River through Orchid

I grew up beside the Tomebamba, where my grandmother kept orchids on the kitchen windowsill — the small wild ones, the kind that bloom for a week and break your heart. After she passed I went looking for someone who could draw water and growing things in the same breath, and I found Jess. What she made for me is not really a fish and not really a flower; it is the memory of standing in her kitchen at seven years old, listening to the river through the open window while my grandmother named each bloom in Kichwa. Jess sat with me for an hour before she lifted a pen. She asked what the piece was carrying, not what it should look like, and when she finally drew it the orchid leaves moved around the fish the way my grandmother’s hands used to move around mine — holding without holding. I wear it on the inside of my forearm so I can see it when I write. It feels like she gave me back a window I thought I had closed.

Lucía — Cuenca, Ecuador