Confessional

(Rambling Autobiography)

By J. Ferguson

I was born on a cliff overlooking the Pacific on a date that makes me a waterbearer.  

At the age of eight, I lost a bike race by cracking the radius and ulna in my left wrist as I flipped over the handlebars of a baby blue Schwinn.

Airplanes make me faint.

Every year just before Christmas, my family gathers to make tamales.  As the youngest of the cousins, my job is to perpetually peel green chilies until my fingers wrinkle into submission.

My high school music teacher told me, “You’re more likely to find Jesus in the bars than in the churches,” and made me swear not to consider marriage before the age of 25.

I love it when the music in my car coincides with the rhythm of something I can see through my windshield—birds swooping in unison, the blinking of a broken traffic light, or little girls chanting jump-rope rhymes.

In college, I majored in Biblical Languages.  I have a deeper knowledge of a dead language (Koine Greek) than the living language my grandparents were too afraid to teach my mom (Spanish).

In 2010, I joined an organization of teachers who brush their teeth fortissimo (ff) and sleep in an upright and locked position.

Sometimes I wonder if a software swindle of epic proportions would ignite a computer nerd bat signal to summon my brother to New Orleans.

The first three letters of my first name + the first two letters of my middle name + the first three letters of my last name = my first name. [Jennifer.]

There are three items on my bucket list.  One is to learn to play the accordion.  One is to visit the graves of my Mexican ancestors on Dia de los Muertos.  The third is a secret.

My Creative Writing students make me want to be a better person.