photo by Tyler Fitzpatrick



The day I changed my father’s diaper for the first time I grew up.

I asked him, “Do you want me to change you, or the nurse to change you?”

“You,” he said.

He was broad-chested and tall, with enormous hands. A man of few words except when drinking, he had a fierce temper. When I was no longer afraid of him, I was afraid of no one.

As a child, I would not let anyone wash my hair except my father. I remember sitting in the bath screeching, refusing my mother, yelling for him. His hands could leave a large imprint but could detangle hair without pain, and if he laid them gently on a stomach ache, it went away.

As a nurse, I had changed so many patients that rolling, sheet-tucking, and applying barrier creams were no challenge. My father’s breath was short; moving was an effort. His white legs turned, ankles crossed right over left as I rolled him onto his side. I knew those legs, had seen them on beaches, walking next to me. I knew the soles of his feet were ticklish. My hands were dexterous and in charge, my father frail. His full head of white hair was unwashed, smelling of despair and exhaustion. I bathed all parts, turning him slowly back and forth. I washed his hair as best I could using facecloths, a plastic bath cap, shampoo, and a tub of lukewarm water. Slowly he began to smell of hospital soap rather than not enough care. He kept thanking me between breaths. Yet I was grateful that I could place my hands into the suffering and enter unafraid, gently skirting between necessity and respect of space. At his bedside the world converged. My father, myself, and the child in my belly.

Later that evening, clean and propped up on his pillows, he went in and out of delirium. He appeared to hold a drink, scotch perhaps, in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He put the cigarette to his lips and inhaled. I could almost see the ember and smell the wisps of smoke. “Marvelous,” my father said. “Just marvelous.” Three weeks later, he died.

—Alison Livingston is an AIDS-certified RN working in clinical care and research in Ocular Immunology at the Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Born in South Africa, she resides in Baltimore with her husband and their rambunctious 4-year-old son.




When I was 13, I announced to my mother that it was time for me to shave my legs. After all, the other girls in my eighth-grade class at Catholic school were doing it, at least up to their knees. I remember standing defiantly in my white shirt with the Peter Pan collar and the navy plaid skirt in the kitchen as she stood at the stove stirring whatever it was we were having for dinner that night. My arms were crossed and my one hip jutted out as I made my plea for a Bic razor and some shaving cream.

To my surprise, she agreed. I followed her upstairs to the bathroom and half-listened to her instructions on how to properly shave. I already knew what to do; I had watched some of my friends glide their mothers' disposable razors up their soapy calves on the sly. My mother handed me a razor and some shaving cream, and I hurried her out the bathroom door. I turned on the hot water in the sink and placed a towel on the toilet seat lid. Finally, I was going to rid my calves of the silky blonde hair. I was on my way to being a woman.

As I slathered shaving cream on my leg and rinsed the Bic razor under the running faucet, I could hear my mother busying herself out in the hall. I knew she was sticking close to the bathroom in the event I let out a blood-curdling scream after slicing through an artery. I heard her open and close the hallway linen closet a few times, rearrange the towels and sheets.

With haughty precision, I guided the cheap razor over my calf, which I’d covered with more shaving cream than necessary. The razor created paths of smooth skin. I watched the blonde hairs and dollops of shaving cream swirl down the drain each time I rinsed off the razor. I was thrilled by the prospect of finally having smooth legs. I would no longer wear knee socks with my school uniform, I thought. Instead, I would wear the socks that folded at the ankle so everyone could see that I shaved my legs. And next? Next I would ask to wear lipstick to school. Maybe some mascara?

Finished, I cleaned up my mess and exited the bathroom to find my mother standing with a look of hesitation on her face.

“Well, how did it go?” she asked me.

“Fine,” I said proudly. “I think I’ll do the other leg tomorrow.”

—Reisterstown resident Amy Brown is a nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital in women’s health.




The cashier at Jerry’s at Belvedere is used to the late Sunday night groups of college students and alcoholics who visit this old neighborhood bar’s side liquor store. I’m standing in line trying my best to look my age. Out of my group of friends, I’m the tallest. I’m the oldest. I’m the one with all the heavy liquor bottles in my hands. Hell, I’m the only one with money. But the cashier is looking at me like I’m a lost 14-year-old in need of a responsible adult.

As I leave the liquor store, I’m the one a man with a gray, frazzled beard and crooked yellow tooth is trying to talk up. “Hey there, you sweet little thing. You go to school ’round here? What high school you go to?”

I pray for premature gray like 11-year-old girls pray for boobs, because I’m a senior in college who doesn’t even look like a senior in high school. My friends who are putting on adult pounds or already losing hair in their 20s tell me to shove it.

I come by it honestly, genetically. My mother explains it like this: “After I received my master’s degree, a woman asked me what high school I’d graduated from.” Good to know I might look 18 by the time I’m 25.

For now, I’m Alice, alone in a wonderland of creepy Lewis Carroll perverts and 45-year-old women in Victoria Secret thongs and velour sweatpants that say “HOTTIE” on the ass. In the looking glass of my mind, I’m a responsible, independent woman, and I’m fantasizing about a mushroom that will make me look the part.

—Sarah Coulter is an English major at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. She writes many things, but mostly for school assignments.





“What You’re Writing” is the place for creative nonfiction from our readers. Each month we pick a topic. Use the topic as a springboard into your own life and send us a true story inspired by that month’s theme. Only previously unpublished, nonfiction submissions that include contact information can be considered. We reserve the right to edit heavily for space and clarity, but we will give you the opportunity to review the edits. You may submit under “name withheld” to keep your essay anonymous, but you do need to let us know how to contact you. If you’ve already changed the names of the people involved, please let us know. Only one submission per topic, please.

Send your essay to Urbanite, 2002 Clipper Park Road, 4th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21211, or e-mail it to WhatYoureWriting@urbanitebaltimore.com Submissions should be shorter than four hundred words. Because of the number of essays we receive, we cannot respond individually to each writer. Please do not send originals; submissions cannot be returned.

Topic                       Deadline            Publication

Fresh Start             Nov 9, 2009       Jan 2010
Creation Myth        Dec 7, 2009       Feb 2010
Best-Laid Plans     Jan 11, 2010      Mar 2010




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