By Kim Biello Sarrosick
PROMPT — Who am I today?
I’m writing from my “office” — the windowless basement guest room, yoga studio, storage space that became my virtual classroom last year, when I taught 7th and 8th graders from the Black Hole that is Zoom.
Hanging on the wall is my first last published piece, generously framed by an ex-boyfriend. The article appeared in a major newspaper, so it inspires, but it ran 20 years ago, so it also haunts. Taunts: “This is what you could’ve been.”
The closet here is overstuffed with old yearbooks, wrapping paper, and Christmas decorations. There’s a cardboard packing box labeled “Outside Party Stuff” and at least six Easter baskets brimming with empty plastic eggs and artificial grass.
The temperature is never right and little of the furniture matches. Next to the futon that my parents sleep on when they visit once a year is an old Halogen lamp (“Aren’t those illegal?” I asked Dan when he rediscovered it, post-move. He shrugged; said, “Only at college, I think.”).
In the corner is a too-small desk that my grandfather used to use. It isn’t functional and it isn’t attractive...but it was my grandfather’s. I swear the top drawer smells of him when I open it to retrieve a pencil, a stamp, a paperclip.
Kim Biello Sarrosick teaches and parents on Long Island. A trained journalist, she is trying to rediscover her voice and calling as a writer.