Aspirations

by Casey Mulligan Walsh

Sprawled on the nUbBy sofa


      in my stirrup s-t-r-e-t-c-h pants


            and mohair sweater


my prepubescent legs dangle over the arm, my own arms flung above my head. I’m an artist’s model in search of drama.


Shirley Temple1—my idol—sings as she strolls between orphan-lined tables, then conducts a silverware symphony on our tiny TV. Mesmerized, I push away the vision of my father, always on his way out, gone for good on a stretcher on Easter morning.


Now my tumor-ridden mother is fading away.2


Soon I may be an orphan too. Maybe I’ll sing and dance to pairs of adoring eyes, casting off my under-the-radar, slipknot-fastened leash of caution for the freedom of


no one
      left
        to
          lose.


But I know I’ll only be another mousy girl3 in a row of mousy girls, cramped together on the bench, clamoring to be fed.


Wishing I were Shirley.4


  1. “I was allowed to be a baby for about two years,” Temple recalled…”I thought every child worked, because I was born into it.”
  2. Reliably exceptional, Temple successfully battled breast cancer in 1972.
  3. Mousy: (of a person) nervous, shy, or timid; lacking in presence or charisma
  4. Wishing: an ineffective antidote to invisibility.


Casey Mulligan Walsh writes about life at the intersection of grief and joy. Her essay, “Still,” about her son Eric’s death, published in Split Lip Magazine, was nominated for Best of the Net. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, HuffPost, Next Avenue, Modern Loss, and elsewhere. Casey has completed a memoir, The Full Catastrophe, about the search for belonging, the fight to save a struggling child, and the quest to find meaning in the wake of repeated loss. Casey lives in West Sand Lake, NY, with her husband, two cats, and too many books to count. A lifelong music lover, she’d be a singer-songwriter, if only she had the voice. She and her husband indulge their wanderlust and passion for photography whenever possible. Best of all, they enjoy visits from their four children and ten grandchildren–the very definition of “the full catastrophe.”

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