Writing Sample 1

The ending of a long-term relationship is often interpreted as a time for heartache and sorrow. I perceived the acquired freedom as an opportunity to prime my canvas and start a new piece. Sitting on a swing chair at the 2nd street access point of Folly Beach, Charleston, South Carolina, I stared out at the expanding Atlantic Ocean intently. With a little over fifty-dollars in my back pocket and a blue Chevy pick up truck as my only companion, the smell of the salted sea paralyzed my mind into a feeling of melancholy. My only intention for the day was to watch the sun set for the first time in my life, that was, until a young woman who shared the same desire decided to join me. “I’ve always wanted to paint the sunset,” she blurted with a mild southern twang as she sat to my right. It was a quarter past four and clearly the sun was already setting behind us. I joked that this was my first sunset and since she stole my moment, I’d hope I was incorporated into her painting.

Jay Jay was her name, a free spirit who was the seed of hippy parents and product of a rural upbringing. We struck up a conversation on our shared desire to get Salvador Dali tattoos, which turned into her offering me a drink after I began to share with her my current situation. Drinks turned into an invitation back to her place, a modest single story brick home in the West Ashley neighborhood of Charleston that she shared with her boyfriend. Andrew, somehow not surprised that his girlfriend brought another man home from the beach, offered me a firm handshake and intense stare, which was soon followed by a shot of fireball. I crashed on a weathered brown leather couch in a spare room that doubled as Jay Jay’s art studio. That night I became their roommate and spent the following weeks hanging out in the many dive bars of Charleston that Jay Jay introduced me to. These raucous evenings spent drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon with Rumplemintz shots introduced me to a diverse group of people, who would eventually become my friends.

By mid-summer I was spending my evenings in the back of a French restaurant on King Street, the main avenue in downtown Charleston that is lined with restaurants, bars, and shopping boutiques. Justin, a friend of Jessie’s, was a late twenties, shaggy-haired, short drunk with a Napoleon complex who I met on one of our drunken nights out on the town. He offered me the job as a dishwasher at the restaurant, where he was a cook. Heavy metal, crude language, dirty and offensive jokes accompanied by whiskey and plenty of laughs set the scene in the back house of the restaurant known as “La Fourchette”, or “The Fork” in English. I was pulling in enough money to pay Jay Jay the one hundred dollars per month she charged me to sleep on the couch and slowly began to save the rest. The free meals, which were my first experience with French cuisine, were a part of my regular diet.

I became a regular scenester in the King Street nightlife. Many young downtown Charleston residents work in restaurants in the city and spill into the bars every night of the week after completing their shifts. My loose-knit circle of friends included Justin. Will, a stoner/skateboarder/student who is also a close friend of Jay Jay. And Matt, a locally raised French born amateur photographer. Absent recently was Jay Jay, who was having relationship issues with Andrew. Although I was thankful for the opportunity they had given me, the tension in their home was creating an uncomfortable living arrangement.

It was late August, and summers in the south are notoriously hot. Will sarcastically referred to it as “plantation heat” in his harsh geechie vernacular. We began sharing a two-bedroom apartment above a skate shop in downtown Charleston that month which did not have air conditioning. Luckily for us, the peak of summer was beginning its descent, and this living arrangement was more comfortable than the couch I slept on.. A month after I moved in with Will, Jay Jay left Andrew and moved back home with her parents to Greenville, South Carolina. I started painting beach vacation homes with Fred and his father on the side for extra cash. My truck was perfect for this endeavor and provided us with the space we needed to transport our materials. With the money I was making at the restaurant, I was able to pay the five hundred dollar rent that Will and I split, and even had extra to save.

In that year, which flew by like a bird passing in the sky, I learned to appreciate my friends for more than just entertainment. Many of these friendships began with genuine conversations over common interests such as art, music, skateboarding, and even our opinions on the meaning of life. One Sunday afternoon I accompanied Matt to a photo shoot he had at Folly Beach. It was the end of January 2013 and the water was cold. But the sixty-degree weather made walking barefoot on the sand bearable in comparison to the heat of the summer months. The sun on the back of my neck sent a calming sensation through my body; a feeling of contentment I hadn’t felt in an unknown amount of time. The model of the photo shoot, a local I’d brushed shoulders with on the King Street strip, sat next to me and in a sarcastic voice said, “This is my first sunset.” I chuckled and replied with a humble smile, “It would make a beautiful painting.”