6.5x5ft. Raw canvas. Will be shipped in tube, needs to be framed by collector. 

My post-its are all aligned these days. Stuck neatly in one perfect square. A hot pink cube of them catches my eye on the desk next to me. I gaze at this painting, and back at the square, and think of Kimmy like I always do when I see post-its. I contemplate the awareness required to use so many layers to take up this level of space. It’s always walking a fine line of all of it being way too much and in the mismanagement of the energy - it all just turns into a mess. 

At the time, I got a new job at a beauty supply store. It was one of the only places I knew I’d be able to work with pink hair.. A woman named Kat hired me. Kat had long black hair on one half of her head; the other half was shaved. She also had a full-back tattoo of Madonna's Like a Virgin album cover. I didn’t know what to make of her, but I knew I could dress and do my hair and makeup however I wanted if she was my boss, so I was excited when I got the job. 

My only priority was looking like someone else. Reinvent yourself and survive they say. It was 2002, and the pencil-thin eyebrows were all the rage, so I shaved mine and started drawing them in with black pencil to match my hair. Eventually, I learned to expertly apply giant fake lashes over hot pink eyeshadow. I wore only the palest color of rice powder on my skin. I still had my braces on my teeth(I’ll get those off in Mexico for $20 random dollars three years later.) I was always reminding myself not to let my teeth show. Because of everything I had already felt, I thought I was a grown adult. Only as I get older, will the creeping realization of how young I looked and acted settle into me like a cold, flashing ghost that never leaves. 

Mentally, I was trying to keep up with being the person that my hair and makeup made it look like I was. I wanted to feel like someone else. To reinvent myself. I wanted to be as far away as possible from that scared girl, hiding and begging the wrong person not to go. The girl whos body just had a baby and was confused about where the baby was. Logically and mentally, I understood. But physically, to my body, it didn’t make sense.  I stopped eating almost completely, losing weight rapidly as a result. 

Only two other people worked at the shop. Vanessa, had hot-pink roots and choppy black hair. I thought she was so cool, and she was nice enough to me. Kimmy was the other person. Kimmy was tiny and thin, with short black hair and rhinestone cat eye glasses. There was something so off about her to me, but I couldn’t place it. She talked so much about hoping to get to see her daughters again someday. I didn’t know what that meant, but at the same time, I could relate. In the back room one day, I came across a printed copy of her resume, which had a cover letter with a drug rehab center watermark on the paper. This still didn’t click for me, as it was the first time in my life I’d seen a cover letter. 

It seemed insane that someone would bring a resume to work at a beauty supply store, but I didn’t think much about it. One day, Kimmy came in with both of her daughters, about 10 and 14. She seemed so weirdly proud of the store and her job as she walked her girls up and down every section of the place, beaming and telling them every detail. Vanessa and I made eye contact with each other when Kimmy’s back was turned. “What the hell?” I mouthed to her. Vanessa shrugged her shoulders. The store was dirty, and we were making minimum wage. What on earth was Kimmy so proud of? 

One night, Kimmy and I were the only two working when a woman came into the store. She was there for my entire five-hour shift, digging through boxes and bottles. Every section she touched in the store, she managed to quietly and diligently trash, but not in an aggressive way. I hadn’t ever seen a person act that way, and I didn’t know what to make of it. It seemed like she was looking for something she couldn’t find, moving everything out of place.

I had no idea what her problem was. Any time I tried to ask her if she needed help, she would just keep talking to herself in an angry whisper and digging. She had a distinct, metallic smell about her. Right before 9 p.m., when the store closed, she finally left. She didn’t buy anything. I watched her wander into the parking lot, muttering to herself, feeling a mixture of annoyance and relief. 

Pushing the door to the backroom open, I start to say, “She’s gone, thank Go-”

I stopped abruptly at the sight of Kimmy sitting in a chair facing a wall, hyperventilating. Her cheeks are wet with tears. I thought maybe she had fallen and hurt herself somehow. I knelt beside her, slipping my hand into hers. She jumped a mile, but this broke the trance she seemed to be in. She gripped my hand so tightly that I thought it might combust. 

“Hey! Hey, what happened? Are you hurt?”

“No. No, that woman. She scared me. She reminded me of someone. I don’t want to talk about it.” 

Baffled, I told her she could go home and that I’d close up. Without a word, she grabbed her keys and left, running out of the store. She forgot her coat. She forgot to clock out. 

A few days later, Kimmy brought in her new boyfriend to meet us. We didn't know much about Kimmy, but she wanted everyone in her life to see her job and her co-workers. 

She called in sick for the next three days. Kat was livid. On the fourth day, Kimmy came into work for her shift three hours late. It was inventory day, so we were busy. I didn’t pay much attention until I realized it had been hours since I'd seen Kimmy in the small store. As I pushed the backroom door open, I stopped abruptly, inhaling sharply. Hundreds of blank yellow Post-it notes were stuck on the wall, floor, and table, each lined up perfectly. Kimmy’s body rocked back and forth heavily, with her arms wrapped tightly around her chest. Her eyes were rolled in the back of her head, and her teeth seemed to be chattering. I screamed for Kat. Kat came running into the room and stopped dead as her eyes took in the sight of Kimmy and the post-its. 

“I think she’s having a stroke. Call an ambulance!!” I yelled at Kat. 

“It’s not that,” Kat said sadly. “Look, go home. You only have another hour, and I’ll clock you out so you still get paid. But it’s best if you get out of here while I take care of this. You being here will be more paperwork for me.”

Kimmy continued rocking back and forth. Her head twitched from side to side. 

“What is wrong with her?!” 

“Mind your business and go home,” Kat said, this time with an edge in her voice. 

I was happy to be out of there on inventory day, but I was also quietly disturbed. Why wouldn’t Kat call an ambulance? It was obviously a medical emergency. As I got my things to leave, I passed behind Kimmy. I was suddenly hit with that same metallic smell from the woman a few days ago. I shrugged it off and got out of there before Kat changed her mind and made me stay. 

Kimmy never came back, and I never saw her again. It seemed like there was no right way to ask about her or the situation. The next day, I unstuck every post-it from where it was hung and tried to stack them neatly back into a pile. For days and months to come, my eyes will fall to that crooked, curled-up pile of un-stuck and re-stuck pale yellow post-its, and I’ll wonder to myself what happened to Kimmy and why we all seemed to know not to bring her up. 

When life and what is to come shows up in an all-encompassing way - it cracks open the psyche, and through the wound, the light enters, until that heals, and then the light gets put back out into the world. Do we catch what we see before we understand what it is to live it like we can catch a cold? I think so sometimes. 

Do you ever wonder about the people that came into your life briefly, to teach you about something you didn’t know, only for you to live it out with every fiber of your being later?  Were Kimmy and I ever separate? Are any of us separate from each other? Can we only see and feel whatever it is because we are it? 

For me, all of those flashing cold ghosts became the angels that speak as voices of the storm that make up my art. A transmuted frequency. From the light, through the dark, and back out into the light. Expansion and illumination through every color, light wave, and intention to take up space. Take up space. Learn from the fear it can cause. Then take up more space. Tell your stories.

And don’t be sorry. The expansion of your power is on the other side of everything that you're afraid to say.