I’m staring at a “Short List Of Emotions.” Scattered across the page: love, shame, anxiety, pride, hopelessness. And dozens more. Circle the ones you’ve felt this past week. We look around the room, each parent and child, raising hands when the facilitator asks, “Who circled at least five emotions? At least ten?” When she reaches 25, I’m one of two people with hands still raised. The sole Asian American male in the room, with the dull, flat face that doesn’t move much. My daughter’s hand, the last one up at 30. “I had no idea,” we say to each other.
Eliot Li lives in California. His work is forthcoming in Cheap Pop, Peatsmoke, Emerge Literary Journal, and SmokeLong Quarterly. Find Eliot at EliotLi.com and on Twitter @EliotLi2.