i remember

what can be said for any of our selves? we have our stories, but is it more our memory that we need? don't we need one to have the other? supposedly it is our experiences that shape our relations. and then, well then, it is our reaction(s) to the experiences that define us. i remember how necessary i use to believe experiences were. i use to think without their evolution, i was not advancing, that i was not growing. i feared that if i did not change, that if i did not transform, i would become less of a person. then three years ago - now almost four - things did change. i began having memories independently of others. my experiences were internalized. how could i possibly prove their significance if it was an affect that took place within the interior? i began learning how little it mattered to prove or share or ultimately, to perform. i went on trips, alone. i felt the trips. i rode buses and sometimes was silent for hours. at times, i found myself speaking intimately with a neighbor passenger - sometimes at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere between boston and manhattan, we would speak as he smoked his cigarette and as i stood, freezing, and having not eaten for hours. once there was a train - there were delays and set backs and there was a conversation with an older and terribly attractive man who spoke profoundly and with clarity. he turned out to be a famous actress' father but i was much more interested in him than her. he gave me his card, telling me to call, assuring me it was what he wanted. but it stayed on my desk and then it went missing and i never called, though i still know i should have. there were boyfriend visits to manhattan, surprise rose petals across the bed and glasses i broke in a drunken fall inspired by nervousness due to our distance. when i pulled away in a taxi, he said "adios" and i knew it would be over, sooner than later. there was a trip to berlin and dragging my suitcase through the middle of poverty. there was a taxi cab honking that he was here to take me to the airport, but it was three in the morning, the hotel was silent - still and sleeping, i dropped the key in a slot at the front desk and then discovered the doors were all locked and no one was there to help me out. i remember deliriously racing through the hotel, trying to pick locks until i was finally free in a courtyard and trying to climb my way out. tired, alone, scared, unable to communicate. i remember having the same taxi cab driver in three different sections of the city, recognizing each other, talking the entire drive and feeling like i was saying hello and goodbye to my best and only friend. i remember taking the t to a bookstore and walking down three stairs, finding my way into a dimly lit shop where three book lovers stood talking and flushed faced and puzzled about where the bret easton ellis reading was, turning and watching a dark haired man walk in with the same question. we were in the wrong place, the newspaper had made a mistake, it was a ways away, we would have to drive. i remember him driving - this man i did not know - a doctor with a bmw. i remember walking up the stairs of the bar and hearing bret read like a madman - the place packed - me just an adorning fan and the doctor handing me a glass of wine. i remember the event ending and staying downstairs drinking and talking off all the days i had not socialized in what was so unnatural for me. i remember him driving me back into boston, his car circling the commons. i remember going to his apartment first - nice, immaculate, dark, a couch, trying to kiss me, trying to finger the fold of my legs. i remember that being the closet i ever came to ever cheating - having no desire to, only the desire to not be so far from the closeness i desire. i remember manhattan in the early morning, waiting in a long line for casting. i remember hours and hours and the answers to their questions - and how ironic it would all be now. i remember the moment coming to the first cut. i had ten seconds to speak, to make something, introduce myself and make it memorable. "hello camera number one, my name is chelsea leigh trescott. i am five foot nine, from miami florida baby, and i can't wait to see you again." i remember being chosen #321. i remember exiting the street, deflecting cameras and interviewers, getting into a cab, turning around and looking out back and thinking that maybe today was the day it began. i remember coming for another round of casting, the finales. enclosed inside of a room, nothing personal was secretive. dramatic stories, beatings, raps, pregnancies, insecurities, stripping, drugs. i remember the casting agents trying to make me into something. but i did not have a cruel story. i was a thinker, provocative in the past. inspiration, intrigue, intensity. i remember being the largest girl at the americas next top model audition. i remember feeling exposed and scarred. i remember having to walk in our bathing suits. can i wear a one piece?, i asked hopefully. "not if you want tyra to think you have something to hide. the answer is no." i remember the girl with the eating disorder - and then several months later, i would be that girl, too thin to deny her health and never able to entirely forget its happening. i remember los angeles in the hills - being alone on my laptop in a big house, feeling like a guest, an intruder, a girl with a day off, jetsetting like a snob. i remember a cab picking me up and how he looked like he was doing anything to become an actor with his white pressed shirt, black tie and ray bans. i remember laughing out the window at how strange this city of supposed dreams was. i remember being in rags on a balcony with my feet dipped in mud and paint. i remember open windows and people trying to catch a view of the man with his 19th century camera and me, the model. i remember lying on the ground and trying to look half alive. and then there were the breaks and smoking his mentale cigarettes and truly feeling half alive. i remember him saying, "what is great about you is that you're not exposing your skeleton. i meet and shoot so many girls with fur arms and spinal backs, but you - your naturalness is beautiful." i remember everyone commenting on my hips. i remember the shoot being over and flipping through his stacks of books and thinking, this is how i want to be, encompassed by art and curiousity. i remember meeting a blue eyed boy and loving our conversation. i remember ending up on a couch with him and him kissing me and gluing his body on top of mine. i remember losing attraction immediately. i remember knowing that it was because it was a white couch - a friend's couch - the couch i had had sex on the night before with the boy i truly wished i was with. i remember claiming i was tired, too tired to go on. i remember not even believing myself. i remember knowing it was the second time i had used the excuse and how unlike me it was. i remember believing that if you are interested in the flesh that sits before you, you never are too tired not to proceed. i remember being so tired for so long and maybe i was only dreaming. i know one day i will wake and i will think "i remember". i remember being there and feeling alone.