Sunday, September 17, 2006

the year of living placelessly

In the 8th grade I went to three different schools in three different parts of the fine state of California. I began my school year at C.K. Price Junior High in the small agricultural community of Orland, Califas. There were all the people I'd grown up with, spent time with, fought with. From the age of five, when dad took the training wheels off my bike (a wonderful red bike), I had travelled all over that tiny farming town. On the weekends I would ride with my younger sister to the parks, or just around the small downtown, weaving in and out of traffic, stopping to say hi to some of the viejitos in the community, the older mexicanos who had arrived in that town in the 50's, originally as braceros and later as workers in the orchards --picking olives, oranges, and peaches-- where work was steady and they were more or less tolerated as a part of the community. I had relatives living all over that town: they were the reason why my parents ended up there, a few months before I was born. A month into 8th grade, however, I had to move away. My parents had divorced, after years of constant separations, my younger sister was diagnosed with cancer and lost a leg, and dad sold the house, forcing mom into one of the most difficult decisions in her life: separating her children as she couldn't afford to keep us all together. My youngest sister, less than a year old, went to live with my grandmother in Mexicali, on the US/Mexico border. My brother and second youngest sister, moved in with dad's family. Mom went with my sister, the second born, to Mountain View, California. My sister underwent chemotherapy at the Stanford Children's Hospital. As the oldest child, I was the one left over. Dad's family didn't want me, and mom, after many discussions with the owner of an apartment complex where no children were allowed, was allowed to have my sister (though she pretty much lived in the hospital).
Oddly, the anti-child apartment complex was across the street from a junior high school.
With no other option available, mom smuggled me into her apartment. I was told never to go outside, that I could only go to school, but right afterwards I was to head home and stay inside. She found a job at a chip making facility and spent hours on an assembly line worrying about her two oldest children, one in a hospital, the other sneaking around trying to be invisible. That is where my comic books and a love for reading in general came in handy. On the weekends I would stay with my sister in the hospital, sleeping in a cot beside her bed. We shared a large room with five other kids in the cancer ward. At least I was able to go outside.
Of that second junior high, I have vague memories. Met a couple of kids, but of course couldn't hang out afer school. Suffered in most of my classes, save for English, Art, and French (classes I tended to do well in, however, my grades did drop there too). Math was my great failing, though oddly negative numbers made a lot of sense. Maybe not so oddly.
At Christmas we went to Mexicali as we always did. After New Year's we all began to disperse again, returning to our respective homes.
I didn't go back to Mountain View.
One of my tía's took me in and I went to live with her family in Imperial Beach, California. That's where I finished 8th grade, and completed the 9th. It was the perfect arrangement, mom was happy knowing that I was living with family, and I was happy living with my cousins in southern California.
Soon after starting 9th grade, mom was able to reunite most of her children under one roof. My sister had a new doctor in San Diego, my brother and second sister left dad's home, and we all moved into a townhome next to the border. Only my youngest sister remained, she grew up with my grandmother for the next decade.
At beginning of 10th grade, my sophomore year, we moved again. Back to Orland.
La vida es, muchas veces, móvil.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Rainy September, o septiembre es una tormenta

Ok. When this blog was begun (in its previous incarnation over on .mac), the plan was to write about living in Spain. Though if you read that blog you would not have noticed this (much). En fin, qué se puede hacer? So I'm back living in central Pa, and what to do with the blog? Start a new one, I guess. And so here we are.
Today's reading, which I should have read —oh maybe a few months ago— is from the how-to website: How to dissuade yourself from becoming a blogger. Funny.