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Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Grandma's House


Grandma’s house was a magical place.

When I’m three years old, for no reason I’m ever given, my father leaves his job as a policeman to move us from the cement-block house, across the country nearer to my mother’s family. With no waiting employment, we live with my maternal grandmother for a year. After a job is secured and I’m guessing the financials are in a better place, we move to an apartment an hour away, and every Saturday I ride the bus with my mother to Grandma’s house.
The drive takes over an hour with stops and traffic, but it is worth the jostling strangers and sitting squished against the window to see a giant donut sign signaling we’re nearly there. On the walk from the bus stop, there’s a small grocer where we sometimes get push-up sticks, a Mexican bakery selling gingerbread pigs, and gang-bangers in souped-up cars my mother hurries past. Turning off the main street, we enter a small neighborhood. There is an alley behind a car repair shop littered with broken bottles, hubcaps, and cigarette butts, and just past it is Grandma’s house. At the curb, there’s a medium-sized tree with the initials of every kid attached to my grandma. Opposite is the yard, barricaded by a gated picket fence, maintained by an uncle or my occasionally sobered-up grandpa. It is an island surrounded by a harsh part of the city, the gardens displacing honking horns, exhaust fumes, and gang insignias.
The gate creaks as it opens, the noise hidden under the barking of Shorty, grandma’s mixed bull terrier. When I see him, I shift sideways just behind my mother to avoid his sharp teeth. The commotion brings Grandma out of the oval-windowed door, her wrinkle worked hands wiping the front of a floured apron. Grandma’s face creases as she threatens Shorty with animal control, which he apparently understands since he retreats back to the porch. Calming, I step away from my mother and rush past rose bushes to fling myself into the soft, doughy woman’s chest. It has been a very long week. She cradles my brother on one side, I on the other, blooming with the smell of roses and bacon grease. I do not look back at my mother, but her unhappiness envelops me anyway. She tosses an instruction in case I’ve forgotten.
“Remember not to get your clothes dirty; we have a long ride home.”
This place is more like home. The swinging kitchen door I have to time perfectly so as not to get smacked on the backside, the bed in the master bedroom that tucks neatly in the wall beneath an attic closet, and the green Formica table where I eat Spaghetti O’s. Most of the day I spend playing with my brother and cousins in the yard. I make bridal bouquets out of puffy hydrangea blossoms, dichondra grass becomes a Matchbox speedway, and the small fruit orchard is a jungle—the kids turning into monkeys avoiding alligators in the swamp below. As we play, Grandma coos to her birds in a converted hen house. Her sing-song mix of Spanish and English floating over the backyard.
Hola, mis bellas. Pájaro cantante. Cheep-cheep little one, cheep-cheep.”
The birds chirp and stutter-fly; landing on her shoulders, and the top of her head. They are a vibrant, noisy cluster of jewels to her worn housedress.
Cat-walking the edge of a small abalone-encrusted goldfish pond, nearly to the end, I slip on some algae, getting a green stain on my shorts. My stomach clenches into a small fist, knowing my mother will be unhappy. As has become habit, I out myself to her, having learned that waiting until she notices will make the punishment much worse. Sighing heavily, she says what she always says.
“Why can’t you just do as you’re told?”
Not waiting for an answer she continues to describe my failures to Grandma, who doesn’t respond. Then my mother turns to me.
“Go outside and sit on the step. Don’t move from there until it’s time to go.”
Grandma finds me with my chin on my hands, as the other kids run circles around the house. She whispers in my ear.
          “Mi hija, go play.”

As she nudges I think of what this will mean. For it will mean something. There will be a price to pay when the wheels of the bus take me away from here. I understand this, as Grandma must too. I leap into the race around the house with the sensation of my mother’s stare from the window until the sun makes shadows across the goldfish pond, and the smell of warming tortillas comes from the kitchen. 

Saturday, July 14, 2018

Do You Believe In God?



In the last couple of weeks, I've been asked if I believe in God at least three times. 


Life is harshly uninviting both on the exterior and the interior, and traditionally—as a generational baton in the handoff of trauma and pain. Believing in a God means accepting what is to me, unacceptable. There was not an invisible hero when abusers repetitively carved their mark into my child-brain, and yet the Unseen One somehow managed to come to the rescue when at eleven-years-old, I was drowning.

A bright afternoon sun torches the sand overrun with umbrellas, towels, and people; kids and adults yelling above the din of crashing waves. To bring awareness there is a strong, invisible undercurrent, a lifeguard places a riptide flag on the control tower. I am already chest-deep in the water. Not immediately heeding the warning, I wait for a big wave to carry me to shore. Before one arrives, I’m snagged in the current, hidden beneath the otherwise calm ocean. With increasing agitation, I make attempts to swim in, but the water swiftly carries me beyond an ability to touch bottom. Onshore, people become bits of moving color, more kaleidoscope than human. At this point, screaming would amuse passing sea-birds, but otherwise be a waste of energy. Not a strong swimmer, soon I am simply a bobbing head in the ocean. 
Panic sets in, my thoughts fixated on not going under.
Breathe, dog paddle, breathe
Inexplicably, I hear words over the thought-chant.
“Do not fight a riptide, ride along with the current until it lets go or you will drown.”
Trying to determine where the sentence has come from, in between salty gulps of air and frantic slaps at the water, I circle to see if there’s a surfer on a board or a boat nearby. The ocean is empty, everyone else having obeyed the caution flag.
Breathe, dog paddle, breathe...
The voice repeats the instruction.
“Do not fight a riptide, ride along with the current until it lets go or you will drown.”
Out of time, out of energy, there is nothing left in my suitcase but trust for a random bit of information I’d collected from a book or possibly a magic thought popping out of nowhere. Exhaustedly I flip onto my back, toes to the sun, the ocean filling my ears leaving behind only the sound of my heartbeat and breath.
Boomboomboombreathboomboombreath.
Out loud I fearfully state to no-one.
“I’m going to die.
No-one answers.
“Perhaps.”
Floating, overwhelmed with the possibility of drowning, the voice becomes a quasi-accepted fact. Under normal circumstances, it would be something I’d pursue like a rat-terrier, in the middle of the ocean it isn’t a primary concern. Instead, I consider what may happen next, picturing salt-water invading my insides, then more horribly a swarm of sharks swimming in my blood and dismembered appendages.
This anxious perusing lifts me outside of myself to watch what is happening, like an audience of one viewing a familiar actor living my life. The heartbeat and breath slow, softened by the mental distance this has created. I observe the situation with the mind of a scientist dissecting a squid.
Will my body be found?
Most likely not.
Will my mother cry?
 I lose the awareness of time, shriveling skin on my toes the indication I have been lost at sea quite a while. The strong surge continues to sweep along until finally, it runs out of steam.
A particularly large swell gathers me in slow motion before driving into shore. Tiredly stumbling out of the water I fall to the sand on shaking knees. Sounds of the crowded beach close the distance of the mind-body separation. I walk the couple of miles I’d drifted from family, who wouldn’t have become aware anyone was missing until sunset. Not wanting to encourage an addition of more rules, I lay down on my towel without informing anyone of the experience. 

"Do you believe in God?"
"Yes, but I wish I didn't."