Jen Parkhill “JP”
Bio
Jen Parkhill “JP”, a first generation Cuban-American artist, pet parent, writer, filmmaker, actor, friend, graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, and proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community.
Hurling through time.
@jenparkhill
Achievements (12)
Stories (40)
Filter by community
Hand Written Letters Have a Heartbeat
August 2019. 10am on Monday morning. I leave my therapist’s office and drive down Pacific Coast Highway to pick my grandmother up at her home in San Clemente to take her for breakfast. It’s a sleepy town of retired pro surfers, Volkswagon buses with surf boards hanging out the back, families, painters, old hippies. I grew up on these beaches. I experienced my first swim in sea water here, first kisses, the first time being stoned, falling in love. Those beaches were often a place to escape with a lover, a journal, my walkman. I sunk my joy and my pain there. I ran into the waves, fully clothed, just before heading to the airport the morning I moved to New York City. Just to taste the pacific one last time.
By Jen Parkhill “JP”3 years ago in Humans
Fiberglass.
I was shopping for a new mattress. I read all these reviews on the ones that come in a box and puff up when the air hits them. There was this one with a zipper. Don’t open the zipper, they said. They don’t tell you there’s fiberglass inside. It explodes into the air and gets in all your things, your hair, your clothes, your lungs. And I thought. Love. It’s like that. You take a lover to bed and one day you’ve opened that zipper and those tiny shards are everywhere. Memory. Can’t be put back. Not even time can cleanse it. You feel them in your lungs when you take a deep breath after exercise, a fuck. Long after the love bed is gone and way back you regret having ignored the tag that said don’t unzip but you’re curious and fuck it, there’s a zipper on the damn thing. What for if not to open.
By Jen Parkhill “JP”4 years ago in Pride
Surrender Convention and Get Down on the Floor. Runner-Up in Dads Are No Joke Challenge.
“We have to get on the floor.” I said, “When this song comes on, we have to stop what we’re doing and get on the floor.” It was Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain. I can’t listen to it standing up. I have to lay down and let the floor hold all of my body. I laid down on the rug.
By Jen Parkhill “JP”4 years ago in Families
Salty Lung
I’m four and a half years old. I hold up 4 pudgy fingers to tell you so. I make sure to add the half. With voice. The half is important. It means I’m gaining on 5. It means I’ll be a sister soon. It means those 4 and 1/2 years will always be between myself and my brother. It means I’ll be his elder. It means I’ve been preparing to show him a world I’ve already scoped.
By Jen Parkhill “JP”4 years ago in Families
