A Mosaic of Me
Red Nails Jackie
Article by Mattie Valinsky Art by Isabella Hageman
A mosaic of me lives in my notes section. Dictated fragments of my life interwoven with others, the memories that I return to incessantly, the ones that bring me moments of pure, uninterrupted joy.
Reminders of me in others and reminders of them in me.
A note that doesn’t exist until the next addition comes to me, then I type without consideration for the English language. It’s the only facet of my life in which I am patient and practiced in pretending, for fear of overloading something so precious. Despite the delicate balance I walk, the additions are quick, short, stocky sentences that lack finesse like the ones I often find in my more unedited pieces. My so-called patience centers around my ability to ignore said note until the addition comes to me, then all bets are off. “Red nails-Jackie” titles the note out of sheer embarrassment to come up with anything better. It's awkward to care so much, admitting to yourself that you are capable of missing. So, I ignore the thing that means so much to me. I would rather forget about the note and leave it untitled, but alas, Apple decides that what I christened the note with shall be its label. “Red nails-Jackie.” Acknowledging the existence of said note is worse than leaving the never-ending body of text headless and confused. The note will remain cryptically confused in the sense that one day, I wish to no longer be able to understand the very thing I gave substance to. My hope is that the sorry souls that come across said note, somehow and somewhere, will assume that the senseless scribbles are a collection of passwords or goals or strange dreams that just had to be written down. The normal ramblings of life and nothing more. Not the tributes to people I love, the reminiscence of happiness, the things that are innately the names I write about, the “what makes you, you,” the stolen pieces of others I now hold as my own, the people I love that don’t know it and the mundane things that are forever ingrained in my brain.
“Red nails-Jackie.” The original, unedited version of the title is “Re nails-Jackie salad bowl Pumpernickel,” which says a whole lot of nothing. I’m aware. Before I even knew I was starting this, my fingers were typing for me. Hence, the “re nails.” The red nails refer to my aunt Jackie, who is a sporadic woman with spindly long red nails, her signature, that always found themselves in trouble with my mother, the germaphobe. When at my Nona's dinner table, they’d reach over to pluck and pick at everything. I must add that Jackie is on my father’s side, which is to say she was admired for her gusto, but ultimately tolerated by my mom. Appreciated, but loved only in small doses, ones that were expertly planned and considered with the ease of exiting swiftly with four children. The reason being that eating with her is a tricky and choreographed dance that will leave you hungry due to her signature rouged fingertips that curiously found themselves in things. Specifically, the shared salad bowl (that always stunk of vinegar), the one with tongs readily available, and the pumpernickel bread—mine and my Nona's favorite. Let me tell you, I did not dare to touch that bread with my mother sitting stoic next to me—signaling that I would eat at home. Jackie’s favorite act was using her pinchers to prod at the pumpernickel bread, swishing her fingers in drawn-out circles, to showcase that the bread’s marbling of tan and brown is how you distinguish the loaf from others. A polished product from the Jewish bakery downtown, the type people wake up early for and feel accomplished when a coveted loaf is snatched.
As a child, all I was ever wondering about during her performances was whether she had all ten nails intact. I was not going to be the one who ended up with one of those suckers on their plate—no surprise crunches for this girl. My family would joke that the day a nail comes loose is the day to buy your lotto tickets and scratch-offs because you were the chosen one—my response, laughter, was always dipped in hesitancy. To prevent such a monstrosity, my mind would map where she had touched. Anytime my aunt Jackie needed “just a pinch of onion more” or to rip “just a corner of bread” to soak up all the vinegar from the salad, I understood that I was not to have salad or bread. Her sickly (to me) long red nails always pinched or played or ripped or prodded food to then return to the table, never grabbed in full. Because that was too much for her. To her, “oh, I just washed my hands” acted as a defensive justification for sticking her supposedly “washed hands” in everything. As a family unit, our court of peers always called bullshit on her supposed “clean hands” because as a louder opinionated crowd, we required the type of proof that was never there. A dripping faucet, a whiff of soap or possibly, a damp kitchen rag slung over the oven handle. No Passover table was safe from her fingers and after the long readings, I just wanted to eat. No wonder my mother brought her own Tupperware for her “picky eaters” on longer dinner visits. Admittedly, before the introduction of Jackie to the dining table, I can’t remember a time when I refused my Nona’s cooking. In her presence, I unknowingly accepted my role as the peacekeeper in the game that was family dinner, which meant understanding that Jackie would remain unchanged and knowing better than to inflict senseless uproar by leaving the dinner table. I dodged many accusatory questions upholding this act, “What do you mean, my food is not good enough for you?” Instead, I waited for a casual slip of the hand under the tablecloth that presented gifts of grapes and peanut butter sandwiches, a sleight of hand trick perfected by Pamela, clever mom.
And for that, Jackie is cemented in my mind and notes app as “Red nails-Jackie.” The rest of the note contains a similar vernacular, incomplete phrases or words and then a name or initial.
Notes
“Re nails-Jackie salad bowl Pumpernickel-Jackie”
“Records signature-Harlen.”
“Lyin’ eyes-highway relative”
“Me feeding everyone bread with ease, I’m cool I can be cool, mouth open-D.”
“That was good, class reading, Desperado, like a negative-G.”
“Blue speaker, Captain Jack-W.”
“Ruining the internet, Parakalo, broken wine glass-M.”
“Flick of the glass, taxi, rap, Disney-N.”
“Bottom of the bag, built like a friend, world cup-C.”
“Gold sparkles in the corner of the eye-L.”
“Passed out on the dinghy-E.”
“Cackling like old ladies at brunch-E.”
"Imitation game-Mr.Brauer"
*I wish to go to summer camp with these people, to invite everyone who ever captivated me with their presence and host a workshop where we get to do all our favorite things and just live together. Content in doing the mundane, happily together.
You see now. You must. They come in flashes, these stocky phrases, satisfying some part of my brain that yearns to be clicked into place and maneuvered forcefully until I know forgetting is no longer an option. That some part of me fossilized these people for myself despite the reality of notes deleted, phones lost, memory faded, and the enigma I molded for future me to crack (will I always know what “red nails” is referring to?). It's easy really, everyone can do it. Here, let's start with “enigma.”
The first time I heard the word enigma was in The Imitation Game, a movie I've watched so many times the words have become jumbled together in my memory despite the soundtrack remaining clear. That movie is so sensory-oriented. To this day I can drum my fingers to the beat of the eerily quiet hum of the machine they built to decode Nazi communication. Lots of noise in that movie, originating from moving parts and little pencils in awkwardly giant Cumberbatch hands that scratched math on notepads. I can see this movie in my mind: Mr. Cumberbatch stood bent in a suit for most of it, as if he was uncomfortable with himself. It was the only movie downloaded on my mom’s knock-off iPad for an eight-hour drive to Wildwood, New Jersey, from Rochester, New York, most of which was spent in Philly traffic. I think I, too, became bent after eight hours. What a strange choice of movie to spend your spare gigabytes on. Like my mother didn’t have access to something more lighthearted. Now, I don’t remember my seat position, reclined or not. I don’t remember why I kept replaying the solemn movie. I certainly don’t remember the exact plot. But I feel and can see this moment. Maybe that’s why I chose to write about this movie for pre-calc extra credit because I thought I could write three to five pages about the significance of math in the movie. I certainly could not. With confidence, I turned in a ten-page paper detailing more about myself and what bits and bobs of the movie I could recall than any math that could crack Nazi coding. I’ve noticed this pattern with myself; I'll read a prompt, write without consideration of said prompt, and then tirelessly attempt to edit my writing to fit said prompt, which doesn’t feel very prompting. Prompts to me are words, phrases, images, or feelings that I am ignited to write about, not structured guidelines that produce boring ramblings that didn’t exist prior to writing. I dedicate this notion to Mr. Brauer and the note on my phone titled “imitation game-Mr. Brauer.” For the pre-calc teacher that appreciated that math meant road trips to NJ, knock-off iPads, what happens when you idly sit in a car for hours, and not something more significant. Admittedly, I didn’t deserve an A, but thank you, Mr. Brauer.
Essentially, you find the essence of the people in your life, and you mark them. You let them come to you at first, sometimes prompted by words or phrases, but chosen by your brain as a way to cement others in you. Strangely, I can never write about the people in my immediate family because there is not one thing, one moment, that can sum up who they are to me. Not to say that the people who live in my notes section are exclusively their markers, but these fleeting fumblings of my brain allow me to remember people I haven’t seen in a while, won’t see again, or moments I have no hopes of returning to. You know those moments, the ones you examine for comfort on cold days until they are so looked over and cared for that you get frustrated over the minor details. What did he say? Where was I? To prevent this, I note very little detail. I never want the “why can’t I remember?” I love details, but leaving space and air for your memory to breathe is important. I can’t and won't remember everything, but the memory parcels I do have bring me back to the moment and allow my brain to fill the rest in. Lie to me, sure. Whatever it needs to do to bring me back. Admittedly, I may never know the exact look, words used, or backdrop to these moments. However, I remember how my body felt—my reactions. Muscle memory is a crazy thing. Red nails. Only two words need to be said to have the scene flash before my eyes, which invokes a shudder (my aunt Jackie and those damn red nails). My honest hope is that the people whose names I share will have almost no idea as to what I am saying about them because of how I said it. I almost hate that I wrote this because now I am laying out what I so carefully wanted hidden.
To my phone, my confidant — keep them safe for me,
Mattie