seasonal pattern, following the beginning, middle, and end. This is what it means to assimilate, not simply to exist. I am learning to navigate on my own. An evolution is occurring: birth, love, and death.
It’s easier to start at the bottom of a heart.
I fold a piece of red construction paper in half and snip my scissors upwards until I have cut one entire side of the heart. The paper scraps will be turned into smaller hearts. Everything must be saved for the sake of making more hearts. Hearts turn best out when there is no pencil outline for my scissors to follow when I cut. I freehand cut hundreds from folded construction papers: the shape is simple. We are the ones who complicate things: Beauty relies on any artist to be patient.
After I finish cutting, I open my heart and smooth out the seam that runs down the center. It will be the first of many seams I try and smooth out. Little do I know, I will grow up, fall in love several times, face the un-repairable creases, some more evident in some than others, and there will be nothing I can do to make them disappear.
I offer handfuls of hearts to my mother and father, some end up in drawers or become lost in the daily shuffle, while some make it to the refrigerator—fanning starlets, pinned with a letter from my alphabet magnet set. This is love.
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