translucent

\trans-LOO-sunt\

adjective

1 : not transparent but clear enough to allow light to pass through

2 : free from disguise or falseness

Some moments of TRANSLUCENCE:

My art teacher at Racebrook Elementary, Mr. Fappiano, had three circular pieces of TRANSLUCENT plastic—one red, one yellow, one blue. Primary colors. Every year he taught us (again and again) about the primaries by holding the circles up against the classroom window allowing the sun to shine through the plastic. He layered the pieces over each other to illustrate the different combinations colors made. Even though I didn't need to re-learn this information (art was one of the only classes in which I retained anything I was taught) I enjoyed this lesson every time. There was something comforting about knowing the triangles always produced the same results.

Around the age of sixteen, for a short period of time, I got really interested in fashion. This stage was mostly influenced by the window of style I'm going to refer to as the glam-revival, as observed through the likes of Melancholy-era Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, PJ Harvey, and any other musician that owned a feather boa in 1996. I think it was D'arcy (SP's bassist and my hero at the time) who may have sported a TRANSLUCENT shirt with only a bra underneath. This, I wanted. I went into Manhattan with my mother to visit one of her favorite fabric shops—The Spandex House—and together we picked out some fabric. I ended up with three revealing tops, which I wore with pride to school, sometimes with only a bra underneath. It was a nice bra.

This destroys any attempts at chronology, but I need to talk about my father for a moment. For some reason, more than anyone, my father is able to see right through me. This is despite the fact that he may know me less than any other person I have ever known. Any moment during which I tried to lie, stretch the truth, leave something out, exaggerate, he was the first person to call me out. And he did so casually, sometimes just with a smirk, as though to suggest, How endearing, to try and get something past me. Perhaps he is just a good judge of character. Perhaps he is just a good judge of me. Perhaps he knows me better than I think. Perhaps there is something to blood relation that I often choose to ignore. Or perhaps I am just incredibly TRANSLUCENT, and my father is the only person with enough audacity and lack of tact to actually point it out.