Cargo Literary Magazine

Compelling stories of human development through the lens of travel

  • Home
  • Issues
  • Features
    • Creative Nonfiction
    • Photography
    • Poetry
    • Review
    • Visual Art
  • Submit
  • Blog
  • About Us
  • Contact

Solid Ground

Karissa Sorrell

Karissa Knox Sorrell describes herself as a “third culture kid”, having grown up partially in Bangkok but who now lives in Tennessee. -Mo

I wonder how the world feels to be freshly washed.

I drive underneath a canopy of a thousand birds circling across the sky. I immigrate,emigrate, migrate.

 

We sit in the living room of our Bangkok house, staring through the window bars at the terrifying sheets of rain. It is our first true monsoon. My father shuts the sliding glass doors, which are usually only closed at night – the screen doors are fine for daytime, but now the water has come in through them and pooled on the tile floor. The electricity flickered off an hour ago, and the room’s moisture and heat is starting to suffocate. Our maid carries two buckets to the second floor where the ceiling is leaking both in the hallway and in my parents’ bedroom.When the storm finally stops, we all go outside to discover what a monsooned world looks like. Several gray roof tiles are scattered across the driveway. The street is flooded to about ankle level, and drenched leaves dot the brownish water. My brother and I walk around the side of the house, mud squishing past our flip-flops and onto our toes, and find that the two big water barrels are overflowing. I wonder how the world feels to be freshly washed. The next day school is canceled because of the floods.

Days later, I walk on a sidewalk above the canal. No rails or bars to keep me from falling in. My brother follows behind my maid, and I follow him, each step an intention. We pass a shack rigged up from pieces of aluminum siding; a woman sits beside it, hauling up a bucket of black canal water. She waves to my maid, who ignores her. We finally come out at a street and I place my feet on solid ground. I lift my hand to my forehead to push off the day’s harsh sun rays. At the end of the street, I can see the blue of our destination: the pool.

Photo credit Karissa Knox Sorrell

My cousins and I play freeze tag in Grandmama and Grandaddy’s yard in the heat of the Tennessee day while our grandmother pulls sheets off the clothesline. Once her basket is full, she calls us to come help her in the garden. My bare feet sink with pleasure into the cool soil; Grandmama shows me how to pick beans. Between us, we carry the pot of beans to the kitchen so she can cook them tonight. At twilight the cousins and I gather at the far end of the yard to catch fireflies among the crabapple trees. When Granddaddy finally calls us inside, they all run across the gravel driveway to the back porch. I, the oldest cousin, can’t go two steps across that gravel without yelping.

 

My mother won’t let us forget that we are Southern. She strains the ants out of the cornmeal mix that came in a package from the States and fries up some cornbread. There are pinto beans, too. Their smell has simmered in the house all afternoon. We sit down together, the heat from both the food and the muggy day snuggling in around us. Dad gets up to turn the fan on. We can hear the pau laew bird singing through the window screen. Mom and I smother our cornbread patties with butter; my brother smears his with jelly,and Dad says the meal is too bland. I think all we need is a fudge pie, but we have the traditional Thai dessert: fruit. I eat two pieces of pineapple, thinking how sweet it tastes here.

* * *

My mother won’t let us forget that we are Southern.

 

I stretch my arms out on either side of me, taking in the wind, the possibility of this new place. 

My best friend from college takes me to Chicago for the weekend. It’s May, and we’ve only brought clothes that fit with our Nashville’s warm weather, but Chicago’s temps are in the 50s and of course, exacerbated by the wind. We layer on all the clothes we have and brave the chill, navigating our way around Grant Park. We stop at the fountain, and on a whim, I stretch my arms out on either side of me, taking in the wind, the possibility of this new place. My friend snaps a picture, which I develop and keep as a reminder of that moment  – the carefree girl with her bleached blonde hair whipping around her face,her grin unmatched, her arms outstretched to welcome yet another city’s promises. 

* * *

“You captivate me,” he says after our first date. I can’t sleep or think straight, I’m so crazy for him.  I take him across the world, to my favorite beach. I stand waist-deep in the ocean, staring out at the horizon. The sky and sea seem to merge into one, and I am swept up into the vast joy of it all. His hand grabs mine beneath the water. We marry at my Stateside church, on a damp Saturday in July.

It doesn’t become home until we bring a baby into it. He holds her with one arm and me with the other. We sleep with our bodies apart now, so the baby can fit in the middle. We long for each other, for sleep, for time. Yet we grow, just as the leaves grow green again and fill up the trees, we strengthen and stretch into new life. I take her out in the yard and show her the doe and her fawn that have come almost up to our fence. The spring wind feels like peace to my skin. I am planted.  
* * *

Photo Credit Karissa Knox Sorrell

 

I might sink deep into this snow, blend into the biting, breathtaking landscape.

Schools are closed for snow this time, but the children won’t let us sleep in. There are two of them now, a girl and a boy, and it’s time to explore the cold whiteness. We pull an old empty plastic fish pond from the shed and turn it into a sled, pushing the children down a snow-covered hill. We lie down to make snow angels and suddenly the little ones are on top of me, dumping snow in my face and laughing. The icy wetness pricks my skin, awakening me to the sharp beauty of our breaths. I might sink deep into this snow, blend into the biting, breathtaking landscape.

* * *

I dream. I have been away somewhere, and I am returning. I enter a room, and a man reaches out for me and takes me in his arms. The embrace lasts a long time, as if it’s been forever since he’s seen me. He is thinner than he was before – there is that memory,at least. A fragment of something, someone I can’t remember. He has longish blond hair and glasses, and is quiet-looking. Calm. In the minute that he holds me, I know I am cherished. He doesn’t say a word, but the embrace swells with meaning. Where have I been for so long? How long has he waited? Who is he, exactly? It doesn’t matter, though. All that matters is that I have returned, and that he loves me. I awake and still my heart.The man in the dream is not anyone from my real life. I wonder who he is, or what he represents. The dream has left me with a deep sense of longing.
* * *

Maybe, like the birds, I have some innate urgency to migrate.

Karissa Knox Sorrell

  There is no returning, because there was ever just going, flying from place to place until I found safe landing for a little while. Maybe, like the birds, I have some innate urgency to migrate. As the seasons turn and the weather changes, there is always some uncomfortable place in me that seems stuck between coming and going.
* **

Photo Credit: Jack Wolf

I know there’s nothing like sitting on the porch in a rocking chair drinking coffee and smelling the crisp air as the sun rises. I know that in the South, food is not just food, but it’s history and regret and nostalgia. I know my Southern accent comes and goes, depending on whom I’m with. 

 

I know what a spirit house is, and I know that you start saying so i instead of street and tuk-tuk instead of taxi. I know never to take durian on an air-conditioned bus because it stinks too much. I also know what it means to be loved by not your own kind. I know that the street vendors sell farang (guava) and Coke in a bag, and then that other meaning of farang, which is what I am, and will always be there – foreigner.
I know the sweet work scent of my husband after he’s mowed the yard; I know the curves of his body against mine. I know my son’s heartbeat that I first heard and saw when I was just six weeks pregnant. I know my daughter’s obsession with books because I taught it to her. They are my home now. Even so, there are days I feel that old ache right as the sun dips below the horizon and the world turns gray: the need to go.

I know the sweet work scent of my husband after he’s mowed the yard; I know the curves of his body against mine.

 front porch by Karissa

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

About Karissa Sorrell

Karissa Knox Sorrell earned her MFA from Murray State University in 2010. Her poetry and non-fiction have previously been published in Parable Press, Flycatcher, Cactus Heart, San Pedro River Review, and St. Katherine Review, among others. Her poetry chapbook, Evening Body, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Karissa lived in Bangkok, Thailand, as a teenager and now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she mentors ESL teachers. Find her on Twitter @KKSorrell.

Filed Under: Creative Nonfiction Tagged With: Tennessee, Thailand

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Subscribe to to receive new issues and updates from Cargo Literary Magazine.

Tags

Africa Alaska Art Brighton England Canada Central America China Cuba Egypt England Europe France Germany Greece Guatemala Home Hungary India Israel Italy Japan Madrid Mexico Nepal New York City Niagara Ontario Oregon Paris Paris France Philippines Poland Puerto Rico Sahara Singapore South Korea Spain Syria Thailand Tibet travel Turkey Veranasi India Vietnam writing life
« Tibetans
False Spring »

© 2023 · Cargo Literary Magazine · Website by SunriseWeb.ca