Nostalgia

I'm aware of the space between my head and the ceiling as I walk to the master bathroom. 


I can smell the plastic from my shower curtain and hear the polyester in my new pants ordered on Wish.

I just finished breathing heavy over dirt and tool and planting beets. I've started a garden.

In my front yard I check on my potted plants and the small fig plant I thought was dead, my partner had faith, I didn't. Now I threaten it, demanding that it grow into a tree and not a bush. It's not that I have the power but I like pretending I do.

I live in the house I grew up in. Most people think that's quaint and nostalgically beautiful, but it's not. It's been traumatic, depressing, and I'm still leaking residue of that anger.

The house on our left is now up for sale. No one has come to view it since the quarantine. The last people who took a tour came only a week before the stay- at-home order.


I don't know if realty is an essential business but if I was homeless I think I would.

I hear the cars drive up and my little boy says to me, "hey mama, look! Its our new neighbors!" I lean forward from my folding chair situated on my front porch and I watch as the 4 people emerge from their 2 cars. As they each walk toward the entrance of the house, they are adjusting face masks and placing on blue latex gloves, some of them see us and they know we are seeing them with suspicion only because the circumstances have changed and they perceive an air of cautious judgement, 'why are they breaking quarantine to see a house?' But really, my first thought was, "there must be a dead body inside and they're going to investigate". It doesn't take long for me to realize that that isn't the case and this is just what life looks like from now on, blue latex and mouthless faces. The people finally leave.

My little boy sits on my lap and we talk about our leaning mailbox, the many times a car has crashed into our lawn, and what grandma (my mom) used to do when I was little. I tell him that she used to have three yellow rose bushes in the front garden, cut from her mother's garden. I clearly see the images, I can smell the water pouring from the hose, I can feel the space, of my grandma's garden, the proximity between my young skin and the rose leaves, my hands and the succulents, my forehead and the pink  crepe myrtle.

Then my other  neighbor, who lives on the other side of us, emerges maskless from his home and crosses the street with a plate of Bar-B-Q, he's been grilling since early this morning, he grills for every occasion or holiday.

Today is Easter.

He ignores me, he won't even look at me. I've tried greeting him and he just grunts.

My neighbor hates me. He hates me because I divorced my husband. He hates me because I now have a female partner. I'm not guessing at this, he has said as much in front of my kids to their dad. They no longer let my little boy play with their grandson, they used to be really good playmates. It took my little boy about two years to get over that. The days and nights I would sit with him, holding his gaze as he fought back tears for something he couldn't understand.

I grew up with these neighbors, they moved into their house only months after my parents moved into ours, 1973. I played with their two daughters. We went to preschool and high-school together, we shared life stories, their mom taught me how to cumbia. But their dad, Ramón, was mean. He belittled his daughters and kept his wife imprisoned. He was a tyrant.

When I was still a baby or toddler, my dad would work late and Ramón would get drunk and bang on our front door demanding to see my mom, he was infatuated with her and wanted to rape her. My mom was beautiful. He terrorized her, scared the shit out of my brother and made my sister rage with hate.

I remember him making fun of my dad cuz my dad went to college. He would also make fun of my dad if our house wasn't neatly tended. He would say things like, "you went to college, and you can't even afford to keep your house in good shape, man! " or "you need to cut your lawn, man, you went to college, and you don't know how to do that!?"

He was jealous and it was vitriolic. He haunted my childhood. All the kids who lived on my block knew to stay away from Ramón.

Once when I had my own oldest two children, we watched from our kitchen window as he killed a small oppossom with a shovel. We were stunned, we couldn't move as he kept pounding the shovel down on something, we heard the metal hit something soft and the sound of grunting. My kids had been watching that possum for days, and were excited to have a wild creature to track and make stories about. On that day, after watching the killing, they both looked at me and searched my face for a way to respond. They still remember that Ramón claimed it had rabies.

As I watch this old, small, man cross back to our side of the street, I want to yell at him, to demand his attention, to rage with the fear he made us all feel so many years ago. My jaw tightens and I lean my head against my little boy's back as he sits on my lap, "hey mama, did I ever tell you I saw a car drive down the ditch once?"