But this beach teems with life in a way that I never saw on the shores of Lake Michigan. Sea stars and sea anemones cling to rocks in the tide pools, which they share with scuttling hermit crabs and darting sculpins. Huge colonies of mussels cover stretches of exposed rock, and limpets and periwinkles cleave to cracks and crags exposed by the receding tide. The hidden ocean kingdom I used to long for is much closer than I’d ever imagined.
So much of what lives here makes it through life by closing itself off from intruders—poke a sea anemone and it tightens like a fist; reach for a hermit crab and it scoots behind a rock and tucks itself into its borrowed shell. Sea stars protect their tender bellies with brightly colored hides as hard and gravelly as asphalt. Sit and wait a few minutes, though, and the anemones bloom green and pink and blue, the crabs venture out, and even the sea stars stir occasionally.
I don’t know which I like better—the serene and startling beauty of the sea glass on the sand, or the tenacious survivors I’ve found here, who reveal their secret, dreamlike lives to anyone who cares enough to wait for them.
“Sana! Hurry up!”
I take another look at the surf—the waves are surging around the arch and lapping at the bottom of the cliff on the other side of the channel. Yeah, better get moving. I stand up and jog to catch up to everyone, and we make our way back up the beach together.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
what in fact I keep choosing are these words, these whispers, these conversations from which the truth breaks moist and green.
—Adrienne Rich, “Cartographies of Silence”
When I began writing It’s Not Like It’s a Secret, I had in mind a book about two girls in love that reflected the reality of the high school where I used to teach. That high school is roughly one third Asian/Pacific Islander, one third Latinx, one third white, and pretty LGBTQ+ friendly. My students and I didn’t talk about race, ethnicity, and sexuality every day, but those issues were with us in the classroom every day. When I wrote the book, they automatically wove themselves into the narrative.
Please remember, however, that there is no one Asian American story, no one Latinx story, and no one LGBTQ+ story. There is no one love story. No one family story. Many kind and generous people trusted me with their stories and their wisdom, and I hope that I was able to convey the truth of their experiences. But I am still growing and learning. The characters in this book cannot speak for populations. They can only speak for themselves—the same as any real person—and through my imperfect words.
To me, this book is about open secrets: things that everyone knows are in the room with us, but that no one wants to talk about, like race and sexuality; ethnic pride and assimilation; and jealousy and infidelity. We avoid having conversations about these things because they’re awkward and emotionally risky. We’re afraid of saying the wrong thing and hurting someone, and of being judged or hurt ourselves. But if we want to move forward, if we want to make real connections, we must keep having these awkward conversations and taking these emotional risks. We have to keep opening ourselves to one another.
It’s not easy. So much prevents Sana from trusting people enough to reveal her true, secret self. So much prevents her from looking and listening hard enough to recognize the true selves of others. All those open secrets, all those things that no one knows how to talk about cause Sana to make mistake after mistake after painful mistake. But she keeps learning. She keeps trying to stand up and speak out, keeps seeking connection. She never gives up. And neither should we.
xoxo, Misa
A WORD ABOUT POETRY
I’ve been a poetry nerd pretty much from birth, and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spread the love. Here are six reasons why I think poetry is one of humanity’s greatest inventions: 1. Poetry feeds the soul. Sometimes I read something so beautiful—or terrifying, or true, or sad, or glorious—that it makes my heart ache.
2. Poetry is multilayered. You can love poems for the first lightning-strike impressions they leave with you, and you can read them again and again and love them for their complexity and depth. And both ways are right.
3. Poetry is diverse. Because it’s so connected to individual experience and emotion, because there are no hard-and-fast rules about form, grammar, and all of that, there’s a lot of it out there, by all different kinds of people, for all different kinds of people. It can be about a flea, or it can be about the fate of humanity. It can be casual, formal, funny, tragic, epically long, or blink-of-an-eye short. Speaking of short, 4. Poetry is (often) short. I love novels, but they take hours to read. They’re like five-course gourmet meals. Sometimes you want something light and crispy—or rich and juicy—that you can consume in a few minutes.
5. Poetry lifts the veil. Sometimes I find a poem that expresses something deep inside me that I never knew existed. Or it challenges me to examine, maybe from a new angle or through a new lens, the things I thought I knew.
6. Poetry connects us to each other. Just as it does with the characters in this book, poetry creates bridges between people who might not otherwise understand each other, and between people who already understand each other perfectly. It opens doors. It opens eyes. It opens hearts.
There is a poem out there for every person in the world. There is a poem waiting to make you think, to touch your heart, to show you the heart of another human being. There is a poem out there for you. Go. Find your poem.
xoxo,
Misa
POEMS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
“I’m Nobody! Who are you?” by Emily Dickinson, here, here, here, here
“Loose Woman” by Sandra Cisneros, here, here, here
“My Garden—like the Beach—” by Emily Dickinson, here
“In the Morning in Morocco” by Mary K. Stillwell, here, here
“Wild Nights—Wild Nights!” by Emily Dickinson, here
“Wellfleet, Midsummer” by Kimiko Hahn, here
“Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—” by Emily Dickinson, here
“One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop, here
“Still Start” by Kay Ryan, here
“Elliptical” by Harryette Mullen, here, here, here, here
“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver, here
“Missing you” by Izumi Shikibu, here, here, here
“When You See Water” by Alice Walker, here
“Poem” by Lucy Ives, here, here
“Scientists Find Universe Awash in Tiny Diamonds” by Mayne Ellis, here, here
“I Ask the Impossible” by Ana Castillo, here, here, here
“Cartographies of Silence” by Adrienne Rich, here, here
“Her breast is fit for pearls” by Emily Dickinson, here
A FEW ONLINE RESOURCES
www.poetryfoundation.org
www.writersalmanac.org
www.poetryarchive.org
www.favoritepoem.org
www.poets.org
www.poemhunter.com
www.loc.gov/poetry/180
www.poetryslam.com
www.theliterarylink.com/yapoetry.html
SOURCES
I’ve listed collections in which the poems appear, but you can find any of them online.